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If you’ve gone to painstaking lengths to plot out the perfect farms in Manor Lords, weathered the growing season, and hit the harvest season with your crop intact only for your windmill to refuse to work, we share your frustration.
We’ll walk you through how to fix the windmill not working in Manor Lords even when you have enough Wheat to process into Flour. There are two main reasons, one related to the wheat-to-flour production and another to a pesky bug, similar to the homelessness bug.
How to fix the windmill not working Manor Lords
Before we dive into how to fix the issue, we’ll assume you have a solid understanding of how farming works, and that you have both your Farmhouse and Windmill staffed with at least one family each. If that’s not the case, that’s where your problem likely lies.
Though not explicitly detailed, the bread production chain features a hidden stage, which can cause the windmill to not work, or at least not immediately. After you farmers have harvested Wheat, it needs to be threshed into Grain, after which it’s transported to the Windmill and converted into Flour, and finally on to a Bakery extension or Communal oven to bake Bread. From there the Bread goes to a marketplace where it’s distributed to Burgage Plots along with other foods like berries, eggs, and meat.
The Farmhouse threshes Wheat into Grain before it’s transported to the Windmill. Captured by VideoGamer.
The windmill then converts Grain into Flour, which is used to bake Bread. Captured by VideoGamer.
The Grain threshing process happens at the Farmhouse after harvest and is performed by the workers assigned there. However, threshing can be delayed or slowed if your assigned workers are occupied plowing or seeding farmland. Threshing has a lower priority compared to on-field work and is only done once workers have completed all their duties and the fields are ready for the next year.Â
Farmers will eventually get to threshing Wheat into Grain ready to be transported to the windmill, but to speed up the process ensure you have as many workers assigned to the Farmhouse as possible. To speed things up further, you can click on the Farmhouse, then on the Advanced tab, and set the Threshing Priority to High. What this does is instruct farmers to prioritise threshing after each harvest.
Spending Development Points on the Heavy Plow upgrade will also significantly speed up harvesting and plowing, and by extension how long it takes your farm workers to start threshing your surplus of Wheat.
Another related reasons for the windmill not working in Manor Lords is that there is no Grain being supplied to the windmill. Like all resources, Grain needs to be transported to the windmill, which can take time if you have limited workers or the windmill is placed far away from the Farmhouse.
You can also improve the windmill’s performance by placing it in an open space, away from obstructions like trees and buildings. When placing one, you’ll get a percentage marker detailing how that specific location affects windmill efficiency.
Windmill not working bug
The second reason the windmill is not working in Manor Lords is related to a destroyed windmill in the Waldbrand region. If you build a settlement there, you’ll spot the ruins of a windmill that you can fix up and theoretically use. However, the windmill is unable to accept grain to make flour, even when patched up and fully staffed with workers.
This is a bug and there is, to our knowledge, currently no fix, but we expect developer Slavic Magic to patch it up before too long. Your only option is to build a new windmill, which will work as intended, keeping in mind the threshing process detailed above.
