Hey everyone,

It’s been a year since Manor Lords launched into Early Access. Honestly, it doesn’t feel that long ago. I remember uploading the build, crossing my fingers that things wouldn’t immediately fall apart—and here we are several patches and plenty of additions later.

So, what’s next?

There’s still lots to do, and while I’ve been working on new features and improvements for a while now, I wanted to give you all a quick look at what’s coming. This is not a full changelog or final list—some of these things are still work-in-progress—but it should give you a good idea of where development is headed.

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As Manor Lords has grown, so has the team behind it. What began as a solo project now includes a group of talented folks across programming, art, design, and AI.

Since launch we’ve welcomed Nathan (map design), Tom and Kurtis from Flix Interactive (programming), Niklas (AI), Basia (2D art), Nicolas (3D art), and Darren and James (game design). We’re also still working with QLOC for QA needs — and more folks are helping behind the scenes, such as Daniel.

And of course — I'm still here too. 🙂

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The AI can now build and run its small village. We had to introduce multiple new concepts to it, like burgage plots, backyard extensions, and living space expansions, which didn't exist when the first version was done. We also had to change our understanding of the marketplace altogether.

A lot of work was done to make sure the AI could use the plot tool properly. We're still working on improving its city planning skills and will soon start working on its trading capabilities and farming.

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We've spent a lot of time developing a new screen that displays detailed information about regional production and consumption.

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We changed the approval balance so that it fluctuates less, and past events have less impact than the latest events.

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Many buildings will now require upkeep, which means a smithy will need a constant flow of tools, and deep mines need a flow of planks.

We are also working on a system where you can increase upkeep and work efficiency as well.

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We're introducing two new buildings: a Quarry for endless stone mining on rich deposits and a Lime Kiln — lime will now be required for advanced stone construction.

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Castles obviously brought more challenges for pathfinding and collisions, and making traffic flow correctly takes a considerable effort.

The whole world in Manor Lords was always coded in 2D, which made collisions simpler to resolve and made the game more optimized. However, this meant we can't have "proper" gates where people stand on top and walk below at the same time (they'd collide with each other). I decided to investigate this and rewrite the pathfinding to support multiple floors. However, it's still being tested whether the extra computation cost is actually worth it (it's literally only for the gates, which in theory can be cheated by garrisoning in and out from the gatehouse doors).

I also spent around a week and a half investigating other pathfinding systems to see if they would be a better fit for Manor Lords (for example, flow fields and continuum crowds). However, due to the game being gridless with a huge "open world," I saw that the current solution still beats others. So, it was a lot of work with no visible gain, but I had to be sure.

It's a bit foolish, but we're trying our best not to do what games often do to help units find their way, which is make walls thicker and passages wider. Instead, we try our best to keep the scale realistic—narrow passages, tiny doors. It's like the medieval constructors wanted to purposefully make it harder for large groups of soldiers to navigate around the castle. CURIOUS.

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The high peak cliffs were a bit annoying, so we've reworked the camera code to make it smoother.

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We're still in the design phase, but it looks like we're almost there. Hopefully, I can show you guys what we've done in the next update post. Coming Soon(tm)!

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We're replacing a lot of WIP graphics in the UI with proper manuscript-inspired art.

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If a region has a random pond resource node and a river, river fishing spots will replace the pond.

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We've reworked some of the Level 1 castle pieces.

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Last but not least, we've got new art for map resource node locations, which will bring them in line with the other UI changes we're making mentioned above.

That’s it for now. As always, I really appreciate all the support, feedback, and memes. It’s been a wild year, and I’m looking forward to showing more as things get ready.

Thanks for sticking around.
Greg