Okay, so, I’ve been messing around with this game called “Manor Lords” lately, and let me tell you, figuring out how to lay out your town is a real head-scratcher at first. But I think I’ve finally cracked the code, at least for my playstyle, and I wanted to share my process with y’all.
First off, I started by just plopping things down willy-nilly. You know, a house here, a farm there. That was a hot mess. Nothing was efficient, and my villagers were walking all over the place to get things done. Total chaos. I restarted a few times, just to experiment with different layouts. Learned that lesson the hard way. I needed a better plan.
Then it hit me – I needed to think about zones. Kinda like those city-building games, but with a medieval twist. So, I started with the area around the starting place. That’s where I put my storehouse and granary, the really crucial stuff. I figured, keep the important things close, right? Then I created a square around this for all my industry. It just made sense to me to group those things together and make it easy for people to move stuff to storage. I tried out a few different shapes and sizes for the square, and a medium size seemed to work best.
- Central Hub: Storehouse, granary, and industry buildings, all clustered together.
Next, I thought about where to put the markets. I ended up putting them in the corners of my industrial square. That way, they were easily accessible but not clogging up the main area. This took some trial and error, had to move them around a bit to get it just right. I watched where my villagers were going and tried to optimize the flow of traffic.
- Market Corners: Markets in the corners of the square, easy to reach, but out of the way.
After that, I extended out from the square with long vegetable farms. I mean, everyone needs to eat, so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of space for food production. I put these on two sides of my square, leaving room for expansion later. It took a few tries to get the size of the farms right, but eventually, I found a good balance. I also experimented with different crops and rotations to see what worked best.
- Food Production: Long vegetable farms on two sides of the square, plenty of space for food.
On another side, I put rows of short houses for my artisans. Kept them close to the industrial area so they could get their materials easily. It was like building a little suburb for my craftsmen. I made sure they were all facing the street and had enough space in the back for a small garden. This also required a few layouts, too short and they couldn’t be expanded, too long and they just wasted space.
- Artisan Housing: Rows of short houses for artisans, close to the industry, but with their own space.
Finally, on the last side, I put the church and the tavern. You gotta have somewhere for your villagers to relax and, you know, pray and stuff. This was more about aesthetics than anything else, but it felt right to have them together. I imagined my villagers going from church straight to the tavern for a pint.
- Community Center: Church and tavern together, because everyone needs a place to unwind.
The Manor
The manor itself, I put that in a separate, scenic location. No forests right next to it, I cleared those out. I wanted it to be on a hill so I could overlook my whole town and the main roads. Felt very kingly, I must say. I spent a good amount of time finding the perfect spot, walking around the map and visualizing the view.
It took a lot of trial and error, a lot of restarting, and a lot of tweaking, but I’m pretty happy with how my town turned out. It’s not perfect, but it’s functional, and it’s actually kinda pretty, in a medieval, rustic sort of way. Hope this helps some of you folks out there who are also scratching your heads over this game! It’s a fun challenge, though, right? Let me know what you think, and what kind of layouts you’ve come up with. Happy building!