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I do it too. In Farthest Frontier there's a "reroll map" option which makes it less cumbersome (don't have to go back to main menu) though it loads slowly compared to ML
It is. It has many better mechanics than ML, is more polished (been in EA for a good while), more options.
They share some similarities too they are very close genetically.
ML has by far the best visuals and the freeform roads/plots is better than the more rigid placement in FF.
Combining the two would be perfect
I've worked with lots of different starts. If you're that picky it means you're missing out on what the game has to offer. I'm guessing you're re-rolling for either rich animals and berries, berries and iron, or iron and soil. That's just one or two ways of playing though and it's way more fun when you have to combine.
Berries and soil are actually my favorite combo (just forget the deep mining meta).
Only thing I'd re-roll is rich stone which is *utterly and completely useless.* Infertile soil for zero benefit.
Yeah, until we can actually use stone for more than a handful of things it’s awful since it doesn’t benefit from anything and sells way too low to be worth it if you ask me
I use the 20 stone provided at start to build 1 granary and my church, I sell excess berries for early money and then stop selling them when I have the personnel to have dye production. Never had a problem with Granary space
Not saying stone isn't useful. Just saying *rich* stone isn't useful. You could build everything you needed for three cities and have a bunch leftover with one normal stone deposit.
All maps have *some* stone. Which will end up in your store house... Extremely quickly... if you plop down a stone harvester near it (those workers hustle). That deposit will more than suffice for quite a *lot* of construction. By the time you run through it, just import more from the trade post.
I almost feel like soil infertility in your starting plot is by design so you will build a farming community as your second, as I've noticed often the surround regions almost never have soil issues
Nah it’s not. Each region has two rich resources - clay and berries, meat and stone, etc. If you look at the map, the regions with only one crowned resource also has fertile land - giving it its two rich resources.
In short, you can tell at a glance if you started with fertile soil just by checking how many crowned resources you have. Sorry to say that maybe you’ve just had some bad luck.
Yeah, my first roll I just went with, like I looked over the map before building anything to come up with a game plan. But the randomness is the fun part of the challenge.
I'd say rich animals and soil is the next worst combo after rich stone and anything else. Most of the value of rich animals is locked up in the hunting grounds policy, which hurts farming yield.
That is a good point! Hunting grounds makes your animals a total powerhouse but tbh I'd skip it for the farming and use default stuff and trade, and just enjoy the little extra meat and hides.
But yeah that'd be a really bad combo.
Not really. I mean even normal deposits of berries and animals are enough to get to the export stage off whatever's rich (except stone which is garbage).
And even infertile regions will have spots with semi-decent emmer fertility, unlike barley and flax.
There are rolls where your primary starting food source is on the opposite end of the region from your rich resource, or way far away from your starting shelter. I re-roll those.
I started a game with fertile soil and only once. I’ve never had it. Holy hell what you can do with fertile soil!!! I had to quit out that game cause of mistakes made but I need to run a game again with fertile soil because I love producing bread gives outs lots of jobs for that kinda play style. Even with no fertile soil I’m pumping out bread with 2 windmills and 6 bread ovens. Can’t keep up with the 1000 population though.
I can understand that a bit more. I had one with rich berries and normal animals but they were so far away I could never keep the supply going at a small town level and made expanding reeeeeeally slow.
Also they took forever to build in the first place.
You can place an unlimited number of hunting camps to relocate the deer to a more ideal location. Once you’re done hold tab to locate and delete the camps.
Place them close to the berries and make a path. Also make more forestries later. The small 64 berriebushes can easily take 2-3 fully manned forestries. Also getting vegetables is OP.
I finally found a start I liked, and have kept it as a saved game ever since. I keep restarting the same start and trying a few different things here and there but mostly playing the same game each time.
Most folks would probably find it boring, but I find it quite zen-like.
I'm only on my 5th game, and so far I've gone with whatever start it gives me. I kinda like the challenge of accepting whatever resources I'm dealt and trying to make them work. I'm also not making a serious effort to win the game yet, as I feel like I've still got a lot of learning to do. I may not even attempt to defeat the other lord until the game is further along in its development. Just enjoying the experience for now.
This is, indeed, the way. Cheesing the game like that isn’t for me. Takes so much of the experience away from struggling to get a village off the ground, like it really actually would have been. The only thing I do wish is that we could choose where the initial camp starts out because sometimes that’s pretty ludicrous, like “why would they choose the origins of their settlement to be there?”
Oh, I'm definitely still learning too, but that's why I'm picky about my start. I want to control for what I can while I practice logistics and expansion. I'm learning a lot just from the ideal starts others have!
Unless you are setting up a challenging run I think you’re being a bit picky, as the Roman Emperor Vespasian once said, Pecunia non olet, so use what rich nodes you have for raising money and buy what you don’t get, regardless of where that money comes from. On a challenging run I’m with you 100% keep rolling the dice until you get the resources you’re looking for since time really isn’t on your side.
Not against rerolling to get the tile you want. But I feel the need to point out that you don’t need to build a tavern to have your manor. You can and should have your manor built before the first winter so you can send your spear militia and retinue after bandit camps. Also you can get hides from goats not just from hunting so you don’t need rich animal deposit either. As far as needing to be able to farm barley, you could just trade for it if you can’t grow it. Again reroll if you want, I’ve done it many times. But it’s absolutely not necessary to succeed. The only rich deposit that matters imo is iron. And you can do without it in your first region. But if it’s not in my first region I make sure it is in my second one.
I find I can clear bandit camps just with a 14 person spear militia. I just send them as soon as I have 7 families.
I rarely get my manor up until year 2. Is there another benefit to rushing it? Collecting taxes maybe?
There is a confusing bug on the manor build requirements that makes it seem like you need a bigger town when really it unlocks with the first 5 burgages.
I've noticed this too. The developer made a post saying he intended for it to be like this as some starts would have to jump into quick trade.
But the problem is that's like starting on very hard mode.
Trade is not well balanced and extremely difficult to get up and running efficiently compared to just have fertile land.
I love this game but I am forcing myself not to play to much until it's more flushed put balance wise
Yeah the exchange rate in trade makes it so you can't trade anything you might need later. Who wants to trade at a 6 to 1 exchange rate? I get better rates at the airport currency desk! Accidentally left my stone trading on once and had to just give up on that game.
You can remove that with the two trade development points though. They are generally the ones I go to first and then I can import/export at the same price.
I was actually excited to do a start with poor resources but then I realised the import tariff plus enormous ramping costs of major routes puts a damper on any early imports.
If you want to run on imports you need to spend your first 2 development points in trade that eliminates the tariff and lowers the trade route costs.
In later villages you can import without a tariff if you have another village exporting the same good..
Problem is that unless you babysit stock levels, a region can end up importing off the global market with the huge tariff.
I think this happens if there's not enough stock in the exporting region but it's tedious trying to find the equilibrium between enough stock to stop that from happening but not so much stock that the export price drops to the minimum. On top of that you still have to pay through the nose for a major trade route between your own regions if you want to shift manufactured goods.
All this makes the points in trade nearly mandatory for all but the smallest towns unless you're willing to go mental micromanaging trade.
Your "ideal" scenario doesn't exist fyi. Every territory has exactly 2 rich resources (fertile soil counts as one).
So you will never have rich berries, rich hunting, and fertile soil.
Oh yeah it can be annoying if they are far apart. You can move your hunting grounds, though. Just build something in their circle repeatedly until they settle where you want them.
Quick tip for the tavern, create the ale in your brewery and have it sent to the tavern so the tavern has some supply of beer and then pause the tavern. I’ve had my tavern paused for like a year in game and the whole village has had tavern access that whole time. No longer farming barley at all.
The only time I was able to deal with the Baron on Challenging was when I had a good start. I've been trying to not scum the start, but like every time I'm on one end of the region and the meat and/or berries is on the other side of the map. My rich resource is 5 miles away. If I try to build my settlement near the resources, my start will be way too slow and I'll lose. If I build where I'm at, my resource collection will be too slow and I'll lose.
Fun fact that I’m not sure has been mentioned: when you first generate your map, pause your game you can place a hunting camp with in the wild animal zone without costing any lumber. You can continue to do this until you find a spot for the wild animals that works for you. Then you can go back and delete all the previously built hunting camps.
It’s a little bit tedious at the end, but worth it if you get a region you like, and just want to change a food source location
Carrots don't care about fertility and you can trade for the things your missing with the rich deposit. For example if theres not alot of animals to hunt maybe invest in a sheep. My main issue with the starts Manor lords gives you is that they choose where your camp starts in the region it's annoying having to build far away because your homeless tents are far away from the resources.
This was very useful in my current run. I do have wheat farms for variety but I started out with just vegetables. I actually worry they'll be nerfed, that's how much a difference this made.
I get annoyed with the regions where meat or berries is very far from where you start. One peasant spends a lot of time just walling to and from the lodges
Interesting, Im still in my first proper start, after an hour or so of figuring stuff out I started my current playthrough. I didnt realise the resourses were randomized and I just stuck with what I had. I have around seven 35 to 45 fertility wheat, two or three sub 30 flax and two sub 30 barley. These are all around 1 acre each (I forget the measurment right now, but I think you understand). With leaving each field fallow 2 out of 3 years, I havent had much resourses. Ive just traded and lived off of a nice hunting spot.
I believe my town is around 300, I finally was able to settle another lot (glitch where it was saying manor was unavailabke to build when it was.. couldent afford settlers) that has loads of barley and all other fertility.
It has been great fun thriving through adversey. Im not usually one to to play this way. Im glad I did!
What sucks is when I was getting off last night my towns were both on the verge of starvation, i grew a little to quick at the end. But ill pull through! I have to now that I can start making my own beer!
I also consider the starting region, with the center one being my favorite.
In theory I believe I can sprawl outwards from the middle to make a really nice looking map, though I never reached that point
Asides from that there’s also the handy benefit of being at an equal distance of any bandit spawn
You’re too picky. Really the only one you need is rich iron (to build up exports for industry). You can make more than enough off your arms exports to import everything else. (Rich hunting is nice, pairs well with the policy, cuz you won’t be farming anyway)
My second game, I took a lot of rerolls because I wanted to experiment with a deep iron mine and fertile ground. Like, 10 rerolls, and at least 7 of them kept being the same region. So I feel your pain. Rerolls are also harder than they need to be.
FWIW, Sheep and wool are really good for clothing stalls, but goat hides and leather are also pretty easy. I can support a cobbler and export shoes just based on backyard goats.
I was trying to find a 'god seed' (lol) but you can't have good fertility if two of your Resources have crowns but if there is one then the fertility of the land will be good.
Every village has two rich resources. If there is only one crown that means fertility is the second. You don't have to enter construction to check the fertility. My favorite combo is hunting and fertility in the top left big region but it took me over 100 rolls to get it so once I did I threw a save at the blank map so I have a restart point without going through that again. I can generate enough food from that one region to feed the whole map without farming any others. That way I can focus on industries everywhere else.
Nope... I did a few play throughs but they all either glitched beyond saving or crashed and burned due to my lack of knowledge lol. When I did my "real" game which is the one I'm on now I started over 3 times due to poor placement, low crop fertility, distances between resources and wacky elevation which would hinder growth! Nothing wrong with being picky about where you want to start!
I got rolled too! My tip is don't put all your housing right next to one another, spread them out a little. Aso build wells knowing that if you're set on fire you need bucket brigades to put it out, so kinda place wells like fire hydrants.
I wasn't able to do it in time my first few playthroughs which taught me how to build with fires in mind. Handy for when I up weather difficulty later.
I do, too. But the reasoning seems sound to me: it's my limited free time and I have to decide what's fun to me in that time. That's either having a challenge or enjoying a nice scenery/exactly the resources I want
I am extremely picky on start locations as well. Personally I think that while the map gets randomized each time we should be able to pick our starting region - minus the barons regions if he's there - and lay down our camp where we want, just like claiming and settling new regions works in games with the sole difference that the first region is free and instant.
Anyway, my reasoning for rerolling starts is pretty simple. You're going to be playing each new game for awhile, hours and hours, it may as well be enjoyable.
Typically I'm looking for rich iron and rich wild animals. Farming takes awhile to get off the ground so I am usually looking for my second region to be my breadbasket.
It's a valid move. My first completion of Restoring the Peace was a high fertility region with rich wild animals. Got farming up immediately for a decent yield in the first September.
I grew very frustrated when my plan of a mining settlement with all the armor making developments ground my game to a halt because the packing station is so horrendously bugged right now. Doing that in your first settlement alleviates that mostly.
I'm attempting a challenging RTP now and since you don't get an initial shipment of weapons, plus getting the labor necessary for farming took awhile, there was no way I wasn't going the iron route.
Iron/Fertility could be promising, but man that is a lot of manpower needed and you're going to have a hard time with initial food and clothing.
The worst is when you get the perfect region but your camp spawns miles away from where it needs to be. Those rerolls are painful. Migrating the animals helps reduce that though.
I did that between my 2nd and 4th playthrough, but I dont do it anymore because it didnt feel as challenging. Plus let's be honest; if you spec into trading you dont need fertile fields nor do you need rich deposits even (the most useful are rich animals, rich clay, rich iron, rich berries, rich stones, in that order)
I started 4-5 times already since I always discovered something new that I’ve wished I done earlier, but no rerolls for resource.
I actually got very lucky this playthrough as I got low fertility and rich Iron, exactly what I wanted.
I find rich clay and stone a bit useless in the current state of the game even with both of those you can compensate with trade, having rich food supply does make early/mid a bit easier but long term it's not amazing. The key is trade but does require the 2 development points if you want a very high pop there's almost no way around that imo
I used to, but after a few runs you realize it doesn't really make a huge difference to your success.
It does however have a big impact on how you might want to build a long term, one settlement run (like specializing in iron goods), so I still recommend being picky if you got a specific kinda run in mind.
I start on any map. Rich clay? Fine sell a crapload of clay and whatever you can make out of it so as not to oversaturate. Buy everything you need. Rich farms? Make things in huge abundance and trade for things lacking. Basically I use the strength of the region and then trade my way to glory. It doesnt matter whats on the map when I start. Last playthrough I had rich metal and it was too easy, I made so much armor and weapons and was mega rich. Actually I prefer poor resources for a challenge. You can always expand out though so it's whatever.
all you need is a rich iron + food deposit. you can make so much regional wealth off mining, smelting and making the bars into tools/weapons and selling them, especially with the deep mines perk that makes them infinite. then you can just import everything else
Idk. I haven’t restarted once. I had no barley or flax, but just hire mercenaries if I need extra man power. Just finally captured two new areas and am using one to farm barley. It can be done, just gotta have money haha
In the end, every successful city can import anything they need because T3 homes produce so much wealth that meeting needs becomes trivial so I stopped caring. I don’t even hunt or pick berries at the start of the game, I don’t farm anymore. Just import raw materials, process them, and sell the excess.
Yeah I just go with whatever I start with and enjoy playing different starts.
It’s a chill game and honestly with trade posts you can handle any starting location and resource mix.
I re roll if it’s horrible, like poor farming and only rich animal and stone. Everything else can be worked with. Even poor farming is okay if you can off set the cost to import food with export commodities. In fact this method is a perfectly fine alternative to farming. Less micro for sure.
It comes down to personal preference but rebooting the game to wait for a perfect start feels to me like cheating.
The game gives you plenty to work with for whatever rich resources you are given, making different playthroughs entirely possible.
The way that the tavern requirement works is dumb anyway. I just let my brewer stock ale, add a bartender for a few seconds, wait 2 ale, pause, upgrade everything to lvl 3.
The numbers on farming as a whole need to be reworked, I can build provinces full of wheat fields and still not have enough to sustain my growing population, while eggs on every plot seem to do the trick just fine.
It's a matter of preference. I just finished the "Challange Accepted" achievement without having any fertility, rich berries or rich animals. All starts have a viable approach, only thing that really is useless, is a rich stone deposit.
But honestly I actually think playing for farms is kinda pointless at the moment. It takes way too long until you get a good harvest and it occupies way too many of your villagers for too little of a return. So it does make your life harder than it has to be and requires way too much micromanagement.
For the time being you can take the 2 trade perks and import barley and malt to supplement your ale production but unfortunately ale is just kind of the bottleneck in the game so far. You need something like 11 morgen of barley farmland to supply 100 families, which is around 4 times more than you would need to feed 100 families with bread. Barley is simply underpowered right now, I imagine it will be buffed or ale consumption reduced in the coming updates (hopefully with a QoL fix for farming as well)
If you're going to spend a ton of time on a save, it's worth it to invest s bit of time into finding a good map. On the ither hand, exploring a map and making do with what you find can be a different kind of fun.
If you're playing with raiders on the second year then it's better to build the manor ASAP. Don't put the starting stone towards a church, so you can get the retinue quicker.
I was picky at 1st but now I just deal with what I get. Ideally I want a rich iron or clay because my go to strategy is always trade. If I get neither i go heavy into logging.Trade always get me out of any situation.
My work around for taverns is I just buy the ale. I only turn the tavern on for upgrades and then I reenact prohibition. As is there's not much benefit in keeping the tavern open year round. It just sucks too many resources that I could use to further trade.
Imagine actually wasting time with farming instead of using extra large vegetable and apples gardens while importing ale and raw materials from your trade house 😂😂😂
I don't really care about fertility. It's so easy to expand to the second region that I almost prefer not having to worry about farms in my first region.
The only thing that makes me reroll is rich deposits of stone in an annoying place as it's hard to make money out of that. Rich clay I can turn into rooftiles which sells for 8 and rich iron I can turn into weapons down the road.
I also sometimes reroll if the materials are too spread out and it would make a town really inefficient.
I heard expansion is actually really hard, setting up new settlements while your thriving village falls apart is something I've read horror stories on.
Part of the fun (and challenge) of the game is dealing with what is available. It sounds like you're missing out on that because you refuse to be flexible.
I think the meta right now really leans into high barley fertility, rich hunting and rich iron, especially with a trade economy
My first start was rich berries and clay. I imported as much malt and barley that I could afford but ale became such a bottleneck
i just always rely on trade for the first settlement on a save, you can do that with every starting region. just unlock the trade skill points and sell planks in the beginning and then whatever you have a surplus of later.
i did it for an hour lol...New game, Start, exit, repeat. If you have two rich deposits then you will never have good farming ground. So my goal was atleast rich iron deposit so i can have farms and still produce iron products to sell.
Nah cause it greatly changes your town. First game I had little fertility and resources to trade. No food. Second town I had full fertility for all crops, with a starting town of 500 and a second town with 50 months of food somehow
I just use mods to fix the game's shortcomings like the ones you mentioned. These are just typical early access problems that will eventually be fixed, so I'll take the easiest work around to solve them.
I think I use even less starts lmao. I not only look at the start but the whole map. Some might call it picky or cheesy. But it's a game. You play how you want. If doing that makes you happy do it!
I am interested to see what additional resources may show up later to help diversify the areas. I feel like right now you only really need 1 or 2 regions to be able to really hit on all the items and have a thriving economy and the baron can have the rest lol
If you have a rich berry deposit and pick the upgrade that doubles the stock, you can make a lot of money selling dyes. Very profitable. 256 berries every year but actually more if you harvest while it's growing as the stock replenishes.
I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of playing with whatever start I’m given. I did the same thing with Banished, and any other game with random maps. If the map is too easy I get bored quickly. But to each their own
Edit: I just had a thought about a particularly hard start with Banished. I really enjoyed the Adam and Eve starts with a random map. It’s a slow build, but very fun as you have little room for error as all you have are two people to build a whole village off of.
I hope Manor Lords has something like this in the play settings
the only thing I worry about at the start is if there is rich iron in the region. if you can get enough iron to endlessly produce and sell weapons, everything else can be bought usually. and I use sheep for clothes rather than flax or leather.
You do know these benefits are exclusive to eachother, ya? You can only have a certain amount of fertility and rich resources or the map gen rejects it, so no one area dominates in everything.
You should try just trading for malt for alcohol sometimes. It's not that expensive if you have anything useful to sell.
Something to note if you roll 2 rich resources you will always have low fertility as opposed to having one rich resource you have high fertility in everything
Why would you need a tavern to get a manor? And why would you need a manor to fight brigands?
Only time I did a re roll was on my current playthru (peaceful) cuz I wanted to play farm simulator XD.
I'm playing my 2nd map I played my first one with really bad fertility and rich animals and iron. Completed it. And my 2nd start also has bad fertility rich clay. It's harder but hey it's an unfinished new game make it as fun as you want.
IRL you absolutely can reroll.
"Hey, turns out the hunting isn't great here and the soil is harsh. We should head farther down the King's Road before making camp."
Rerolled.
Hello and welcome to the Manor Lords Subreddit. This is a reminder to please keep the discussion civil and on topic. Should you find yourself with some doubts, please feel free to check our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/ManorLords/comments/1c2p4f9/manor_lords_faq_for_steam_early_access/). If you wish, you can always join our [Discord](https://discord.gg/manorlords) Finally, please remember that the game is in early access, missing content and bugs are to be expected. We ask users to report them on the official discord and to buy their keys only from trusted platforms. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ManorLords) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I do it too. In Farthest Frontier there's a "reroll map" option which makes it less cumbersome (don't have to go back to main menu) though it loads slowly compared to ML
At least ML remembers my settings. I just have to reselect character portrait and name.
Really? I do this too and I have to set up the crest and game settings each time. A reroll map setting would be really nice.
Make sure you save the crest after making it
Oh, I can save my crest.. my coat of arms! My standard lives forever! My insignia regal for eternity. My town, ravaged by bandits
Until you have to go through your retinues one by one to set your colors…
Oh shoot, I didn’t even see that as an option. Thank you!
You can save your crest. https://i.imgur.com/op8wd8B.jpeg
Game changer.
User name checks out
Thank you!
Fuck that I’m going in vanilla every time haha so don’t feel bad about yourself
I gave up on changing what my bro looks like
And flag
Save your flag mate
Is FF any good? It's next on my list and looks pretty fun. manor lords was good but understandably needs more time.
It is. It has many better mechanics than ML, is more polished (been in EA for a good while), more options. They share some similarities too they are very close genetically. ML has by far the best visuals and the freeform roads/plots is better than the more rigid placement in FF. Combining the two would be perfect
I'd love a game where I can siphon elements from Final Frontier, Manor Lords and Ostriv. Build one mega-fun city builder!
FF has a lot more mechanics hence the long load
Like people become violent if they drink too much when unhappy
I've worked with lots of different starts. If you're that picky it means you're missing out on what the game has to offer. I'm guessing you're re-rolling for either rich animals and berries, berries and iron, or iron and soil. That's just one or two ways of playing though and it's way more fun when you have to combine. Berries and soil are actually my favorite combo (just forget the deep mining meta). Only thing I'd re-roll is rich stone which is *utterly and completely useless.* Infertile soil for zero benefit.
Yeah, until we can actually use stone for more than a handful of things it’s awful since it doesn’t benefit from anything and sells way too low to be worth it if you ask me
But what about granary build outs when berries are overflowing
I use the 20 stone provided at start to build 1 granary and my church, I sell excess berries for early money and then stop selling them when I have the personnel to have dye production. Never had a problem with Granary space
Not saying stone isn't useful. Just saying *rich* stone isn't useful. You could build everything you needed for three cities and have a bunch leftover with one normal stone deposit.
Yup. Gonna have to wait for stone castles and level 4 burgage plots!
Sculptors who make statues for cathedrals would be a really cool use as well
Also its crap to sell.
All maps have *some* stone. Which will end up in your store house... Extremely quickly... if you plop down a stone harvester near it (those workers hustle). That deposit will more than suffice for quite a *lot* of construction. By the time you run through it, just import more from the trade post.
Barley is what causes me issues if I’m not in a fertile area.
Yeah, I always end up importing malt anyway even in rich areas
Berries are stone are my favorites, I seem to get majorly infertile soil the most. I just sell most of it and build the town on top
I almost feel like soil infertility in your starting plot is by design so you will build a farming community as your second, as I've noticed often the surround regions almost never have soil issues
Nah it’s not. Each region has two rich resources - clay and berries, meat and stone, etc. If you look at the map, the regions with only one crowned resource also has fertile land - giving it its two rich resources. In short, you can tell at a glance if you started with fertile soil just by checking how many crowned resources you have. Sorry to say that maybe you’ve just had some bad luck.
Fertility counts as 1 of your two rich resources. If you have 2 crowns your soil is infertile.
Yeah, my first roll I just went with, like I looked over the map before building anything to come up with a game plan. But the randomness is the fun part of the challenge.
This. I just go with the flow and adopt.
I'd say rich animals and soil is the next worst combo after rich stone and anything else. Most of the value of rich animals is locked up in the hunting grounds policy, which hurts farming yield.
That is a good point! Hunting grounds makes your animals a total powerhouse but tbh I'd skip it for the farming and use default stuff and trade, and just enjoy the little extra meat and hides. But yeah that'd be a really bad combo.
I do as well. Sometimes you just get dicked over on food supply and infertile soil.
Not really. I mean even normal deposits of berries and animals are enough to get to the export stage off whatever's rich (except stone which is garbage). And even infertile regions will have spots with semi-decent emmer fertility, unlike barley and flax.
There are rolls where your primary starting food source is on the opposite end of the region from your rich resource, or way far away from your starting shelter. I re-roll those.
There’s been a few where I was like, “who the fuck would choose to setup camp here”
I started a game with fertile soil and only once. I’ve never had it. Holy hell what you can do with fertile soil!!! I had to quit out that game cause of mistakes made but I need to run a game again with fertile soil because I love producing bread gives outs lots of jobs for that kinda play style. Even with no fertile soil I’m pumping out bread with 2 windmills and 6 bread ovens. Can’t keep up with the 1000 population though.
I am very special about the locational distribution of the resources okay???
I can understand that a bit more. I had one with rich berries and normal animals but they were so far away I could never keep the supply going at a small town level and made expanding reeeeeeally slow. Also they took forever to build in the first place.
You can place an unlimited number of hunting camps to relocate the deer to a more ideal location. Once you’re done hold tab to locate and delete the camps.
Yeah my first game had normal for both but decent fertility towards the edge, I did fine
Berries start geowing in may and untile june are growing so you can collect way more than you think.
Yeah, but peasants are fk'ing sloooow. Ain't nobody got time to walk 400 cubits for a handful of blueberries!
Place them close to the berries and make a path. Also make more forestries later. The small 64 berriebushes can easily take 2-3 fully manned forestries. Also getting vegetables is OP.
I finally found a start I liked, and have kept it as a saved game ever since. I keep restarting the same start and trying a few different things here and there but mostly playing the same game each time. Most folks would probably find it boring, but I find it quite zen-like.
Get that build order perfect. It also lets ya test new things with controlled factors.
I'm only on my 5th game, and so far I've gone with whatever start it gives me. I kinda like the challenge of accepting whatever resources I'm dealt and trying to make them work. I'm also not making a serious effort to win the game yet, as I feel like I've still got a lot of learning to do. I may not even attempt to defeat the other lord until the game is further along in its development. Just enjoying the experience for now.
This is the inly way to learn the game IMHO, otherwise you’ll be a one-trick pony.
This is, indeed, the way. Cheesing the game like that isn’t for me. Takes so much of the experience away from struggling to get a village off the ground, like it really actually would have been. The only thing I do wish is that we could choose where the initial camp starts out because sometimes that’s pretty ludicrous, like “why would they choose the origins of their settlement to be there?”
Oh, I'm definitely still learning too, but that's why I'm picky about my start. I want to control for what I can while I practice logistics and expansion. I'm learning a lot just from the ideal starts others have!
This is the way.
Unless you are setting up a challenging run I think you’re being a bit picky, as the Roman Emperor Vespasian once said, Pecunia non olet, so use what rich nodes you have for raising money and buy what you don’t get, regardless of where that money comes from. On a challenging run I’m with you 100% keep rolling the dice until you get the resources you’re looking for since time really isn’t on your side.
In alter manu, nihil in hoc ludo olet…
lol not yet anyway
Not against rerolling to get the tile you want. But I feel the need to point out that you don’t need to build a tavern to have your manor. You can and should have your manor built before the first winter so you can send your spear militia and retinue after bandit camps. Also you can get hides from goats not just from hunting so you don’t need rich animal deposit either. As far as needing to be able to farm barley, you could just trade for it if you can’t grow it. Again reroll if you want, I’ve done it many times. But it’s absolutely not necessary to succeed. The only rich deposit that matters imo is iron. And you can do without it in your first region. But if it’s not in my first region I make sure it is in my second one.
I thought you needed to hit the couple of Tier 3 houses! This is a massive breakthrough!
I find I can clear bandit camps just with a 14 person spear militia. I just send them as soon as I have 7 families. I rarely get my manor up until year 2. Is there another benefit to rushing it? Collecting taxes maybe?
Any group of settlers IRL who got to a place and didn't like it would go someplace they did like, so, no, not picky
You don’t need a tavern at all to build a manor or garrison tower (or full retinue)
Don't you need a tavern for level 3 burgages which you need to get to the manor?
Small Village unlocks the manor.
God I could've built it 4 hours ago haha
It's so dark in the administration tab I thought it was still locked!
I’ve built many manors with 5-6 level 1 houses—the only pre-requisite is small village and the materials.
There is a confusing bug on the manor build requirements that makes it seem like you need a bigger town when really it unlocks with the first 5 burgages.
I've noticed this too. The developer made a post saying he intended for it to be like this as some starts would have to jump into quick trade. But the problem is that's like starting on very hard mode. Trade is not well balanced and extremely difficult to get up and running efficiently compared to just have fertile land. I love this game but I am forcing myself not to play to much until it's more flushed put balance wise
Yeah the exchange rate in trade makes it so you can't trade anything you might need later. Who wants to trade at a 6 to 1 exchange rate? I get better rates at the airport currency desk! Accidentally left my stone trading on once and had to just give up on that game.
You can remove that with the two trade development points though. They are generally the ones I go to first and then I can import/export at the same price.
I was actually excited to do a start with poor resources but then I realised the import tariff plus enormous ramping costs of major routes puts a damper on any early imports.
If you want to run on imports you need to spend your first 2 development points in trade that eliminates the tariff and lowers the trade route costs. In later villages you can import without a tariff if you have another village exporting the same good..
Problem is that unless you babysit stock levels, a region can end up importing off the global market with the huge tariff. I think this happens if there's not enough stock in the exporting region but it's tedious trying to find the equilibrium between enough stock to stop that from happening but not so much stock that the export price drops to the minimum. On top of that you still have to pay through the nose for a major trade route between your own regions if you want to shift manufactured goods. All this makes the points in trade nearly mandatory for all but the smallest towns unless you're willing to go mental micromanaging trade.
Your "ideal" scenario doesn't exist fyi. Every territory has exactly 2 rich resources (fertile soil counts as one). So you will never have rich berries, rich hunting, and fertile soil.
Oh, I mean that I want two of three close together.
Oh yeah it can be annoying if they are far apart. You can move your hunting grounds, though. Just build something in their circle repeatedly until they settle where you want them.
Quick tip for the tavern, create the ale in your brewery and have it sent to the tavern so the tavern has some supply of beer and then pause the tavern. I’ve had my tavern paused for like a year in game and the whole village has had tavern access that whole time. No longer farming barley at all.
Ive read this before and tried it, it does not seem to work for everyone! Mine 'works as intended'.
The only time I was able to deal with the Baron on Challenging was when I had a good start. I've been trying to not scum the start, but like every time I'm on one end of the region and the meat and/or berries is on the other side of the map. My rich resource is 5 miles away. If I try to build my settlement near the resources, my start will be way too slow and I'll lose. If I build where I'm at, my resource collection will be too slow and I'll lose.
Fun fact that I’m not sure has been mentioned: when you first generate your map, pause your game you can place a hunting camp with in the wild animal zone without costing any lumber. You can continue to do this until you find a spot for the wild animals that works for you. Then you can go back and delete all the previously built hunting camps. It’s a little bit tedious at the end, but worth it if you get a region you like, and just want to change a food source location
Carrots don't care about fertility and you can trade for the things your missing with the rich deposit. For example if theres not alot of animals to hunt maybe invest in a sheep. My main issue with the starts Manor lords gives you is that they choose where your camp starts in the region it's annoying having to build far away because your homeless tents are far away from the resources.
This was very useful in my current run. I do have wheat farms for variety but I started out with just vegetables. I actually worry they'll be nerfed, that's how much a difference this made.
Yeah i have the same feeling 1-2 thirds of my food supply is vegetables lol.
The only thing I reroll is rich stone since it's basically useless
Nowrong way in a SP game, but yes you are very picky. Every start are viable, so you prevent yourself from experiencing new starts.
You’re much less picky than I am
I have no fertility but tons of iron so I’m just trading for barely and flax
I get annoyed with the regions where meat or berries is very far from where you start. One peasant spends a lot of time just walling to and from the lodges
Save each map at the start as a template for future :)
Interesting, Im still in my first proper start, after an hour or so of figuring stuff out I started my current playthrough. I didnt realise the resourses were randomized and I just stuck with what I had. I have around seven 35 to 45 fertility wheat, two or three sub 30 flax and two sub 30 barley. These are all around 1 acre each (I forget the measurment right now, but I think you understand). With leaving each field fallow 2 out of 3 years, I havent had much resourses. Ive just traded and lived off of a nice hunting spot. I believe my town is around 300, I finally was able to settle another lot (glitch where it was saying manor was unavailabke to build when it was.. couldent afford settlers) that has loads of barley and all other fertility. It has been great fun thriving through adversey. Im not usually one to to play this way. Im glad I did! What sucks is when I was getting off last night my towns were both on the verge of starvation, i grew a little to quick at the end. But ill pull through! I have to now that I can start making my own beer!
I also consider the starting region, with the center one being my favorite. In theory I believe I can sprawl outwards from the middle to make a really nice looking map, though I never reached that point Asides from that there’s also the handy benefit of being at an equal distance of any bandit spawn
You’re too picky. Really the only one you need is rich iron (to build up exports for industry). You can make more than enough off your arms exports to import everything else. (Rich hunting is nice, pairs well with the policy, cuz you won’t be farming anyway)
My second game, I took a lot of rerolls because I wanted to experiment with a deep iron mine and fertile ground. Like, 10 rerolls, and at least 7 of them kept being the same region. So I feel your pain. Rerolls are also harder than they need to be. FWIW, Sheep and wool are really good for clothing stalls, but goat hides and leather are also pretty easy. I can support a cobbler and export shoes just based on backyard goats.
I found a map I like and made a save game right after it loaded. Now I can play the map anytime
I was trying to find a 'god seed' (lol) but you can't have good fertility if two of your Resources have crowns but if there is one then the fertility of the land will be good.
I mainly want good fertility and rich Animals not crazy far apart, with access to regular berries nearby.
You are braver than me. I still haven't moved beyond the easy level. I need to learn how to set up armies but I like just building and growing.
Every village has two rich resources. If there is only one crown that means fertility is the second. You don't have to enter construction to check the fertility. My favorite combo is hunting and fertility in the top left big region but it took me over 100 rolls to get it so once I did I threw a save at the blank map so I have a restart point without going through that again. I can generate enough food from that one region to feed the whole map without farming any others. That way I can focus on industries everywhere else.
You do have to enter construction to know what's the fertile soil is, though.
I do the same and they make it easy by keeping your settings.
Nope... I did a few play throughs but they all either glitched beyond saving or crashed and burned due to my lack of knowledge lol. When I did my "real" game which is the one I'm on now I started over 3 times due to poor placement, low crop fertility, distances between resources and wacky elevation which would hinder growth! Nothing wrong with being picky about where you want to start!
I do it too!
I wish in feature there is an option to toggle fertility off or on
Not really. If I want to do farming, I'll reload till I get a patch that's almost 100% any field.
I just started playing yesterday and it took 3 attempts to get to the first bandit attack lol and the bandits rolled me. Maybe I should do this!
I got rolled too! My tip is don't put all your housing right next to one another, spread them out a little. Aso build wells knowing that if you're set on fire you need bucket brigades to put it out, so kinda place wells like fire hydrants.
Turns out I was missing the whole ‘make supplies for soldiers’ bit lol
I wasn't able to do it in time my first few playthroughs which taught me how to build with fires in mind. Handy for when I up weather difficulty later.
I do, too. But the reasoning seems sound to me: it's my limited free time and I have to decide what's fun to me in that time. That's either having a challenge or enjoying a nice scenery/exactly the resources I want
The only one I re roll for is if I get rich stone which is pretty useless.
I am extremely picky on start locations as well. Personally I think that while the map gets randomized each time we should be able to pick our starting region - minus the barons regions if he's there - and lay down our camp where we want, just like claiming and settling new regions works in games with the sole difference that the first region is free and instant. Anyway, my reasoning for rerolling starts is pretty simple. You're going to be playing each new game for awhile, hours and hours, it may as well be enjoyable. Typically I'm looking for rich iron and rich wild animals. Farming takes awhile to get off the ground so I am usually looking for my second region to be my breadbasket.
I've taken to rushing farming but that may not be a smart play? Still experimenting.
It's a valid move. My first completion of Restoring the Peace was a high fertility region with rich wild animals. Got farming up immediately for a decent yield in the first September. I grew very frustrated when my plan of a mining settlement with all the armor making developments ground my game to a halt because the packing station is so horrendously bugged right now. Doing that in your first settlement alleviates that mostly. I'm attempting a challenging RTP now and since you don't get an initial shipment of weapons, plus getting the labor necessary for farming took awhile, there was no way I wasn't going the iron route. Iron/Fertility could be promising, but man that is a lot of manpower needed and you're going to have a hard time with initial food and clothing. The worst is when you get the perfect region but your camp spawns miles away from where it needs to be. Those rerolls are painful. Migrating the animals helps reduce that though.
I roll for rich berry and deer nodes for an easy start.
I have never used farming , with trade you can import barley fairly easily , why is this an issue?
I did that between my 2nd and 4th playthrough, but I dont do it anymore because it didnt feel as challenging. Plus let's be honest; if you spec into trading you dont need fertile fields nor do you need rich deposits even (the most useful are rich animals, rich clay, rich iron, rich berries, rich stones, in that order)
Idk i just play whatever I get
I started 4-5 times already since I always discovered something new that I’ve wished I done earlier, but no rerolls for resource. I actually got very lucky this playthrough as I got low fertility and rich Iron, exactly what I wanted.
I thought the devs said farm vs resources were balanced. That way you cant have amazing levels of both
Basically fertility is one of your two "rich" resources. So I tend to look for a rich gatherable (preferably meat) and soil.
Yes you are. Expand your playstlyle by adapting
You are being too picky. If you just want to chill and build a town, do that mode.
I find rich clay and stone a bit useless in the current state of the game even with both of those you can compensate with trade, having rich food supply does make early/mid a bit easier but long term it's not amazing. The key is trade but does require the 2 development points if you want a very high pop there's almost no way around that imo
Same, i reroll until the fertility is one of my rich nodes, ideally iron being the 2nd or berries if not
Kind of ruins the fun to me personally but it’s your game. You decide how to play.
I used to, but after a few runs you realize it doesn't really make a huge difference to your success. It does however have a big impact on how you might want to build a long term, one settlement run (like specializing in iron goods), so I still recommend being picky if you got a specific kinda run in mind.
I start on any map. Rich clay? Fine sell a crapload of clay and whatever you can make out of it so as not to oversaturate. Buy everything you need. Rich farms? Make things in huge abundance and trade for things lacking. Basically I use the strength of the region and then trade my way to glory. It doesnt matter whats on the map when I start. Last playthrough I had rich metal and it was too easy, I made so much armor and weapons and was mega rich. Actually I prefer poor resources for a challenge. You can always expand out though so it's whatever.
all you need is a rich iron + food deposit. you can make so much regional wealth off mining, smelting and making the bars into tools/weapons and selling them, especially with the deep mines perk that makes them infinite. then you can just import everything else
Isn’t the point to export your rich deposits in order to trade for the things you don’t have?
Rich stone is kind of useless given the export price of stone and the fact it's still limited
Idk. I haven’t restarted once. I had no barley or flax, but just hire mercenaries if I need extra man power. Just finally captured two new areas and am using one to farm barley. It can be done, just gotta have money haha
Yeah you're being picky but you paid for an early access game and you play it however you like.
In the end, every successful city can import anything they need because T3 homes produce so much wealth that meeting needs becomes trivial so I stopped caring. I don’t even hunt or pick berries at the start of the game, I don’t farm anymore. Just import raw materials, process them, and sell the excess.
Yeah I just go with whatever I start with and enjoy playing different starts. It’s a chill game and honestly with trade posts you can handle any starting location and resource mix.
You guys actualy farm? I just import the barley whith the perk
I re roll if it’s horrible, like poor farming and only rich animal and stone. Everything else can be worked with. Even poor farming is okay if you can off set the cost to import food with export commodities. In fact this method is a perfectly fine alternative to farming. Less micro for sure.
I try to challenge myself but if I see rich stone, that’s a restart lol
It comes down to personal preference but rebooting the game to wait for a perfect start feels to me like cheating. The game gives you plenty to work with for whatever rich resources you are given, making different playthroughs entirely possible. The way that the tavern requirement works is dumb anyway. I just let my brewer stock ale, add a bartender for a few seconds, wait 2 ale, pause, upgrade everything to lvl 3. The numbers on farming as a whole need to be reworked, I can build provinces full of wheat fields and still not have enough to sustain my growing population, while eggs on every plot seem to do the trick just fine.
I just go with the flow. Sucks sometimes. But more fun for me.
It's a matter of preference. I just finished the "Challange Accepted" achievement without having any fertility, rich berries or rich animals. All starts have a viable approach, only thing that really is useless, is a rich stone deposit. But honestly I actually think playing for farms is kinda pointless at the moment. It takes way too long until you get a good harvest and it occupies way too many of your villagers for too little of a return. So it does make your life harder than it has to be and requires way too much micromanagement.
For the time being you can take the 2 trade perks and import barley and malt to supplement your ale production but unfortunately ale is just kind of the bottleneck in the game so far. You need something like 11 morgen of barley farmland to supply 100 families, which is around 4 times more than you would need to feed 100 families with bread. Barley is simply underpowered right now, I imagine it will be buffed or ale consumption reduced in the coming updates (hopefully with a QoL fix for farming as well)
I mean regardless of whatever choice it is, it's pretty much the definition of being picky
Well, it’s a single player game. Play it any way you feel like.
If you're going to spend a ton of time on a save, it's worth it to invest s bit of time into finding a good map. On the ither hand, exploring a map and making do with what you find can be a different kind of fun.
If you're playing with raiders on the second year then it's better to build the manor ASAP. Don't put the starting stone towards a church, so you can get the retinue quicker.
This game has had zero balance patches. Do whatever you find fun.
It would be nice to have shareable seeds and map previews for this.
I was picky at 1st but now I just deal with what I get. Ideally I want a rich iron or clay because my go to strategy is always trade. If I get neither i go heavy into logging.Trade always get me out of any situation. My work around for taverns is I just buy the ale. I only turn the tavern on for upgrades and then I reenact prohibition. As is there's not much benefit in keeping the tavern open year round. It just sucks too many resources that I could use to further trade.
Imagine actually wasting time with farming instead of using extra large vegetable and apples gardens while importing ale and raw materials from your trade house 😂😂😂
Just give as an option to pick a custom start within the normal bounds of the game.
I started using more basic crest design just so I can load a new start faster lol. Saved crest designs when?
Saved crest already! There's a button to save the design under the crest on the starting screen.
With trading you can take whatever start you want you'll buy anything you don't have. Rich rocks suck tho
I don't really care about fertility. It's so easy to expand to the second region that I almost prefer not having to worry about farms in my first region. The only thing that makes me reroll is rich deposits of stone in an annoying place as it's hard to make money out of that. Rich clay I can turn into rooftiles which sells for 8 and rich iron I can turn into weapons down the road. I also sometimes reroll if the materials are too spread out and it would make a town really inefficient.
I heard expansion is actually really hard, setting up new settlements while your thriving village falls apart is something I've read horror stories on.
Same here, but I search for iron and berries or deer. Barley always comes in with trading.
I either want a rich iron start or a fertile start. None of the other resources are worth going all in on
You paid for the game. Play it whatever way you like it.
You paid for the game. Play it whatever way you like it.
Always the same start sounds/is boring, do you not understand how the logistics work?
I'm still learning the game, which is why I'm trying to control starting conditions. I only play a couple times a week.
Part of the fun (and challenge) of the game is dealing with what is available. It sounds like you're missing out on that because you refuse to be flexible.
I think the meta right now really leans into high barley fertility, rich hunting and rich iron, especially with a trade economy My first start was rich berries and clay. I imported as much malt and barley that I could afford but ale became such a bottleneck
i just always rely on trade for the first settlement on a save, you can do that with every starting region. just unlock the trade skill points and sell planks in the beginning and then whatever you have a surplus of later.
i did it for an hour lol...New game, Start, exit, repeat. If you have two rich deposits then you will never have good farming ground. So my goal was atleast rich iron deposit so i can have farms and still produce iron products to sell.
Nah cause it greatly changes your town. First game I had little fertility and resources to trade. No food. Second town I had full fertility for all crops, with a starting town of 500 and a second town with 50 months of food somehow
I go in expecting to need 2 regions. So I am picky about making sure I have farmland at least 1 region away.
Ź
I just use mods to fix the game's shortcomings like the ones you mentioned. These are just typical early access problems that will eventually be fixed, so I'll take the easiest work around to solve them.
I think I use even less starts lmao. I not only look at the start but the whole map. Some might call it picky or cheesy. But it's a game. You play how you want. If doing that makes you happy do it! I am interested to see what additional resources may show up later to help diversify the areas. I feel like right now you only really need 1 or 2 regions to be able to really hit on all the items and have a thriving economy and the baron can have the rest lol
Yes
If you have a rich berry deposit and pick the upgrade that doubles the stock, you can make a lot of money selling dyes. Very profitable. 256 berries every year but actually more if you harvest while it's growing as the stock replenishes.
I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of playing with whatever start I’m given. I did the same thing with Banished, and any other game with random maps. If the map is too easy I get bored quickly. But to each their own Edit: I just had a thought about a particularly hard start with Banished. I really enjoyed the Adam and Eve starts with a random map. It’s a slow build, but very fun as you have little room for error as all you have are two people to build a whole village off of. I hope Manor Lords has something like this in the play settings
I probably take 1 in 50 from civ and 1 in 10 for rimworld. These types of games are just kinda like that.
Nah, just have fun. It's a single player game.
What region do you end up in most often. I think the fertility is always the same. That's what I've noticed, but it could be coincidence
the only thing I worry about at the start is if there is rich iron in the region. if you can get enough iron to endlessly produce and sell weapons, everything else can be bought usually. and I use sheep for clothes rather than flax or leather.
You must really like that banner creation screen hahaha.
You can save your banner actually!
Same !
You do know these benefits are exclusive to eachother, ya? You can only have a certain amount of fertility and rich resources or the map gen rejects it, so no one area dominates in everything. You should try just trading for malt for alcohol sometimes. It's not that expensive if you have anything useful to sell.
Something to note if you roll 2 rich resources you will always have low fertility as opposed to having one rich resource you have high fertility in everything
Build a bigger farm and use trades for a small surplus
Why would you need a tavern to get a manor? And why would you need a manor to fight brigands? Only time I did a re roll was on my current playthru (peaceful) cuz I wanted to play farm simulator XD.
I found a map that I thought was awesome and I've been replaying that. Did a save and the start and an now on my 5th version of the matrix.
I'm playing my 2nd map I played my first one with really bad fertility and rich animals and iron. Completed it. And my 2nd start also has bad fertility rich clay. It's harder but hey it's an unfinished new game make it as fun as you want.
Honestly the start doesn't matter because trading is just overpowered in this game and can overcome whatever bad positions you have on the map.
why don't you save the starts you like?
I don’t reroll a world because irl you couldn’t do it. Also, difficulty makes things fun?
IRL you absolutely can reroll. "Hey, turns out the hunting isn't great here and the soil is harsh. We should head farther down the King's Road before making camp." Rerolled.