Manor Lords – Farming And Harvests Guide
Manor Lords is all about experiencing life in a medieval fiefdom. Naturally, that involves a lot of toiling in the fields while waiting for the harvest season. Here’s our Manor Lords farming guide to help you with various crops and resources.
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Manor Lords farming guide – Everything you need to know about crops and harvests
The most important thing to consider when farming in Manor Lords is soil fertility. This can be seen when you go to the Construction -> Farming tab, and select the Field option. You should see the surrounding landscape color-coded to denote fertility. Basically, you’ll want to plop down your Fields in green areas, while avoiding orange and red sections.
Farming 101: Creating fields, selecting crops, and constructing buildings
Farming in Manor Lords involves creating four-sided Fields. These use “morgen” as a unit of measurement, with larger fields requiring more manpower to fully sow and cultivate. You can then select a particular crop that will be grown in that Field. Here are the options:
- Wheat – Used to make Flour and, eventually, Bread. You can learn more in our Food sources guide.
- Barley – Used to make Ale. You can learn more in our Ale and Taverns guide.
- Flax – Used as material for clothing/linen. You can learn more in our Clothes and Tailors guide.
- Rye – Requires the Rye Cultivation development/tech. Rye is similar to Wheat in that it’s used to make Flour, but it can be grown in places with lower fertility.
From here, you have to construct the all-important Farmhouse (costs 3x Timber). Once built, you can assign up to eight familiar to work in the farms that are connected to the Farmhouse. Likewise, you may build a couple of structures:
- Windmill (requires 4x Timber) – Converts Grain (i.e. Wheat) into Flour; must be placed in an open area without nearby trees to increase efficiency.
- Communal Oven (requires 2x Timber) – Workers use Flour to make Bread.
Crop rotation and waiting for harvest season
Soil fertility will decrease over time due to extensive farming. However, you may cultivate the soil by enabling the crop rotation option when selecting a Field. Here’s what you need to know:
- Crop rotation means that workers will initially plant a certain crop (i.e. Wheat, Barley, Flax, or Rye). You can also do this for the second year.
- Then, for the third year, you could pick the Fallow option. This increases soil fertility, but there will be no yields.
- Workers will plant the actual crops again come the fourth year.
Note that workers will harvest crops as late as November, though you may also click on the “Force Early Harvest” option. Naturally, there will be no harvests during winter, which means you have to ensure there’s a surplus of food for your settlement to prevent people from starving.
Livestock farms
You might be wondering why we’ve yet to talk about animals in our Manor Lords farming guide. Well, that’s because they’re part of a separate function/mechanic instead of being added to your Fields. For your livestock, you need to go to the Construction -> Farming tab to select the following:
- Sheep Farm (requires 1x Timber) – Assigns people that will manage the livestock.
- Pasture – Creates a small area that animals can use for grazing.
Note that you can only get sheep by building a Livestock Trading Post (requires 2x Timber). Once you have this structure, choose a type of farm animal and select “Import” from the drop-down menu. Increase the surplus number so that a traveling merchant drops by each month to sell you one.
This particular process requires Regional Wealth, so make sure you have enough of this resource. We also discuss this further in our Trading Posts guide.
Other notable development/tech options
Here are some farming-related upgrades that are available once you obtain Development Points when upgrading your settlement level:
- Sheepbreeding – Sheep grazing on pastures slowly multiply.
- Heavy Plow – Adds a Plowing Station; use oxen at the Farmhouse for faster plowing of fields and carrying of goods.
- Fertilization – Enables the Fence Up upgrade; use a Fallow field as pasture to increase fertility faster.
- Irrigation – Dramatically decreases the damage caused by droughts.
- Bakeries – Unlocks the Bakery Extension for Burgage Plots; produces Bread from Flour at a more efficient and faster rate compared to the Communal Oven.
That does it for our Manor Lords farming and crops guide. Be sure to visit our beginner’s guide to learn more about the basics of the game.
Manor Lords is currently an early access game. As such, some mechanics and features may change in due course. In the meantime, you can take a look at other tips and strategies in our guides hub.
