Manor Lords' First Major Patch Revealed and Released for Open Testing
The first major patch for hit city builder Manor Lords, version 0.7.960, has been revealed by developer Slavic Magic and released for public testing.
While this means the patch isn't officially out yet, those looking to enjoy its wealth of bug fixes and other improvements can now do so at the risk of some elements, like balance changes, being a tad off. Players happy to wait can do so knowing the full patch shouldn't be too far away.
Revealed in a Steam post, Slavic Magic made these potential imperfections clear and recommended players back up their save files before switching to the test version. "The new strings are not localized yet and stability hasn't yet been thoroughly tested," it added. "Some balancing changes are still experimental."
Players looking to test the update can do so by right-clicking Manor Lords in their Steam libraries, selecting properties, then moving to the betas tab, entering the password veryNiceBasket, and choosing "pre_release" from the Beta Participation drop down list.
Slavic Magic said they began by addressing "all the most common reported issues" such as clogged Trading Posts, weak archers, overly high ale consumption, disappearing crops, and more. A new major feature called King's Tax has also been added, which ultimately rewards good workers and punishes poor ones. The full patch notes are available below.
Manor Lords arrived in Early Access form on April 26, 2024 and proved an immediate Steam hit, selling more than one million copies in a day and hitting the highest ever concurrent player count for a city builder.
Major Changes:
-The King's Tax is now enabled (or Annual Royal Tax, can't decide on the name)
a) This tax is collected annually from all players (main player and AI) and goes to your liege. It's counted per population and therefore should become a counterbalance for players who hoard huge wealth despite having non-optimized economies.
b) [WIP] For now the player can go in debt without consequence, but in the future the player
