Manor Lords 0.8.117 Brings Mandatory Crop Rotation to the Default Branch

The update adds six Rural Foundations perks and expands farming with seasonal crops, fertilizer, and new field-planning tools.

Bojan Kicevski2 minutes ago

0 4 11 minutes read

Workers tend a field beside a large dung pile in Manor Lords

Manor Lords version 0.8.117 has moved to the default branch, bringing its farming overhaul and six Rural Foundations perks to the main build. Slavic Magic confirmed the branch change in its Steam announcement. Before its promotion to the default branch, version 0.8.117 received farming, balance, and settlement fixes documented in the beta build’s changelog.

The 0.8.110 beta already introduced mandatory Crop Rotation and Rural Foundations, so version 0.8.117 brings those systems beyond testing. The farming rules now distinguish winter crops from spring crops: Wheat and Rye can be sown in Spring for a quicker, smaller harvest, while Flax, Barley, and Oats are Spring crops.

Fields also get a 12-month activity timeline. Crop Rotation cannot be disabled, and fields without crops planted regain fertility as if they were Fallow. Unharvested crops in October now lose yield gradually instead of forcing an immediate rotation. Autumn rotations can occur on September 1 when there is nothing to harvest, after a harvest, or on November 1 if crops died without being harvested.

Animal dung adds another link to the farming cycle. Pasture animals produce Dung, which Dung Collectors process into Fertilizer at the new Dunghill. Farmhouse workers can apply it to Fallow Fields during Summer to raise maximum fertility, and it lasts for just over two years. The update also adds the Fishmonger, which makes Smoked Fish from Fish and Salt.

Rural Foundations unlocks at Settlement Level 3 and adds options for forestry, beekeeping, fishing, livestock, tillage, and pasture management. The complete version 0.8.117 changelog follows.

Patch Notes for Manor Lords Version 0.8.117

Major Changes

New Development Perks: Added “Rural Foundations” Perk Category with six new perks, unlockable at Settlement Level 3.
New Artisan: Fishmonger. Produces Smoked Fish from Fish and Salt.
New Building: Dunghill. Assigned Families (Dung Collector) collect Dung and produce Fertilizer. Dung & Fertilizer may only be stored at the Dunghill.
Dung Production: Pasture Animals produce Dung at various rates depending on the animal.
Fertilization: Farmhouse workers can boost a Fallow Field’s Maximum Fertility by applying Fertilizer during Summer. Fertilizer lasts for just over 2 years.
Seasonal Crops: Officially split Crops into Winter and Spring and strictly allow farming tasks in their appropriate months.
- Wheat & Rye are Winter crops, but can optionally be sown in Spring for quicker return, but less yield.
- Flax, Barley & Oats are Spring crops and can only be sown in Spring.
Refactored Field UI: Includes a timeline of the next 12 months of upcoming field related activities.
Crop Rotation is now always ON for all fields and cannot be disabled, since not using it didn’t have any benefits.
While Fields have crops selected but nothing has been planted, they will regenerate fertility as if they were Fallow.
Plowing of Fallow Fields is allowed in Spring, Summer & Autumn but has the lowest priority of all tasks.
Unharvested Crops in October will no longer force-rotate, but instead will begin to slowly die and lose their yield, giving a window of time to salvage the field.
Fallow fertility replenishment builds up over time with most regeneration happening towards the end of a year cycle. Similarly, crops now get most of their growth in the final months.
Crop Rotation now occurs across Autumn, and has three triggers;
- On September 1st for a field with nothing to harvest, including Fallow.
- After a harvest completes.
- On November 1st (for fields that died and were never harvested).

Development Perks

Experienced Forestry

Upgrade (Charcoal Kiln) “Tight-Sealing”. Upgrade Effect: Efficiency +25%.
Increases sawpit efficiency by 20%.
Increases Bow Militia range by 25%.
Allows planting trees during Winter.

Woodland Beekeeping

Upgrade (Forester’s Hut) “Zeidler’s Hut”. Upgrade Effect: The Forester’s Hut is repurposed to tend beehives in nearby woodland during Spring and Summer, harvesting Honey and Wax in Autumn.
Increases Apiation’s limit by 10%, allowing for a stronger Pollination bonus.
Reduces the number of Apples required to make Cider by 25%.

Fish Husbandry

Increases Shoal of Fish capacity by 15%, lowers reproduction by 50% but allows reproduction during all Spring, Summer and Autumn months.
Increases Fishmonger Efficiency by +25%.
Enables Fishing during Winter.

Livestock Provisioning

New Upgrade (Butcher) “Butcher’s Gantry”. Upgrade Effect: Efficiency +20%.
Increases Cow reproduction success by 15%.
Increases Livestock Farm Efficiency when crafting Animal Feed by 20%.
Reduces Beef and Mutton spoilage by 10%.

Practical Tillage

New Upgrade (Farmhouse) “Cobbled Threshing Floor”. Upgrade Effect: Threshing Efficiency +15%.
Home Dung Collection (Backyard Animal Pens produce Dung).
Reduces Crop spoilage by ~18% and lowers damage from rain/snow by 50%.
Increases Field drought resistance by 50%.

Pastoral Practice

New Upgrade (Dunghill) “Stone-Lined Pit”. Upgrade Effect: Efficiency +20%.
Increases Sheep reproduction success by 30%.
Causes Backyard Animal Pens to yield 10% faster.
Increases Pasture capacity by 20%.

Born of the Alps (Adjustment)

Removed: Sheep no longer die at high elevation during Winter.
Added: Sheep wool production +1 when on high elevation.

Minor Changes

General

Sheaves are collected from farms in order of least available grain type.
Sheaves are threshed in order of least available grain type.
Pastures can be configured to accept or reject different Animals via the Advanced Tab.
Pasture Animal breeding logic was rewritten to be more stable (avoiding multiple chances) resulting in a single chance for pregnancy to occur on the first day of the season (Cows in Summer, Sheep in Autumn).
Animals no longer die from high elevation in Winter.
Livestock assigned to a building can only be led by assigned workers from that building, and require assigned workers to be able to execute their tasks.
Livestock will move into buildings only after the construction process completes.
Families prioritize consumption of Food types that their Burgage Plots currently request from the Market Supply. Therefore if Marketplaces don’t allow Oats, it won’t be consumed as long as there are other Food options available.
Wild Animals, Berries, and Mushroom resource nodes are now placed deeper into Forests when possible.
Idle workers at the Fisherman’s Hut can now go inside instead of going home.
Added Reserve and Production Limit to Logging Camp and Woodcutter’s Lodge.
Logging Camp workers will stop work if regional surplus of timber reaches or exceeds total timber storage limit in the region, and a problem banner will appear.
Productivity tracking is available for Foresters and Zeidlers.
Residential plots being upgraded can accept new families if there is already constructed available living space.
Families will count as higher level only after their Burgage Plot’s upgrade process fully completes.
Employed families helping construct their own burgage plot will not perform “cosmetic construction” anymore. That allows prioritizing any other potentially productive tasks.
Wooden Church now triggers wide roads in front of it.
Wide roads will be triggered for longer stretches along a plot’s border.
“Supplies” do not generate road snapping points anymore.
Oxen are now less strict about following roads.
Workers will no longer walk slower due to carrying some equipment.
Squads can now be ordered to follow roads.
Fast unit HP regeneration now requires being at least 160 meters away from the closest enemy unit.

AI

Will now recalculate region strategy at least once per day.
Will now always use a fixed pool of unassigned instead of basing it on current construction needs.
Will now evaluate worker placement every day instead of every third day during the first two months.
Will now ignore more buildings early on, in order to stay more focused.
Will put earlier focus on upgrading the Granary.
Will now put more emphasis on getting early trade up and running.
Will now put early focus on two trade goods based on regional resources and picked Origin Perk.
Will now build multiple Hunting Camps around Wild Animals resource nodes.
Will now buy the Hunting Hound upgrade for the Hunting Camp if possible.
Will now buy the Herb Garden upgrade.
Will now assign an Ox to the Sawpit.
Will now use a rich mine as the center point when placing a Bloomery or a Clay Furnace.
Will now wait to build a Charcoal Kiln until it has finished construction of a Woodcutter’s Lodge.
Will now base militia types more on regional resources.
Will now look to import resources to create helmets for militia in year two if needed.
Will now use varying sizes when building Residential plots.
Tweaked the general layout of starting roads around the settlement.
Will now try to build enclosing roads around the central Marketplace and Churches.
Will now try to rotate close by buildings towards a Marketplace or Church.
Will now rotate buildings too far from a nearby road towards the settlement center instead.
Fixed picking wrong Origin Perk when having rich Iron and rich Small game.
Fixed not handling some transitionary resources correctly when calculating good chains.
Fixed exporting goods imported to fill a need.
Fixed not exporting Pelts in regions with a non-rich resource node.
Fixed constantly firing and hiring workers at the Hunting Camp due to it reaching the hunting limit.
Fixed adding Deep Mine too early before it can spare the regional wealth.
Fixed not being able to build a Stonemason’s Station in a region without Rich Stone if needed.
Fixed constructing too much living space due to counting orchards as potential expansion plots.
Fixed building backyard extensions on plots where no family had moved in.
Fixed buying other extensions than Vegetable Garden or Orchard for designated plots.
Fixed not building any artisans due to no available empty backyards.
Fixed the occasional major road around the settlement having sharp and weird-looking turns.
Fixed not unpausing buildings at sleep before starting to rebuild them.
Fixed not being able to reassign workers from buildings at sleep.

Balance

General

Crops grow 2.4% slower.
Fallow Fields regenerate fertility at a significantly lower rate.
While a crop grows, the other fertility types now gain slightly less. Fallow cycles are generally needed to keep a field sustainable.
Fertility boost gained from having Rich Fertility in a Region lowered by 30%.
Rye’s fertility bonus increased from x1.5 to x1.75 and yield increased 7%. Rye becomes the better choice for bread making at the Bakery if Wheat is below 60% fertility.
Vegetable Gardens grow at 20% their normal rate during Winter.
Livestock breeding chance for Cows and Sheep increased to 40%.
Changed default reserved limit for Small Game to be 90% of the Wild Animal max herd size as its more optimal.
Increased fishing spots number to 15 per Resource Node. (Supports more Fishing Huts)
Foresters’ tree planting density has reduced approximately 66%.
Decreased the output from the Deep Mine.
Weiden Hinterlanders mining boost reduced -10%, matching its text description and intended speed.
Labor speed from double maintenance was lowered from +100% to +25%.

Military

Warbows do 23% more damage.
Crossbows do 16% less damage.

Environment

Hunting Camp, Forager Hut, and Woodcutter’s Lodge no longer count toward the Rural Environment.
Areas covered by lakes, rivers, ponds, and cliffs are now ignored when calculating Environment percentages.
Large backyards for Urban buildings now count towards the Rural Environment.

Cosmetics

Updated visuals of the Forester’s Hut.
[WIP] Updated building panel visuals.
Pasture shed will now spawn along the best fitting wall, based on terrain slope.
Livestock now try to keep by the Pasture shed in the Winter.
Rye, Barley and Wheat now have slightly different tints to help distinguish them.
Updated far mountain visuals in the Germanic Valley map.
Minor touch ups in fir forest vegetation on Germanic Valley.
Improved the plowing texture effects to reduce spill over into neighboring Fields.
NPCs will now get pushed by the player Character in Visit Mode.
Livestock Farm workers now equip buckets when they go to milk and perform an animated milking Action.
Increased size of supplies diameter from 3m to 4m.
Improved queueing behavior.
Construction workers flattening ground now try to stay out of the way of any resource drop points.

UI & Text

Styling & Quality of Life

New layout and visualization for the Field, Storage, Productivity, Protection Area, Mine Collapse Chance and Seasonal Assignment tab.
Adjusted styling of Maintenance, Fuel and Yield tabs.
Fertility overlay selector reorganized to keep crops of shared fertility together.
TAB key floaters containing the amount of yield for unharvested fields in October is displayed in red color as they are dying.
TAB key floaters do not use the crop rotation icon for fields anymore as it’s on by default.
Due to harvest being more flexible, “harvest season ended” notification was removed.
Improved styling of the Family icon.
Livestock icon added for Ox.
Added missing building panel image for Deep Mine.

Text

Added wiki entries for Farming and Crop Rotation.
Wiki updated for Pasture Animals to be more accurate.
Updated tutorial for field placement. (When the field plot tool is being used).
New tutorial for farming. (When farmhouse/field built).
Updated text for storage filters on a pasture for selecting which animal to allow.
Improved text for Fertilizer related tooltips.
“Fodder” subcategory reclassified as “Farming”.
“Minerals” subcategory reclassified as “Raw Materials”.
General text pass on Perk Effects.
Environment percentages will now always add up to 100%.
Teeming Affinity icon now appears on Forager Hut.
Added text for Zeidler’s Hut building name.
Localization updated.

Bugfixes

General

Fixed Of the Votgland’s negative effect being applied to the Herb Garden of a Forager Hut.
Fixed Of the Vogtland’s negative effect being applied to Fields and the Farmhouse, causing a double negative to farming.
Fixed Weiden Hinterlanders positive effect being applied to Fields and the Farmhouse, causing a double positive to farming.
Fixed Weiden Hinterlanders perk not affecting the price of Chicken Coop.
Fixed Environments not being calculated correctly.
Fixed workers preferring cosmetic construction of close buildings that doesn’t increase progress over productive construction of far buildings.
Fixed multiple construction workers competing for the same building spot.
Fixed relocating a stall resulting in freeing available market stall space.
Fixed possibility of transferring market stalls between marketplaces.
[WIP] Removed Lebkuchen from Trading Post.
Fixed approval loss not dropping due to unburied bodies.

Production

Fixed field yields of the same fertility being inconsistent due to rounding errors.
Fixed sleep/awake not firing and hiring livestock animal workers.
Fixed plowing Oxen not respecting field priority.
Fixed: A paused farmhouse does not prevent ox from plowing a field.
Fixed collecting crops task not respecting transportation limits and all targeting the nearest Farmhouse.
Fixed livestock farmers stopping milking cows if generic storage of their workplace is full.
Fixed livestock farmers not respecting production limits when collecting Milk and Wool.
Fixed default hunting and fishing limits not being set based on the actual numbers of the resource nodes.
Fixed Hunting Hound not giving bonus yield when getting back to Hunting Camp.
Fixed: Foresters may plant trees outside of their own region.
Fixed production limits not working for Mine, Quarry, Stone Gatherer Camp, Forager Hut.
Fixed workplace building not producing anything due to Production Limit being able to go negative.
Fixed Butcher’s Shop workers producing beyond storage limits.
Fixed Efficiency modifier calculations not giving enough bonus Yield.
Fixed spoiled food not being included in regional production registry UI.

Logistics

Added a fallback transport location for logs in case the Manor palace is placed so close to a cliff, the Oxen can’t drop Timber.
Fixed oxen not being hired automatically by building when becoming available.
Fixed abandoned carts being destroyed if inside the plot of a building being demolished.
Fixed transport of water reducing water supply temporarily.

Military

Fixed guide loading the ox cart holding on to a timber log when rallied into militia squad.
Fixed militia not breaking when morale reaches 0.
Fixed bug where defeating bandits by ranged combat only did not reward Influence.
Fixed pathfinding issue when attempting to capture bandit camps.
Fixed ability to create units in an unowned region.

Pathfinding

Fixed Loggers and Firewood Cutters getting stuck if the target tree was inside an obstacle.

Save/Load

Fixed planted trees not showing up on the paper map after loading a savegame.
Fixed planted trees sometimes being registered to the wrong Region upon loading a savegame.
Fixed the game time trying to catch up after it temporarily stops during autosave.

Cosmetic/Visuals

Fixed field highlight effect rendering without the player actually changing the crop type (e.g. when a field is fallow and the player selects fallow again from the dropdown).
Fixed the plowing texture not resetting over winter when plowing status resets.
Fixed the plowing shed spawning underground if a farmhouse is built on a slope.
Fixed style of message log entry about people dead from starvation (alert color, skull icon).
Fixed Tavern lv1-lv2 wall paints looking too bright.
Fixed fences sometimes not spawning on load from save.
Fixed issue with dirt path appearing in a straight line towards gate of Manor.
Fixed wide roads not being applied for certain buildings when upgrading.
Fixed bugged state of castle modules when loading a save with modules under construction.

Text/UI

Fixed families in Residential plots not being shown in the living space tooltip while the plot was under construction.
Fixed the Residential expansion not counting towards living space being constructed in the living space tooltip.
Fixed certain burgage extension icons not matching the extension selection UI icons.
Fixed issue where upgrading certain extensions replaced the building icon with an incorrect one.
Fixed: Reassigning Family between buildings can assign two families instead of one in People’s tab.
Fixed “Home” button disappearing for Family entry UI in workplaces.
Fixed: Livestock tab is missing from Hitching Post, Small Stable and Pasture widgets.
Fixed: Small Stable is missing ‘Purchase Animal’ buttons.
Fixed possibility to give empty names to animals.
Fixed the productivity tracker lagging behind time entries, causing it to always display 0% when first viewed.
Fixed Hunters “placing trap” task not being considered as “labor” for the productivity tracker.
Fixed Nuremberg Prospectors perk not removing warning about collapse chance in UI tooltip during mine placement.
Fixed: ‘Rebuild’ button is missing from the Rubble UI.
Fixed: Escape in building mode doesn’t cancel plot type placement.
Fixed Improved Militia Effectiveness text when hovering squad not hooked up correctly.
Fixed army panel showing data for foreign regions.

Crashfixes

Fixed potential crashes caused by texture soft reference garbage collection.
Fixed crash when loading save game with a dead soldier carrying a banner.
Fixed crash when troops positioned on a Manor wall are attacked.
Fixed crash when pressing the castle planner’s road tool button while having uncommitted road/wall points.

Optimization

Optimized animal growth logic.

How are the new crop seasons and fertility rules changing the way you plan fields? Follow the farming changes and other settlement updates through X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.

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.