Hi everyone!
Tim here again, CEO of Hooded Horse. As promised a little over a month ago, checking in to let you know what's going on with development and give you a behind-the-scenes look at what's coming.
Now I originally intended to do a follow up post shortly after my first post, but then Greg and his team did awesome work pushing out a beta update a week later, another beta the following week, another the week after that, and then the update to main branch a few days later. So I was rendered useless, no real backstage insight to give you when the updates are rolling out like that, but today I saw my opportunity here just as everyone's coming back from holidays to jump in real quick while they're hard at work on the next update.
So I talked with the dev team, and they gave me some details on what's coming (special thanks to Darren on the dev team for helping put this together so well!).
A New Burgage Plot Level
This is the new Burgage Plot level planned for the next update.
This new level sits between the existing Levels 2 and 3 (internally we’ve been calling it 2.5), and its goal is to more smoothly bridge the gap between early and late-game housing.
What This Changes
Adding a new housing level naturally means tweaking some existing mechanics. One notable change is to the Burgage Plot Expansion upgrade. Rather than doubling the Living Space within a plot, it will now always add +1 Living Space, regardless of Plot Level.
At a base level:
Burgage Plot (Level 3) provides 2 Living Space
Burgage Plot (Level 4) provides 3 Living Space
This keeps housing progression more consistent as plots scale upward.
Adjusted Residential Requirements
We’ve also made Burgage Plot (Level 2) a bit more forgiving to upgrade.
The Small Stone Church is no longer required to reach Level 3. That said, constructing it still provides a substantial Influence bonus, so it remains worthwhile if you have the means.
Artisan Workshop Progression
Alongside housing changes, we’re also experimenting with more varied workshop progression.
While we intend on adding other specialized workshops in future, for this update, we’re considering moving the Baker extension to Burgage Plot (Level 3). This may encourage greater use of the Communal Oven early on, while also giving players an additional incentive to work toward Level 3 housing.
Similarly, the Cobbler extension may move to this level as well, since Shoes as an item aren’t strictly required until this stage of progression anyway.
As always, these changes are still being tested, and we’re keen to hear how they sound from a progression and pacing standpoint.
Trade Rework
We've seen the reaction to the new Development Perk system and lots of speculation and suggestions as to what's coming next for it. The next tier of perks will arrive after the Burgage Plot update and it will be focused on Trade Privileges, but before committing to Trade Focused Perks, we saw an opportunity to add more depth to the Trade system itself, introducing new layers of strategic decision-making.
What we’re aiming for is a Trade system that:
Allows economic competition between rival Lords, not just military conflict
Clearly separates Regional and Foreign Trade
Streamlines inter-regional trade and bartering
Feels less predictable, with opportunities that vary between playthroughs
One concept we’re currently exploring focuses on Merchants as the backbone of Foreign Trade.
Trade Routes as Locations
In this system, Trade Routes are tied to specific locations, for example, Passau.
Each city imports and exports a small number of goods. Passau might import Charcoal, Leather, and Barley, while exporting Iron, Polearms, and Large Shields. Each good has its own unique prices and a city tariff. These would change from game to game to keep things fresh.
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.
Merchants and Trade Volume
Each Trade Route supports up to three Merchants. To trade along a route, you must hire one.
Merchants have a one-off Hire Fee
Once hired, they visit your Trading Post every three months
Each visit can move up to 100 goods in and out, based on your desired surplus settings
Hiring additional Merchants on a route increases trade volume, with arrivals spaced out evenly.
Competition and Buyouts
Other Lords can compete with you for access to valuable routes.
If all Merchants on a route are already hired, another Lord may perform a buyout of an existing Merchant. Doing so increases the Hire Fee and applies a cooldown before they can be bought again. They complete their existing trade if they were already enroute with goods. This turns profitable routes into contested economic territory rather than guaranteed income.
Monopolies and Economic Pressure
Over time, this system allows for deliberate economic strategies.
You could, for example, attempt to monopolize 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.
In some cases, this might lead to diplomatic deals where a rival trades excess weapons or other goods in exchange for Iron Slabs, effectively paying you as a middleman.
Caveats
There are important trade-offs (ha!) to this approach.
In this concept, Assigned Families stock the Trading Post but do not act as Merchants for Foreign Trade (they will for inter-regional routes we’ll discuss later). This means every Foreign Trade requires a hired Merchant, even for low-tier goods. In a worst case scenario, if you run out of Regional Wealth and all your Merchants are bought out, you may need to rely on your plots clawing together some passive income before being able to trade again.
To balance this, low-tier goods would appear on many routes, while high-tier goods would be limited to a few, making them more competitive and more strategically valuable.
Your Feedback
The trade rework represents some ideas we’re exploring, but we felt it had enough potential to bring to the community early. 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. A nice potential benefit is perks and policies can then adjust the hiring fee, buyout costs, value of goods, frequency of merchants, availability of routes and more. More concepts are brewing, and your feedback will help guide what we pursue next.
Please do leave us your thoughts in reviews and comments, both about these systems as well as how we're handling communication and updates - we're hoping you are enjoying these more frequent updates and info. Your feedback is critical to us. And as always, thank you so much for playing!