If you love management and medieval titles, the most awaited game for you is finally here coming to early access. We tried Manor Lords in preview and, while still incomplete from some points of view (some game mechanics are still blocked), it is a game that can keep you glued to the screen.
The graphic quality is amazing and the game mechanics make you enjoy the power of managing a fiefdom as a real one medieval lord. Slavic Magicwho we remember is a solo developer, took 7 years to conceive and develop Manor Lords, a game that from all points of view promises to be a milestone of the genre.
The game expertly interweaves mechanics seen in other titles, such as Year 1800, Total War And Ostrivmaking it a complete game – or almost, for now – at 360°. Resource management e large-scale battles these are just some of the things you can taste.
Manage a real medieval village
The management aspect it's definitely there diamond tip of the title: you will start in a very large map, and you will be randomly placed in one of the regions, each of them with Technical specifications different, in order to change the type of approach and construction. You might start in a region with a rich iron depositshifting your economy to mining and manufacturing of weapons (to be able to sell at the market in order to obtain money to compensate for the low fertility of the land), or you could end up in one region with very fertile soiland in that case, your first city's economy will be centered around farming and linen productionpotentially becoming the pivotal region of the garment trade.
The beginning is the same for everyone: you will have few materials available and 5 family units camped in field tents. You will decide how and with what to start building your first village, but there we strongly recommend that you start cutting some tree trunks, since, at least at the beginning, wood is the resource that will be most useful to you. Immediately after, we advise you to build houses, to put a roof over the heads of your subjects, and increasing the Approval level.
The latter is the value based on which other families, if you have free houses, will decide to settle in your village (a little to Stronghold, so to speak). It is a value that depends on various factors, and it will be up to you to maintain it greater than 50% to increase the workforce of your fiefdom, and always have workers available for your activities. This is a very important element since the first challenge that the game will put before you is the chronic lack of manpower.
Each structure you create will need workers, and no, this time it will not be enough to assign just one worker in a structure to meet the need for some resources: firewood for the winter, variety of food, fields to plow and cultivate according to the season. All elements that require the right time it's a'adequate workforce.
To arms, oh villagers!
Another very interesting mechanic is the arms race. All the men in the village can be called to arms in a very simple way, but the number of soldiers available will be limited strictly linked to the number of family units that you will have in the village. What will they bring into battle? It will depend on several factors. Once a battalion has been created, all the eligible men will go and retrieve the weapons and armor that you have made available to them from the various warehouses, and will take them home to be ready for use. You want a battalion of spearmen? Well! They must be present in your stocks spears and shields. You want to fill the ranks of your army with gods archers? So, the first thing to do will be to build some arches. Simple right?
If for some reason you don't have weapons and armor available, the villagers will make do with basic tools, such as sickles and pitchforks… but, at that point, against a real army, you won't have the slightest hope of success. Another factor to take into consideration is that, when you begin a military maneuver, as long as the army is assembled, you will lose manpower. Once the battle is over, by disbanding the units, everyone will return to their life as workers: to continue contributing to the village's economy.
The economy, as you have surely understood, is vast and articulated. Each final product requires different processes and different special structures, which in turn will need specific requirements to be built. For example the artisans' workshops they will be built on homesas every house in Manor Lords can be updated to become a workshop, if you meet the requirements to build it. By doing so, the family unit that inhabits it he will leave any job assigned previously to dedicate himself to his own workshop. Be careful, therefore, about the workforce available: so as not to leave any important activities uncovered.
Expanding fiefdom
As for the expansion mechanicswe will be able to build a village in each of the regions on the map, as long as you have accumulated enough to claim it influence; but these mechanics will also change based on the game mode you choose at the start of the game.
Manor Lords is currently offering three different ways to play:
- Rise to Prosperityin which you simply have to reach the “Big City” rank (with which you will switch to the mode endless), without ever being able to be attacked (there will be no bandits on the map).
- Restoring the Peacein which you will have to conquer all the regions of the map with, as an opponent, another noble lord (outside the map field) who will try to steal your lands
- On the Edgein which you will have to reach the maximum status of prosperity, resisting the continuous enemy attacks.
We recommend starting with the second mode, which allows you to have both a good dose of military pressure and a lot of time available to fortify and expand your city.
The prospects
There is still a lot to say about Manor Lords, but just as much work to do to be able to define it really complete. Expect a game to which one small delay it certainly wouldn't have hurt: although Manor Lords is surprisingly stable and full of mechanics that already make it so unique, several functions don't even have an official name, and appear in the interface with their command string (which perhaps will be updated with the release of the 26th in early access). Furthermore, many – not to say almost all – of the city upgrades, such as those related to the economy and internal policies, are marked with a “Coming soon”.
Diplomacy between kingdoms that's practically it now inexistent, and the game does not have a “tutorial” mode that clearly explains the complex game mechanics. Unfortunately it is not yet possible to build castles real, there is no cavalry, the troops are basic and not very diversified, and the map is a bit flat (i.e. without any differences in height).
However, this does not change our current vision of the game: Manor Lords has mechanics never seen beforea well-made management system that never gets boring, and a amazing graphics section (like the details of the fighting, and the markets teeming with citizens intent on purchasing). There's definitely more to do, but that's it the immensity that you breathe and the initial classification that lead us to hope to have more, especially because Manor Lords has plenty of character and personality. The potential is enormous and in our opinion this title is destined to become one of the milestones of the genre.
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