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Consider this a PREview

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 41
Date: July 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Obviously I'm uncomfortable rating a game that isn't out and that I have not played. I have, however, spent a lot of time with older Settlers games, the very old ones, Settlers (which was released in the US as "Serf City") and The Settlers II. These original games were much less about combat and more about building up a city. It felt like placing little toy men and castles, only they were alive. They went about their lives, woodcutters chopping wood for the haulers to take to the sawmill for the millman to turn into lumber for the builders to make a bakery for the baker to...

You get the idea.

Now imagine that in incredibly detailed, beautiful 3D graphics. 3D, polygonal graphics have finally come of age, after the jagged, stupid looking (in my opinion) 3D of the PlayStation era, and just looking at screenshots, I can feel myself being drawn into this little world. In many ways, this is more of a simulation than a strategy game.

After Settlers II, the series tended to become more combat oriented. This was a mistake, in my opinion, and the games suffered critical disclaim and generally poor reviews.

I am sincerely hoping this is a return to the roots of the series and that it's successful on all fronts. I'm quite looking forward to playing it. In the words of the producer, "This is no longer a game about combat; it's about building," and in the words of a British game journalist, (paraphrase) "It feels like the perfect game for a relaxing Sunday afternoon with a glass of merlot. While other games seem anxious and frantic, this one seems peaceful."

That's what I want to hear, as I'm quite tired of frantic, difficult strategy games, and this kind of world creation, and watching my world operate, while still existing in a goal-oriented environment, is exactly what I want and what I'm looking forward to.

I am (perhaps erroneously) basing my review scores on my rather high expectations for the game, so please keep that in mind. Again, this is a preview. I have no played the game, nor has it been released at time of writing.

Drastic improvements over the previous, back to the settlers we know

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 31 / 34
Date: October 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you've played Settlers 1 or Settlers 2, this would be very familiar for you.

1. Focused on building your econ & city planning.
2. Military is very small part, can only build swordsmen and archers. + some siege.
3. Graphics - it's good enough for game like this.
4. Music - very good actually, many different songs.
5. Multiple Generals for you to choose from, each with their own passive ability and special power. Actually makes a significant impact on the gameplay. This really increases the reply value.
6. Length - Haven't finish or gone very far yet. About mid game. Games like this there is plenty of replay value in it even after you finish the campaign.

Some issues:

1. Slow - there is no time adjusting or speed increase, so some parts does feel a bit slow. Nice to have a EGM or some magazine handy while playing.
2. Walling - Very difficult to wall correctly with the 3D terrain.
3. Very long saves, takes well over 1 minute for a save, at first thought my computer froze cause it took so long.
4. Military - Even though this is more of a sim game than RTS, the warfare could of been a little more deeper. Maybe an addition of Cavalry Unit or Kights to spice things up a bit.

Overall, it's an enjoyable game. Nothing major new, if you liked Settler 1 or 2, this one gives you more of it with minor improvements on the overall gameplay.

Mind-numbing lack of depth and too much handholding

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 15 / 43
Date: October 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have never played any of the other Settlers games, and this one piqued my interest when I first heard about it. I've been flirting with the idea of picking it up for the past several weeks, and I finally did.

I am extremely disappointed.

First of all - I thought the demo's tutorial was a one-time thing. No - your very first mission in the real game requires you to complete the same tutorial with no option to skip it. After this - you figure the tutorials are over... WRONG!

Your hand is held constantly through each mission, and they basically walk you through exactly what to do. There is no challenge to this. What is worse - you begin each mission in the same position... having to rebuild the same exact buildings... having to watch your gold/stone/wood/food crawl up to the same exact level... having to do the same exact upgrades... and then - just as you hit the fun part and your settlement starts rolling along...

New mission. Repeat everything again.

Though it looks pretty at first, and you might not mind building up a settlement the first time - having to do it over and over and over and over with no variety and crappy voice actors hand holding you through every step and forcing you to click through their dialogue is not fun.

This game has potential... but ultimately it is completely lacking in complexity and most importantly fun. I uninstalled it after 15 minutes and it is going on the shelf to collect dust now. When it says "Ages 10+" on the box - just read: Age 10 or below.

Just fun - that's it.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 19
Date: October 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The game is just damn fun. It starts off very easy (a little too easy) but towards the end it gets pretty dang hard. So far, I'm having an absolute blast with it and am almost done with the game. I'd love to see a custom map generator.

My only complaint is the sandbox games; some of the maps are just boring. However, since the campaign has been so much fun; I gave it a full 5 stars.

(and the guy that gave it 2 stars - played 15 minutes.. um, hello?

A Must have if you love all things Medieval

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: November 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have to say that to me this is a very similar game to Stronghold 2. I patched the game and then it auto-patched when I restarted it before I started playing out of the box. After hours of play, I've had one hard lock-up where I had to reboot. I save often so it didnt impact me. It seems to be much more stable now that the patches are out compared to other reviews here. I'm playing with the default video options which to me are just fine. The graphic artwork is absolutely fantastic. The water looks like realy fluid water and the animations is high quality.

This is a "make-your-people-happy" game. Dont get this game expecting to have the depth of military combat that Stronghold 2 does, but I'm quite happy I purchased it since I love the Medieval time period. This is another way to observe the mechanics of medieval society.

The only real combat strategy for your swordsmen and archers and siege engines (that's all you get), is to mass on the enemy and win by numbers. This game has MUCH potential.

My hope is an expansion with mounted cavalry (archers, swordsmen and lancemen) and add pikemen and crossbowmen to the footsoldiers... then add the ability to control your troops with formations, etc... along with a few new resources you could gather, like a fish/eel farm, cobbler's hut, and alchemist hut for starters, you could even add clockmaker's and toymaker's huts for kicks and what about a ship builder? You have docks that are built into some scenarios, so why not make a dock available to build? I don't like how you get a candlemaker, carpenter and blacksmith only after you have upped your knight to the highest level. Those professions were always some of the first and most vital needed up front.

I have to say though, ulitmately, after I hooked up my 5.1 surround options in game and upped the quality of sound, I was taken just a bit deeper into game play. Very nice.

Things to actually improve in game: 1. Military aspect is lacking greatly both in variety and control. This is the number one problem with this game in my oppinion. And they need the ability to build fires closeby so they can produce torches, instead of having to run all the way back to base to get more...building fires was easily done and it's frustrating that you can't.
2. if your fishing hut is built too close to the water, sometimes, only one fisherman can get to the fish at a time. If you upgrade the fishing hut you can have up to 3 fishermen working the same resource. Also, when it's winter and the water freezes over the fishermen can't fish. In real life they could actually cut a hole in the ice but I've found when the narrator announces, "A fisherman can't find any fish." it's usually spring time and the water is thawing out, so the timing is off on that. Long winters are a drag in the northern scenarios. 3. when you touch the edge of your screen to move around, it's a bit choppy so map movement needs some work.

I feel confident that patches and expansions will do justice to this game. It can only get better from here.

Shallow and a Computer Killer

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: December 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have not played any other Settler games but jumped on this one as it looked very promising.
This game has proved to be boring and repetitious, every scenario starts the same and you have to sit around and wait for goods to pile up in the storehouse before you can get on with the task at hand.
By contrast, in the Stronghold games (Firefly) for instance the missions start with varying degrees of money or resouces, often against your favour which means you have have to rely on your smarts to win.
Not so with Settlers. But the absolute worst aspect of this game is the fact that it is very unfriendly towards your system, especially if you have an Nvidia graphics cards. I run a GeForce 7500 LE with 512mb and the latest forceware,(and the latest game patch)the game will shut down the computer after max 10 minutes gameplay. Go to the Ubisoft Settlers forum and you will see page after page of complaints regarding this issue. One guy claims the game actually broke his graphics card!
The game was obviously put on the market WAY too soon, it is not nearly developed enough. It is as if Ubisoft is using the consumer as beta-testers. I'm sure this has been done before but that doesn't make it any better. Bad business.

Spend your money on Civ IV

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: December 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The Settlers: Rise of an Empire is easily one the worst games I've ever played. The graphics are nice, but that's all I can say good about it. The game play is horribly boring, and the "strategy" element is non-existent and the game is riddled with bugs and bad design choices (even with the latest patch). The military aspect should not even have been included or they should have done a much better job of designing it before releasing it.
There is absolutely NO challenge in this game. If you are a fan of 4X games or even RTS games, you will always beat the computer after about two games without even really trying. This game is terrible. Save your hard-earned money and buy something else. The only reason I gave it 2 stars was for the graphics.

good game if you have a good computer

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: February 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game b/c i was getting bored w/ Sims 2 and all their expansions and i played Stronghold 2 and beat the game over and over again and the one thing i liked about Stronghold was the micromanagement, i'm not a big fan of building armies and going to attack people.

I gave this game a good score b/c it's fun to play, easy to learn, as you keep playing the different missions they get harder each time and for those of us who have lives and can't take hours on end to play a game this is a great substitute. Plus this game incorporates weather conditions so depending on which terrain you are on it's harder to play. (example: playing in the dessert is much harder than playing in a 4 season area).

This game isn't for someone who likes to build up armies and destroy civilizations, go play Stronghold 2 or Civilizations. This game is for people who like managing cities and dealing w/ economy and watching your settlers go about life.

The graphics in this game are amazing! BUT you must have a very fast CPU and graphic's card to really enjoy this game. I started playing this on my computer which i bought 2 years ago and it lagged a lot, i had to turn down all options and then it played but it still took a while. I played it on my husbands computer which we just bought during xmas and it flies!!!

I have only found 2 downsides to this game. 1)No matter what computer i played this on the Save time was at least 1 min.
2) sometimes the missions either get stuck and you have restart them or i'm just not understanding the mission and right now there are no websites with walkthroughs or cheats at this moment.

Pass!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: April 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

RTS fans and/or Parents looking for a game for their child:

My Background: I'm an Veteran about these RTS games. Blizzard's Warcraft/Starcraft Franchises, the CaveDog TA franchises, the Command and Conquer Franchises, are all familiar to me, as well as lesser known titles ranging from the mediocre depths of KK&D to the sophisticated heights of Homeworld. I've been playing them since I was a kid, though I'm rooted most firmly in Sid Mier's Civilization series. I care about both game play and Historicism, depending on what the game is trying to accomplish.

About this Settler's Game:

Its remarkable to me how the problems first clearly identified from the original settler's games, over a decade later, remain the biggest obstacles to the franchise today. The game LITERALLY has a half-life of about 2 hours: After two hours, the game is half as fun as it was in the beginning. After another two hours, its a quarter as fun as it was in the beginning. After six hours of play (since the game is quite dull 90% of the time, 6 hours of game play might happen over several days of play), you'll distinctly feel regret over not having chosen another title.

What ARE the problems?

1)Well, the fundamental game mechanics: there's an initial resource grab and then the 'Empires' stagnate into tedious... well impotence to DO anything. Theres little or NO incentive to actually 'win' the game.... You'd just rather start over again, trying to recapture those initial 'fun moments.'

2)The Concept of the game feels truly confused. Firstly, its a city builder, not an Empire Builder- just like the previous installments of the franchise. The complexity of early versions was dropped, which would have made sense if it was a trade-off for Scale of Game Play- but like I said, its a City Builder, not an Empire Builder. So simplifying the facets of the city's inter-dependencies accomplishes nothing but making the City you build lack variety and interest. Secondly, the economic aspect of the game is of dubious importance: EVENTUALLY you'll get whatever it is you're looking to get, regardless of how poorly you 'manage' the economy. The military aspect is equally dubious: the enemy never threatens you unless you provoke it, and even once provoked, its impossible, regardless of how poorly you manage your defenses, to actually loose the game, because the enemy seems as equally uninterested in winning as you will be. There are NO historic aspects to the game, and little-to-none of the historicism you'd want if you're buying the game for a 10-and-under player. (Over 10 need not apply in the first place)

3)The Game lacks ergo dynamics. Sophistication isn't necessarily important for entertainment, but the simplicity of the military and economics is hampered by a surprisingly and unnecessarily complicated feel to actually doing what you want to do. The War Mechanics is truly disgraceful and not worth detailing- the siege equipment, particularly, is unnecessary and unwieldy and stupid.

OK, so what to do with your Money?

1)If you want a City-Builder, get something like Sim City.
2)If you want an Empire-Builder, a City-Builder, which also has Strategy AND a dose of Historical value, get Civ4
3)If you want a basic straight-up base-oriented RTS game, get something like 'Starcraft2' (out soon) or 'Supreme Commander' (if you have a 3,000 dollar system) or 'C&C3' or 'Universe at War' or something.
4)If you want a non-Base oriented strategy RTS game, I actually recommend Sins of a Solar Empire, which is simple but sophisticated simultaneously.
5)If you want a Game leaning heavily of Strategy and Historicism, with only a dash of Empire-management, I recommend a TOTAL WAR franchise game, like Empire Total War (out at end of year), or Medieval 2 total war. Medieval 2 will require maybe a 2,000 dollar system.

Good luck, and don't fall prey to nostalgia for Settlers 2 Gold: Everyone has come a LONG way since 1997... everyone except the Settlers Franchise, which might have actually regressed.

Simpler than Stronghold 2

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: April 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I thought this game was a bit too simple for my tastes.

To prove my point I did a comparison to one of my favorite castle building games, Stronghold 2, by listing items and canceling out the items that were the same in both games. As it came out, the Settlers had about 20 items that were not found in Stronghold, and Stronghold 2 had 70+ not found in Settlers, spread out between castle structures, military units (not as much of the total as you would think), and economic buildings. The Settlers seems like it should be for children when compared with this game.

The worst difference is in defense building. In Stronghold 2 you can build a wide variety of gates and towers and any thickness of two types of wall you like, but in Settlers 6 you can build only one type of tower and one type of gate for each type of wall, and the walls are uniform and thin.

In Stronghold, as well, you can actually look inside your buildings and see your people working. In the Settlers they work outside their buildings and often get their tasks done in fewer steps. One example of the latter is bread making in Stronghold 2, which involves going through a mill for flour instead of just sending grain straight to the bakery (however Stronghold Legends does not have mills either). I just found it more entertaining, perhaps, that in Stronghold 2 tax collecting is carried out in a separate building instead of the castle, and carts have to be dispatched from posts instead of the central storehouse. It's things like this - attention to detail - that really make a game more complex, lifelike, and entertaining. When you need less structures and people to carry out your economy and defense, the game is more boring and less like real castle life.

There are a few unique perks in the Settlers, like upgradeable buildings, the seasons, different environments and castle styles, and troops gathered into battalions, but not enough to even get close to the complexity of Stronghold 2. Even Stronghold Legends, which is stripped down to accommodate a greater military aspect, seems more entertaining than this game, even for those who prefer castle building to fighting.

Also, the Settlers seems to give everybody graphics problems; I almost had to return my copy but discovered just in time that the game started out on zero brightness, etc., so that I had to change those values to get started. The graphics I found to be detailed and complex but they didn't work well on my machine.

This game is also fairly easy, as I was unable to fully complete the Stronghold 2 campaign but the Settlers 6 campaign, though arduous, was a breeze.

Overall, Stronghold 2 beats this game in almost every aspect, but if you want a game that is simpler, easier, and less militaristic, it could be a very good buy (or if you just got sick of Stronghold after playing it too much).

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