oin us at bellular.games for early access content, 20 editions of 'Loading Screen' a month and to support our team!

"The majority of gameplay is focused on city building and management." Yeah, that's exactly what I want.

A developer that WANTS to manage expectations? For that allone that guy should win some sort of a Steam award imo.

the fact a single Dev project is the most wishlisted game on steam is speaking louder than we ever could ^^

Kudos to Slavic Magic for taking the bull by the horns and being up front with the players. This may also stem off Steam refunds by setting player's expectations before they buy which is also a positive both for the developer and the player.

under promise, over deliver

These solo devs are so damn inspirational.

Star Citizen is a game? I thought a fund for Chris Roberts entire family...kids and grandkids and all to have enough money to each own their personal island.

Honestly, I think you're worrying for nothing. Any stress the Dev feels will evaporate when he sees his bank balance go from $0 to $20 million in less than 24 hours.

Every “this game is not” he lists is a selling point for me. Can’t wait.

Something that goes unmentioned is that the developer is very focused on historical accuracy, it isn't just another city builder like Anno where its more fantasy than fact. Slavic/Greg actually made trips to visit real buildings and towns from that period just to make his game. It has been a historical passion project since 2017 and I can't wait for its early access release!

I dont blame him. I mean how many times have we seen games get slammed and throttled on release because of expections placed on them. As someone who has been warching this game, ive seen some contern creators say "its like a city builder mixed with totsl war" and saying tons of things that could easily give someone the wrong impression. I gotta praise the gut for being honest and stating exactly what his game is and not leaving it up to hype.

"Overhype" and "Overhate"... that's gaming in 2020's. Video games are either 100% hated or 100% loved. Nothing in between.

It's because you had 100 youtubers claiming that this "could be the total war killer we've all been waiting for." They over-hyped it and made it seem like something it's not. It is a very pretty city builder with a small battle mechanic.

"Nobody panics when they see grids and districts, because its all 'part of the plan'. But then you put a camera behind a character model in your citybuilder and allow control of them, well then everybody just loses their minds"

Something I would like from ML later on in the game's development is a much bigger map, and the ability to expand your town across multiple regions rather than having to start a new town there. One of the things I like most about this game is the resource production and artisan elements, and that you don't have everything available to you in every region.

To me, it's still a Total War competitor in the sense that I'll gladly play it over anything historical that CA has released within the last decade.

All these "What it's not"s just make me more excited. I *want* a simple, high quality, beautiful city builder on a smaller scale. Also, almost every other city builder is grid based and that's so boring for aesthetics. I'm so excited for the curved roads and land plots that actually fit into weird non-rectangle shapes. Friday can't come fast enough. :D

As long as he continues developing the game, and I can eventually make a real castle, castle town, and a beautiful church on the hill, I am all set.

That explanation from the dev sounds absolutely delightful to me. It seems to me to be a stronghold-esque game, with more in-depth (i.e. up to date) village / society building with some combat sprinkled in between as opposed to some village building and constant grinding warfare. Sounds like a delight for some casual gaming while still being able to deliver a gratifying feeling

Based on what I've seen there's only a very small number of things I'm hoping to change sooner rather than later one of which is units being more distinctive not like all being colour coordinated and having the exact same armour just something like having your crest on their shields or having an emblem on their chest would go a long way in distinguishing your troops from the enemy when watching fights in cinematic view, and another being AI lords actually building in their territories (which is getting worked on)

Banished, Kenshi, Songs of Syx - all solo or tiny-team developments. Indie is the gaming market, for everyone who isn't afflicted by FOMO.

Can you imagine a AAA developer being this honest about their game? They would let the marketing play out, then give excuses after they milked all the money out of people.

After a few days of playing, I'm still trying to nail down how exactly I feel about this game. TBH, its a new face on an old game concept. It feels much like the original Warcraft games. Lay out your town, get resources, conquer rest of map. Trade is expanded, the towns grow organically(ish), but you still lay out roads, put plots of houses down, and farm resources. Units come to attack you, defended, and then go attack them.

"I'm not the Lisan al-Gaib!" "The Lisan al-Gaib is too humble to admit he's the Lisan al-Gaib, that's how you KNOW he's the Lisan al-Gaib!"

The best comparison I can personally say for Manor Lords is, "What if Strongholds was a Single-player City Builder instead of an RTS?"

Can we also talk about how this problem wasnt created by Slavic Magic in the first place. The game was always promoted as a village builder foremostly and with that as its core. The demo was only a village builder and had no combat at all... It was literally always marketed as a village builder, its the village builder people wanted... ...but then a lot of grand strategy content creators somehow started projecting their desire for a new grand strategy game onto this and started parroting eachother.

The fact the Dev has been so proactive, transparent and honest will probably make more people wishlist it, ironically going against their intention.

I'm surprised I haven't seen more comparisons to Anno which kinda reminds me of this but instead of a island citybuilder with minor ship combat you have an inland citybuilder with minor land combat.

The fact that such a small budget game is already shaking up the gaming community is so satisfying. I know i wish listed manorlords and cannot wait for it. A lot of good streamers really show it off well. I am waiting for echelon games tips and tricks guides too

Manor Lords gives me the kind of vibe that the Sierra strategy games, such as Pharoah, the Caesar series, Zeus: Master of Olympus and so on, gave me as a kid. I'm very much here for it!

2 hour post release. The game broke Steam people were having trouble buying it. 136K online already and it's growing by tousands every time I look. Dude's got the money to make the game into what he wants already.

I've been a single dev on a few games and part of larger teams. I stopped making games because I work best alone and the stress was too much and juggling all the different aspects of working alone is mind-destroying- it's not just the game, it's the web site bulding, the videos/editing, the advertising, setting up the stores and so much more little things that add up- the coding and art, I can do that, I can make the games but it's all the other junk that I can't do and I never found someone to help me with that side of things. My games were pretty simple compared to this. I know he's got to be stressed AF, even if it's a great game. Even if he's got a banger, I'll bet he'll never be more stressed in his life as he is right now. Release Days are nerve wracking. It's different when you're part of a team, it's not all on you- but doing it alone- ugh, never again for me! I would never want to make a game like this on my own, even if it was the greatest thing ever made- with the attention this game is getting I'd probably have a heart attack when I hit that official release button. Even if it's not what it's cracking up to be he's got major respect from me, this stuff is not easy!

The dev is definitely right in lowering the expectations because after several early access vids its clear that Mannor lords is a pretty small scale citybuilder. Basicly after 3-4hours ur village is done and there isnt really much else to do. Yes there is some combat but again its really small scale. Overall the game focusses alot on asthetics and simply watching ur villagers and ur village. And thats absolutely fine. More remarkable for me is that, with franchises like Anno and City Skylines, it took a single dev to show the world how to build without grid :D And what can be done with time and love instead of just thinking from one investor meeting to another.

It is a city building game with battles that, as far as everyone is concerned, surpassed Creatively Assembly's own by adding long requested features and QoL into its mechanics. However, the game doesn't have Calvary or Sieges, even the city building aspect isn't fully completed, you can't make stones walls for examples. Time will tell if it becomes the Medieval game many TW fans wanted, but if anything, this game is a more of a Stronghold competitor than Total War.

Once this game gets mod support it will literally be game of the year. I also think it should be worth saying: it’s not that the dev is saying he doesn’t WANT to make giant awesome battles like in Warhammer. He’s just saying this game isn’t like that NOW. He may, literally, not know how to make those giant battles happen.

What I expect is touched up modernised Banished basically. Medieval Frostpunk/Endzone. It's not even like Rimworld, it is genuinely just streamlined Banished with it's own spin.

Manor Lords actually sounds like just the type of game I'd want to play and now I'm looking forward to its release. No disappointment here.

It's good they posted that because some of content creators only after few screenshots, and then even after demo, overhyped this as "TOTAL WAR KILLER"... like how? this is not even same genre...

One thing I would actually like, though, which fits with the scope of the game, and the name, is a way to manage your manor. Get a wife, have kids, hire servants, a lot of cosmetic upgrades for your manor/castle, different clothes for your lord etc. Stuff that's mostly about immersion, which you can safely choose not to really engage in, but is really fun for some types of players.

A historian I follow on Twitter mentioned that they consulted on Manor Lords. That's all it took for me to go buy the game as soon as I could.

There is one game that is very similar to Manor Lords: The Settlers 1. It's about managing the logistics, slowly building up your settlement and supply lines and have an occasional battle. PS: Legend has said repeatedly that Manor Lords is not like Total War during his streams. He has in fact pretty much described the game for what it is.

also very important point: It will release into EARLY ACCESS. The base of the game is done and more content will be added now in the EA phase.

I _really_ wanted this to be a game that plays like Foundation with added RTS elements and having played it for 10 hours since purchasing the game 15 hours ago I can confidently say it's _exactly_ what I hoped. Just.. in early access with a lot of room for development.

Hope DLC allows castle building, like stronghold, but just adds more regions and allows you to be a Baron or somthing.

Imposter syndrome in full swing. The game looks fun and relaxing to play. It'll only get better over time. I just hope it'll support mods at some point, like Cities Skylines supports mods: code mods and all that jazz. Imagine the vast community adding free content to the game :)

I think he dont need to worry to much Lots of big creators from the total war community play tested and streamed it already ... and feedpack was all in all positiv

Hats of to this developer for his honesty and being humble af. Just makes you want to pick the game up even more to support his work in the future.

Some really interesting things said here, and whilst in the interests of full disclosure I must first state I cannot wait for Friday evening UK time and fully intend to spend almost all of next weekend in Manor Lords, for anybody who is considering buying this to go take a look at some of the playthrough videos here on YT - and because he was mentioned in this video, in particular watch Legend's playthrough on extreme difficulty sessions , not for what he does in the video but for the things he says & even more importantly the things he doesn't say (oh, how I wish there were a way to use bold type in these comments) as he is reading out various chat comments asking what he thinks on a scale of 1-10, asking him to review it etc and he says no, no, NO to all, pointing out he is just having fun with it and enjoying playing the game for what it is. There are other channels I can mention - PartyElite comes immediately to mind, as I have been watching a long multi-episode run through of theirs that I am finding a lot of FUN - and cannot wait to give it a go myself

I appreciate a developer seeing the hype their game is getting and tempering expectations rather then building it to an impossible degree.

Something that is good is that the dev clearly knows what kind of game they want to make and are not rushing to try to throw a bunch of stuff in to try to get everyone to like it.

Relaxed and slow paced strategy... now that's actually selling it to me. I always played Stronghold like this. Just build up strong enough to let the enemy break their teeth on me over and over without ever going back at them and focus on my stuff instead.

This is a developer that we should all pay attention too. They're already telling us upfront what we as players will expect to get rather than being disappointed because of unnecessary hype. I'm really excited for this game not because of any comparisons to other titles but the fact that it will be something refreshing and different.

I want quality over quantity in my games, something a lot of bigger studio miss, having more to do doesn't always make the game more enjoyable and could potentialy be making it just more tidious. Having a well fledged core gameplayloop is far more important than adding other halfbaked mechanics imo.

when the dev clarified how it's more focused on city building than survival or empire management or massive armies fighting each other i got far more excited and hyped. It's exactly what this genre has been missing and it's exactly what i wanted for so long. Hopefully the dev enables modding (maybe even through Workshop, looking at you Colossal Order...) so that we can have even more settings and maps. This has the potential to be the next forever game and it's a 15GB indie made by one single person. I mean it's fantastic, the irony of it all.

You mentioned city-builders being in an on-going renaissance and you're absolutely right and I didn't even think about it. Let's hope games like this and the previously release DUNE game also bring forth a revival for RTS in the same way

I watched Legend Stream the game. It was vastly different than what I expected. He rarely used the 3rd person view and Its not at all a rts and was telling the viewers its not a Total War competitor. Its a City Builder. Before watching the stream, I thought it was going to be a mix of the two because of the hype. Glad the dev is trying to inform the player base before it goes on sale. I still might get it.

Expectation: "Banished" with more fluid building and some basic combat. Reality: One of the best ever depictions of how a feudal economy and military should actually work! A beautiful spiritual successor to the "Stronghold" games!

Manor Lords is exactly how I tried to play Age of Empires when I first got it out of the cereal box

As far as comparions go id actually put this firmly in the same catagory as Rimworld, for me the mechanics and purpose are very aligned. Rimworld was my kryptonite, ML is fast taking that crown

this is probably the type of expectations-setting that New World needed when it launched. I'm convinced at least half of the reason for that game's failure was people like Asmongold and shroud pretending it was a game it was never designed to be in front of their gigantic audiences. Later they tried to make it the game those people claimed they wanted and still they aren't playing it.

The number of content creators from other games that have suddenly jumped to Manor Lords is impressive and telling. Too many big devs/publishers have forgotten who pays their bills.

Thumbs up for a Pharoah reference. I compared ML to Caesar 3 myself. In reality, Manor Lords can be considered as the merger of Banished, Caesar and Stronghold games. And even in it's early, incomplete stage it looks very promising.

After playing the demo I knew this was going to be the RTS game of the year, hands down. The only other competitor would have been Falling frontier which is delayed until 2025 but its really nice to see DEVs being very honest about what their game is AND isn't

It's basically Knights and Merchants game from the 90s modernized and much improved.

Hats off to the devs. They’re doing such a good job in so many ways. I remember being so hyped up for Ancient Cities, because there were so many promises and expectations set for early release and it fell so short. I’m glad the dev is wanting us to have realistic expectations

Gotta respect upfront clarity and the foresight they're putting forward in saying all this. This game does seem very appealing.

This game sales it self because there are 0 cinematics. What you see is what you get. And the fact it’s the developer who shows humbly to lower our expectations speaks a ton of cleverness from him. And his own care for his own game. Definitely worth a buy from day 1

I love this! This gives me even more hope for the game. The desire to temper expectations when creating anything is so tempting and it so often proves to me that the creator really cares about their creation.

I love how the team set up expectation. I think too many game companies allow players to overhype a game because it makes Big Numbers, and Big Numbers good, but then we get the game and we fucking hate it.

im cool with a city builder, the furor over it being total war-esque in any way is really telling how people want alternatives to creative assembly or paradox stuff

Great points. we've got Ostriv for completely sandbox organic city building and we've got age of empires for city building with mostly combat, its kind of perfect to have something that combines both but isn't either in of itself. also Pharoah is so nostalgic to me and i'm always happy to see it mentioned somewhere lol

I think what will disappoint many people after release is it'll probably lack content big time. As in, maybe in 4 or 5 hours you've literally seen everything. But with the insane amount of money it's gonna make, and the honesty and good will this disclaimer shows, we can expect for a great amount of content to be developed over the next few years.

The statement just confirms that this is exactly the game I want; something to click on that isn't Timberborn while I wait for CS2 to get fixed to a point where I'll buy it.

I've had Manor Lords on my wishlist since not long after it was announced... And definitely don't want it to be Total War. I'm a little burned out on it and am looking for a change of pace, which is exactly what Manor Lords looks to offer.

I get the feeling that you’ll be so absorbed in growing and maintaining your settlement that you will do a lot to avoid a war with a nearby region, even seeing a state of war as a form of failure, more like real life. That’s what makes me more interested. If the pressures, “feel,” more real-world than other similar games, that’s what does it for me.

Been waiting on this game for 4-5 years. The developer is very cool and has interacted with the small community until it recently exploded and now everyone wants this. Everything they are saying the game is not makes me hat more excited for Friday.

I think the youtube gameplay we've seen so far clarifies what the game is about. The battles not being the focus is why I want it, and to have that Ostriv style city building is just perfect for me!

I'm looking for a citybuilder, not a Total Wars. Battles are a pain. If I can turn them off, I will. That's why I enjoy games like Banished and Ostriv.

"It's just its own thing." Exactly, and we are all looking forward to Friday! I thiink we are all smart enough to see the passion he has put into this game and can't wait to share in his project.

What this game does offer, if the developer does not take the money and run is a base for "Manor Lords 2" and beyond if he re-invests in a bigger developing team who knows what could be achieved? and regardless of the reception there will always be haters. It is certainly on my purchase list.

I appreciate the fact the dev was upfront about all this. It tempers expectations and places them exactly where they should be. It also as the video says gives you a clear idea of what the game is aiming to be. If I can slowly build a medieval city with stone walls and narrow streets, with a functioning economy, that would be all that I need out of a game like this.

I am dead center of the Venn diagram for this game. Everything mentioned plus "more interested in indie/AA/Eurojank than in AAA."

What I'm looking for is a Banished type city builder with some occasional light combat. But even if it is not that, I'm still primarily a city/colony builder genre player.

The core system is nearly perfect, just need a few additional micromanagement options and fix a few bugs. What it really needs is content.

I was just hoping for Banished with simple combat mechanics. Looks like its pretty close to it. And X4 is the best "space game" 😀

With the publisher giving out Full Metal Helms, a good PR stunt

This actually really assuages some of my fears because I really wanted a medieval city builder but as I saw more and more people saying stuff like it’s a total war killer kinda worried me that the focus would pivot away from the city building to being an rts, and while I really liked that addition to the formula when it was first annnounced and more was revealed but I never wanted it to be the focus so this statement (along with what I’ve seen from UKpostsr previews) really makes me feel satisfied

I picked it up yesterday and couldn’t stop playing it! It’s really chill and fun to play. All the details, music and stuff. You feel the Love of the developer!

With CS2's disaster, Slavic has a nice void that is ready and willing to be filled.

I think the biggest problem is that almost no streamer tells that it is early access, not actual full release.

The devs comments only strenghened my belief that this is my new favorite game. Slow paced, city building, no marriages and complicated politics, resource management, relaxed experience...perfect.

it's nice to see the devs temper expectations for those who might not be clued in, i didnt even know this game existed until like 5 days ago, but as a long time RTS/City builder enjoyer (i was playing SC brood war and Stronghold since i was like 6) the game gives me huge Farthest Frontier vibes and im just excited to have another deep modern city builder, even if the combat is shallow i'm not buying it for combat like i might do with the Total War Series, i just want a chill city builder with *some* combat

This really makes me more excited. I was worried that too much of the focus would be on the combat/RTS like aspects with everyone highlighting how detailed that would be. I was fully planning on playing this with combat off, cause I'm mostly interested in the management and building.

I've seen gameplay. I know what it is. And it's *exactly* what I'm expecting and wanting. I don't think the dev needs to worry.

Here's a game design idea. Have a mode where the build phase ends in seasons, on shared servers. Then, each community that played on the server, has the option of going to war with each other, at the end of the season. It'll come down to both your fighting skill, alliances and your logistics planning. Hoping the game works something like that, and I'll probably be drawn in to buying it too. Also, why not have wizards and other things of lore in the combat stage, too? Doesn't have to be super realistic, just fun. So much potential for expansion with this game. Fingers crossed its stable on release at least!

I've heard of this game, because of course I have, but my interest level was fairly low. But there was some interest there. I was curious, I suppose you could say, but not rushing out to buy the thing. Hearing what type of game it _is not_ actually raises my interest quite a bit. I would actually be quite interested in a pretty chill city builder. That's assuming the resource management is legit simulated instead of some kind of fake thing.

If you were to compare Manor Lords to another game, personally I would think it more like *Banished* but you make an army & fight a bit as well. If you don't know for certain what the game is about, there are heaps of channels currently doing playthroughs on the press early release thing. 6 channels I follow are doing so. I know exactly what this game is, how it works, what to expect & what not to expect. Side note, Pharaoh is being remade or something on steam btw Bell!

If it puts money and props into the hands of indie devs and throws down the gauntlet at the feet of the big lads at the same time, all power to him.

I love how indie games are taking over the past year, so much more love and care getting put in to these games than the AAA.