Wishbone: It just seems an odd mish-mash of other games. Looking through the screenshots on the gamecard, I was thinking "Defender Of The Crown... Civilization... Heroes Of Might And Magic... Age Of Empires..." I don't generally have that experience with other games, even if they have familiar gameplay or interfaces.
Well, both Age of Empires and Heroes came out AFTER the original Lords of the Realm, so unless Impressions had a time machine they couldn't very well have used those for inspiration.
And I doubt Defender of the Crown was the first (it certainly wasn't the only) game based on historical struggles for power in the British Isles. So that's not entirely fair either.
Though it might very well be that Impressions attempted to take advantage of Defender of the Crown's popularity (and lack of sequel), and tried to portray their game as a sort of spiritual successor. Whatever the case is, this game has it's own unique different feel and gameplay, so it's certainly no Defender of the Crown-clone.