An Early Access preview code was used, with many thanks to Hooded Horse.
Two years ago, I played the demo of Manor Lords and was impressed with the development of the game that the solo developer Slavic Magic had made. Now Manor Lords, a city-building game set in the 14th century, is set for release on Early Access, and it’s shaping up to be a fantastic game. Also, since Manor Lords was initially announced, it has accumulated 3 million wishlists from players on Stream, wow!
Manor Lords, Which Scenario Will You Chose
In Manor Lords, you begin by choosing a male or female avatar, picking a coat of arms, and choosing the colours of your coat of arms. Then, you have a choice of three scenarios to play; all the scenarios can be tailored to your liking.
There is the Rise to Prosperity scenario, where you can concentrate on building your settlement growth without combat, or you can choose to play the Restoring the Peace scenario, which involves conquering every region on the map as well as building your settlement up to a large town. Finally, there is the On the Edge scenario, where you must grow your settlement to a large town size, raise forces as quickly as possible and survive all attacks by raiders and other regions.
Primarily, Manor Lords is a city builder with battles. And though there are battles in the game, they are small as they are only a part of the gameplay, and I found that the battles do not happen as often as I might have expected; that’s not a complaint, though, as I like to be left alone to concentrate on city-building. The majority of the gameplay of Manor Lords is focused on building up your settlement to a large town, managing production, and managing the overall economics and growth.
Discover Resources On The Map
Once the map opens up, you can see where the icons indicate valuable resources, such as stone, ore and berries for gathering. Manor Lords employs a building system without a grid, offering you the freedom to position buildings according to your preference. Having the freedom to build how you like allows you to consider factors such as trade routes and the resources in the surrounding environment in the development of your medieval town.
When you begin to construct your settlement, you’ll create a logging camp, granary, hunter’s cabin, and more to satisfy your citizens’ needs to survive the first cold winter in the wilderness. Additionally, you’ll task the workers with cutting down trees and constructing burgage homes to live in, which can have plots attached to the back of the home for vegetables to grow or to raise chickens or goats.
One of the best mechanics in Manor Lords is how you place the roads for your citizens and the ox to use. Placing the roads is so easy; it’s just a case of clicking and dragging, and it’s got to be one of the best road-laying mechanics I’ve ever seen in a game of this genre.
Battles With Other Regions
You’ll lead your people into battle as bandits are roaming about the land, and you’ll claim the land of other Lords. You’ll need to take into consideration fatigue, morale, and the effectiveness of your archers, spearmen and light infantryman and their equipment against the other units and factor in the weather conditions.
Manor Lords features diplomacy with other lords and conflicts, a trading system, and Tech tree development for your region, allowing for customisation based on resources in your region and their role in your growing kingdom. You can also go for a walk around your growing town in third-person mode and hear all your citizens chat amongst themselves as you walk by; it’s a fun addition to the gameplay.
The game’s expansive scope is already evident in the Early Access build, and the attention to detail is pretty impressive, especially considering it’s the work of a solo developer. Every time I think of that, it’s like, wow, one developer made all this!
Visual and Soundtrack
I love how Manor Lords looks; the burgage homes with a back garden area are a neat touch, plus the vegetables that your citizens grow add to the overall total of food. In autumn, the leaves change colour on the trees, and you can see flocks of birds flying around; the weather effects, such as thunder and lightning, are done really well. It all helps to make Manor Lord’s medieval atmosphere feel realistic.
The music is pleasant to listen to while you construct your kingdom; the soundtrack will be available to buy once the game releases, and it is another soundtrack I’ll be adding to my collection.
Manor Lords ran well on my laptop, without crashes or framerate issues. I haven’t encountered any major bugs, though I have seen my citizens walk through the side of a building, but I can live with that. I also tried Manor Lords on the Steam Deck, and it runs on it, too, using the mouse and keyboard.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Manor Lords is looking pretty good for an Early Access release, and it is a fun and enjoyable addition to the city-building strategy genre. I imagine the developer has lots of plans for the early access stage of the game before the 1.0 release of the game, though Slavic Magic is not releasing any information about a road map for Manor Lords.
I, for one, am looking forward to what’s in store for Manor Lords. Slavic Magic should be extremely proud of what has been accomplished in developing Manor Lords. Did I already mention I’m impressed?
Manor Lords is worth purchasing now, or if you prefer to wait until Early Access is over, you can add your wishlist to the game’s Steam page here.
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