Manor Lords: Best Early Game Build Order

As with any strategy city-builder, there is a balance between dealing with problems and expanding your settlements, and Manor Lords gives you more than a dozen choices to make each time you decide to construct a new building. From dealing with homelessness to stocking up on firewood for the upcoming Winter, there are many different ways in which you can approach the game, and depending on your difficulty settings, focusing on the wrong thing might be extremely punishing. Even the number of choices you can make right at the start of the game can be overwhelming to some players, and without some experimentation, your first playthrough of the game could be over in less than a year of in-game time.

Having a good build order in Manor Lords is crucial for surviving the first Winter, and some players might not have the time to invest in multiple playthroughs to get it right. That's why in this article, we are going to give you a nice and simple early game build order which will deal with most of the issues you are going to run into, while also allowing you to move in any direction you want.

Best Manor Lords Early Game Build Order

Our Manor Lords early game build order will cover most of the important resources that you are going to need, and it will also address some of the issues you might run into at the beginning of the game. You should start off by constructing a Storehouse and a Granary, both of which will allow you to store all of your starting and future resources and prevent them from being destroyed by rain. After that, you should start focusing on gathering Timber, as you will need it in order to construct pretty much any type of building. Make sure to assign a family to each of these buildings and don't forget to connect them via roads.

After these initial buildings are constructed, it's time to provide your citizens with some homes before your public order decreases too much. We recommend building anywhere between 5 and 10 Burgage Plots, which are going to deal with the homelessness issues for your current citizens, as well as some future families that will join you. This might take a bit of time, as it will require a significant amount of Timber. At this point, you should take a look around your starting region and see if there are any 'Wild Animals' or 'Berry Deposits', which are going to be your main source of food in the early game.

Once your first set of Burgage Plots are constructed, we recommend building a Well and a Woodcutter's Camp. Assign a family to the Woodcutter's Camp, so you can start gathering Firewood for the upcoming Winter. Now you should start investing some time and resources into making food, and we recommend going for a few Forager Huts or Hunting Camps, depending on the type of resources available in your region. Make sure to continue building Burgage Plots as needed, and our final recommendation is to construct a Marketplace, so you can keep your Approval in check.

Here is a quick summary of our recommended early game build order for Manor Lords:

Storehouse (Assign x1 Family)
Granary (Assign 1x Family)
Logging Camp (Assign 1x Family)
Don't forget to connect everything via roads.
Once you have enough Timber, continue with:
Five Burgage Plots
Well
Woodcutter's Camp (Assign 1x Family)
Five more Burgage Plots
Two or three Forager Huts or Hunting Camps (Depending on your region)
Marketplace

This build order will allow you to have a smooth start to the game, while providing you with most of the resources needed to progress further into the game. From here on out you can go in whatever direction you wish, growing your settlement, focusing on trade, or just continuing to build up your industry. Hopefully, this guide has helped make the early game in Manor Lords a lot more manageable, and if you are interested in more news and guides, make sure to check out these articles: