In a game like Manor Lords, you’re only as strong as your weakest soldier, and when you’re a lord trying to expand your settlement, the power of your army dictates just how much land you can get. Nearby territories can fight back, and your villages can get raided at any second. To stay prepared, you need a formidable army. In this guide, I’ll teach you how to make an army and form your militia.
How To Make An Army and Form Militia
If you’ve selected the AI adversaries option, then you’re going to experience battles in Manor Lords. That being said, an understanding of how each army unit works is important to building your militia.
Army Units and Recruitment
To access the recruitment panel, press “V” or select the Army icon on the bottom portion of your screen (the icon that looks like two swords crossing). This will open the active units you can access at any given time.
Units
There are four units you can pick from:
- Footmen
- Uses swords and small shields.
- Spearmen
- Uses spears and large shields .
- Polearms
- Uses polearms.
- Archers
- Uses war bows and arrows.
Militia Weapons
Stated above, each unit will use a different weapon in battle. These weapons come straight from your settlement. You will need artisans to craft equipment for villagers:
- Fletcher’s Workshop – Creates warbows.
- Blacksmith’s Workshop – Creates spears and sidearms (i.e. swords).
- Joiner’s Workshop – Creates wooden parts and shields.
- Armorer’s Workshop – Creates mail and plate armor upon unlocking the prerequisite development/tech.
Recruitment
To recruit units into your army, select a unit type and press the plus (+) icon. The “Form Militia” option will open which allows you to choose specific troop types. A red number above the unit will indicate how many units you have of this type.
Note that these soldiers come from your villages! This means that if you lose battles, you lose villagers. Moreover, your army consists of men, therefore some work processes in the village will take longer when your army is in battle.
Retinue Units
Retinue Units are only available once you build a Manor. The prerequisite for this is a small village, 5x Timber, 20x planks, and 15x stone.
You can add more retinue units by clicking the “Retinue Customization” button. Here, you can change the color of their equipment, upgrade their armor, or change troop types.
More Tips
- You can hire mercenaries to supplement your army’s fighting power. Read more about hiring mercenary units in our guide!
- You can select rally points when selecting units. This tells them where to go on the battlefield.
- When heading to battle, make sure you can afford it by checking your Treasury Resource.
And that’s everything on how to make an army and form your militia! Hopefully, this guide gives you all the information you need to form a formidable army in Manor Lords.
