The Settlers
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The Settlers is a slow-paced Real Time Strategy computer game by German developer Blue Byte Software, first released in 1993. Versions were released for Amiga and PC.
It was the first of its kind to involve construction of a settlement and allocation of resources.
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It uses a point and click interface which was quite original. Paths designed by the player enable communication and transport through the settlement. The extremes of paths are always denoted by flags. People and goods circulate through this path network. Goods circulate in a human chain system, in which humans take goods from a flag and drop them at the next one, and goods accumulate at flags (a maximum of eight items per flag); a priority system, which is tweakable by the player, decides which goods are to be taken first.
Despite the appearance of rolling hills, all paths and game maps are built on a grid of overlapping hexagons, with flags and buildings positionable at the vertices. A regular hexagon denoted perfectly flat land, while pulling in the vertices gave the impression of steepness.
The game was very slow paced. Hours, days and even weeks of gameplay could be required for a single game. Military power should not be used until the right time to do so, and even after tactical attacks, very long periods of tension without attacks will probably follow. Making buildings may require not just resources, but also hours of gameplay time.
There was no way to accelerate the time in the game (a problem rectified in the sequels), and certain features were time dependent; promotion between the five levels of knights was conditional on location (building type) and the presence of gold, and then it was down to a matter of waiting until knights received promotions. Since this could take many, many hours, it was common for this to result in extensive periods of stalemate while waiting for an army to develop to a suitable level.
Lots of different jobs and resources exist. Jobless people convert (forever; they cannot be converted back, with the exception of knights killed in battle) into dedicated people when there are new buildings finished which require them; and in order to do so, they need tools, which are specific to each job. There exists a building type which makes tools, but it makes more or less of each kind according to tweakable priorities.
Priorities are there to decide which goods at flags should be transported first, which of the four mine types (iron ore, gold ore, coal or stone) receive food first, where raw materials coming from mines go, where iron goes (blacksmith or tools maker), and a variety of other prioritisations. Tweaking them properly is encouraged.
Like most other civilization/city/empire construction games, The Settlers is a (possibly unintentional) simulation of either Communism or extreme Feudalism, in that every citizen works together for the common good (or is forced to). The economy is centrally directed, by the player, and during long games suffers from some of the problems of centralized systems: shortages, bottlenecks, inefficiencies and an increasing burden of micromanagement.
It has had four sequels to date: The Settlers II, The Settlers III, The Settlers IV, and The Settlers V.
A free software game spawned, Widelands, taking lots of ideas from The Settlers.
Games in the series
- The Settlers (1993, Amiga & PC (DOS), aka. Serf City)
- The Settlers II: Veni, Vidi, Vici (1996, PC (DOS))
- Add on: The Settlers II Mission CD
- The Settlers III (1998, Windows)
- Add on: The Settlers III Mission CD
- Add on: The Settlers III: Quest Of The Amazons
- The Settlers IV (2001, Windows)
- Add on: The Settlers IV Mission CD
- Add on: The Settlers IV: The Trojans and the Elixir of Power
- The Settlers V: Heritage of Kings (Planned release: Q4 2004, Windows)
The series' original title in Germany is Die Siedler, marketed in the rest of Europe as The Settlers. When the game was first released in the United States, it was renamed Serf City by US publisher SSI. However, starting with the second part in the series, The Settlers also became the official title of the series in the US.
External links
- Blue Byte (http://www.bluebyte.net)
- Ubisoft (http://www.ubi.com/US/)
- The Settlers III (http://www.settlers3.com)
- The Settlers V Patch v1.04 (http://files.filefront.com/Settlers_V_Patch_v104/;3881152;;/fileinfo.html)de:Die Siedler