Manor Lords is not a Total War competitor, developer insists
The medieval within.
While Manor Lords may at first glance seem similar to the Total War series, its developer has said the upcoming strategy game should not be seen as a competitor.
Writing on Steam, Manor Lords developer Greg laid out a list of things the game is not. Top of this list are the very plain to see words: Manor Lords is not a Total War competitor.
Rather, developer Slavic Magic said its upcoming game is a "city builder with battles".
"Yes, battles are there, but not as huge or as frequent as some of you might expect," it wrote, stating that the majority of Manor Lords' gameplay is "focused on city building and management".
Other things that Manor Lords is not is an "Empire Management style Grand Strategy game", an RPG like Mount and Blade or a "competitive, fast paced RTS like Age of Empires or Starcraft".
The developer said on this last point specifically that all of this will ultimately result in a "more relaxed experience" for players, with the "high intensity moments" simply adding a bit of spice to Manor Lords when they occur.
Additionally, Slavic Magic said it was going to refrain from releasing a Manor Lords roadmap right now. "I've made a mistake once or twice before, of promising and working on a feature only to find out that the testers didn't care as much as I did and that they actually wanted something else," it wrote.
"So even if I have a plan, I want to adopt the philosophy of 'listen, verify, implement'. This way I expect the first month of patches to be just bug fixes and polish. During that time, together with Hooded Horse, we'll be collecting your feedback and then prioritising work based on what we hear."
If you are planning on jumping into Manor Lords on its early access launch later this month, but could do with a bit more knowledge about it, be sure to check out our guides. Here is one on Manor Lords' release date and time and here is one on the game's system requirements to get you started.