Manor Lords Sales Top 2 Million Units - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 16 May 2024 / 2,366 Views
Publisher Hooded Horse and developer Slavic Magic have announced the medieval city-builder and real-time tactics game, Manor Lords, has sold over two million units.
This figure is up from one million units sold on April 27.
"Soaring past two million copies sold, Lords and ladies rejoice!," said publisher Hooded Horse. "April 26th marked the beginning, Venturing into Early Access with great success. Incredible achievements made possible by all of you. Congratulations to Manor Lords from Hooded Horse!"
The game released in Early Access for PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store, and GOG, and PC Game Pass on April 26.
Soaring past two million copies sold,
— Hooded Horse (@HoodedHorseInc) May 16, 2024
Lords and ladies rejoice!
April 26th marked the beginning,
Venturing into Early Access with great success.
Incredible achievements made possible by all of you.
Congratulations to @LordsManor from Hooded Horse! pic.twitter.com/m6hlcNflob
Read details on the game below:
your starting village into a bustling city, manage resources and production chains, and expand your lands through conquest.
Inspired by the art and architecture of late 14th century Franconia, Manor Lords prioritizes historical accuracy wherever possible, using it to inform gameplay mechanics and visuals alike. Common medieval tropes are avoided in favor of historical accuracy in order to make the world feel more authentic, colorful, and believable.
Organic City Building
Manor Lords provides a gridless city-building experience with full freedom of placement and rotation. Building mechanics are inspired by the growth of real medieval towns and villages, where major trade routes and the landscape influenced how settlements formed and developed.
- Spreading outward from a central marketplace, build your residential, commercial, and industrial districts following the natural lay of the land. Establish farms based on soil fertility, position hunting grounds according to animal populations, and ensure access to adequate resource deposits and forests to provide the raw materials needed for growth.
- Assign areas for housing and watch your residents build their homes in accordance with the historical burgage plot system. Each area will be subdivided based on your roads and the allotted space, and homes will scale accordingly.
- Build extensions behind larger homes to generate resources that would not otherwise be available. Homeowners don't just pay taxes – they grow vegetables, raise chickens and goats, and otherwise supply themselves and other townsfolk with essential needs beyond what your managed farms, pastures, and industries can provide.
- Guide your settlements through the unique demands and opportunities of each season, enjoying the bounty brought by spring rains and preparing for the harsh snows of winter.
Resource Management
From boots to barley and hides to honey, Manor Lords features a great variety of goods fitting of the era. Materials need to be transported and processed into finished products through production chains, and you must balance the basic needs of your people against the desire to produce luxury items to ensure happiness, manufacture trade goods for export, or forge arms and armor to aid in your conquests.
- Resources are littered across the map, encouraging you to expand and establish multiple specialized settlements. Extract valuable ores from your mining colonies, while villages devoted to agriculture, herding, or hunting supply the grains and meats needed to feed your growing populations. Will you spend your hard-earned influence to first acquire a rich source of iron for your smiths, or will you prioritize regions with fertile soil to serve as your breadbasket?
- Unchecked expansion will have a direct effect on the environment. Herds of deer will migrate away from encroaching civilization, lack of crop rotation will worsen soil fertility, and cutting down too many trees will result in deforestation.
- Establish trade routes and sell surplus goods to traveling merchants to enrich your population. Manufacturing and exporting a variety of goods will provide wealth with which to upgrade your peoples’ homes, import goods you can’t produce yourself, and through taxes on said wealth, fill your own coffers.
Medieval Warfare
Yours is but a small parcel of land in a vast territory, and the competing ambitions between you and rival lords will inevitably lead to conflict. Lead your people into battle, not as expendable units to be easily replenished, but as your beloved loyal subjects where every death is a cost worth considering.
- Train a retinue of skilled warriors to fight battles alongside the levies you raise from the town militia. At times these soldiers will be needed to suppress banditry, and at other times you will lead your men into battle to conquer or defend territory. When needed, mercenaries are a costly option to bolster your ranks. Will you raise the militia at the first sign of trouble, bringing your economy to a stand-still as your peasants pick up arms and rush to form ranks, or will you spend your personal wealth to hire bands of sellswords instead?
- Command real-time tactical battles, taking into consideration fatigue, weather conditions, and equipment. Position your troops wisely – a smaller force can defeat a larger enemy, if commanded well.
- Feel the cost of battle, even in victory, as each fallen soldier represents a lost person from your city.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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This game came onto my radar with Jason Kingsley, who is founder and owner of Rebellion (Sniper Elite, Alien vs Predator), but also known for his Modern History TV YouTube channel about medieval times, commenting on it (I think it was for Gamespot) - he had high praise for it, not everything perfectly historically accurate, but he seemed to like it.
My pc sucks so I can't play it but I have to say the whole "sole developer" controversy from this game was peak entertainment if you are into software/game development so well deserved sales.
Ooh, do tell? I watched a SpiffingBrit video on it and he mentioned such a thing a lot.
Ok so basically there is (or was) the idea that Manor Lords was developed by only one guy and when the game came out and everyone loved it some fans started questioning other developers of similar projects about why they took or are taking so much time to make changes or add content when one guy was able to make Manor Lords.
So in an interview with a developer of one of those other projects the interviewee said something like "Manor Lords is great and I respect the dev but we all know it isn't a sole developer project" and that is true if you make a little research the ML dev has said in the past that the project started with only him but when he started getting investments (like from Microsoft because the game is on gamepass) he was able to leave his job and pay freelancers for better 3d art and animations, also the music.
After that interview the ML dev decided to answer that statement with a tweet saying something like "I respect him but if he leaves his project he can be replaced, if I leave ML the game dies so I'm a sole developer" and that was crazy because while it's true that he owns the game so if he leaves the game dies that isn't the definition of sole developer at all and many small developers started making fun of the guy saying things like "Yeah I also made my hose by my self I only freelanced a construction company but without me there wouldn't be any house".
What made things even more interesting is that every year the sole developer controversy comes back, there is always someone from a promising indie game claiming they are sole developers and there is always people who argue against the idea saying things like it doesn't matter if you code, design, animate and make the music, if you used and engine such as unreal or unity you aren't a sole dev because engines are the work of hundreds of people. The fact that the ML dev put out there that statement of I'm a sole dev because if I leave the game dies made the conversations different and entertaining.
As far as I know the ML dev didn't insult anyone directly, the situation was only about his ego but he did a great job with the game so the sales are well deserved.
Thanks for the amazing write up and I can see why it's a funny situation. I watch this steamer who every now and then talks about how Slay The Spire (or Mega Cirt the devs) is just 2 guys, when the credits are massive. It makes me laugh because I know, no game is really made by 1 person, so yes there are 2 people (more now, they are rich!!!) mainly at the devs but that doesn't mean they didn't hire 25 people to help them.
There definitely is a big difference between 'solo development' and making something on your own, it seems.
