Manor Lords Potential Upcoming New Feature Will Totally Change The Game

Summary Slavic Magic is gauging Manor Lords feedback through a Discord poll for potential early access 2024 goals.

An AI cities and diplomacy option is leading the poll, followed by castles and siege mechanics.

AI cities and diplomacy would enrich Manor Lords, creating a more immersive gameplay experience.

Manor Lords is already a surprisingly robust game for a title that's just hit early access, but an update that might be coming in the future could up things to a whole new level. As the project of solo developer Slavic Magic, the city builder with a side helping of battle tactics has picked up a lot of positive attention after its mounting pre-launch anticipation. It isn't without its limits, however, and Slavic Magic is currently in the process of deciding just where the game's future will take it.

It's common for early access titles to have specific roadmaps that lay out future plays, but Slavic Magic has avoided deploying an official Manor Lords roadmap so far in the interest of a more flexible approach. Letting community feedback shape the initial priorities for further development has the potential to more effectively strengthen the game, even if it means that there's less clarity surrounding its direction. Slavic Magic has also proposed using a beta branch model to let players see changes while they're being worked on and offer feedback before stable releases, which could be an additional benefit.

Related Manor Lords Preview: "Well Worth The Wait" Manor Lords, out now in early access, offers a painstakingly detailed, historically accurate recreation of medieval life in a neat city builder/RTS.

Manor Lords Is Taking Feedback On Early Access Plans

A Discord Poll Presents Options For Development

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At the moment, Slavic Magic is curating Manor Lords feedback through a Discord poll, which asks community members about which early access goals they favor for 2024. Five options are on the table, which range from major additions to focusing on polish.

"Castles, town walls and siege mechanics"

"AI cities and diplomacy"

"Interesting late game content & economy challenges"

"Simply a perfect balance and polish with no bugs"

"Other map types (river, coast) + industries"

All of these have significant potential to improve Manor Lords, but not all are racking up equal levels of enthusiasm from the community. Currently leading the poll is the "AI cities and diplomacy" option, which has received roughly a third of the votes cast so far. "Castles, town walls and siege mechanics" takes a not-so-distant second place, while the other options seem to be more or less out of the running without major changes in momentum.

Related How To Get Influence Fast In Manor Lords Influence in Manor Lords is required for diplomacy and pressing claims, but it can be a hard resource to get fast without upgrading certain locations.

AI Cities Would Make Manor Lords Better

The Off-Map Baron Is Currently Underwhelming

Custom Image by Katarina Cimbaljevic

The combative element of Manor Lords comes into play against a Baron who claims regions of the map, but the Baron himself is only an off-map presence. Battles themselves still play out in an engaging manner, but it does provide a significant hit to the overall immersion and makes the Baron less of an interesting or fully realized threat. The only real settlements in the game are the ones that the player builds, which can make the scope of the game feel somewhat artificial.

It's not surprising that there aren't any AI cities in Manor Lords yet, as it's a tall order in terms of development. Ensuring that AI cities are reasonably functional and somewhat diverse would require some complex programming, especially for a solo developer to implement. It's also not a feature present in most city-builders, although like the option to stroll city streets that Manor Lords features, Anno 1800 does offer a precedent for its inclusion.

Related If You’ve Played Manor Lords’ Early Access Content, This City Builder Is A Perfect Next Game Manor Lords is in Early Access and missing features that would help it feel more complete, but another, similar city builder is a perfect replacement.

The diplomacy part of the goal also isn't something to overlook, as the best PC strategy games are bolstered by the option to avoid battle altogether. The feature wouldn't have to be staggeringly robust – Manor Lords doesn't need to have all the aspirations of a Paradox grand strategy game or something similarly focused on complex options – but some basic options would go a long way.

Manor Lords does technically feature a diplomacy option already, but it's currently a very limited system that's principally used for declaring war and sending letters.

None of the proposals for early access plans are bad ones, so there isn't any losing scenario set on the table. If AI cities and diplomacy does become the focus for 2024, however, it's definitely one that should prove to enrich the game as a whole. It's possible that many of these features could end up coming to Manor Lords in the long run, but getting to face a Baron that's more than a basic threat could be an exciting way to turn the game in a new direction.