My Review of Manor Lords After 100% & 140 Hours Played
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- čas přidán 7. 06. 2024
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00:00 - Intro
00:15 - 100% Steam Achievements
00:40 - How well it ran on my PC
02:00 - Overview of the gameplay loops (3 types)
05:58 - Parts of the game that are VERY Early Access
07:08 - Who I think would enjoy it NOW vs who should WAIT
Mortismal Gaming Channel (review after 100%) - / @mortismalgaming - Hry
I hope the developer gets a team behind him. I'm worried this game will be in early access for way too long because as you said it feels like it's only 50% done.
Isn't that what early access means? With some of them, you're not even getting 50% of the finished game and what there is can be riddled with bugs.
Henry’s come to see us!
@@gomezthechimp1116a game called “squad” was in an early release for 5 years before being fully released. It was in a very early state when you could buy it.
This game will certainly be in EA for a while. That's the way of game development nowadays. Look at Escape From Tarkov. That game is super popular and has been in Beta EA for nearly 8 years. You either play EA from AA or indie devs for years or buy AAA garbage that is broken at release and over priced.
To be fair, Tarkov has a hell of a lot more content than the vast majority of AAA games
One of the few games/ game studios that managed to really deliver an early acces that is playable.
Recently tried laysara summit kingdom, which was nice even though early early access. It's a less complex anno on mointains in a fictional tibet like culture
It was developed by one dude you know ...
@@ErraticThought i know, crazy developer dude. From friday on they gonna be calling him mister developer dude at the bank :-)
I'm enjoying BeamNgdrive in EA since 2017, Satisfactory since 2018. Both lovely and very playable games
@@baenlin 🤣🤣🤣
It should be possible to form a small team to accelerate progress on this without ruining the game. Like, obviously we want the game to be great and quality is more important than it being done ASAP, but to wait for 5 more years for it to become finished feels bad too.
As far as I know Slavic Magic does hire other people to help with aspects of making the game.
I mean I'm hoping it sells well in early access so they can hire and acquire more assets to further the game. I'm pretty sure the only thing holding this games expansion and updates are purely money and resources. You get one you get the other.
laughs in Star Citizen.
The only reason waiting five years for a finished product feels bad is because you’re expecting immediate gratification. Take this as a chance to grow instead of being impatient and entitled. 😊
@@epmcgee ok. Here’s the thing. That in five years someone else, someone with much more spare capital, could take this idea and put the vast resources to make a good product, then the knockoff over competes the original, which is manor lords. Like time matters I can wait another year or maybe two but half a decade is absolutely absurd.
To be honest, stealing ale is not a crime, its common sense
Thank you for the Total War comparison in your who should wait section. I had totally misunderstood the kind of game it was trying to be from the limited trailers I've seen.
Yeah they put so much combat in the trailers but it's like 90-95% building and managing. Don't get me wrong, I love the game and the combat is really fun when it does happen, but it's very few battles per campaign.
@@Strat-Guides I'm mostly interested in the total war part, and honestly, I bought the game and played it, and I see no issue.
Strat, I love that you are constantly giving shout-outs to some of my other favorite CZcamsrs.. like Halcylion, Mortismal, and Flesson, to name a few. Good on you, sir
And great review.
Can't wait for return to Zomboid, and the upcoming Manorlord guides
I am exited for the shorts where all the units run off a cliff. It always gets me giddy.
Great video, I will buy the game for sure, even if I dont yet know how much I'll play in early access. I have a lot of respect for the dev and the project itself so I want to show support.
I hope they keep the army scale where it is, as it seems the right amount of units to control before it gets overwhelming. This isn't to say battles shouldn't become larger down the line, but I much rather these large scale fights be through combined forces. This way you're not completely shouldering the losses, open up opportunities for diplomacy both on and off the battlefield, don't overtax a player on their micro, and provide opportunities for end game events that give you different options in preparing for (such as an invasion by a foreign empire). The concept of establishing your own hierarchy, coalition, trade association, etc. and the ways it can define your playing experience sounds fantastic.
It's not that kind of game. These militia fights are as far as it'll go per the developer.
@@davidkelly4210 That's the thing, levies formed the majority of medieval armies. As always, warfare was dependent on logistics, and it was unviable to field an entire army on your own. This is one of the reasons why kingdoms and the like were formed, for the mutual benefit and defense of the land.
I'd also prefer it stays like this. If he wants to make larger scale game down the line then do that. Don't force lots of mediocre systems into your first game,
I hear Bannerlord music in the background and had to check if I am in game.
Way to go to give me nightmares and flashbacks.
Anyways, great vid.
I liked the demo, but I am not 100% sure if I will buy the early access.
Guess we will see on friday.
Thank you, very informative.
Thanks for an honest, insightful review. Really appreciate how you've shown what's missing. That's so much better than many reviewers, who would have you believe the game is perfect with nothing missing already. It looks good, it doesn't need hype.
Agreed! I think a lot of people are surprised by how well it plays even in it's current state - like seeing a car drive with 3 wheels and having no problems staying on the road lol
Yeah there's some solid content here, its just blatant that it needs work.
I'm excited about the potential of this game, especially if it gets mod support
I hope the game is moddable, seeing the popularity of this game I doubt that it wont have a huge mod collection. Just imagine all the content modders will bring, it'll complete the game even if the dev works solo, the game foundation is just what we needed
Thanks for the review. I'm probably gonna wait a bit after early access release to not spoil the first experience.
Thanks for the review of this game, as I sincerely appreciate your guides for Bannerlords. I am looking forward to this game, as I've always wanted a Medieval city builder (Banished-esque) that also incorporated RT combat. I'll definitely be purchasing the Early Access to help support the developer and his passion project. This game has so much potential, but patience is a virtue.
really enjoy your content mate
Great review, thanks Strat.
Concerns me that the "this bit doesn't exist yet" resonates with early access Bannerlord II gameplay. Put plenty of hours into it and promised myself to come back when it was fully done...but didn't. might hold off with this to ensure I don't make the same mistake
Yeah I know what you mean. I felt that one lol
Thank you for an honest review.
Perfect i hope the game will prove to be something bug for your channel but also for players. Devs seems super cool and very honest.
2:20 HAHAHA I'm so cold (burns)
Tnak you for the honest review! I've been waiting for this since the first announcement and can't wait to play it. However, I've ruined my game experience too many times with early access games to the point where I lost interest in the polished product. I still gonna buy it, though, to support the developer.
Great vid
nice review, I think ill have to try it. Afterall I played Bannerlord for forever in early access. What could go wrong?
Definitely getting this as soon as available
I've probably said this before but man I love your vids. You do such a great job.
Also, massive respect for the Mortismal shoutout. He's become one of my other faves the past year.
Why did I even think it was gonna be a full release...
It’s been planned for EA for a while now
So excited for this game. It almost feels like a “proof of concept” in. Terms of making a great game with just one dang guy!
Great Review
This game feels is the banished game I’ve always ever wanted
ML its a pretty simple logistics game (compared to Caeser 3, factorio, etc), a pretty simple city planner (compared to the city skylines, the sim cities, etc), a limited aesthetic game (architecturally) and the UI is occasionally missing some crucial elements. The bugs do exist, but that adds to the charm 🐑 :P
But the masterful mix of all these admittedly mediocre elements, along with an astounding appreciation for historical accuracy?! *Chefs kiss
I may or may not have been the medieval nerd kid growing up :)
However, the amount of work, love, and dedication does NOT leave much more to be desired (for me, at least!).
Whatever issues are present could be buffed out so easily, the only way the game could disappoint me is if the dev cashed out and dipped.
I would easily buy this version for 30$. For your average person tho, should probably only lay 15-20$.
That's a great point - the attention to detail is amazing
The KCD music in the background is fire asf
I'm waiting fer the Lord O Rings mod to come out fer this in 10 years. That is gonna be great. And I might then have something as powerful as a 4080
Even when it wasn't working great, I would buy this because its gonna be a fun game later on, you just buy it now for less money and the dev can use it to make the game how its supposed to be. But it is already very playable, but a bit hard to understand without a lot of trial and error.
Is the music playing in the background from the game? Some are from KCD 100%
I put KCD music in because I prefer it :)
I have play the demo and it's amazing even just the city building makes me want to spen alot of time in it, can't wait for the release tomorrow. I also play total war but the things I love about total war it's just the fight animation and not enjoy the large scale battle, so I gues for some people like me the small scale battle will be more enjoyable in this game.
Ganes been out for 5 minutes. After 6000 hours and 200% completion i believe....
I like your TW maths lol
I think I'll wait for the full release.
@Joe-no7gs aye, i ruined valheim for my self 😅
I am planning on buying it. i expect this game to be a mix of total war plus city builder hybrid.
I loke what i have seen so far.
your review is honest and grnuine and despite your love for game you have covered it factually.
Thanks! I'm not used to making review videos so the format is a little foreign for me. I'm glad you found it helpful!
He would have just made millions. I think he’ll take a break for a while, sort out his personal life and then hopefully get a team together and finish in 2 years.
May be early access, but sure generates tons of youtube content.
Hey Strat, are you gonna do a full playthrough? Not some crazy challange series or achievement ones like you did on your live streams, but a normal one. 30 min an episode like you did with bannerlord just to chill and show what the game has to offer?
I've got plans for more playthroughs for Manor Lords, but they will go up on the let's play channel. Yeah I know that you mean, the first few felt rushed and a bit hectic because I was still focusing on learning the game and trying to get content out before everyone else spammed theirs too lol but the next one will be a lot slower pace. It will still be a challenge run (and a tough one at that) but it won't be using any cheese or exploits and I'll have to use literally everything in the game to make it work - farming, manufacturing all the goods in house (no trade allowed) etc. It should be more in line with what you're asking for I think :)
"Manor Lords has this to offer in spades". Great analogy.
Thanks for watching!
Didn't know you were a Zomboid fan, you are truly a legend among legends
Yeah! I'm taking a break from a big challenge right now actually - did 16x start without running from the starting spawn and going for 1M kills. If I recall, when I stopped to cover Manor Lords I was around 140k kills and it's just going faster because almost all the weapons are maxed (except firearms, saving that for last)
Hey strat have you thought of covering nebulous fleet command?? Really up your alley honestly mate!
I'll have to look that one up, never heard of it. I'm curious though - I do like space themed games (assuming it is space themed from the name)
@@Strat-Guides Dude it’s a super in depth tactical fleet combat game, it’s getting a conquest/campaign mode this year as well. I will warn you it’s very very complex though! But it is made by people who are in the navy and you can feeeel it.
Being able to put 100+ hours to early access 25$ game is an accomplishment in itself. Most AAA titles give about 20-25 hours of single player experience for 70$+++
Agreed! It's a sad state that gaming is in these days, but I'm thankful for indie games
I got that "Kill Bandits in a Non-Bandit Game" achievement thanks to a bug. I turned bandits off. They still spawned because of a bug. I killed them and got the achievement. Cool.
I haven't done the 100% Mercenary Achievement and the beat the Baron on the highest difficulty yet.
Are we sure that granary workers stealin ale from the tavern is a bug? :D
Lol they are pissing everyone off because they want ale, but it's all gone by the time they get there!
Considering its a one man operation and he has produce this, its quite astonishing. I should imagine the full release should only take 12 or 18 months. I'll be waiting for the full release, but anxiously so.
My biggest shock was how good the game felt even in it's unfinished state. There's a lot of things missing, but it still feels like a complete experience when you play - like the missing stuff will be extra bonus content almost. It's just surprising that one person could think this idea through that far and execute on the idea so well.
I'd love more animals and better path finding, You can see the npcs clipping through buildings and objects.
Tower bug seems to be fixed
I’m just going to wait until it’s actually released. There’s still things planned.
Manor lords hypeeee
04:33 My experience differs. I've played couple campaigns and by the end of year 2 of the game AI usually have all the regions on the map except your starting region. And if it's allowed by game's difficulty, then somewhere around autumn of year 3 it tries to claim your region. For me it was a consistent game over, as I had no means to fight 5-6 stacks of units at this time. So I ended up playing with AI in lowest aggression settings, where it's unable to force claims against players regions.
Ty for review.Did you played dawn of man? It also had raiders that attack your town time to time but they wasn't too challenging if you have equipment,so u mostly focus on improving your tribe.Is manor lords really give you that effort to protect against raids/baron attacks?
I didn't play that one, but I can say that raiders aren't too hard to deal with. Once you get 1-2 militia units filled out or a single upgraded retinue, you'll be fine against raiders.
I forgot about that one. Need to go back to it. Hopefully can find my save game on an external hard drive somewhere.
i like city building n i like total war, so this is a must for me...
Does anyone happen to know a good modern alternative for someone who likes The Setllers series? Games like Banished are more complex.
Try Pioneers of Pagonia
👍
I don’t buy early access games, but this game looks really good so far. I bet by the end of the year the game will be well updated and ready for full release!
Try end of next year earliest.
@@fthagnryleh4951If the dev doesn’t hire a team, you’re probably looking at 3+ years
See you in 3 years
I'm running a 4090 and a 5800x3D. I found that ultra shaders introduce really bad frame times compared to high shaders. The rest of the settings seem to work fine.
Did anyone else notice that?
I'll have to test that out - I rarely go below 200 frames from what I can tell and I'm on a 4080. I'm only running 1440p though - sounds like you might be doing 4k??
They should add constant updates not one big thing every 5 months or idk. Atleast small things every 2 weeks like edicts,skills,bugs etc
I have a recruitment tower, but it’s not adding to the retinue.
I agree.
Man i really wish that I was into city building games but no matter how hard I try I never seem to get into this genre.
Yeah it's a very specific type of problem solving that I think a lot of people don't particularly enjoy lol It's a bit tedious, but I actually enjoy that aspect for some reason
My wife enjoyed Banished as a kid, how similar is this game to that? I was thinking about surprisingly her with the game on her B Day soon. That’s if the game can be played on steam deck.
It's pretty similar to banished! It's been a while since I've played but from what I remember, the city building is quite similar. You can turn off combat and just focus on city building if she wants the same kind of gameplay. I'm pretty sure this runs on the steam deck - I thought I saw something on the discord about it being formatted properly for that device but I would double check to confirm. They are very helpful in the discord
Farthest frontier is another good one. Similar to banished but less min max in terms of population jobs. Ie you tend to have more citizens than you do jobs to fill so it gives the player more leeway compared to banished and endzone that tend to have a tight ratio of citizens: jobs.
Can't wait to play this on Xbox in 2 er 3 years...
woppaaaaaaaaaa
As a tactic games enjoyer, my short description of this game is imagine AOE and total war have a baby and it is raise by a bannerlord uncle
I would assume putting it on higher difficulty means more battles, if only against bandits yeah?
It depends on which game mode, but you can manually adjust that. The frequency can be anywhere from 2 per year up to once every 5 years (for the raids). Bandit camps can be anywhere from 0 up to 5 at once
@@Strat-Guides nice! Thanks for the answer :3
Is there any news on how much the game will cost?
It's going to be regional so they will not announce before it's released on Friday. They made a post explaining why if you check the announcement section on the discord - it's a bit complicated to write it out here
Strat talking about achievements out the gate for a review! A man after my own heart. Bannerlord still has broken achievements on Xbox. -_-
if only we already have towers and walls this would be stronghold 5
How much do you think this game gona cost on 26th?
Not sure, but my guess is $30 - $40
I wonder what you would suggest as the one thing that would give the game longevity. More combat maybe?
Adding the AI city building that can field their own militia, retinue, etc. and that tried to invade your lands. It would add a lot I think
Guess ill wait for a year and check then
I'm sure a lot more work will be done by then!
The only issue with giving creators this much time with manor lords before the early access release is its longevity I feel will not be as long as well all think it will be unless the developer puts the money into expanding his team for the sheer demand of new content after ppl just play nothing but this game and do everything it has to offer in a week or two after launch
It's OK to play the game and then stop and play something else until a big content update then play the game again. You don't need to only play one game for months at a time.
@@CubeInspector with this mindset, i can see why companies tend to release unfinished broken games
I've said from the beginning that 2 weeks is too much and people will burn out. I've already seen a massive dip in views in the last couple of days. I think a few days to a week at max, but I'm also not a developer and have no clue what I'm talking about lol.
spend hours on a town. i couldn't figure out why my peasants were just standing there doing nothing at all. turned out... i only had 2 ox to build my manor and it choked production completely. in another game my storageworkers got stuck inside blocking all production. i love the game, there's alot to learn but it's glitchy
you would like europa iv, extremely complex
Your intuition is good! I've got close to 5,000 hours into EU4 actually, but they were all done before I started my channel so I haven't really covered it before :)
I bought and returned it, its very shallow... maybe i buy again in 5 years
a premissa do jogo é muito boa, infelizmente nunca vai ser entregue completo.
Freezing and starving my people? My own little Russia, finally
Lol they should have called the achievement Tsar special or something related!
havent watched this video yet but i wanna give my personal thoughts on manor lords..
The graphics are phenomenal, ive spent only 16 hours and already feel like im at end game with nothing to do, so many bugs,
the game has been in development since 2017 but it feels only 50% done, and from release day, i feel as the devs are kind of lazy because there hasnt been any patches. compared to other games ive played where a patch is released almost every day since release day. so this really hurts
Manor Lord Battles vs TW Battles, who does it better:
Manor Lords
Great Animations where you feel the brutality of the clash and impact.
Unit responsiveness (e.g. you tell your archers to stop moving and fire, they will start firing at once, they dont wait to get perfectly in line first)
Manor Retinue customization (You get to customize the look and equipment of the elite guard of your Manor)
TW
Unit Variety
Scale
Units have special abilities (like phalanx, shield wall, and so on)
Cavalry, Manor Lords does NOT have cavalry
Siege Units, Manor Lords does NOT have Siege Units
Siege Warfare, Manor Lords does not have Sieges, because you cannot man walls, nor the enemy can scale them. You only have military fences.
If you want to fight battles, and go grand 4X geopolitical gameplay, go for TW. Manor Lords is an incredible small scale medieval town builder that plays SLOW, and has decent albeit simple battles.
Just remember, took him 7 years for "close to 50% done".
What time is it released gmt? Does anyone know?
Google it
3pm
I hate that some people proclaim this as the "TW killer". It won`t be. It`s not trying to be. It never was. This is more.. Anno mixed with cossacks.
Cossacks is an interesting comparison - the units work pretty similarly to that actually! I didn't think of that when I was making this video
Without trading, the packing feature is too minor in terms of how much you can send or recieve. Packing between your towns without trading is borderline impossible as sending one meat every X amount of time per travel is not viable and very annoying.
In my experience, you can send around 60 of a good per trip if you have enough mules and items in both towns. If you're only sending 1 meat, then it sounds like your barter is not balanced - you need to have equal value of items coming back as well. It's not a system to "send goods" and the swap has to be an even trade or it will cut your amount down. Eg. If you want to send 20 meat, you'll have to send back 20 of something else of the same value like 20 planks.
50% done? I would say 8%. Still great.
I haven't had enough of bannerlord. I wish manor lords had a player character.
0:44 i mean, the dev lives in Poland AND is Polish by nationality so... thats expected -_-
7 years for 40-50% equals hiring a team or we won't see a finished product before interest is an issue
I thought reviews weren't allowed for this version?
That's not what the email said when they sent the key. They said no REVIEW videos until this morning at 7am which is when this video was scheduled
@@Strat-Guides ahh okay just didn't wanna see you get in trouble
I'll wait a couple of years before buying it. I looked forward to it enough that I watched content about it everyday these last weeks and in my wishlist since it was on steam...but the base price, for its current state, completely dried my hype.
Doesnt help it rings my 'sus' bell that the 'discounted price' looks 1) like a FOMO trap, 2) like the actual price (having the actual price being the discount price is a very well known tactic by predatory companies).
And once I started looking into it, my 'sus' instincts got further triggered Hiding till last minute the base price is a psychological tactic to prevent people to rationalize the price and buy on impulse instead. 0 roadmap means even if the game is still in EA in 60 years, you technically cant hold the guy responsible since its not like he ever promised the game would be completed in the next 60 years. That it got already announced the base price will get even higher in the future further looks like FOMO manipulation.
Overall, there are a shit load of good city builders in EA that already have been out, for a lesser price, with a roadmap and no oddly coincidental psychological manipulations. Most still are into EA after years with slow updates, but I doubt Manor Lords will be any different anyway.
I do hope my sus bell is just ringing for nothing.
imagine manor lords with samurai and african biomes/dlc , coop/lan party or alike, mods/custom addons. Might be my last game to ever buy but play forever lmao
Games very early access... very. 1 guy made this which is incredible but playing it you realize only one person made this 😂 this game will be incredible in a year or two
It wasn't a criticism btw - I said so myself that the game is incredible even in it's limited state. But I would be doing my audience a disservice to not point out that it's clearly nowhere near finished. I'm still looking forward to my next campaign and I've already done a dozen at this point lol it's really fun
@Strat-Guides with you 100%, some people are expecting way more than this guy can deliver, but the foundation for an incredible game is already there. I can already see the mixed reviews because most people think it's going to be polished right out of the gate.
Good advice. I just couldn’t help thinking when you said (ca 8:45) "…if you don’t like playing games that aren’t finished or polished… " then you’ve been really out of luck lately. I’m never buying any big studio‘s game anymore until a year goes by, they get it out of the Beta form they sent it in and it goes on sale. This indy game I probably will get but my expectations are different.
50% done but still better than cities skylines 2
What’s the point of games releasing early access ? I done understand the concept of it.
It’s helps fund the game to keep updating it. Also it allows real people to test the game so devs can fix before full release. Bg3 did the same and released a master piece. It works if done right.
I love this game but it is hard to see this ever being fully finished if the solo dev doesn't add people to his team. I respect the passion project but the scope is way to large for one person. With just him it'll be another serval years before it is complete.
Is there a concept of reproduction? How do people occur?! Like where do they come from?
It's basically just immigration - people show up from off map to populate the town. No birth or death. My guess is it was a balancing issue
@@Strat-Guides nothing is perfect, even moon 🌙 has dots!
I deleted my previous comment but it was impulsive, excuse me, youre right, i was exaggerating, you gave a good tip how to avoid the meta, thank you.
No problem, I wasn't trying to ruin anyone's experience so my apologies if I did. If you look at my channel, I rarely do game reviews so it's not a format I'm good at. I'm much better at gameplay and guides.