Manor Lords: How to fix Recruits Missing message

Building up an army is a big part of Manor Lords but what can you do when recruits are missing? This is how to ensure you’ve got enough military units to head into battle in the popular city building game.

Manor Lords has already launched to huge success with players keen to check out its unique blend of city builder mechanics and realistic medieval setting. Alongside crafting the best settlement layouts and making money via trading, it’s important to form an army to defend your settlement against bandits.

You can recruit members for your military units and Retinue in Manor Lords. The Retinue can be expanded after you’ve built a Manor but the “Recruits Missing” message can prevent you from bolstering your military ranks, so here’s how to resolve the issue.

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How to fix Recruits Missing in Manor Lords

To fix the Recruits Missing message in Manor Lords, you’ll need to increase the population of your settlement by raising more families. Families are the most efficient way to get new recruits as they’ll often send one person to join the army.

Before more families can join your settlement, however, you’ll need to make sure you’ve got enough space in your Burgage Plots and an approval rating of over 50% (this rating will increase whenever the needs of your current villagers are being met.) With an approval rating of at least 50%, one family will join you every month, and if you reach 75%, you’ll have two a month.

If you’re struggling to expand your Retinue specifically, you can rehire some existing military recruits to the Retinue instead. This can be done by following the steps below:

1. Click on the Army tab and navigate to the Retinue option.
2. Press the Brush button, and click on the Recruit Men-at-Arms button that can be found on the left-hand side of the screen.
3. From here, you can select new Retinue recruits and hire or rehire them for a cost of 50 Treasury each.

After you’ve got enough recruits from the latest families in your settlement, the Recruits Missing message should resolve itself but if it doesn’t we’d recommend saving and reloading the game. Due to Manor Lords early access state, it has a tendency to show certain prompts even after you’ve met the requirements.

For more Manor Lords content, check out our guides below:

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