I Maxed Out EVERYTHING On Hardest Difficulty - Manor Lords Challenge Run

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Strat Gaming (Heavily Edited, Crazy Challenge Videos) - / @strat-gaming
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Strat Plays (Long Form Let's Plays) - / @stratplays
In this Manor Lords challenge run, I tried to max EVERYTHING - army size, population, number of towns and personal wealth. This was run on the hardest difficulty setting. I hope you enjoy!
0:00:00 - Episode 1
0:29:56 - Episode 2
1:00:20 - Episode 3
1:31:00 - Episode 4
2:01:19 - Episode 5
2:31:39 - Episode 6

[@profailM4rC1HUN]

Manor Lords: *launches on 26th April* Strat Gaming: *I maxed out everything on hardest difficulty by 20th April*

[@BelegCuthali0n]

When you build foresters to regrow trees in your wood production area, you should also build a well right next to them as they need water when planting trees. If you don't build a well there, they will waste a lot of time walking across your town to fetch water.

[@Nameless-Devil666]

dude, u just blow my mind, i don't even about that. hate when trees are gone so fast

[@connoragnewmusic]

Well, off work sick today. Time to hunker down and veg out. Thanks for this 3.5hr gold mine Strat!

[@StratPlays]

I hope you feel better soon!

[@onkeldunkel665]

'Brigands 4 Hire' best name for el cheapo mercs.

[@AC-hj9tv]

Yowling Yokels actually

[@JoshS1]

Few tips: At the farmhouse you can designate the area with a circle where the people will only be working at the advanced tab, just like with the logging camp. That way people in the farmhouse won't go all the way over to another farm on the other side of your area. Press TAB anytime to see the yield of a field and having small fields and more farmhouses helps a lot and you're right: you only need people in them in autumn, unless they didn't finish the plowing and seeding. Then they can finish it in march. You can still have a full yield that year, if that happens. More storehouses and dedicated storehouses for stuff you haul a lot helps a lot too, same goes for graneries & trading posts. Keep an eye on the amount of market stalls and how many houses they can support. A few times you didn't have enough for that many houses. 1 or 2 cobblers (early game) will easily make you lots of gold by selling shoes instead of leather. Same goes for warbows (early/mid-game) (only 1 plank to make) and helmets (mid/endgame) (only 1 iron slab to make). You have so many families, selling higher end stuff would got you to 1 mil much faster. Great content. Thanks so much! Cheers

[@theorixlux2605]

Especially with you gian towns, spending a few seconds in first person would probably be amazing!

[@rauminen4167]

Slow down for a little bit. If you're going to cut out 90% anyway, you could really afford to take 5 seconds to think. Maybe even 6. Nobody will know. It's fine.

[@8bitascii464]

What about 7? I think that could also work out great

[@fitzfinds8273]

No no no...8 is great

[@itisyerdad]

Yea, I wasn't really able to follow much of this video's progress and it looks like a lot of it was edited out, too.

[@ryanraymond285]

Out of every manner Lord video I've watched so far, you're the only one that doesn't give me anxiety and stress... Playing the way you're playing. You know what you're doing. The rest are just lost.

[@Kimi_Plays]

Game is really not enough developed that you need to think, either way you get what you need, its too easy

[@tiberiusx22]

I've been binge watching these videos and i can't wait for release to play the game myself! Love these vids and keep up the good work brother!

[@t_xxic8814]

Just had your video recommended 30 mins ago and I already subscribed to your channel. It is a pleasure to watch you play. Your game knowledge is clearly above average and you imply efficient tactics. A lot of other content creators, that I follow, play the game as well, but their sub-optimal strategies keep triggering my OCD. It is nice to see someone play more efficiently and with profound knowledge of the games mechanics and options. I am enjoying my weekend and my breakfast while watching this. :D

[@StratPlays]

Haha I'm glad to hear that! I know what you mean about OCD - it's hard for me to not be as efficient as possible :)

[@doubleskulls]

Top quality ML content! I think this is the best content for game mechanics, tactics etc.

[@YouKnowJus]

you caught onto everything in this game quick. im subscribing so i can learn

[@skavenslave4570]

I was one of those screaming when you didn't disband the mercenaries on time.

[@StratPlays]

Lol Where were you when I needed you most?! :D

[@michealnelsonauthor]

I ran a test of this just now and couldn’t find how to disband them. Ended up resetting the save.

[@mercia-7506]

Hi Im a new subscriber,thanks for this wonderful video. I also love the way you explain stuffs ,as viewer I feel immersed in your world as well. Keep up the good work!!!

[@MOCingBricks]

Wow!! Another!! Exciting!!

[@davidrobinson7260]

I would never have thought to not just claim all the land! But it makes so much sense to just farm influence from the bandits.

[@StratPlays]

Yeah if you leave one piece open, they will spawn there :)

[@SuperCosmicSpaceMagnet]

I wonder if anyone has turned the entire map into a megalopolis yet. A big sprawling mass of CITY

[@StratPlays]

I've tried it, but the game shows down significantly around 800 main city population. I did have a full army and 8 towns so that probably didn't help lol I think if I had to redo this, I would keep each town to 200 - 300 population each and see if that helps any.

[@diablo8841]

Cant imagine how much work is that one video

[@michealnelsonauthor]

Learned some great stuff already. To rush the trade perks will make a Huge diff! Then the iron craft ing related ones… gotta have that rich iron node! Thanks!

[@MrMartinSchou]

2:54:50 - This is something I've been wondering. A field only seems to be workable by 1 oxen at a time. And the field size is measured in morgens ("Conceptually the amount of land that could be plowed by oxen in one morning (Morgen), which was a day's work for the oxen.") As such it seems that the optimal field size is as close to 1 morgen as you can make it, as you can parallelize the work if you have enough oxen. E.g. 10 oxen allows you to plough (and possibly harvest?) 10 fields that are each 1 morgen at once, but 10 oxen will need 10 times as long to work a single field that is 10 morgen. If that's the case, you should also be able to get the product off of the fields (during harvest).

[@disgoyknows88]

That's a good thought, though I think the in-game months is more than just a days/morning work. Would be cool to test out to be sure.

[@michealnelsonauthor]

1 ox per farmhouse. And Only 1 ox can work on any 1 field. Or the farmers as a group. And if you don’t get it cleared by seasons end it ruins it for the season. So relatively smaller fields they can complete is safer. At worst they’ll finish & move onto the next.

[@keepyourbilsteins]

I'm looking forward to enjoying this game. And by enjoy, I'm one of those that enjoy tradeskilling in EQ and WoW.

[@PuppetierMaster]

point of order you can make dirt roads in the hunting circle to speed up the dragging portion of the hunter's camp so they produce that much faster and you can gain a little speed

[@maartenfeijen6757]

Your the God of strategy/rpg games

[@vale214]

it would be cool to see every town have its own gimmick, I can't wait for this game to be fully released so there are other efficent options other than spamming goats for economy and chickens for food

[@ZoriZM]

Just thought i'd throw this out there too when it comes to market place. When you come to a point of being rich enough, be careful not to overwhelm the market place with your purchases or you'll DDOS yourself lol The traders will literally get stuck on the roads and on top of each other, and no one can deliver goods.

[@alvexman]

I turn off planks in the store house, so it caps out at 50, then I can decide what to do if I need more or not. Take them off while the store house picks them up, then turn off planks and go again to 50.

[@ryanraymond285]

What ever anyone els is saying about the speed or W/E they like to compalin about... I say the speed, the strat & the execution of it all is 💯 plus mint! Sometimes if you can't keep up, it's time to downgrade to a easier level.

[@alvexman]

Never hiring local thugs again, i'm paying them and can't find/use them

[@Rundstedt2001]

Of course you have maxed out everything …. Why do you wanna spoil everything?😢

[@kruseda]

I fell asleep at minute mark 7 😂 with that being said, I’ll stick to easy mode for now. Also, 3 hours of continuous build up is crazy. Do you mind making a video on beginner tips and what buildings go together best, please?

[@StratPlays]

Thanks for watching! I'm not sure if you've seen the guides on the other channel (Strat Gaming Guides) - I've got a guide called "Manor Lord's Beginner's Guide so easy even Grandma would understand". I would probably start there if you haven't seen it yet!

[@hamaskuy6416]

Sir Strat, i want to be your peasant How i make a peasant-ship?

[@kevinxiong5385]

Any reason why you don't build the first couple of burgages with the double family expansion? Is it not the space or resources?

[@Jedik23]

hell yeah

[@dilipan_730]

Nice

[@blacklightproduction2375]

Maybe if you don’t let your granary workers set up stalls and let traders move in those? Try that see if it helps lol

[@foleymcfoley9720]

I really enjoyed the grid design

[@StratPlays]

Lol good ole 'Murican town design :D

[@foleymcfoley9720]

It's just like when I lived on 34th and J

[@dailyexoticcarriers]

Lol crazy ive had to start over like 5 times.

[@lammaland]

20 Minutes ago is CraZy

[@LikeALocofirefly]

The residential requirements are the hardest thing about the challenging difficulty. I watched this hoping for tips or a build order in challenging as I have one large town and can't manage to get another settlement going :( residential requirements are really tough, without them this isn't really a hard difficulty imo.

[@michaelmische1433]

What the actual duck mate

[@SeanCollins-gv1ws]

I love strats vids hes so computent lol❤

[@StratPlays]

[@suzukits50xk93]

in large storehouse use the advanced tab to manage accepted goods

[@Xentis4200]

about farms, i think u can limit area of work, soo they will focus where u want.

[@StratPlays]

Yeah there are a few ways to fix the issues I was having. I've spent the last 4 days breaking down every mechanic in the game for the upcoming guides and I learned A LOT that I was doing wrong lol

[@MagnesiumSulfate]

It's basically a requirement to upgrade the work camp ASAP. It eliminates the homeless debuff and jumpstarts the growth of the town.

[@cookiemonster895]

Why didn't you upgrade the tents at the start ? It costs 1 lumber I think and helps avoid the penalties for a while. Or that doesn't work on hard?

[@lanternguy1635]

wow, how are your archers so good? is this a previous version? 50 mins in and i've never seen them be so reliable.

[@androot69]

Since you are an expert, I really need to ask. Why are you not using plots with expandable living space? They must be more efficient fuel and space wise.

[@Sonnia-dh8mr]

I also made it to somewhere around 80k wealth today. trade is simply broken.

[@naptimebjj6072]

.... ive just realised you didnt put a road inbetween the houses lol i didnt know you could do that haha

[@StratPlays]

Roads are only used by oxen and handcarts - traveling on foot is the same speed with or without a road :)

[@naptimebjj6072]

@@StratPlays thats good to know

[@BosskV2]

If I could add two features to this game... horses for my archers and flame arrows. Let me Ghengis Khan the living hell out of my enemies

[@justpeachykeen_13]

I would love to see this run redone on the most recent beta branch build. The two trade perks got heavily nerfed (deserved IMO) and there's a king's tax to worry about now edit: I'm sure you've probably figured it out by now but, just in case you didn't know, you can hold TAB to see how many people are assigned to a building. There's a ton of other info it gives you but I noticed you manually checking buildings a lot so I thought I'd mention it.

[@StratPlays]

I've got a challenge run being edited on the current patch actually! It's a little different - I tried to earn 1M treasury in 25 years or less. It should be ready in a few days!

[@sam-hr7iq]

really want this game, but is the game basically done when you take every teritory? seems pretty short and not a huge amount of replayability?

[@sc0ur]

It’s definitely pretty bare bones right now but it’s still in early development, Ive played about 15hrs now and I would recommend waiting a few updates as there isn’t much to do after you have finished your first “play through” not to mention there is quite a few bugs. I do believe the game has potential, I just hope the devs take it in the right direction and don’t take forever on updates.

[@J_Hodders]

See Legend of Total War for a true max difficulty challenge run dude

[@kaballfs]

From your videos, it seems that less, bigger, fields for farming is the way to go because of the way the AI does things... It plows and sows a field entirely and then move to the next, but the part of "moving to the next" seems to be very long for some ungodly reason, so many small fields will leave some without seeds, it's not like Rimworld in which they sow as they go. But I'd have to play to confirm that, and this is too much micro for me. Anyway, another fun watch.

[@StratPlays]

Yeah you're 100% right. I spent the last 4 days straight running tests and experiments and I've pretty much cracked farming. Draw out the largest farm you want, then outline it with something (road or fallow field is fine) then break down that large form into many smaller fields. The area is exactly the same, so the borders do not take up space. Your labor force will work small chunks of land until the season is over and if you don't cover everything, you can just add a few more people the next season. It also works best to have several farming buildings with the ox upgrade, but only a couple people in each. (instead of 1 farm building with 1 ox and 8 people, do 4 farm buildings with 4 oxen and 2 people in each). It's in the guide I'm release in the next day or two!

[@jareddollen1113]

Please explain how goat sheds work

[@americanindependantmedia9229]

I dont mind some micro. But, holy cow...Its like watching Starcraft...How many clicks can you get? lol

[@louisphillipson2585]

not max difficulty less starting supplies and more residential requirements

[@StratPlays]

True, I realized this after I started the game. It's actually not much different though as I've played around with those settings as well (and a winter start) and as long as you stay ahead of your production cycles or trade, it's no different.

[@Wings198888]

@@StratPlays its way different tho, armament delivery makes the game a lot easier and residential requirements will greatly stagger your growth. families are the most important currency and actual challenging difficulity bottlenecks it.

[@nam430]

woppaaaaaaaa

[@davidrobinson7260]

“We lost a few there.” “Well anyway where were we?” Builds a church**

[@liketobe2743]

I had one City if 1k pop, can the game handle multiple cities at this population? i think when you start hitting 900 population you should avoid max. speed because this fucks a lot of stuff up in this game.

[@kevcole3333]

hardest difficulty i could not get more than 36 troops before AI opponent had all other regions taken and attacked me with at least 5x the amount of troops I had.

[@iinchicken212]

"Strat you may think you're the boss, but without me you'd be in a algorithm toss, so you better pause, I got hella bars, Strats kingdom is built on lies and deceit, where would Little Strat be without me."Chicken

[@iinchicken212]

"Kingpin of the game, you just wanted fame, Chicken wanted smoke, that's why I fried his brains, just because you're a chicken don't think I won't do the same, guess I'm eating Chick-fil-A what a shame."Strat Plays

[@michaelstumpf3705]

5:52 why charge when you get the impale bonus while still?

[@StratPlays]

This was recorded before I spent dozens of hours on the combat testing guide :P

[@fergiepicachew]

Why dont you use force early harvest in your fields?

[@StratPlays]

I hadn't used farms as much up to this point and was still trying to figure them out. Early harvest is fine if the crops are at 100%, but you have to turn them off after or they will replant, then it will go fallow and all the work is wasted. Now, I just leave it on crop rotation the whole time and let them harvest at the correct time. I spent a good 10 hours testing a ton of things with farming recently for the upcoming guide so I'll have all the info to share soon!

[@KuliksonProductions]

Can someone explain how he started with 10 troops? I've always had to form the Militia over time by acquiring the men and the weapons, but he has 10 troops with only 5 families. Was this something that was changed on full beta release, or am I missing something?

[@crownofglory1264]

He said in another comment he didn't actually do this on hardest difficulty (by accident) also forgot to turn something of (I'm not sure what he meant, I don't own the game, but assume there's a toggle for troops/weapons) however a few days ago he did say he just completed a tough playthrough.

[@prizrak636]

That battle was something else. Altho I do think it is stupid that battle loss is on a timer

[@veritate8955]

this is not the game I played the last 3 days. Your Berry hut and the hunter had FULL ware stock in MAY on solo working. Then you had 12k gold in your town by trading which is impossible in the short amount of time because when you sell 100 goods the price is like 1-2g left and thus to the low demand left trades rarely gonna buy it anyways so you better rerecord that mission on live servers of early access^^

[@igotubro6279]

i need u to see how to do it on the hardest way ,winter start, no free werpons and vs raiders not the baron

[@StratPlays]

I'm working on that right now actually. The hardest part is the AI on aggressive - after about 2 - 3 hours they come at you with 5 full groups of armored units and it's so difficult to have enough units to fight them off. I've been trying to around 12 hours now and keep losing to the big attack. The start isn't too hard actually, I have that down

[@Aggies44]

Somebody help me out. He said "infinite" iron source. There is a # listed though. Ive watched vids where people ran out, but ive also heard there may be a 2nd tier to the mine making it infinite? Anybody actually know?

[@StratPlays]

If your region has the "Rich Deposit" on it, then it can be upgraded to infinite with the perk. You need to unlock charcoal kilns first, so 2 perk points to get to infinite. You can ONLY place these infinite mines on rich deposits though, so some regions can't use the perk.

[@Jaxftw]

How would you start this same campaign if you didnt have the spears and shields right at the beginning?

[@StratPlays]

I would rush Retinue and get as many bandit camps as I could to upgrade them to max. I'm using that strategy right now on the next challenge run - I've already failed it 5 times and over 12 hours of trying lol It's SO HARD

[@Jaxftw]

@@StratPlays Yeah its crazy hard, made it past the first 2 bandit assaults but by the end of year 2 the AI owned the whole map and claimed my territory and sent 5 regiments which i couldnt match. I think when restarting im going to be building a church before houses because of the approval dipping so low early game

[@alexdabase]

@@Jaxftwsame shit here baron fuck me up I think you need to build tall and rush manor and try to get the big mercenary 110gold / m and try to pay them from the start

[@fernandoluisvalerioguzman80]

The residential requirements in difficult are demanding, they are not balanced and that changes the game a lot, because it forces the player to do the tasks quickly otherwise your town goes to hell.

[@eagleguy7]

would it be more profitable to make gambesons out of leather, then sell those at the trading post instead of the leather?

[@StratPlays]

Yeah generally the higher up the chain you go the better it will in the end - they sell for more AND you sell less of the items. If you go for a large trade town, it's easy to clog your trade posts and end up selling nothing lol better to sell few expensive items than a ton of cheaper ones

[@mattbruce9005]

i hope you can upgrade to a city later on in the game

[@StratPlays]

Yeah I don't feel like this is the end game yet - seems like there are going to be more upgrades and new buildings

[@dacoldone5480]

For some reason i dont have any food because everything is being put into stalls. How do i fix this problem, can someone help please?

[@TheNinjabassist]

I tested the towers for manor defense and the towers dont currently work, they dont shoot arrows at enemies. So its a waste of resources at the moment.

[@StratPlays]

Yeah it's a work in progress :( Hopefully they add castles soon too

[@alextiedt4481]

Very fun game, I'm gonna wait till 1.0 though. They nerfed the archers and now they're shit.

[@ianyname1736]

Too bad the leather trading strategy does not work anymore since the dev added market inflation before the release, so after 1-2 months of selling leather the selling price goes down to 1 gold and it takes a lot of time to stabilize.

[@jareddollen1113]

How do Goat sheds put out hides/

[@DavidShaw-dc4re]

How the hell do you win combat? I try the same fight with 10 spearmen and get slaughtered with each attempt using different combat stances

[@Xpree]

is he producing food from only hunting and gathering?

[@StratPlays]

I don't recall if I did on this one, but that's pretty standard for my openings - I usually go hunting and berries until I can get veggies and chicken coops up as well.

[@Xpree]

@@StratPlays i am strugling when 500+ ppl, some homes not geting food, altho storages have like 700 carrots and such. ty for anwsering

[@soufianemazouara9094]

here i am with 90 families and cant even expand in one other region

[@derekgarvin6449]

couldn't you adjust the size of the forester hut work area rather than use three?

[@StratPlays]

Yeah I actually didn't learn that until after this video :P

[@musikadelas]

bro can someone explain how he survive in 2-3 years with so many people, and only he have is berries and meat by his own town?? i cant even feed so many people with imports, planting wheat etc in two yearsss howwww

[@StratPlays]

I basically broke my town towards the end lol this was a really bad setup. I had money to import, but the imports clogged the trade post so I wasn't able to continue selling items efficiently which means this town would eventually die once the money saved up ran out. It's tough for sure!

[@musikadelas]

@@StratPlays so how did u do that? 2 years without planting and imports but still manage to feed many?

[@michealnelsonauthor]

Is there a time limit on this game mode? I got timed out, I think. The Ai lord sent mercs after me, and I beat them! But I still took a while to recover. Then the Ai came by & burned its way thru my village. I was building up my weaponry, had 4 great & 2 halfsie units, was gonna hire mercs, and declare on the land next to me… maybe 1 season more? But it said I was defeated. No idea why.

[@michealnelsonauthor]

I would have warred for the next tile in time for this, but the sales reserve limiter failed. I sold key weapons too far below 36 when I had reserved at 42. Can’t muster a decent militia with the 10 it sold down too. Doh.

[@fortysomething7667]

There is a tuber with 2k pop and the game basically lags to death and your troops become stupid and move in the wrong direction.

[@ElRixSape]

bro take it easy, the game isn't ready.

[@wyrdboylucky2276]

A Bayer da English red, Gott sei Dank hab i dein Kanal gfuna.

[@totalwarthreekingdom2861]

cám ơn, nhờ có bạn mà tôi đã chơi rất giỏi

[@michealnelsonauthor]

Why is it preferred to have shops run from the warehouse workers, not the crafter house directly?

[@michealnelsonauthor]

I suppose because you can limit the number of stalls that way? The One granary worker sells All the eggs instead of each family selling eggs?

[@Blanzalot]

How about not using the bandit camps as money farms in the begging by hiring mercenaries. That is an exploit

[@StratPlays]

How is that an exploit? Bandit camps offer a reward to taking them out and mercenaries require a lot of personal money to hire. Maybe it will get patched or tuned down some, but hardly feels like an exploit to me.

[@Blanzalot]

@@StratPlays it’s a money farm. Especially early when bandits suck. Bandits are no match for militia! mercs dominate them and the gold they give far outweighs the price of mercs contracts. Maybe if merc contracts are locked to quarterly contracts and increased upkeep or just reduce bandit camp rewards.

[@cameroncrider6970]

Do the battles seem easy? Most of the videos I have watched it feels like in 1 to 1 equal math the players armies will always win

[@StratPlays]

It depends on the units being used. Retinue are super strong, basically can handle 2 to 1 odds. So if the player has 4 - 7 units of retinue, there's nothing the AI can do lol But militia only or mercenary units are on par with the AI and it will be a tough battle. I've had some close ones before I knew what Retinue were

[@mattmanshaw]

Yeah this is cool, but it’s like star craft 2 speed pro strat. If you wanna keep us noobs who aren’t content creators… help slow down hahahaa. Good shit tho! You def understand the entire game

[@Jerbuscus]

1:09:44 in the what?!

[@kikow3792]

Thing is, you didn't play hardest difficulty. You still had starting ressources for example. ;)

[@StratPlays]

Yeah I didn't realize that when I started - I've got more challenge runs coming out. I just posted one yesterday with true maxed difficulty and I took over the map with only 5 starting families lol I'll be redoing that challenge again (winter, no starting resources, etc.) but with unlimited families and NO trade. It's tough, but it's doable :D

[@kikow3792]

@@StratPlays saw the 5 family one earlier! Definitely interesting! I'm struggling with the no supplies, no weapon shipment, and an aggressive AI opponent. Maybe I'm too afraid or something is wrong in my build order. Maybe I build the warehouse too early, since I don't want to lose resources in the rain, but that's still pending.

[@Thingsyourollup]

Good lord youtubers have already played this game out to death and its not even released yet.

[@user-ui1sl4ul2j]

You started with free weapons. Try without.

[@StratPlays]

Yeah I guess I forgot to turn that one off. I just did a tough challenge video a few hours ago - max all difficulty settings including no starting weapons, winter start, no starting supplies AND I could only use the starting 5 families lol

[@user-ui1sl4ul2j]

@@StratPlays I tried to do Baron on difficult and so far I always failed. The missing weapons make it really hard because you can't farm the bandits for money.

[@bobrobmarc.-.966]

Lego 😊

[@zelt22]

rich iron deposits run the early game bro trust just upgrade to deep mining

[@recentrogue]

Smash, next

[@bruh7670]

try playing but use livestock only for profit

[@StratPlays]

I was trying to do this without using exploits since those are all getting patched out soon and I wanted a useful way to get to 1M - sadly I would have been better off breeding sheep lol

[@thomasechols8834]

Have you thought of doing a marathon run, see how much time you can last in the game keeping all territories and going as far as possible?