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Few games offer the chance to immerse yourself in the life of a medieval Duke or Lord, tending to fields alongside your peasants, all while navigating the complexities of leadership before you’ve even turned thirty.
Enter Manor Lords, the eagerly anticipated medieval strategy game set to redefine this unique experience. Here, players are invited to step into a world where elements of governance, strategy, and rural life blend seamlessly.
Manor Lords is many things from a city builder to a war game or even a throneroom politics simulator like Crusader Kings. But at its core, it appears to combine the best parts of Total War and Cities: Skylines.
Sounds complex, and yet, all of this was made (mostly) by just one person, giving the game a lot of buzz even before its set release on April 26, 2024.
And to get you as eager as a hamlet church priest during tithe-collection day, we’ve included more details about Manor Lords and how it plays.
The Fanfare Behind Manor Lords
First, we have to give due recognition to the person responsible for Manor Lords. That would be none other than Greg Styczeń and his creation is bound to be the next Stardew Valley.
For anyone out of the loop, Stardew Valley was also initially developed by just one person and has since become one of the most popular games ever. Manor Lords isn’t too far off– it’s currently one of the most wish-listed games on Steam, side-by-side with bigger unreleased titles such as Hades 2 and Hollow Knight: Silksong. Both of those games had bigger development teams, mind you.
For the record, Greg Styczeń anticipated a Steam wishlist number of just 14,000 for Manor Lords. Now, Manor Lords has 2 million wishlists. That’s 2 million potential buyers and counting. Needless to say, Greg Styczeń’s about to become a millionaire come April 26, hopefully.
What’s the Fuss All About?
Apart from being made by one man, one of Manor Lords’ most impressive features is how it defies the genres and conventions of tried and tested Medieval games. As we mentioned before, it’s an amalgam of real-time strategy (RTS) and city-building with a dash of throne-room politics all rolled into one.
On top of that, Manor Lords’ quaint but charming scale also makes it rather novel. Whereas most other Medieval-era video games prefer to go big and grand, Manor Lords fixes its gaze on duchy development and wee wars.
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Manor Lords Gameplay
In Manor Lord, you take control of, well, a Medieval Lord. You’re not quite a king. In fact, you still answer to the king and there’s an in-game currency called King’s Favour which contributes to your rise to power.
The big question is, can you become a king? That remains to be seen, but with the map sizes and the typical mode of combat and city building, it appears the game hasn’t set its sights on that large a scale. Mods might change that, however, but we digress.
Manor Lords as a City-Builder
Your main mode or gameplay loop in Manor Lords would be to build up your duchy or region from a pigsty to a great house. You do this by assigning construction tasks, and gathering and managing resources (including manpower). The church is also a big factor here in your gameplay as you can leverage its influence to control your population.
What gives you more freedom in Manor Lords is the lack of a grid system. You can place any structure wherever you want even if it looks asymmetrical. One of the game’s main focuses is the organic growth of Medieval settlements, and the gridless city-building allows for that vision.
Economics is also a huge part of the city-building where beautifying your village can bring in traders. You must also control the taxation level and manage your treasury and other currencies.
Of course, it’s a Medieval-era game so there’s warfare involved, especially when rival or neighboring duchies encroach on your territory or slander your name in front of the king. That’s where the RTS aspect comes in.
Manor Lord as an RTS
You’re not just building cities in Manor Lords, you’re also razing them (not the ones you own, of course). Manor Lord will let you build a small army and levy some troops from the villages you control to fight pitched battles, sieges, or defend your region.
It comes with a fully-fledged RTS-type battle system where you can control cohorts of troops and give orders in the heat of combat. You can position them and even set up real-life Medieval warfare maneuvers. This way, you can try to finesse your way into victory even while outnumbered.
It’s a gameplay mechanic that has made the Total War games unmatched to this day, and Manor Lords is employing something similar– albeit on a smaller scale.
You can still arm and customize your troops, and there are different troop types such as bowmen to cavalry. Suffice it to say, it’s no slouch when it comes to RTS battle mechanics.
All that’s left is to see how all these systems pan out on April 26, 2024. Manor Lords is coming to Microsoft Windows (PC), Xbox Series X and Series S, and Xbox One. That’s still plenty of time to sew your banners and harvest grain for taxes.
