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Developer: Blue Byte Software
Publisher: Blue Byte Software
Designer: Volker Wertich
Series: The Settlers
Platform: Amiga, PC-DOS
Release date : 1993
Genre : Real-time strategy
Mode: Single player, multiplayer
Media/distribution: 3.5-inch floppy disks or CD, digital distribution
About:
The game offers a set of six tutorial games and a set of thirty predefined missions against computer controlled opponents of increasing difficulty. Alternatively, the player may opt to play a single game, for which the landscape is either randomly generated, or based on a seed number given by the player. The player can then freely choose up to three computer opponents of their choice. Additionally, a split-screen mode allows two human players to either team up together, or play against each other and up to two computer opponents. Finally, the player may instead allow up to four computer opponents to play against each other and spectate freely on their progress. The computer characters vary from being peaceable and placid to being aggressive and warlike. Workers wear coloured shirts to identify their allegiance. The game is won when one of the players dominates the land. The game is controlled by a mouse-operated point-and-click interface. The player cannot directly control workers, but instead places orders to construct buildings, manage the manufacture and distribution of goods and attack opponents. At the start of the game the player chooses the location of their castle, which houses the initial settlers and stock. The player must then construct buildings of various function to progress. Paths placed by the player enable transportation through the settlement. The end points of each path are marked by flags. Except when attacking, settlers must follow these paths. Settlers and goods circulate through this network. Goods circulate in a chain system, in which workers take goods from one flag to the next, and goods accumulate at flags (a maximum of eight items per flag); a priority system, which is adjustable by the player, decides which goods are to be transported first. The player is tasked with managing the flow of goods and rate of manufacture of certain goods. For example the player may manage which of the four mine types (iron ore, gold ore, coal or stone) receives food first, where raw materials coming from mines go, where iron goes (blacksmith or tool maker) etc. If placement of buildings and roads is not carefully planned it may lead to traffic congestion. If no counter action is taken (re-routing the goods, constructing more warehouses, better placement of buildings), such single bottlenecks can have a distributed effect across the network, leading to shortages because goods can not reach their destination fast enough anymore. There are 26 kinds of material resources and 26 type of settler. Idle settlers are recruited to specialised roles when new buildings are finished. For example, a blacksmith appears once a smithy is constructed. Some settlers require specific tools for these roles. A toolmaker's building can create additional tools, and the proportions of each tool being created is controlled by the player. The player also controls an army of knights, which is primarily used to defend the player's territory and to attack opponents. As well as ensuring military supremacy, the economy of the kingdom is under the player's control. Several food resources exist, and are necessary to feed miners, who dig for four materials: coal (for smelting ore), iron ore, gold ore and stones (for buildings). Two types of smelter will take one unit each of coal and gold or iron ore and produce ingots of gold or iron. Gold bars improve military strength; on larger maps more gold is required to reach the same level of strength. Stone cutters cut from piles of stones that lie on the surface; once these are exhausted, stone must be mined. Woodsmen plant trees and woodcutters chop them down into logs. Logs are taken to the sawmill to be cut into planks. Planks and iron can be used to make tools by the toolmaker. Iron and coal are required by the weaponsmith to make weapons, without which the knights cannot be armed. Simple buildings require only one plank and one stone; complex buildings may require more resources and time to complete. The player may divert resources according to need; for example, once a stock of boats is built up, it is no longer necessary to waste planks by giving them to the boatbuilder. In cases where more than one profession compete for the same resource, the player must choose how to set the proportion of supply each will receive. While some resources such as trees and wheat are available in infinite supply, others are eventually exhausted. Players must attempt to cut off enemies from these resources, and invade their territory to capture them. In game graphs and flowcharts allows the player to supervise the economic life of the kingdom and make adjustments to optimise production. A key element of The Settlers is the planning of buildingd and the road layout to allow for efficient transportation of resources. If too much traffic is set to pass a single point, or the tilt of the road slows settlers, queues arise, slowing down the economy or even causing defeat if reinforcements cannot get through. The game is designed in such a way that a resource or settler will always travel the path to their destination with the shortest number of intersections (marked by flags), giving the player freedom to plan the distribution of goods. 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 denotes perfectly flat land, while pulling in the vertices gives the impression of steepness. Although small, the workers in the game are extremely detailed and cleverly animated. Each individual worker may be followed around by the player, and always acts in character. In several of the buildings, workers may be seen working inside. Only when completely cut off from their road network (e.g. by enemy invasion) do workers wander aimlessly around. On the hardware available at the time, the game could control a maximum of 65,536 individuals, all behaving autonomously. As the player moves around the landscape the sounds of nearby settlers at work can be heard, alongside other ambient noises such as the tweeting of birds, the grunting of pigs, the yells of knights in battle, or the sound of wind in the mountains. The game also features medieval themed background music. The pace of The Settlers is much slower than other games of this nature due to a variety of factors. The workers are constrained to move along paths specified by the user, as are the materials and resources. Some resources require lengthy processing chains before being useful to the player. Evidence of the slower pace can be seen in the statistical screens, which record a graph of the previous 50 hours of play, and a reminder to save the game being set at up to one hour. The slower paced game can potentially make time-dependent features longer to play out. Training knights to the highest levels or waiting for fishermen to catch fish may take a while.
Orginal System Requirements:
DOS: PC Intel 386SX 40MHz, 4MB RAM, SVGA 512 KB
System Requirements:
1. CPU 1.0 GHz
2. RAM 64 Mb
3. HDD 10 Mb
Interface:
1. English
Installation instruction:
1. Burn to CD/DVD or mount using a virtual drive (Alcohol 52% or Daemon Tools)
2. Install Game
3. Play
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