When building your development strategy in Manor Lords, it’s easy to get misled by perk descriptions that are outdated, unclear, or downright incorrect. This guide cuts through the noise and gives you a realistic look at how each perk actually functions — including what’s broken, what’s inefficient, and what’s genuinely powerful.
Let’s break down each perk based on current in-game behavior.
Crop & Farming Perks
Orchardry
- Takes 3–4 years (calendar-based) for orchards to become productive.
- Apple yield starts at 1 per 2 trees and maxes at 3 per 2 trees once matured.
- Only harvested in September — usually done by family members with “prioritized labor” like wives and sons.
Rye
- Not affected by the fertility penalty wheat suffers from, but it does degrade fertility like wheat.
- Yields are roughly 50% higher than wheat at full fertility — meaning it’s a more forgiving and more productive crop across the board.
- Performs especially well even in poor soil.
Irrigation
- Accurately described in-game.
- Droughts are random and sometimes extremely rare, depending on settings.
Fertilization
- Technically works, but becomes redundant if you rotate crops. Alternate crops count as fallow, allowing natural soil recovery.
- Sheep may speed up fallow recovery, but the bonus is currently negligible or undocumented.
Ploughing
- Meant for large fields, but its main benefit is manpower savings.
- Works best on long, narrow “strip” fields rather than massive squares.
Livestock & Hunting Perks
Sheep
- Enables full sheep reproduction cycle.
- 145-day gestation, with 1–2 lambs per 10–11 days.
- With a herd over 26 sheep, you can yield up to 66 lambs yearly — very efficient for meat and wool.
Trapping
- Produces around 5 meat every 6 months per trapping camp.
- Extremely low efficiency — not worth the investment for sustained food production.
Skinning
- Doubles meat yield from slaughtering deer, sheep, pigs, and goats.
- Does not apply to Trapping — a common misconception.
Pelts
- Currently non-functional. Avoid entirely.
Fishing
- Accurately described and nearly doubles your fish haul if properly configured.
- Efficient for early food diversity and exports.
Food Processing Perks
Bakery
- Misunderstood by many. Here’s how it actually works:
- Bread is created at a 1:2 ratio from flour using communal ovens.
- Using a bakery building, the perk increases efficiency to a 1:4 ratio, doubling your bread from the same flour input.
Forestry & Apiary Perks
Forest Management
- Misunderstood due to how berry collection works.
- Capacity doesn’t reduce berry yield, only how many can sit there waiting.
- Just use multiple Forager Huts (1 family each) and collect fast — this perk becomes unnecessary.
Beekeeping
- No hard cap on how many apiaries you can build.
- Max of 2 honeycombs per day per apiary in a well-managed setup.
- If combs or honey aren’t collected, no new honey is produced.
- Potential output: up to 730 honey per year if optimized.
Advanced Beekeeping
- Wax caps out at 2 in storage. If not cleared, the entire apiary halts.
- This bottleneck can destroy honey production — risky unless you stay on top of logistics.
- Needs more testing for confirmation.
Mining, Trade & Industry Perks
Coal
- Produces more fuel than woodcutters since 0.8.017 thanks to batch efficiency.
- Labor-intensive, but the cost-benefit tilts in your favor over time.
- Highly valuable for export due to market prices — but inefficient for import.
Deep Mine
- Works as expected.
- Can still be placed even after a rich deposit runs dry.
Armour Making Tree
- Mostly functions correctly.
- Currently, mail armor is not required for Retainer promotions — making the perk less important.
- Importing armor is easier and cheaper than full industry setup.
- Exporting armor is inefficient — better to sell raw materials like iron slabs and parts.
Trade Perks
Trade Logistics
- Cuts the cost of creating new trade routes in half.
- Costs still scale up with each new route, so it’s only useful in the early game or if you rely heavily on trade.
Better Deals
- Reduces flat import tariffs from +10 to +5 silver.
- Excellent when bulk-importing cheap goods.
- Export profits often outscale this perk, making it skippable unless you’re importing in volume.
Foreign Suppliers
- Perk functions as intended, but it’s a trap for new players.
- It can drain your treasury instead of solving shortages.
- A better design would give you a trickle of the good for free — not currently worth it unless you’re desperate.
Bonus Perk Info: Post Scriptum
Hunting Grounds (Policy Perk)
- Applies to both regular and rich deer spawns.
- Massively improves deer reproduction rate, especially on regular deposits:
- +375% increase on regular: 1 deer every 4 days (was every 19)
- +133% increase on rich: 1 deer every 3 days (was every 7)
- With the Skinning perk, you can reach:
- ~365 meat/year from regular spawns
- ~487 meat/year from rich spawns
- But: crop yields nearby are cut much more than the tooltip suggests. Don’t rely on tooltip math here — the penalty is significant.
Recommended Perks (by performance, not flavor)
- Rye – Efficient, high-yield crop for nearly every region
- Ploughing – Major manpower saver for long fields
- Sheep – Strong economy & production loop
- Bakery – Doubles food output per flour in dedicated bakeries
- Fishing – Reliable food boost, early and late game
- Beekeeping – Great honey output if managed well
- Coal – Efficient for both fuel and exports
- Skinning – Excellent synergy with Hunting Grounds
- Trade Logistics – Situational, but helpful in early game expansion
- Better Deals – Only useful if importing cheap goods in bulk
Most perks in Manor Lords suffer from unclear wording or outdated mechanics. Some are broken, while others are simply not worth the development point cost. Focus on perks that enhance production efficiency or offer long-term economy scaling. And always double-check whether a perk’s real behavior aligns with what the tooltip claims.