itch.io

My game named Manor is surely in English. I also have a game named Panství which is a Czech version of Manor, but that's not the one i linked in my comment.

I already played your game, looks interesting. I will follow the development.

Interesting. It looks like you are aiming for something quite similar as do I with my game Manor.

Jaké herní mechaniky by hra měla obsahovat? Co vše by v ní mělo být simulováno?

Jak hru pojmenovat?

Hello, I tried the game and finished the tutorial campaign. I absolutely love the setting! Ogniem i mieczem is one of my favourite movies (I haven't read the book yet, but I have to). The encyclopedia is useful resource and adds a lot to educational potential of the game. Also using the paintings for units is a good idea (although the 19th century painters didn't always paint everything correctly).

Now some ideas:

• In battle, it would be nice to be able to show some information about  enemy units. Either in the right panel when clicked on it, or atleast some tooltip with unit name when hovering over the unit.
• When placing the units before the battle, there should be way to change the position of a unit once placed.
• Artillery range of 2 hexes seems as a bit too small. Maybe 3 hexes would be better?
• Even most basic sounds would add a lot to battle immersion.

Now something not related to gameplay. I am pretty sure, that Skrzetuski wasn't colonel, but namiestnik (could be translated probably as "deputy"?). Also, pancerni didn't form regiments, but chorągwie ("banner"?, "battalion"?). 

Hello, I tried the game and I like the general idea. Since you say that it's almost unplayable early version,  there is probably no point for some deep thoughts, as you probably know very well about a lot of problems and have a lot of ideas about things you want to implement. So I will just point out some small issues, that can be quite easily fixed:

• Typo in country name: Meckelburg instead of Mecklenburg
• Typo in date: Mars instead of March
• Typo in French ruler name: Louie instead of Louis
• Scrolling in battle works opposite way than scrolling in world map. The way it is in battle (scrolling towards yourself gets the camera farther) feels more natural.
• Panning speed of world map is too fast.

I'm looking forward to future updates.

Hello, I tried the new version. Here are my thoughts about it.

• Game window is now properly centered and maximized, great!
• The unit selection panel is a very good addition. I would appreciate if the unit could be centered from this menu as well. For general, there is shortcut GG, but if I didn't miss something, there is no way to center camera on other units.
• The panel for game speed control is much better then the previous solution.
• It's good that the in-game briefing can be collapsed now, but the arrow on the edge si so tiny, I didn't notice it at all and discovered this feature by accident. Maybe make the lower edge with arrow a bit thicker?
• The main issue for me is, that buttons in menus still don't give any feedback when clicked. At least the slight color tint, which is used in the units selection panel, could be used on other buttons as well?
• When you start a campaign, the campaign briefing screen contains only "next" button, which means there is no possibility to get back to main menu, other than starting the first mission and then getting back through options menu. 
• There is a small typo in "demo campaign" pre-game briefing (fonctionalities).
• The geographical names are shown only by clicking on the flag, which is not very convenient, especially when they are noted in mission briefing which means they are important (e. g. demo campaign, Spiegelwald) and you have to click through the flags until you find the correct one.

Looking forward to future updates!

Also, I released new version of my game as well: https://dejiny.itch.io/manor/devlog/652369/version-0120

• I know that long term objectives are important, but in this matter I'm aiming more towards the Paradox grand strategies style, where you don't really have some specific ultimate objectives. As I said, the main goal will be definitely prosperity of your manor, but there could be some partial, specific objectives. Objectives could work much better in a case, suggested by one czech fan: You don't play as a lord, but as a administrator, i. e. the main official, and you receive objectives from the manor lord (who can be absent). But I'm not sure if this would work, because your powers as a official would be smaller and therefore there would be fewer things you could do in the game.
• Emphytheutic law: Well, the best way to explain it is probably calling it "hereditary rent". The holder of homestead still must pay rents and has some other duties, but his homestead can be inherited by his children, which isn't the case with actual rent.
• Yes, we can say, that fun and rewarding life of the lord would be success. Which mainly means enough income. Then you can make your living place comfortable, buy some art etc.

Public discussion is completely fine.

Hello, thank you!

• Positive income: The economy is very crude with many random numbers, so it's okay now. You should make sure, that meierhofs have all fields cultivated (enough corvey forces) and a lot of animals and that all dominical buildings are repaired.
• Managing: Yes, direct managing of individual serfs will never be there, because it didn't happen in real world. There is a long way to make it look live, but it's one of the goals. And since you mentioned Banished, I like it in many ways, but its economy works similar as in other games of the genre – everything is centralized, all produce goes to one place and all people are just workers that work in facilities you build. Which is quite far from (central european) early modern reality.
• Construction: Actually, there will be some "this constructs there", but only in cases, where it historically makes sense. It will mainly apply to the facilities of the manor, which are in the noble's direct possession. As for serfs' homesteads, in the next version (already released in Czech, not yet in English), there will be possibility to give a serf just a plot of land, on which he will build new homestead himself. The location of plots for new households is however predetermined in a way, that the villages naturally grow in some directions.
• Learning: Yes, one of the goals is to present, how an central european manor actually worked in early modern period.
• Names: In the (very far) future, there will be different manors based on real ones and the people's names should always reflect the language and era. In this case, it's based on manor of Žacléř/Schatzlar, which is in Sudetenland and therefore the names are in German and use old German way of creating female surnames by addding "-in". (I actually used real names of people of this specific manor from archival documents.)
• Vacant positions: There is a lot of information in the game and will be much more, but some of the important things should be easily visible at every time and this is one of them, because the lord would definitely know that some important position is vacant in real life.
• Landscape: I'm glad that you like it. Graphics aren't priority at this stage, but I'm gradually trying to make it look at least a little decent.

• Mid and long term objectives: You mean in the development or for the player? If for the player, there aren't really any yet. Now it's just about getting a good income and having a good renown, but the renown mechanics mostly aren't implemented yet. There will be more.
• Strategies: Buying of households by serfs gives you money, but you lose some control of the household (at this time it's just inability to expel the serf from the household). But with the control, you also lose some responsibilty (e. g. repairs, not implemented yet). Historically, most of the households were buyed by serfs through time, so it should be beneficial as well in the game. The problem is, that the emphytheutic law is quite complicated and I have to study it more. (It's not just buying and selling as we know today, and after buying, the serf didn't own in it the way it is today. It was something between ownership and renting. There was a lot of dispute around it among historians.)
• Other cities: Although each manor was kind of a self sustaining world of its own to a certain degree, interaction with neighbouring manors and cities happened a lot, so it will definitely be in the game.
• Mill repair: The maintenance must be set to certain level and manager must be assigned. Then the condition will get gradually better (the repair is not instant). Maintenance, repairs and improvements of the manor's facilities will be more complex in the future.
• Future of the game: There will be more of both. There were certaily more possibilities to interact both within the manor (officials, personnel, serfs, church) and outside of it (other manor, cities, authorities, church etc.) in the real life, that can and will be implemented in the game. But it should stay focused on the administration of the manor, so there probably won't be things like some dynastic stuff of the lord and so on. Interaction with king was also very rare for some countryside noble (if he didn't have for example some rank at the court). But I am certainly open to any ideas, what should have priority in the gameplay.

Thank you very much once again. If anything from what I wrote is still unclear or some other questiong or ideas arose from that, I'll be glad to answer.

Btw. how is your game going? Will there be a new version any soon? :D

Everything sounds great! Now I am looking forward to the next updates even more.

Concerning the battalions command and micromanagement:  The ability to split and merge the regiments would probably solve the issue for me. I am generally in favor of less micromanagement (that's why I like games like Command Ops 2 or Graviteam Tactics: Mius Front), but if there would be scenarios, where you have only like 2 or 3 regiments, then even commanding each individual battalion wouldn't be too much micro. But splitting the regiment in half or something like that would be probably enough.

Yes, the format Day XX – XX:XX would be even better.

Hello. I like the general idea of the game and I will certainly follow the development. Some tips, thoughts a problems:

• When started, i don't have the window centered and fully maximalized. There si a margin on the right and on the bottom. I don't know, if it's specific to my system, but i don't have this problem with any other game.
• The buttons should give you at least a little bit of feedback, when pressed (coloring, shading, sound or something). They also should be graphically distict from non-clickable text (For example, in the reserves recruiting window, there is no sign, that the word Recruit is actually a button.)
• You can select individual battalions, but an order given to it always apply to the whole regiment. I know, that the tutorial says, that each regiment commands its battalions independently, but the possibility to select each battalion makes it counterintuitive. And actually, when having only a handful of regiments, the general should be able to give specific commands to individual battalions, according to the common rule of commanding "two levels down". If not anything else, there should be a possibility to detach a battalion and use it for some special action, where you don't want to use the whole regiment. But i'm pretty sure, that you are going to add more ways to specify the order, than just three types of movement, and some battalion usage specification could be among that.
• I would prefer, if there was one keybind to make the time faster and one to make it slower. Not just one cycling through all speeds.
• There should be possibility to close the briefing window in battle. It obstructs the screen a lot.
• There is no briefing in "super-fight" campaign.
• The window with info about selected unit has a slight typographical issue: there are spaces before colons, but not after colons.
• I don't like the time format XXDXXHXXM very much. I would consider using classic XX:XX for time, so with days maybe XXD – XX:XX?
• I'm not sure if this one has some connection to the game, but one time when playing, I got a "Video scheduler internal error" BSOD. I never got this one anytime before.

I'm looking forward to the next update!