Manor Lords had a big update recently (with more coming soon), which has encouraged a lot more people to start playing it again. I even started a Let's Play, with commentary on my secondary YouTube channel, "MegaBearsFan_Plays". I've been playing the game off and on since it's initial launch into Early Access, and so I thought I might also take this opportunity to share some tips and advice that I have for any players who are new to the game, or who might be struggling.

Remember that it's Early Access

The first "tip" is actually more of a disclaimer. If you play Manor Lords, please remember that it is an Early Access game. Though it is playable (and quite good), it is not fully-featured. It contains bugs, isn't finely-tuned or balanced yet, and has entire features and modes that don't actually work yet. For example, take a look at the Policies menu, and you'll notice that there are only a couple working policies, and the rest are place-holders that cannot be activated.

More importantly for the purposes of this guide, the game will change considerably over the coming months (or years), and leading up to its eventual retail release. These tips apply specifically to the Early Access build (in early 2025), and may not be relevant in the final release version of the game. I may write an additional tips guide for the full retail release, if I think the game has changed enough to warrant additional tips.

This isn't the first time that I have said that a game is difficult to review. Mouthwashing is a very difficult game to review. Usually, however, when I say that I'm having difficulty reviewing a game, it's because I have very mixed and conflicting feelings about that game. Or because it's borderline impossible to review the game without discussing extensive spoilers. Well, that last one actually is true in this case, but there's a more important reason why this game is difficult to review: Mouthwashing is a very difficult game to play. Not "difficult", as in "challenging", the way that Dark Souls is "difficult". Not "difficult", as in "broken", the way that a lot of awful low-budget indie games might be. Instead, Mouthwashing is thematically and emotionally difficult to play because it depicts a lot of very disturbing and grotesque subject matters that are just hard to sit through.

The low-fi, PS1-inspired graphics do not, in any way, take away from the visceral visual design of the game. In fact, the low-fi visuals, combined with a film grain filter, give the game a gritty, grimy feeling that might have been harder to accomplish with higher-fidelity graphics that might fall into the uncanny valley. For example, it might seem that the lack of facial animation is a flaw in the game that makes it difficult for some players to understand the emotional context of what the characters are saying, and to read the actual plot of the game with a cold detachment that will make the story harder to understand. And while that is true, there is also a very valid thematic reason for why the characters don't have facial animations, and for why their emotions aren't immediately obvious.

The crippled, disfigured husk of Captain Curly is disgusting to look at, and even more disgusting to listen to. The pain and humiliation that Captain Curly is subjected to are absolutely horrific to behold and contemplate. And that's just the start of the awful things that this game subjects the player to!

This a grotesque game that can be difficult to play.

But this isn't a game about body horror; it's a game about abuse, and the failure or unwillingness to take responsibility for one's actions.

But this story is delivered in a disjoint, non-linear, and sometimes abstract manner that can make it difficult to follow on a first playthrough. It might take a second playthrough to really understand what is going on, and what had happened prior to the events of the game. Thankfully, the 2-ish hour runtime means that a repeat playthrough isn't much of a burden at all. It's nowhere near as annoying and burdensome as something like having to replay Silent Hill 2 remake to try to get different endings, or to collect all the collectibles.

And this is where it starts to get difficult to talk about this game without spoilers. Honestly, if low-fi, psychological horror walking sims about abuse aren't your jam, then you won't play this, and probably won't care about spoilers. Otherwise, if you're into this kind of thing, then you probably know who you are. If you haven't already played the game, and you might be interested, then you should stop reading and play it. It gets my fullest recommendation!

It is impossible to talk about this game's merits without major spoilers...

There's a new Spider-Man cartoon on Disney Plus, and sadly, it is not a reboot or continuation of Spectacular Spider-Man, which, as far as I know, is still stuck in a frustrating legal limbo in which neither Disney nor Sony completely own its rights. Instead, what we have is a cartoon that couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a prequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, or a completely new adaptation of the comics. It would be very easy for such a project to lack a strong sense of identity, and to have an incoherent plot that feels like parts of 2 different plots haphazardly stitched together. Thankfully, that isn't the case, and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man actually comes out to be a pretty good Spider-Man cartoon.

It definitely still retains many aesthetic and narrative elements from its original conception as an MCU prequel. Aunt May is clearly based on Marissa Tomai's version of the character from the MCU. The Sokovia Accords and Superhero Registration Act are important parts of the show's backstory. And cameos by Doctor Strange, Iron Man, and others definitely feel like the MCU versions of those characters.

But this definitely isn't a prequel to the MCU's Spider-Man. First and foremost, the Sokovia Accords have already been put into place without Spider-Man being involved in the events of this story's version of Civil War, which is referenced several times. It also features a completely different cast of characters. There are no traces of characters like Ned Leeds, MJ, or Liz Allen. And it does feature characters like Norman and Harry Osborn, neither of whom have appeared (properly) in the MCU movies.

So this is a show that will definitely be familiar to people who have watched the MCU, but its lack of continuity with the MCU might turn die-hard MCU fans away.

Thankfully, I don't care if the show follows strict MCU continuity. All I care about is whether it's a good adaptation of Spider-Man. And it mostly is.

©: Walt Disney Co.

The connections to the live-action MCU are nebulous.

Civilization VII is a considerably different game compared to Civ V and Civ VI. As such, the leader guides that I wrote for those games won't quite work for Civ VII. Instead, I'm going to be experimenting with a slightly different format of doing independent guides for civilizations and for leaders separately. Leader guides will be complicated, so I'm starting with civilization guides while I figure out how I want to tackle the problem of creating guides for leaders that can change civs 3 times in a single game. Unfortunately, the lack of Hot Seat multiplayer severely limits my ability to do specific testing of things like the damage dealt by unique units in different circumstances, certain diplomatic actions, pillage effects, and other things. Hopefully, Hot Seat will be added soon.

As always, I welcome feedback. I will probably need a lot of feedback as I learn the new game and experiment with the format of these guides. Of course, you can also support the creation of this content by becoming a Patron.

As has been my tradition with these guides, I plan to start by focusing my attention on civilizations and leaders who have never been playable in Civilization games before. So the first guide will cover the rookie civilization of the Mississippians.

For almost a millennium before the arrival of Columbus in the Americas, southeastern North America was dominated by a group of indigenous peoples called the Mississippians. The Mississippians were not a single, unified group, but rather a collection of tribes that shared similar cultural practices. The most defining of these practices was the construction of impressive earthwork structures, such as mounds and pyramids that were used for functions ranging from housing, to temples, to mausoleums. Though they did not have a system of writing, they still created sophisticated social structures and permanent settlements, and their trade networks ranged from the Great Lakes and Rocky Mountains, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. The remains of the several remaining mounds at Cahokia (outside of St. Louis) are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and are open for public visitation.

The Mississippians are an expansionist, trade-oriented Antiquity civilization in Sid Meier's Civilization VII. They seek to acquire Resources by claiming new land, and by trading with foreign Settlements.

If you read my review of Civilization VII, then you know that I have some significant reservations with the way that Firaxis broke the game up into 3 distinct ages. This has easily been the most controversial change in a game that made a lot of questionable decisions.

I'm not going to speak for other players, nor am I going to repeat my review, but my biggest issues with the ages of Civ VII are as follows:

• The ages end suddenly, without giving the player an opportunity to finish ongoing tasks,
• The age transitions skip the transitionary periods in between ages,
• The crises don't always feel like fair tests of an empire's stability.

First and foremost, I'm not going to propose that the ages should just be removed. The ages are too fundamental to the game's design and Firaxis' vision for it. But more importantly, I don't actually think that the solution should be to throw out the baby with the bath water. There are redeeming qualities to the ages as well (which I also talked about in my review). As such, I want to take a few moments to share some ideas that I have for how the above issues could potentially be addressed by Firaxis in future updates, DLC, or expansions.

I'm also going to present the idea in order of complexity and ease-of-implementation, from the simplest and easiest changes, to the most involved. The simpler ideas could easily be patched into the game, while some of the more complicated ideas could require a bigger DLC or expansion.

Ages end suddenly, and often prematurely.