Trade is a mechanic in Manor Lords that allows you to turn your surplus goods into Regional Wealth, and then use that Regional Wealth to import other goods. It’s a good way to take something your town is good at — having a ton of wool, for example — and turning it into something your town needs, like more ale.
Our Manor Lords trade guide will explain all the steps to setting up a trading post, the rules for importing and exporting, and how (and why) to establish trade routes.
How trade works in Manor Lords
As you play Manor Lords, a travelling merchant will periodically wander through your town. These merchants visit your trading post — if you have one — and try to either buy or sell goods to match rules that you establish.
You’ll be able to import (pay Regional Wealth to bring in), export (send out goods in exchange for Regional Wealth), or full trade (either import or export to get your current surplus to match your desired surplus — more on this below).
Down below, we’ll also touch on the other kind of trading you can do at a pack station.
How to build a trading post
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Image: Slavic Magic/Hooded Horse via Polygon
The first step in setting up trade is just to build a trading post (4 timber). There, you can assign families to work at it — they’ll both head out to sell (export) good and also set up marketplace stalls to distribute the goods you import. You can also order a new horse for 30 Regional Wealth that will speed up transit times for your traders,
but you can only have two horses assigned.
On the trading post’s Trade tab, you’ll be able to set up the rules for your import-export business, including establishing trade routes.
How trade rules work, including ‘set rule to no trade’ explained
When you click on a trading post’s Trade tab, you’ll get a menu of all of the goods your town can have broken into six categories: construction, crops, food, crafting materials, commodities, and military.
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Image: Slavic Magic/Hooded Horse via Polygon
Below the categories, you’ll see a bunch of numbers and other information. Starting from the left, you can choose to import that specific good (pay Regional Wealth to get more), export it (send out that good in exchange for Regional Wealth), full trade (either import or export), or set it back to no trade (no trading of that good in either direction).
Next to the good, you’ve got a place to set your desired surplus. This is how many extra of that good you want to have on hand — surplus is calculated after the current construction and marketplace demand. For exporting, the trading post will send out that good until it gets down to that number. For importing, the trading post will bring in that good until you hit the number. For full trade, it’ll try to keep the surplus right at that number.
To the right of that, you’ll see the (current) export price followed by the import price (importing is always higher). Right next to that, there’s an indicator for the global market supply — basically how easy and cheap it is to get that good. It’s possible, for example, to flood the market and make exporting impossible.
All the way to the right is a button to establish a trade route.
How to establish a trade route
Travelling merchants wander through your town periodically. They’re not on a schedule, though, so they’re a bit unpredictable. They’ll also mix and match the goods they buy and sell, which means you might not get as many as you’re looking for. If you’re trying to keep your town supplied, that’s not ideal.
In the trading post menu, you can pay some Regional Wealth to establish a trade route. This just means that the travelling merchants’ visits will come on a regular schedule and will focus only on that one type of good — meaning you’ll move more of it.
Some goods — usually the more valuable ones — require a trade route to import or export.
Pack stations are not the same as trading posts
The other way to move goods between regions is by building pack stations (1 timber). These do a different type of trade. First, the families assigned to a pack station use mules (the only place mules are used in Manor Lords).
More importantly, pack stations don’t deal in Regional Wealth. Instead, pack stations only move goods between two settlements in two different regions you control. In the pack station menu, you’ll set the town that station trades with, what good they send out, and what good they exchange it for — with a modifier for the relative values of those goods.
