Irina "Zemlia" Sukhanova Welcome, lords! Today we'll discuss a game that made it onto the wishlists of over 3,000,000 Steam users and crashed servers on the day of its release.
We’ll cover the perfect strategy that has overshadowed many AAA projects. By the way, this was accomplished by an unknown game designer under the pseudonym Slavic Magic (Grzegorz Styczeń) with his small team. It all sounds like a fairy tale, but... Manor Lords has a serious problem.
Incredible beauty
Image: Ensiplay
Typically, discussions start with gameplay, but Manor Lords stuns players right from the start. The graphics are breathtaking from the first moments! Thanks to the Unreal Engine, the world feels alive, realistic. Day turns into night, dawn rays beautifully illuminate the hills, roofs of buildings. When it rains... it's beautiful!
Image: Ensiplay
Everything that happens on the screen is filled with details. Rain showers on the roads create puddles, the seasons really look different, the snow has volume. You'll just want to wander around the created village. The game allows for this.
In similar projects, many of you surely loved to lower the camera to the limit to see the settlement through the eyes of an NPC. Here, players can literally move into their character and walk around the world! Unfortunately, there is only one lord appearance. It does not reflect the player’s choice at the start.
Image: Ensiplay
The world of Manor Lords is not just beautiful: it fully lives. There are many animations, details. Oxen pull logs, hunters track game, merchants entice townspeople in shops, woodcutters gather firewood for stoves.
Optimization
At release, Manor Lords performs excellently. Yes, such a level of graphics requires a powerful PC. But if the performance is sufficient, many will be pleased. We tested Manor Lords on a laptop with an RTX 4050. FPS remained stable even on the highest settings.
Gameplay
Image: Ensiplay
To make it easier for players to understand what is at stake, some parallels will be drawn with other projects. What is Manor Lords similar to? Primarily, it’s Farthest Frontier + Stronghold. Yes, many have compared the project to Total War, but we’ll talk about that later. If you're familiar with these titles, you'll certainly find the bearings. Maybe…
Terrifying realism
Let's start with the basics. The mechanics of Manor Lords are steeped in realism! There are over 60 resources here. To build, users need to gather logs. Fuel is required for heating homes, stoves in production, so you'll need to saw firewood. Let's not forget about planks for advanced construction! Where are the logs? They're gone because the entire forest has been cut down. You'll need to build a forester's hut and plant new trees.
Such production chains are built around every resource. Fortunately, Manor Lords includes detailed tutorials to help everyone grasp the details. A couple of lines of text and that’s it? Exactly, because there is no tutorial!
Image: Ensiplay
Here we encounter the first serious problem. No one will explain the aspects of gameplay in detail to the player. Spent your starting capital on building vegetable gardens and chicken coops? Great, but the user won’t be able to open a trade route, as the treasury is empty. A trade route is needed for the village owner to buy the missing resource! Maybe it's worth collecting taxes from the residents? No. Without a well-developed village, it's impossible.
The game won't explain this. To get a stone, the player must think everything through carefully. Transporting resources requires an ox or a horse, as people cannot carry heavy items. There’s a chance to buy an ox, but all the money was spent on the chicken coop!
Image: Ensiplay
"Good thing there are plenty of logs to prepare fuel and planks", the user thinks. Then it starts raining for several days. The game shouts: "Resources will spoil due to bad weather!" You need to find somewhere to hide the logs. This topic is hardly covered in the tutorials! Unfortunately, there really is nowhere to store them, so another enemy appears in the game — weather conditions.
Under the rain, resources spoil; under the scorching sun, crops die; frosts can finally destroy the crops or the residents. People get sick, stop working, then die.
Settlement development
Image: Ensiplay
We had to restart the game several times because mistakes lead to stagnation in the development of the settlement. Several nuances are related to this.
The user starts from a random region on the map. The world here is vast, insanely beautiful. Each has the features: one has fertile soil, another is rich in clay, stone, and iron deposits, a third has plenty of game for hunting. In the future, you’ll be able to capture territories by force or through influence, but… again, trouble.
The diversity, individuality of the living place are very cool features. However, the balance is greatly disturbed. We and other players have encountered this. If the starting area has rich ore deposits but no fertile lands, development will be painfully slow. Sometimes, even trade does not help. The same can be said about endless fields without deposits of stone + clay.
Image: Ensiplay
If you're lucky with a starting territory, a pleasant, meditative gameplay begins with the construction of a settlement. This is really cool because every house here is important. If the player chooses a large enough area for construction, each hut will have space for production. Initially, you can attach a chicken coop, a goat pen, or a vegetable garden to the house. In the future, the residents of the house will open a forge, a tailor's workshop, and other important productions.
To achieve this, you need to raise the level of the village, so the owner must meet the demands of the townspeople. Open a market, build a church, a pub. Fields are needed for sustenance, and a granary is required for their operation. You can graze livestock on the fields, from which wool and leather are collected. Everything is interconnected.
Image: Ensiplay
The main feature of Manor Lords is that the gamer will have not just one village at their disposal. In each new region, the player needs to build a new settlement, which the development menu assists with.
Image: Ensiplay
Here, the user must base their strategy on the characteristics of the region and develop the settlement in the desired direction. Options include hunting, agriculture, mining, trade, military affairs. All your settlements are connected by resource exchange points, so they will begin to supply each other.
Residents are the most important resource in Manor Lords. Entire families, not just individuals, engage in various activities. There may be difficulties at the start since new settlers only arrive when the settlement's level of satisfaction is high.
Have you assigned families to all the productions? In this case, there will be no one to handle construction and drive the oxen. Sent a huge army to war with barbarians or an enemy lord? The settlement will be left without men, negatively impacting the economy.
Village management issues
Image: Ensiplay
In managing the village, we encountered some bugs. For example, several families remained homeless despite there being four available houses! They only settled after several months, which soured the mood of the townspeople. Once, the workers simply refused to build. Fortunately, such a bug is rare.
What can we ultimately say about settlement development? The construction is truly engaging, thought-provoking. Logical chains are well thought out, and bugs are few. However, there are problems with trade: if everything is done correctly, economic growth is too high. Additionally, the early access status affects it. A large part of the decrees is unavailable, and there are not many buildings.
Image: Ensiplay
There are no rivers, lakes, or seas in the game, so players can forget about fishing, although it was one of the most important industries of the Middle Ages.
Total War?
Unlike Farthest Frontier + Stronghold, wild animals will never attack the village, but there are still plenty of enemies. Depending on the difficulty level (you can choose a peaceful mode), barbarians and armies from another lord will appear on the map. Barbarians can be dealt with by destroying their camp, while lords... They send troops from the edge of the map, so retaliation is not possible.
So, the question is: does Manor Lords resemble Total War? The similarities are only superficial. Very little attention is given to the development of the army. Players can create four types of squads:
- spearmen;
- swordsmen;
- polearm fighters;
- archers.
There are also mercenaries, the personal guard of the lord, who have enhanced characteristics.
Image: Ensiplay
For personal troops, equipment and people are needed — all taken from the settlement. In case of war, men will gather in a militia and leave the village. This is dangerous because production will slow down. If the warriors die, it’ll take a long time to recover the population.
There is no such problem with mercenary troops. They are awesome, fully equipped, and do not affect the life of the settlements. However, the player will have to pay generously. This is not a problem with a well-developed economy.
Image: Ensiplay
As for the battles themselves, they look epic. Flags flutter in the wind, soldiers march in battle formation, archers rain arrows onto the ground. But do not expect tactics from Total War. The only thing you can do is to arrange your warriors in battle formation. Constructing a complex plan will not work, so the one with the stronger army wins.
Image: Ensiplay
Unfortunately, there is no cavalry for flanking maneuvers, so battles occur strictly face-to-face. There is a small plus — the army displays a stamina bar, adding a bit of realism.
Is Manor Lords a good game?
After playing several rounds, we answer this question. Despite being in the development stage and having a few bugs, we can confidently call Manor Lords an excellent, promising game in its genre. The project requires a lot of refinements, but it is already capable of engaging players for a while. Additionally, the optimization for early access is excellent!
The developers have already received tremendous support from users, so the project's development may accelerate. If Slavic Magic continues to work on his creation like this, one of the best modern RTS games could be expected in the future.
Main image by Ensiplay
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