We Love It's Guide to…
Govern a medieval settlement by assigning land to autonomous families, setting taxes, and steering their production and trade.
Released 10 Nov 2022
Govern Autonomous Families
Set Village Taxes
Balance Family Markets
Build a prosperous settlement in a unique simulation of a feudal economy - each family runs their shop, owns their goods, and trades with other villagers in a free market. You will manage the land, build houses, organise events, set taxes, and balance supply and demand while engaging in diplomacy!
Developed by Honestly Games · Published by Fulqrum Publishing
The royals entrust you with settling and governing new land. You shape the village from a lord’s perspective, assigning plots to families rather than directing individual villagers’ daily tasks.
Each family runs its own household and business, producing goods, keeping supplies, paying taxes, and trading with other families or visiting caravans. You set tax policies and production priorities, then manage supply, demand, and logistics to keep the settlement’s economy moving.
Expand the village by adding families, professions, and production chains. Campaign levels introduce mechanics, while customizable sandbox settings let you adjust the challenge; you can also engage with visiting noble houses through diplomacy.
In this sample, players who enjoy the game often praise its unusual family-run market economy and the depth of managing production, taxes, and trade. Some also enjoy watching the settlement grow and describe the pace as relaxing or the visuals as charming. These positives are often qualified by reports of late-game slowdown and villager AI problems, alongside criticism of the tutorials and concerns about updates.
Experience a highly complex simulation of markets within a sophisticated feudal city-builder. The royals entrusted you to settle and govern a new land, and it is your duty to exploit its riches for the benefit of the realm, your own wealth, and if you feel generous, the villagers alike! In order to do this, you will zone out plots, build houses, determine taxation policies, set priorities, and grow the supply chain alongside your population.
Families are the centrepiece of Lords and Villeins. Their profession dictates their occupation in the economy and the kind of businesses they can run. Once you assign them a plot of land and build their house, they will do so almost completely autonomously, all the while managing their stock, setting aside produce to pay taxes, and trading with other families and caravans for supplies and to maximise their profit.
Your role is to direct and regulate the economy. Balance the supply and demand, secure critical resources, and maintain stable growth. Lords and Villeins offers you a sandbox with an in-depth simulation and a great variety of strategies to manage it! Ranging from a fully communist economy where all produce is taxed and redistributed from your warehouse to a free marketplace with little to no intervention.
Logistics will challenge your management skills. As your settlement grows, you need to keep in mind the travelling distances, storage placements, private markets, and housing while reflecting on the terrain and its natural resources in order to fully optimise the productivity of each villager.
Highly customizable gameplay lets you craft the exact kind of game that fits your taste! Between a great variety of game modules and difficulty sliders, you can tweak the experience and focus on the elements of the game that you enjoy the most. While Lords and Villeins is primarily an economically driven game and military conflict plays only a small role, there are tons of options to explore and play with!
Unique family-management mechanic where you assign plots of land to autonomous families and manage taxation policies, production priorities and logistics
In-depth simulation of personal ownership and a market economy. Villagers manage storefronts to sell surplus goods and purchase food and material from others in a cooperative production chain. Prices of goods fluctuate based on supply and demand, and trading caravans facilitate import and export.
Fully simulated procedurally generated environment with a complex AI that can develop relationships, satisfy their needs, daily routines and personal ambitions.
Highly customizable difficulty settings, it is completely up to you how complex or laid-back your playthrough will be!
Campaign mode with 15 distinct levels that introduce game mechanics and teach players about the game.
Noble houses that visit your settlement, request resources and send gifts as you engage in diplomatic relations.
Ability to build a sprawling monastery with monks, churches and chapels that host the Sunday Mass, produce unique resources and treat villagers in an outburst of a sickness.
Villagers can be recruited as your personal servants or guards that protect villagers from crime.
Character designer lets you fully customise and name everyone in your ruling family.
160+ objects at your disposal to build, decorate and improve your settlement.
53 different zones and 40 professions that can be performed by the villagers.
130+ resources to be used in a fully functional production chain.
A number of domesticated animals and pets and thriving nature with wildlife.
Visually distinct seasons with a soundtrack of seasonal themes.
Fully simulated and dynamic world with changing temperature and weather effects.
Lords and Villeins is inspired by medieval history, in its themes and the production processes of goods and material. However, it should not be viewed as a historically accurate simulation of medieval society and its economy as it is straying away from it in many aspects to give players more variety and serve a fun and interesting gameplay.
| Platforms | Windows |
|---|---|
| Achievements | 50 |
| Age ratings |
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| Controller required | No |
| DLC / extras | 2 listed on Steam |
| Website | Official website |
