Recently, a strategy game called Manor Lords has skyrocketed to the Steam best-selling charts, with over 1 million copies sold.
Xiaofa noticed this game, or because a few days ago, when he was bored and scrolled through station B, he swiped a special letter from the publisher to Chinese players.
The CEO of this publisher spoke in Chinese throughout the video, and the level was quite high, and there was no such thing as language disease, which made many viewers feel that they valued Chinese players, so it was very popular in the domestic game circle at that time.
And the quality of "Manor Lords" itself is also quite good, and the overall evaluation on Steam is currently very positive, which can be described as an excellent reputation.
Naturally, I also started this game and experienced it, and I plan to introduce to you what this game is all about.
Manor Lords is a game that blends farming and strategic combat, set in medieval Europe, where the player, as a lord, has to build a town from scratch and defend against attacks by other lords and even occupy their land.
Before the game starts, we need to pinch a person, there are nine character models to choose from, and the family coat of arms can be freely combined with colors.
There's really nothing to say about this, just a matter of personal preference.
In the setting before the start of the game, there are four kinds of end goals: growth, domination, conquest, and endless, and the first three have different victory conditions, that is, the game is over when the goal is reached, and the endless mode can be played forever.
This setting will affect the difficulty of the game to a certain extent, so it is recommended that beginners start with the growth mode.
At the beginning of the game, we only have 10 villagers and 1 cow at hand, as well as some basic supplies.
Its basic gameplay is very simple, that is, by building a variety of different buildings, assigning villagers to work in the buildings, collecting resources, and expanding the size of the town.
It should be noted that the log material in the game is set to only be pulled by the ox (send a cow at the beginning), so when building a building, there will be villagers who take the initiative to guide the ox to work.
While the cow is working, other tasks that require pulling logs will stall until the cow has finished its previous job.
Then there is a very common game routine, the villagers cut logs, which can be used to make firewood, can be used to make wooden boards, and wooden planks are necessary materials for building high-end buildings.
Then we have to make these villagers happy, build taverns for them, build churches, and meet their needs.
When the villagers are happy, the village will become famous, and more and more people will come to live there, and we, as lords, will receive more taxes and reach the pinnacle of life.
So what's the difference between this game and other farming games? Why does it sell so many copies?
I think it's probably because it's a little more "realistic".
As a very simple example, we started with 10 people, but they were two pairs and made up a family of 5.
When the work is assigned, it is all based on the family unit, and there are different divisions of labor, for example, the men go to the logs, and the women are responsible for guiding the cattle and hauling the logs to the warehouse.
In the beginning, everyone is displaced, but once they have a house, they will have children, and the children will be involved in the work.
When we build houses for villagers, the enclosed land must be enough to build a backyard, and the backyard of each family can be upgraded, for example, the vegetable garden can be used to grow radishes.
The chicken coop can provide a fixed income from eggs, sheep can provide leather, etc., and can also be upgraded to tailor shops, blacksmith shops and other shops, which can make leather armor and weapons for combat and sell to villagers.
But by upgrading these shops, the family will no longer be assigned to work in places like logging camps, and will only work from home.
In addition, whether they are raising chickens or growing vegetables at home, we can see the movements of each resident with certainty, and there will be no scene where villagers are working in factories while growing vegetables at home.
After that, the husband and wife were making clothes, and the son would be in charge of going to the market to sell clothes to other villagers, and so a small family-style workshop appeared.
The most real thing is that if someone in the family is sick, there will definitely be a family member who stays to take care of it, resulting in the shutdown of the whole family's work.
In addition, the militia and the war are quite interesting, we can obtain weapons and equipment through production or trade, and then form militia groups.
After being formed, these villagers will bring back the corresponding weapons and equipment and put them in their homes, and when they need to fight, they will put on the equipment and dry racks.
Although limited by the background, there are only cold weapons, but because the perspective can be zoomed in very close, watching two troops fight, and using strategy to defeat the enemy is actually quite interesting, there is a feeling of playing full battle.
What's more detailed is that the war will definitely kill people, it will lead to a decrease in the population of the village, and if the war is started when the farming is busy, it will affect the harvest and the speed of development, and the immersion is quite in place.
However, judging from Xiaofa's years of experience in playing business simulation games, its shortcomings are actually very obvious.
The first is that there are too few types and functions of its buildings, just twenty or thirty.
The second is that although you can occupy more territories to develop new cities, I don't know if it is to ensure the truth, every time you occupy a new territory, you need to start from scratch, and the materials and property between the territories are not shared, and can only be transported manually through the packing station.
It stands to reason that strategy management games should be able to be played for dozens or hundreds of hours, and the fun lies in constantly expanding your territory.
But this game,If it's a pure development mode and no fighting.,Ten hours or so of this thing is basically over the end.,No matter how much territory you occupy.,It's just a matter of playing it again from scratch.。
Not to mention those AI bandits, who can come to my village to steal things from two or three areas at every turn, and I also use weird settings like they have no ruts.
In summary, there is too little content and a lot of bugs.
Of course, the foundation of this game is still quite good, and it is still in the EA stage, so it can only be said that the future is promising.
But that's not bad for the developers, the studio Slavic Magic for "Manor Lords" has only one core developer, his real name is Greg Styczeń, and he hails from Poland.
A while ago, he was interviewed by Epic and talked about the name of the studio coming from a meme that netizens praised "The Witcher 3".
For the first three years of developing the game, he spent the first three years making videos during the day and developing them at night, before he received a MegaGrant grant from Epic Games and became a full-time developer.
Thinking of the various detailed textures and detailed settings in the game, the lack of gameplay seems to be acceptable now, and I hope that after this wave of debuts, I will quickly spend money to find some outsourcing to make more content.
At this stage, I don't recommend you to buy it, because even if it's discounted, it's more than 110, and it's not worth it at all with its game content, so I recommend you wait.
If you really can't do it, I recommend you to buy "Farthest Frontier", the original price is only 108, and it is all available for post-apocalyptic survival, construction, and strategy, which can be said to be a completely upgraded version of "Manor Lord".