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First major Manor Lords patch takes aim at enemy AI, underpowered archers, plus 'overly high ale consumption' - and adds a steep tax to prevent gold hoarding

The latest patch for Manor Lords includes numerous improvements, including significant buffs to archer damage and fixes for performance and gameplay issues.

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Manor Lords' first patch is now available for public testing, meaning it's coming soon and we can see exactly what's changing in the record-breaking city-builder. 

The patch brings a laundry list of improvements, most notably with a significant buff to archer damage. The unit type was supposedly too overpowered before release, prompting the game's developer to swing too far in the other direction and accidentally create "very weak archers."

Other fixes are slowing down the rate that in which Hildebolt claims land, improving "inefficient sawpits which also triggered generic 'storage full' problem banners," and stopping people and/or livestock from remaining homeless when there's available living space for them. 

My favorite change comes from reducing the "overly high ale consumption," because villagers were apparently too boozy to complete their laborious medieval chores before. Probably not good news for players who went to war just to water their villagers with ale, though. 

Manor Lords' other major change is actually the addition of The King's Tax, or Annual Royal Tax, since the name is still a work in progress. "The tax is collected annually from all players (main player and AI) and goes to your liege," the patch notes read. "It's counted per population and therefore should become a counterbalance for players who hoard huge wealth despite having non-optimized economies.”

There are plenty more big and small changes, mainly to numbers and balancing, but you analyze every Manor Lords change in the patch notes released on Steam

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