How to upgrade burgage plots in Manor Lords

Burgage plots are the basic building block of your town in Manor Lords. They’re where your town’s families build houses, they generate income for your treasury, and they’re also how you’ll build a number of important workshops in backyard extensions.

Our Manor Lords burgage plot guide will explain these mixed-use plots of land, from how to set them up through upgrading them — including all the infrastructure you’ll need to build for those upgrades.

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What is a burgage plot in Manor Lords?

The basic unit of Manor Lords’ workforce is the family, and families need a place to live. A burgage plot in Manor Lords is a couple things at once. It’s a place for a family to build a house (or two), but it’s also a place for them to start a side hustle that benefits your town.

Image: Slavic Magic/Hooded Horse via Polygon

When you place a burgage plot, you’ll place four points for a flexible plot. The first two points will set the street-facing side by default (but you can change this after) and then automatically divide the plot into a maximum number of burgage plots. These are usually narrow, and will contain one house.

Once you’ve placed all four points of flexible plot, you’ll get a popup with a couple controls — an arrow to rotate the plot (to change the street-facing side), a hammer to (start to) build the plot, and then plus and minus buttons. Those last two set how many burgage plots your flexible plot gets divided into. Fewer plots means the burgage plots are wider (they take up more road), but it might also add enough room to expand living space — basically add a second, smaller house for a second family — indicated by a house icon with a plus sign on it.

Image: Slavic Magic/Hooded Horse via Polygon

If you make the plot deeper (longer along the side leading back from the road), you’ll add an extension slot — effectively a backyard. This is space for something like a crop, livestock, or a workshop. Only vegetable gardens and (after you spend a development point on it) orchards are affected by the size of the extension — bigger yards equals more space for a garden. The various workshops and even livestock like chickens and goats don’t seem to be affected by the size.

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How to upgrade Burgage Plots to Level 2

Once it’s constructed, you’ll have a burgage plot (Level 1), and a family will start moving in. If you’ve got the Regional Wealth, you can add a vegetable garden, chicken coop, or goat shed. The rest of the extensions have to wait for Level 2.

Image: Slavic Magic/Hooded Horse via Polygon

To upgrade from a burgage plot (Level 1) to a burgage plot (Level 2), you’ll need:

• A well (1 timber) built above underground water
• A wooden church (5 timber, 20 planks, 10 stone) or better
• A supplied fuel stall in a marketplace
• A food stall in a marketplace supplying (at least) two kinds of food
• A supplied clothing stall in a marketplace selling linen, leather, or yarn
• 4 timber for the upgrade itself

There’s a lot of infrastructure that goes into all of that. For timber, you’ll need a logging camp (2 timber). To turn that timber into planks, you’ll need a sawpit (2 timber) that will turn 1 timber into 5 planks. For fuel, you’ll need a woodcutter’s lodge (1 timber). The marketplace where families will set up stalls is, thankfully, free to build.

Meanwhile, you’ll have to feed your families. With a vegetable garden (see above), you’ll get some food, but you’ll need to supplement it with a hunting camp (no construction cost) and a forager hut (1 timber).

For clothing, you don’t actually need to be making full-on clothes. Really, all you need to supply is the ingredients, and the quickest (and cheapest) way to do that is with leather. A hunting camp generates hides while also producing meat for food, so that’s your best option. Backyard goat sheds also generate some hides, but the setup costs 25 Regional Wealth, so it’s better to wait. Once you have a supply of hides, you’ll need a tannery (4 timber) to turn hides into leather that will then sell in the marketplace.

And, to make sure nothing rots or gets ruined by the weather, you’ll need a granary (2 timber, 10 stone) and a storehouse (2 timber).

On top of it all, you’ll need to assign families to each of those tasks (you don’t need to assign a family to the church).

Burgage plot (Level 2) extensions

With a burage plot (Level 2), you’ll unlock some new backyard workshops for things like a blacksmith, brewery, or cobbler. The important thing to note here is that building these extensions converts the family (or families) on that burgage plot into artisans. That means the only thing families living on that Burgage Plot will do is that activity. And that means, for example, even if you pause the work at a Tailor’s Shop, the family won’t become unassigned and available for other jobs. Those families are only every going to be artisans.

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How to upgrade burgage plots to Level 3

Upgrading your burgage plots again gets you some real benefits. Burgage plots (Level 3) get you 2 Regional Wealth per family per month. It also doubles the number of families that plot can support — meaning you’ll get two families for a regular plot or four for a plot with a living space expansion built.

Image: Slavic Magic/Hooded Horse via Polygon

But the upgrade requires even more infrastructure on top of what was already required for Level 2:

• A well
• A tavern (5 timber) supplied with ale
• A small stone church (5 timber, 20 stone, 10 planks, 10 rooftiles), which is an upgrade to the wooden church
• A supplied fuel stall in a marketplace
• A food stall in a marketplace supplying (at least) three kinds of food
• A supplied clothing stall in a marketplace selling leather, linen, or yarn as well as shoes, clothes, or cloaks
• 25 Regional Wealth, 4 timber, 8 planks, and 4 rooftiles for the upgrade itself.

On top of everything you built for the first round of upgrades, you’ll have to have a bit more industry running for this upgrade. You’ll probably need a stonecutter camp (2 timber) near a fieldstone deposit by this point. For the rooftiles, you’ll need a mining pit (1 timber) over a clay deposit and a clay furnace (2 timber, 5 stone).

For the tavern, you’ll need ale. And for that, you’ll need at least one burgage plot (Level 2) with a brewery extension (5 Regional Wealth, 5 planks). That will need to be supplied with malt from a malthouse (4 timber). That, in turn, will need a supply of barley either from a field and farmhouse (3 timber) or from importing it through a trading post. Technically, you can import anything in that supply chain including ale, but that’s really expensive.

To supply shoes, clothes, or cloaks to the marketplace, you’ll need a burgage plot (Level 2) with a tailor’s workshop (5 Regional Wealth, 5 planks) or a cobbler’s workshop (5 Regional Wealth, 5 planks) built in its extension slot.

A tailor’s workshop needs some combination of linen from a weaver workshop (4 timber) supplied with flax from a farm, dyes from a dyer’s workshop (2 timber) supplied with berries from a forager hut, and yarn from a weaver workshop supplied with wool from a sheep farm (1 timber).

The cheaper option is a cobbler’s workshop that only requires leather from a tannery.