I guess you could say that Lords and Villeins is an adventure. Although I enjoy sim and city-building games, I haven’t yet mastered the strategy genre, and this game wouldn’t be much of anything without it. There is no time to relax, and balance is essential whether the goal is to acquire gold, and supplies, or simply to ensure that everyone has a roof over their heads.
When I started playing Lords and Villeins, I assumed it would be a nice little simulation of establishing a city in which I would have complete control. You will be in charge of managing peasants, servants, noblemen, and clergy, as well as a variety of companies, in the game. Forest, fishing, and farming are the three main occupations, but even the tutorial (which takes a whole day to finish) introduces you to carpenters, innkeepers, miners, hunters, and other occupations. Your goal is to ensure that every villager has access to what they require, produces what is necessary, and cooperates to build a thriving community.
Not as easy as it seems. Don’t even try to play Lords and Villeins if you don’t have enough time for an MMO. Simulation games are my go-to genre since they’re simple to put down and pick back up whenever I want.
While this might be true in the far future, it will take a lot of work to master the fundamentals now. Everyone runs out of straws just as you start to think you have a system in place in Lords and Villeins, and no one is impressed with you.
Having said that, I don’t want to disparage Lords and Villains. I want to repeat the training so I can fully understand the fundamentals and create a strong community. I want to cover the entire area in structures, have a large number of farm animals, and accumulate as much straw as I desire (the straw shortage got to me).
Everybody should be able to have walls and floors made of durable materials, which is my goal. I’d like to see my people content and happy, or even hang out with a few nobles. I feel like a slumlord at the moment.
I do not wish to denigrate Lords and Villains.
This illustrates how intriguing and in-depth Lords and Villeins are if I’m playing this poorly and still want to play. There are undoubtedly some problems with the game’s early stages. The tutorial attempts to walk you through each stage of a very intricate game, but it omits so many of them. You learn about some, but not all, of the goods used in homes and farms, therefore you were unaware that you needed a flailing area to make straw (seriously, still mad about it).
The type of renting systems that are offered in the game is never explained, which is very crucial. One of the first choices you have to pick is between Socage, Fee-Farm, Stewardry, or Frankalmoigne, and at this point in the game, I’m still sort of speculating as to what each one implies. Although it might seem clear to some, this isn’t the case, and if you don’t understand what’s happening, it can seriously ruin your game.
The same holds for any game-related taxes and levies. I was aware that there would be a tax day, but I had no idea when it would occur or what I would receive. Because it isn’t specified how high you should set your taxes, I merely slightly increased everything and received almost any money when the time came. A pair of new eyes would be a welcome addition to the game, diving in headfirst to observe where certain things might not be as obvious as they had thought.
The good news is that because of its early access, Lords and Villeins already have a fairly robust community on Discord and Steam. Someone guided me through a few steps and put me back on the right road when I ran out of resources and couldn’t figure out why. Although some things might change when the entire game opens today, there are also plenty of guides.
Given that the residents of my town rely significantly on AI for their employment and relationships, I’d like to have a little more control over what they do. It would be excellent if they could be rushed through some tasks, particularly when building. I’m interested in following Lords and Villeins’ development over time. I still need to master the family types I already have, but early access alone provided several new family kinds. You will never run out of things to do in Lords and Villeins since there are so many zones, almost 100 distinct resources, family management, community management, animals, relationships, seasons, and more. Although you will need to set aside some time to study this strategy-based city-building simulator in depth, I believe it will be worthwhile.
