Manor Lords patch makes "experimental" changes to tweak balance and reduce ale consumption

A number of "experimental" changes have been made to Manor Lords to tweak the balance, including reduced ale consumption.

Ahead of the weekend, the game's solo developer Greg Styczeń released a Steam blog post detailing a tonne of changes, which are available now for open testing.

The update fixes a number of commonly reported issues, including "None" people spawning and not working; the game being stuck at the summary screen after a victory; weak archer damage; and overly high ale consumption.

Further, a King's Tax has been introduced and is collected annually from players to prevent them hoarding cash, plus amendments have been made to trading posts with a 'local only' option.

The trading change in particular appears to be in response to Styczeń requesting feedback on the "OP" trade system.

On top of the extensive experimental updates, there are plenty of minor tweaks to improve the game experience, as well as bug and crash fixes to ensure better stability.

The full update notes can be read on Steam.

Manor Lords, the medieval city builder and strategy hybrid, got off to a great start on its early access release at the end of April, selling 1m copies in its first 24 hours. It went on to set an all-time concurrent player peak of 173,178, though player counts have since dipped (thanks SteamDB).

Still, updates such as this one will ensure the game is continually supported as depth is added and bugs are fixed - the biggest criticisms of the game at launch.

"There's a confidence to Manor Lords that belies its one-person development, and what's there can be spellbinding, but it's a pastoral idyll that still needs significant development," reads our Eurogamer Manor Lords early access review.