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Ever since the days of Sim City and the first Cities Skylines games came out, I've been fond of the city builder genre. There's always a bit of magic when it comes to seeing your settlement grow from a tiny little spec into a full on metropolis. Well, in this Manor Lords review you'll learn its all that, but set in the middle ages. You'll be using complex and rewarding mechanics to build your town, manage trade, supplies and train your own millitia to defend from danger.
Something I really enjoyed is how each plot of land can vary in shape and size. How each building can be upgrated to different tiers and even host their own little backyard farms, chicken coops or set up various crafting shops. How you can just zoom in and walk around your town at any time to experience what you've built in even more detail. It's these additions that help Manor Lords stand out and offer players fun and immersive experiences.
Need to know
- Developer: Slavic Magic
- Release date: April 26, 2024
- Publisher: Hooded Horse
- Supported platforms: Microsoft Windows, GeForce Now, Amazon Luna
- Official page
A fantastic city-builder with tons of potential once it leaves early access. If you enjoy games like Cities Skylines and the Total War franchise, you’ll enjoy what this game has to offer.Game Score
City building – 10
Combat and unit control – 6
Management – 6.4
Visuals and sound – 10
Building animation – 9.5
8.4
Great
TL;DR
Manor Lords manages to blend Total War-style, tactical real time combat with with some of the most realistic medieval city-building I have seen so far. Playing this game you will enjoy some exelent slavic focused architecture, gorgeous map selection ranging from river deltas to huge mountainous zones. It's immersive, realistic and most importantly - fun. One of the main drawbacks is that the combat feels underdeveloped, and the general content is rather limited at the time of this review as it is still in early access. Manor Lords plans for a full release sometime in 2027, so the pros and cons list can still change over time.
Pros
- Detailed and realistic visuals with slavic themes
- Polished city building
- Tactical Total War-style battles
- Immersive and realistic atmosphere
- You can walk around in your town for added immersion
Cons
- Combat is underdeveloped
- Limited content while in early access
- Repetitiveness sets in quite fast
- Updates are rather slow
How good is city building in Manor Lords?
As I mentioned in my video review, the heart of Manor Lords is city building. Every structure feels handcrafted, from the moment your peasants clear the land to the final thatched roof being placed. It's hard to describe just how satisfying it is to watch so I'll just compare this to ASMR.
There are no rigid grids like in other city builders, instead you have the freedom to design the city just how you want it. Some plots can be long and narrow, others just big enough for a small shack. Streets nice and organised or messy, full of curves and dirt paths taken by the villagers. Each house can be be upgraded when enough resourses and amenities are supplied, starting with wooden homes and going all the way up to stunning brick houses with clay tile roofs. To add to that, every house can also use their plot of land to grow veggies, chickens, sheep or even open a craftsman stall, making the town more alive than ever and mimicking what true towns felt like in the middle ages.
The map sizes in are quite generous and allow you to establish more than one city. You'll be managing them at the same time and eventually even start trading. This helps, since your starting zone wil not supply all of the recourses you'll need and by having a few towns each one can be focused on different things. For example, town A can be the main hub, provide the majority of food and weapons, while town B can be smaller and focused on digging up iron, clay, stone and other valuables.
What will you manage in Manor Lords?
When it comes to management, things are mostly well balanced, even if the systems could still use some work. Here are the main things you’ll manage in Manor Lords:
- Food and the production of other goods.
- Trade routes.
- Seasonal demands.
- Your influence.
- Gold.
- Armies and their equipment.
- Development points and policies, amongst other things.
It’s surprisingly deep for an early access title, and it makes the slow, deliberate pacing feel rewarding rather than tedious. I could even compare this to a similar yet quite older title – Banished. Too bad that game never left the early access purgatory.
What I particularly enjoyed was the Manor Lords development point system. Basically, it allows you to unlock certain perks like ice fishing, deep mining, or even beekeeping to boost your economy or battle readiness. That being said, not everything is perfect. The repetitive gameplay loop sets in rather fast, and the limited amount of content available is not doing the game any favors. I’d say I started feeling this after my second or third town, since not much changes with each run, and with bigger updates taking up to 9 months, you might start to understand why.
Does Manor Lords have Total War combat?
While city building is definitely the strong part of Manor Lords, combat could still use a bit of work. The mechanics are still early in development, unit AI can be inconsistent, and controlling multiple formations isn’t as smooth as one might expect. Still, it’s an impressive foundation that has a lot of room to grow into an amazing experience once it's fully released.
Skipping the underdeveloped parts, I can add that the battles are cinematic and resemble the critically aclaimed Total War strategy games that many of us love and grew up with. Dozens and later on hundreds of troups clashing on muddy fields looks fantastic even if still a bit scuffed. You'll be watching clashes between rustic peasants in simple clothing when you just start off, then comparing that to your properly armed militia of the late game. And to top it off, each helmet crafted, each sword forged will be used in battle. And if you lack equipment - your troops will be far less effective and use basic pitchforks in combat.
World & atmosphere
One thing you will never miss in Manor Lords is how well it depicts the day to day life of a true medieval town. It just feels alive. Each resident has their own job, their own house, family and needs. You won't see them walking to the closest place on the map to sleep, but always to their own home. And that kind of detail really helps it come alive.
You'll also be experiencing seasons and seasonal problems. If it's winder and you ran out of food, then your people will starve unless you buy it on the trade network. If you over farm your land, the yield will drop bit by bit so managing this will come into effect pretty soon. Another part of winter is the freezing of lakes and rivers causing you to be unable to fish for food unless you invested some development points into ice fishing.
Now, with the world being so authentic, what would the best way to explore it be? Well, it's by walking in it yourself and Manor Lords has that covered. At any time you can drop down and walk around any part of the town, hear your villagers talking, experience the heat of battle. Nothing I've played so far has a similar experience and I love the developer for adding this feature.
Performance and early access
Finally, when it comes to Manor Lords performance and early access quirks, there are some things you should expect.
- Trade routes occasionally freeze, preventing you from making or receiving deliveries of crucial supplies.
- Pathfinding for troops is prone to breaking, especially with larger groups clustered into smaller areas or in bigger towns.
- Some of the menus are rather cumbersome and not easy to use.
- Various features, such as policies, town management, and castle building, are still in their infancy. Basically, they’re prone to breaking or just barely scratching the surface of what should be possible in their current state.
However, the developer is active, transparent, and actively working on new updates, which gives me confidence that this will mature into something special. And as a bonus, instead of doing all of the work solo, he has now started hiring a team to speed up the development time which I’m sure will help when I re-review Manor Lords on the full release.
Manor Lords review verdict
Overall, Manor Lords nails the medieval atmosphere better than almost any city builder out there. The visuals are fantastic, the building system feels organic, and the sense of progression is satisfying.
Where it still lacks is the combat and some supporting systems that feel underdeveloped, lacking in depth and substance. But even in early access, it’s a relaxing and deeply immersive experience that I'm happy to reccomend. I am certain that with further development, Manor Lords will continue to only get better!
If you enjoy strategy and city builders that value realism and atmosphere, Manor Lords is absolutely worth keeping an eye on.
Prefer watching instead of reading? Here's my 4-minute review
