Gaming🎮 Manor Lords is 2024's must-play strategy game, even in early access – and a massive win for Game Pass

[Royal_Lizard]

One year of in-game time into Manor Lords, and I ran into a big problem. A gang of thugs and raiders threatened to invade my shoddy-but-growing demesne, and since I had invested approximately no resources into military defense at that point, things weren’t looking good. I had no money, either, and suddenly had to start raising taxes, throwing all those who work into a bit of a tizzy.

Technically, I could’ve done this earlier, but I had no idea my grungy little burgh was advanced enough to build a manor yet. We’ll get to that later. Anyway, the point is, the peasants were p**sed. My approval rating among the lowly was dropping fast, so – with the future of my treasury and the prospect of attracting newcomers at stake – I did what any good medieval lord would do. I built a church. Then I went real fancy, and upgraded it with clay roof tiles.

Everyone liked that. Not so much that they didn’t hate me a little when the first of the month rolled around, but I guess the ringing bells and holy, holy, holy distracted them enough to where they didn't care. Tax revenue and new villagers with their taxable income flowed in, just as I planned. I still had my lordly posterior handed to me when the bumpkin raiders did finally show up, but that’s mostly ‘cause the game’s combat tutorials – and basically all the tutorials – are kind of vague and tough to parse right now.

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