Establishing Manor Lords Trade Routes is a great way to passively generate money with exports, but it's also one the many things the game doesn't explain very well. Trade Routes are, confusingly, not actual roads or paths that you need to stamp out, despite all the talk of the 'King's Road' - setting up a Trade Route is just a case of buying one at your Trading Post. They're expensive to set up, but also offer superb returns, and with multiple routes, you can really rake in the cash, so let me explain exactly how you set up Trade Routes in Manor Lords.
Manor Lords trade routes explained
If you've reached the point where you're being told you need a Manor Lords trade route, then presumably you've got a Trading Post set up via the trade menu options at the bottom of the screen.
While it sounds like you need to set up some sort of physical road or passage, a trade route in Manor Lords is simply an option in the Trading Post menu - so click on the Trading Post and then the 'Trade' option.
The sticking point here is that you need some Manor Lords Regional Wealth to basically 'buy' a trade route. Check that guide if you're struggling to earn enough, but the short version is to get Regional Wealth, try upgrading a few homes to level 2 Burgage Plots and export anything you can using the Trading Post you have.
A lot of trade routes cost around 60-70 Regional Wealth, or more, to set up, and you need a good surplus of resources to do business. When you can afford it you'll have the option to 'Establish a trade route' on the right hand hand side of your Trading Post trading options:
Spend the money and you'll set up a route for trade in that commodity. The numbers in the middle you can adjust with the + and - to set a surplus level that you will always trade to, so you never sell all you have or stop trading when you have what you want.
The far left side has the trade options where you can set the following:
- Import - keep buying until you reach the set surplus amount.
- Export - keep selling until the you reach the set surplus amount .
- Full trade - trade both ways until you reach the set surplus amount.
If you really want to build Regional Wealth fast then focus on exports but be aware you'll be using up all your stocks and not bringing anything back in. Importing can also be useful if you're in crisis for a certain resource - if you're running low on Manor Lords food, for example, you can set up trade routes for a food item and just import it to increase your reserves, burning through your cash in the process.
Additionally, if you're struggling to get enough Regional Wealth to set up a Manor Lords Trade Route, or just want more, then you can unlock the Trade Logistics option in the development tree:
This will make all Trade Routes cost a maximum of 25 Regional Wealth. In some cases that halves the cost of certain routes or more, and will make your coin go further, faster.
Trade Routes in Manor Lords are one of those things that take time and money to set up but once done, they bring in more cash to help create more and the process soon gets faster - once you've managed to get one set up, you'll be able to create more quickly and the money will start coming in fast.
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