Farming in Manor Lords is still in its early stages and has much ground to cover before it becomes a full-fledged system. But it still seems very impressive and is fun to play around with. You need to tweak several factors to ensure a successful farm yield, and, surprising enough, the process does not bore you in the slightest.
However, if you want, you could go a year without knowing how to farm in Manor Lords. But by year 2, you have to shift your focus to farming, or else your town will fail to survive the winter. So, you need to understand how to cultivate wheat or barley and ensure the best yield as quickly as possible. I have a few tips for you to get better at it.
Check out more pieces on Manor Lords from the links below:
Manor Lords | Resolving Lack of Entertainment
Manor Lords | 10 Beginner Tips to Help Kickstart Your Empire
Manor Lords Preview | Total War Meets Medieval City-Building
If you haven’t already gotten the Early Access of the game, then you can purchase it on Steam for $14.99.
5 Tips to Farm Better in Manor Lords
Avoid Using a Single Plot to Farm a Crop
Trying to make a single large plot for farming is something you have to avoid wholeheartedly in Manor lords. The ideal is to go for multiple small plots that range between 0.1 and 0.4 Morgens (the unit of measurement for land in Manor Lords). This is a precondition for utilizing the other farming tips I am about to give you. Also, if you put more than a few plots together, you may need to add another Farmhouse nearby, as transportation time can get significantly longer. Limit the WorkArea of the families to plots close to the farmhouse.
Manor Lord Field
Try to Merge Several Small Plots Together in a Single Space
An important firming aspect of Manor Lords is finishing the Plowing and Sowing phase before Winter (December–February) arrives. Or else you end up losing your whole yield. The best way you could safeguard your yield is by planting several small plots for a single crop. You do that by first checking out the Fertility Overlays, which is something you already should have known by now. Going to your Construction tab, select Field and survey the soil fertility according to the crop you want to cultivate. Afterwards, select an ideal area, keeping in mind that it’s big enough to space multiple plots.
Manor Lord Plots
Now imagine an invisible boundary and place three or four small plots, each having an area of 0.2–0.3 Morgens. You could also build a rectangular block with roads and place the plots inside. This method will shorten the plowing and sowing durations and ensure a greater crop yield. Another reason for using this method, and perhaps the most important one, is Crop Rotation.
Maintain Your Fertility Using the Crop Rotation Manually
Crop Rotation might sound like something that shouldn’t matter much, but it actually plays the biggest role in deciding the future of farming in your town. From the rate of yield to the time taken for crop growth, everything depends on the fertility of your field, which in turn depends on how you have utilized the Crop Rotation process. Crop Rotation is exactly what it sounds like: rotating crop cultivation in between several fields, but the most important factor here is fallowing. Leaving fields fallow increases their fertility.
Manor Lords Crop Rotation
This is where using small plots instead of big ones comes into play. After you have set up a block with, let’s say, four plots, you will set two for cultivation and the other two for fallow in the first year. For Year 2, you will do the same, but with the process reversed. Same for Year 3, and vice versa. This way, you won’t lose your soil fertility and will keep having a good yield no matter how much you farm. Moreover, you can also rotate the plots with two or more types of crops (for instance, Emmer-Flax), as this also increases fertility to some extent. So if you don’t want the fertility rate to go below 50%, then it’s time you start following this method in Manor Lords.
Manage Your Families Efficiently
Families only work during the sowing, plowing, and later during the harvesting periods, so you don’t need to assign any families specifically to farming. Rather, take them off (ideally 4-5) from work that is not that important and assign them to the Farmhouse during the sowing and plow phase.
Manor Lords Managing Families
After they are done, pull out the families and assign them somewhere else. And when the crop is ready to harvest, reassign them to collect the yield and take it to the farmhouse. This way, you don’t need a large workforce and can utilize the workers efficiently at Manor Lords.
Use Oxen and Workers Together When Farming in Manor Lords
Using oxen can greatly increase your plowing rate, almost by 60%, and moreover, it only takes a single worker to handle the oxen. It can save you almost a month worth of tiling work. The oxen will also transport the yield and other resources, saving you some valuable hands.
Manor Lords Oxen
Using the oxen together with other workers on small plots is the most efficient and fastest way of plowing. What happens is that the oxen will work on one plot and the workers on the others. And as time passes, the cattle will finish up and hop into a new field, and the workers there will also automatically shift to another. So you should see all of your plots plowed within no more than a month. Which is why I will advise you to unlock the Heavy Plow upgrade from the Development tree and construct a Plowing Station.
Make Sure Transportation Takes the Least Amount of Time
Time is of utmost significance in Manor Lords, especially when you are farming. Till now, we have saved time for every step, from tilling to planting the seed. But what takes up the most time is transferring the yield. Transporting the goods from the farmhouse to other processing units can take up a significant amount of time if they are not placed efficiently.
For instance, you have to make sure the Malthouse is placed in an area with efficiency close to 100%. This ensures the workers travel the least distance. You could also skip using Granaries and Storages and directly transfer the goods to the processing facilities. You can go to the Advanced tab of the building and unselect the crop from being stored there. For example, workers will directly transport the flour from the Windmill to the Communal Oven without having to store it in the Granary.
