Manor Lords build order and progression guide

When starting out in Manor Lords, it can be easy to miss buildings that are vital to your progression. With so many chains and threats, you’ll need to be on top of everything.

What to build first in Manor Lords

To get started properly in Manor Lords, a number of things need to be built as soon as possible. I’ll go over the things that should be your number one priority when starting out.

Burgage Plots and Well

Naturally, you’ll need to curb the homelessness so your Approval doesn’t plumet. The best way to do this when starting out is to build Burgage Plots that can handle both an extra lodging and an extension. It should look something like this.

Build a couple of these plots, as these are more space effective and will have you able to house more families than you have, which will encourage more families to move in. Also, the large extension room will allow you to have more vegetable patches, chicken coops, and goat sheds, which will yield a greater passive income for food and hides.

Soon your homeless issues will go away and your Approval will grow to a state where more families will move in.

Simply build the Well anywhere on top of underground water. It only costs one Timber and will negate any water worries going onwards.

You only have a limited amount of regional wealth right now, but it is super helpful to build at least one Chicken Coop, as the passive food income is a great help.

Hunting Camp

With your Burgage Plots set, build the Hunting Camp and assign a family right away. There is no building cost for building this. Place it close to the Wild Animals, and you’ll immediately start to get some food.

Logging Camp

Whilst your people build the Burgage Plots, you must set up a Logging Camp and set it as high priority, so you can produce enough timber for production. Assign a family right away.

Make sure to place it close to a forest that isn’t near any Berry Deposit or Wild Animals, as deforestation will impact them negatively.

Storehouse and Granary

With a supply of wood and your Burgage Plots under construction, it would be wise to immediately build these two storage units, to protect the goods you start with from being damaged due to weather.

I would recommend you build the Granary first, as food is more important to keep safe.

It may be wise to temporarily assign families to these structures to speed up the process of your exposed goods being stored.

Forager Hut and Woodcutter’s Lodge

To help keep everyone fed and fueled, it would be wise now to build a Forager Hut close to any Berry Deposits and a Woodcutter’s Lodge next to your Logging Camp. You don’t necessarily need to assign a family to any of them right now, but don’t ignore them for too long.

Check the number of months you can last until your food and fuel runs out. If it’s getting critical, then assign families here immediately.

Marketplace

So, you have an income of food, fuel, and everyone has a home. You’re doing pretty well, I’d say. The Marketplace should be your next focus. It’s free to build, and allows your people to access fuel and food easily. Build it almost adjacent to your Burgage Plots, and families who produce needed resources will set up and stock their own market stalls.

All progressions in Manor Lords

Now that you have the basics covered, you’ll want to focus on one of these other more complex progressions in Manor Lords. You will have to dabble with each one eventually, but your starting scenario and situation will dictate which one you prioritize.

You can choose to only focus on certain progressions to a set extent before focusing on others. Manor Lords is rather complex, so progress down each path as you see fit.

Trading

You’ll want to get trading up and running as soon as you can, to order in new Livestock and trade goods for Regional Wealth.

Focus primarily on the export and import of goods you don’t and do need to keep your funds up and your people happy.

Settlement level

To unlock new Development technologies, you’ll need to build up your settlement and upgrade your Burgage Plots.

This is a rather complex task that’ll happen as you progress through the game naturally.

Simply put, all you’ll really need to focus on is having a variety of food available, Churches (including leveling them up to a Stone Church), having clothing available, and a stocked Tavern.

Clothing and the Tavern are much more complex issues.

To have clothing available, you’ll need to build a Tailor’s Workshop Burgage Extension (preferably two), to produce different types of clothing. Building the Tannery and Weaver’s Workshop will produce the required materials, as long as you can provide the needed resources (wool, hide, and flax). Then, market stalls peddling clothes and clothing materials will appear to appease your families.

To have the Tavern available and stocked, you’ll need to build a Tavern and have a Brewery Burgage Extension to produce ale. Ale is produced from malt, which can be made from the Malthouse. In turn, you’ll need to grow and harvest plenty of barley to make the malt. This process is rather long-winded, but with good enough barley farming, the rest will sort itself out.

With these production chains rolling, you’ll be able to upgrade all the Burgage Plots you wish and will be growing your settlement.

Farming

Farming is rather tricky. To start off, you’ll just need a Farmhouse, and a field. As you require more farming produce, you can set up more farms to grow those resources. Just make sure to assign more families to get the fields running as quickly as is practical.

The assigned families will plow and then sow the fields, and over time the crops will grow. Just make sure to harvest them before December kicks in to destroy your crops.

The fertility of the land is important, as it will decrease over time. Letting a field fallow for a year will improve the fertility. Having numerous fields to combat fertility issues will be key to a reliable and high-yield harvest. Note that wheat doesn’t need high or low fertility to grow.

To start with, only grow the crops you need. Don’t worry too much about wheat and bread production if your other food sources (eggs, meat, vegetables, and berries) are keeping your populace fed.

Army

Setting up your army is a long process, but is needed to defend your lands and claim other lands.

You will need a steady income of iron and planks, so it’ll be wise to build a mine near an iron deposit ahead of time. The Bloomery will turn the ore into iron slabs.

The Blacksmith’s Workshop Burgage Extension will allow you to make melee weapons (and tools) from iron slabs and planks, you’ve just got to choose the weapons you want to make to arm your militia units.

The Fletcher’s Workshop Burgage Extension will allow you to make Warbows from planks.

The Joiner’s Workshop Burgage Extension will allow you to make Shields (and wooden parts) from planks.

The Armorers Workshop Burgage Extension will allow you to make armors as long as you unlock them in the Development tree. These will be made out of iron slabs.

Having these extensions providing you weapons and armaments will allow you to make your militias and equip them with the appropriate weapons.

Administration

Administration is key to improving order and gaining influence. In early access, this isn’t too important, however it would be wise to at least get started for defensive purposes.

Building the Manor will allow you to build walls and defences (and gather taxes and tithes). This is rather costly, but will mitigate damage done by raiders and other armies significantly.

Using Outer Towers, you can expand the Manor’s reach and build walls further away.

Until more Administration features get added, you’ll only want to progress here to provide more defences for your settlement.

And there you have it! Everything you need to know to get started and progress to the end game in the early access of Manor Lords. All I can do now is wish you the greatest of luck.