Manor Lords: Best development points

Picking the best Manor Lords development points can make a big difference in how prosperous your settlement is – and how easily you can run it. The strategy game’s early access version blocks many of them, but some of the most influential ones are available and from an early period.

We’ve laid out some of the best Manor Lords development points below, including why they’re so useful.

Manor Lords: Best development points

You one new point after increasing your settlement level, so we’ve listed our picks in order of high priority.

Trapping

Trapping teaches your hunters how to lay traps, so you gain passive meat income. Trapping has no affect on animal habitats, as far as I can tell, so it’s a more efficient way to get meat without depleting nearby animal populations.

Better Deals

Better Deals removes tariffs from importing goods. That sounds like a small detail, but tariffs usually cost more than the goods themselves. You’re saving yourself a lot of money this way and making it possible to import more and better goods. Need grains for making bread or military equipment to outfit your new militia? Sure, you could create it yourself, but importing it frees your resources for other uses.

Heavy Plow

Heavy Plow speeds up the rate of planting, which is absolutely necessary even if you’re just sowing one field. It takes ages to sow fields and harvest crops normally unless you stuff several families in a farmhouse, which you don’t want to do, since it takes them away from other jobs. Heavy Plot unlocks a plowing station and lets you add oxen to the farmhouse. Oxen on the farm cut the time it takes to sow seeds and harvest mature crops.

Charcoal Burning

Building a charcoal kiln and producing charcoal boosts your fuel production efficiency, which frees you to devote your timber resources to the sawpit for more planks. It’s useful, but balancing timber supplies between the woodcutter’s camp and sawpit is fairly straightforward. You can get everything you need and survive your first winter without issue. By the time you hit your third year or establish a new settlement, though, you’ll probably want to switch to charcoal instead of firewood.

Other Manor Lords development points

These two are helpful, but how helpful and important depends on the area your settlement is in.

Forest Management

Forest Management is excellent, but conditional. It doubles the amount of berries in any berry deposit, so if you start in a region with a berry deposit, you suddenly enough berries to stockpile far more than you need in the first year. You can sell excess berries or turn them into dye to sell for even higher profits.

If you’re not in a region with a berry deposit, save this one for later.

Rye Cultivation

This one is also conditional. You can plant rye after unlocking this one, a crop that functions the same wheat, but grows well in less fertile soil. If you begin in, or claim, a region that’s not excelling in the arable soil department, you’ll want to plant rye for all your grain needs. Otherwise, it’s not really necessary.

For more Manor Lords help, check out our beginner's guide, how to raise your settlement level, and recommendations for what to build first in the city-building strategy game.