Norland News

Medieval kingdom building sim Norland off to strong player count start

Last week, Hooded Horse launched yet another new title, medieval simulation game Norland, into Steam Early Access. While it's not quite blown up to the same levels as its enormous hit Manor Lords, the publisher will be pleased to see that Norland has enjoyed a decent opening weekend when it comes to player counts and Steam reviews - although, some fans of close cousins like Rimworld are finding some pain points.

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Patch #4 (Fleshwolves event fix, bug fixes)

A small but important patch, fixing the event with the raiding fleshwolves, as well as a couple of critical bugs.

[h3]Balance[/h3]

Fixed a bug where the fleshwolves in the prophecy of the fleshwolf attack would attack individually instead of in groups, making it difficult to fight them, and the player's squads would not react to them until the moment of collision.
Fixed a bug where fleshwolves could start bandaging their wounds, causing their AI to freeze.

[h3]Stability[/h3]

Fixed a crash when loading social thoughts if they were corrupted during saving.

[hr][/hr][h3]We want to say that we read and note all comments that you share (even if we don't always respond because we're busy with fixes), so please keep leaving your feedback and reviews! Thank you![/h3]

Patch #3 (Balance, Bug Fixes)

Not too big, but an important patch that fixes bugs and makes things even more friendly for new players at launch - for you this Saturday!

[h3]Balance[/h3]

The strength of thoughts from jealousy about the number of rings and the number of children has been reduced.
The strength of the "Hope for the Future" thought has been increased from +23 to +40.
The duration of the "Catharsis" thought has been increased from 24 to 72 hours.
The duration of the "New Resident Optimism" thought has been increased from 96 to 120 hours.

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

Fixed an annoying bug where allies in battle could start fighting each other instead of the enemy due to poor relations between their kings.
Immobilized children of lords will be carried to the hall so they can eat there; servants will also bring them medicine if needed.
Fixed a bug where soldiers in melee combat on the global map would stop fighting if they outnumbered their opponents.
Fixed a bug with the incorrect display of the pop-up menu with a letter from the Matriarch.

[hr][/hr][h3]Thank you very much for the reviews and feedback that helps us fix everything; we continue our efforts. Hope you enjoy the weekend![/h3]

Patch #2 (Balance, Bug Fixes, New Player Friendliness)

We continue to work on your feedback, and today's patch should significantly improve the balance at the beginning of the game, making it more friendly for new players. At the same time, we are maintaining the challenge in the mid-game and beyond. We understand that the game is full of new and complex mechanics, so you will have a chance to get familiar with everything at the beginning of the game without feeling punished or pressured. On the other hand, once you master the economy and are ready to convert wealth into power, the challenge will be waiting for you.

In the coming days, we will make deeper structural changes to eliminate many unpleasant and unexpected situations.

[h3]Balance[/h3]

Lords will refuse to work only when they are depressed.
The book with the knowledge "Hop Field and Beer" has been added to the library at the start of the game.
The player's immediate neighbors at the start of the game will have slightly weakened armies.
The fertility of rutabaga and rye has been increased by almost one and a half times.
Soil fertility will only start to decline after 50% of the forests have been cleared and can drop to a maximum of 50% on easy and medium difficulties.
The amount of wood in one tree has been increased from 10 to 13.
The bet in the dice game has been reduced from 5 to 3 rings.
The thought about the low level of righteousness has been changed from -13 to -10.
If a child is missing a title, their friends will not be upset about it and hate the king. The lord's thought about the king stripping the title has been reduced from -30 to -15.
The cost of buying rings from the caravan trader has been reduced from 35 to 30 coins.
Praying at the altar will restore 15 righteousness instead of 10.
Two burned villages will halve the migration flow, not stop it completely.

[h3]Stability[/h3]

Lords lost due to bugs will be relocated to their city after loading, not killed. We are currently working on bugs that can lead to the loss of lords.
Fixed a bug where the player's army sent to an ally to help against forest bandits would remain in the AI's city if the bandit squad was destroyed on the way.
Fixed a crash that could occur when configuration files were corrupted (Error: Attempting to read from outside the buffer).
Fixed a bug with losing control of the interface after pressing ESC during the appearance of the pop-up menu about border expansion in the new game setup menu.

[hr][/hr][h3]Thank you for all your reviews and feedback! Early access exists to connect with players, and through your help we've discovered many things that we will work hard to fix and improve.[/h3]

Hot Fix #2 (fixed saved game crash)

This is a quick hotfix to a crash:

- Fixed crash when loading a game save

An hour ago we also released Patch #1, for the full notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1857090/view/4344368567390413653?l=english

Day one patch that fixes issues with the unstable moods of lords and addresses crashes and bugs. Additionally, support for inputting text in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese has been introduced.

Stability
- Fixed an issue where the game would freeze if there were rocks under a constructed altar.
- Fixed a crash when hovering over the event indicating a field will soon be depleted if the field had already been demolished.
- Fixed an issue preventing exiting the pause menu by pressing ESC during the first tutorial playthrough.
- Fixed a potential game freeze during the calculation of spouses' relationships.
- Fixed the game crashing on startup at the “Loading. Please Wait” (If you still have the problem, you should know that we are working on it!).

Interfaces
- The quest result and letter menu has been widened.
- Video subtitles will scale with the interface scaling setting.

Balance
- Added a regulator for the amount of gold at the start of the game in the difficulty selection menu.
- Reduced the probability of a bad joke during lords' conversations while they are drunk
- The strength of negative thoughts after consuming moonshine or rutabaga has been reduced for lords and soldiers on peaceful and medium difficulties.
- The strength of negative thoughts from a bad joke directed at oneself has been halved on peaceful and normal difficulties.
- The strength of the "Obsession with desire" negative thought has been reduced on peaceful and normal difficulties.
- The strength of thoughts from sins has been halved on peaceful and medium difficulties.
- Ale will be available for purchase from the caravan when relations with the Matriarch are 0 or higher on peaceful and medium difficulties.

Localization
- Added the ability to input text in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese languages.
- Added some special characters for European languages.
- Fixed the missing string "Expires in ..." in some localizations.

Miscellaneous
- Assigned lord names at game creation will no longer change to random ones upon random lord regeneration.

Thank you so much for all your support in trying the game! We are hard at work on additional patches, which will cover the reported issues, and we are also working with the translators to improve the localized languages. Please keep letting us know of your feedback -- all reviews and suggestions are enormously appreciated, and we will use your advice to help improve the game together!