Manor Lords - medieval city-building with large scale battles

[The Wall]

Thanks for letting me now. Will look it up. There is strong Mandela effect when it comes to idea that there are bunch of good, high production games from various game genres in low/high fantasy medieval and mythological or purely history setting. But there aren't. They are quite rare. Last period when we got one new every 6months-1year was 20 years ago, when I had to climb into my computer chair after school

 

[markec]

What would you prefer, Lacrymas, out of interest? If not medieval Europe?

I'm okay with it for my part, while it is the most generic of settings I'd love to see it done right if they can, then maybe move on to more exotic locales.

Literally anything else. Maybe a historical Middle Eastern setting? We haven't had one of those.

How about game set in time of colonization of America, personally would like a game like this in that setting.

 

[Lacrymas]

How about game set in time of colonization of America, personally would like a game like this in that setting.

Anno 1602?

 

[markec]

How about game set in time of colonization of America, personally would like a game like this in that setting.

Anno 1602?

Yes something like that, only a modern release. You could have multiple starting points, not only in Americas but Africa or India.

 

[JarlFrank]

What's the last, good, authentic medieval city builder with high production quality and half of features from Manor Lords?

Foundation is pretty good, but it's not nearly as complex as Manor Lords, especially in the warfare department.

There are plenty of medieval and pseudo-medieval village builders out there but Manor Lords surpasses them all in complexity. And not just in a single aspect but in ALL aspects.

And to top it off it even has good combat. Some city builders have no combat at all, and the ones that do usually have shit combat. The last time we got a somewhat complex city builder with production chains and not-shit combat was Knights and Merchants way back in the 90s.

This isn't just a trend copier - since the city-builder genre is definitely a trend right now, there are DOZENS on Steam, some with interesting gimmicks (one came out last week, I bought it cause it looks interesting, Laysara: Summit Kingdom), some just clones of Banished with more or less complexity but usually just playing the same.
But Manor Lords goes further. It doesn't just copy current design trends. It takes an idea that's as old as gaming - run your own medieval village and go to war with your neighbors! - and approaches it from a hard simulationist perspective, trying to make it as cool and intricate as possible. It's doing what devs of the 90s did! Have cool idea, implement it in a new way.

 

[Gerrard]

A few words from the Dev before the launch into Early Access

This game is still coming as early access after 4+ years of development.

 

[Shrimp]

I feel kind of sorry for the dev if he feels that he has received enough messages to warrant writing a blogpost saying what kind of game the game isn't meant to be. I scrolled through the game's steam forums and subreddit for a bit and saw a surprising amount of comments and requests from people who seemingly genuinely thought the end goal was something completely different than a city builder.
I can only imagine how bad it must've been for the guy to endure those types of messages for several years across all the feedback platforms he might've had to read through.

 

[DoWhocares]

Early Access? What a way to deflate my balloon.
Instantly went from d1p to:.

 

[mondblut]

I feel kind of sorry for the dev if he feels that he has received enough messages to warrant writing a blogpost saying what kind of game the game isn't meant to be. I scrolled through the game's steam forums and subreddit for a bit and saw a surprising amount of comments and requests from people who seemingly genuinely thought the end goal was something completely different than a city builder.

Can't blame folks for wanting the game to be something greater than plopping buildings and making sure little pixel men don't starve. City-building is a nice addition to any kind of game, but terminally boring when taken alone. I'll take a Total War competitor or an Empire Management style Grand Strategy game any day over it, TYVM.

 

[Harthwain]

Not sure what you guys are talking about - Manor Lords has combat and drafting people to militia means taking away hands that work in the fields. You have to get equipment for all your troops, etc. Warfare is all part of the same simulationist system. Even if the scale won't be the same as Total War (or any other grand strategy), the level of Caesar is still pretty good for an in-depth city builder with an insanely detailed economy.

 

[Galdred]

Manor Lords will be for Hooded Horse publisher their Skyrim moment, financially

Oh yeah, this game is going to make so much profit you're not going to even believe.

1# most wishlisted on Steam with 2mil wishlists? This game will singlehandedly make Hooded Horse a known entity.

Possibly also a good thing for Menace, the sci-fi game from the Battle Brothers dev. Publishers often have a "rising tide lifts all boats" thing going for them. In fact, a large reason some devs sign on with indie publishers is to get flowover traffic from their other games.

True, but the game was signed after it already had reached 1M WL I think, so I suppose their terms(for the developer) were much better than the usual 50-70% split, but regardless, it is a great PR move from HH indeed.
Also, the fact that there are quite a few youtubers making several videos about the game means it must be genuinely good (it is very unlikely to sponsor series of 5 videos or more).
Sadly, I am not into city building at all, but the mix of both small scale management and combat seems the closest we'll get from a new Lords of the Realms.

 

[Axioms]

HoodedHorse has made a specific commitment to fair terms for developers unlike other publishers. That's their calling card. Do they live up to that? Hard to say since they won't allow release of specific contracts. But that's what the founder claimed. Manor Lords and similar games published by HoodedHorse were typically given a loan that is paid back from sales revenue at a much lower rate than a typical publisher and then HH afterwards gets a smaller than typical % of the sales number following the payback of the "advance".

As far as the game itself, so many people want him to be making The Guild but with a slightly different theme and fancy battles and he just isn't. They need to get over it.

 

[Galdred]

HoodedHorse has made a specific commitment to fair terms for developers unlike other publishers. That's their calling card. Do they live up to that? Hard to say since they won't allow release of specific contracts. But that's what the founder claimed. Manor Lords and similar games published by HoodedHorse were typically given a loan that is paid back from sales revenue at a much lower rate than a typical publisher and then HH afterwards gets a smaller than typical % of the sales number following the payback of the "advance".

As far as the game itself, so many people want him to be making The Guild but with a slightly different theme and fancy battles and he just isn't. They need to get over it.

It probably needs to be taken with a grain of salt, given that they are still in an ongoing partnership (and it was before any of the games had shipped), but all of the HH studios I talked to were quite enthusiastic about the relationship.
One of the main differences in contract is that there is no 0% till recoup clause, only different % values before and after indeed. Tim, the founder, is also genuinely passoniate about strategy games and RPG, which is not that usual in this field, sadly.

 

[AgentFransis]

Watched some videos. Building layer looks alright I suppose, hard to tell if it's interesting without digging in yourself. Combat is just a bland total war clone system as far as I can tell. Overall the game looks ugly and depressing. I suppose that's mission accomplished for simulating medieval peasant life, but mainly left me with a desire to reinstall Pharaoh or Emperor.

 

[Tyranicon]

Some dev-pub contracts are little more than agreements that that publisher will be paid for providing marketing and ancillary services. A lot of indie pub contracts have no wording about IP ownership or anything of that sort, which make it very attractive since it's basically just hiring a marketer.

 

[Axioms]

HoodedHorse has made a specific commitment to fair terms for developers unlike other publishers. That's their calling card. Do they live up to that? Hard to say since they won't allow release of specific contracts. But that's what the founder claimed. Manor Lords and similar games published by HoodedHorse were typically given a loan that is paid back from sales revenue at a much lower rate than a typical publisher and then HH afterwards gets a smaller than typical % of the sales number following the payback of the "advance".

As far as the game itself, so many people want him to be making The Guild but with a slightly different theme and fancy battles and he just isn't. They need to get over it.

It probably needs to be taken with a grain of salt, given that they are still in an ongoing partnership (and it was before any of the games had shipped), but all of the HH studios I talked to were quite enthusiastic about the relationship.
One of the main differences in contract is that there is no 0% till recoup clause, only different % values before and after indeed. Tim, the founder, is also genuinely passoniate about strategy games and RPG, which is not that usual in this field, sadly.

Yeah I guess I didn't describe it right. He did an interview very early on talking about no 0% clause.

 

[Hoodoo]

Looks kinda bare bones but from what I seen so far but probably a good thing as its EA still. The foundation shows alot of promise. Developer seems to have love for the genre and a clear vision of what he thinks is a good game. Cant remember being so excited for a game tbh.

 

[Aemar]

The combat would have ended earlier with the help of cavalry, but there are no mounted units in the game right now afaik.

 

[Harthwain]

Not the fan of the overly stylized unit portraits.

 

[Ironmonk]

I saw a couple of videos and unfortunately, it seems that this is not the Stronghold spiritual-successor that we deserve

It feels like a "clone" of Farthest Frontier that improves on everything.

 

[Harthwain]

I saw a couple of videos and unfortunately, it seems that this is not the Stronghold spiritual-successor that we deserve

Why? Wait for stone walls and castle-related construction. I heard it is coming down the line.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I saw a couple of videos and unfortunately, it seems that this is not the Stronghold spiritual-successor that we deserve

Why? Wait for stone walls and castle-related construction. I heard it is coming down the line.

Do they have a roadmap for upcoming features?

 

[Ironmonk]

I saw a couple of videos and unfortunately, it seems that this is not the Stronghold spiritual-successor that we deserve

Why? Wait for stone walls and castle-related construction. I heard it is coming down the line.

Do they have a roadmap for upcoming features?

not yet... perhaps in 2 days when early access is released.

18. Does Manor Lords have a features roadmap right now?
There will be more to share on a roadmap after launch.

 

[Catacombs]

Not the fan of the overly stylized unit portraits.

Mods will fix that.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]