The Settlers

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The Settlers
Developer(s)	Blue Byte Software
Publisher(s)	Blue Byte Software
Designer(s)	Volker Wertich
Series	The Settlers
Platform(s)	Amiga, PC-DOS
Release date(s)	1993
Genre(s)	Real Time Strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Media	3.5" disks (3)

The Settlers (also known as Serf City, original German title Die Siedler) is a slow-paced Simulation computer game by German developer Blue Byte Software, first released in 1993 for Commodore Amiga and in 1994 for the PC.^[1] It was the first game of its type, blending together principles which had not been seen in a single game before,^[2] and defined the line of the later Settlers games. On the hardware available at the time, the game could control a maximum of 64,000 individuals, all behaving autonomously.^[3]

Contents 1 Gameplay 2 Choosing a new game 3 Transporting goods 4 Graphic environment 5 Pace of the game 6 Economic aspects 7 Opponents 8 Sequels 9 Reception 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Gameplay

The game is played through a mouse operated point and click interface. The player cannot directly control units, but instead places orders to build or attack buildings. Except when attacking, units are further controlled by designating the paths on which they may walk.

[edit] Choosing a new game

A new player may begin a series of predefined games against computer opponents of increasing difficulty. Alternatively, the player may select a landscape of any size (memory permitting) and play against up to three other opponents of choice. The computer will generate a random landscape, or one based on a seed number given by the player. Finally, the player may opt not to play and allow up to four computer controlled opponents to play against each other; the player may spectate freely on all of them, including their statistics.

[edit] Transporting goods

Paths designated by the player enable communication and transport through the settlement, which begins at the player's castle. The ends of paths are always denoted by flags. People and goods circulate through this path network. Goods circulate in a human chain system, in which workers take goods from one 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.

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) receives 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.

If placement of buildings and roads is not carefully planned out by the player, so that different paths for goods use the same waypoints (as an extreme, having only one central castle), it inevitably will lead to traffic jams. If no counter action is taken (re-routing the goods, distributing more warehouses, better planning out where to place buildings), such single bottlenecks can spread out and jam more and more waypoints, leading to shortages because goods can not reach their destination fast enough anymore.

[edit] Graphic environment

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.

The atmosphere is enhanced by background music. If this is turned off, digital sound effects of the various workers are played, alongside other ambient noises such as the tweeting of birds, the grunting of pigs, the yells of the knights in battle, or the sound of wind in the mountains.

[edit] Pace of the game

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Compared to modern games, The Settlers is quite a slow-paced game; unlike its sequels, the game time cannot be accelerated. Some time-dependent features of the game can therefore take a long time, such as upgrading a freshly recruited knight up to the fifth and highest level. But knights also get stronger with the amount of gold possessed by the player's kingdom, and gold can be mined to this end. While the statistics dialog of The Settlers does feature a 50-hour scale, and on a big map a game may last even longer, a typical campaign is won in far less time.

If playing the game on an emulator, such as WinUAE, it may be possible to play the game on the emulator's turbo-mode, speeding things up considerably.

[edit] Economic aspects

There are 26 kinds of material resources and the same number of settler classes in the game. Idle settlers start to become specialised people when new buildings are finished. For example, blacksmiths start to appear once a smithy is constructed. In order to upgrade, settlers need tools specific to the job. A toolmaker's building can create additional tools, and the proportions of each tool being created is set by the player.

As well as ensuring military supremacy, the entire 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 which 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.

A series of graphs and flowcharts allows the player to supervise the economic life of the kingdom and make small adjustments to optimise production.

A key element of The Settlers is planning building and 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.

[edit] Opponents

Up to four players may compete for a single landscape, up to two of which may be player-controlled (using a vertical split screen). The computer characters vary from being peaceable and placid to being aggressive and warlike. Workers wear coloured shirts to identify their allegiance.

[edit] Sequels

• The Settlers (1993, Amiga & PC (DOS), aka. Serf City)
• The Settlers II: Veni, Vidi, Vici (1996, PC (DOS), Macintosh)
  • 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
  • Add on: Die Siedler IV: Die Neue Welt (The Settlers IV: The New World - only German langague)
  • Add on: Die Siedler IV: Große Feldzüge (The Settlers IV: Community Pack - only German langague)
• The Settlers: Heritage of Kings (Q4 Germany; 2005 Worldwide 2004, Windows)
  • Add on: The Settlers: Heritage of Kings - Expansion Disk
  • Add on: The Settlers: Heritage of Kings - Legends Expansion Disk
• The Settlers II 10th Anniversary (2006, Windows)
  • Add on: The Settlers II: 10th Anniversary - The Vikings
• The Settlers: Rise of an Empire (2007, Windows)
  • Add on: The Settlers: Rise of an Empire - The Eastern Realm (2008, 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.

A new port of The Settlers 2 for the Nintendo DS was released in the UK on August 3, 2007,^[4] and in North America on August 21, 2007.^[5]

In November 2009 a version of Settlers was relesed on the IPhone/IPod Touch App Store

[edit] Reception

Serf City was reviewed in 1994 in Dragon #209 by Sandy Petersen in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Petersen gave the game 3 out of 5 stars.^[6]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Blue Byte
• [1] project to rewrite the game including multiplayer support
• Ubisoft

v • d • e The Settlers series The Settlers • The Settlers II • The Settlers III • The Settlers IV • Heritage of Kings • The Settlers II 10th Anniversary • Rise of an Empire • Paths to a Kingdom