If you’ve been on Steam’s top wishlisted page, then somewhere around the top you probably saw Manor Lords. Manor Lords is a city-building RTS, set in the medieval era, that’s been in production since 2017, made by singular developer Greg Styczeń at Slavic Magic and published by Hooded Horse. If you’ve been following the development, then you’ll be happy to hear that Manor Lords will be released in early access on April 26 this year! It will be coming only to PC on launch, but it is confirmed that the game will be coming to Xbox at a later date as well.
Currently, there is no official announcement of Manor Lords coming to other consoles but the developer says that other console information will officially come at a later time. Rejoice, users of Steam, GOG, and Xbox
game pass on PC!
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Manor Lords Preview: Welcome to Manor Lords my Liege
The One Stop Shop!
If this is your first time hearing about Manor Lords, worry not! This article has everything we know about the game to date. Manor Lords is primarily a city-building game that holds a candle to acclaimed titles such as Frostpunk with a similarly unforgiving difficulty. Your citizens live or die by your management. Upgrading your settlement takes careful planning, lest you outgrow yourself and starve when winter blows in.
The building mechanics are incredibly fluid, offering a line tool to lay out territory where homes are built or farmland is raised. Every last one of your citizens can do any job in your town, making your population all the more important and memorable. Those very same peasants working the logging camp may also be called to battle in times of war.
Grow Your Citizens and Hand Them a Pitchfork
Speaking of war, Manor Lords has some of the tightest and most customizable grand strategy battles. Every unit can be equipped with specific armour and weapons using sliders, ensuring you have full control over the resources you spend on your militia army.
Formations can be tightly ordered and controlled, allowing for a tactical mind to fully employ every last man on the battlefield. Early game, you’ll have to utilize your citizens for combat, arming them with pitchforks and axes. Later down the line, you can hire mercenaries and even grow your own coat of arms and standing army with full customization on what colours they fly.
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What would be war without enemies? The map is filled to the brim with territories, each owned by a different, AI-controlled lord of its own. Diplomacy alone can avoid bloodshed and prove to be quite profitable with trade. Though, if you’re looking for a fight, you could always insult your neighbours! You don’t simply insult or compliment other lords like in Sid Meier’s Civilization. You are prompted with a menu where you get to form your own compliment or insult based on pre-generated sentences, allowing for some really custom rabble-rousing with the locals.
Devs With a Clear Vision
As mentioned before, Manor Lords will be releasing in early access, but the early access alone blows many games out of the water and promises more features to come. Multiplayer is on the developer’s radar, but they have stated that they desire for the single-player experience to be polished thoroughly before allowing you and your friends to claim the kingdom together. They also plan on adding official modding support once the game reaches version 1.0, which will undoubtedly boost Manor Lords’ replay value through the stratosphere.
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On top of features, the devs plan to add, they also listed a handful of features they have already decided will NOT be coming to Manor Lords. Features such as dynasties and clans, hero units, single-person units, and town guards are confirmed to not be coming to Manor Lords anytime soon. Slavic Magic is a very open-minded developer, and doesn’t rule anything out forever, but it’s safe to assume that the listed features may never be implemented into the game.
Manor Lords has nothing if not potential. The game is already so polished that you can zoom in and watch the individual animations on the faces of your citizens. Grow a connection with your town blacksmith, and send them off to die at war because we’re very mean lords. The game has so much to offer in just early access and there are no signs that the dev behind it all intends to slow down. I estimate Manor Lords to rise up and sit close to the top of the RTS and city-building genres.
Follow Last Word on Gaming closely as I intend to continue full coverage up to and during the game’s release.
