STARTER GUIDE: First thing to do in order.

[Magnus Aurelius, Bright Lord]

The very first thing you should do is select the Chill mode ( no bandits nor enemy AI ) in order to give you space to learn the game.

#1- Press Pause then go to Contruction (C), select "Farming" then select "Field". Scroll back as much as possible with your mouse wheel and you will see where it is good to farm.

Green = Good obviously.

#2 Go to the closest Green area and start plotting your fields. You will want to have:

A) Multiple Fields.
B) From 0.5 to 1.0 Morgen ( The game will calculate for you as you start building them.
C) Build them side by side.

#3 All you need to start is 3 fields but you can build more if you want, you dont need to work all the fields you'v built.

#4 Select 3 fields of your field and select Crop rotation.

First field : Wheat, Wheat, Fallow
Second Field : Fallow, Wheat, Wheat
Third Field : Wheat, Fallow, Wheat.

Leave every other field you have on Fallow without crop rotation, those are the fields you dont want your worker working on.

#5 Build a nearby Farm House. Appoint 3 Families right away to get that work done as fast as possible.

#6 Go to Gathering in Construction and Select the "Logging Camp". Place it near a source of wood and get a family to work in it as soon as its ready.

#7 Go to Logistics in Construction and Put down a Granary and Storehouse once you have the timber for it. Put families in them so they can gather your supplies into it. Remove the families once your supplies are gathered inside them.

#8 Keep building, go to Gathering and place down a Hunting camp (Near Meat) and a Forager Hut ( Near Berries). Berries can only be collected during the warm seasons so collect them all.

#9 Your fields should be ready by now, unselect all the families once your 3 fields are all done being worked on, you will know that by selecting the Farm House, going to the "People" tab and see everyone doing nothing " Waiting". You dont need any farmers until its harvest time next September.

#10 Use the newfound labor to work the Forager and hunting camps. Keep 1 family free so they can keep building.

#11 Build 6 Houses, hey listen ! Dont be putting them close to each other. Plot your houses about 1.5 Morgen ( so a tad bigger than your farming field) and select only 3 houses per 1.5 Morgen. This will leave room for : Extra housing and Vegetable Patch.

You will start with a small amount of money ( 50 to 100 depending on the option you selected). A veggie patch is 15$. Buy veggie patch with all the money you have. Just make sure that they are big enough for the yield to be worth it, but also, not too big that your family cant sow them all. There's a fine balance and you will get the hang of it but if you keep to 1.5 morgen, it should be fine.

As soon as you can, build those extra housing so that there is 2 family working on those veggie patch.

*Info : A large housing plot will have room to build one extra house and one working field.

#12 Start building houses for other families to come and settle, you dont need to have them big, you can start to select an area where you will cluster houses together to maximize space. But always try to leave some housing area that will permit for extra house and veggie patch.

#13 If you got time, before September arrives, build a Marketplace, Windmill and a Communal Oven. If not, build them right after you are done harvesting, plowing and sowing your fields.

#14 Eventually during all of that, September will arrive. Remove families from their current work to go back to work the farms when its about late august. 3 to 4 families should do the trick.

#13 - Once the work on the farm is over, put those farmers to work in the windmill and Communal oven. This will get them to start making bread.

#14 Eventually, new families will move in. Build a Tannery (Industry) and a Sawpit (Gatherings). Assign families to them. By now, you should have a Food, Fuel and Clothing Stall. (Clothing comes with tannery so be patient if you dont have it yet).

#15 As soon as you get 20 planks of wood, build a church.

#16 Once the church is done building, upgrade your houses to level 2. This should get you passive income that you can then use to build more veggie patch.

#17 I recommend you select the "Forest Management" Perk once you gain a development point. It double your berry intake and in the early game, its very nice to have extra berries. But honestly, just take a look at them all and do what feels best for you. The deep mining perk is also extremely valuable ( infinite resources for some ressources) and wheter you take it or not should depend on how you plan to extend beyond your map. Each development point is dependant on the land you are.


And there you go. You should be on your way to success with that.

[HarshHash]

Im not reading everything youve wrote because farming first year is a massive waste of timeand farms shoulsnt be bigger then 0.1-0.2 morgens. I assume everythinng else youve said is also wrong. If you want a common sense pro strat. Place all fields for your entire game and put them on Fallow so the Fertility increases by year 2 or 3 when you starting using them. Place logging camp, another hitching post and buy Ox, Storage, 6 houses and granary. Get hunters lodge on as first food and hides for later, start cutting Planks. You’re half a month in you have 1 guy chopping trees, 1 guy getting deers and 1 on planks. Build firewood cutter and berry collector, once you have 20 planks swap plank maker to firewood. You’re still in your first month of gameplay and have 1 cutting logs, 1 on deer, 1 on berries and 1 on firewood. All of your buildings should be done time for a Well and Church you are now 1 month in thr game with 3 food sources (starter bread) with 75%+ approval and all requirements to upgrade houses to level 2 except for clothes but youve got hides stockpiled, next population into tannery and the other from 75% is up to you (probs shuffle between storage/granrary) youre 1 month in with a huge approval rate and self sustaining new Pop can either go to more sustain or start making money steaight away by collecting whichever Rare deposit resource you have to sell

[HarshHash]

If however you want to start far away from your homeless camp and starter supplies you need to build a Storehouse first in your new area so they can cart back 10 items at a time instead of your villagers 1 at a time, playing like this will set you back 1-3 months depending on distance between supplies and where u want to build

[DeLindsay]

You absolutely DO NOT NEED Farming of any kind early game. It's a massive waste of labor when you already don't have enough to spare. I stopped reading after #1.

[morph113]

Originally posted by HarshHash:

Im not reading everything youve wrote because farming first year is a massive waste of time

Originally posted by DeLindsay:

You absolutely DO NOT NEED Farming of any kind early game. It's a massive waste of labor

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this :) Berries will do just fine for the first two years or so until you are well above 100 population.

[Magnus Aurelius, Bright Lord]

Originally posted by HarshHash:

Im not reading everything youve wrote

Originally posted by DeLindsay:

I stopped reading after #1.

Omg..Oh no. How will I find the strenght to go on with life aft..Oh wait, I don't care.

[DeLindsay]

Originally posted by morph113:

Originally posted by HarshHash:

Im not reading everything youve wrote because farming first year is a massive waste of time

Originally posted by DeLindsay:

You absolutely DO NOT NEED Farming of any kind early game. It's a massive waste of labor

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this :) Berries will do just fine for the first two years or so until you are well above 100 population.

I thought similar to the OP on my 1st playthrough and struggles horribly because of those damn Fields. My 2nd and now 3rd time restarting I was lucky to get a Rich Berry patch and have never looked back. Berries + Veggies/Eggs and eventually Apples > Farming for Food for a good 4+ years in game. And even then, maybe never. I do still add small Farms (like 0.1 - 0.5 Morgen) for Flax/Barley about 3-4 years in to make getting to and maintaining LvL 3 easier, and 100+ pop of course.

[DeLindsay]

Originally posted by Hobotango:

Originally posted by HarshHash:

Im not reading everything youve wrote

Originally posted by DeLindsay:

I stopped reading after #1.

Omg..Oh no. How will I find the strenght to go on with life aft..Oh wait, I don't care.

You cared enough to make this almost entirely garbage post as if it were the "best" Guide evar.

[Magnus Aurelius, Bright Lord]

Originally posted by DeLindsay:

You cared enough to make this almost entirely garbage post as if it were the "best" Guide evar.

Okay.

[Magnus Aurelius, Bright Lord]

bumping to help new players out.

[DeLindsay]

You mean bumping to make new Players' game WORSE? Seriously, this is a Guide of what NOT to do in Manor Lords.

[Magnus Aurelius, Bright Lord]

Originally posted by DeLindsay:

You mean bumping to make new Players' game WORSE? Seriously, this is a Guide of what NOT to do in Manor Lords.

Ah, so you did read it then ? Cause you mentioned stopping to read after #1, so how could you possibly know if the game is good or not.

[DeLindsay]

Because #1 is the literal worst advice in Manor Lords.

[Magnus Aurelius, Bright Lord]

Originally posted by DeLindsay:

Because #1 is the literal worst advice in Manor Lords.

Yes, yes, we'v all read the devs beginner tips like you. Regardless of what the devs say, after many sucessfull cities, I can confirm from my own experience that beginning with farming is great.

Im sorry if you find the game still too difficult to begin with farming but honestly that's a you issue. If you try my guide you will find that it isnt hard to be sucessful starting with farm as your first action.

[Ele]

Whether farming is viable in year 1 seems pretty map-dependent. I tried it on a map with abundant green for the wheat and it went...okay, but was a slower start than most. It required lots of micromanagement of workers given how few are available at the start. I'd say if you want to be a farmer, year 2 might be a better start point, after you have taken the plow upgrade and have more families available to work. Also, unless your farmhouse is really near your granary, you might want to place the windmill and oven fairly near the farm, then uncheck grain and flour at the granary so they won't be delivered to the granary before being milled/baked.

[Martin]

Originally posted by Hobotango:

The very first thing you should do is select the Chill mode ( no bandits nor enemy AI ) in order to give you space to learn the game.

#1- Press Pause then go to Contruction (C), select "Farming" then select "Field". Scroll back as much as possible with your mouse wheel and you will see where it is good to farm.

Green = Good obviously.

#2 Go to the closest Green area and start plotting your fields. You will want to have:

A) Multiple Fields.
B) From 0.5 to 1.0 Morgen ( The game will calculate for you as you start building them.
C) Build them side by side.

#3 All you need to start is 3 fields but you can build more if you want, you dont need to work all the fields you'v built.

#4 Select 3 fields of your field and select Crop rotation.

First field : Wheat, Wheat, Fallow
Second Field : Fallow, Wheat, Wheat
Third Field : Wheat, Fallow, Wheat.

Leave every other field you have on Fallow without crop rotation, those are the fields you dont want your worker working on.

#5 Build a nearby Farm House. Appoint 3 Families right away to get that work done as fast as possible.

#6 Go to Gathering in Construction and Select the "Logging Camp". Place it near a source of wood and get a family to work in it as soon as its ready.

#7 Go to Logistics in Construction and Put down a Granary and Storehouse once you have the timber for it. Put families in them so they can gather your supplies into it. Remove the families once your supplies are gathered inside them.

#8 Keep building, go to Gathering and place down a Hunting camp (Near Meat) and a Forager Hut ( Near Berries). Berries can only be collected during the warm seasons so collect them all.

#9 Your fields should be ready by now, unselect all the families once your 3 fields are all done being worked on, you will know that by selecting the Farm House, going to the "People" tab and see everyone doing nothing " Waiting". You dont need any farmers until its harvest time next September.

#10 Use the newfound labor to work the Forager and hunting camps. Keep 1 family free so they can keep building.

#11 Build 6 Houses, hey listen ! Dont be putting them close to each other. Plot your houses about 1.5 Morgen ( so a tad bigger than your farming field) and select only 3 houses per 1.5 Morgen. This will leave room for : Extra housing and Vegetable Patch.

You will start with a small amount of money ( 50 to 100 depending on the option you selected). A veggie patch is 15$. Buy veggie patch with all the money you have. Just make sure that they are big enough for the yield to be worth it, but also, not too big that your family cant sow them all. There's a fine balance and you will get the hang of it but if you keep to 1.5 morgen, it should be fine.

As soon as you can, build those extra housing so that there is 2 family working on those veggie patch.

*Info : A large housing plot will have room to build one extra house and one working field.

#12 Start building houses for other families to come and settle, you dont need to have them big, you can start to select an area where you will cluster houses together to maximize space. But always try to leave some housing area that will permit for extra house and veggie patch.

#13 If you got time, before September arrives, build a Marketplace, Windmill and a Communal Oven. If not, build them right after you are done harvesting, plowing and sowing your fields.

#14 Eventually during all of that, September will arrive. Remove families from their current work to go back to work the farms when its about late august. 3 to 4 families should do the trick.

#13 - Once the work on the farm is over, put those farmers to work in the windmill and Communal oven. This will get them to start making bread.

#14 Eventually, new families will move in. Build a Tannery (Industry) and a Sawpit (Gatherings). Assign families to them. By now, you should have a Food, Fuel and Clothing Stall. (Clothing comes with tannery so be patient if you dont have it yet).

#15 As soon as you get 20 planks of wood, build a church.

#16 Once the church is done building, upgrade your houses to level 2. This should get you passive income that you can then use to build more veggie patch.

#17 I recommend you select the "Forest Management" Perk once you gain a development point. It double your berry intake and in the early game, its very nice to have extra berries. But honestly, just take a look at them all and do what feels best for you. The deep mining perk is also extremely valuable ( infinite resources for some ressources) and wheter you take it or not should depend on how you plan to extend beyond your map. Each development point is dependant on the land you are.


And there you go. You should be on your way to success with that.

I agree this is the fastest way to grow the town.
I would disagree on using initial money to buy veg or eggs tho. I prefer to spend it on ox as the extra haulage can be put to making alot of planks, which can then be sold. By end of 2nd year you should have over 1200 coins, enough to buy veg and egg plots for every house.

But otherwise this is the best route I've found to play. The only problem is pathing bottlenecks.. if you get even 1 your game is dead.