Manor Lords update 0.7.960: Sawpit and Ale optimisation (and much more)

After the release 2 weeks ago (has it only been 2 weeks!?) SlavicMagic hasn't sat idly by to enjoy the millions of players rapidly getting addicted to Manor Lords.

Instead, the developer and his crew have been working hard to gather feedback and implement changes. Both to improve gameplay as well as adding some new features. 

Today, a new patch was released for open testing on Steam. The new experimental branch of Manor Lords has over 100 changes and fixes.

For the full release notes, check out the post on Steam!

Reported issues

The first priority was to resolve some of the most common reported issues by players in the Discord channel. Those fixes include:

• Stop Hildebolt's from claiming territories way too quickly
• Improve Archer damage
• Fix the game being stuck after victory (or game over for the less lucky ones)
• Stop Trading Posts from clogging up and allow for better marketplace supply
• Forcing homeless people into an available home
• Improve Sawpit effectivity and resolve their "generic storage full" warnings
• Improve some farming issues
• Greatly reduced Ale consumption (-75%!)

New features

With the upcoming Manor Lords update, a few new features will be added. 

Expect a lot of new features to be added over the course of the coming year, but at a slow pace. As the game is in early access, the updates will resolve much more around balancing and bugfixing than on creating new features. 

Kings Tax

An annual tax levied by the king on you as a Manor Lord. It is calculated based on population numbers.

The money is taken from your personal treasury. For now, you can go below 0 as it's still a work in progress. In future updates, expect the King's armies to pay you a visit and demand payment...

Trading between regions

Bartering through Pack stations were the only way to effectively trade between regions. Well, effectively is a bit of a stretch here... 

To make it easier, a new setting is added to the setting up of trading routes screen. With this update, you can now allow foreign trade. When you don't allow foreign trade, only your own region's traders can pick up and deliver your own goods. 

This way, you don't need Pack stations any more. 

Balance changes

Many balance changes will be made with the coming update of Manor Lords. It's too much to name them all, so please read the full notes on Steam. 

A few really do stand out though, for instance:

• Storage space of Sawpit increased to 5 logs (was 1)
• When ox gathers a log, it will prioritize immediately bringing it to the sawpit before bringing it to the logging camp
• Food producing residential plots no longer stock up on their produce before they share with the marketplace
• Ale consumption reduced by 75%
• Increased warbows ranged attack from 4 to 12

Farming changes

A lot of words have been spoken on Farming in Manor Lords. That's why a lot of attention was spent on improving the Farming experience with this update. 

• Fertility is no longer drained after crop growth reaches 100% 
• When harvesting, the crops are directly added to the field inventory instead of the villager inventory.
• Prioritized Oxen plowing over transporting resources back to the granary
• Plowing shed now adds 2 livestock worker slots
• Fixed crop transports not accounting for the farm work area
• Fixed crops dying in the winter instead of actually increasing yield
• Fixed oxen sometimes "ghost plowing" a field when they are waiting on their guide
• Fixed farm workers not accounting for oxen plowing the farms in some situation
• Fixed crop rotation unplowing the fields