Manor Lords Population
Screenshot via Slavic Magic

How to Increase Population in Manor Lords

Expand your settlement with even more families.

The success of your settlement in Manor Lords depends entirely on how many citizens you’re able to attract. The more citizens and families that move in, the more production and resources you can acquire. However, at the start of the game, you’ll only have a few families move in. So, how can you grow your population?

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Getting a Higher Population in Manor Lords

Viewing your current population. Screenshot by The Escapist

Fortunately, growing your settlement’s population is primarily done through natural means. While there are specific actions you can take to grow your population faster, as long as you’re keeping up with what your citizens want, you will see more and more families call your city home.

Below, you can see a few key ways that the population grows in Manor Lords:

Approval Rating

The best way to naturally grow your population is to keep your Approval Rating high. Anything above 50% Approval means a new family will join your settlement once per month. However, if you can raise your Approval to over 75%, then even more families will show up throughout the month.

You can see your Approval Rating currently by looking at the “Thumbs Up” icon on the hot bar at the top of the screen. I also suggest checking out our previous guide on raising Approval and how it works in Manor Lords.

Expanding the Settlement

Your settlement grows as more families arrive. Screenshot via Slavic Magic

As your Approval and population go up, you need to ensure you’re maintaining your settlement to accommodate extra citizens. This means building and upgrading residential areas, expanding market stalls, and constructing different resource stations. Of course, you also want to make sure you have enough room for all of these areas, which means fleshing out the roads and expanding your territory.

Essentially, you simply want to build everything possible as you progress in Manor Lords. You can go through the “Construction” tab and view all of the buildable structures, most of which are needed for your settlement at some point. You also want to keep an eye on upgrading your existing buildings, especially the Burgage Plots. Families don’t want to live in the same house forever, so upgrading their living situation goes a long way to improving Approval and attracting new citizens.

Reduce Negative Factors

Finally, your population growth can be easily stunted if there are ongoing negative aspects of your settlement. These aspects include crime, high taxes, wars or natural disasters, and a lack of amenities.

Starting with crime, if you don’t effectively develop safety measures in Manor Lords, some citizens can commit crimes against others in the settlement. This can also happen if your Approval Rating falls below 50%. Crime and a lack of safety are major reasons why your population stops growing or starts decreasing.

You also want to keep taxes at a regular rate, ensure you recover quickly from any major events, and build every available amenity possible. These amenities include healthcare, markets, event locations, and resource stations.

You’ll start to fully understand what your community needs as you progress through Manor Lords. Sometimes, you’ll even see written feedback from the families, so as long as you’re following what they want, your population should skyrocket in a quick amount of time.


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Author
Joey Carr
Joey Carr is a Staff Writer at The Escapist. He has over seven years of experience in the video game industry as a writer, editor, and content manager covering a wide range of genres and titles. Specifically, Joey covers Call of Duty, other multiplayer titles, and new game releases. You can find some of his previous work on Upcomer, Dot Esports, GameSpot, and more gaming sites.