Hit city-builder Manor Lords has been updated with two new maps and a heap of changes

Slavic Magic and Hooded Horse have released a new product Court lords update, adding several maps, the ability to construct bridges and a number of smaller features already quite solid medieval city builder.

The update combines the two beta patches into one giant changelog. Teased last Novemberthe new maps are High Peaks and Winding River. In the latter case, the bridge construction mechanic – an extension of the existing road construction tool – has a chance to shine.

I imagine some tweaks to the game’s cliff geography also help with bridge building. Publication on Steamlead developer Greg Styczen writes that it should be clearer which areas can be built and which can be traversed thanks to the zigzag pattern that appears in build mode. It also improved pathfinding around cliffs and fixed an issue where gaps would appear between landscape features and cliffs when zoomed out.

Other important changes include restrictions on workers at stalls. As of this patch, only workers in warehouse buildings can set up stalls in the market because “there was too much confusion about who owned what and where they worked, and it was very difficult for players to understand, for example, that a grave digger could have a food stall” – continues the developer. Sorry, gravediggers, but you’ll have to whip your own produce a different way. The number of goods a market can supply is now also limited by the number of stalls (and therefore assigned storage buildings), the capacity of which is indicated on the market panel.

January also introduced improvements to the stone wells for wells, as well as second-level taverns, while also changing the way beer and water from wells and taverns are distributed.

This is just the tip of the update’s virulent compost pile. Definitely click on this Steam link and fill your terrified eyes with bullet points. Sometimes when I read a changelog that is too long, I feel… recording changes one by one. My brain begins to resemble a country fair, crowded with noisy oxen and saddened gravediggers hopelessly offering handfuls of turnips to anyone who will take them.

Court lords it was released last April and was expected to remain in early access for about a year. Using what brain cells I have left that aren’t currently entirely devoted to talking about archers, town plots, and carnage, I gather from this that the book may leave early access in April 2025. If you want to learn more about how the publishers Hooded Horse manages its early access projects, check out ours interview with one of the company’s founders.