Manor Lords

This isn't as terrible as it may seem.

To begin

Select the "Restoring the Peace" scenario and the "Challenging" preset.

It is recommended to now start "rolling" worlds for an ideal starting position, as each new game will have differing recourse richness. We are searching for a rich iron deposit and green fertility for farming as the iron will be useful for trade and arming your militia, while green fertility offers higher farming yields which will assist with growing population hunger.

Plan your settlement carefully. In challenging mode, citizens have high demands and low approval can lead to them abandoning your village or turning to banditry.

These requirements are separated into two categories:

Amenities and Market Supply

Here's what you'll need for each level of burgage:

Level 1 Burgages:

*Water Access (a well)
*A Wooden Church
*A Fuel Stall Supply (woodcutter)
*A Food Stall Supply (at least two types of food)
*A Clothing Stall Supply (one type)

Level 2 Burgages:

*Water Access (a well)
*Tavern Supply (a tavern and ale are needed)
*A Small Stone Church
*A Fuel Stall Supply (woodcutter)
*A Food Stall Supply (at least three types of food)
*A Clothing Stall Supply (two types)

Level 3 Burgages:

*Water Access (a well)
*Tavern Supply (a tavern and ale needed)
*A Small Stone Church
*A Fuel Stall Supply (woodcutter)
*A Food Stall Supply (at least four types of food)
*A Clothing Stall Supply (two types)

This guide will now cover strategies for the early game, mid game and endgame.

Early Game:

Initially you can forego building homes or woodcutters as the primary negative approval is attributed to homelessness. First, construct a granary and storehouse to protect resources from weather damage. Then set up a logging camp, hunting camp, and forager hut. Design a central marketplace with a square road around the parameter (it should be able to support at least five burgages on each side) and start building homes once approval drops near 35%. Preferably a church should be built before them to manage approval better, however sometimes it drops too quickly.

Continue expanding by constructing essential production facilities like, a wood cutter, a stone cutter camp, a mining pit for iron and clay, a trading post, and a bloomery.

After establishing five burgage plots, invest a development point into basic armor making to equip your militia with better armor in the future.

Build a Manor

Establish trade routes and start selling items. Make sure to use this income for burgage plot backyard extensions (preferably carrots). Start importing polearms for your militia if you have the funds (this is important as bandits will attempt to steal supplies or raid your village).

Finally, start taxing your citizens (5% is fine, change depending on approval) and having a tithe active if there is excess food for influence (this is used to claim other zones).

Mid Game:

Develop your agriculture by building a farm and fields for barley and wheat while ensuring crop rotation to maintain soil fertility. Build a tavern, a malt house, a windmill, a communal oven, a garrison tower (from your manor for more retinue), and upgrade the wooden church to stone to meet increasing citizen demands.

Now you can start upgrading burgage plots to level two, ensuring all new requirements are met, such as establishing a blacksmith's workshop to halt imports for weapons, a brewery extension for ale production, an armorer's workshop for retinue upgrades (eventually), and a cobbler's shop for the new clothing supply requirement.

(note that upgrading to level two will lock families from performing other tasks)

Spend your second point on master armormaking for retinue upgrades.

Prepare for territorial conflicts with the Baron. At this point you'll have noticed that he has most likely taken over a large portion of the map. According to the developer this should be slowed in a future update. Should there no longer be any which are uncontrolled, he'll attempt to claim your territory which will prompt a battle.

You can hire mercenaries even if your funds are low, as long as you can afford the most expensive one you can also purchase the others, although this will cause your treasury to become negative. To negate this, defeat the Baron and accept his peace after the victory message as he will still compensate you for "relinquishing" your claim. Maintain your treasury at around 95 silver for flexibility in hiring mercenaries spontaneously while using excess to hire or upgrade retinue. If the Baron attacks, reload an earlier save to hire mercenaries before he can, ensuring they're unavailable to him. Position mercenaries on the front lines with militia and retinue flaking to minimize your own losses (we do not care about mercenary lives around here).

After defeating him and a few bandits you'll have enough influence to claim additional zones, either for 1000 influence if it is unoccupied, or 2000 if it is controlled by the Baron. For occupied zones you'll have to fight (use the above method). After winning, or claiming an unclaimed province you'll be able start your second village at a cost of 250 from your treasury (this can differ if you want to start out with more supplies, however it is unnecessary when money should be used on retinue).

Apply the early game strategies while specializing in different trade goods to avoid market saturation (I exported clay and tiles from my second village)

Create a pack station if needed for the transportation of goods between villages.

For your first village, start acquiring level three burgages for another development point. This can be spent freely, however I chose the heavy plow to assist with growing food consumption.

Endgame:

Once you reach this portion you should have a multiple regions captured and at least four villages. One of them should be made for the sole purpose of creating bread, as it is one of the fastest ways to gain influence from using high tithe percentages.

Additionally, you should have the max retinue possible in at least three of the villages along with as many militia as possible, and all the mercenaries you can hire.

Now start claiming any remaining controlled regions.

The last region can prove to be difficult as the Baron will send double his typical troop count. Prepare your retinue, militia, and mercenaries and defeat him on the field of battle, doing so will unlock the achievement!

Misc.

If anyone has additional information, or a suggestion for something I missed please leave a comment for others.

Happy Hunting!

For version 0.8.005, you can exploit the enemy AI and battle win conditions. Works well when the Baron has all other mercenary groups.

Regardless of how you are set up with your regions, you will want at least 1 set of retinue, and 1-2 other men-at-arms for your army. You will need to have 3 months of gold to hire the The Wayward Sons (double archer mercenaries).

Step 1: Hire the specific mercenaries, change them to spread layout and put them right by the edge of the map for the region you are attempting to gain. Spread them out a little bit so they are at least 2-3 log cutting camps apart.

Step 2: Move your actual army to the battlezone. This will tend to be towards the inner part of the map.

Step 3: Save your game here in case you need to revert.

Step 4: Claim territory and wait for the Baron to counter. Once you know where the battleground is and where his troops are, you can reload the save, move your troops as necessary and then resave.

Step 5: This part will take some luck and patience. Reload as necessary. You will use the mercenaries to lure the Baron's troops away from the battlefield toward any other part of the map. Sometimes the AI will be wonky and one of the groups will break off and go towards battlezone alone. This group will then start the actual battle. From my understanding currently, the criteria to win the battle is to defeat all enemies "who started the battle". So with your army, you have to just defeat one group while leading the others away. Once defeated, you win the battle and the region.

This is a guide with tips, not a walkthrough.
Patch 0.7.975

You should not follow this from point 1 onwards. I am only numbering it to make it look better.
Instead read all of the notes and play with them in mind.

Save before every big event and create different save files. You don't want to start over if something goes wrong.

I completed the 4 following achievements in one match:
Defeat Hildebolt
Challenge accepted
Mercenary Captain
Restore the Peace

Settings:
Restoring the Peace. Challenging Preset
(Nothing else. The King's tax is really not that bad and it only starts at the end of year 5)


Tips:
1. Roll the map until you get at least one rich berry and one rich iron
- To roll a map, start a game and check what resources you have in your starting region. If it is not one of the two above, quit without saving and try again.
- Note that two rich recourse nodes means that you'll have horrible field fertility. But it is ok. Late game I still farmed
- There are two upgrade points you can get to double your rich berries and make your iron infinite

2. Prepare for happiness and economy before you upgrade/expand.
- Start off with building the following first:
Granary and Storehouse (You need to get your resources safe before it rains)
Logging camp, Hunting camp, Foragers hut, Tannery, Woodcutter's lodge, a well and a Church.
If you can, start with planks as well at the Sawmill.
Move your first 5 families between jobs.
- Lv1 Burgage plots require: (2xFood, 1xFuel, 1xClothing and a Church)
- Once you have the basic needs met, go ahead and start building houses. With basic needs covered, you'll get new people soon.
- Don't wait too long, homeless is still an issue and you cannot upgrade the tent anymore.

3. Make use of Dual Burgage plots where you can.
- I found that it does not matter in building costs. It still costs the same down the line, but the usage is based on one family instead of two. This helps a lot in making sure that fuel, food and clothing goes a long way.

4. Don't set all of your burgage plots to veggies.
- Eggs will play a crucial role in maintaining the food variety (but you'll probably need 10+ plots set to chicken to really see it)
- Goat hides will help you with that leather as well.
- Veggies are still very good for food, they take a while but becomes a main supply later on.
- Just don't forget about the other two as well. I am glad I didn't

5. Only upgrade to L2 Burgage plots if you really need to
- Lv2 Burgage plots require: (3xFood, 1xFuel, 2xClothing, a Lv2 Church and a Tavern)
You'll need to collect barley (either trading or farming), send them to the malt house to get malt and then have a Lv2 Burgage plot to brew
- Out of 55+ plots, only 9 of mine were Lv2 by the end of the game
Brewery, Cobbler, 3x Blacksmith, 2x Joiner, Tailor and a Bowyer

6. Start trading as soon as you can.
- Trade anything you can. Any excess resource.
- Wait before you start buying trade routes, make sure you'll be able to get the best out of that route because buying it increases the price of the rest.
- Start mining Iron Ore, smelt it with the Bloomery and start trading from the Trading post.
My biggest Lv1 sellers were Berries, Iron Slabs, Hides and Planks
My biggest Lv2 sellers were Tools and anything military that my Lv2 Burgage plots could make
- I set my storage to not accept any military items OR shoes. This way it goes straight to the families, and anything extra goes to the Trading post. This prevents them from wasting resources by creating too much if it is not consumed or sold quickly enough (Like those freaking shoes!)

**7. What to do if the Barron starts to take over land
- Request a battle (even if you have nothing)
- Wait for his troops to enter the map.
- Scroll out and start a dialog with him.
- Select the option that you would "make it worth his while" if he revoked his claim.
- This cost nothing (yet), and I used it multiple times to keep him at bay and prevent him from expanding
- Do not request payment from him unless he offers it. If he doesn't offer it and you request it, he'll get the region, and you'll get nothing.....

8. Purchase Mercenaries within year 1 (if this is an achievement you're also going for)
- You need at least 5 groups of infantry.
Buying them early will make sure that the Barron cannot get them.
If you wait too long, he'll get and keep them all.
- If your taxing and trading cannot fully support it yet, aim to target bandit camps before he gets them.

9. Going to war with 5 vs 24 groups.
- When going to battle, there is a battleground and what I experienced is that you don't have to defeat all of his troops to win. You just need to have someone on that battlefield and make sure his troops do not reach it within the 90 days of battle
- What I did was have at least 3 troops in the circle and use the other 2 to have his army follow me around the map
- This takes practice, because you need to pull them in and don't go too far or they'll leave you and head for the battlefield.
- The reason why you would still want a small army in that circle and not just 1 group is because you can get raided during a war. The raiders will go straight to the nearest army, and you really do not want to lose that hold.

10. Getting the "Defeat Hildebolt" achievement last
- I had a save just before the final battle. I reloaded that save. Removed all of the military items from trading to build up stock.
- Waited for Hildebolt to claim a region
- Took it back from him with a full army (merc + locals)

11. Influence and Treasury
- Defeating raiders and bandits helps you scope up big on this.
** - If the Barron makes you an offer for silver because he does not want to fight, you can accept it. He doesn't get to keep the land, and you get the silver
- As long as you trade off anything extra, keep your tax at 5%/10%, and try to avoid imports, you will be well on your way.

**This guide makes use of exploits in Patch 0.7.975 (If your version is newer than this, this might not work. But you can still give it a try)