Manor Lords is currently another 2024 release smashing through the charts on Steam! Coming from developer Slavic Magic and publisher Hooded Horse, it's certainly impressive. Note: personal purchase, but publisher did send a key that I missed - woops.
A game that blends together a medieval city-builder with a full RTS game where you try to take over neighbouring lands, it's a really interesting mix that will suck away a lot of your time.
Thankfully, this Early Access release already works rather well on Desktop Linux thanks to Proton. I've been testing it with Proton 9, and apart from the pop-over tutorial videos being blank, it's been smooth-sailing. That is the only Linux-specific issue I've encountered with it so far as all other issues seem to be present on Windows too from reports I've seen on Steam.
Direct Link
Testing on my main desktop system with Proton 9 (Beta): Kubuntu Linux 23.10, AMD Ryzen 5800X, Radeon RX 6800 XT with Mesa 24.0.6 at a 2560x1440 resolution with the settings cranked up to the maximum (with FSR on Quality) it has been performing really well above 100FPS.
I'm going to be spending a lot more time with this one as so far I am thoroughly captured by the setting, the mechanics, the visuals and pretty much everything about it. There's certain rough edges though of course, with it being Early Access (where the dev estimates another year to finish it) but fantastic so far. It can be quite a challenge too, especially with how construction depends on having Oxen, if you're dumb (like me) and allow them to all run away early on, you're pretty much screwed. There's no doubt going to be plenty of tweaks to the balancing on that, but I gather it's not supposed to exactly be easy and you will learn from your mistakes as I did.
What blows my mind is that Manor Lords is mostly the work of solo developer Greg Styczeń. It goes to show what small teams can accomplish. Publisher Hooded Horse mentioned on X (formerly Twitter) that Manor Lords has already sold over 1 million copies in only about a day. They said:
Since yesterday's launch Manor Lords has already sold over 1 million copies & hit a peak Steam concurrent player count of 170k - highest ever for a city builder (or for other different genres like GSG/4x/colony sim).
Manor Lords is available to buy from:
Quoting: TheSHEEEPIt is a very promising game, but currently extremely bare bones.Spot on!
Definitely overhyped (for what it offers right now).
It was fun until you realize: That's all there is.. And then I got annoyed by the missing feedback: What food is produced at what rate?
It looks very nice but the problem is: some buildings look very alike. So you have to click your way through your village to find what you want.
And I found myself spending too much time moving families from one work to another. Feels like this needs some QOL. Or maybe I'm too dumb :D
Quoting: NezchanQuoting: redneckdrowSounds like you could use a few ox driving tips, Liam!
Why, yes, I do have a bluegrass/country/old-time tune for just about any occasion....
If you wanna be happy, listen to bluegrass music.
If you wanna be sad, listen to bluegrass lyrics.
Usually, yup. Your case in point.
That particular one always gets me, my father used to raise Walker Coonhounds. Still hunts on occasion.
But there are also plenty of counterpoints, too.
See more from me