Hi everyone! Tim here, CEO of Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse. I'm checking in to bring some news of the upcoming update. My apologies for being a bit late with this news post -- so my plan is to check in here once a month, unless there's a new update released or about to be released to either beta or main. And we've been in a bit of a holding pattern here, because the latest update has been in a cycle of QA testing, us thinking the build is just about ready for beta testing release to all of you, and then discovering some problems requiring fixes, for a couple weeks (we always test the new builds including with a professional QA firm before they go out to public beta testing, to try to fix as many bugs as possible, though of course they never find quite as much as beta playtesting reveals). So I made the bad judgement call of thinking, oh it's a few days away, I'll just wait for the update, a few times over, as we kept finding stuff to fix. My apologies for that, I should have just dropped in a news post instead regardless of what I expected to happen, and checked in with all of you. And that's what I'm doing here -- the update itself is likely very soon, so I hope no one minds the multiple messages in rapid succession, but I didn't want to take any chance of not getting something to you now. Going forward I'm going to assume the unexpected and just leave a post here once we get to that time, unless the update has already just occurred or is being prepared right then, to ensure I don't repeat my mistake and we get news to you regardless. With that out of the way, we've got some detailed reports from the dev team below. Note this update is very technically focused on improving how the game functions under the hood, with pathfinding a major focus: Pathfinding Refactor We decided to revisit pathfinding due to mounting technical and gameplay concerns. On the AI side, inefficiencies in how distances were being calculated started to impact performance while collision and navigation issues were undermining the reliability of core systems like worker behavior and unit movement. Rather than continuing to stack fixes on top of fixes as we had been doing, we made the call to step back and address the root of the problem. That meant reworking how units evaluate space, navigate around obstacles, and recover when something goes wrong. It also meant taking a hard look at systems that had quietly degraded over time. In some cases, behavior that once worked well had become unreliable through iteration, and needed to be rebuilt to match the current state of the game. While this was a detour from the main plan of development, it affects every facet of the game going forward and we feel the result has been worth it. As you’ll see later after the update's release from the patch notes, there’s a considerable amount of fixes for cases where characters or animals became stuck, blocked entrances or failed to move, especially in and around castles or tight spaces. Merchants are more reliable, Oxen move more smoothly when plowing, troop movement on roads is more natural, and so on.

Hi everyone, Localization was updated, and judging from reports from QA and Discord, the latest Beta looks stable enough to be brought to the Main branch. From the looks of things, the next update will come relatively soon and will contain a pathfinding refactor with multiple optimizations + multiple bugfixes and some balance tweaks. After that, the current plan is to do an update to the construction process (including a new church level), and then we're back to the development of Perks. Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters We'd really appreciate it if you could take a moment to leave a Steam review. As we're working hard on the next update, fixing bugs, and adding new features, we'd love to hear what you think about Manor Lords. Your feedback, opinions, and support all help us know what to focus on, improve, and add to Manor Lords. Even if it's a few sentences about how you feel about the latest update, it'd be a great help to the team and me. Patch Notes — Version 0.8.050–0.8.065 (Main) Major Changes New Burgage Plot Level: Added a new Burgage Plot Level (now introduced as Level 3), complete with new models, requirements and effects. Rearranged Order: Moved the previous Burgage Plot Level 3 aesthetic to Level 4, and updated requirements and effects. Extension Requirements: Cobbler and Baker extension now require the Plot to be Level 3 to unlock. Family Based Progression: Settlement Level progress now checks for Families of a certain level to be living in the region rather than Burgage Plots of a certain level to be built. Living Space: Burgage Plot Upgrade: “Expansion” now gives +1 Living Space to the Plot regardless of Level. New Map: Added a new map "Twin Lakes". Battlefield Visibility: All squads inside an active Battlefield are now always visible. Battlefield Proximity: After a battle starts, the area around the Battlefield where units are counted as participating gradually shrinks. (This is not the Battlefield zone itself). Ox Guiding behaviour: Only unassigned workers or workers from the Logging Camp can guide an Ox to a construction site. Only unassigned workers or workers from the building an Ox delivers to can be assigned to guide the Ox.