Manor Lords Burgage Plot Calculator
Plan your Manor Lords settlement's food economy: enter your families and backyard extensions to see food surplus or deficit, families fed, food variety, and what each burgage plot level needs to upgrade.
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Burgage plot planner
Feed your settlement and plan every burgage-plot upgrade.
Food balance
+21food / mo
Surplus
Feeds 51 families
2 food types
Vegetables
Eggs
Supply 51
Demand 30
Settlement
families
Backyard extensions
plots
corpse pits
plots
coops
sheds
apiaries
food
food
food
food
food
food
Food production breakdown
Vegetables
Eggs
| Source | Count | Size (morgen) | Food/month | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vegetable gardensestimate | 4 | 0.75 | 45 | Vegetables |
| Chicken coops | 6 | — | 6 | Eggs |
| Total food/month | 51 | |||
| Demand (families) | 30 | |||
| Balance | +21 |
Burgage upgrade requirements
Settlement tier: Small Village
Requires at least 50% approval to start the upgrade.
Grants: +1 regional wealth per family per month
Approx. cost: 2 Timber + 8 Planks
0 of 5 requirements met — still needed: Well, Wooden Church, Marketplace with a Fuel stall, At least 2 different food types at the market, At least 1 clothing type (Linen, Leather or Yarn).
Level 1 is the starting build — it only needs a completed plot with a backyard for extensions. Upgrades begin at Level 2.Backyard extensions
| Extension | Produces | Size affects yield? | Per-unit yield | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vegetable gardens | Vegetables | Yes | 15 food / morgen / mo | Estimate |
| Orchards | Fruit | Yes | 30 food / morgen / mo | Estimate |
| Chicken coops | Eggs | No | 1 egg / coop / mo | Well-corroborated |
| Goat sheds | Meat | No | 1 food / shed / mo | Estimate |
| Apiaries | Honey | No | 1 honey / apiary / mo | Estimate |
Food categories and how to get them
| Category | How you get it |
|---|---|
| Vegetables | Vegetable garden (backyard) |
| Fruit | Orchard (backyard) |
| Eggs | Chicken coop (backyard) |
| Meat | Goat shed (backyard); also hunting and the butcher |
| Honey | Apiary (backyard) |
| BreadNot a backyard extension | Bakery from flour (supply chain) |
| FishNot a backyard extension | Fishing hut at a pond or fish deposit |
| BerriesNot a backyard extension | Foraging from berry deposits |
Approval factors (directional, not a prediction)
| Factor | Direction | Rough magnitude / note | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food variety | Raises | Each extra distinct food category helps; also improves disease resistance. | Game-shown |
| Fuel supply (firewood / charcoal) | Raises | Running out chills families and applies a penalty. | Game-shown |
| Clothing variety | Raises | More clothing types make families happier. | Game-shown |
| Church access | Raises | Wooden church early, stone church as the town grows. | Game-shown |
| Tavern / Ale | Raises | Required for the higher burgage levels. | Game-shown |
| Tax rate | Lowers | The game shows a predicted loss per +10%; community estimate near −6 approval per +10%. | Community consensus |
| Homelessness | Lowers (largest) | The biggest single penalty; scales with count and duration, with a 30-day grace period. | Game-shown |
| Approval memory | — | Recent events are weighted; the memory fades over about 90 days. | Community consensus |
| Neutral point | — | Starts at 50%; range 0–100% across 7 tiers (3 penalty / 1 neutral / 3 bonus). | Game-shown |
These are directional guides, not a formula. Manor Lords does not publish exact approval numbers, and this calculator never predicts an approval percentage.
Game version 0.8.065 (Major Update 6)
Reference values updated July 11, 2026
Manor Lords burgage plot calculator. Monthly food surplus, families fed, and burgage upgrade requirements.
The Manor Lords burgage plot calculator turns your family count and backyard extensions into monthly food, surplus or deficit, and food variety. It then maps that food variety to each burgage plot level's upgrade requirements, so you can see whether your town can level up its houses.
What is the Manor Lords burgage plot calculator?
In Manor Lords a town rarely starves because it grows too little food — it stalls because it grows too little variety. A settlement can pile up hundreds of vegetables and still be stuck at Level 1 houses, because every burgage-plot upgrade gates on the number of distinct food categories at the market, not the total amount of food. This calculator settles both questions at once: given your family count and your mix of backyard extensions, it returns your monthly passive food production, whether that is a surplus or a deficit, how many families it feeds, and how many distinct food types you have — then maps that against each burgage-plot level's upgrade requirements.
The math it runs is deliberately simple and patch-stable. Every family eats 1 food per month, every burgage plot burns 1 fuel per month, and each backyard extension adds its own yield to the pile. Vegetable gardens and orchards scale with their backyard area, measured in morgen or in the community's "corpse pit" unit of 0.25 morgen; chicken coops, goat sheds and apiaries produce a fixed amount regardless of size. A food category counts toward variety the moment one producer of that type is running — which is exactly the rule that unlocks burgage upgrades. Alongside the planner, an upgrade checker lists what each level needs, from Level 2 up to Level 4 as of Major Update 6, so you can tick off what your town already has and spot the single missing requirement that is blocking the whole upgrade.
Manor Lords is in fast-moving Early Access, so the volatile yield numbers — roughly 15 food per morgen per month for a vegetable garden, about 30 for a mature orchard, and around 1 each for a goat shed or apiary — are community estimates for the current version, not published figures, and every one of them is editable so you can match your own in-game tooltip. The stable facts (1 food per family, 1 fuel per plot, 1 egg per coop, food variety gating upgrades) are well corroborated. One thing the calculator deliberately does not do is predict an approval percentage: Manor Lords publishes no approval formula — it is a per-plot, memory-weighted, difficulty-scaled figure — so instead of an unverifiable number, the tool simply lists the directional factors that push approval up or down.
How Manor Lords food and food variety actually work
The whole model is one demand number, one supply number, and a variety count. There is no hidden formula and no approval math — just the arithmetic Manor Lords makes you do in your head.
Demand. Every family eats 1 food per month, so a 30-family town needs 30 food per month. Separately, every burgage plot burns 1 fuel (firewood or charcoal) per month, and that consumption roughly doubles through winter — the tool reports fuel demand next to food so you do not plan a full larder and then let the town freeze.
Supply. Each backyard extension adds its own yield. Vegetable gardens and orchards scale with backyard area: a garden produces about 15 food per morgen per month, an orchard about 30 per morgen at maturity — and only about a third of that during its first ~4 growing years. Area is measured in morgen, or in the community's corpse-pit unit, where 1 corpse pit = 0.25 morgen. That makes the popular "3-pit" garden 0.75 morgen, worth roughly 11 food per month. Chicken coops, goat sheds and apiaries are size-independent: a coop lays 1 egg per month no matter how large the plot, a goat shed contributes about 1 food per month from its chevon and milk (the hides feed the clothing chain, not the larder), and an apiary about 1 honey per month. Total supply is the sum of all of them.
Balance and families fed. Subtract demand from supply to get your surplus (positive) or deficit (negative); divide total food by 1 food per family to get the number of families your production can feed.
Variety — the part that gates upgrades. This is where Manor Lords differs from most city-builders. A food category counts the instant one producer of that type is running: a vegetable garden gives you Vegetables, a coop gives you Eggs, a goat shed gives you Meat, an orchard gives you Fruit, an apiary gives you Honey. Bread, Fish and Berries are also categories, but they come from bakeries, ponds and forageable deposits rather than backyards. Burgage upgrades check the number of distinct categories, not the total food: Level 2 needs 2 different food types, Level 3 and Level 4 need 3. That is why a town drowning in a single crop can still be stuck — and why one cheap chicken coop, which adds the Eggs category, is often the fastest path to the next house level.
How to use the Manor Lords burgage plot calculator
The calculator has two panels that read from the same settlement: a Food & Variety Planner on top and a Burgage Upgrade Requirements Checker below it.
1. Enter your family count. Each family adds 1 to food demand, so this sets your surplus-or-deficit baseline. The default is 30 families.
2. Add your backyard extensions. Set how many vegetable-garden plots you have and the size of each — switch the size unit between corpse pits and morgen with the toggle. Do the same for orchards (and flag whether they are mature or still growing), then set your chicken coops, goat sheds and apiaries.
3. Read the hero result. The big number is your monthly food surplus or deficit; beside it are the families you can feed and the number of distinct food types, with the category names listed as chips. A green surplus with 2+ food types means you are ready to think about upgrading.
4. Check the breakdown table. It shows where every unit of food comes from, row by row, with an "estimate" tag on the yields that are community figures rather than published facts — so you can see exactly which number to adjust.
5. Open "Advanced: yield values" to match your own game. If your in-game garden tooltip shows a different per-morgen figure, type it in and the whole plan recomputes against your numbers. This is the tool's insurance against the game's frequent balance patches.
6. Use the upgrade checker. Pick a target burgage level (2, 3 or 4), then tick off the requirements your town already has — well, church, fuel stall, food types, clothing, tavern with ale. The panel shows a "X of Y met" summary and names what is still missing, because a single unmet requirement blocks the whole upgrade.
Backyard-extension food yields (editable defaults)
| Backyard extension | Food category | Size affects yield? | Default yield | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vegetable garden | Vegetables | Yes (area) | 15 food / morgen / month | Estimate |
| Orchard | Fruit | Yes (area) | 30 food / morgen / month (mature) | Estimate |
| Chicken coop | Eggs | No | 1 egg / coop / month | Well-corroborated |
| Goat shed | Meat (chevon + milk) | No | 1 food / shed / month | Estimate |
| Apiary | Honey | No | 1 honey / apiary / month | Estimate (contested) |
Worked examples with the exact numbers
One 3-corpse-pit vegetable garden feeds about 11 families
The community default garden is 3 corpse pits, which is 0.75 morgen. At the default 15 food per morgen per month that is 0.75 × 15 = 11.25, rounded to 11 food per month — enough to feed about 11 families, but only one food category (Vegetables). This is the honest yield of a single well-tended backyard garden, and it is why one plot never feeds a whole town.
A full one-morgen garden feeds 15
Drag that same garden out to a full morgen and it produces 1 × 15 = 15 food per month, feeding 15 families. Going from the 3-pit default (11 food) to a full morgen adds only 4 food per month, and a bigger backyard needs a free family to reach full yield — so past a point it is cheaper to add a second producer than to keep enlarging one plot.
Three gardens cover 30 families — but still cannot upgrade
Three 3-pit gardens for a 30-family town: 3 × 0.75 × 15 = 33.75, rounded to 34 food per month against 30 demand, a +4 surplus that feeds 34. The town is fed, yet it is still only one food category (Vegetables), so it fails the Level 2 requirement of 2 different food types. Quantity is solved; variety is not — the classic Manor Lords upgrade trap.
The default early-town mix: +21 surplus and 2 food types
The calculator's first-load state — 30 families, 4 vegetable gardens at 3 corpse pits each, and 6 chicken coops — produces 4 × 0.75 × 15 = 45 food from gardens plus 6 eggs, for 51 food per month. Against 30 demand that is a +21 surplus feeding 51 families, across 2 food categories (Vegetables and Eggs). Those 2 types clear the food-variety bar for a Level 2 upgrade — the coops did the heavy lifting on variety, not volume.
Scaling to a large town: 60 families, 3 food types
A larger settlement of 60 families running 8 one-morgen vegetable gardens, 10 chicken coops and 3 goat sheds produces 8 × 1 × 15 = 120 food from gardens, plus 10 eggs and 3 meat, for 133 food per month. Against 60 demand that is a +73 surplus feeding 133 families, across 3 food categories (Vegetables, Eggs and Meat) — enough distinct types to satisfy the food-variety requirement for Level 3 and Level 4 plots.
Orchards trade time for density
Two half-morgen orchards at maturity make 2 × 0.5 × 30 = 30 food per month of Fruit — a fourth distinct food category from a small footprint. The catch: for roughly the first 4 growing years they yield only about a third of that (around 10 food per month), and apples harvest in a narrow window. Plant orchards early for late-game variety; do not count on them to survive this winter.
Food and upgrade tips for Manor Lords
- Quantity is not variety — this is the number-one upgrade trap. A field of gardens feeds hundreds and is still one food type, and burgage upgrades gate on distinct categories, not total food. Pairing a vegetable garden with a single chicken coop jumps you from 1 to 2 categories instantly, which is what unlocks Level 2.
- Chicken coops are the cheapest food category you can buy. They lay 1 egg per month regardless of size or plot level, and they never pull a family off other work, so they are essentially free variety. The community's proven ratio is roughly one coop, one vegetable garden and one brewery per ~8 houses.
- Size your gardens in corpse pits. Players measure backyard area with the corpse pit (0.25 morgen): 3 pits (0.75 morgen) is about 11 food per month, and a full morgen is about 15. Bigger backyards only reach full yield when the resident family is free to tend them.
- Goat sheds and apiaries are mostly not food. A goat shed's headline output is hides for the clothing chain; only its chevon and milk count as food (default 1 per month, editable). Honey is contested and, in recent versions, is no longer eaten at all — the apiary instead boosts nearby farm and orchard yields through pollination. Set either to 0 in Advanced if your game does not count them as food.
- Do not forget fuel. Every burgage plot burns 1 firewood or charcoal per month, and that roughly doubles in winter. A glowing food surplus will not save a town that freezes, so match your woodcutter and charcoal supply to your plot count — the tool shows fuel demand next to food demand for exactly this reason.
- Match the Advanced yields to your own save. The per-morgen numbers are community estimates for Major Update 6, and Manor Lords rebalances often. If your in-game garden tooltip shows a different figure, type it into the Advanced panel and every result recomputes against your version — the plan stays accurate even after a patch.
- Approval is directional, not a number — this tool never predicts an approval percentage. Food variety, fuel, clothing variety, a church and a tavern serving ale all raise approval; heavy taxes and homelessness lower it. Above 50% approval draws about one new family per month, and above 75% about two, so treat rising food variety as a growth lever, not just an upgrade key.
- Plan for the requirement that blocks the upgrade, not the ones you already have. A single unmet condition — one missing food type, no fuel stall, no tavern ale — locks the entire burgage upgrade. Use the checker to find that one item instead of over-building food you do not need.
Manor Lords burgage plot calculator — frequently asked questions
How much food does each family eat per month in Manor Lords?
Each family consumes 1 food per month, regardless of the burgage plot's level or how many families share the plot. Fuel is different: every burgage plot burns 1 firewood or charcoal per month, and that roughly doubles in winter.
How many vegetable gardens do I need in Manor Lords?
It depends on garden size. A 3-corpse-pit garden (0.75 morgen) makes about 11 food per month, and a full-morgen garden about 15. For 30 families you would want roughly two full-morgen gardens plus a few chicken coops, or four 3-pit gardens and coops. Enter your family count above and the calculator sizes it exactly — and reminds you that you still need a second food type to upgrade.
How do I increase food variety for a burgage plot upgrade?
Build producers of different food categories. A vegetable garden (Vegetables) plus a chicken coop (Eggs) gives you 2 types; add a goat shed (Meat), an orchard (Fruit), a bakery (Bread), or foraged berries or hunted meat for a third. Level 2 needs 2 distinct food types; Level 3 and Level 4 need 3.
What are the burgage plot upgrade requirements in Update 6?
Level 2 needs a well, a wooden church, a fuel stall, at least 2 different food types and 1 clothing type. Level 3 adds a third food type, a second clothing type, and a tavern serving ale. Level 4 adds a stone church and a secondary clothing type and can house up to 4 families. Since Major Update 6 there are 4 levels — a new Level 3 was inserted and the old Level 3 became Level 4 — and settlement progression now tracks families living at each tier rather than plots built. Exact per-level costs are approximate and shown as "Approx." in the checker.
How many chicken coops do I need?
A chicken coop produces 1 egg per month, and size does not change that, so 10 coops make 10 eggs per month. Their real value is variety, not volume: a single coop adds the whole Eggs food category, which counts toward every burgage upgrade.
Does a bigger vegetable garden or chicken coop produce more food?
Only gardens and orchards scale with size — their yield is per morgen of backyard area, so a bigger plot grows more. Chicken coops, goat sheds and apiaries are size-independent: they produce the same fixed amount per month no matter how large the backyard is.
Is honey a food in Manor Lords?
It is contested and version-dependent. In recent versions honey is no longer consumed as food, and the apiary instead boosts nearby farm and orchard yields through pollination. The calculator includes an editable honey slot (default 1 per month) so it still works for older saves — set honey to 0 in the Advanced panel if your version does not count it as food.
Why can't I upgrade my burgage plot even though I have plenty of food?
Because a single unmet requirement locks the whole upgrade, and "plenty of food" usually means plenty of one food type. Upgrades check food variety, not volume, so a town swimming in vegetables still fails the 2-food-type bar for Level 2. You also need fuel, a clothing type, a church and a well — plus a tavern with ale for Level 3 and up. The checker shows which one is missing.
Does this calculator predict my approval rating?
No. Manor Lords publishes no approval formula — approval is calculated per plot, weighted by roughly 90 days of memory, and scaled by difficulty — so any exact percentage would be a guess. Instead of a fake number, the tool lists the directional factors (food variety, fuel, clothing, church, tavern, tax, homelessness) so you can see what is helping or hurting.
How accurate are the food yields in this calculator?
The stable facts — 1 food per family, 1 fuel per plot, 1 egg per coop, and food variety gating upgrades — are well corroborated across the community. The per-morgen garden and orchard yields, and the goat-shed and honey figures, are community estimates for Major Update 6 and can drift with balance patches, which is exactly why every one of them is editable. If your in-game tooltip shows a different number, type it in and the whole plan follows.
Is the Manor Lords burgage plot calculator free?
Yes. It runs entirely in your browser with no sign-up and no download, and every result recomputes instantly as you change families, extensions or yields.
How many families can one burgage plot hold?
A Level 1 or Level 2 plot houses 1 family, plus a living-space expansion if the plot is wide enough. Level 3 houses 2 families, and Level 4 can hold up to 4. Since Major Update 6 the settlement tier tracks the number of families living at each level rather than the number of plots you have built.
Manor Lords food and burgage glossary
Burgage plot
A town-house plot with a backyard, the building block of a Manor Lords settlement. Each plot houses one or more families, burns 1 fuel per month, and can be upgraded through 4 levels as its market and settlement requirements are met.
Backyard extension
An add-on built on a burgage plot's backyard. The food producers are the vegetable garden, orchard, chicken coop, goat shed and apiary; other extensions (brewery, tailor, cobbler, blacksmith) make goods rather than food.
Food variety
The number of distinct food categories available at the market. Each category counts once regardless of quantity, and burgage upgrades gate on this count — 2 types for Level 2, 3 types for Level 3 and Level 4.
Food category
A distinct type of food: Vegetables, Fruit, Eggs, Meat and Honey come from backyard extensions, while Bread, Fish and Berries come from bakeries, ponds and forageable deposits.
Morgen
The historical Central-European land-area unit Manor Lords uses to size backyards and fields. Garden and orchard yields scale per morgen; the tool's default garden yield is about 15 food per morgen per month.
Corpse pit
A community measuring unit equal to 0.25 morgen, named after the grave-pit building whose footprint players use to gauge backyard size. The popular "3-pit" garden is 0.75 morgen.
Families fed
Total monthly food divided by 1 food per family — the number of families your passive production can support. It is the headline capacity number next to your surplus or deficit.
Approval
A settlement's satisfaction, from 0 to 100% and starting near 50%. It is raised by food variety, fuel, clothing, a church and a tavern with ale, and lowered by heavy tax and homelessness. Manor Lords publishes no formula, so this tool treats it as directional only and never predicts a percentage.