Dec 23, 2024

[Beta Update - 0.8.017] Marketplace Rework, New Maps, and Tavern Upgrades

Manor Lords - Slavic Magic

Hi all,

A pre-release version of the newest patch is now available in Betas.

Saves: To avoid any potential issues, it’s recommended that you back up your saved files before switching to a beta version.

Mods: Please remove any mods. They will most likely crash the game.

To find your Steam for Manor Lords saves.
Press Win + E
Paste %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\ManorLords\Saved\SaveGames into the search bar.
To try the BETA, please follow these steps:
Open Steam
Right-click on Manor Lords in your library
Select Properties
Go to the BETAS tab
Enter the password: veryNiceBasket
Choose "pre_release" from the "Beta participation" drop-down list
Wait for the game to update the files (if nothing happens, restart the Steam client)
Launch the game
All new strings might not be localized yet, and stability hasn't yet been thoroughly tested. Some balancing changes are still experimental.

To discuss this, please join the official Discord server https://discord.gg/manorlords. You'll find a channel specifically for discussing the ongoing pre_release branch.

Changelog Version 0.8.004 -> 0.8.017

Major Changes:

Worker Restrictions for Stalls: Only the storage building workers can set up marketplace Stalls now. There was too much confusion from who owns what and works where, and it was very difficult for players to understand, for instance, that a gravedigger can have a food stall (selling home vegetable garden produce).
Inventory Source Restriction: Only storage buildings supply the stall inventories and peddle.
Goods Supply Cap: The number of goods a marketplace can supply is capped by the number of stalls (and therefore by the number of assigned storage building families). It can now be previewed in the market panel as "granary supply capacity" and "storehouse supply capacity." As the bars fill up, the supply capacity is reaching a limit, and you need to assign more storage worker families.
Stall Mergers: Fuel Stalls and Fabric Stalls were merged into a General Goods Stall.
Connection Arcs Added: Arcs connecting storage buildings to marketplaces are now being drawn after selecting either one.
Marketplace UI Update: Marketplace supply UI will now show the number of assigned families in the storage buildings.
Instant Stall Assignments: Storage building families will now try to build or take over a stall as soon as they are assigned.
Reduced Stall Storage Space: Decreased max stall storage space to still have the motivation for a healthy number of stalls on the market.
Abandoned Stalls Exclusion: Abandoned stalls no longer account for marketplace availability.
Market Availability Distribution: Tuned the market availability distribution so that houses reserve only as much variety as they need for the upgrade.
Regional Data Update: All data in the Marketplace supply panel is now regional, including "Free stall locations."
Disable Stalls Behavior: After you disable "allow market stalls" on a storage building, workers abandon their stalls since they stop contributing to Market Supply.
Granary Direct Consumption: Instead of eating from the marketplace, villagers sometimes eat straight from the granaries to reduce the marketplace supply fluctuations.
Instant Market Supply Calculation: In order for all values to always match, market supply is calculated instantly every time stall storage changes (supply includes what workers are already transporting).
Extra Tooltip Info: Added extra marketplace tooltip info about available and required food variety in the region.
Marketplace Storage Filters: You can now use storage filters on the marketplace to ensure some goods won't be distributed.
Refueling from Storehouses: To reduce supply fluctuations, plots and workplaces will refuel directly from storehouses if possible.
Instant Stall Setup: When you allow market stall setup, workers will try to build or take over stalls instantly.
Real-Time Overlay Updates: When hovering over any supply category, the overlay colors of burgage plots should now update in real time.
Abandoned Stall Goods Return: Storage workers will bring goods back to storage from abandoned stalls.
Category Reorganization: Moved the Marketplace & Market Carts to the Logistics category.
Ale and Water Distribution Changes:
- New Distribution Logic: Ale from taverns and water from wells are now distributed in a similar way as marketplace items.
- Reason 1: It's no longer enough to just have 1 Ale sitting in the tavern to upgrade the whole town.
- Reason 2: I wanted to add Well and Tavern upgrades.

New Features

New Playable Maps: Map selection now includes two new playable maps: High Peaks and Winding River.
Overstock Setting Added: Added an "Overstock" setting to the building tab for distributing buildings (Tavern, Marketplace). This setting allows the user to control how many extra goods are placed in the stalls or the tavern that exceed what's currently needed.
Bridge Building System: A bridge-building system has been added, utilizing the Road Tool.
Stone Well Upgrade: Added a stone well upgrade that provides more water supply (30 plots). The wooden well water supply was reduced to 15 plots.
Level 2 Tavern Upgrade: Added a Level 2 Tavern upgrade and a new visual for the Level 1 Tavern.

Gameplay & Balance

Taxation Approval Change: Approval for taxation will now happen even if there is no money to tax—seems more intuitive for the players.
Charcoal Burning Adjustment: Charcoal burners now try to burn charcoal in stacks of up to 10 firewood at once (per assigned family).
Woodcutter Speed Reduced: Slowed down woodcutter's debranching by 30%.
Windmill Storage Limitation: Windmills should no longer mill flour if there is no pantry space left.
Flour and Bread Changes: 1 grain makes 1 flour, and bread output doubles (to reduce clogging at the windmill).
[Experimental] Building Costs Rebalance: Balance pass on building and upgrade costs, reducing the amount of Logs and utilizing more Planks, Stone, and Tools to better reflect the look of the building and encourage more diverse resource use.
Tavern Employment Reduction: Tavern (Lvl1) now employs 1 family (reduced from 3).
Tavern Spoilage Reduction Boosts: Tavern (Lvl1) now provides a small boost to spoilage reduction over regular buildings.
Tavern Pantry Capacity Reduced: Tavern (Lvl2) pantry capacity reduced from 100 to 50.
Tavern Spoilage Boost at Lvl2: Tavern (Lvl2) now provides a small boost to spoilage reduction over Lvl1.
Iron Deposit Size Increased: Iron Normal Deposits minimum size increased by 60%; maximum size increased by 28%.
Stone Deposit Size Increased: Stone Normal Deposits minimum size increased by 20%; maximum size increased by 20%.

Balance Adjustments

Apiary: Planks increased from 2 to 4.
Stonecutter: Logs decreased from 2 to 1; Planks increased from 0 to 4.
Mining Pit: Logs decreased from 1 to 0; Planks increased from 0 to 4.
Tavern (Level 1): Logs decreased from 5 to 3; Planks increased from 0 to 4.
Mill: Logs decreased from 4 to 2; Planks increased from 0 to 8.
Communal Oven: Logs remain 2; Planks increased from 0 to 4; Stone increased from 0 to 10.
Bloomery: Logs decreased from 2 to 1; Planks increased from 0 to 6.
Smithy: Logs decreased from 2 to 1; Planks increased from 0 to 4; Stone increased from 0 to 6.
Clay Furnace: Logs decreased from 2 to 1; Planks increased from 0 to 6; Stone increased from 5 to 8.
Malthouse: Logs decreased from 4 to 2; Planks increased from 0 to 6; Stone increased from 0 to 12.
Tannery: Logs decreased from 4 to 2; Planks increased from 0 to 6.
Granary (Level 2): Logs decreased from 5 to 2; Planks increased from 10 to 12; Stone remains 5.
Storehouse (Level 2): Logs decreased from 5 to 2; Planks increased from 10 to 16.
Stable: Planks increased from 2 to 4.
Burgage Plot (Level 2): Logs decreased from 4 to 2; Planks increased from 0 to 8.
Burgage Plot (Level 3): Logs increased from 4 to 3; Planks increased from 8 to 12; Tiles and Wealth remain unchanged.
Well (Level 2): Planks increased from 2 to 4; Stone remains 10.
Tavern (Level 2): Logs remain 2; Planks increased from 5 to 8; Stone increased from 2 to 10.
Church (Level 2): Logs decreased from 5 to 4; Planks increased from 10 to 16; Stone increased from 20 to 25; Tiles remain unchanged.
Chicken Coop: Planks increased from 0 to 2; Wealth decreased from 25 to 15.
Bakery: Planks increased from 5 to 6; Wealth increased from 5 to 10.
Tailor: Planks increased from 5 to 6; Wealth increased from 5 to 10; Tools increased from 0 to 1.
Armorer: Planks increased from 4 to 8; Wealth increased from 10 to 20; Tools increased from 0 to 2.
Blacksmith: Planks increased from 5 to 8; Wealth increased from 5 to 20; Tools increased from 0 to 2.
Cobbler: Planks increased from 5 to 6; Wealth increased from 5 to 10; Tools increased from 0 to 1.
Bowyer: Planks increased from 4 to 6; Wealth increased from 0 to 10.
Brewery: Planks increased from 5 to 6; Wealth increased from 5 to 10.
Joiner: Planks increased from 4 to 6; Wealth increased from 0 to 10; Tools increased from 0 to 1.
Butcher: Planks increased from 4 to 6; Wealth increased from 0 to 10; Tools increased from 0 to 1.

[Experimental] Food Consumption Adjustment: Instead of picking random food types to eat, families now try to consume all foods equally.
[Experimental] Region Strength Selection Change: Instead of choosing a random one, regions are now picked from a finite pool. This ensures, for instance, no rolls with zero rich iron deposits.

Minor Changes

Building Access Limits Adjusted: Adjusted building access limits to have fewer villagers "waiting" as the building gets too many transport requests at the same time.
Tooltip Updates: Tooltip updates.
[Experimental] Rain Duration Shortened: Shortened rain duration.
Deep Mine Animation Changes: Instead of doing the mining animation on the surface, Deep Mine workers will actually go underground and bring mined resources on their way out.
Retainers Excluded from Approval Ratings: Because it's impossible for the player to manage, retainers will no longer affect the resident's approval rating, including from taxation.
Construction Goods Banner Added: Added a problem banner "construction goods missing" for where the player blocks themself by exporting construction resources or reserving them for crafting (e.g., by unpausing a sawpit that has logs in it that were meant for construction).
[Experimental] Disabled FSR: Disabled FSR cause it potentially caused a GPU Crash even when it's disabled.
Stamina Regeneration for Disbanded Soldiers: Added stamina regen for disbanded soldiers.
AI Command Improvement: Improved AI unit command indecisiveness in tight spaces.
Pathfinding Emergency Mode Fixes: Pathfinding emergency mode will no longer ignore water obstacles.
Burgage Plot Info Displayed in Region Panel: Burgage Plots now display "total," "occupied," and "under construction" in the Region Panel.
Granaries Limited for Tithe Goods Collection: Tithe goods will only be collected from the Granaries to avoid causing extra market supply fluctuations.
Unit Cards Reordering Added: Added the ability to drag and drop unit cards to change their order.
[Experimental] Task Failure Messages Updated: "Access limit reached" will show in the task description when a task failed because too many people tried to access a single building at the same time.
Region Names Adjusted: Renamed the regions in Germanic Valley to better fit their meanings in German.
[Experimental] FOV Adjustments: FOV changes now depend on the camera zoom level.
[Experimental] Unit Formation Improvements: When sending a unit by single clicking on a road (or a bridge), the unit will try to form a narrow formation and align the formation direction with the road direction.
Inventory Grid Widget Optimization: Cleaned inventory grid widget generation to remove flickering tooltips and improve optimization.
Burgage Plot Numbers Added to Region Panel: Number of burgage plots is now displayed in the Region Panel.
Living Space Availability Displayed: Living Space displays what is Available rather than Total in the Region Panel.
Smoother Camera Interpolation: Smoother camera height interpolation.

Performance

Static Collision Checks Optimized: Optimized static collision checks.
UI Updates Optimized: UI update optimizations.
Market Demand Calculations Optimized: Market demand calculation optimizations.
Marketplace Dirt Erosion Optimized: Optimized the eroding marketplace dirt functions.

Crashfixes

GPU Crash Fix Attempt: Fix attempt for the UE5 crashing on some PCs with a "GPU Crash Triggered" message.
Animal Death Crash Fixed: Fixed a crash when animals are killed, for instance by arrow fire, while being traded.

Bugfixes

Encamping Raiders Issue Fixed: Fixed raiders encamping while at full strength instead of raiding if any bandit squad was wiped out to 0 before.
Enemy Units Encamping Outside Map Fixed: Fixed enemy units being able to encamp outside the map area.
Raider Movement Towards Player Fixed: Fixed raiders not moving towards the player's region if there's a bandit camp near them and the army think it's all encamped.
Units Walking Underground Fixed: Fixed units walking underground near streams.
Livestock Traders Importing Dead Animals Fixed: Fixed livestock traders trying to import dead animals.
Combat Lag Spikes Reduced: Fixed lag spikes occurring when combat is happening in hard-to-navigate spaces.
Bandit Camp Spawning Fixed: Added another check to fix bandit camps spawning on ponds.
Disabled Sawpit Oxen Task Fixed: Fixed oxen not getting logs from the sawpit even though it's disabled.
Tavern Visit Issue Fixed: Fixed: If the nearest tavern is taken or empty, villagers will refuse to go to another one.
Soldiers Locomotion Animation Fixed: Fixed soldiers sometimes triggering wrong locomotion animation, e.g., using the running animation when actually moving slow, or using the standing animation when actually moving fast.
Regional Good Surplus Update Fixed: Fixed assigning the first worker family and unassigning the last worker family not updating regional good surplus, even though it doesn't count as reserved for crafting when you unassign all workers from the workplace.
Surface Mine Construction Fixed: Fixed the surface mine sometimes getting stuck and construction never finishing.
Granary Workers Collecting Non-Pantry Items Fixed: Fixed granary workers collecting non-pantry stored items from the Trading Posts when the player disables all export of them.
Flexible Plot Snapping Fixed: Fixed: Flexible plot might not snap to the point closest to the cursor.
Unit Command Exploit Fixed: Fixed the player being able to force units into a pond or a river by issuing commands furiously.
Retreating Units Getting Stuck Fixed: Fixed units getting stuck on obstacles while retreating if they are in permanent collision with their own squad members.
Hunters Bow Equip Issue Fixed: Fixed hunters not unequipping bows before going to fetch water from the well.
Large Characters Movement Improved: Increased the distance large characters (animals, horse riders, handcart pullers) count as near to the camera to reduce chances of them visibly going sideways due to overoptimization.
Cursor Spyglass Change Fixed: Fixed the cursor changing to spyglass sometimes while the pause menu is visible.
Problem Banner Cycling Fixed: Fixed clicking on a problem banner not always cycling through all the affected buildings or villagers.
Excessive Water Collection Fixed: Fixed residents bringing too much water home if their task update synchronized perfectly by a chance, possibly leading to clogged wells in large cities.
Camera Diving Underwater Fixed: Fixed the camera being able to dive underwater in a pond after the snow melts and turns pond ground collision off.
Armament Delivery Trigger Fixed: Fixed armament delivery not triggering when the player upgrades the storehouse before finishing 5 cottages.
Villager Storage Limit Respect Fixed: Fix attempt for villagers not respecting storage limits because of a rare chance the items are marked as belonging to the target building, but the villager not having a transport task just yet.
Invisible Crossbowmen Items Fixed: Fixed: Invisible Crossbowmen items stored in Burgage plots when the unit flees from combat.
Array Error During Spoilage Fixed: Fixed a possible error when the array was changed during iteration when spoilage destroyed a supply dump holding only food.

Cosmetics

Snow Displacement Disabled: Disabled snow displacement cause sadly it kept glitching.
Drinking Mug Added: Added the missing drinking mug during the drinking action in the taverns.
[WIP] Deep Mine Rework: Work in progress on a Deep Mine rework.
[WIP] Cloud and Atmosphere Tweaks: Work in progress on tweaks to clouds and atmosphere to create some dark stormy skies.
Cliffs Added to Parchment Map: Cliffs now show on the parchment map.
Residential Expansion Visuals Updated: Updated visuals of Residential Expansions (Level 1 and Level 2).
[Experimental] Abandoned Stall Covers Removed: Brought back abandoned stalls having no cloth covers.

Ps. New people are joining the team in 2025; it will be fun!

Thanks for playing, and happy holidays!

Greg

Dec 23, 2024

Dev Blog #1: Enhanced Graphics, New Art & Plans

Forty-Niner - Stan

Hey everyone!
It’s been a wild six months since we first announced Forty-Niner, and we’ve finally got some sneak peaks we’re excited to share—from shiny new graphics to a peek at how NPCs secure and expand their territories in the frontier.

Intrigued? Buckle up for a deep dive into the latest highlights and developments on our journey so far.

ENHANCED GRAPHICS

We received tons of feedback on our original low-poly aesthetic, but our true aim is to create a rich, stylized cartoon look with a modern twist. That meant finding the right artist to help realize this vision—and yes, it’s been a lot of work!

The hardest part is that we have a ton of items to create from scratch and fit into something new and still, fun to play.

We started small by redesigning items like weapons and tools:

Our inspiration comes from cartoons, blending a playful art style with the grittier atmosphere of the Wild West. But items alone aren’t enough to show the new look—characters matter too.

Here’s our previous character from the reveal trailer:

While we loved the low-poly design, we wanted something more immersive that truly draws you into Forty-Niner’s world. We’ve been exploring different references and iterating on the visual style to find that perfect balance between ‘cartoon fun’ and ‘frontier realism’:

Upgrading to a more detailed art style means factoring in extra texture work, subtle color gradients, and unique forms for everything you see in-game. Our new artist’s expertise in texturing has been a huge help. Beyond characters, we’ve also revamped the environment—trees, flowers, grass—giving everything a fresh coat of stylized paint while still maintaining that frontier vibe.

Some experimenting we started with building own trees simulations, such as this:

More enhancing is undergoing for building system and animals looks. But for now...

Check out the new character in the new art style:

Don’t worry if you’re on a lower-end system; we’ve put just as much effort into optimization as we have into improving fidelity, so you can enjoy Forty-Niner smoothly no matter your setup.

DEDICATED SERVERS

We’re not just committed to local co-op and small group sessions anymore. We’ve successfully tested dedicated servers, both through Steam and standalone setups, capable of hosting over 200 players. The result? A truly mad frontier where you can stake your claim or form massive alliances without missing a beat.

Whether you’re going solo, teaming up with friends, or diving into a huge community server, we want the experience to be just as fun and stable across the board.

NPCS WHO HOLD REGIONS

One of our major new gameplay shifts is giving NPCs real power and agency in the world. Each NPC has a specific role—some may run entire towns, while others focus on trade networks or securing supply routes. Your job? Not just to survive, but to carve out and defend your own territory.

Town-building mechanics, economic growth, and resource transport (like train tracks to move goods and gold) are part of this evolving frontier. Expect a more strategic experience when dealing with rival towns and factions.

We’ll share more details about these NPC-driven systems in our next dev update!

ALPHA BUILD MILESTONE & PLANS

We’ve knocked out core features like combat, gold mining, and territory exploration, tested by a select focus group for feedback. There’s still plenty of refinement to come, but we’re excited about the progress so far.

Our next step is a closed playtest, which you can sign up for at https://forty-niner.net. We’re not quite ready to reveal exact dates yet, but stay tuned on Discord and here in the Steam Community for any announcements.

Thanks for sticking with us on this adventure. We can’t wait to show you even more in future updates.

Yours,
VowelA Games