This article was originally a thread on social media, which is why it is formatted with lots of images and short responses.
The text is about the image below that paragraph.
‘Manor Lords’ is a medieval city builder that I’ve made a modest contribution to as a historical consultant and beta tester. I’ve been very excited about it for a long time and I’m not the only one, it’s created quite a buzz.
What I love about it most is that it tries to depict the middle ages in an accurate way, behind the scenes historians, experts & history addicts have been debating the tiniest details. I think the result is one of the most historically accurate medieval games I’ve ever played.
It’s also terribly addictive!
It is currently still an early access game, so it is still in development.
Every now and then something is fixed, improved or added, which is quite exciting and fun.
So yes, the game isn’t finished yet, but you don’t really notice that while playing, it is already a very smooth complete feeling experience.
This review was written when the game came out in April 2024, it’s changed a lot since then, but what I wrote will still give you a good idea of what to expect.
So let’s have a sneak peek at it shall we?
First, here’s an official video:
Before you start you set up your profile and design your own family crest, look familiar? This bit alone is SUCH fun, you can fiddle and play with this editor for ages till you get exactly what you want and then you’ll see it on the banners in the game! SUCH FUN!
There ws only 1 map but you can select 3 types of games and change lots of settings, so you get to tweak your game and have a lot of freedom to play it the way you want. Giving you a new experience almost every time. I always choose that you can place wells anywhere, normally you can only place them there where there is groundwater. I don’t do this to make the game easier but I simply need a well to be in certain spots for the village to feel more medieval 😉
(Today, November 2025, there are more maps, scenarios, types of games, etc).
Manor Lords is a city building game that also involves combat, so it’s not a combat game that has city building elements, if you know what I mean. The goal is to turn a little settlement into a village and large town. So if you’re into city building, managing etc. you’ll love this game. But above all, if you’re history mad and love the late middle ages, you’ll love this game even more. It’s not a war game, there are battles and they’re exciting, impressive an fun, but it’s not the main thing and if you’re not into that stuff at all you can even completely turn it off.
You get to set up an medieval village, plan the roads and then decide where which building goes and your see your peasants start building it. This is all such a delight.
But ML has ruined so many city building games for me because I can just no longer accept games where you’re stuck to a grid, ML gives you so much freedom, you can make bendy, natural flowing roads and the plots of land all fit their surroundings.
No more straight roads if you don’t want them! It makes everything look so much nicer and realistic.
And of course you get to name your own region 🙂
You start with a small group of settlers with some supplies, they then start gathering wood, gathering food, building houses and then their families join them.
Most jobs are done by an entire family, I really like that, it’s quite realistic because many medieval families worked like an unit. The work is also all very realistic, let’s look at the hunters: Two hunters set up camp near a herd of wild deer.
You can follow them and see them sneak around the woods, see the deer, shoot one, drag it back.
At the camp they do some butchery, but their wives also help, they take the meat to market and sell it there. It’s a family affair. And this goes for every job in your town, I’ve spend hours just spying on people doing their job, it’s such fun.
This is what I meant when I said I just needed a well to be in certain spots. This is a fork in the road, so this is where I think a well should be and where the marketplace should be and thus that’s where I build my town around. And the church has to be by the market and the tavern has to be by the church, you know, so you can sin after you’ve confessed, that sort of thing. I don’t care if it’s smart or logical, in my mind my medieval town just has to look like this 🙂
And every time something is build you get people gathering the things they need, logs being dragged by the ox, the hammering begins and bit by bit you see a building appear, after all this time I still love seeing that.
OUTHOUSES!
Another building being built:
Just look at the juicy details in the super zooooom:
Of course your pesky peasants want food and entertainment, clothes, shoes, you name it, so you have to do some micro management to get that all going. Which I also love. The game is fun and because you can switch maps, never know what kind of resources you’re going to get and because you keep planning your town in different ways it’s going to take a long time before you get bored of this game.
But above all, for me of course, the historical accuracy is what got me excited.
100% accuracy is impossible, we simply don’t know enough about the past to get everything right and sometimes a choice had to be made between something being accurate and being game-able, if a detail breaks the game it’s not always worth implementing it.
But nevertheless I think the game succeeds very well in creating the middle ages in a very accurate manner. The houses, the clothes (look colour existed!) and simply how your villages feel and look. I simply can’t get enough of looking at my town and daily life of my people there.
This game makes me happy just by looking at it. Not just because of the accuracy but because it is just ridiculously gorgeous, the graphics are insanely beautiful.
And you can zoom in SO far, I always complain about games not allowing me to zoom in more but that’s not a problem here, you can ZOOOOOM.
Oops I got into a little battle. Seeing your banner on the field is so cool.
Nooooo, not like that!!
And then there’s the lovely music I can’t get enough of.
It’s just such an atmospheric game. And… it has only just begun!
It is important to remember that the version now available to the public is early access, it’s not finished yet! That has up and down sides. A downside is of course that there’s bits in the game that aren’t available yet, bits that don’t quite work as intended and some that will take a while to become part of the game.
An upside is that you’re getting a fun game that is only going to keep getting better. Because this is not some AAA title that just wants your guilders and then loses interest, for the dev this is an passion project, Slavic Magic has so much more in store for us.
And yes, you might wonder if my personal obsession about hygiene gets the authentic treatment. Well the game is not dirty, there’s only mud when it rains, there are outhouses, no random rubbish, no drab dirty clothes and… NO BLUE FILTER.
But there’s no bath house… yet…
I for one am looking forward to this game continuing to grow and have more and more details added it.
So anyway, I love the game and I think many of you will do too. The screenshots don’t do it justice, so maybe I’ll try twitch streaming or something on youtube 🙂 For now this little clip will have to do, here is the lord of the land walking through my town, another part of this game I can’t get enough of!
If you enjoyed this article, check out my list of reviews here;
Fake History Hunter 