I've been wanting to play something about building, management, etc. for a long, LONG time. That typical game where we create an empire from scratch and that easily turns into a gigantic well of hours. But, although I had several candidates, I wanted to wait a few weeks for Manor Lords to be released, because from everything I had seen, it looked very good and seemed to be just what I was looking for. So, now that it's finally out, I decided to try it and see how it is.
As always in these games the plot is the least important and in this case nonexistent, there is no story here. Before starting we can choose if we want to have an easy, normal or extreme adventure. In my case, as it is my first game and I want to learn the basics of the game, I chose a normal difficulty. We will also have to choose our character and the logo of our kingdom. In the case of the logo, we can customize it as much as we want, we can even upload an external image and place it as logo. I decided to play a little with the designs provided by the game until I found one that I liked.
And although there is no story, we will have a main objective, which will depend on the type of game we choose. In my case, as I chose the standard game, we will start being lord of a small territory and our objective will be to conquer the rest of the territories. We will start with a small camp, a few stored resources and a couple of families. The 'families' is how the game refers to the citizens of our village.
Taking advantage of the resources we start with, we will have to build houses or manors to give shelter to the families. When a family moves into one of these houses we will have to be attentive to their needs, such as having access to water, food, a church, etc. These needs will evolve as our people evolve.
The resources we start with will contain a small amount of food that will allow us to live for a short period of time, but if we want to survive in the long term, it is vital that we build structures useful for obtaining resources, such as a hunting camp that will supply us with meat or a sawmill that will allow us to obtain wood.
Food and fuel will be the two essential resources in the game. Food encompasses things like meat, crops, breads, and so on. So we will have some variety to choose what we want to focus on as we progress. On the other hand, fuel will be firewood and charcoal, which will have various functions such as allowing citizens to light a fire to warm up or be used in a manufacturing factory.
One detail I love is that we will have the ability to control our ruler and walk around our town, looking at the things we have built, the citizens going about their lives, all of that.
Something curious and that gives a plus of difficulty quite interesting to the game is that each construction will require labor, and when those constructions are ready they also require a staff to work. The thing is that, in both cases, the people in charge will be the families that live in our village. This means that, if we have 4 families in our village and we have 10 buildings, only 4 buildings will be operational.
This forces us to expand, building more houses and increasing the number of families. However, this is a double-edged sword, because the more people live in the village, the higher the consumption of food and fuel, so we have to have a good balance.
In my case, because of what I just mentioned and because I made a mistake confusing the resources, when winter came in my town fuel was scarce, so my citizens could not get warm enough and began to die. An unfortunate event indeed.
But well, after the death of my first village I decided to start from scratch another game and try to manage things in a better way. Honestly, I'm liking the game a lot and I've only scratched the surface, there are many things I haven't tried because they are more advanced. I am intrigued to know how the conquests of other territories will be. Will you be able to dialogue or will it be mandatory to go to war? I will certainly continue playing and depending on what I meet, I may return to tell my adventures here.
All images/gifs shown in this publication have been taken and created by me
Llevo mucho, MUCHO tiempo queriendo jugar algo de construcción, gestión, etc. Ese típico juego donde creamos un imperio desde cero y que se convierte fácilmente en un pozo gigantesco de horas. Pero, aunque tenia a varios candidatos, quise esperarme unas semanas a que se estrenase Manor Lords, ya que por todo lo que había visto, tenía muy buena pinta y parecía ser justo lo que estaba buscando. Así que, ahora que por fin ha salido, decidí probarlo y ver que tal está.
Como siempre en estos juegos la trama es lo menos importante y en este caso inexistente, no hay historia aquí. Antes de comenzar podremos elegir si deseamos tener una aventura fácil, normal o extrema. En mi caso, como es mi primera partida y quiero aprender lo básico del juego, elegí una dificultad normal. También habrá que elegir a nuestro personaje y el logo de nuestro reino. En el caso del logo, podremos personalizarlo tanto como queramos, incluso podremos cargar una imagen externa y colocarla como logo. Yo decidí jugar un poco con los diseños que te proporciona el juego hasta encontrar uno que me agradó.
Y aunque no exista una historia, si tendremos un objetivo principal, el cual dependerá del tipo de partida que escojamos. En mi caso, como elegí la partida estándar, comenzaremos siendo señor de un pequeño territorio y nuestro objetivo será conquistar el resto de territorios. Iniciaremos con un pequeño campamento, unos cuantos recursos almacenados y un par de familias. Las ‘familias’ es como el juego se refiere a los ciudadanos de nuestro pueblo.
Aprovechando los recursos con los que iniciamos, habrá que construir casas o señoríos para darles cobijo a las familias. Cuando una familia se muda a una de estas casas deberemos estar atento a sus necesidades, cosas como tener acceso a agua, alimentos, una iglesia, etc. Estas necesidades irán evolucionando a medida que nuestro pueblo evolucione.
Los recursos con los que iniciamos contendrán una pequeña cantidad de alimentos que nos permitirá vivir durante un periodo corto de tiempo, pero si queremos sobrevivir a largo plazo, es vital que construyamos estructuras útiles para la obtención de recursos, como un campamento de caza que nos suministrará carne o un aserradero que nos permitirá obtener madera.
El alimento y el combustible serán los dos recursos esenciales en el juego. El alimento engloba cosas como la carne, cosechas, panes, etc. Por lo que tendremos cierta variedad para elegir en que queremos enfocarnos a medida que progresemos. Por otro lado, el combustible será la leña y el carbón, los cuales tendrán varias funciones como permitir a los ciudadanos encender una hoguera para calentarse o usarse en alguna fabrica productora.
Un detalle que me encanta es que tendremos la posibilidad de controlar a nuestro gobernante y caminar por nuestro pueblo, mirando las cosas que hemos construido, a los ciudadanos hacer su vida, todo eso.
Algo curioso y que le da un plus de dificultad bastante interesante al juego es que cada construcción requerirá de mano de obra, y cuando esas construcciones estén listas también requerían de un personal para funcionar. La cosa es que, en ambos casos, los encargados serán las familias que habiten en nuestro pueblo. Esto quiere decir que, si en nuestro pueblo tenemos 4 familias y contamos con 10 construcciones, solo 4 construcciones podrán estar operativas.
Esto nos obliga a expandirnos, construyendo más casas y aumentando el número de familias. Sin embargo, esto es un arma de doble filo, ya que mientras más personas habiten en el pueblo, el consumo de alimentos y combustible será mucho mayor, por lo que hay que tener un buen equilibrio.
En mi caso, debido a esto que acabo de mencionar y a que cometí un error confundiendo los recursos, cuando llegó el invierno en mi pueblo escaseaba el combustible, por lo que mis ciudadanos no pudieron calentarse lo suficiente y comenzaron a morir. Un evento desafortunado sin duda.
Pero bueno, luego de la muerte mi primer pueblo decidí comenzar de cero otra partida e intentar gestionar las cosas de una mejor forma. Sinceramente el juego me está gustando bastante y eso que solo he arañado la superficie, hay muchas cosas que no he probado porque son más avanzadas. Me intriga saber como serán las conquistas de otros territorios ¿Podrás dialogar o será obligatorio ir a la guerra? Sin duda seguiré jugando y dependiendo de con que me encuentre, puede que regrese a contar mis aventuras por acá.
Suelo ver en esos juegos que los primeros intentos las primeras poblaciones terminan muriendo.
Tiene muy buen aspecto este juego.
It's a really fun game, and had been on my radar for years. It reminds me a bit of banished, but seems to do things a bit differently.
Having so few families in the game makes the first deaths so hard to come back from.
!PIMP
Yes, I think the family system is quite original. If I compare it with other games of the genre that I have tried, this one seems to me a bit more “realistic” and, therefore, more complicated in some things.
Oh heck bruh! My sister is playing this game and I've got to say I don't think I've the patience! Although it is very in depth and that bit is cool!
Yes haha, it can be very dense compared to others, which I admit makes it a bit hard for me too 😅.
Well some people do seek more of a challenge! Although I've been eyeing it since I saw your post 🤣😄