The complete guide · 7 min read
Life is Feudal Server Hosting: The Complete Guide
This guide covers running a Life is Feudal: Your Own world on rented hardware, from the version question and plan size to rules, raids, terraforming and backups. It is written for whoever in the guild ends up holding the server keys.
By Matthew Griffin, Owner, Gaming DeluxePublished · Updated
In this guide
- Why a Your Own World Needs a Dedicated Server
- A Settled Game: What the Update History Tells You
- Keeping Players and Server on the Same Version
- Picking Slots and Memory
- Terraforming, Tunnels and Long-Term Building
- Rules, Raids and Village Politics
- Backups and Moving a World
- What to Compare Before You Rent a Life is Feudal Server
- Life is Feudal Server Glossary
- Life is Feudal Server Help and Next Steps
Why a Your Own World Needs a Dedicated Server
Life is Feudal: Your Own is the private-world edition of Bitbox's medieval sandbox. The Steam page describes it as hosting your own world and setting your own rules, with up to 64 players sharing a map 3 kilometres on each side. Everything in that world is slow work: felling trees, hauling logs, levelling ground, building a palisade, then a stone wall, then a keep. A world like that only makes sense if it is still there tomorrow, and the day after, without anyone keeping a PC switched on for it.
A dedicated server is the answer. It runs the world on its own, so a player in another time zone can tend the fields while you sleep, and nobody has to wait for the host to come online before the guild can work. Renting one moves that machine into a data centre with a fixed address, steady bandwidth, filtered traffic and a support desk, which is far easier than leaving a home PC on with ports open on the router.
A Settled Game: What the Update History Tells You
It is worth being plain about the state of the game. Life is Feudal: Your Own came out on 17 November 2015. Its Steam news page shows regular patches through 2017, including fixes for a duplication exploit with horses and trade carts, and then the long-awaited 1.4.0.1 update on 3 September 2018. The only later announcement is a brief security fix post from May 2023. The official website did not load when we checked it in October 2026, showing a database connection error instead.
For a server owner this cuts both ways. You get no new content and no roadmap. You also get a build that does not change under your feet: no forced wipe after a patch, no week of mods breaking, no players stuck on a newer version than the server. Groups who play Your Own today usually know exactly what they want from it, and a stable build gives them that.
- Gathering: the 1.4 update reworked three gathering abilities, so plants show up when a player targets a tile.
- Luck: the cap rose from 12 to 100, and jewellery, blessings and five-ingredient foods now stack their luck bonuses.
- Raids: objects inside houses and warehouses cannot be opened, looted or moved during JH raids.
- Death: resurrection sickness was doubled, which makes careless fighting more costly.
Keeping Players and Server on the Same Version
With the 1.4 update Bitbox added a choice: players can pick which version of the game to run through the Beta setting in Steam's properties for the game. That is useful for groups who preferred the older balance, and it is also the most common reason a new player cannot connect. The server and every client must agree.
- Decide as a group which version the world will use, and write it in your server rules or Discord.
- Ask each player to open the game's properties in Steam and check the Beta setting matches.
- Check the server build in the panel and use Steam Update if it needs to match the group's choice.
- Restart and let one player test the connection before you invite everyone.
Picking Slots and Memory
Start from the number of people who will be online on your busiest evening, not the number of names on the guild list. Many Your Own worlds have a large roster and a much smaller group logged in at once. Twelve slots covers a household of friends, 24 suits two or three families sharing a river valley, and 48 or 64 is for a community with real politics between villages.
| Plan | RAM included | Typical world |
|---|---|---|
| 12 Slots | 8GB | One guild, one settlement |
| 24 Slots | 12GB | Two or three guilds trading and squabbling |
| 48 Slots | 16GB | Several villages and regular raids |
| 64 Slots | 20GB | A full world at the game's player cap |
Memory rises one tier with each plan because a busier world keeps more of the map active: more buildings, more animals, more items lying in storage. The 64 slot plan is as far as it goes, because 64 is the game's own ceiling. A community that outgrows it needs a second world, not a bigger plan. Use the memory graph in the panel to decide whether to add more; if it sits near your allocation at peak time, step up a tier on the order form.
Terraforming, Tunnels and Long-Term Building
What sets Life is Feudal apart is how much of the land you can change. Steam lists free terraforming, tunnel digging and building anywhere on the map, with both preset and modular buildings. Over months, a world turns into a record of everyone's decisions: hills cut into terraces, rivers bridged, roads carved between villages. That permanence is the point, and it is also why a world needs looking after.
- Take a backup before any large terraforming job, because changes to the ground cannot be undone by hand.
- Agree where public roads and markets go before players claim the best land around them.
- Ask big projects, such as a castle or a mine network, to be announced so others do not build in the way.
- Restart at a quiet hour each day with Scheduled Tasks to keep long-running worlds tidy.
Rules, Raids and Village Politics
Combat in Life is Feudal is physics-based and non-targeted: the direction of an attack follows the mouse, moves chain into combos, and formations give coordinated groups a bonus. Add a skill and stat cap system that pushes players to specialise, and you get a world where people depend on each other. The smith needs the miner, the army needs the cook, and everyone needs the farmer.
That interdependence makes rules matter more than settings. A clear rule set covers when raids are allowed, what may be taken, how long a claim lasts if the owner stops playing, and how disputes are settled. The 1.4 update already protects the contents of houses and warehouses during JH raids, so your rules can focus on the rest: walls, carts, livestock and the fields outside the gate.
Backups and Moving a World
A Your Own world is months of shared effort, so treat backups as part of the routine. The Backup Manager in our panel takes a snapshot whenever you ask, and offsite copies of the last 7 days are kept on top. The habit that saves the most grief is simple: snapshot before raid night, before a big dig, and before you change any settings.
Moving an existing world from a home PC or another host is a file transfer. Stop the server, upload the world's files over SFTP, and start it again. Keep a backup of the fresh server first, so you can switch back if anything does not match. Our support team can look at the start-up log with you if the world does not load first time.
What to Compare Before You Rent a Life is Feudal Server
Offers for an older game can look identical. These details decide how the world feels after six months, not on day one.
- Slots against the 64 player capAnything above 64 slots is wasted on this game. Check that the plan you pick fits the cap.
- Memory included in the priceAsk how much RAM the base price includes and what the next tier costs.
- File accessSFTP and a file manager matter when you move a world or edit its configs.
- Backups you restore yourselfCheck you can roll back without waiting for a ticket, and how many days of offsite copies are kept.
- Version controlMake sure the host can match the server to the version your players choose in Steam.
- Location and pingDirectional melee punishes lag. Test the ping from your own PC before you order.
- Billing termsCompare monthly and longer terms, and look for setup fees or minimum contracts.
Life is Feudal Server Glossary
- Your Own
- The private server edition of Life is Feudal, for up to 64 players on one world.
- Dedicated server
- A separate program that keeps the world running without anyone playing on the host machine.
- Terraforming
- Raising, lowering and flattening the ground, a core part of building in the game.
- Skill cap
- The limit on how many skills one character can master, which pushes players to specialise.
- JH raid
- The raid window named in the 1.4 patch notes, when houses and warehouses keep their contents locked.
- Resurrection sickness
- A penalty after death, doubled in the 1.4 update.
- Formation
- A group combat arrangement that gives coordinated teams a bonus.
- Beta setting
- The Steam option that lets players choose which game version to run.
- Slots
- How many players can be online on the server at the same time.
Life is Feudal Server Help and Next Steps
Useful pages for running your world.
- Life is Feudal: Your Own on SteamThe game's features and system requirements from Bitbox.
- Life is Feudal: Your Own news on SteamEvery patch up to 1.4.0.1 and the 2023 security fix.
- Gaming Deluxe control panelWhat the panel does and how to log in.
- Our server locations
- Contact support24/7 help with setup, versions and moving worlds.
How this guide was made: researched from the game's Steam store page and Bitbox's update notes on Steam, drafted with AI assistance, checked against our live order form for every plan, price and location, and reviewed by Matthew Griffin before publishing. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.
