For years, strategy game players have been looking towards Manor Lords in the hopes of finally finding a great medieval strategy title. I’m glad to say that it really hits the mark in every way.

What Is Manor Lords?

Manor Lords is a medieval city-builder with a pinch of real-time strategy. It’s more Anno than Total War. Less Crusader Kings and more Banished. It’s a refreshing mix that reminds me a lot of the Impression games of yore, but with combat done right compiled of list of 10 things I love about the game. I hope you enjoy this sneak peek!

Manor Lords Review

If you want to read my Manor Lords Review, I called it “Manor Lords Review- The Best Medieval Game Of All Time“!

Top 10 things to love about Baner Lords

10. In-Depth Banner Customization

If you’re a medieval history lover, you’ll know how important heraldry was to the folk back then. Heraldry was a system of visual identification that was prevalent throughout all of Europe and could be found in coats of arms, armour, shields, coins, seals and banners. Manor Lords has a detailed system that allows for the creation of a personal coat of arms. I went with the first Portuguese royal coat of arms.

9. Slow paced Gameplay

Manor Lords embraces the slow and steady pace that life had in the Middle Ages. Buildings take a while to complete, production chains take a while to get going, and everything, from everyday routines to production is meticulously recreated. Fields take months to grow, trees take years to grow back, and animals from hunting locations need to repopulate. Fortunately, you can speed things up.

8. Beautiful Presentation

There’s no other way to put it. The game is just a banger when it comes to looks. Everything is beautifully modelled, and most impressive, everything is incredibly well animated. Each action an NPC takes, no matter how small, is carefully crafted to feel weighty and substantial. The art style is consistent across the board and it shows.

7. Historically Accurate Housing System

Manor Lords uses a cool house plotting system that not only just works, but it’s also historically accurate. The game uses a system called called “burgage plots”. These allow for the placement of houses along the street. The houses are relatively narrow, but the terrain behind them is really big. The reasoning behind this was to maximize the frontage of the house, which was highly valuable for commercial activities.

6. Houses Develop Into Businesses

Colour me surprised when I found out that houses aren’t just for sheltering the peasantry from bad weather. In Manor Lords, you can specialise in what each plot does. Here you can have your families build chicken coops for eggs, have carrot farms, orchards, and everything else they might need to subsist, instead of relying solely on communal farms and pastures. Evolve them enough and artisan specializations will become available.

5. Realistic Season and Crops

Speaking of farms: planning your town’s harvests is a game in its own right. Fields need to be large to produce worthy yields. Ploughing, seeding, and harvesting work on a yearly rotation, and the game has a fertility system that greatly impacts on every field’s output. From time to time, fallowing the fields is necessary to let them recover their nutrients to yield better results in subsequent harvests.

4. The Market

I’m still figuring out how the Market really works, but it’s just so satisfying seeing it come to life. There were no “stores” in the traditional sense, so it’s up to you, as Lord of the land, to designate where your folk can sell and trade. There’s no In medieval times what you had was either selling things from your home or from a communal market. In Manor Lords, the inhabitants of the town will take the fruits of their labour to the town’s market and exchange among them. The more developed the town, the more colourful and livelier the marketplace becomes- As it should.

3. Resources System

From wood planks to beasts of the wild, from tools to honey, apples, spears, bows and shields, Manor Lords has a huge array of material to keep track of. Each portion of the map has limited resources you’ll need to specialize in obtaining to get the most out of the land.

2. The Combat

Manor Lords isn’t here to claim Total War’s (rather subjective) throne when it comes to big real-time battles. Instead, it’s going to carve a niche of its own. Manor Lords is going for more concise, slower-paced, and smaller-scale battles. What sets them apart is how deep this system goes: different formations, troop effectiveness, terrain, armour, weapons, and actions like position holding and shoving forward. Also, armies need men from the village, and the village needs their men to work, it’s a delicate balance between how much you’re willing to take from your economy to bolster your forces.

1. Walking The Streets In Third-Person Mode

Small things like these are -usually – what makes a game great and memorable. It’s one thing to create a sprawling and prosperous medieval town and see it from above. It’s a totally different experience being able to jump to the ground level and see every little thing come together to form that greater whole you’re always looking at. I’m surprised other videogames don’t do this, but realize that, to pull this off a game needs high-quality assets paired up with excellent animations. Fortunately, Manor Lords has both in spades.

I hope you enjoyed this small preview of Manor Lords. I’ll save my review for when the game launches later this month, on the 26th of April.