New BETA version is available for testing (0.8.110)

Hi gang,

We're ready to present you the Beta version of the next update. Our focus was Perks, but when analyzing your Steam reviews we found that your issues are, by priority:

1. Save corruption / crash on load (hopefully all fixed, as long as you're not loading from a very old build). 2. Oxen logistics jams and other pathfinding related issues (hopefully fixed, but may still need improvement, especially when you get 20+). 3. Crash frequency and errors (hopefully all fixed). 4. Building speed / oxen issues (hopefully fixed). 5. Farming (we looked into it).

Hopefully because neither QA nor alpha testers report it being an issue anymore, but of course if it still happens out there, report it please, we'll keep looking into every case.

Farming changes

We've tried to address all the most urgent issues and iron out some of the design. We found that the largest problem was, as the crops auto rotated, they possibly purged a unharvested yield. They also didn't rotate fast enough in other times, and overall the time windows for farming work was relatively short. Additionally our game designer Darren wanted a clearer separation between spring and winter crops. The UI has been rework to make it clear what gets worked on when.

For new content, we've added Fertilizer production as a way to buff Fertility of Fields. Manure gets produced by Livestock, gets collected by Dung Collectors and composted into Fertilizer.

Crop Rotation is now mandatory, because there was no logical reason why you'd never do it.

Rural Foundations

This next set of Development Perks is aimed at extracting more value from your medium villages. There's 6 to choose from and they all have a mix of effects.

Other improvements

It's easy to miss until you look closely, but our AI engineer have been working hard on making the AI towns prosper better. There's a lot of bugfixes, balance tweaks and small improvements sprinkled around too - more detail in the changelog below.

How to Access the Beta

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

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

To find your Manor Lords Steam saves.

• Press Win + E
• Go to %USERPROFILE%]]AppDataLocalManorLordsSavedSaveGames into the search bar.

To try the BETA, please follow these steps:

• Open Steam
• Right-click on Manor Lords in your library
• Select Properties
• Go to the BETAS tab
• Enter the password: veryNiceBasket
• Choose "pre_release" from the "Beta participation" drop-down list
• Wait for the game to update the files (if nothing happens, restart the Steam client)
• Launch the game

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 0.8.104–0.8.110 (Beta)

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.

[/*][*]

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.

[/*][*]

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

• Animals no longer die from high elevation in Winter.
• Pastures can be configured to accept or reject different Animals via the Advanced Tab.
• 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.
• Squads can now be ordered to follow roads.
• 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.
• Added Reserve and Production Limit to Logging Camp and Woodcutter’s Lodge.
• 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.
• Sheaves are collected from farms in order of least available grain type.
• Sheaves are threshed in order of least available grain type.
• “Supplies” do not generate road snapping points anymore.
• 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).
• 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.
• Idle workers at the Fisherman’s Hut can now go inside instead of going home.
• Workers will no longer walk slower due to carrying some equipment.
• Oxen are now less strict about following roads.

AI

• Will put earlier focus on upgrading the Granary.
• Will now assign an Ox to the Sawpit.
• 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 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 look to import resources to create helmets for militia in year two if needed.
• Will now ignore more buildings early on, in order to stay more focused.
• Will now use varying sizes when building Residential plots.
• 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 recalculate region strategy at least once per day.
• Fixed not unpausing buildings at sleep before starting to rebuild them.
• 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 building backyard extensions on plots where no family had moved in.
• Fixed constructing too much living space due to counting orchards as potential expansion plots.
• Fixed not building any artisans due to no available empty backyards.
• Fixed constantly firing and hiring workers at the Hunting Camp due to it reaching the hunting limit.
• Fixed buying other extensions than Vegetable Garden or Orchard for designated plots.
• Fixed not being able to build a Stonemason’s Station in a region without Rich Stone if needed.
• Fixed exporting goods imported to fill a need.
• Fixed not being able to reassign workers from buildings at sleep.
• Will now base militia types more on regional resources.
• Fixed adding Deep Mine too early before it can spare the regional wealth.
• Fixed the occasional major road around the settlement having sharp and weird-looking turns.

Balance

General

• Vegetable Gardens grow at 20% their normal rate during Winter.
• Crops grow 2.4% slower.
• Livestock breeding chance for Cows and Sheep increased to 40%.
• Fallow Fields regenerate fertility at a significantly lower rate.
• Labor speed from double maintenance was lowered from +100% to +25%.
• 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)
• Fertility boost gained from having Rich Fertility in a Region lowered by 30%.
• Decreased the output from the Deep Mine.

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.
• 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 inventory tab.
• New layout and visualization for inventory tabs: Storage, Productivity, Protection Area, Mine Collapse Chance.
• Due to harvest being more flexible, “harvest season ended” notification was removed.
• 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.
• Fertility overlay selector reorganized to keep crops of shared fertility together.
• Added missing building panel image for Deep Mine.

Text

• Wiki updated for Pasture Animals to be more accurate.
• “Minerals” subcategory reclassified as “Raw Materials”.
• “Fodder” subcategory reclassified as “Farming”.
• General text pass on Perk Effects.
• Added wiki entries for Farming and Crop Rotation.

Bugfixes

General

• Fixed sleep/awake not firing and hiring livestock animal workers.
• Fixed Environments not being calculated correctly.
• Removed Lebkuchen from Trading Post.

Production

• 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 Efficiency modifier calculations not giving enough bonus Yield.
• Fixed plowing Oxen not respecting field priority.
• Fixed: A paused farmhouse does not prevent ox from plowing a field.
• Fixed: Foresters may plant trees outside of their own region.
• Fixed default hunting and fishing limits not being set based on the actual numbers of the resource nodes.

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.

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.

Text/UI

• Fixed: 'Rebuild' button is missing from the Rubble UI.
• Fixed: Reassigning Family between buildings can assign two families instead of one in People's tab.
• 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: Livestock tab is missing from Hitching Post, Small Stable and Pasture widgets.
• Fixed: Small Stable is missing 'Purchase Animal' buttons.
• Fixed: Escape in building mode doesn’t cancel plot type placement.

Optimization

• Optimized animal growth logic.

Join the Manor Lords Community

Join our community on Discord and Reddit to ask questions, trade tips, and keep up with the game. There’s also a community-run wiki that covers the most common questions, and you can follow Slavic Magic on Twitter for more developer updates.