Game intel
Manor Lords
Help Stan Riddle escape the Haunted Manor and come up with a clever escape plan to reach your friends.
This update caught my attention because Manor Lords has always been one of those city-builders where a small, specific annoyance can ruin an entire build order. 0.8.046 isn’t just tinkering around the edges – it’s a focused sweep that fixes resource flow, maintenance math, and storage logic in ways you’ll notice within an hour of playing.
The headline is simple: 0.8.046 bundles more than 350 fixes and changes into the beta branch. That’s not hyperbole – this is a mammoth quality-of-life and bug-fix roll that touches core systems players complain about the most.
Resource management gets a clean, practical improvement: logging camps and firewood cutters now offer a “protect resource area” option. In plain terms, you can mark zones you don’t want workers to clear. That’s huge for anyone who’s ever watched their carefully preserved oak grove get chewed down because the AI can’t be trusted to prioritize the right tile.
Maintenance has been reworked from a “time since last” calculation to a durability counter. That sounds small until you remember how many players exploited or got frustrated by the old method — the new system should be more predictable and harder to cheese. To underscore the seriousness, there’s also now a risk that poorly maintained buildings will injure or even kill workers. Harsh? Yes — but it gives the maintenance system teeth instead of being a checklist chore.
Storage and supply got a sensible pass too. Granary and Warehouse worker behaviors have been tweaked so storage workers will only supply stalls from storage buildings, which should reduce the hilarious (and rage-inducing) moments of goods routing through three different yards before arriving where they’re needed. In short: your oxen will hopefully stop deciding what’s “closest” like they have bovine opinions.
Beyond the systems changes, the patch rolls out AI tweaks, balance adjustments, nearly 150 bug fixes, optimizations and improvements to audio and UI. That’s the sort of catch-all polish sweep that matters for long-term playability: fewer janky NPC behaviours, less weird pathing, and smoother performance when your town ticks past a certain population.
Manor Lords started as the work of one person, Grzegorz Styczeń, under the Slavic Magic name, and even as the team has grown they still move fast and listen hard. This update shows that the studio is prioritizing long-term playability over flashy new features — addressing systemic problems that make the game grindy or fiddly rather than chasing DLC-scented polish.
Players have noticed. Steam chatter on the beta is overwhelmingly positive: one poster said updates like this show the team “loves what they’re working on” and they’re “seriously impressed.” That kind of community goodwill matters for a live project — but it’s also earned when fixes actually make the game less annoying.
It’s a beta for a reason. Large fix bundles can introduce regressions; durability counters might interact weirdly with mods or legacy saves; worker injury mechanics could unbalance early game difficulty. I want to see how the changes hold up across saved games and larger settlements before calling this definitive. Still, the scale and focus of the patch is a promising statement of intent from Slavic Magic.
The beta and full notes are available on Steam if you want to opt in and test. Manor Lords is currently on sale for $25.99 / £22.74, matching its lowest ever price — a decent entry point if the idea of a medieval city-builder with this much attentive post-launch support appeals to you.
0.8.046 is a big, practical patch: protected resource areas, a durability-based maintenance system with real consequences, smarter storage behavior, and hundreds of fixes that should make the game less frustrating. It’s not a miracle update, but it’s the kind of steady, player-focused work that improves longevity — just be ready for a beta wobble or two while things settle.
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