How to get more Oxen in Manor Lords

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✓ At A Glance
  • Additional Oxen can be ordered from a Hitching Post or Small Stable.
  • Oxen can also be imported at a Livestock Trading Post.
  • Oxen require Stable Space, which is available at Hitching Posts, Small Stables, and Livestock Trading Posts.

Livestock, and in particular, the mighty Oxen, is key to turning a humble settlement into a thriving town in Manor Lords. Not only are these gentle bovines a vital part of ferrying timber to construction sites, they can also be used to help plough fields and lug felled trees back to Logging Camps.

As with most aspects of Manor Lords, including recruiting an Army, upping your yoke of oxen isn’t all that obvious during your first few hours as a feudal lord due to the game’s inherent complexity. We’ll walk you through how to get more Oxen in Manor Lords.

How to increase the number of Oxen in your settlement

There are two ways to get more Oxen in Manor Lords: ordering Oxen and importing Oxen. Though, the result is fundamentally the same. To order an Oxen, click on a Hitching Post or Small Stable, and tap the Oxen icon titled, conveniently, Order another Ox, costing you 20 Regional Wealth. After placing the order, a livestock merchant will make their way to your settlement and drop off the Oxen. Note that you can only place orders once a month.

As for importing Oxen, you’ll first need to build a Livestock Trading Post (found under the Trade portion of the Construction menu at the bottom of the screen). After the post is built, select it and click on Trade. On the Oxen line set it to import then adjust the Desired Surplus depending on how many Oxen you want to Import. Every Oxen will cost you 20 Regional Wealth.

Manor Lords Oxen: top-down view of a medival village with an overlay detailing Stable Space highlighted in yellow.
Check Stable Space by hovering over the horseshoe icon. Captured by VideoGamer.

Understanding Stable Space

Note that like citizens, Oxen need somewhere to call home. But rather than houses, Oxen require a capacity metric that’s called Stable Space in Manor Lords. Only certain buildings offer Stable Space: x1 from Hitching Post, x2 from Small Stable (an upgrade for the Hitching Post), and x2 from the Livestock Trading Post. As you get more Oxen, ensure you have enough Stable Space to accommodate them by building Hitching Posts and ideally upgrading them to Small Stables.

You can check your Stable Space by hovering over the horseshoe icon on the horizontal HUD at the top of the screen. There, you’ll see how much Stable Space you have, but also Pasture Space (for sheep and lambs) along with how many of each type of livestock you currently have in your settlement. It also seems like providing suitable homes for your Oxen also offers a small boost to Approval rating.

Manor Lords Oxen: a small medieval village seen from the sky with a menu to permanently assign livestock highlighted in yellow.
Both the Farmhouse and Logging Camp’s productivity can be boosted by assigning a Ox. Captured by VideoGamer

Assigning Oxen to the Farmhouse and Logging Camp in Manor Lords

As a final note, not only are Oxen used by Hitching Posts and Small Stables to transport heavy Construction materials, they can also be assigned to the Farmhouse and Logging Camp. Click on either of these buildings once constructed, then select Advanced and tap the + symbol to assign a livestock worker (or, in other words, an ox) as a Permanent Livestock Assignment. Despite the name, you can always remove the ox by tapping the minus symbol.

Manor Lords oxen: a tech tree menu with an upgrade called Heavy Plow highlighted in yellow.
Heavy Plow is one of the best Development upgrade you can get. Captured by VideoGamer.

For the Farmhouse, the option is initially greyed out and you’ll need to use a Development Point (dished out every time you hit the next Settlement Level) to unlock the Heavy Plow upgrade in the Development tech tree, accessible by clicking the name of your settlement at the top of the screen. Once unlocked, follow the same process to assign an Oxen. Doing so will greatly improve ploughing times and the rate at which harvested crops are brought back from the fields to the Farmhouse and then on to Storehouses.

About the Author

Tom Bardwell

Tom is guides editor here at VideoGamer.

Manor Lords

  • Platform(s): PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X
  • Genre(s): City Builder, Strategy
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