Manor Lords archers are a little “ineffective” now because they were totally overpowered before: “This will surely take a while to get right”

Manor Lords, the medieval city-building strategy hybrid, is blowing up in early access right now, but its developer has said that archer balancing will “take a while to get right.”

Manor Lords’ early access launched to wide acclaim and massive success earlier this week, on April 26, where it passed records long held by Cities: Skylines and Civilization 6, selling over one million copies in just a single day. Despite a blockbuster performance, though, Manor Lords is still an early access game, which means wrinkles like unbalanced units will take a while to iron out. 

“I’m hearing some early reports about archers being ineffective,” the game’s social media account tweeted on launch day. “That was a last minute balance change ’cause they were reported to be OP (rightly so I think).” Greg Styczeń – the developer who worked on Manor Lords mostly all by himself, with a little outsourced help – seems to have swung archer power too far in the opposite direction. 

Course correcting on the ranged units “will surely take a while to get right,” the developer continues, so don’t expect to conquer battlefields by simply making it rain arrows any time soon, even if that is objectively the funnest way to play strategy games. 

Elsewhere, Styczeń noted that he doesn’t enjoy calling Manor Lords “historically accurate” because he’s trying to find the right “balance between gameplay realism” first. That doesn’t mean Manor Lords isn’t an incredibly immersive game, however, since that’s partly the reason it was picked up by publisher Hooded Horse. 

Check out how to get food in Manor Lords and stock up for winter.

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