Manor Lords' dev is experimenting with a new trading system that allows for 'deliberate economic strategies', including establishing monopolies on resources

Medieval city-builder Manor Lords had a quiet 2025, as its developer adjusted to the game's enormous success following its release into Steam early access in 2024. Things picked up speed toward the end of the year, however, with a major patch arriving in December that introduced a rework to core systems and an overhaul to castle construction.

It seems Slavic Magic and publisher Hooded Horse are keen to maintain that momentum in 2026. In a Steam update, Hooded Horse's CEO Tim Bender provided a detailed rundown of what's coming to the management sim this year.

The most immediate planned change is a new upgrade level for the Burgage Plot—Manor Lords' basic homestead that can be expanded and tailored to a variety of uses. Burgage plots currently have three upgrade levels, but Slavic Magic is adding a new level, which exists between 2 and 3. "Its goal is to more smoothly bridge the gap between early and late-game housing", Bender explains.

Alongside this, Slavic Magic is also considering shifting certain workshop progressions to later in the game, tying baker extensions to level 3 Burgage Plots to encourage use of the early-game communal oven, and also doing the same with cobbler extensions. According to Bender, "shoes as an item aren't strictly required until this stage of progression anyway", though Manor Lords' barefoot peasants might disagree with this point.

More interesting, though, are the ideas Bender discusses for the patch due after the Burgage Plot update. To summarise, Slavic Magic is working on an extensive rework to trading, one designed to allow players to compete with rival lords economically as well as militarily.

According to Bender, this new system ties trade routes to specific locations, with said location using them to import and export specific items. "While a good like iron may appear on multiple routes, some cities will offer better prices than others, making certain routes more desirable…and more contested", Bender explains.

Each of these trade routes can support up to three merchants using it, while engaging in trade along any route requires you to hire at least one of them. If all merchants for a route are hired, lords can attempt a buyout of that merchant, increasing the hire fee and triggering a cooldown before they can be bought out again. "This turns profitable routes into contested economic territory rather than guaranteed income", Bender says.

This, Bender reckons, enables players to apply specific economic strategies. "You could, for example, attempt to monopolise Iron Slabs by hiring all Merchants on routes that export them. This would be expensive, but could leave a rival Lord without access to Iron, forcing them to adapt by paying inflated prices, expanding into an Iron-rich region, or negotiating with you directly." It might even result in "diplomatic deals where a rival trades excess weapons or other goods in exchange for Iron Slabs, effectively paying you as a middleman."

Bender is clearly jazzed by the concept. But both Hooded Horse and Slavic Magic are keen to know what existing Manor Lords players think about this potential direction for the game's economics, requesting that they leave comments on the post. "We're interested in how this kind of competitive trade feels to you, what concerns it raises, and whether it adds meaningful strategic choice to the game."

Hooded Horse has had a lot going on in this first week of the year. On Monday, it launched the 1.0 version of Terra Invicta, the massively ambitious sci-fi grand strategy from the creators of X-COM The Long War, which is sitting pretty with a 'Very Positive' Steam rating. Then on Thursday, Bender revealed just how much he hates generative AI, explaining that "It's written into our contracts if we're publishing the game: 'no fucking AI assets.'