Best Development Points to unlock in Manor Lords

If you want to know what the best Develop Points to unlock are in Manor Lords, then here are all the upgrades you need to choose to get rich quickly and maximize your settlement’s efficiency.

To build the best Manor Lords settlements, you will need to make sure you choose the best Development Points to unlock.

Every time you increase your settlement level, you will earn a Development Point for you to spend on new skills and capabilities. These are vital for optimising your efficiency when gathering resources such as food, fuel, currency, and ores.

However, with so many to choose from in Manor Lords, figuring out which Development Point upgrades are the best to unlock has proved tricky.

Best Development Points to get in Manor Lords

1. Forest Management

Upgrade: Doubles the maximum capacity of all your berry deposits

Forest Management doubling your berry yield will be especially key at the start and only costs one Development Point, as well as requiring no previous upgrade. This will ensure you’re able to feed your growing town with a stable food supply, making it the strongest first pick.

You will want to make sure you assign plenty of villagers to the Forager Hut from the beginning so that all berries around the surrounding areas are collected before winter strikes. Berries grow in the spring, but die quickly as soon as winter comes, so having a decent stash will be key.

Not only are berries useful as a food source, but it can also used to dye clothing different colors and also unlock the Dyer’s Workshop industry, which has proved to be highly profitable in the early game.

The only main negative to Forest Management is that if your settlement is not located in a highly dense berry region, then you may be forced to go for alternatives of Advanced Skinning or Trapping to give your hunting skills a boost. Aside from this, unlocking Forest Management doesn’t give you access to any further skill branches, opposed to others.

2. Sheepbreeding

Upgrade: Allows you to produce infinite sheep for trading

To become a rich lord fast, you will need to prioritize trading in the game, and unlocking Sheepbreeding will get you off to a hot start. Best of all, you won’t need to spend any resources to keep infinitely breeding your sheep and they can then be easily sold at the Livestock Trading Post.

However, to keep your Regional Wealth-making machine running efficiently, you will need to make sure you keep expanding your Pasture space, as the maximum sheep capacity will be determined by this.

3. Charcoal Burning

Upgrade: Unlocks Charcoal Kiln building that lets you make Charcoal to double fuel efficiency

By selecting building a Charcoal Kiln as part of your settlement, you will be able to greatly improve the efficiency of your fuel supply to maintain constant refueling. To make Charcoal using the kiln, you will just need 1 firewood, which will create 2 pieces of Charcoal.

As you progress your settlement level further, you will need to stay on top of this as higher-level buildings will require increased fuel demands. These include the Smithy for Tools, the Bloomery for making Iron Slabs, and the Malthouse to convert Barley into Malt for Ale production in your local Tavern.

The only downside is that you will need to stock up on Firewood before winter comes, as you can easily find yourself without any in the harsher months.

4. Trade Logistics

Upgrade: A new Trade Route will always costs a maximum of 25 Regional Wealth

Building Trade Routes is essential to creating a profitable trading network that is vital throughout the game. Therefore, ensuring these are capped at just 25 Regional Wealth, will allow you to keep your costs low and avoid the expensive prices found when purchasing different routes at Trading Posts.

It will also give you access to the next trading upgrade of Better Deals, which reduces all import prices by 10 when you import foreign goods.

5. Deep Mining

Upgrade: Unlocks Deep Mine building that lets you infinitely mine ore

Deep Mining will instantly stop you from running out of ore. Simply, just place the Deep Mine building that it unlocks over a strong ore deposit and you will have created a bottomless ore supply.

However, you will need to make sure that it is actually a rich ore deposit before building on it, otherwise you will eventually run out. Similar to Forest Management though, it is also limited by the need of a rich deposit, so you may have to explore neighboring lands to find one.

6. Heavy Plow

Upgrade: Unlocks Plowing Station building that allows you to use oxen to plow fields and transport crops much faster

The Heavy Plow Development Point upgrade is essential to maximize your farming yield. Using workers to plow by hand is incredibly slow as you will soon realise, therefore switching them for Oxen is a no brainer.

Even though berry harvesting and even meat hunting will suffice at the beginning, you will want to use farming to be able to produce enough food to feed your growing population in the later levels.

Manor Lords has launched in early access, therefore the best Development Points are subject to change when the game fully releases.

Check out more Manor Lords guides:

How to build and use the Sawpit | Manor Lords system requirements | Is Manor Lords on Game Pass? | Does Manor Lords run on Steam Deck?