Manor Lords Major Update 8 Is Ready for the Main Branch With Cows and Advanced Construction

Manor Lords Major Update 8 has cleared community beta testing and is ready for the main branch. Version 0.8.090-0.8.104 adds the Wide Valley map, a redesigned main HUD, deeper livestock systems, new drinks, and a new construction workflow built around professional builders and handcarts.

Slavic Magic announced the branch move in its official Steam announcement. The update also replaces the old Artisan Production Focus system with Active Recipes, letting players set the order in which an artisan completes multiple recipes. Artisans begin with no active recipes until the player assigns them.

Manor Lords gets a much busier farmyard

Cows and calves are the stars of the livestock changes. Cows can be imported through the Livestock Trader, provide milk passively, and can be butchered for beef and hides. Oats offer a new field crop that shares fertility with barley while being more resilient, and players can turn oats into Animal Feed at the Livestock Farm.

Pasture animals now need to eat during winter. Cows, calves, sheep, and lambs consume Animal Feed each month and will die without it. Their breeding and production also follow seasonal rules, with cows breeding in summer, sheep breeding in autumn, and offspring arriving in spring. Sheep can be sheared once during summer, while cows produce milk each month except in winter.

The food and drink economy gets several new ingredients to juggle. Breweries can produce cider from apples at a 4:1 ratio and mead from honey at 1:1. A Cheesemonger, unlocked at Burgage Plot Level 3, turns milk and salt into cheese at a 1:1:2 ratio.

Construction Yards change how large projects work

The new Construction Yard stores building materials and sends them to construction sites with handcarts. A properly maintained yard also lets assigned workers build 50% faster. Oxen assigned to the yard use the new Ox Cart to move timber in bulk, giving growing settlements another way to keep construction supplied.

Some projects are now Advanced Structures and require professional builders assigned to a Construction Yard. Unassigned families can still transport materials and handle basic work such as flattening the ground, but they cannot finish those advanced buildings on their own. The update also adds the Large Stone Church upgrade.

Seasonal Assignment allows buildings to cycle their assigned families automatically as the seasons change. The update also introduces a new Herbage affinity for pasture animals, reworks apiaries around seasonal harvesting and Wilding affinity, and adds pasture entrances and fence collisions.

The update follows the earlier beta build that introduced Wide Valley, cider, cows, and the new production controls in our coverage of version 0.8.097. The main-branch release also includes work across trading, AI settlement planning, pathfinding, saves, UI behavior, cosmetics, crash prevention, and performance.

Slavic Magic said the next update is planned for late September and will add a group of new Perks. For now, the full version 0.8.090-0.8.104 changelog is below.

Patch Notes for Manor Lords Version 0.8.090-0.8.104

This update adds the Wide Valley map and several systems that affect production, livestock, logistics, construction, and settlement management. The changelog also includes new AI behavior, balance adjustments, interface changes, bug fixes, crash fixes, and optimization work.

Major Changes

• New Map: Wide Valley.
• New UI: Main HUD has been refactored; a new layout, features and art.
• Artisan Active Recipes: Instead of the “Production Focus” only allowing Artisans to focus on one Production at a time, Active Recipes allow choosing the priority in which production is executed. Artisans start with no Active Recipes until the player sets them.
• New Beverage: Cider. Made from Apples 4:1 at the Brewery.
• New Beverage: Mead. Made from Honey 1:1 at the Brewery.
• New Pasture Animals: Cows & Calves – Cows may be imported via the Livestock Trader. They provide a passive yield of Milk, and can be butchered for Beef and Hides.
• New Field Crop: Oats. Shares a fertility with Barley, but is much more resilient. Sheaves are threshed into Oats, which can be consumed directly.
• New Commodity: Animal Feed. Oats may be crafted into Animal Feed at the Livestock Farm (Formerly named Sheep Farm) at 1:2 ratio.
• New Mechanic: Hungry Animals. – Pasture Animals (Cows, Calves, Sheep, Lambs) become hungry during Winter and will consume Animal Feed each month (or die without).
• New Artisan Workshop: Cheesemonger. Unlocked at Burgage Plot Lv3.
• New Food: Cheese. Crafted from Milk & Salt 1,1:2 at the Cheesemonger.
• New Building: Construction Yard. Workers will store construction material and distribute to building sites via handcarts to improve logistics. They also build 50% faster when the Construction Yard is properly maintained.
• Improved Logistics: When assigned to the Construction Yard, Oxen will use the new Ox Cart, which allows transporting Timber in bulk to building sites.
• New Mechanic: Advanced Construction. Some buildings are considered “Advanced Structures” and require professional builders assigned at the Construction Yard to complete. Unassigned Families still help with transport and basic tasks like flattening the ground for these projects.
• New Upgrade: Large Stone Church.
• New Mechanic: Seasonal Assignment. Buildings can be set to automatically cycle your Assigned Families for each Season.
• New Mechanic: Seasonal Breeding. Pasture Animals now breed according to the season and herd size (Summer for Cows, Autumn for Sheep). Spring is when offspring are produced.
• New Mechanic: Seasonal Produce. Sheep may only be sheared once per year during Summer. Cows are milked monthly, but not during Winter.

Minor Changes

Pastures, Livestock & Affinities

• New Affinity: Herbage. A chance of +1 extra yield for Pasture Animals based on the Meadow Environment.
• Apiary rework: Apiaries are now seasonal. They accumulate yield over Spring/Summer and are harvested in Autumn. Yield is determined by Wilding Affinity.
• Wilding Affinity rework: The Meadow Environment determines the strength of Apiary yields and how many Apiaries can be supported.
• Pasture fences now trigger collisions. Added pasture entrances.
• Sheep no longer die due to cold at high elevation in autumn.
• Livestock Farm (Previously Sheep Farm) “Work Area” setting added. Workers will only gather from Pastures within their work area but will walk outside it to retrieve Oats to craft for Animal Feed.
• [Experimental] Animals on Pastures now favor using Path Points that are within Pasture area when grazing.

Buildings & Logistics

• Added storage filters to Trading Posts which control which types of goods they stock and import.
• Exporting Traders will now look for the closest available Trading Post in the chosen Region instead of picking in order of construction.
• Implemented guide cart loading actions for forest log gathering.
• Demolishing a Logging Camp will no longer delete Logs lying on the ground felled by that Logging Camp.
• Increased the default work area for Forester’s Hut.
• Buildings utilising certain resources and also requiring them for maintenance no longer reserve their inventory. Example: Blacksmith makes Tools and uses them for Maintenance. Now the produced Tools always count as Surplus, even if it means the Blacksmith has to grab them from storage again once Maintenance is due.
• Demolishing a building now re-evaluates previously blocked road guide points for nearby buildings.

General

• Beverage drinking logic has been improved. Family members won’t drink a beverage that doesn’t match their distributed drink type. They also won’t drink in taverns that have no assigned workers.
• [Experimental] Reintroduced randomized distribution preferences for Burgage Plots.
• Workers and animals are now much more reactive during fighting or escaping fire.
• Made all conversation tasks avoid locations inside streams.
• Terrain overlay is now available in road mode.
• Increased minimum distance to Region border for Fishing Spots in order to remove ambiguity of which Region the Resource Node belongs to.
• Overwriting a save file that fails no longer corrupts the original save file.

AI

• Will now select an Origin Perk.
• Will now build a Construction Yard.
• Will now select Production Focus for Artisans.
• Will now build Forester’s Hut.
• Will now build one Forester’s Hut near a Woodcutter’s Lodge.
• WIll now build two Forester’s Huts near a Logging Camp.
• Will now relocate its Logging Camp further out after the early game.
• Will no longer build Apiaries until it reaches Tier 2.
• Will be less keen on building a non-rich Salt or Clay Mine.
• Will be going after non-rich food resource nodes even when far away.
• Will delay some industry buildings to focus on early production and trade.
• Tweaked to re-calculate its strategy more often in the first 60 days.
• Tweaked how many residential plots it builds in parallel in the early game.
• Fixed AI not building its first Marketplace right after Logging Camp and Hitching Posts.
• Fixed AI manning Churches and Corpse Pits due to unburied Wild Animals.
• Fixed AI reserving too much firewood for charcoal production when wanting to sell it for early Regional Wealth.
• Fixed AI spending Regional Wealth on Artisans before getting its first Horse for the Trading Post.
• Fixed AI not being able to rebuild its Logging Camp when only two logs were available.
• Fixed buying a Trade Route that relies on goods that aren’t in abundance.
• Fixed Clay Furnace not being built close to clay Mine.
• Fixed too much labor focus on Berries/Mushroom resource nodes compared to Fishing.
• Fixed not setting reserves for Planks on Artisans.
• Fixed setting Land Tax too early.
• Fixed setting Tithe not based on food supply.
• Fixed not correctly calculating building cost when placing multiple plots at once.

Balance

General

• Settlement Level milestones now grant 100 Influence which scales per level reached.
• Wooden Church construction now grants 100 Influence.
• Manor construction Influence lowered from 250 to 100.
• Fresh pass on construction time for the majority of buildings, overall increasing them.
• Manor Outer Tower (Lv1) construction cost reduced from 10 logs to 4.
• Increased Regional Wealth cost for Bakery and Cobbler extensions.
• Clay Furnace Assigned Families reduced from 5 to 3.
• Forester Assigned Families increased from 2 to 3.
• Logging Camp supports 3 Assigned Oxen (was 1).
• Pastures now have a dynamic Planks construction cost that scales with their size.
• Pastures require x2.2 the area for the same Pasture Space.
• Removed Pasture Space from Livestock Trader and Livestock Farm.
• Sheep produce 2 Wool when sheared. (With a chance for +1 due to Herbage affinity).
• Lambs and Calves yield half as much as their adult counterparts at the Butcher.
• Chicken coop yield speed increased 15%.
• Backyard Extension Pigs time to yield increased +30% (but see below!).
• Affinity “Pannage” now increases Pig yield speed by a rate proportional to the Woodland Environment. (Previously it was 30% of the Woodland Environment). This results in Woodland Environment having a greater impact on Pig Yields at extreme ends, while maintaining relatively a similar yield to before at the midpoint.
• Vegetable yields decreased ~30%.
• Fruit yields decreased ~10%.
• Fruit costs: Quince (-7%), Apple (+23%), Pear (+11%).
• Rye yield lowered 12.5%. This results in Wheat being the more efficient choice if Wheat fertility is over ~30%. Otherwise Rye will yield more.
• Wheat Sheaves, Rye Sheaves removed from Trading Post.
• Wax value lowered from 6 to 4 at the Trading Post.

Tasks & Behaviour

• Husbands can now help out getting Fuel if the rest of the Family are busy guiding Oxen.

Cosmetics

• Added new loading screen art (Building the Church) and refreshed the old one (Knight in the fields).
• [WIP] Guide loading system: Ox Guides now perform loading actions for Ox Carts.
• Added a tong holding Blacksmith’s iron rod.
• Added support for new construction animations, like mixing mortar.
• [Experimental] Curved locomotion: Animals avoid abrupt turning and compensate with taking more curved paths.
• Further improvements on Herd movements.
• [WIP] Added a slow grazing locomotion mode for Cows on Pastures.
• Added resource model for cart transport: Wheat/Rye Grain & Flour, Oats.
• Added visual assets for resources in Storehouse, Granary.
• Added visual assets for resources in the basic supplies dump.
• Slightly enlarged Quarry footprint in order to avoid clipping issues.

UI & Text

Styling & Text

• Added Help Pages entry for Pasture Animals detailing seasonal yield amounts, feed consumption rates and breeding timing.
• Renamed Sheep Farm to Livestock Farm and updated description/references.
• Tutorial popup added; Pasture Animals, triggers on building a pasture.
• Updated Help Subjects entries related to Pasture Animals & added Ox Cart entry.
• Updated tooltips for Butcher Production Focus detailing multi-input recipes.
• Seasons & Time tooltip updated to give more per season info.
• Removed references to “Ale” in tooltips and instead used the category “Beverages”.
• Active Recipe help button/text added to describe how the mechanic works.
• Added problem banner for no available Ox Guide.
• Added new “Overlays” panel styling.
• Updated Time & Seasons widget layout and positioning.
• Made the UI Scale limit relative to screen resolution to reduce clipping.
• Improved tooltip positioning on the Game Setup screen.
• Localization updated.

Bugfixes

General

• Fixed bug where Rye both drained and gained fertility.
• Fixed completed quest generating quest messages under some circumstances on game load.

Logistics

• Fixed Marketplace sometimes not stocking correctly in order to reach full supply.
• Fixed Pack Station workers not always aborting tasks, returning goods, or bringing back mules when being reassigned.
• Fixed Granary workers not picking up overflowing Wheat and Rye Sheaves from farms.
• Fixed farmers bringing crops to a farmhouse before it’s been constructed.
• Fixed farmers bringing crops to a farmhouse that has no available storage space unless absolutely needed.
• Fixed Oxen endlessly trying to plow during the Winter if they don’t make it in time.
• Fixed exporting traders taking unconstructed trading posts / livestock trading posts into account when picking targets.
• Fixed exporting traders not recalculating nearest target trading point correctly.
• Fixed leftover goods in buildings being permanently reserved when the last worker family abandons the building, instead of being treated as surplus.

Pathfinding

• Fixed two “long” characters getting stuck together when their target locations overlap at certain angles.
• Fixed an instance of workers staying stuck because they try to have conversation in the same exact spot as another pair of workers.
• Fixed workers pushing an animal away when trying to pet it (WIP: they still sometimes push it when they go away).
• Fixed Hunters limping if they pathfind towards their target through any buildings.
• Fixed missing pathfinding data for the Trading Post.
• Fixed an instance of a horse guide getting stuck.
• Fixed units stuck not moving after switching to raiding mode.

Save/Load

• Fixed issue where problems wouldn’t appear unless a day passes after loading from save.
• Fixed issue where unburied bodies problem banner wouldn’t reappear for 10 days after loading from save.
• Fixed issue where unfinished Manor construction would look finished when loading from save.

Text/UI

• Fixed bug where clicking a problem banner for characters did not take you to their location.
• Fixed problem banners not working properly when the camera is outside the owned region.
• Fixed Current Settlement Level not working properly when the camera is outside the owned region.
• Fixed Residential Requirements tooltips flickering.
• Fixed missing descriptions from certain tooltips after hovering over the rebuild button of rubble.
• Fixed family member tooltips not displaying properly in the People Tab.
• Fixed some text on the Help Pages displaying broken formatting for clickable links.
• Fixed a typo in the Well Upgrade text.
• Fixed water and entertainment supply overlay behaving incorrectly when the title is not paused.
• Fixed inconsistency in displaying deposit icons while the option “always display deposit icons” is turned off.
• Fixed the paper map being visible in Visit Mode sometimes.

Cosmetic/Visuals

• Fixed levitating Extension clutter.
• Fixed clutter (e.g. the Tavern benches) and felled trees not always aligning to ground correctly.
• Fixed the garrison spot being in the center of the Large Tavern area rather than inside the building itself.
• Fixed Milk Bucket missing when carried by hand.
• Fixed background image in certain sections of Main Menu may be inconsistent

Crashfixes

• Fixed potential crash after re-loading into a different save.
• Fixed crash on placing Castle Tower near a wall in a specific way.
• Fixed crash that could occur when calculating transform for static good visualization.
• Fixed a potential crash due to missing resource visualization meshes on Farmhouse Ox Plow.

Optimization

• Optimized Sheep Herder Tasks.
• Optimized Family Approval calculations.
• Further optimized UI updates.

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Manor Lords

Developed by Slavic Magic

Manor Lords is a strategy game that allows you to experience the life of a medieval lord. Grow your starting village into a bustling city, manage resources and production chains, and expand your lands through conquest.

Inspired by the art and architecture of late 14th century Franconia, Manor Lords prioritizes historical accuracy wherever possible, using it to inform gameplay mechanics and visuals alike. Common medieval tropes are avoided in favor of historical accuracy, in order to make the world feel more authentic, colorful, and believable.

• Genre Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy
• Platforms PC (Microsoft Windows), Xbox One
• Perspective Bird view / Isometric
• Modes Single player
• Release April 26, 2024
• Publisher Hooded Horse
• Age Rating

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