1. Norland
  2. News

Norland News

Patch #36: Debt of Honor, Optimization, Balance, and Fixes.

Hello everyone,

This update moves Patch #36 to the main stable branch and includes several minor improvements, such as:

  • Thoughts from sins on the medium level have been weakened (by 35%).
  • Improved the daily report hint. Now it only shows what has actually changed, making it more readable and concise.
  • Participants in ceremonies receive a positive thought.
  • If the roof is closed, clicking on a building will select the building, not the character inside.
  • The immobility trait now specifies the reason why the character cannot move.
  • When peasant terror begins, you receive a problem flag indicating how long it will affect migration.
  • The rare book merchant Scriptonic now visits every 10 days without fail.
  • Fixed a rare bug where diplomacy buttons on the global map wouldn’t click.
  • Some letters on the map are now wider, allowing them to be closed on monitors with lower resolutions.


The remaining changes in Patch, including A Debt of Honor, can be found below.

Thank you for your feedback and activity; we look forward to your thoughts.

[h2]Patch #36 (Beta) Changelog[/h2]
[expand]

[h3]Debt Of Honor[/h3]
When you come to the aid of a neighboring ruler in desperate situations, such as helping against the Unholy Horde, supporting an heir (or your puppet) in a rebellion, or protecting them from destruction by another king, honor binds them to repay you with a diplomatic concession.

This could be a peace treaty, joining your state, leaving another state, or paying substantial tribute.

A debt of honor does not need to be claimed immediately; it can be deferred, as it remains valid as long as both rulers are alive.

[h3]Balance:[/h3]

  • Army Recruitment: The balance of army recruitment by kings on the map at medium and easy difficulty levels.
  • AI Peace Agreements: AI that has signed peace with the player will no longer attack the player's vassals.
  • Training Limits: Soldier training is now limited by the inspector’s combat level / XP bonuses are calculated based on command level / training XP coefficients have been reduced.
  • Inspection XP: Added XP gain for conducting inspections in the Chancellery.
  • Guaranteed Peace: At Peaceful and Medium difficulty levels, you will now always be able to conclude a peace agreement. And since the peace treaty is now always available, its cost has increased.
  • Unholy Horde Limit: Fixed a bug where the Unholy Horde could increase its number of warriors beyond the 60-unit limit after capturing cities.
  • Bishop Housing: Bishops will now receive the "Homeless" thought if they do not have their own house.
  • Pilgrim Behavior: Pilgrims will attack everyone, but only once. After receiving food, they will leave the city within a day.
  • Reward Thought Adjustment: The strength of the "rewarded me" thought now depends on the number of rings the target has. Its also lasts longer.
  • Bishop Sermons: If there are few fanatics in the city, the Bishop will occasionally hold faith sermons himself. If relations with the king are below 0, he will do so almost daily.
  • A new way to appease the Bishop: Added a thought from the bishop to the king regarding holding sermons.
  • Sins strength: Sins on medium and hardcore difficulty now have a stronger negative impact on mood.
  • Church Attendance Exploit Fix: To prevent exploits, filters for church attendance have been removed. The House of Sophia is now open to all children.
  • Bishop Punishment Demands: The Bishop may demand the punishment of a lord whose relation with him is below -25 (previously -50).
  • Matriarch Hostility Penalty: The negative thought among peasants (and especially fanatics) has been strengthened if the Matriarch is hostile toward you (below -25).
  • Enemy behaviour Incoming enemies and rebels will set fire to no more than 6 buildings in the city.

[h3]UI and QOL:[/h3]

  • Performance Optimization: Optimized map decor performance—significant improvement in saves with large amounts of placed decor.
  • Date Planning Trait: Characters planning a date will now have a trait indicating this in their menu.
  • Squad Menu Tooltip: Added a tooltip marker next to the "stay behind" checkbox in the squad menu.
  • Exit Logic: Characters from the same faction will now exit the local map through the same random exit.
  • Fertilization Toggle: Added a checkbox to disable automatic field fertilization (in field building menus).
  • Training Warning Notification: Added a notification on the right side if many soldiers (30% or more) cannot train due to an inadequate instructor level.
  • Inspector Auto-Replacement: Automatic replacement of the inspector with the Chancellery in buildings where the inspector was previously assigned.
  • Sexual Need Tooltip: For monogamous characters, if they gain the "High Sexual Need" trait, the tooltip now includes extra information.
  • Spouse Relationship Tip: Added an advisor tip if a monogamous character’s relationship with their spouse drops below 0.
  • Guest greeting: Lowered the priority of the king's greeting activity so that an arriving guest does not interrupt the king's important actions.
  • Hall notofications: Added an arrow to the hall if no inspector is assigned there.

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]

  • Menu Music: Fixed a bug where main menu music wouldn’t stop if the "Continue" button was pressed right after returning to the main menu.
  • Tooltip Spacing: Fixed a bug where [noparse]{optional...}[/noparse] variables in tooltips would still take up a line even without data, causing excessive blank lines (especially in the "Plundering" action).
  • Quest Hint Display: Fixed a bug where quest results didn’t show [nested_hints], e.g., "Heir Won!" and "King Won!" during the AI heir rebellion if the player supported the losing side.
  • Avatar Icon Alignment: Fixed incorrect positioning of quest icons with avatars—they are now properly aligned.
  • Aid Restriction: The player can no longer send aid to both the rebellious lord and the legitimate king in AI rebellion quests.
  • Captured Lord Fix: Fixed a bug where capturing lords didn't work properly—they weren’t considered the player’s prisoners, many actions were disabled, and their original faction didn’t request ransom.
  • Grave Display: A lord’s grave will not appear in the building list unless their body is burned.
  • Tutorial Global Map Button: Fixed a bug in the tutorial where the player couldn't access the global map button during the "trade with neighbor" step.
  • Beheading Requirement: Only beheading now counts toward the achievement for punishing innocents.
  • Ring Inheritance: Fixed inheritance of rings when the king inherits them.
  • Captivity Punishment Reset: Fixed the "captivity" punishment type being reset after loading a game.
  • Training Grounds UI: Updated the interface for the training grounds building.
  • Inspection Limit: Fixed the ability to inspect the training grounds multiple times a day.
  • Thought Tooltip: Changed tooltip for the thought "sex with peasant".
  • Localization Issue: Changing localization no longer affects the display of the punished group selection on the execution platform.
  • Knowledge Reset: Blinding a lord will now reset their ongoing knowledge learning.
  • Bandit Bribe Bug: Fixed a bug where the "Bribe" action in a bandit camp triggered the "Bribe to Attack" action.
  • Overpopulation Thought: Fixed missing context in the tooltip for the "Overpopulation" thought.
  • Training Battle End: Training battles will now end if the training grounds are destroyed.
  • Duel Softlock: Fixed a bug where a duel wouldn’t reset if it didn’t end in one participant’s death.
  • Mood from Sins: Fixed a bug where the effect of sins on mood was always lower than intended in version 2.5.
  • Tutorial Softlocks: Fixed rare softlocks in the tutorial.
  • Stacked Thoughts: Fixed a bug where the "Foreigners are pushing us out!" thought could stack up to 3 times.
  • Manual Battle Softlock: Fixed a potential softlock in manual battles on the global map when aiding an ally in defense.
  • Frozen Characters: Fixed a bug causing characters to freeze in place.
  • Encyclopedia Image: Updated the image in the encyclopedia article about the execution platform.
  • Family Grouping Bug: Fixed a bug in the "Father and Three Daughters" family setup where daughters didn’t appear grouped as children of the same character in the dynasty menu.
  • No-Handed Loop: Fixed a bug where a lord without both hands could enter an infinite gear loop. Now, a one-handed lord will return their shield to storage, and a no-handed lord will also return weapons and dagger since they can’t use them.
  • Charismatic Trait: The "Charismatic" trait now gives an interest bonus only to characters of the opposite sex.
  • Revenge Limitation: Characters can no longer develop a desire for revenge against a child.
  • Wall Construction Bug: Fixed a bug where builders could get stuck when constructing walls in narrow map areas.
  • Seduction Bonus Bug: Fixed a bug where a seduction target wouldn’t get a relationship bonus with the king if the king himself was the seducer.
  • Bribe Restriction Tooltip: Forced "bribe for sex" command on a peasant is now blocked for monogamous characters (with a tooltip explaining why).
  • Fire effect: Fixed a bug where fire particles sometimes remained in buildings after extinguishing was completed.
  • Enemy behaviour:Fixed a bug where enemy armies raiding the player's city looted resources instead of gold
  • Hints: Reduced the height of empty lines in hints.
  • Puppets assassination: Fixed nighttime assassination by puppets
  • Puppets bribery: Fixed puppet bribery of the player's lord

[/expand]

Beta Branch Update

Hello,

A small update to the beta branch based on your feedback. The most significant change is that thoughts from sins on the medium level have been weakened (by 35%).

Additionally, several minor QoL improvements:
- Improved the daily report hint. Now it only shows what has actually changed, making it more readable and concise.
- Participants in ceremonies receive a positive thought.
- If the roof is closed, clicking on a building will select the building, not the character inside.
- The immobility trait now specifies the reason why the character cannot move.
- When peasant terror begins, you receive a problem flag indicating how long it will affect migration.
- The rare book merchant Scriptonic now visits every 10 days.
- Fixed a rare bug where diplomacy buttons on the global map wouldn’t click.
- Some letters on the map are now wider, allowing them to be closed on monitors with lower resolutions.

Tomorrow, this update will move to the main branch. Let us know if anything seems off with it!

Patch #36 (Beta): Debt of Honor, Optimization, Balance, and Fixes.

Hello everyone!

Today, a beta patch is being released with a large number of fixes that some of our Discord players have been waiting for, as well as optimization for large settlements, especially for those using a lot of decorations.

We’ve also slightly tweaked the balance in some areas, so the patch is first going to the beta channel for your testing.

And we also added a diplomatic feature -Debt of Honor - which adds more meaning to getting involved in neighbors' affairs and creating puppets.

Thank you for your feedback and activity; we look forward to your thoughts on the changes.

[h2]Patch #36 (Beta) Changelog[/h2]
[expand]

[h3]Debt Of Honor[/h3]
When you come to the aid of a neighboring ruler in desperate situations, such as helping against the Unholy Horde, supporting an heir (or your puppet) in a rebellion, or protecting them from destruction by another king, honor binds them to repay you with a diplomatic concession.

This could be a peace treaty, joining your state, leaving another state, or paying substantial tribute.

A debt of honor does not need to be claimed immediately; it can be deferred, as it remains valid as long as both rulers are alive.

[h3]Balance:[/h3]

  • Army Recruitment: The balance of army recruitment by kings on the map at medium and easy difficulty levels.
  • AI Peace Agreements: AI that has signed peace with the player will no longer attack the player's vassals.
  • Training Limits: Soldier training is now limited by the inspector’s combat level / XP bonuses are calculated based on command level / training XP coefficients have been reduced.
  • Inspection XP: Added XP gain for conducting inspections in the Chancellery.
  • Guaranteed Peace: At Peaceful and Medium difficulty levels, you will now always be able to conclude a peace agreement. And since the peace treaty is now always available, its cost has increased.
  • Unholy Horde Limit: Fixed a bug where the Unholy Horde could increase its number of warriors beyond the 60-unit limit after capturing cities.
  • Temple Filter Removal: It’s no longer possible to set population type filters (peasants, soldiers, prisoners) in temples.
  • Bishop Housing: Bishops will now receive the "Homeless" thought if they do not have their own house.
  • Church Size: Church capacity has been reduced to 30.
  • Pilgrim Behavior: Pilgrims will attack everyone, but only once. After receiving food, they will leave the city within a day.
  • Reward Thought Adjustment: The strength of the "rewarded me" thought now depends on the number of rings the target has. Its also lasts longer.
  • Bishop Sermons: If there are few fanatics in the city, the Bishop will occasionally hold faith sermons himself. If relations with the king are below 0, he will do so almost daily.
  • A new way to appease the Bishop: Added a thought from the bishop to the king regarding holding sermons.
  • Sins strength: Sins on medium and hardcore difficulty now have a stronger negative impact on mood.
  • Church Attendance Exploit Fix: To prevent exploits, filters for church attendance have been removed. The House of Sophia is now open to all children.
  • Bishop Punishment Demands: The Bishop may demand the punishment of a lord whose relation with him is below -25 (previously -50).
  • Matriarch Hostility Penalty: The negative thought among peasants (and especially fanatics) has been strengthened if the Matriarch is hostile toward you (below -25).
  • Enemy behaviour Incoming enemies and rebels will set fire to no more than 6 buildings in the city.

[h3]UI and QOL:[/h3]

  • Performance Optimization: Optimized map decor performance—significant improvement in saves with large amounts of placed decor.
  • Date Planning Trait: Characters planning a date will now have a trait indicating this in their menu.
  • Squad Menu Tooltip: Added a tooltip marker next to the "stay behind" checkbox in the squad menu.
  • Exit Logic: Characters from the same faction will now exit the local map through the same random exit.
  • Fertilization Toggle: Added a checkbox to disable automatic field fertilization (in field building menus).
  • Training Warning Notification: Added a notification on the right side if many soldiers (30% or more) cannot train due to an inadequate instructor level.
  • Inspector Auto-Replacement: Automatic replacement of the inspector with the Chancellery in buildings where the inspector was previously assigned.
  • Sexual Need Tooltip: For monogamous characters, if they gain the "High Sexual Need" trait, the tooltip now includes extra information.
  • Spouse Relationship Tip: Added an advisor tip if a monogamous character’s relationship with their spouse drops below 0.
  • Guest greeting: Lowered the priority of the king's greeting activity so that an arriving guest does not interrupt the king's important actions.
  • Hall notofications: Added an arrow to the hall if no inspector is assigned there.

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]

  • Menu Music: Fixed a bug where main menu music wouldn’t stop if the "Continue" button was pressed right after returning to the main menu.
  • Tooltip Spacing: Fixed a bug where [noparse]{optional...}[/noparse] variables in tooltips would still take up a line even without data, causing excessive blank lines (especially in the "Plundering" action).
  • Quest Hint Display: Fixed a bug where quest results didn’t show [nested_hints], e.g., "Heir Won!" and "King Won!" during the AI heir rebellion if the player supported the losing side.
  • Avatar Icon Alignment: Fixed incorrect positioning of quest icons with avatars—they are now properly aligned.
  • Aid Restriction: The player can no longer send aid to both the rebellious lord and the legitimate king in AI rebellion quests.
  • Captured Lord Fix: Fixed a bug where capturing lords didn't work properly—they weren’t considered the player’s prisoners, many actions were disabled, and their original faction didn’t request ransom.
  • Grave Display: A lord’s grave will not appear in the building list unless their body is burned.
  • Tutorial Global Map Button: Fixed a bug in the tutorial where the player couldn't access the global map button during the "trade with neighbor" step.
  • Beheading Requirement: Only beheading now counts toward the achievement for punishing innocents.
  • Ring Inheritance: Fixed inheritance of rings when the king inherits them.
  • Captivity Punishment Reset: Fixed the "captivity" punishment type being reset after loading a game.
  • Training Grounds UI: Updated the interface for the training grounds building.
  • Inspection Limit: Fixed the ability to inspect the training grounds multiple times a day.
  • Thought Tooltip: Changed tooltip for the thought "sex with peasant".
  • Localization Issue: Changing localization no longer affects the display of the punished group selection on the execution platform.
  • Knowledge Reset: Blinding a lord will now reset their ongoing knowledge learning.
  • Bandit Bribe Bug: Fixed a bug where the "Bribe" action in a bandit camp triggered the "Bribe to Attack" action.
  • Overpopulation Thought: Fixed missing context in the tooltip for the "Overpopulation" thought.
  • Training Battle End: Training battles will now end if the training grounds are destroyed.
  • Duel Softlock: Fixed a bug where a duel wouldn’t reset if it didn’t end in one participant’s death.
  • Mood from Sins: Fixed a bug where the effect of sins on mood was always lower than intended in version 2.5.
  • Tutorial Softlocks: Fixed rare softlocks in the tutorial.
  • Stacked Thoughts: Fixed a bug where the "Foreigners are pushing us out!" thought could stack up to 3 times.
  • Manual Battle Softlock: Fixed a potential softlock in manual battles on the global map when aiding an ally in defense.
  • Frozen Characters: Fixed a bug causing characters to freeze in place.
  • Encyclopedia Image: Updated the image in the encyclopedia article about the execution platform.
  • Family Grouping Bug: Fixed a bug in the "Father and Three Daughters" family setup where daughters didn’t appear grouped as children of the same character in the dynasty menu.
  • No-Handed Loop: Fixed a bug where a lord without both hands could enter an infinite gear loop. Now, a one-handed lord will return their shield to storage, and a no-handed lord will also return weapons and dagger since they can’t use them.
  • Charismatic Trait: The "Charismatic" trait now gives an interest bonus only to characters of the opposite sex.
  • Revenge Limitation: Characters can no longer develop a desire for revenge against a child.
  • Wall Construction Bug: Fixed a bug where builders could get stuck when constructing walls in narrow map areas.
  • Seduction Bonus Bug: Fixed a bug where a seduction target wouldn’t get a relationship bonus with the king if the king himself was the seducer.
  • Bribe Restriction Tooltip: Forced "bribe for sex" command on a peasant is now blocked for monogamous characters (with a tooltip explaining why).
  • Fire effect: Fixed a bug where fire particles sometimes remained in buildings after extinguishing was completed.
  • Enemy behaviour:Fixed a bug where enemy armies raiding the player's city looted resources instead of gold
  • Hints: Reduced the height of empty lines in hints.
  • Puppets assassination: Fixed nighttime assassination by puppets
  • Puppets bribery: Fixed puppet bribery of the player's lord

[/expand]

Patch #35 - Hotfix

In this small update, we fixed several important bugs:

- Fixed a potential game freeze in manual combat on the global map when assisting an ally in defense.
- Fixed a bug that caused lord abductions to work incorrectly — the captive was not considered the player's prisoner, many actions were unavailable, and the original faction did not request ransom for the captive.
- Characters from the same faction will now leave the local map through the same random exit.
- Fixed a bug that prevented entering the global map via the on-screen button during the trading with a neighbor stage in the tutorial.
- Until a lord's body is burned, their grave will not appear in the list of buildings.

Medieval strategy game Norland upgrades migration, crime, booze, and bandits

Medieval strategy game Norland has unleashed a seriously hefty new update giving multiple core mechanics a polish. The Long Jaunt and Hooded Horse colony sim merges all the period drama of Crusader Kings with the settlement and people management of Rimworld, and its "damn big update" marks another good moment to try the early-access indie game. With changes to city interactions, migration, crime, alcohol, and more, there's a whole lot to dig through.


Read the rest of the story...


RELATED LINKS:

Manor Lords, Norland, and other top strategy games are now cheaper than ever

Ambitious strategy game Norland gets huge world-changing update

Medieval strategy sim Norland gets roadmap focused on spicing up its early game