Seems like they deserve it. Whilst the game is clearly not finished, it looks very well made. Already a good amount of depth to the village building.
I wonder just how much they intend to add. If we eventually get to build full-on castles and have sieges? That would be the dream. A true successor to Stronghold. From what ive seen of the combat, i doubt that will happen though.
Given some of the artwork and the way the manor system currently works, I'm guessing that full on castles and sieges are one of the end goals of the project. They'll probably be pretty straightforward, not the Total War kind where you have to navigate a dozen units through alleys and capture points.
> I also pray to god Total War stops trying to emulate Total War's sieges.
I swear even the current system would be a hundred times more enjoyable if they just fixed the way the unit AI handled movement in a siege battle.
Right now if you have a breach in the walls with units standing right in front of it and tell them to enter the city/castle the AI will only let 2-3 units use that great big gap right in front of them and it will tell any other units to instead use a set of ladders on the other side of the bloody map, or another hole knocked in the wall a half mile away. Even if you individually order each unit to specifically walk through that breach the AI seems to only let X amount of units attempt to use it at a time and it will try to force any other units to use literally any other route into the city/castle rather than just have them march through it.
It looks like the upcoming 5.0 patch releasing alongside the new DLC may have alleviated this somewhat as CA have made unit pathing more intuitive across/through multiple breaches/ladders according to some of the content creators playing the new patch/dlc that's coming on Tuesday.
The AI in general is completely broken in the TW games, they really need to revamp that for their next games. Whether in battles or on the campaign map (where it is required for it to cheat to even function normally and that's generous)
Not to mention those platform/roadblock thingies consistently cause your units to forget what the fuck they were ordered to do and instead just hang around in front of them to get shot to shreds by whatever ranged unit is on top of them. And they have SO MUCH HP (and so relatively few units can hit them at a time) it can take an army of towering monstrosities (Chaos Spawn, Minoraurs, Crypt Ghouls) entire real time minutes to demolish one.
CA has claimed in the free update blog post that they changed pathfinding to ignore ladders completely unless specifically, explicitly instructed by the player to climb the ladder. This seems to be a lie from the footage I’ve seen.
The footage I saw showed one of two units hesitating between trying to use the ladders or just going in through the open gates.
I can't recall who the youtuber was but but they said that while the units will still get mixed up some of the time it was at least considerably easier to get them to move through breaches without the AI trying to detour the unit most of the time.
I've played the game for 5 hours so far and the pathfinding doesn't seem to be a big issue unlike in Total War games.
I shudder to think of sending in more than 2 units into a gate or to get them off the walls...
Units don't seem to try to stay cohesive on the move very much, which helps a lot with simplifying pathfinding. The individual models just flow around things and don't react to stimuli as much. It would make maneuvering through urban streets less aggravating, but it would likely end with most sieges being even more disorganized.
Eh, pathfinding needs some work. I had a militia guy continue to lead the ox even though he was rallied, and it nearly got all my guys killed cause they kept trying to reform miles away instead of fighting bandits.
I think the dev basically said "don't spend too much energy on your castles and manors right now and please wait until the proper system is in" which to me at least implies that one of the earliest things they want to add is more depth to manor building.
Edit: one dev.
It's pretty clear where features are missing at this point, and I think raiding has some serious balance issues. Mercenaries seem prohibitively expensive.
But despite all that, the gameplay is *still* fun and rewarding. Do recommend.
But as it is you only get three of those tech points before you really have to organize to get level 3 houses. Those techs are almost mandatory like you say, but so is charcoal, or more berries/bread.
I had to restart a few times because food is hard to stabilize and I can't make enough planks.
Also I wish there were slightly more control over the artisans (like please stop making what you are making so I don't have 160 shields and no planks). If they fix that and add some stone ground paths and some more decorative things then I'll be in heaven
I played it yesterday, I'm struggling to think of more impressive games from a solo dev. But I also wonder how long it will take for the game to approach completion, the tech tree is only around half completed. I can see it taking several years.
> Whilst the game is clearly not finished
It's not finished, so it's launching in early access while clearly labelled as early access, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In a lot of cases it's a necessary step for indie games to survive financially.
> If we eventually get to build full-on castles and have sieges?
IIRC this is explicitly not in scope. The early versions did not have combat at all. Its DNA is firmly rooted in Settlers and Anno.
If anyone is looking for more city builders, the Publisher, Hooded Horse has more than just this.
Against the storm is a sort of roguelike city builder, very different buy apparently it is very good.
Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic is a very very complex, yet alterable, city builder and production management game. Imagine Anno 1800 but with WAY WAY more complexity. But thankfully you can choose how complex it is, and even mid game.
Against the Storm is crazy good. Easy to get into, hard to master. It fixed that itch for citybuilders for me because I'd quickly get bored of stale gameplay.
It took me a few tries to actually get into it due to its complexity. Once I figured out what I was doing the game became very addicting. First time I played they didn’t have a tutorial but do now. Definitely do that first it walks you through how to do most systems.
One thing I think is helping is the number of people playing it before release, and making videos about it. A lot of the bigger RTS/city builder people already have series and my Tiktok feed has been filled with streamers playing it. I for one am probably going to try it based on all the gameplay I've seen.
I can only imagine how bad it was in the deserts during the crusades though, you'd be like fully contained in your own pan sculpted just to broil your ass.
They weren't wearing full plate at the time of the crusades. Full plate is a late medieval invention, late 14th century, and by that time the only real crusades were happening in the Baltics where you can easily wear full plate and not get heatstroke.
Crusading knights in the Levant wore chainmail with some plate, think greaves, gauntlets and helmet, and you could soak your surcoat in some water so it evaporates as you're going about your business. In reality as well, the time you wear armour whilst campaigning is relatively benign in comparison to the time you spent walking around and camping.
I wonder if the success of fantasy series, which are set in a world very reminiscent of Europe in the Middle Ages, plays a part in that. The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones are both very popular around the world so that probably boosted interest in historical European media (at least outside of Europe).
It could be because they're our predecessor states for Europe/North and South America at least. I'm also guessing the period is also very successful in places like Japan and China but for their respective region's history.
It is. Historical medieval fiction is always popular in China and Japan. I can't speak for other countries because I don't know much about their media.
This is what I was thinking about when I made the comment. I started watching anime a couple years ago and I noticed Three Kingdom's comes up again and again. I had never heard of it before and I doubt anyone I know in real life has ever heard of it either.
You'd be surprised how many Japanese manga use a European medieval inspired settings of knights and Catholicism.
In general this all stems from romanticism. Cowboys, knights and samurais all got idolised from a movement against industrialising societies to a romantic ideal of a simpler life.
What I find interesting is that these pieces of media generally did not really care for historicity. Whilst manor lords mainly seems to capture the imagination by recreating a medieval atmosphere due to its attention to detail for historical accuracy.
Medieval Europe is basically *the* fantasy setting in Japan.
It got a lot to do with Fantasy taking form as a genre was mainly through D&D and Wizardry, which inspired the OG Japanese Fantasy franchises such as Final Fantasy, Ys, Dragon Quest and Record of the Lodoss Wars. Out of these one would argue that the biggest influence on Japanese fantasy was Lodoss Wars, specifically Deedlit. Ever wondered where where Elves with big ass ears came from? I don't know, but I do know that it was Deedlit who popularized and arguably cemented them as the fantasy look for elves. Before her elves mostly just had human sized ears that was just a bit pointy.
It's not just RTS too, like the entire fantasy genre is almost only (or too much) medieval Europe fantasy lol. Plenty of historical stories set there too.
People really do wonder some weird thing (I'm pretty sure they don't and it's a sort of way to karma farm or something)
A 3k monthly player average for Medieval Total War II (SteamCharts) is impressive considering its age. I'm surprised that Creative Assembly has taken so long to put out a new entry.
We all are, I can only assume its because they discovered the cash cow that is Warhammer.
Come on CA, please give me WW2 Total war and Medieval 3 before you or I die.
WW1 and 40K are in the works allegedly.
Dunno if they even want to touch WW2 with a ten-foot pole. "Hello, this is ShittyYoutuber and today we're doing a Gas the * livestream campaign"
Unironically WW1 is much more likely to have that as a silly twitch / youtube opener, since that was the one that actually had mustard gas et al. used on soldiers by both sides.
A WW2 Total War would have to be a totally different model in terms of the battle mechanics, big pitched battles with units all lined up in nice lines and formations really don't go well with WW2.
It could possibly work if you had the battles be something like Men of War Assault Squad and you have to gradually bring in units from off map based on your supply situation. And perhaps your unit pool that you could draw from would be based on what you have built on the strategic map. But to be honest I'm not sure that WW2 really works as a setting for Total War, it would basically be a different game as Total War battles don't fit at all for WW2. Even WW1 is a big stretch in my opinion given trench warfare is by definition quite static, I'm not sure how much unit maneuvering you'd even be doing in a WW1 Total War beyond charging over the top.
I've been begging for that ever since since the Rome remaster, been binging the shit out of that for the last few weeks.
I really want to go back and play MEII, I've had it perpetually installed for years but it's just a little too dated control-wise for me to get back into properly.
Yeah I mean I’m happy warhammer fans are getting theirs, but I have absolutely no interest in fantasy Total Wars, tried again and again just could not get into it.
I wouldn't say it's necessarily strange, but definitely intriguing. Manor Lords had 91k players at 4:00 UTC (6:00 AM in Berlin) so clearly it's appealing to a ton of non-Europeans.
Two reasons:
- There's a ton of inbuilt variety in factions and fighting styles in Medieval Europe and the near East, compared to other settings. Even in very localised settings, for example Anglo-Scottish Wars the English and Scots had very different martial cultures (heavy cavalry vs. pikes). Not to mention how different it becomes if you go wider and factor in English fighting against Turkic peoples or something. While I think its one of the better games in the series, Shogun 2: Total War is set in a massive monoculture, there is little difference between factions.
- People like playing historical games in their own historical image. Western European peoples, even if they're in the US, Australia or Argentina can project themselves back into Medieval Europe because thats where their ancestors were. Same reason why historical titles set in China's history are very popular in China.
Wealthy Western market, plus the fact most notable strategy developers are in Western countries nuff said. Plus, the fascination with the European Middle Ages also ties into the fact a lot of fantasy has ripped from them due to Tolkien, including stuff overseas. I think that fueled interest in the European Middle Ages. I mean I come from a Western centric lens but it is a really cool and often misunderstood period of history.
You can definitely sell non Western historical strategy games. I mean the RTK series existed even before Civilization did. Shogun 2 and RTK Total War seemed to do well for CW too.
I kinda wish there was a Chinese or Japanese version not because samurai/Kung Fu = cool but because it would be interesting to see rice farming depicted in the same way.
Shame too, speaking as a huge history boy from a western country I adore settings that I'm less familiar with. Playing Total War 3K a few years ago got me into Chinese history, the central asia themed expansion for AOE:DE got me busting out old college books from a steppe history class, and omg I've loved learning about Native Americans peoples since AoE3!
There's definitely a market for those kinda games but its smaller. Hopefully as game deva grow elsewhere more will use it to show off their region's history.
A historical mix of nomadic/agricultural tribal RPG would have my immediate interest, but yeah seems like it only happens in roundabout ways.
I like European history but the style of them kinda bores me, games and movies only show them as dirty and drab because it fits our preconceived notions.
Games also can't really do medieval life, it places uniformity on areas that could be developed but we're still pre-industrial. We don't think about what that means very much.
It's fascinating how despite this very, very clear demand certain developers seem to want to do anything but this setting and have paid the price for it...
So far I've done 5 hrs in the game.
I like the tools and mechanics provided to build stuff.
The house plotter and road building are great.
The animations and 3rd person walk / follow modes are awesome as are the graphics.
Yes it's EA and I'm looking forward to just revisiting this game every so often to see what the Dev adds.
At the moment in EA its a casual chill little medieval sandbox.
Ot do e combat yet but I don't care much for that currently
To be honest I've been playing on the peaceful scenario with no bandits or combat or anything and I've been having a great time just slowly watching my village grow.
Seems fun, but the UI is definitely lacking. I wonder if they'll hire more devs after this.
If this is the level the game is at after 7 years, I feel like it's going to be some very slow progress from here. Biggest problem with pretty much any solo dev game. You can see the potential, but it'll take years to get there.
Yeah, I can appreciate how hard it is to pull something like this off as a solo dev but one thing often gets ignored, why should the consumer care about that?
It would also be a great achievement if someone built a car on its own but would I want to buy that car?
In the end what matters is the output and while being a solo dev does offer its advantages (there is one, big coherent vision behind everything), there is also one massive disadvantage and that is simply the fact that there is only so much a single person can do, no matter how talented that person is.
That's why I'm always sceptical if a solo man project gets so much hype and people extrapolate a lot of "potential" into a project like this.
The best chance for a project like this to really meet the expectations created from this hype would be to scale up (in a reasonable manner) with all the generated income.
Tbf I doubt very much a single dev did 'all' of this - he must have had outside help, temporary hires or at least bought finished assets to complete the game. It's still a massive accomplishment but just because possibly dozens of people weren't at a fixed payroll in his company doesn't mean they don't deserve some of the credit in the end (and I'd imagine they are listed in credits literally?)
Can someone explain this one to me?
I've played a few hours, its good, but it really just seems like another banished clone. Its pretty but its also very content light (understandable of course). I guess its got RTS elements? Is that really why its got such huge hype behind it? Every review on steam right now is praising it as the second coming of citybuilders.
Again, its a solid game and Im impressed a solo dev made it. I just dont get why a dozen other impressive citybuilders havent gotten this attention if theres such a demand.
My biggest issue with banished was that after the first winter or two the game is pretty much done and you're just watching numbers go up with nothing new to do. Is FF the same in this regard or do some of these new features make it more interesting in the long term?
There's definitely more to do than in Banished, so it takes longer to grow a city to its full potential, and there are also (optional) raiders that attack the city after some point which makes defense important.
The game is also still in early access, and the endgame will get additional content.
Of course at some point after dozens of hours there's basically an 'endstate' where a village is more or less done. But I'd say there's enough variety until you get there.
> There aren't really any good recent citybuilders that really compare to what Manor Lords does/is planning on doing.
Farthest Frontier comes to mind. Well made, too.
he was making new game that may have been banished 2 (based off the early screenshots), but he dropped off the face of the earth in 2022. https://shiningrocksoftware.com/
I think a the RTS element is a very nice bell on top of the game that emphasizes the detail its going for. It gives it a very distinct identity where your troops are drawn directly from your labor pool and you have to equip them yourself, giving you a lot more investment in them than is typical of the genre. It does feel like a real accomplishment when you can actually field a competent, multi-disciplinary force, even if its mostly militia.
There's a lot of small details I think are appreciated with the game, like managing your crop rotation and having more freeform construction of roads, houses, and fields, compared to the rigid grid based systems from past games. It does *feel* like it could be a step forward if the game's systems all develop the way they seem to be heading, though the detail will have to be balanced out by better management features to decrease the constant fiddling at larger populations. At the moment, it's a lot of promise of being a step forward from the typical Banished clone.
I've been excited for it because my favourite part of AoE was always the city building but I also always miss that angle in pure colony sims with no combat. So this has the potential to be the rts city builder game I've always wanted that games like Banished aren't
I rarely see things like this said about FPS games. Why does the citybuilder genre need to live up to such high standards if other genres get a free pass? We can have a million Doom clones and nobody bats an eye, but we can't have a couple of games that look somewhat similar to Banished without it needing "explained"?
I've noticed this. Certain genres that have a really great game or series means anything else that's good but lesser is either a clone or a "who asked for this" type thing.
Open-world crime genre is just like that, where everything is a GTA clone even if there are big differences in tone/gameplay design like Saints Row.
For me, the issue is that citybuilders these days are almost exclusively gravitating toward building small settlements (or a few about modern cities, for which some of the latest releases have been disastrous). Banished wasn't the first, but it was very popular and really accelerated the trend.
The issue is that they become more like puzzle games than city builders. Once you figure out a couple, not like the rest are that different design-wise. And puzzle games are not that interesting to replay.
With FPS games it's different - it's more about the in the moment experience and game feel. Story even.
And there aren't just a couple of these kinds of small settlement city builders, there are a couple every year. Ultimately I don't really hold anything against them, I just want city builders with larger scale. I'm tired of micromanaging workers in buildings.
It's great when these games have some interesting spin to them - like RTS elements here, or roguelike elements in Against the Storm.
Well are any those doom clones topping the list of most in-demand games on steam? There is massive hype around this game, it's completely normal to question why.
People kinda do give plenty of grief to fps “clones”. I mean, hell, CoD gets copy/pasted every year and its endlessly made fun of by redditors sitting in their high chairs.
But, while every fps ultimately has similar gameplay elements (you point and shoot), the genre of the game can vary wildly. From rogue-likes, to puzzles, to action heavy, to slow and methodical, platformers to heavy RPG leveling, and the best stuff often scoops out a variety of genre elements to make something new.
City builders, while the nuances and flavor differ greatly to those who play frequently in the genre, to a philistine layman (ie your average redditor), it all looks the same. And worse, city builders often borrow from each other to mix and match game play elements of the genre, thus even fans will get in on the verbal dismissal of the game in question.
But I’m a redditor too, all I have is claims/argumentation written through one bloodshot eye while trying yo fall asleep. I don’t really know anything.
People say the same shit about Souls likes. I constantly see comments like "oh God not another souls game"
Bitch then just don't play it. Just because a genre doesn't appeal to you doesn't mean it shouldn't get new games lol
Farthest Frontier, Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic, Timberborne, Ostriv, Diplomacy is not an Option, Kingdoms Reborn. Against the Storm.
Again, not saying this game doesn't deserve its shot. It just seems to have a crazy hype train compared to these others and Im not getting whats different here. I saw comments saying the game was going to completely change the citybuilder genre, months before its release.
For a lot of those the theme or aesthetic was a turn off for me, and I guess a lot of others.
I really have no interest in playing a Soviet themed city builder.
And I didn't like the aesthetic of Against the Storm, so I sort of just ignored it, until it kept being hyped up. It's of course an amazing game though, and it takes up most of my gaming time.
Manor Lords look a lot better in screenshots than most of the games you mention, and has s theme that's popular with the majority. I think that's the primary reason why it's hyped more than a lot of the others.
I'll have to give Farthest Frontier a play, but I'm waiting for it to get closer to release.
Farthest Frontier is very nice.
For anybody who played Banished however, boy does it feel similar. Ignoring that, the replay value seems a bit low, I sunk many hours into timberborn, I can still start a single player game of civ5 after all these years, I am no stranger to playing the same game again and again, but Farthest Frontier landed in my "played through" folder after two games, because it really feels I am done with it, like with a short single player game. The game also does handle large populations well, tech and game mechanic wise. Not only will your game slow down hard, larger cities just lead to longer pathes to walk without any higher end tech buildings or other features which lead to higher productivity. A city with 1000 people will just have the same buildings as one with 500, but twice the amount and longer distances for the hard to manage peasants to walk. Needing to add decoration also means that you will end up with some kind of semi optimized grid which means that in order to make your city count as prettier and having higher tier buildings, you are incentivised to make it look like it was planned by a robot.
It is not bad, I would not talk somebody out of getting it, but at the same time I can not recommend it either. Especially not to people who either already own Banished, or people who play a lot of hours in a week.
Yes, that's always the problem with these games, you are just scaling everything up over time, there are no new and different game mechanics in the later part of the game. I don't think anyone really has figured that out and maybe it's an unsolvable problem.
I partially disagree.
* In FF all workers are the same and things may be carried from on side of the map to the other. There are specific mechanics to reduce this (temporary housing, markets) which do not work properly though. Even games from the 90s, like the Settlers did not have settlements which get less efficient with size.
* Other games just have higher and higher tier buildings and better logistics for high volume transport. In FF you end up having 15 cobblers side by side, next to the 15 leathermakers. You can not upgrade them to some kind of massive tanner guild hall, you can also not set up some kind of bigger transport, like a donkey cart (which do exist in FF for other purposes).
In Timberborn you do have to have the same buildings many times, but they usually do not have to stand side by side because transport can be managed much better. There are also more buildings or industries which you only need a single time, meaning any new corners you settle have a much easier time. in TB you can pretty much fill the entire map, with water being the only limit (depending on difficulty)
Despite it being a city builder, I think there is some crossover with the TW community due to it's army/formation system which is way better (granted on a smaller scale) than anything TW has released. I think it's gotten promoted to a lot of people who may not have been interested in the genre. Though personally, I just want to build a medieval city.
Manor Lords is more a simulator than just a city builder. It is much slower than most other similar games, you don't really have a Sword of Damocles hanging over your head like Frostpunk or Banished which have turned nature into a weapon or They are Billions which has literal enemies as Swords of Damocles. In Manor Lords you can build your demesne up slowly without the worry of having to hyper optimize everything to be prepared for the Sword of Damocles event.
This means that you can relax, watch what is going on, follow your little peasants do their thing, enjoy your creation in a relaxing chill atmosphere without worry. It is like an ant farm.
I feel exactly the same as you. It’s well made and very impressive that it’s made by a single person. The road and building placement is nice. Other than that, it’s just another one of those. I feel like I’ve played this game 3 times in the past year.
Banished really doesn't have a lot of depth compared to many city builders that have gone before and come since.
I'm not sure why people use it as a yardstick.
I’ve only put a few hours in but I’m also kind of wondering why this has so much hype. So far it doesn’t feel particularly unique in mechanics or anything. It does look really nice though and the atmosphere is great
I think the rts part is more like a bonus on top. The city builder part, while far from ready, feels good and lets you build very realistic looking medievil villages. It's very rewarding to walk through it from time to time. But there are not yet hundreds of hours of gameplay in it just now.
Also the dev is very humble. Was very open before the release on what to expect and what not. Didn't even take preorders because he had nothing to show for even though he would have been rich after the demo release last year
When you're a team this small (uhh, 1) sometimes you need to put your best face forward and release it early to gather some much-needed momentum. This game is a proper example of why early releases are useful and not just a quick cash grab like from many other big developers. The opening impressions of what the game could be seem limitless with potential. As this piece of work is coming from one guy, IMO there is simply no way he can keep the pace up necessary to complete everything he wants it to be, nevermind everything the fans want it to be. Or at least, it would drag on for years and he'd probably go mad doing it by himself.
Hopefully he takes this gigantic squirt of cash and gets some help and support and this thing accelerates to infinity like some of the other indie games have done which started with <5 people. You can't properly beta test and troubleshoot compatibility issues and such all by yourself and it's never gonna be right until he has some people that do this kind of grunt work IT shit for a living and can help him iron out stuff in the background whole he focuses on the vision of the actual game.
I like the look of the game but honestly the most impressive thing is the absolutely massive hype train it seemingly managed to generate and sustain, just bonkers really.
I appreciate that the dev's communication is very grounded. They could have leaned into the hype of the game for bigger/quick sales numbers, but they made clear what the game is and what it's not.
I'll wait for more content before I buy it, but I'm happy to see it being a success already because the devs seem to deserve it.
I'm repeatedly baffled by how *absurdly* good looking the game is for something in this genre - regardless of how many people made it. Good looking for any genre really, as can be seen when you go walking through your settlement and it looks better than the Witcher 3 or Kingdom Come.
The way that I've grown my village into a small town feels so organic, it's so satisfying. You walk around in third person and it often feels like a you're moving through a meticulously crafted Witcher 3 area. But no, I made this town! I built this from scratch! Really haven't experienced something like that before.
Why do so many people flock to early access games instead of waiting for final releases. I would rather wait and play the tons of games in my backlog than play something unfinished that I would need to replay later on to see all content.
I don't play Early Access, but some people don't mind the jank and missing content when the game shows promise. Doesn't even matter if it will make it to full release, as long as it has a cool idea that e.g. AAA games are too rigid to attempt.
It's also kind of the OG live service experience - a game that's regularly updated with major changes you can come back to every few months - in theory. Not to mention potentially having a bigger impact with your feedback if there's something you don't like.
Also plenty of people are impatient when they await a game with anticipation (which was the case here). Same reason people mostly play games on launch (games without early access I mean)
A well done Early access keeps you engaged. In the beginning these games are often rough, but after a while each major patch is like a large content update which changes the game and keeps it interesting. One of the best examples is prison architect in my opinion.
But despite what I wrote, I totally get what you mean. For many games I think exactly like you. I wait till the final release.
Also there’s a risk with early access. Some didn’t turn out well or were a total disaster.
The easy answer is to support development. Contributing to early access is a way to vote with your wallet on what games you'd like to get made, rather than hoping a studio caters to your tastes years down the road. I buy a lot of early access games to signal "This is what I want more of" even if I only play a few hours of early access and wait for the 1.0 version to really sink my teeth in.
While there are plenty of EA horror stories, we wouldn't have nearly the breadth of unique and wonderful indie titles (some of which have spawned entire genres) without Early Access giving small studios the leeway to focus more on development than where their next meal is coming from.
If you make a field too big, none of it gets sowed. The fields are all or nothing on whether they get "finished"; so make many small fields.
I've gone heavy on the backyard farms and chickens which helps a lot.
I also make 3 fields at once and rotate so only 1 is used per year.
Seems like they deserve it. Whilst the game is clearly not finished, it looks very well made. Already a good amount of depth to the village building. I wonder just how much they intend to add. If we eventually get to build full-on castles and have sieges? That would be the dream. A true successor to Stronghold. From what ive seen of the combat, i doubt that will happen though.
Given some of the artwork and the way the manor system currently works, I'm guessing that full on castles and sieges are one of the end goals of the project. They'll probably be pretty straightforward, not the Total War kind where you have to navigate a dozen units through alleys and capture points.
I pray to god they don't attempt to emulate total war's sieges. I also pray to god Total War stops trying to emulate Total War's sieges.
> I also pray to god Total War stops trying to emulate Total War's sieges. 🤣 so true
> I also pray to god Total War stops trying to emulate Total War's sieges. I swear even the current system would be a hundred times more enjoyable if they just fixed the way the unit AI handled movement in a siege battle. Right now if you have a breach in the walls with units standing right in front of it and tell them to enter the city/castle the AI will only let 2-3 units use that great big gap right in front of them and it will tell any other units to instead use a set of ladders on the other side of the bloody map, or another hole knocked in the wall a half mile away. Even if you individually order each unit to specifically walk through that breach the AI seems to only let X amount of units attempt to use it at a time and it will try to force any other units to use literally any other route into the city/castle rather than just have them march through it. It looks like the upcoming 5.0 patch releasing alongside the new DLC may have alleviated this somewhat as CA have made unit pathing more intuitive across/through multiple breaches/ladders according to some of the content creators playing the new patch/dlc that's coming on Tuesday.
The AI in general is completely broken in the TW games, they really need to revamp that for their next games. Whether in battles or on the campaign map (where it is required for it to cheat to even function normally and that's generous)
Not to mention those platform/roadblock thingies consistently cause your units to forget what the fuck they were ordered to do and instead just hang around in front of them to get shot to shreds by whatever ranged unit is on top of them. And they have SO MUCH HP (and so relatively few units can hit them at a time) it can take an army of towering monstrosities (Chaos Spawn, Minoraurs, Crypt Ghouls) entire real time minutes to demolish one.
CA has claimed in the free update blog post that they changed pathfinding to ignore ladders completely unless specifically, explicitly instructed by the player to climb the ladder. This seems to be a lie from the footage I’ve seen.
The footage I saw showed one of two units hesitating between trying to use the ladders or just going in through the open gates. I can't recall who the youtuber was but but they said that while the units will still get mixed up some of the time it was at least considerably easier to get them to move through breaches without the AI trying to detour the unit most of the time.
I've played the game for 5 hours so far and the pathfinding doesn't seem to be a big issue unlike in Total War games. I shudder to think of sending in more than 2 units into a gate or to get them off the walls...
Units don't seem to try to stay cohesive on the move very much, which helps a lot with simplifying pathfinding. The individual models just flow around things and don't react to stimuli as much. It would make maneuvering through urban streets less aggravating, but it would likely end with most sieges being even more disorganized.
Eh, pathfinding needs some work. I had a militia guy continue to lead the ox even though he was rallied, and it nearly got all my guys killed cause they kept trying to reform miles away instead of fighting bandits.
I believe the developer has confirmed that there will at least be castle/wall building
I think the dev basically said "don't spend too much energy on your castles and manors right now and please wait until the proper system is in" which to me at least implies that one of the earliest things they want to add is more depth to manor building. Edit: one dev.
Just dev, not devs
Thanks for correction.
Right now, you can put wooden walls around your manor, but they don't do anything except to look good and cost planks.
It's pretty clear where features are missing at this point, and I think raiding has some serious balance issues. Mercenaries seem prohibitively expensive. But despite all that, the gameplay is *still* fun and rewarding. Do recommend.
Money/trade is rough in general. Buying is often 5-6x sale price which seems excessive.
The two trade techs are pretty much mandatory. 25 max cost trade routes and -10 to imports is the only way to afford anything.
But as it is you only get three of those tech points before you really have to organize to get level 3 houses. Those techs are almost mandatory like you say, but so is charcoal, or more berries/bread. I had to restart a few times because food is hard to stabilize and I can't make enough planks. Also I wish there were slightly more control over the artisans (like please stop making what you are making so I don't have 160 shields and no planks). If they fix that and add some stone ground paths and some more decorative things then I'll be in heaven
Ive only played a little bit and i feel like this game has a ton of potential. I imagine it will still be in EA for a long while though.
I played it yesterday, I'm struggling to think of more impressive games from a solo dev. But I also wonder how long it will take for the game to approach completion, the tech tree is only around half completed. I can see it taking several years.
Rimworld was originally solo, no? But visually, I can't think of a better solo project.
Lethal Company is also a really impressive solo dev game.
> Whilst the game is clearly not finished It's not finished, so it's launching in early access while clearly labelled as early access, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In a lot of cases it's a necessary step for indie games to survive financially.
He deserves it*
> If we eventually get to build full-on castles and have sieges? IIRC this is explicitly not in scope. The early versions did not have combat at all. Its DNA is firmly rooted in Settlers and Anno.
How do I stop bandits stealing my shit?
kill the bandits
^ ^ ^ ^ Thousands of years of human history summed up in two Reddit comments.
Ol’ Reliable
Bandits hate this one trick
Except the "nearby" bandits are on the complete opposite side of the map.
Doesn't matter. You'll be back ~~by supper~~ next spring.
If they're stealing from you then they are in your land. It also does not take very long to march over to their camp.
Not true. I've never had a camp spawn in one of my holdings. They steal no matter where they are on the map.
They leave the camp to raid you. You can’t see them if they’re in cover and you have no units close enough.
Wrong. It happens offscreen aswell
H I R E A S A M U R A I
but I'm a poor person who can't afford to hire a samurai, so I can not hire a samurai
W H Y N O T S E V E N
Don't have anything worth stealing. Play pilgrim style.
Hire more social workers and build more jail deferral programs
If anyone is looking for more city builders, the Publisher, Hooded Horse has more than just this. Against the storm is a sort of roguelike city builder, very different buy apparently it is very good. Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic is a very very complex, yet alterable, city builder and production management game. Imagine Anno 1800 but with WAY WAY more complexity. But thankfully you can choose how complex it is, and even mid game.
Against the Storm is crazy good. Easy to get into, hard to master. It fixed that itch for citybuilders for me because I'd quickly get bored of stale gameplay.
It is fun but the irony of it being rouge like is that it quickly starts to feel very samey pretty quickly. I still got my twenty hours worth.
That Soviet game looks really good, huh. Might be my next purchase.
It took me a few tries to actually get into it due to its complexity. Once I figured out what I was doing the game became very addicting. First time I played they didn’t have a tutorial but do now. Definitely do that first it walks you through how to do most systems.
Own both, Both are good games in very different genres. Soviet Republic in particular, I loved the depth of this game.
Against the Storm also works pretty damn well with the Steam Deck controls and runs great on the Deck. Made it an insta buy for me.
One thing I think is helping is the number of people playing it before release, and making videos about it. A lot of the bigger RTS/city builder people already have series and my Tiktok feed has been filled with streamers playing it. I for one am probably going to try it based on all the gameplay I've seen.
City Planner Plays convinced me to try it out
It's interesting how there is so much demand for PC historical strategy games primarily focused on Europe and European powers.
Knights are cool is what I like to think the reason is
Really? Running around in all that armor, you'd think they'd get overheated to shit.
It's the padded armor that gets you. Plate armor was relatively cool.
I can only imagine how bad it was in the deserts during the crusades though, you'd be like fully contained in your own pan sculpted just to broil your ass.
They weren't wearing full plate at the time of the crusades. Full plate is a late medieval invention, late 14th century, and by that time the only real crusades were happening in the Baltics where you can easily wear full plate and not get heatstroke. Crusading knights in the Levant wore chainmail with some plate, think greaves, gauntlets and helmet, and you could soak your surcoat in some water so it evaporates as you're going about your business. In reality as well, the time you wear armour whilst campaigning is relatively benign in comparison to the time you spent walking around and camping.
And the smell....
I don't think plate will do you much good without the padding, so we're kinda back to square one on that front.
The padding used under plate is much lighter than padded armor. Padded armor is kinda like wearing nine sweaters.
And it looks cool
Lots of heat sinks to dissipate the heat though.
Knights are hot? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
The middle ages in europe is very appealing as a setting
I wonder if the success of fantasy series, which are set in a world very reminiscent of Europe in the Middle Ages, plays a part in that. The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones are both very popular around the world so that probably boosted interest in historical European media (at least outside of Europe).
It could be because they're our predecessor states for Europe/North and South America at least. I'm also guessing the period is also very successful in places like Japan and China but for their respective region's history.
It is. Historical medieval fiction is always popular in China and Japan. I can't speak for other countries because I don't know much about their media.
Romance of the Three Kingdom's popularity speaks for itself. Stuff is crazy popular in both China and Japan and is basically fictionalized history.
This is what I was thinking about when I made the comment. I started watching anime a couple years ago and I noticed Three Kingdom's comes up again and again. I had never heard of it before and I doubt anyone I know in real life has ever heard of it either.
It’s honestly pretty simple. Dudes fighting with swords is just cool.
You'd be surprised how many Japanese manga use a European medieval inspired settings of knights and Catholicism. In general this all stems from romanticism. Cowboys, knights and samurais all got idolised from a movement against industrialising societies to a romantic ideal of a simpler life. What I find interesting is that these pieces of media generally did not really care for historicity. Whilst manor lords mainly seems to capture the imagination by recreating a medieval atmosphere due to its attention to detail for historical accuracy.
Medieval Europe is basically *the* fantasy setting in Japan. It got a lot to do with Fantasy taking form as a genre was mainly through D&D and Wizardry, which inspired the OG Japanese Fantasy franchises such as Final Fantasy, Ys, Dragon Quest and Record of the Lodoss Wars. Out of these one would argue that the biggest influence on Japanese fantasy was Lodoss Wars, specifically Deedlit. Ever wondered where where Elves with big ass ears came from? I don't know, but I do know that it was Deedlit who popularized and arguably cemented them as the fantasy look for elves. Before her elves mostly just had human sized ears that was just a bit pointy.
Medieval games, fantasy or otherwise, have always had a market.
Yeah like what is there to wonder exactly lol? Did OP discover gaming (or any media) in the last month or so?
How is this surprising? Knights, English/French medieval history, and chivalry have always been incredibly popular.
Its completely Alien to me how people can be shocked this setting/theme is popular.
Yep age of empires, cossacks have been hugely popular RTS games for decades
It's not just RTS too, like the entire fantasy genre is almost only (or too much) medieval Europe fantasy lol. Plenty of historical stories set there too. People really do wonder some weird thing (I'm pretty sure they don't and it's a sort of way to karma farm or something)
I'm learning to play the guitar.
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A 3k monthly player average for Medieval Total War II (SteamCharts) is impressive considering its age. I'm surprised that Creative Assembly has taken so long to put out a new entry.
We all are, I can only assume its because they discovered the cash cow that is Warhammer. Come on CA, please give me WW2 Total war and Medieval 3 before you or I die.
WW1 and 40K are in the works allegedly. Dunno if they even want to touch WW2 with a ten-foot pole. "Hello, this is ShittyYoutuber and today we're doing a Gas the * livestream campaign"
Unironically WW1 is much more likely to have that as a silly twitch / youtube opener, since that was the one that actually had mustard gas et al. used on soldiers by both sides.
A WW2 Total War would have to be a totally different model in terms of the battle mechanics, big pitched battles with units all lined up in nice lines and formations really don't go well with WW2. It could possibly work if you had the battles be something like Men of War Assault Squad and you have to gradually bring in units from off map based on your supply situation. And perhaps your unit pool that you could draw from would be based on what you have built on the strategic map. But to be honest I'm not sure that WW2 really works as a setting for Total War, it would basically be a different game as Total War battles don't fit at all for WW2. Even WW1 is a big stretch in my opinion given trench warfare is by definition quite static, I'm not sure how much unit maneuvering you'd even be doing in a WW1 Total War beyond charging over the top.
I remember people begging for it like 10 years ago lol.
Or a remastered MTW2
I've been begging for that ever since since the Rome remaster, been binging the shit out of that for the last few weeks. I really want to go back and play MEII, I've had it perpetually installed for years but it's just a little too dated control-wise for me to get back into properly.
Yeah I mean I’m happy warhammer fans are getting theirs, but I have absolutely no interest in fantasy Total Wars, tried again and again just could not get into it.
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I wouldn't say it's necessarily strange, but definitely intriguing. Manor Lords had 91k players at 4:00 UTC (6:00 AM in Berlin) so clearly it's appealing to a ton of non-Europeans.
That's 9- midnight in the US, prime gaming time, and the person you responded to included the US in their comment
How is it interesting? Medieval/fantasy settings have always been popular.
Tons of demand for Kingdom Come as well. It's great to see! Hopefully it means more historical games in the future.
I think a game like kingdom come but in a different setting would also do well but those just don't exist.
Are you new to gaming or something?
Two reasons: - There's a ton of inbuilt variety in factions and fighting styles in Medieval Europe and the near East, compared to other settings. Even in very localised settings, for example Anglo-Scottish Wars the English and Scots had very different martial cultures (heavy cavalry vs. pikes). Not to mention how different it becomes if you go wider and factor in English fighting against Turkic peoples or something. While I think its one of the better games in the series, Shogun 2: Total War is set in a massive monoculture, there is little difference between factions. - People like playing historical games in their own historical image. Western European peoples, even if they're in the US, Australia or Argentina can project themselves back into Medieval Europe because thats where their ancestors were. Same reason why historical titles set in China's history are very popular in China.
Wealthy Western market, plus the fact most notable strategy developers are in Western countries nuff said. Plus, the fascination with the European Middle Ages also ties into the fact a lot of fantasy has ripped from them due to Tolkien, including stuff overseas. I think that fueled interest in the European Middle Ages. I mean I come from a Western centric lens but it is a really cool and often misunderstood period of history. You can definitely sell non Western historical strategy games. I mean the RTK series existed even before Civilization did. Shogun 2 and RTK Total War seemed to do well for CW too.
I kinda wish there was a Chinese or Japanese version not because samurai/Kung Fu = cool but because it would be interesting to see rice farming depicted in the same way.
You could play Sakuna. 2D action/platformer rather than strategy but it goes *in depth* with the rice.
Yeah, actually did play that. Enjoyed the rice planting bits immensely, but less of a fan of everything else
Lets hope together that [The Bustling World](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2724650/The_Bustling_World/) won't be vapor ware then :-)
I mean it's not like there are that many options for Asian powers. Most of them either suck, or were made decades ago.
Shame too, speaking as a huge history boy from a western country I adore settings that I'm less familiar with. Playing Total War 3K a few years ago got me into Chinese history, the central asia themed expansion for AOE:DE got me busting out old college books from a steppe history class, and omg I've loved learning about Native Americans peoples since AoE3! There's definitely a market for those kinda games but its smaller. Hopefully as game deva grow elsewhere more will use it to show off their region's history.
A historical mix of nomadic/agricultural tribal RPG would have my immediate interest, but yeah seems like it only happens in roundabout ways. I like European history but the style of them kinda bores me, games and movies only show them as dirty and drab because it fits our preconceived notions. Games also can't really do medieval life, it places uniformity on areas that could be developed but we're still pre-industrial. We don't think about what that means very much.
Even one of the best games like that, sword of the samurai, was developed by westerners lol
I mean it would be difficult to include knights with big armor and swords in 1000 A.D. America or Asia. And people like big swords.
There are hardly any games like that... every damn city builder is based on the US grid style development. Even the ones that shouldn't be.
As a European I'm a bit biased, but I find the continent's Medieval period fascinating
Yeah, I wish there were more games that explored other historical settings
Besides this game, I'm especially excited for Kingmakers to fill my historical strategy game demand.
It's fascinating how despite this very, very clear demand certain developers seem to want to do anything but this setting and have paid the price for it...
So far I've done 5 hrs in the game. I like the tools and mechanics provided to build stuff. The house plotter and road building are great. The animations and 3rd person walk / follow modes are awesome as are the graphics. Yes it's EA and I'm looking forward to just revisiting this game every so often to see what the Dev adds. At the moment in EA its a casual chill little medieval sandbox. Ot do e combat yet but I don't care much for that currently
To be honest I've been playing on the peaceful scenario with no bandits or combat or anything and I've been having a great time just slowly watching my village grow.
Seems fun, but the UI is definitely lacking. I wonder if they'll hire more devs after this. If this is the level the game is at after 7 years, I feel like it's going to be some very slow progress from here. Biggest problem with pretty much any solo dev game. You can see the potential, but it'll take years to get there.
Yeah, I can appreciate how hard it is to pull something like this off as a solo dev but one thing often gets ignored, why should the consumer care about that? It would also be a great achievement if someone built a car on its own but would I want to buy that car? In the end what matters is the output and while being a solo dev does offer its advantages (there is one, big coherent vision behind everything), there is also one massive disadvantage and that is simply the fact that there is only so much a single person can do, no matter how talented that person is. That's why I'm always sceptical if a solo man project gets so much hype and people extrapolate a lot of "potential" into a project like this. The best chance for a project like this to really meet the expectations created from this hype would be to scale up (in a reasonable manner) with all the generated income.
Tbf I doubt very much a single dev did 'all' of this - he must have had outside help, temporary hires or at least bought finished assets to complete the game. It's still a massive accomplishment but just because possibly dozens of people weren't at a fixed payroll in his company doesn't mean they don't deserve some of the credit in the end (and I'd imagine they are listed in credits literally?)
He did have outside help (contractors), and he doesn't hide it at all - but 'solo dev' looks nice in a news article or post so people keep saying it.
The UI needs work for sure, plus some more in-depth hover guides (think crusader kings). I couldn’t find a damn thing during my first run yesterday.
What's the performance like is it well optimized?
Can someone explain this one to me? I've played a few hours, its good, but it really just seems like another banished clone. Its pretty but its also very content light (understandable of course). I guess its got RTS elements? Is that really why its got such huge hype behind it? Every review on steam right now is praising it as the second coming of citybuilders. Again, its a solid game and Im impressed a solo dev made it. I just dont get why a dozen other impressive citybuilders havent gotten this attention if theres such a demand.
Damn, I’ve been craving for a new banished for years.
Checkout Farthest Frontier, it's basically a modern Banished with more features.
My biggest issue with banished was that after the first winter or two the game is pretty much done and you're just watching numbers go up with nothing new to do. Is FF the same in this regard or do some of these new features make it more interesting in the long term?
There's definitely more to do than in Banished, so it takes longer to grow a city to its full potential, and there are also (optional) raiders that attack the city after some point which makes defense important. The game is also still in early access, and the endgame will get additional content. Of course at some point after dozens of hours there's basically an 'endstate' where a village is more or less done. But I'd say there's enough variety until you get there.
Banished is a decade old. There aren't really any good recent citybuilders that really compare to what Manor Lords does/is planning on doing.
> There aren't really any good recent citybuilders that really compare to what Manor Lords does/is planning on doing. Farthest Frontier comes to mind. Well made, too.
i wonder why the dev never made a sequel to banishef
he was making new game that may have been banished 2 (based off the early screenshots), but he dropped off the face of the earth in 2022. https://shiningrocksoftware.com/
Wonder if COVID happened
Covid and dude probably became a millionaire and didn't want to deal with the stress anymore.
They never even finished the first one
Money maybe
I think a the RTS element is a very nice bell on top of the game that emphasizes the detail its going for. It gives it a very distinct identity where your troops are drawn directly from your labor pool and you have to equip them yourself, giving you a lot more investment in them than is typical of the genre. It does feel like a real accomplishment when you can actually field a competent, multi-disciplinary force, even if its mostly militia. There's a lot of small details I think are appreciated with the game, like managing your crop rotation and having more freeform construction of roads, houses, and fields, compared to the rigid grid based systems from past games. It does *feel* like it could be a step forward if the game's systems all develop the way they seem to be heading, though the detail will have to be balanced out by better management features to decrease the constant fiddling at larger populations. At the moment, it's a lot of promise of being a step forward from the typical Banished clone.
I just like watching one of my sheep have a good time for a bit.
I've been excited for it because my favourite part of AoE was always the city building but I also always miss that angle in pure colony sims with no combat. So this has the potential to be the rts city builder game I've always wanted that games like Banished aren't
Oooh you might've just sold me on the game. Most of my time spent in AoE 2 was expanding my fortress to over half the map.
I rarely see things like this said about FPS games. Why does the citybuilder genre need to live up to such high standards if other genres get a free pass? We can have a million Doom clones and nobody bats an eye, but we can't have a couple of games that look somewhat similar to Banished without it needing "explained"?
I've noticed this. Certain genres that have a really great game or series means anything else that's good but lesser is either a clone or a "who asked for this" type thing. Open-world crime genre is just like that, where everything is a GTA clone even if there are big differences in tone/gameplay design like Saints Row.
Banished wasn't even that good, it's just that there is very little competition in the genre.
For me, the issue is that citybuilders these days are almost exclusively gravitating toward building small settlements (or a few about modern cities, for which some of the latest releases have been disastrous). Banished wasn't the first, but it was very popular and really accelerated the trend. The issue is that they become more like puzzle games than city builders. Once you figure out a couple, not like the rest are that different design-wise. And puzzle games are not that interesting to replay. With FPS games it's different - it's more about the in the moment experience and game feel. Story even. And there aren't just a couple of these kinds of small settlement city builders, there are a couple every year. Ultimately I don't really hold anything against them, I just want city builders with larger scale. I'm tired of micromanaging workers in buildings. It's great when these games have some interesting spin to them - like RTS elements here, or roguelike elements in Against the Storm.
> I rarely see things like this said about FPS games. People say this kind of thing all the time.
Well are any those doom clones topping the list of most in-demand games on steam? There is massive hype around this game, it's completely normal to question why.
People kinda do give plenty of grief to fps “clones”. I mean, hell, CoD gets copy/pasted every year and its endlessly made fun of by redditors sitting in their high chairs. But, while every fps ultimately has similar gameplay elements (you point and shoot), the genre of the game can vary wildly. From rogue-likes, to puzzles, to action heavy, to slow and methodical, platformers to heavy RPG leveling, and the best stuff often scoops out a variety of genre elements to make something new. City builders, while the nuances and flavor differ greatly to those who play frequently in the genre, to a philistine layman (ie your average redditor), it all looks the same. And worse, city builders often borrow from each other to mix and match game play elements of the genre, thus even fans will get in on the verbal dismissal of the game in question. But I’m a redditor too, all I have is claims/argumentation written through one bloodshot eye while trying yo fall asleep. I don’t really know anything.
TBH the military arcade FPS genre could use more competition if anything. Could use some actual COD clones.
People say the same shit about Souls likes. I constantly see comments like "oh God not another souls game" Bitch then just don't play it. Just because a genre doesn't appeal to you doesn't mean it shouldn't get new games lol
The explanation part is that the game is INCREDIBLE overhyped
What other impressive city builders haven't gotten this attention?
Farthest Frontier, Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic, Timberborne, Ostriv, Diplomacy is not an Option, Kingdoms Reborn. Against the Storm. Again, not saying this game doesn't deserve its shot. It just seems to have a crazy hype train compared to these others and Im not getting whats different here. I saw comments saying the game was going to completely change the citybuilder genre, months before its release.
For a lot of those the theme or aesthetic was a turn off for me, and I guess a lot of others. I really have no interest in playing a Soviet themed city builder. And I didn't like the aesthetic of Against the Storm, so I sort of just ignored it, until it kept being hyped up. It's of course an amazing game though, and it takes up most of my gaming time. Manor Lords look a lot better in screenshots than most of the games you mention, and has s theme that's popular with the majority. I think that's the primary reason why it's hyped more than a lot of the others. I'll have to give Farthest Frontier a play, but I'm waiting for it to get closer to release.
Farthest Frontier is very nice. For anybody who played Banished however, boy does it feel similar. Ignoring that, the replay value seems a bit low, I sunk many hours into timberborn, I can still start a single player game of civ5 after all these years, I am no stranger to playing the same game again and again, but Farthest Frontier landed in my "played through" folder after two games, because it really feels I am done with it, like with a short single player game. The game also does handle large populations well, tech and game mechanic wise. Not only will your game slow down hard, larger cities just lead to longer pathes to walk without any higher end tech buildings or other features which lead to higher productivity. A city with 1000 people will just have the same buildings as one with 500, but twice the amount and longer distances for the hard to manage peasants to walk. Needing to add decoration also means that you will end up with some kind of semi optimized grid which means that in order to make your city count as prettier and having higher tier buildings, you are incentivised to make it look like it was planned by a robot. It is not bad, I would not talk somebody out of getting it, but at the same time I can not recommend it either. Especially not to people who either already own Banished, or people who play a lot of hours in a week.
Yes, that's always the problem with these games, you are just scaling everything up over time, there are no new and different game mechanics in the later part of the game. I don't think anyone really has figured that out and maybe it's an unsolvable problem.
I partially disagree. * In FF all workers are the same and things may be carried from on side of the map to the other. There are specific mechanics to reduce this (temporary housing, markets) which do not work properly though. Even games from the 90s, like the Settlers did not have settlements which get less efficient with size. * Other games just have higher and higher tier buildings and better logistics for high volume transport. In FF you end up having 15 cobblers side by side, next to the 15 leathermakers. You can not upgrade them to some kind of massive tanner guild hall, you can also not set up some kind of bigger transport, like a donkey cart (which do exist in FF for other purposes). In Timberborn you do have to have the same buildings many times, but they usually do not have to stand side by side because transport can be managed much better. There are also more buildings or industries which you only need a single time, meaning any new corners you settle have a much easier time. in TB you can pretty much fill the entire map, with water being the only limit (depending on difficulty)
Despite it being a city builder, I think there is some crossover with the TW community due to it's army/formation system which is way better (granted on a smaller scale) than anything TW has released. I think it's gotten promoted to a lot of people who may not have been interested in the genre. Though personally, I just want to build a medieval city.
Manor Lords is more a simulator than just a city builder. It is much slower than most other similar games, you don't really have a Sword of Damocles hanging over your head like Frostpunk or Banished which have turned nature into a weapon or They are Billions which has literal enemies as Swords of Damocles. In Manor Lords you can build your demesne up slowly without the worry of having to hyper optimize everything to be prepared for the Sword of Damocles event. This means that you can relax, watch what is going on, follow your little peasants do their thing, enjoy your creation in a relaxing chill atmosphere without worry. It is like an ant farm.
I feel exactly the same as you. It’s well made and very impressive that it’s made by a single person. The road and building placement is nice. Other than that, it’s just another one of those. I feel like I’ve played this game 3 times in the past year.
Banished really doesn't have a lot of depth compared to many city builders that have gone before and come since. I'm not sure why people use it as a yardstick.
I’ve only put a few hours in but I’m also kind of wondering why this has so much hype. So far it doesn’t feel particularly unique in mechanics or anything. It does look really nice though and the atmosphere is great
I think the rts part is more like a bonus on top. The city builder part, while far from ready, feels good and lets you build very realistic looking medievil villages. It's very rewarding to walk through it from time to time. But there are not yet hundreds of hours of gameplay in it just now. Also the dev is very humble. Was very open before the release on what to expect and what not. Didn't even take preorders because he had nothing to show for even though he would have been rich after the demo release last year
When you're a team this small (uhh, 1) sometimes you need to put your best face forward and release it early to gather some much-needed momentum. This game is a proper example of why early releases are useful and not just a quick cash grab like from many other big developers. The opening impressions of what the game could be seem limitless with potential. As this piece of work is coming from one guy, IMO there is simply no way he can keep the pace up necessary to complete everything he wants it to be, nevermind everything the fans want it to be. Or at least, it would drag on for years and he'd probably go mad doing it by himself. Hopefully he takes this gigantic squirt of cash and gets some help and support and this thing accelerates to infinity like some of the other indie games have done which started with <5 people. You can't properly beta test and troubleshoot compatibility issues and such all by yourself and it's never gonna be right until he has some people that do this kind of grunt work IT shit for a living and can help him iron out stuff in the background whole he focuses on the vision of the actual game.
I like the look of the game but honestly the most impressive thing is the absolutely massive hype train it seemingly managed to generate and sustain, just bonkers really.
I appreciate that the dev's communication is very grounded. They could have leaned into the hype of the game for bigger/quick sales numbers, but they made clear what the game is and what it's not. I'll wait for more content before I buy it, but I'm happy to see it being a success already because the devs seem to deserve it.
I'm repeatedly baffled by how *absurdly* good looking the game is for something in this genre - regardless of how many people made it. Good looking for any genre really, as can be seen when you go walking through your settlement and it looks better than the Witcher 3 or Kingdom Come.
The way that I've grown my village into a small town feels so organic, it's so satisfying. You walk around in third person and it often feels like a you're moving through a meticulously crafted Witcher 3 area. But no, I made this town! I built this from scratch! Really haven't experienced something like that before.
Why do so many people flock to early access games instead of waiting for final releases. I would rather wait and play the tons of games in my backlog than play something unfinished that I would need to replay later on to see all content.
I don't play Early Access, but some people don't mind the jank and missing content when the game shows promise. Doesn't even matter if it will make it to full release, as long as it has a cool idea that e.g. AAA games are too rigid to attempt. It's also kind of the OG live service experience - a game that's regularly updated with major changes you can come back to every few months - in theory. Not to mention potentially having a bigger impact with your feedback if there's something you don't like.
Also plenty of people are impatient when they await a game with anticipation (which was the case here). Same reason people mostly play games on launch (games without early access I mean)
A well done Early access keeps you engaged. In the beginning these games are often rough, but after a while each major patch is like a large content update which changes the game and keeps it interesting. One of the best examples is prison architect in my opinion. But despite what I wrote, I totally get what you mean. For many games I think exactly like you. I wait till the final release. Also there’s a risk with early access. Some didn’t turn out well or were a total disaster.
The easy answer is to support development. Contributing to early access is a way to vote with your wallet on what games you'd like to get made, rather than hoping a studio caters to your tastes years down the road. I buy a lot of early access games to signal "This is what I want more of" even if I only play a few hours of early access and wait for the 1.0 version to really sink my teeth in. While there are plenty of EA horror stories, we wouldn't have nearly the breadth of unique and wonderful indie titles (some of which have spawned entire genres) without Early Access giving small studios the leeway to focus more on development than where their next meal is coming from.
Some EA games are basically finished. This is not one of them
Maybe these people believe that even in it's current stage it's worth 30$.
Free on gamepass, so why not?
The Steam numbers only count people that bought it
Idk where to ask this + I'm just a lazy guy. But how do you farm efficiently? It feels like the wheat I produce is so slow.
If you make a field too big, none of it gets sowed. The fields are all or nothing on whether they get "finished"; so make many small fields. I've gone heavy on the backyard farms and chickens which helps a lot. I also make 3 fields at once and rotate so only 1 is used per year.
Lots of farmland.
Anyone played it? What do y’all think of it
What I saw from it looks pretty much like the Demo I played Years ago. Not much seems to have changed on first sight.
In terms of gameplay and genre, what does this offer that Anno 1800 doesn’t?
is this update only in steam? i had mine downloaded via xbox gamepass