How to increase Approval in Manor Lords

✓ At A Glance

• Ensure you have no homeless citizens
• Keep taxes low
• Upgrade to a Small Stone Church
• Build a Corpse Pit to bury dead enemy soldiers
• Meet burgage plot food, clothing, and fuel stall supply needs

In Manor Lords, a settlement lives and dies by its Approval rating. Keep it high and your citizens will laud you; let it plummet and they’ll spread disorder, and if left to fester, they’ll turn to banditry and thieving to meet their needs. The bottom line is that you’ll want to keep your Approval nice and high if you plan on maintaining a flourishing settlement.

It’s easier said than done though given the inherent complexity of the game. We’ll walk you through how to increase Approval in Manor Lords, which you’ll need to raise to 100% to unlock the Cheerful Metropolis trophy.

Manor Lords Approval explained

Before we dive into raising and maintaining high Approval, a quick primer on what it is. The Approval rating of your region is basically a measure of your settlement’s overall prosperity and your citizens happiness. It has a direct impact on population growth. The higher it is, the more new citizens move to your city. It also impacts the morale of your militia and armies, and by extension their proficiency on the battlefield. And, as above, determines whether your citizens are likely to turn into bandits and steal resources and food from your settlement.

Several factors dictate Approval rating: clothing market supply, market food supply, fuel stall supply, church level, tavern ale supply, public order, corpses, and taxation. Essentially, Approval directly mirrors how well burgage plot needs and requirements are met, regardless of their level.

Approval rating is displayed as a percentage in the horizontal overlay at the top of the screen. Approval breaks down into a three tier system that determines how army morale and population growth is affected. We’ve put together a table detailing how these tiers work:

Approval Rating	Population Growth Effect
Below 25%	Causes emigration, citizens will actively leave your settlement. Some will turn to banditry and crime.
50%-75%	One new family will join your settlement per month if there is sufficient vacant housing.
Above 75%	Two new families will join your settlement per month if there is sufficient vacant housing.

How to improve Approval rating in Manor Lords

Though a low Approval in Manor Lords can be daunting, there are several steps you can take to improve it and keep your citizens happy. Some are easier than others and we have a dedicated section for the most complex – meeting citizen food, fuel, amenity, and commodity needs.

House all the homeless

Firstly, and this is an easy one to solve, make sure there are no homeless citizens in your settlement by building enough burgage plots as soon as possible. Homelessness causes the biggest loss of Approval in the game. When you start a fresh save, the five starting families included with the Settler’s Camp are homeless so make sure to house them and any new immigrants thereafter quickly.

Keep taxes low

Secondly, keep citizen taxation low. You can adjust this by tapping the Taxes option at the Manor and setting the Land Tax percentage lower. We recommend 5% at most to ensure the Approval rating impact stays low. Or, better, remove taxes entirely.

Upgrade the Church

Building a Wooden Church then upgrading it to a Small Stone Church will give a significant boost to Approval rating for very little effort. At the same time, having a leveled up Church will tick off Church Level requirements for level 1, level 2, and level 3 burgage plots.

Bury dead bodies

While a Church will bury any of your citizens that pass away, leaving enemy corpses lying around in your claimed regions will lower Approval. To remedy this, you’ll need to build a Corpse Pit, available under the Residential section of the build menu. Staff up the Corpse Pit and the workers will lay the dead soldiers to rest, raising Approval in the process.

Meet burgage plot amenities and market supply needs

The easiest way to increase Approval Manor Lords is to have a variety of goods that meet the requirements for your burgage plots at their respective levels. This means providing food variety, fuel, clothing, ale via a tavern, and church access. Tavern and church access are fairly self-explanatory and rely on having these buildings in your settlements, and in the case of the tavern, feeding it a steady flow of ale. Check our dedicated how to make Ale guide for further details.

Have Marketplace variety

As for food, fuel, and clothing, you’ll need to not only source the raw ingredients to produce these but set up market stalls in proximity to burgage plots and make sure their stalls are stocked with plenty of goods for your citizens. Storehouse and Granary proximity to store food like berries and bread along with goods like yarn, leather, shoes, wool, and firewood, is also important. You can check burgage plot requirements by clicking on a burgage plot and looking at Requirements under Residential. We’ve put together a table to lay these out for convenience:

Burgage Plot Level	Water Access	Tavern Supply	Church Access	Fuel Stall Supply	Food Stall Supply	Clothing Stall Supply
Level 1	Any well constructed in the region		Wooden Church	Stocked marketplace Fuel Stall	2 types of Food supplied to a marketplace Food Stall	Marketplace Clothing Stall stocked with Linen, Leather, or Yarn
Level 2	Any well constructed in the region	Any well constructed in the region	Small Wooden Church	Stocked marketplace Fuel Stall	3 types of Food supplied to a marketplace Food Stall	Marketplace Clothing Stall stocked with Linen, Leather, or Yarn Marketplace Clothing Stall stocked with Shoes, Clothes, Cloaks
Level 3	Any well constructed in the region	Any well constructed in the region	Small Wooden Church	Stocked marketplace Fuel Stall	4 types of Food supplied to a marketplace Food Stall	Marketplace Clothing Stall stocked with Linen, Leather, or Yarn Marketplace Clothing Stall stocked with Shoes, Clothes, Cloaks

Overall, the general gist of keeping Approval high in Manor Lords is to keep your citizens fed and clothed, and ensuring they have a good quality of life.