Having launched in Steam Early Access late last month, Manor Lords quickly began to domineer the experimental city-building niche thanks to its uniquely realistic and engaging gameplay mechanics, though it’s an obviously unfinished experience. Now, the game’s first major update has entered the experimental testing pipeline, fixing ridiculous ale consumption.
Naturally, ale consumption isn’t the only purview of the new update, but it definitely is particularly entertaining to read about. Update version 0.7.960 also comes with improvements to Manor Lords‘ trading mechanics, a more in-depth taxation system, and a slew of fairly comprehensive gameplay balancing tweaks that are bound to spice things up on continued playthroughs. Accessing the update isn’t necessarily straightforward just yet, but not everyone will want to install the experimental branch of the game in the first place, it goes without saying.
Manor Lords update 0.7.960 is now available (in experimental branch)
As per the developer Slavic Magic’s recent Steam blog post, Manor Lords‘ first major experimental content update – 0.7.960 – can now be downloaded, if you are so inclined. Slavic Magic recommends that anyone jumping into this build of the game back up their save games just in case something breaks along the way, and I’d recommend doing the same, myself. If that doesn’t put you off, you can access Manor Lords‘ experimental branch by doing the following:
- Right-click on Manor Lords in your Steam Library UI
- Select the ‘Properties’ option, then the ‘Betas’ tab
- In the appropriate box, type in ‘veryNiceBasket’
- Choose the pre_release option from the ‘Beta Participation drop-down menu
- Wait for the game to update and re-verify installation files
And that’ll do it! Slavic Magic added the caveat that “the new strings are not localized yet and stability hasn’t yet been thoroughly tested,” which translates to the idea of this being an early access to an early access game’s work-in-progress content update. With all of that out of the way, here are just some of the highlights of what’s coming to Manor Lords with update 0.7.960:
- King’s Tax/Annual Tax feature enabled
- Various Trading Post improvements (global/local trading switches, etc.)
- Ale consumption reduced by 75%
- Hitching Post is now free
- Harvested crops are now automatically added to the field’s inventory, rather than the villagers’
- Oxen prioritize plowing over resource transport
- New unit Patron: St. Maurice
- Post-death mourning period enabled (timed growth blocker)
- Various armor variations for upgraded retinue armor
- Large Granary building rework
- New Unreal Engine 5-friendly debris system, currently in use only for the firewood chopping animations
- Various crashes fixed
- Various bugs resolved
While the list featured above is fairly impressive in its own right, it is not comprehensive by any means, and if you’re interested in reading up on Manor Lords‘ full list of experimental fixes, you’ll want to check out Slavic Magic’s post on Steam. If you’re up for it, check out the experimental build of the game, just be prepared for bugs and various other unforeseen issues: that’s what Early Access is for, after all.
