Medieval Dynasty

I've played the game pretty much nonstop for a week. It's a good little simulator with loads to do. I have one gripe however, the recent update removed the ability sell basic raw materials. This is the worst decision that the developers could have made. It is a simulation of medieval times, where people were not always able to get raw materials or had the skills to craft items. The selling of the materials they did have access to was a vital component to the economy and way of life of the time. Not allowing the sale of such items therefore is stupid. I like this game as a true simulation to life back then, but this decision to remove the ability to sell basic resources destroys the illusion that the developers have worked so hard to create. They need to remove the block on selling and instead make it worth the time and effort put into crafting by adjusting the value of those goods.

This is a fun game with a lot of potential. However, I have noticed in survival games the character eats way too much. Not just this game either, all survival games. Someone wanna explain the logic in having to hunt three to four dear daily and drink 1/16 of a river just to survive? Pretty sure one dear would feed a family of 6 or more for a week. Not trying to dis this game. As i said it does have potential, but balance would be nice as well.

Do I recommend this game? Yes. But...
If you're happy to pay £18-£23 for a game that will keep you entertained for around 12 - 25 hours, (£1/£1.50/Hour) then by all means, go a head with the purchase. You will have fun if you're into this genre and you will get engrossed in it. But then you'll just stop.
You'll enjoy getting yourself set up, building your first village and investing in who you want to work in it.
You'll enjoy laying it out, and doing the side quests and getting it to look pretty.
You'll enjoy the atmosphere, hunting game, and growing your dynasty as you explore and unlock more things.
But then, all of a sudden, you'll realise there really isn't that much more to do.
All of a sudden you'll realise just how bad the AI is at operating in its current state,
you'll realise that after all those villagers joined your town, and they're all working for you, that you still aren't making any gains in your resources.
In it's current state, this game isn't finished, but it never said it was. The game is enjoyable, but it's just not there yet. The management side for me, was one of the biggest draws to this game. I want to make a village, have it thrive and use that as my base village to leech off of, so I can go and make a better, bigger, more planned main village. However, at the moment, this just isn't possible.
So, would I recommend this game? Yes, I would, BUT, don't go expecting a completed game. I think if the developers stick to what they're trying to achieve, this game will become a classic - We've just got to hope they stick with the original vision. I love sandbox games, and I love management games.
What does the game need:
+ Better UI displays, making it clearer what villagers are up to, where you need to place tools and what symbols mean
+ More buildings orientated around the growth of your city - E.g. Inns, (Enabling sleeping in other cities, drinking in your / other cities, money to go back into your city), Stores (So you don't have to keep going and selling berries to the nearest town), Guest houses, (for passing hunters, miners, travellers, traders), localised laws, etc etc.
+ Life, it needs character - At the moment, your villagers wake up, go to work, and reappear before the nights end, to go to bed. That's as close as you'll get to your villagers. After you've got yourself a wife, I saw no point in even engaging with any of them apart from the odd quest to benefit my dynasty points. I want villagers to have dinner together, to hook up together, to celebrate years end together, things like that.
+ Transportation: At the moment, if you wanted to go live in a nice empty space next to a river, you'd have to do SO many walks back and forth to build up your buildings. We need something like The Forest has, that enables you to transport logs quicker than only being able to carry the max of like 13 I think? Further more, if you decided to base yourself somewhere away from the starting town, you'd have to continuously travel back and forth to this town, just to follow the main story line.
+ Difficulty: I just started a fresh save, and within the first 15 minutes, I had killed numerous deer, 2 wolves and a bear. If you've got a spear, and you can aim at a head, all you need to do is crouch up to them, and hit the head. GGWP you win.
+ A more detailed explanation on how processes work: For instance, if you were to make a lumbercamp, and set a worker to it, you'd presume that would mean that worker would collect you wood. And for a while, it 'wood'. However, if you do not continue to put axes in the chest of THAT lumbercamp, then eventually they'll collect sticks instead of wood. But, your only way to notice this, is if you keep inventory of your resources and log that your logs aren't going up, whilst your sticks are. I built a workshop and assigned someone to that, but I've no clue what they were doing other than lowering my sticks. I put someone in a tavern, I think they made food but I'm not sure. Do they needs tool? I had people working my farms, they'd do fine when there was something to harvest, but they never managed to re-sow anything. I had someone working as a farmer in my barn, but they never processed any rye into flower - It's just all a bit unclear.
+ Travelling NPCS - Apart from the people in the town, you'll encounter no one on your travels. This makes the whole area seem very.. empty. I want to see people going from town to town, trading or visiting family. If carts or something similar were added to this (I'm sure it's planned), this would help a lot.
TLDR: Yes, I recommend the game if you're willing to play around 10-20 hours in it's current state. But, just please be aware, this is an EA, you're putting your trust in this developer (which I recommend you do at the moment, the updates have been coming in thick and fast), they've stated their intentions of what they want this game to be, I just hope to god they make it, because this could be bloody fantastic!

It's been a long time since I found a game this immersive. At almost 100 hours, I've been cutting down trees, hunting deer and wild boar, chased through the forest at night by a pack of wolves, and scouring the ground for rocks as I build stone walls for my house. I've convinced people to join me by a lake in the mountains, in order to establish a small village. Now I've married and have a son who's in his fifth year, the heir to what I hope will be my dynasty.
While there are certainly flaws to the game, the graphics are stunning and the music is beautiful. For a small, 15 person company, it's an amazing achievement. It's easy for me to forgive the somewhat confused technology tree that requires far too many levels in order to learn daub, even though you've already figured out how to build wattle ages ago. And somehow you can build a campfire, but not be able to add stones around it for several levels? Um... yeah.
But I absolutely love the game and have trouble pulling myself away for that humdrum thing we call "reality." Can't everyone see I have a half-built wattle and... well, wattle house to finish before nightfall, and a fuming villager waiting by the campfire?
I've heard criticisms that this game doesn't look like the "Middle Ages," but I think it's fine on that front. It looks about right for the EARLY Middle Ages. Say, around 800 or 900 CE. And it's clearly meant to be Poland (where the developers are located) or somewhere else in that region, where circular wooden fortresses were common, rather than the Late Middle Ages in England with armored knights stealing from and murdering the peasantry under the guise of "Chivalry." I do want to warn potential players that the hunting can be brutal. It's unpleasant to shoot an animal with bow and arrow, and before I acquired a bow, I had to kill deer with my hand axe. That method is nightmarish and bloody. Not as bad as it could be, I suppose, but still the poor thing gets covered in blood as it dies. I hate that. But I confess it adds to the realistic feel of the game.

Fair warning: i give this game a thumbs up, but my description will be largely negative.
The issue is the current balancing level.
For starters at the beginning you quickly realize that farming wont be an option for a while .... you create a field, "plough" it and then ... realize that you HAVE to fertilize it before you can plant anything. Now you can only get fertilizer by walking across the map to the 1 or 2 NPC who sell it ... just to realize you have no money. Other option would be a pigsty ...but that opens another 2 issues. Issue 1 is you obviously need pigs which cost a fortune. Issue No.2 is that you need to unlock the building first. It requires 500 farming skill points. Now considering that most actions grant a meager 1-2 skill points, you basically have to turn the whole map into farmland just to unlock it.
Other balancing issues. The biggest field you can make it 16x16 tiles. Ploughing that field reuires 6 or 7 wooden hoes (they break insanely fast) ... the only hoe you have at the start. Considering that each hoe needs a log and a tree nets 3-4 logs we are talking about 2-3 Trees just for that. Other (early game) tools last about as long as that.
Most likely food in the beginning is gathering mushrooms .... 0.1kg mushroom adds 1 to the food gauge which caps at 100. So you're guy needs to eat 10kg mushrooms to be no longer hungry ... and he needs to do that twice a day. Similar for other food. 0.2kg of roasted meat adds 6 food, meaning you need to eat 3.2kg of roasted meat... actually the return on mushrooms is so poor, you might actually starve to death WHILE running through woods literally eating the shrooms from the ground.
Village management.
You have to build everything yourself, no way to get the ppl in your village involved. A new guy is joining the village ? He will become unhappy and leave if you dont build him a house. Cutting down trees for wood or hunting for food sounds like a good idea ? Other then the player your villager bots are incapable of hunting without having a hunters lodge build (which you have to unlock first..) nor can they cut down tree's without a woodcutter's lodge (which you need to unlock as well) even if only to sustain themselves. You spent ages just carrying materials from A to B, mostly because you can only carry 35kg (which includes tools, food and your cloths) and the game has no carriages either
Villager management.
Noone will ever come and settle in your village. You actually have to walk across the whole map and "convince" an unemployed hobo, that having a house and work in your village is better then sitting at the campfire all day. To do that you need (global) dynasty reputation and personal reputation with that guy... why i don't know.
Why do you have to be of a famous bloodline and a good friend to convince an unemployed hobo to join a village where he can have a house and work...
Not like it matters. Once (s)he joine (s)he will immediately complain. He is still homeless (which he strangely did not care about before he joined your village) ... so yes, you actually have to personally build him a house. Then he will complain that there is no food ... or firewood . Generally you have to build a ressource and fodd storage.
This opens another issue ... you always have a build limit. At first it's 1 .. you build your own house. Then it is 4... look above you need your house (#1), villager house (#2), food storage (#3) and ressource storage (#4) ... can't build anything where your villager can work....and you have to manually supply food and firewood ...until you unlocked a bigger build limit.
Storage.
Now this is the biggest issue. Your character can carry 35kg. Axe, Hammer, Cloth , food (remember your character eats like 6-7kg roasted meat per day), potentially water, a weapon.... 35kg is nothing. Now since you have to build everything manually you spent ages carrying building materials. You cannot build from the village storage either...so you carry logs from storage to new building, walking the distance multiple times per house. It gets worse if you have to chop the wood yourself. Naturally tree's dont instantly regrow ...so with every tree you chop, the walking distance increases.
This doesn't get better with the village. Building chests or storages is not possible. Instead you have a single chest in the house ... which can hold another measly 50kg. The "storage" buildings aren't much better. The basic ressource storage is a rather big "barn" ... but the inside is completely empty except for a single measly chest... which at least can hold 200kg.
And i'm not done. You are incapable of building anything within a very generous distance of exiting npc villages ... and even the meager hut of the hunter counts as village. Also you cannot use anything you have not build yourself. The "starting" village has a woodcutters which is needed to make planks ... but you cannot use it. So you can't make any tools or materials unless you actually unlocked and build the building yourself ... which is insane considering the points required for most of them. It gets worse though .... the game has no "pass time" function. So you reach a village late evening ... nobody wants to talk to you anymore. The only way to skip time is to sleep in a bed or at a campfire ... bot of which exist in town but you cannot use either, or to build your own ... which you can't anywhere near a village, So you either have to walk out into the wild so you can make a fire...or wait w/e amount of real world time is needed for the game to reach day again.
Other issues include weapons and crafting. You need 1 log to make a single hoe or wooden spear .. now i reckon a spear that requires a full log as material cannot be lifted by mortal men.... same with damage. A meager fox requires 2-3 wooden spears (around the size of a man) to the face before he dies. Seeing a tiny fox with 2 giant spears through his head comming for you is kinda.... gets worse when you fight Wisent or bears .... those still come with you when they have 6+ spears stuck in their head. That gets mildly questionable when you kill the bear with 3 or 4 meager stone arrows....
I'm sure i missed stuff that needs fixing and minor details ... so thats not even the full list.
So why the recommend ? Well, it's still in developement.
The game is largely stable. I have encountered no crashes and only 1 bug so far (my wife was reduced to a non-targetable robe sliding across the ground). Stuff mostly works with only minor issues. Day/Night cycles are working fine, it looks the job.
In short the basics are all good, the issue mostly lies with the details and those can easily be changed. A decent survival game in a "kingdom come" world.
Addendum:
Spawning peasents
Currently the game is set to spawn a fixed amount of free peasents at the camp fires of the villages and the peasents actually migrate between those . It would be easy to allow the player to build a "spawn campfire" as well and spawn/migrate peasents there..
Hiring new villagers
it would be easy to change that villagers without a job have no upkeep. This reflects the fact that without a job he has 24hours a day to care for himself. This would balance itself since a villager without job does not produce anything ... and once you assign a job he requires upkeep.
Building
They could just define a certain area around your buildings as village and allow you to directly build/craft from storage while on village ground ... or add a range check. They can just add worker slots to unfinished buildings for builders, using the crafting skill and material from storage ... just like any other craft.
So even if it's not on their roadmap, most of the issues could be "fixed" during lunch break...
On a sidenote i made some videos about what it looks like:

*Be sure to read the blue *NOTICE below, so you're more informed about this Publisher (Toplitz).
Only one small thing is missing for my immersion, and that's the Voice Acting/Overlay, but I hear that the Dev's are working on that, so I'll wait, and see.
The game does have it's fair share of bugs, but it's Early Access, and I'm not expecting miracles. None of the bugs are game-breaking, just annoying, so I suggest you save often (very often), especially just before you converse with NPC's. Many quests are a bit buggy, but if you save, and reload, most work fine. The learning curve is high, and I would suggest a few YouTube: Walk-through videos before purchasing this game, to see if it's up your alley. There's plenty to do, explore, and the map is a decent size too. The graphics are superb, and the music score is soothing, but repetitive. You can learn/upgrade many things in this game, including yourself. The skill tree is very diverse, and immersive to watch your character grow, and mature. Yes, you can even marry, and build a family, and a whole interactive community as well.
I'm not going to bash this game or the Developer. At it's current state (Oct 28, 2020), it's a wonderful game. I am enjoying it, and the patches are fairly regular for an EA game, and this is why I've recommended it. I won't punish a Developer for the actions of a Publisher, as many do. I'm just hopeful they (The Developers) continue development on it, and actually finish it. At the same time, I also want to make you aware of Toplitz (The Publisher), track record before you purchase this game. After you read the notice below, and still think the game is worthy of a try, then by all means, buy it, or at the very least, try it before the 2 hour refund clock expires. In this game, you can do a lot in 2 hours, and be able to form an opinion. So read on. The final decision is up to you, not me.
*Notice - Buyer Beware:To reflect a growing concern for EA Supporters on their (Toplitz) previous games "Farmer's & Lumberjack's Dynasty" Regardless if you like those games or not. "Buyer Beware"
Before you buy this, I'd recommend you see how it's coming along, read some reviews (Good & Bad), be cautious of the Supporting DLC (they are actually charging you for a GAME MANUAL}, and observe the forums, as this company (Toplitz) has recently displayed a history of not completing what they ask their Developers to start (Farmer's & Lumberjack's Dynasty), and abruptly stops communicating on the forums with those that helped support their EA projects in the past. Dozens of inquiries go Unanswered. Always check the track record of the Developer & Publisher, at the top-right on the Store Page, before hitting that "Add To Cart" button. Especially for EA games.
You may also want to note that Render Cube, is both a Developing Company, and a Publisher, but I truly don't believe they have publishing rights with this game judging by the way they are listed on the Store Page. The reason I'm posting this is because they Render Cube also have a game out called Monster League, where they are listed as Developer/Publisher, and that game has been in Early Access since October of 2018 with only 38 favorable reviews currently (Oct 28, 2020). It's also their only game out, and hasn't seen an update since June of 2019. Read that game forum, and draw your own conclusions.
About Developers & Publishers:I've seen my fair share of contracts between Game Publishers & Developers. In most cases the Publisher has the copyrights, and ownership of the game (90% of the time), and calls the shots as to its Development in almost all aspects. The Publisher has the purse-strings. This holds true whether the Developer is in-house or outsourced.
The only time this changes, where the Developer has more say in the games Development, is when a Developer is seeking a Publisher, to market a game, or the Developer & Publisher are one in the same.
Final Assessment:So, based on everything, I give the game a 8/10 (The Developers). This is why I bought it. Looks good, feels good, and sounds good, but I'm still skeptical about it's completion should they (Toplitz) start another EA game. I'm just pointing out what Toplitz did with Farmer's & Lumberjack's Dynasty, regardless whom the Developers were. It's the Publisher that calls the shots. So Toplitz gets a 1/10 on Communications & Support for their loyal EA backers on their previous games. Total Rating: 4.5/10.
𝓐𝓼 𝓐𝓵𝔀𝓪𝔂𝓼,
𝓚𝓮𝓮𝓹 𝓞𝓷 𝓖𝓪𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓰! 🐱👍

Decent game. Worth $20 bucks or so.
Needs to add FISHING! Also would be cool to to coop with a friend.