Major Update #5 - Core Systems Rework, Castle Overhaul, and New Maps

Hello everyone,

This update is now live on the main branch after spending time on the Beta Branch. Over the past weeks, it focused on bug fixes, AI improvements, and balance and gameplay polish. Thank you to everyone who tested the beta and took the time to share feedback. It was a big help.

You’ll find the full list of changes included in this release below.

If you have a moment, a Steam review sharing your experience would be appreciated. Hearing what’s working and what still needs attention helps guide what we focus on next.

Important to Note

Saves: To avoid any potential issues, it’s recommended that you back up your saved files before switching to a new version.

Mods: Please remove any mods. They will most likely crash the game.

Previous Version: If for some reason you enjoyed the previous version more, it will be available on it's own Beta branch 0_8_029a password: ILikedItMoreBefore

You can report feedback and bug reports on the Manor Lords Steam forums or join us on Discord for bug reports and discussion about the latest patch.

Patch Notes — Version 0.8.029–0.8.050

Major Changes

• Starting Location Selection: Ability to select the starting location in the game setup screen for the player and adversaries.
• New Maps: Devil's Hill, Jagged Cliffs, Divided and Lake Lemm.
• New Game Modes: Duel (1 vs 1 with AI) and Fractured Realm (4 Lord free-for-all).
• New Buildings, Jobs & Resources: Quarry, Stonemason, Lime Kiln, and their connected resources: Rough Stone, Dressed Stone, Mortar.
• Wall Positioning: A new system for positioning units on walls.
• Ladder Climbing: Units now climb ladders to access higher floors.
• Hover Fortifications: The player can now hover the castle fortifications and see the soldiers inside.
• Gate Control: Added the ability to open and close each castle gate individually.

Castle Upgrade System:

• Module Upgrades: Every castle module, including walls and gates, can now be upgraded to lv2.
• Placement Logic: Module placement is no longer restricted by distance to the nearest major module. The planner now displays the total Bailey Area. The Bailey area allowed for construction is limited by your lord's or lady's Rank (still WIP).
• Wall Platforms: You can now attach platforms to the castle walls. The level of platforms is capped by the wall type.

Affinity System:

• Environment Types: Each Region is divided by area into multiple Environment Types: (Meadow, Woodland, Farmland, Urban, Rural).
• Building Affinities: Different buildings can have Affinities with different Environment Types, for instance, the Animal Pen has a "Pannage" Affinity which decreases the time to yield for Pig Pens relative to the Woodland area.

Maintenance System:

• Workplace Maintenance: A lot of workplaces now must be maintained by delivering resources to function properly.
• Failure Risks: Failure to maintain a building can result in various risks, such as collapse for mines, injury and even a minor death chance.
• Rate Tuning: You can tune a workplace's level of maintenance, affecting Labor Speed.

Yield System:

• Yield Definition: Yield is a measure of how much your workplace produces. Various buildings use different timespans and benchmark values depending on their nature.
• Yield Influencers: Yield can be affected by Labor Speed, Efficiency, and Productivity.
• Labor Speed: Labor Speed measures how fast your workers perform workplace related tasks.
• Efficiency: Efficiency measures how much output you get per input when crafting, per plant when farming or per passive income cycle, depending on the production type. High Efficiency means your Gardens will produce more Vegetables and your Crafting tasks may produce extra items.
• Productivity: Productivity is a measure of your logistics: transport and labor times vs idle times, sickness, extension work and militia assignments.

Approval Rework:

• Memory Weight Shift: Approval memory weight was shifted to dramatically favor current events versus past events.
• Approval Tiers: There are now 7 approval Tiers. Landing in a specific Approval Tier will give various penalties and bonuses to growth, influence, income among others.

Food Resource Rework:

• Food Categories:All foods now fit within food categories; Foraged Goods, Meats, Fishes, Vegetables, Grains and Animal Produce.
• Burgage Plot Requirement overhaul: Burgage Plots now require a variety of foods from different categories, encouraging more diverse variety as they upgrade.
• Expanded Vegetables: Vegetables resource was split into Cabbages, Carrots and Beetroots.
• Expanded Orchards: In addition to Apples, Pears and Quinces were added as new Orchard options.
• Expanded Meats: Meat was divided into: Mutton, Chevon, Pork, Beef, Chicken, Small Game, and is produced by their respective animals accordingly.
• Expanded Fish: Fish was divided into Carp (from ponds) and Eel (from rivers).
• New Food: Milk is passively produced by Goats for the Animal Produce category.
• Wild Animals: Deer were replaced by Small Game since it's more plausible in historical terms. Small Game also yields Pelts, which is an early trade commodity.
• Foraged Goods: Alongside Berries, Mushrooms have been reintroduced as a Foraged Good.
• Honey: Honey is no longer consumed. It is intended for use in a future update, but for now can be sold, while the Apiary Extension boosts the yield of Farms and Orchards through the Pollination Affinity.

Regional Development System Rework:

• Development Perks: To a lot of players, the development tree was a weak point of the game and described as immersion breaking. Therefore, a new, more grounded system of Development Perks has been introduced. The player will now face more realistic choices at each settlement level and those choices reflect the settlement development stage.
• Perk Design: The perks are also designed to be more nuanced from a game design perspective so that choices are less immediately obvious, but compound into strong specializations over time.
• Rollout Status: Since it's still in progress, only the first batch of perks (Origins) is available.
• Policies: Policies are temporarily removed (still undergoing rework).

Minor Changes

General:

• Removed a lot of chance based mechanics in favor of more deterministic calculations to make yield balance more predictable (this includes farming and mining which used to be chance based).
• Yields are more linear as Orchard Trees and Field Crops mature.
• Moved consumption & approval data to the Family structure instead of storing it on husbands (this was a temporary workaround to represent per family consumption and approval effects).
• Since individual villagers no longer have a consumption update, we also moved the disease data to the Family structure. As a side effect, whole families will now get sick together.
• Fishing nodes often spawn in rivers now (allowing river fishing).
• Streams now use the river system and therefore will spawn small bridges.
• Added a new Elevation overlay for use with Farming and Livestock.
• Replaced the Brewery extension placeholder.
• Added an additional road to Wirnitz in Germanic Valley
• Added an extra hard cap for storage distribution limits, eg. if a stall has 21 items for some reason but only 20 storage space, the extra item will not count as supply.

Quality of Life Improvements:

• Added a "Protect Resource Area" checkbox for the Logging Camp and Firewood Cutter which makes workers automatically avoid deforestation near vulnerable resources.
• Worker families assigned to a building being upgraded will now participate in the construction.
• Oxen transporting Timber for construction will get the nearest log instead of nearest on the ground before from buildings.
• Oxen transporting Timber will now prioritize delivering to a target near where the Timber is picked up.
• Blocked sons with jobs from refueling the home if there is a female family member without any task that can do it instead.
• Workplace animals will now be assigned a home as close as possible to the workplace.
• When debranching a tree, Workers will always pick the one closest to them.
• When cutting down a tree, Workers will pick the nearest one, unless too far away from the Logging Camp.
• Changed order of goods produced for Blacksmith and Joiner to list Spears and Large shields first.
• Artisans will start producing the first listed good when their workshop is built.
• Trading Post Workers will now only use Horses that are assigned to their Trading Post (Horses are automatically assigned when they arrive).
• Due to tester feedback, storage building workers supply their Stalls from their own Storehouse/Granary only.
• When taking care of the dead, bodies will now be moved to the nearest Corpse Pit or Church.

Manor Specific:

• Manors no longer have families living in them (since Manors aren't residential and can't fulfil requirements it was always a bit weird).
• When castle modules are placed on a wall, they will split the wall and snap the walls to edges instead of clipping with the module.
• Added an option to join 2 walls into 1 after you snap their ends together.
• Added missing wall snapping points to the outer towers.
• When rotating a module, the attached walls should now stay attached. The rotation is limited if a module has wall connections.
• Castle modules now collide with each other when placing in order to avoid building areas impossible for pathfinding and reduce clipping.

Adjustments:

• Deprecated some jobs since they no longer were fitting the game design: Removed Dye and Dyer in their previous implementation. Removed Firewood Cart and Food Cart.
• Cloaks are removed, instead, there are two recipes for producing Clothes - either from Wool or from Linen.
• Apiary is now a backyard extension. Wax is now produced every third cycle from an Apiary.
• Removed the "Fence up" Upgrade from fields since it's a leftover of the previous development tree and doesn't quite fit anymore.
• Temporary removal of the "Force Early Harvest" button in the Farmhouse.
• Granary workers no longer supply Windmills since it was inconsistent with all the other workplaces needing to get their own crafting resources.
• Pigs, Goats and hunting hounds no longer use the livestock order timer the Oxen/Mules/Horses do.

Technical:

• Added global graphics presets.
• [Experimental] Added new frame limit options (59.99 and 59.94) in an attempt to reduce VSync lag.
• [Experimental] Increased house entering distance at high game speeds to reduce people clogging doorways.
• Improved the camera collision with cliffs on High Peaks.
• Tweaked the cliff pathfinding obstacle accuracy.

Balance

General:

• Every newly settled region now gains +1 Growth for 1 year from the "Fresh Settlement" modifier.
• Shortened the fadeout time of all Approval Memories from 365 to 90 days to make the mechanic feel slightly more responsive.
• Destroying a Bandit Camp will net 33% less Regional Wealth/Treasury on average.
• Manors/Castles are no longer flammable under the assumption that raiders shouldn't be able to easily light them on fire.
• Fertility drain starts from 5% of growth so that yields don't drop while the crop is still being planted.
• Rye fertility now is 1.5 * Wheat fertility, but no more than 100%.
• Droughts are much less impactful, no longer sets crop yields to 1.
• Granaries get a handcart shed. Handcarts slots changed to 2 (lv1) and 6 (lv2). Storehouse handcart slots are 2 (lv1) and 6 (lv2) as well.
• Lightning should no longer start fires on "Weather Events: None" game setting.
• Tithe gives 2 Influence for every 1 Food donated (was 1).
• Sausages are made from Pork and Salt.
• Shoes cost reduced from 2 Leather to 1 Leather.
• Reduced sawpit max workers to 1.
• Regional Wealth is no longer refunded when demolishing a building.

Resource Deposits:

• Starting Resource Node balance changed: Players get either Fish or Small Game, either Berries or Mushrooms, either Iron or Salt, as well as Clay, Stone and Fertility. Two of those get boosted to a Region Strength (Rich Resource Node or a Rich Fertility).
• Increased chance of fishing resource nodes on maps with many river regions. (Temporary)
• Wild Animal reproduction is now dependent on their herd size. A minimum of 2 animals is required.
• Tweaked resource regrowth rates and capacities for all resource deposits.
• Rich Mining Deposits have larger mining range than normal ones, allowing you to potentially place more mines on a single deposit.
• There is an increasing chance of collapse if the user places too many mines close to each other.

Burgage Plots & Families:

• The cost of Vegetable Gardens and Orchards scale based on the size of the Extension Area. This can be viewed as the “Planting Cost” when placing the Burgage Plot.
• Vegetable Gardens need to be replowed and replanted after harvest.
• Chicken (meat) is now produced every fourth cycle from a Chicken Coop, while Milk is produced from Goats with Chevon and Hides every third cycle.
• Families consume 1 Ale every 3 months.
• Introduced a 30 day grace period when starting the game / settling a region before the homelessness approval factor kicks in.
• Families now consume extra goods related to their Burgage Level, eg. Clothing for Lv2 and up.
• Removed Tool cost from all Artisan Workshops as Maintenance replaces it.
• Increased Blacksmith and Armorer Workshops Regional Wealth cost increased to 25.

Trade:

• All values are now visible at the Trading Post, even without established routes, and a completely new balance has been introduced for all goods.
• New values assigned to most Animals for orders and the Livestock Trading Post.
• Increased the max number of assigned horses to 4 at the Trading Post.
• Increased import tariff from 5 to 10 for all foreign trades.

UI & Text

Styling & Quality of Life:

• UI styling overhaul with a more "medieval" and less modern feel.
• Resource nodes will display as drawings instead of icons in the parchment (region) view and have more consistent icons in world view.
• “Records” statistics screen where you can compare and contrast your regional production and consumption of all goods.
• Hovering over Approval displays an overlay detailing missing Requirements and level of satisfaction on all Burgage Plots.
• Improved Family list styling in the People Tab. Includes a new hoverable Family Consumption icon detailing what is consumed and how frequently.
• Extensions will now display the icon of the chosen animal or crop in the building Residential panel and building floaters when pressing TAB.
• Existing saves can now be renamed, and added an overwrite save confirmation check.
• Tutorial styling improved, adding subsections for less pop-ups but with more clearly defined information overall.
• Log notifications that trigger close to each other are now displayed for a few seconds instead of just the most recent one.
• Regions can now be cycled through on the Region Screen.
• Livestock Tooltip now displays Extension animals.
• Living Space tooltip now includes Plot, Population and Migration details.
• When a Burgage Plot is refueled, the cold warning should now instantly disappear.
• Quest finished messages should no longer popup for Mercenary Company payments (a bit overkill).
• Broken mercenary companies will no longer display in the Mercenary Company Panel.
• Windmills now display their efficiency value in the General panel.

Text:

• All tutorials rewritten and new tutorial pop-ups implemented.
• All wiki entries in “Economy” category rewritten. “Tutorials” category added to allow reading of tutorials at your own pace.
• Added a lot more character names.
• Added weights to character names to control how likely they are to be picked.
• All building descriptions rewritten to list less direct numbers, but be more generalized as yields can now vary.
• All upgrades rewritten to be more thematic, consistent and to detail more information about how the upgrade works.
• Updated text for establishing a trade route tooltip, delivering more information.
• Updated Royal Tax setting description in the Main Menu, delivering more information.

Functionality:

• Manor modules now also snap back to the original dragging start position to reduce accidental changes.
• Alt-clicking to delete a castle module was replaced by a destroy button.
• Improved accuracy when selecting wall points.
• Road Snap Points no longer get distorted on the grass.
• Removed the building placement front arrow since building entrances are displayed now.
• Re-added the Sheen effect after creating or replanting a field/garden to give more visual feedback.

Sound

• Drag Audio: Added sound effects when dragging castle modules.

Bugfixes

• Fixed approval tooltip not displaying during the first in-game day in a session.
• Fixed job assignment sometimes not correctly picking an unassigned family living nearest to the workplace.
• Fixed the castle wall blueprints being less curved after committing to construction at least once.
• Fixed the camera snapping above water level when moving over waterbodies.
• Fixed an issue with the problem banner appearing when the trading post is connected to the trade network.
• Fixed soldiers becoming immobile if all their squad members have died.
• Fixed region data and problem banners displaying incorrectly after loading a save where the player has lost all region control.
• Fixed felled trees sometimes loading with overly large scale.
• Fixed certain pre-placed road pieces respawning when loading a saved game.
• Fixed the Large Granary not upgrading sometimes.
• Fixed villagers sometimes getting stuck inside their homes when loading a saved game.
• Fixed Resource Clumps floating in the map view.
• Fixed Burgage Plots not tinting red when hovering over any supply if the value is exactly 0%.
• Fixed pathfinding ignoring the broken wagon next to the Trading Post.
• Fixed the player being able to add militia units from non owned regions.
• Fixed livestock orders failing due to the ox trying to navigate into the stable wall and failing.
• Fixed resource nodes showing a partially filled icon after all resources have been gathered.
• Fixed the "Cold" event text not displaying translation.
• Fixed empty extension clutter levitating after loading a saved game.
• Fixed flashing building widgets when pressing tab.
• Fixed Livestock Merchant tooltip not showing correct translation.
• Fixed Bandit Camps rewards triggering twice.
• Fixed Rallying Point placement being blocked on Fields and Pastures.
• Fixed Bandits cheering too much when killing civilians.
• Fixed dying soldiers levitating over ground on slopes.
• Fixed demolishing a building being upgraded not returning any construction goods.
• Fixed too many handcarts being spawned cause it would not account for the ones actively in use.
• Fixed Peasants returning all weapons/shields to the Storehouse on loading a save.
• Fixed resources possibly being dropped to a Pond if there's no place for them in storage.
• Fixed missing collision model for Charcoal Kiln.

Cosmetics

• Lv1 Garrison Tower model was reworked to be more proportional with the scale of the Lv1 Manor.
• Made oxen straighten their back when they wait for a guide so that they don't just stand there bent like a banana.
• Updated the empty Extension clutter visuals to be less historically inaccurate and more randomized.
• Orchards workers now use a shovel and digging animation instead of hoe and plough.
• Reworked Joiner, Bowyer, Armorer & Butcher workshops.
• Tweaked seasonal variation tints for far away trees.
• Ox plow will now align the rotation to ground slope.
• Improved door opening detection precision.
• Tweaked visuals of fishing locations.

Optimization

• Skipped animal petting in the stables since it's no space for it anyway and it only clogged pathfinding with unresolved requests. Tweaked the ox guide locations in tight spaces to avoid unresolved pathfinding requests.
• Drastically reduced reallocated Vertex Animation textures to decrease ambient frametime.
• Optimized bee particle systems since they actually added up in large cities with many Apiaries.
• Fixed issues around Pooled widgets building up indefinitely, addressing potential memory leak.
• Fixed memory leak when updating all shopfront and wells visuals as inventory changes.
• Optimized Inventory panel and Log Entries to prevent exponential frame dropping.
• Optimized searching for a conversation partners in large cities when idle.
• Fixed market supply distribution causing a lag spike on every new day.
• Added embers and smoke FX to the Smithy, Blacksmith and Armorer.
• Removed hitching/potential crashing when burning crops.
• Reduced cost of showing Building Floaters by 62%
• Optimized population and living space UI updates.
• Further optimized market distribution calculations.
• Optimized the market distribution code a bit.
• Optimized door opening and closing.
• Minor video memory optimizations.
• Optimized the rain particles a bit.
• Optimized workplace task logic.
• Optimized planted tree growth.
• Upgrade to FSR4.0.2

AI

• Will now stop producing Charcoal if storage of Charcoal reaches 1000.
• Will now consider building another Granary or Storehouse when current ones reach 90% capacity.
• Fixed potentially not being able to rally more than once.
• Fixed not creating more than one Militia squad.
• Fixed expecting double-sized orchard plots to build an expansion, thus not having enough living space to attract migration.
• Will now build a Corpse Pit if enough corpses are piling up in the Settlement.
• Will now assign Workers to the Church and Corpse Pit to bury any corpses lying around.
• Will now calculate what goods it can't produce in a Region.
• Will now import goods needed to rebuild the Settlement or to satisfy Maintenance.
• Will now try to rebuild a Settlement in better order to avoid dead-locks.
• Will now wait a little longer before adding a third or fourth family to the Trading Post.
• Will now stop cutting down trees if storage of Timber reaches 200.
• Will now stop cutting down trees if storage of Firewood reaches 2000.
• Will now destroy a Stonegatherer Camp if no longer useful.
• Will now destroy and rebuild the Hunting Camp if the Wild Animal Resource Node have moved away.
• Will now build the Hunter Camp close to the Wild Animal Resource Node even if it's far away.
• Will now put higher priority on far away resource gathering buildings under construction.
• Will now try to avoid constructing a Manor on top of trees.
• Fixed a number of issues that could dead-lock the AI when trying to rebuild a Settlement.
• Fixed Stonegatherer Camp sometimes being constructed on the Stone Resource Node.
• Fixed not building Stonemason's Station or Lime Kiln when having a Quarry.
• Fixed not being aware of that a rich Stone Resource Node also produces Rough Stone.
• AI will now build a Blacksmith extension even if it has no rich iron resource node.
• AI will now always build a Joiner extension.
• AI will now build a Bloomery if it has any iron resource node or if it has already build a Trading Post.
• AI will no longer buy an Animal Pen, Vegetable Garden, or Orchard backyard extension unless it can afford the animal order och planting cost.
• AI will no longer add single household artisan workshop on double-sized plots.
• AI will no longer add an artisan workshop on plots meant for vegetable gardens or orchards.
• AI will no longer sell tools until it can properly estimate its own need.
• AI will try to demolish an existing building in order to get hold of any missing resources to build or rebuild a first Logging Camp.
• AI will now try to rebuild buildings that have been turned into rubble.
• AI now sets better limits regarding hunting and fishing.
• Fixed worker placement not properly taking hunting and fishing limits into account.
• Fixed worker placement not properly understanding if enough raw material was available for multi-goods producing buildings.
• AI will now be a little bit quicker to add more worker families to the Trading Post.
• AI will now only export one good per family in the Trading Post unless they have access to a horse.
• AI will no longer buy a major trade route before it has acquired a second ox and a horse.
• AI will score constructing residential plots lower to avoid overtaking other buildings when rebuilding.
• AI will score Hitching Posts and Stables much higher when needed to avoid having animals running away.
• AI will now build Charcoal Kilns.
• AI will now try to exploit pelts or firewood/charcoal for early game regional wealth.
• AI will not focus a bit more on harvesting seasonal goods during their season.
• AI will now ignore sick families when trying to redistribute worker families.
• AI will now focus more on building and upgrading residential houses in order to meet immigration.
• Fixed not rebuilding market stalls due to them not getting a score.
• Fixed Vegetable Garden unintentionally being slightly favored over Orchard.
• Fixed always trying to put a well on a water vein even if that game option was turned off.
• Fixed a bug that would invalidate trying to build a road connection towards the settlement instead of the nearest road.
• Fixed a bug that would invalidate too many residential plots.
• Fixed AI building on overly steep slopes.
• Fixed AI exceeding region borders with their plots.
• Fixed castle modules spawning levitating after load game (or multiple load games).
• Fixed sorting of potential export goods not using total stored amount as tie-breaker.
• Fixed AI trying to build roads to an invalid coordinate.
• Fixed all of UI completely disappearing after opening and closing the Castle Planner.
• AI will now redistribute workers every 3 days instead of several times per second.
• AI will now consider constructing a building that produces not needed goods if the export price is at least 2 instead of 3.
• AI will now be able to upgrade Residential Plots to tier 2.
• AI will now be able to upgrade Residential Plots to Joiner and Blacksmith.
• AI will now update many economy and trade functions more seldom for increased performance.
• AI will now destroy no longer needed buildings, like exhausted Mines, or buildings gathering resources no longer present.
• AI will now calculate and be guided by the need of things like Maintenance, and not just missing construction goods.
• AI will now calculate and be guided by a strategic reserve of goods, and no longer trade away goods it needs.
• AI will now try to place the Trading Post close to the nearest King's Road.
• AI will now better favor high ground when placing the Manor or its first Church.
• Fixed AI building too many Hitching Posts.
• Fixed AI building a tier 1 building when the rubble of an upgraded building can be repaired.
• Fixed AI not being able to build Quarries.
• Fixed AI not disbanding Militia and Retinue when no longer faced with any active enemy threats.
• Fixed AI not building single Residential Plots by lowering the standard plot width from 1000 to 750.
• Fixed AI not building any buildings if the initial building grid runs out of potential spots.
• Fixed AI not being able to buy a Major Trade Route.
• Will now ignore non-rich food resource nodes if too far away from village with max distance based on number of families.
• Will now assign Horses when possible to the Trading Post.
• Fixed not setting hunting and fishing limits based on a Resource Node's actual max value.
• Fixed incorrect scoring of Order Animals and Plant Vegetables and Plant Fruits.
• Fixed not prioritizing high enough the construction of the first Logging Camp.
• Will now consider far off Iron, Salt, and Clay Resource Nodes over time as the number of worker families increase.
• Will now value building mines on top of Iron Resource Nodes higher than other mines.
• Will now import any needed Iron Tools if there is no Iron Resource Node in the region.
• Fixed not counting families who becomes homeless by losing their home as available workforce.
• Fixed Manors built by AI not being visible and not considered completed.

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