Slavic Magic and Hood Horse have released a new Manor Lords update, which adds a number of maps, the ability to build bridges, and a whole host of smaller features to an already pretty robust medieval city builder.
The update merges two beta patches into one massive changelog. The new maps, teased last November, are High Peaks and Winding River. The latter is clearly where the bridge builder – an extension of the existing road tool – has the opportunity to shine.
Bridge building is also helped, I think, by some tweaks to the game’s cliff geography. Post to Steamlead developer Greg Styczeń writes that it should be clearer which areas are buildable or traversable, thanks to a zigzag pattern that appears during construction mode. He also adjusted pathfinding around cliffs and fixed an issue that caused gaps to appear between landscape components and cliffs when zooming out.
Other significant changes include restrictions on stall workers. As of this patch, only workers in the storage buildings can set up market stalls, as “there was too much confusion about who owned what and worked where, and it was very difficult for players to understand, for example, that a gravedigger could have a food stall,” continues the developer. Sorry gravediggers, but you’ll have to flog your homegrown produce in a different way. The number of goods a marketplace can supply is now also limited by the number of stalls (and therefore allocated storage buildings), with capacity indicated on the market panel.
Styczeń has also introduced a stone well upgrade for wells along with level two taverns, while changing the way beer and water are distributed from wells and taverns.
This is just the tip of the update’s sharp compost heap. By all means, click on that Steam link and fill your shocked eyes with bullet points. Sometimes when I read a changelog that’s too long, I can feel like I’m… changelog in turn. My brain starts to feel like a village marketplace, full of noisy oxen and sad gravediggers, hopelessly offering a handful of turnips to anyone who will take them.
Manor Lords launched in April last year and was expected to remain in early access for about a year. Using whatever brain cells I have left that aren’t yet entirely spent talking about archers, burglary plots, and massacres, I deduce that Early Access may be abandoned in April 2025. To learn more about how publishers Hood Horse manages their early access projects, check out our interview with one of the company’s founders.