Manor Lords has been an undeniable smash hit on PC. It launched in early access in April 2024 and, in less than a month, it managed to push over two million units. While players could wait for official updates and new content from developer Slavic Magic, modders have unsurprisingly taken it upon themselves to offer alternative ways of playing Manor Lords.
There are plenty on offer, but we’ve narrowed it down to a list of the 10 best Manor Lords mods available on PC.
ML – SPF
First things first, if you find yourself struggling to run Manor Lords on your PC, you’ll want to try installing the ML – SPF mod by xowny. It should help with the performance by reducing stuttering and it also makes load times faster, though hopefully official patches will make it so you won’t need to rely on the mod forever.
Geralt from The Witcher 3
You want to know what’s better than walking around your settlement in third-person? Walking around your settlement as Geralt from The Witcher 3, which you can do with this mod by NorskPL. While it’s purely cosmetic and has no bearing on gameplay, there’s a simple level of enjoyment to be had in roaming your medieval city as characters from other franchises. This isn’t the only character mod either; the same creator also has ones for Jon Snow from Game of Thrones and, of course, Shrek.
Storage Plus Plus
No matter the game, it’s always annoying when you run out of room to store all your items and resources. With this Storage Plus Plus mod by Joe -Exocet-, you can increase the storage capacity of all your buildings, which can make your playtime slightly easier and less infuriating.
More Resources
Speaking of making things easier for yourself, the More Resources mod by Spartan2659 does exactly what it says on the tin, allowing you to earn more resources than usual. It’s since been updated, so you have three different options for how the mod works, with the Vanilla+ version only tweaking things slightly. There is an Unbalanced version which offers a far larger boost, so it’s recommended you get the aforementioned storage mod so you have space for all that meat and bread you’ll be getting.
FreeSkills
When filling out Manor Lords‘ development tree, certain upgrades are gated behind others. For example, if you want a bakery for making bread, you can’t unlock that upgrade without first getting the Heavy Plow upgrade. The FreeSkills mod by Fasul2k removes these mandatory prerequisites entirely, allowing you to acquire any upgrade in any order.
Winter is Coming
We’ve listed several mods that make Manor Lords easier, but players looking for an additional challenge will find plenty that make things more difficult too. For starters, there is the Winter is Coming mod from YinjiD, which they say is inspired by Frostpunk, another city-builder. This mod adds a new mechanic called winter spawns, which can trigger randomly and make winter seasons last longer, sometimes up to 12 in-game months. As such, you’ll need to prepare for these harsh conditions, since you can’t grow crops during winter, and citizens are more likely to fall ill.
Adaptive Bandits Difficulty
YinjiD has made quite a few difficulty mods for Manor Lords, which you can pick and choose from or combine together for the ultimate challenge. The Adaptive Bandits Difficulty mod is neat since it not only removes the cap on how large bandit raids can be, but their size and frequency will increase depending on how wealthy you are. So, the better you play, the harder these raids get. Its listing also comes with a handy explanation on how the mod works and how you can configure it to your own liking.
Hildebolt’s Vanguard Army – Difficulty Mod
The baron Hildebolt may be the biggest threat in Manor Lords, capable of taking over your territory with an army of brigands and mercenaries. This next mod by YinjiD asks the question, what if Hildebolt was even more difficult to beat? Instead of hired goons, the Hildebolt’s Vanguard Army mod gives him his own militia comprised of what are only described as “special troops.” This mod’s apparently so difficult that its creator recommends playing it on easy difficulty first, with higher difficulty levels adding even more kinds of troops.
Unlock Militia Limit
All these difficulty mods sound like they make Manor Lords a pure nightmare for even an expert player. Thankfully, YinjiD has offered some mercy with a couple of mods that can make things slightly more manageable, whether you’re playing normally or with increased difficulty. First is the Unlock Militia Limit mod, letting you form more than six militias at a time to defend your territory from invaders.
Increased Garrison Limit
The second mod worth installing to help with super difficult challenges is the Increased Garrison Limit mod. Normally, you can only have one Garrison Tower, but the mod lets you build up to four of them, which can drastically increase the size of your retinue of elite soldiers up to 60 members. That’s overkill for dealing with small bandit groups, but if you’re planning to install the previous difficulty mods, this and the Unlock Militia Limit mod almost sound mandatory for dealing with the increased challenge.
