How to fix recruits missing in Manor Lords

✓ At A Glance

To fix the recruits missing message in Manor Lords, you’ll need to expand the population of settlement.

As you prepare for a spot of medieval warring and gather up your militia in Manor Lords, you might encounter a rather blunt ‘recruits missing’ message. Like many parts of Manor Lords, there’s no tool tip to guide you or a clear explanation as to what steps are needed to get the required recruits.

We’ll walk you through how to fix the recruits missing message in Manor Lords, an important step in recruiting an army to wage war against rival lords.

Recruits missing explained 

Put simply, recruits missing is rather literal and means that among your population, you don’t have enough people to recruit into the military unit you’re trying to form. It isn’t related to having enough equipment or enough weapons (something that can pop up as equipment missing, covering the supply of large shields, small shields, polearms, spears, warbows, swords, helmets, and so on from workshops or trade), but rather to the size of the population in your settlement.

You can check the number of recruits you currently have to form troops by tapping the Army button on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, then on the + symbol to Create New Units. You’ll then see an overlay detailing how many weapons you have but also the number of recruits, represented by the peasant icon.

To confuse matters, recruits missing can also show up even when you have a sufficiently high population and enough families but are trying to expand the size of your Retinue, your own personal guard of lowly nobles and family members loyal to you as lord of the manor.

How to get more recruits in Manor Lords

To get more recruits in Manor Lords, you’ll need to grow your settlement’s population by attracting more families. Make sure you have an Approval rating above 50% and have free space in your Burgage Plots. If you meet these requirements, you’ll attract one new family per month. Get your Approval above 75% and that jumps to two new families per month. Not all the members of a family that joins your settlement automatically become a recruit, though, so always try and keep your population growing.

To fix the recruits missing message when dealing with your Retinue, click on the Army tab, then your Retinue, and the little customization paintbrush button. On the next screen, tap the Recruit Men-at-Arms button on the left of the screen. Each new Retinue recruit costs 50 Treasury. 

Note that Retinue is tied to regions, meaning you can have a Retinue for each of the regions under you control. You’ll need to recruit additional Retinue recruits for each of these regions individually once you’ve built a manor in each of them.

Lastly, if the recruits missing problem persists, saving, quitting the game, and reloading your save has been known to fix the issue. Call it a Early Access oddity, but many bugs, including the homelessness bug, tend to go away after a restart.