Manor Lords grow and become beautiful; Register for the test and support Epic Games

“Game development is quick and easy. Unless you want to do it right” – these are the words with which our original game developer, using a pseudonym, began his latest announcement Slavic magicWhich for more than five years Works Nice strategy Manor Lords, in the reality of the Middle Ages. About a year and a half ago, he planned to release the title in Early Access, but In the end, he decided that after such a long time in production, many items had to be reworked, as it were, from scratch. That’s why we still don’t know when to expect early access, let alone launch Manor Lords on the computer.

Support Epic Games and search for publishers

Before we move on to discussing it, three important announcements have been made.

• originator Manor Lords brag that he won Financial support from Epic Games. This, combined with the funding from fans collected on Patreon, allowed him to completely move away from the “normal” business and focus only on the game. Despite financial support from Epic Games, The title will be released not only on the Epic Games Store, but also on Steam and GOG.com. It will also be available on the GeForce Now streaming service.
• Manor Lords I found a publisher. It’s the company hooded horseWhich, among other things helped promote old world.
• Slavic Games also invites you to participate in the closed alpha version of the game. However, he warns people who only think about the possibility of verification Manor Lords Free – still very frustrating production. If you still want to take the test, join it server on discordFind a bot named AlphaBot and send it a message that says “!alpha” (without the quotes). Then, you just have to answer a few questions and wait for the confirmation (sometimes a very long time), which will arrive at your email address.

Now let’s get to the game. A few days ago, Slavic Games published a large-scale single Advertisingwhich convinces the players of that The past year and a half has not been in vain or anything Manor Lords Still worth the wait. What exactly has changed?

realistic cities

• Cities now look more realistic. The developer has developed a mechanic that allows the edges of residential plots to adapt to their surroundings (such as roads), resulting in more organic forms. If the allotted space is large enough, outbuildings (such as gardens, barns, or chicken houses) may appear at the back of the house.
• Upgrading an apartment building to a high standard is to allow it to be converted into a craft workshop (brewery, blacksmith, tailor, etc.). This makes it easier to create this type of plant in the city centers, and not – as before – in the suburbs (if, of course, we do not want to demolish the buildings).

Source: Steam / Slavic Magic.

uniform artwork

• To unify the style of play, The creator decided to define the procedure at the end of the fourteenth centuryin the reinforcement area Franconia – Then they belong to Holy Roman Empire. With the help of a specialist in medieval architecture in southern Germany, he met him on Discord The author redesigned all the buildings.
• Use a similar approach when modifying and augmenting a variety of character models (their clothes, armor, hairstyles, etc.), which at the same time have become much prettier – largely thanks to Slavic Magic’s collaboration with one of the NPC creators. Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Medieval but varied

• Greater diversity in citiesThat players will create will be provided by an underground network of water veins. A well must be built on one of them, defining the center of each settlement. The probability that two players will build them in the same place is relatively low, and therefore their cities will also be slightly different. The same system was used to diversify soil fertility.
• what is important, The well was somewhat connected to the market – Now they are separate units for the center of a particular settlement, with basic luxury. This is to ensure that kiosks are not built on the outskirts of cities, which – as we know – did not happen in medieval realities.

Medieval sounds

• The sound has also been improved – Now it should better reflect what the player is looking at.
• When creating an audio track for Manor Lords Slavic Magic has teamed up with Pressure Cooker Studios. The game should look appropriate “medieval”but the pitch will not lack cinematic flair.

More combat units

• Initially, the only units capable of fighting were mercenaries. At the request of the community The author made it possible to create militia units and assemble them into larger processions – So it is not difficult to manage the big battles.
• Interestingly, the peasants of such a group did not need identical weapons. According to the developer, this would upset the realism of the game, although he confirmed that he left the door to adding specialized branches in the future.

New Animation

• All character animations have also been created from scratch – Partly through the use of a motion capture system, but the results obtained in this way had to be manually adjusted, which – as the author said – “took forever”.
• At the same time, fans were assured that the combat animation is simple, so that units do not have to wait for their turn to strike during combat (as for example in some games) Total War series).

players comfort

• The areas should be large and functional – Not only symbolic – but it will not be reproduced on a 1:1 scale. In favor of realism, the author has also abandoned the mesh and fog of war.
• At the request of testers, Slavic Magic added High zoom capability of the cameraWith every effort made to ensure that the game presents itself well from any height.

Source: Steam / Slavic Magic.

Agriculture and Livestock

• It has changed too farming systemWhich was very repetitive and full of detailed management. Now, instead of three structures (bull farms, fields and barns), there will be only one – a farm – and the personnel assigned to it do their work automatically, guided only by the type of crop that we have indicated as priority.
• The testers lacked realism with regard to livestock – the livestock simply appeared after the actual building was erected. Initially, Slavic Magic intended to add traveling livestock dealers and an animal market to the game. In the end, however, he created Cattle Trader BuildingWhich deals with the import and export of animals (even their age is taken into account).

Source: Steam / Slavic Magic.

New trading system

• The commodity trading system has also been reworked. The stalls that the merchants should have been attracted to were set aside, as they impeded the exchange of goods between the regions. Replaced with the Trade Overview windowTo set export and import limits.
• However, the attractiveness of a market has not lost its relevance – using your own peasants to travel with goods takes longer than relying on the services of foreign merchants.

Other changes

• The creator solved the problem of wood in an interesting way. in Manor Lords From the beginning there should have been two types of it, but their use was always obvious. Ultimately, the game will feature ‘timbers’, which are large logs that animals must transport, and ‘firewood’ – which a human cuts and transports.
• Rebellion mechanic added – Dissatisfied citizens can turn into bandits and start looting and burning the city. Based on it, raid mechanics will be implemented in the future.
• There will be in the game Advanced Badge CreatorWhere we decide the details beyond color and code. They will be shown on unit coats.
• Lots of bugs fixed and AI performance improved.