I don't see a post about the game, and based on my experience with it and the numbers, it may be because half of you are playing it right now. Game went to the top of Steam's sales list on Day 1, which is impressive, because that list is by volume of revenue, and it displaced CounterStrike 2, the Steam Deck, and Helldivers 2. So, an early access game on sale for $29.99 on the first day made more money than CS2 skins, Helldivers 2, or the Steam Deck. Top concurrent players was in the 160K range, and the game had 3 million wishlists on launch day.
The game is excellent. Imagine if Banished and one of the earlier Total War games had a child, and that child married the offspring of Age of Empires and Cities Skylines and had kids of their own. There's seasonality, you have to plan ahead when you produce food-- but you don't have to micromanage-- and traffic is taken into account, so the more traffic a road sees, the wider and deeper the ruts get. You can double up families in housing if you lay the plots out correctly, and cottage industry can produce food and export goods.
And the game was developed by one guy. He contracted out some work (the music is stellar, and the voicework is atmosphere building), but this is a 7 year passion project from one guy.
Owned the game a day, have played almost 10 hours. 11/10, quintuple A game from one turbo autist with a dream.
Oh I watched a Let's Play to see what it was.
The game is good, has no forced diversity and your militia is comprised of the men of the village.
Support good based work when it happens.
I'm currently replaying Banished and likely will get Manor Lords if I get a decent computer and opportunity to play it.
P.S. : Another recent colony-management I really like is Timberborn. Manage a colony of beavers. Secure water with a dam for droughts. Grow crops, manage your ressources, especially water ( you can divert water into irrigation canals. There is evaporation. ).
Costumize drought settings to make your personal Apocalyptic Drought survival Hell, or chill in a mild predictable climate. There are no combats.
There are two beaver factions to pick from ( second one unlocked after pushing a colony far enough ). The tutorial does its job well. The real challenge begins at Hard mode and the exquisite torture lies in the costum settings.
It's on the High Seas to test, and on GoG to buy ( Link ), which means you get the full install file. No woke shit. No microtrasaction. Currently on sale for USD $20. ( Yes it's Early Access. Yes it's fully playable and worth the price. )
A small Timberborn map can run on a potato laptop with 4GB RAM and integrated graphics. Largest maps with huge colonies need a better computer to run smoothly.