So uh, veggies and burgage plot size?

[Sovietkotek]

Conflicting information online, but from what I gleaned, it seems like apple orchards and veggie gardens are affected by size (and possibly fertility). Anyone tested this? What happens if you make a single burgage plot the size of the entire map, hypothetically, would that produce a trillion apples if there was some ethereal labor force working on it?

[wojtek8811]

For the vegetable garden, give 0,5 Morgen per family, with apples similarly. Fertility has no influence. Apples collect only one month in September, so they won't collect more.

[Agony_Aunt]

Shouldn't be conflicting information, its 100% correct. Fertility does not affect them.

A single burgage the size of the map (assuming it was possible (it won't be, if only because of roads) would be highly inefficient. Testing has show the optimal size to be around 1 morgen max, around half a morgen min, the most typical layout uses the 3 corpse pit technique, which gives 0.75 morgen plots and makes optimial use of the space available and reduces walking distance around the plot, speeding up efforts.

The problem with making them too big is it basically ties up your families from doing other work. Perhaps not an issue late game, where you could go crazy, but early and mid game you need your families to do other stuff. And you have to factor in walking time for harvesting. The bigger the plot, the more back and forth they need to do.

The bigger the veggie plot, the more time needed for the initial plowing, which can tie up your burgage family (families) for a long time. Apples aren't as bad, you just have to wait 3 years for them to become fully productive.

With your theoretical mega plot, the families in burgage, even if level 3 double plot (so 4 families) might never manage to get a full harvest in, food would be wasted. They'd spend most of their time walking back and forth.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by wojtek8811:

For the vegetable garden, give 0,5 Morgen per family, with apples similarly. Fertility has no influence. Apples collect only one month in September, so they won't collect more.

Ah, good point about the apple harvest period being quite limited. Still, 0.75 morgen is absoloutely doable.

[Sovietkotek]

Hmmm, I have NO idea what a morgen is but I'll look it up.


Speaking of families performing jobs, I noticed that even with families fully assigned, some construction work still gets performed now and then. Do families that have completed their tasks go about helping others in basic functions like managing burgage extensions and construction work?

[Agony_Aunt]

If you've ever laid out a field in Manor Lords you should have seen how you get told the size the field will be as you place it. Sometimes people refer to the size in terms of corpse pits, because they are 0.25 morgen in size. Go watch some youtube vids about optimial burgage plots for veggies/orchards, specifically using corpse pits to plan the layout.

Note, people often miss this, the plots must be closely aligned with N-S/E-W to get the maximal space - something to do with snap points. You make them at too much of an angle and it doesn't work as well.

As for the other part of your question, yes. Only artisans are blocked from doing other work, all other families take care of their plots and then are free to help out with other things.

Early games its important to keep this in mind. Making a burgage have chickens is no issue, it barely takes them away from other work, but veggie plots can tie up families for months, so you assign a family from a veggie plot burgage to cut wood, but they hardly ever go to work because they are busy plowing their plot. Its why its questionable as to whether do veggie plots in the first year while you're really low on families, and if you do, then you need to factor that in and that they won't be immediately available for other stuff and need to check your assignments. Even a 0.25 morgen plot will tie the family up for best part of a month.

[Gadriel 🗡]

There are more ways to play Manor Lords than there are players. But this might serve:

Start with Road blocks of 3×3 Corpse Pits, which is about 2¼ morgens. Measurements and angles don’t have to be exact, so you can be free with your design. (You don't have to lay down the Corpse Pits. They're just for a rough measure.) Each block has room for three Vegetable Gardens of ¾ morgen. With 2-3 such Blocks, you will end up with 6-9 Vegetable Garden double-Burgages, with Housing for 12-18 Families. Vegetables will provide the foundation for your early food supply.

https://gadriel.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Schenfurt-InitialBuild2-1.png

But don’t plant the Vegetable Gardens at first so that the Families can concentrate on construction.* Wait until you have secured your supplies in the Granary and Storehouse, and have built your Forager or Fishing Hut. Nor do you have to keep a Family in the Granary or Storehouse for a while. Families will go directly to the Granary and Storehouse for supplies. Only when your Forager or Fishing Huts are nearly full,** do you need to put a Family in the Granary; or when your Woodcutter’s Lodge is nearly full,*** do you need to put a Family in the Storehouse, at which point you can build your Marketplace.****

The same sized blocks can be used for two Apple Orchard double-Burgages of 1⅛ morgen; or later, two rows of 10 small single-Burgages, such as for Chicken Coops or Animal Pens.

Gadriel, Graf des Germanischen Tals
https://gadriel.com/manor-lords-fish-and-stone/

ETA:

* It's usually best to wait on planting the Vegetable Gardens until you have built the sixth House, which should be by the end of Apr. This will avoid the dreaded homelessness penalty and allow the population to grow to six on May 2.

** Instead of putting a Family in the Granary, if you have the Logs, you could instead just build another Forager or Fishing Hut and move the Families to the new Hut.

*** Instead of putting a Family in the Storehouse, you could just temporarily unassign the Family from the Woodcutter's Lodge. With a full Lodge, there should be enough Firewood to last a while.

**** The trick is to keep as many Families on construction as possible during the first year. You can live on Berries or Fish over the first winter.

[SgtSpud]

Originally posted by Sovietkotek:

Conflicting information online, but from what I gleaned, it seems like apple orchards and veggie gardens are affected by size (and possibly fertility). Anyone tested this? What happens if you make a single burgage plot the size of the entire map, hypothetically, would that produce a trillion apples if there was some ethereal labor force working on it?

General rule of thumb is not more than 1 morgen. It has been said that if it is too big the folks can't gather all the veggies.

[Sovietkotek]

Originally posted by SgtSpud:

Originally posted by Sovietkotek:

Conflicting information online, but from what I gleaned, it seems like apple orchards and veggie gardens are affected by size (and possibly fertility). Anyone tested this? What happens if you make a single burgage plot the size of the entire map, hypothetically, would that produce a trillion apples if there was some ethereal labor force working on it?

General rule of thumb is not more than 1 morgen. It has been said that if it is too big the folks can't gather all the veggies.

Hmm, that's why I went with apples over veggies, I assume it's a lot less labor intensive but maybe it's a waste of a perk point, I dunno.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by Sovietkotek:

Originally posted by SgtSpud:

General rule of thumb is not more than 1 morgen. It has been said that if it is too big the folks can't gather all the veggies.

Hmm, that's why I went with apples over veggies, I assume it's a lot less labor intensive but maybe it's a waste of a perk point, I dunno.

Apples are worth investing a dev point in if you're lacking other food resources. Imagine starting in a region with low fertility, no rich fish, berries, or animals, then you're going to want another source of food. Apiaries won't cut it the same way apples can. Of course, you can also invest in the Rye devleopment perk, but that's an extra point you need to spend.

I once did a game where I set myself the goal of no farming, no collecting food from berries/hunting after the first year. All food had to come from burgage plots. All berries had to go to dyes, leather only from goats, no hunting. Apples were an important point in my development in that game.

[Jabberwocky]

It is 45 apples/veggies per 0.25 morgen (exactly the size of 1 corpse pit) pure backyard garden.

Good size for vegetable garden plots is 1 morgen (up to 4 corpse pits) and for apples it is up to 1.5 morgen (max 6 corpse pits).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3341645310

The village above has 2 veggie plots and 2 apple plots, each of them having a garden size of exactly 0.5 morgen. Each of those gardens/orchards produces 90-100 food units per year.

[Sovietkotek]

Originally posted by Jabberwocky:

It is 45 apples/veggies per 0.25 morgen (exactly the size of 1 corpse pit) pure backyard garden.

Good size for vegetable garden plots is 1 morgen (up to 4 corpse pits) and for apples it is up to 1.5 morgen (max 6 corpse pits).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3341645310

The village above has 2 veggie plots and 2 apple plots, each of them having a garden size of exactly 0.5 morgen. Each of those gardens/orchards produces 90-100 food units per year.

I see, I might have made some SERIOUS mistakes

[Jabberwocky]

Originally posted by Sovietkotek:

I see, I might have made some SERIOUS mistakes

Here's how big you can actually make those orchards and vegetable gardens, if you want to max that out. This was way overkill for my town in this playthrough, though... I had to export vegetables and apples to combat spoilage rates.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3389576123

One of the most efficient designs, one of which provides enough apples and vegetables for up to 300 people, is this:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3393972335

Here's how to make it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlzG_q4zIdU&t=5s

And here's how to add honey to the mix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwqaIHKJB9g&t=5s

You can also use it as outposts for hunting or berry picking, replacing the apiaries in the design with hunter camps or forager huts. Example:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3491655102

[Agony_Aunt]

I like the circular design. I sometimes deliberately avoid the grid layout and go for more organic designs as well. Might not be quite as efficient, but looks nicer.

[Sovietkotek]

Hmmm, I neglected to have the town-inside plots-outside design. I usually have trouble supplying burgages that are "too far" away from the market stalls so I will need to rethink my future city planning.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by Sovietkotek:

Hmmm, I neglected to have the town-inside plots-outside design. I usually have trouble supplying burgages that are "too far" away from the market stalls so I will need to rethink my future city planning.

There can be various reasons you are struggling to supply burgages far away, but as long as your markets are fully supplied you shouldn't be having issues. However, when your town gets really big, logistics can break down and you can struggle to keep everyone supplied.

Unless you have some really specific goal, don't go above 100 families in a region. Its not necessary anyway. Get the region producing, stabilize it* , move onto the next region.

* stop building new burgages, stop unnecessary production (clothes are not consumed! so once everyone is supplied, you can stop production, unless you're exporting, pause unnecessary aritsans), and set your trade house to get rid of excess. You can even stop wood cutting unless you are exporting wooden parts (my favourite). A stable region mainly just has to produce food, a bit of firewood, and beer to keep everyone happy and therefore is minimal overhead. You can even leave people assigned to seasonal jobs like farming.