Manor Lords

Manor Lords is a medieval city-builder and strategy game that prioritizes historical accuracy over fantasy convention. The setting is drawn from late 14th-century Franconia — the architecture, art and economic structures of the period inform the game's mechanics directly, rather than serving only as visual flavor. Common medieval tropes have been deliberately avoided in favor of period accuracy, which gives the world an unusually authentic feel for the genre.

City-building is gridless and rotation-free, modeled on how real medieval towns grew organically from central marketplaces along trade routes and the natural lay of the land. Housing zones use the historical burgage plot system, where each residence gets a subdivided lot it can extend behind to produce vegetables, chickens, goats and other supplementary goods. Production chains run from boots and barley to hides and honey, with materials requiring transport and processing through specialized facilities. Resources are scattered across the map, which encourages you to expand into multiple specialized settlements — mining colonies for ores, fertile valleys for breadbaskets, herding villages for meat.

Seasonal weather, soil fertility, deforestation and animal migration all respond to how the player manages the land. Rival lords compete for territory in real time, and conflicts resolve through real-time tactical battles where fatigue, weather, equipment and positioning all matter — small forces can defeat larger ones with sound command. Crucially, your troops are subjects, not expendable units. Every death is a loss from your city's actual population, which gives battles a weight most strategy games don't manage. The project started as a solo passion project and has grown through community support into a full team.