Working out how to upgrade burgage plots in Manor Lords is one of the most confusing steps in establishing your first medieval township. If you hadn't worked it out already, burgage plots are important; they not only provide shelter for your peasantry, but they give access to a variety of item-producing workshops—once you upgrade them, that is.

You'll need to construct certain buildings and provide a variety of goods on the marketplace before you can set the upgrade process in motion, and that means building up your infrastructure. Once your burgage plots are upgraded, you'll get extra regional wealth from them each month, plus access to the higher level workshops that produce weapons, clothing, plus bread and ale.

How to upgrade burgage plots

If you select your level one burgage plot, you'll see that there are a series of boxes that are either checked or unchecked listed under 'amenities' and 'market supply'. This is the precise list of things you need to provide in order to upgrade your burgage plot. When building your burgage plots, make sure your marketplace is close by. Also ensure that there's a family living in the plot, otherwise it won't be possible to upgrade it. 

Burgage plot level two upgrade

To upgrade a burgage plot to level two you need a variety of things:

• Water access: Build a functioning well using the ‘underground water’ overlay
• Church level: Build a wooden church
• Fuel stall supply: Supply enough firewood or charcoal on the marketplace for your plots
• Food stall supply: Provide at least two food types on the marketplace such as berries and meat
• Clothing stall supply: Supply enough linen, leather, or yarn on the marketplace to your plots

The two trickiest things here are the food stall supply and clothing stall supply, but remember you can easily increase your food types by building vegetable gardens or chicken coops in burgage plots, or by researching the apiary for honey. Leather is also easy to get—hunt some animals with the hunting camp and then set up a tannery to turn the harvested hides into leather. Once ready, it'll cost you four timber to upgrade each plot, which you can do by clicking the house symbol with the arrow at the top of the building's menu.

Burgage plot level three upgrade

When your burgage plot hits level two, you'll notice that the list of required amenities and market supply for upgrade has changed. Here's what you'll now need to provide:

• Water access: Same as before; a functioning well in a place with underground water
• Tavern supply: Build a tavern and supply it with ale
• Church level: Upgrade your wooden church into a small stone church
• Fuel stall supply: Enough firewood or charcoal on the marketplace for your plots
• Food stall supply: You’ll now need three types of food on the marketplace
• Clothing stall supply: Supply shoes, clothes, or cloaks to the marketplace

The three hardest things to do here are supply ale to your tavern, upgrade your church, and supply shoes, clothes, or cloaks. For the tavern, you can either make ale yourself, or you can simply buy it through trade. Either way, I'd make sure to have the materials ready to upgrade your plots when the ale arrives so you don't have to keep supplying it.

Upgrading your church is as simple as acquiring clay tiles along with some other basic materials. Set up a mining pit by a clay deposit and then build a clay furnace to produce them—you'll need these to upgrade your plots to level three either way. Lastly, you'll need to supply those clothing items. If you already have leather, I recommend building a cobbler's workshop in one of your level two burgage plots to turn it into shoes. 

This is the simplest method, but if you're growing lots of flax and turning it into linen, you could make the weaver's workshop instead of the cobbler to produce clothes. When you're ready, it'll cost you 25 regional wealth, four timber, eight planks, and four clay tiles. It's quite expensive but, on the plus side, this is currently the max level of burgage plot you can build.