Manor Lords: Big Update Released

Manor Lords Version 0.7.972 Patch Notes

Major Changes

This patch brings significant updates to Manor Lords, including two major features:

• The King’s Tax: This annual tax is collected from all players based on population. It serves as a balance against players hoarding wealth without optimizing their economies. While there are currently no consequences for failing to pay, future updates will introduce penalties, such as loss of the king’s favor and potential conflict with the king’s army.
• Global/Local Trade Switch for Trading Posts: Players can now choose to restrict trade to their own regions for specific goods, allowing them to exchange resources locally while ignoring free merchants. However, two trading posts are still required for this function to work, ensuring that regions remain independent economic units.

Gameplay and Balance

This update introduces numerous gameplay and balance adjustments, impacting various aspects of the game. These adjustments are intended to provide a more balanced and engaging experience.

Resource Management and Agricultural Adjustments

• Food Consumption: People now pick a random food resource instead of eating in a specific order. This enhances the variety of food consumption and reduces reliance on specific resources.
• Crop Fertility: Fertility is no longer drained after crop growth reaches 100%, making early harvesting less necessary. However, yield can still increase beyond 100% if the maximum yield is not reached.
• Yield Cap: Yield can now never exceed 100% growth, ensuring clarity and avoiding confusion. Even with zero fertility, there will still be a small possible yield.
• Harvesting Efficiency: Harvested crops are directly added to the field inventory instead of the villager’s inventory, reducing bottlenecks caused by harvesting walk times, especially for large fields.
• Oxen Prioritization: Oxen prioritize plowing over transporting resources to the granary and warehouse, minimizing back-and-forth movement from the plowed field.
• Plowing Shed: The plowing shed now adds two livestock worker slots, increasing its efficiency.
• Food Distribution: Food-producing residential plots no longer stock up on their produce before sharing with the marketplace, streamlining the distribution process.
• Sawpit Log Storage: The sawpit’s log storage space has been increased to five, allowing for greater log capacity.

Economic and Trade Developments

• Baron Region Claims: The rate at which the Baron claims regions has been lowered and adjusted to better reflect game settings.
• Worker Camp Upgrade: The worker camp upgrade intended for colony regions has been removed and will be re-added in a future update when fully implemented.
• Trade Route Establishment: Merchants are now distributed to circle between various trade points when establishing a trade route, rather than all spawning at the nearest point.
• Archer Damage: Archer damage has been increased from four to 13, making them more effective in combat.
• Trade Logistics Development: The “Trade Logistics” development branch now lowers the cost of new trade routes by 50% instead of clamping it at 25%.
• Trade Route Costs: The base cost of opening a trade route has been increased from 12 to 20 (before the good value multiplier), and the cost scaling for opening new trade routes has been reverted to linear scaling.
• Market Oversupply: Players can still export goods at a lower price when the market is oversupplied. The price multiplier for oversupplied goods is now 0.75x for oversupplied and 0.5x for critically oversupplied.
• Market Oversupply Rate: The rate at which the market becomes oversupplied no longer depends on the value of goods, ensuring equal rates for all good types.
• Better Deals Development: The “Better Deals” development branch now reduces the foreign import tariff by 50% instead of removing it completely.
• Global Market Supply: Global market supply has been tuned to rebalance itself faster, aiming for a closer to one-year cycle if no trading is occurring.

Quality of Life and Infrastructure

• Ale Consumption: Ale consumption has been reduced by 75%, significantly decreasing the demand for this resource.
• Building Placement: Building placement steepness limits have been made harsher, preventing awkward placements on sharp slopes.
• Soldier Approval Factor: Soldiers no longer trigger the “unburied bodies” approval factor when corpses are in their proximity.
• Hitching Post: The hitching post is once again free to ensure players are not stuck without an ox, hitching post, or the ability to order an ox.
• Sheep Breeding: Sheep breeding has been capped to a maximum of one new lamb every 10 days, managing the population growth.
• Water Fetching: Villagers are now only allowed to fetch water from the well nearest to their home, except in case of a fire.
• Maximum Yield per Plant: The maximum yield per plant has been increased from two to four, though the Hunting Grounds policy still reduces it by half.
• Plant Yield Rate: The plant yield rate has been reduced by half, encouraging early harvests in emergency mode.
• Militia Squad Limit: The militia squad limit is now six, regardless of whether the player has a retinue or mercenaries. This will be tied to a rank system in future updates.
• Fertility Regeneration: The fertility regeneration rate effect on fallow fields and from fertilization has been doubled.
• Plant Growth Rate: Crop growth has been adjusted to match crop rotation, aiming for a 100% harvest on auto as often as possible.
• Tree Growth Rate: The tree growth rate has been slowed down by around 30% to enhance the impact of forest management.
• Trading Post Workers: The carrying capacity of on-foot trading post workers has been increased from one to five.
• Royal Tax Calculation: The royal tax is now calculated as follows: No tax for the first five years, one treasury per citizen after five years, two treasuries per citizen after 10 years, and three treasuries per citizen after 15 years.
• Granary and Storehouse Worker Slots: Granary and Storehouse worker slots have been unified to three families for level one and six families for level two.

Minor Fixes

This patch addresses several minor issues, enhancing the game’s overall functionality, user experience, and performance.

Trade and Market Adjustments

• Mindfulness System: The “mindfulness” system has been applied to free merchants to reduce clumps and traffic jams.
• Trade Location: The location of trades has been moved further off the map to ensure space for all trade wagons, even if the trading post is placed on the map edge.
• Trader Transactions: Traders can now make transactions without entering the shed if the trading post is clogged, as long as they are within the building bounds.
• Marketplace Logistics: Marketplace logistics efficiency and optimization have been improved.
• Market Supply Reset: Market supply is reset when loading old saves (from builds 0.7.954-0.7.956) due to mismatched global market supply stock values.
• Market Stall Workers: The number of workers supplying a single market stall has been capped at two to reduce market clogs, and the number of stalls has been reduced to the number of families divided by five, with a minimum of one to ensure functionality in smaller towns.
• Market Supply Optimization: Market supply functions have been optimized for smoother late-game town performance.
• Trading Post Thumbnail: The missing trading post building thumbnail has been added.
• Trading Post Price Range: Trading posts now display a price range for imports, indicating whether they can buy from other regions or foreign trade sources.

Optimization and Performance

• Default AA: The default AA under DX11 has been changed to TAA.
• Spatialization Update: A spatialization update call has been added for recruits teleported home when rallied to ensure proper collision calculations.
• Follow Mode Optimization: The “is close to camera” value in follow mode has been updated to prevent optimization of animations or sound effects for characters near the camera.
• Firefighting Behavior: Firefighting villagers now ignore anti-clogging behavior at narrow pathfinding points, improving their firefighting response.
• Pathfinding Updates: Minor unit in-town pathfinding updates have been implemented.
• Destructible System: The old UE4 destructible system has been replaced with a new UE5-friendly chaos-based debris system, currently used for chopped firewood cutter logs.
• AA/Upscaler Selection: Default AA/upscaler selection has been tweaked during first-time launch for specific GPUs (e.g., RTX properly defaulting to DLSS).
• Pathfinding Thread: An additional pathfinding thread has been added to handle multiple end-game cities.
• Harvest Prediction Optimization: Harvest prediction and fertility changes have been optimized to reduce stutter.
• Log Display: The log display is now limited to storing only the last 100 entries, improving UI optimization.
• Idle Task Optimization: The function for finding friends to do idle tasks, such as conversations, has been optimized.
• Door Opening Animations: Door opening animations have been optimized for improved performance.

User Interface and Accessibility

• Mourning Period UI: The residential panel now includes a “mourning period left” UI element, displaying the number of days remaining before a burgage plot can accept new family members.
• Mourning Icon: A mourning icon has been added to the building floater.
• Save Restrictions: Quick saves are now disabled during the game over/victory cinematic, and manual saves are disabled after defeat. Quick saves and autosaves are also disabled if the game is lost.
• King’s Tax Rate Multiplier: The king’s tax rate multiplier has been added to the game setup settings.
• Victory Camera: After continuing the game after a victory, the camera now returns to the player’s main region instead of levitating over the map edge.
• Currency Icon: The currency icon in the mercenary company panel has been unified to clarify payment with the treasury, not regional wealth.
• Accommodation for Homeless: An accommodation call has been added for homeless people after a fire, ensuring they are quickly re-assigned to available burgage plots.
• Family List UI: “Workplace/reassign” buttons in the family list have been aligned vertically to accommodate families with multiple members.
• Font Fix: Old fonts in the family entry widgets have been fixed.
• Fertility Overlay: Fertility overlay colors and colorblind symbols have been made more accurate, with percentages displayed in the field’s building panel.
• Building Panel UI: Building panel header buttons/toggles have been tweaked for improved readability and clarity.
• Market Stalls: “Allow market stalls” is now set to ON by default for all workplaces and artisan workshops to aid new players in setting up stalls.
• Popup Queue: Popups like “royal tax increase” are now queued and triggered after the player returns from visit mode, avoiding interruptions.
• Transaction Popup: The transaction popup during trading between regions now displays over both trade buildings, depending on proximity to the camera.
• Region Borders: Region borders are now visible under the cursor even when the camera is low, clarifying territory limits.
• Region Calculation for UI: The UI’s “current region” calculation has been tuned for smoother building experiences on region edges.

Crash Fixes

This update addresses several crash issues, improving the stability of the game.

• Fixed a crash when performing a sequence of livestock import, export, and import due to improper “home” clearing during export.
• Fixed a rare crash if a handcart fails to spawn, possibly caused by trading post placement near the map edge.
• Fixed a crash on startup if OpenXr SDK is installed.
• Fixed a crash when deleting a building if pathfinding obstacles are being verified.
• Fixed the player being able to reassign a family to another Region, which could crash the game.

Bug Fixes

This update includes numerous bug fixes, improving the gameplay experience and addressing various issues.

Gameplay Mechanics

• Fixed victory status not resetting after starting a new game, preventing the game over screen from appearing after multiple games.
• Fixed crops dying in the winter instead of increasing yield as intended for winter crops.
• Fixed oxen sometimes “ghost plowing” a field while waiting for their guide.
• Fixed plow and ox misalignment on 12x game speed.
• Fixed farm workers not accounting for oxen plowing in some situations, leading to unnecessary collisions on the field.
• Fixed crop rotation unplowing fields.
• Fixed disbanded mercenary groups becoming immediately available after save/load cycles.
• Fixed trading post export transactions not moving regional wealth correctly between regions owned by the same lord.
• Fixed paused taverns fulfilling the entertainment requirement.
• Fixed an attempt for never-ending fires if a fire was triggered after the building was already on fire.
• Fixed livestock sometimes being unaccommodated after orders due to being transferred to the region twice.
• Fixed livestock traders traded between on-map regions, possibly paying twice due to the ownership changing function being called twice.
• Fixed the game getting stuck on the game summary screen infinitely after winning or losing.
• Fixed “none” people populating the town after a raid, sometimes causing the game to crash while reloading.
• Fixed employed traders going to trade points even though the trade route for the traded good is not yet opened.
• Fixed farm workers moving to transport tasks early even though there are crops to harvest.
• Fixed predicted yield not showing correctly in the field building panel.
• Fixed people not resetting rotation after dismounting.
• Fixed farming oxen not respecting work area limits.
• Fixed bandit camps respawning on loading due to improper “lastBanditCampSpawnedDay” saving.
• Fixed villagers not setting up market stalls to sell their home produce if unassigned.
• Fixed granary workers stealing ale from the tavern.
• Fixed livestock exports getting interrupted by sheep herd behavior.
• Fixed livestock trader jobs not triggering an import task when buying livestock from another region.

Visual and Interface Fixes

• Fixed the blurry desktop icon.
• Fixed the save/load menu header not translating after changing the language.
• Fixed front lighting not being visible in the retinue editor if bounced light approximation is low or off.
• Fixed floating feedback text spawning during cinematic mode.
• Fixed autosave triggering during cinematic mode.
• Fixed the gilded aventail hounskull helmet appearing blurry in the retinue editor.
• Fixed the forest mask not drawing.
• Fixed the wrong yarn basket carrying animation.
• Fixed the wrong apple basket carry animation.

Economic and Resource Management

• Fixed “storage full” triggering for incorrect buildings.
• Fixed oxen bringing too many logs to the sawpit and exceeding the storage limit.
• Fixed free merchants sometimes getting stuck if a trading post was built too close to the map edge.
• Fixed horse wagon rotations getting too wonky on slopes.
• Fixed a bug where a unit could no longer move due to being stuck in “waiting for pathfinding to finish” if another unit with a lower squadID was destroyed.
• Fixed traders not importing from on-map regions even though the price is better than buying from trade points.
• Fixed farm workers and farm oxen stealing planks from fields being fenced up.
• Fixed the “homeless” problem banner not disappearing after upgrading the homeless camp to a worker camp.
• Fixed animals not getting removed from stable space or pasture space after death.
• Fixed animal corpses not disappearing over time.
• Fixed a bug where families moving into homes were not registering correctly, leading to a “secret” family in a burgage plot. The reason is still being investigated.
• Fixed wealth getting transferred during barter.
• Fixed bartering traders always returning one item regardless of the barter value and carrying capacity.
• Fixed bartering traders packing too much stuff in their origin region when the barter value is more than 1x.
• Fixed trading post exports not proceeding with transactions once the trader reaches the destination.
• Fixed multiple markets sometimes distributing multiple instances of the same good type to a plot.
• Fixed crop rotation to fallow causing farmers to harvest itemID_0, which was invisible in the UI and stopped supply dumps from being cleared.
• Fixed farmers getting stuck in a pickup-putdown handcart loop when multiple farms are used.
• Fixed unnecessary harvest data recalculations triggering in the winters.
• Fixed a bug with trading between regions where during selling items, the wrong region would pay for the transaction.
• Fixed free merchants not applying the foreign import tariff when selling goods to trading posts if another region was exporting the traded good for a lower price.
• Fixed trade wagons sometimes traveling with empty inventory.
• Fixed traders doing “major trades” even without an established trade route.
• Fixed workers ignoring storage filter settings.
• Fixed the “current year” always incrementing in January, leading to inconsistent tax calculation.
• Fixed market supply percentages not displaying correctly due to accounting for uninhabited homes.
• Fixed a bug with workers not setting up market stalls if there are less than five families in the settlement.
• Fixed squad icons disappearing/flickering when disbanding certain squads.
• Fixed export price showing even though trade is locked due to no established trade route.
• Fixed foreign market supply incrementing instead of decrementing when off-map trade was being done by trading post workers.
• Fixed disband/remove squad sometimes affecting wrong squads if multiple squads are selected when pressing “disband” or “remove”.
• Fixed “Not enough funds for import” warning displaying even though there is enough.
• Fixed apiaries leaving invisible items in supply dumps after demolition.

Cosmetics Updates and Fixes

This update introduces cosmetic enhancements, visual adjustments, and fixes for a more visually appealing experience.

New Additions and Visual Upgrades

• Added a new patron saint banner graphic: St Maurice.
• Added a carried dead body visualization.
• Added a new upgraded retinue helmet variation: Pointy bascinet.
• Added a new upgraded retinue body variation: Coat of plates.
• Added a new upgraded retinue helmet variation: Hounskull bascinet with a gilded cover.
• Added a new militia helmet variation: Banded bascinet with a mail aventail.
• Reworked the LV2 granary model with proper animated doors.
• Added six new “short” attack animations to reduce animation repetitiveness during combat.
• Added new “inch forward” battle locomotion animations to reduce the weird “wiggling” effect when groups push each other.
• Lady visit mode: If you pick the green lady portrait, the visit mode character should now be female.

Animation and Model Adjustments

• Combat animation cleanup.
• Debris piles now align to ground slope.
• Fixed the throw torch animation ending abruptly.
• Increased location precision for animals standing in the stables.
• Fixed the praying animation.
• Adjusted the two-handed weapon default idle pose for a more natural stance.
• Improved the precision for snapping terraforming meshes to the ground.
• Made leaf clumps smaller and disabled parallax mapping.
• Tuned field dirt UV wiggle to make large vegetable gardens less wavy.

Fixes and Adjustments

• Fixed armor clipping through the leg of the upgraded retinue puffy sleeve upon body variation.
• Fixed mail armor variants clipping with helmets on T3 militia units.
• Fixed the wrong door orientation for LV2 cottage variation B.
• Fixed the TAB building floater residential data not showing in 0.7.969.
• Fixed a potential bug when a family assigned to a smithy is unassigned while a family member is rallied, potentially unequipping their body armor or helmet.
• Fixed player army UI not updating after squad array changes due to non-player commanded units getting removed.
• Fixed recruit distribution sometimes assigning new militia recruits to an invalid unit.