Talk:The Settlers (1993 video game)

Reinstated removed paragraph

The following paragraph was removed, with the comment that it had "little to do with" the game.

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.

Whoever this was, please elaborate, as I think it couldn't be more relevant. I have reinstated it for now. --Jmstylr 17:00, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree it's an interesting paragraph to have.Rvalles 00:29, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll restore the last sentence as well, since I'm familiar with the game and can attest that it's very, very true. --Kizor 15:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Hm, I was beaten to that. My bad. --Kizor 17:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

It was me who made that removal comment. When I was reading the article, I just found the paragraph to be neither very accurate nor placed in the right article: In the game, you use gold to motivate your soldiers, so I don't think it does simulate communism. And then, with the "little to do", I meant, the paragraph is too general to be here, i.e. it is relevant to a lot of games, not only this. Maybe it should be moved to the article about Real-time_strategy? I don't have much experience with Wikipedia, but I would think, someone looking up real time strategy games in general is much more interested in the above paragraph than someone looking for information about this specific game. --Allefant 16:09, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the game has no political resemblance to communism (indeed, isn't the game called Serf City in some places?), but the problems of the game are exactly the problems of centrally directed economies, as detailed in the second sentence. You could also be right that the paragraph applies to many games, but I believe it especially applies to this one. --Jmstylr 12:50, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I reformulated the paragraph now a bit (a lot). I removed the political (and therefore POV) connotation, and made it specific to the game by connecting it all to the roads net in Settlers 1. So now, it should keep the interesting aspects which are relevant to this article, but solve the two original problems. --Allefant 09:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

While I dislike the reformulation (it no longer links real-world centralized economies with the in-game centralized economy), I am willing to leave it be to avoid a long flamewar over a trivial matter :) Out of interest, am I right in thinking that you don't believe centralized economies suffer from the aforementioned problems? --Jmstylr 13:20, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! And I do believe they had those problems, I'm just a) not sure the reasons are the same as in Settlers 1, and b) don't think this article is the place to state either way :) --Allefant 01:37, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

VGA / SVGA

From my talk page User_talk:Fred chessplayer

First of all, thank you for your contributions; I particulary saw your work on The Settlers article and liked most of it. Now, I've seen you've replaced the image in The Settlers with Image:The_Settlers_VGA.png. I didn't like it at first, but I've put the original one back again without removing the new one you placed because I wanted to first discuss this with you.

Now, my questions:

• In my version of "The Settlers", SVGA is just an option in options menu. Do two versions (VGA and SVGA) of the game really exist? If you can elaborate on that on the article, It'll make the article nicer and me happier.
• Your image is sized the same than the one I originally placed (640x480), but yours is from the non-SVGA mode. It is both obviosly upscaled and does have some black border. Shouldn't it be 320x200 or something more like the original VGA 256-color modes? How did you take that screenshot?.

Thank you. Rvalles 02:02, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

After researching, it appears I was wrong in my assumption that the original version did not have SVGA. (I have only played VGA). VGA is however standard 640x480 256 colors. // Fred-Chess 14:52, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

This doesn't work ;) VGA and SVGA modes cannot be the same resolution and the same number of colors (!). The VGA chipset doesn't support 640x480 at 256 colors, just 16. And does indeed support 320x200 at 256 colors (Mode 13h). The image you did post seems like that, but it is scaled up to be a bit bigger. My guess is that you used something like DosBOX with scaling turned on. I personally played on Amiga, and on PC with SVGA turned on recently, with DosBOX, which I used to make the screenshot I had upped.Rvalles 23:29, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I think, the VGA screenshot should be re-made as a 320x200 screenshot, but both should be kept, since on the Amiga and also on PC most people did play with 320x200 resolution - I remember that my card wouldn't work with SVGA back then. Should there also be a 3rd screenshot from the Amiga? Because it had only 32 (I think) colors, it looks somewhat different there. --Allefant 10:24, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

You are right of course 640x480 with 16 colors... -- however SVGA is at least 800x600, or higher...

Or 640x480 at more colors than VGA would allow :)Rvalles 03:02, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

My own screenshot was just found on the internet, there is no copyright of screenshots I think (although I think there should be, but I'm not the lawmaker around here). If you can provade an amiga screenshot, go ahead!

Fred-Chess 17:34, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

PS. Erm, well to clarify myself, I mean that "the person creating the screenshot does not hold a copyright of it.

Well, there's UAE :) I added an Amiga screenshot from it, and also improved the quality of the VGA one. --Allefant 20:25, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Well done... I was going to, but you beat me to it :) Do you know if Amiga version supported AGA graphics? I played it with OCS (A500, 1mb chip), but it had tons of options that would be enabled only on more capable Amigas. I guess I should just get hold of those adf images and try with e-uae on my fastest Linux box :).Rvalles 03:02, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't, but it does make use of hard drives and extra memory to allow for more sound/music and larger maps. It auto-detects everythign and adjusts itself to the system, which is somethign too few Amiga games did. ----

Release date

Mobygames claim the Settlers was out for the PC in 1994, I updated the article to reflect this but I'm not 100% sure Mobygames's claim is right.--Anss123 14:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Wrong cover box

The cover box is currently (March 16 2007) showing "The Settlers II 10th Anniversary box art" which certainly is not the box for THIS game. I suggest either replacing it with the proper box (there's "Serf City", "Die Siedler" (German, so inappropriate) and hopefully there is one "The Settlers", but I haven't seen it) Cyborg 16:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Do you know where we could obtain such an image, to be uploaded under fair use? --Allefant 00:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Ingame Music?

I used to play this game all the time when I was younger and I'm a little bit curious about the in-game music. A couple of days ago I was listening to a Heavy Metal music podcast called MetalCast. They had an episode in which the played old demo tapes and they one song by a band called Falkenbach from a 1995 demo. In the middle of the song they began playing a melody that I recognized even though I had never heard the song before. It was the main melody from the in-game music in Settlers!!! So now I wonder, is the in-game music an original composition or is the music taken from some old folk song? 83.233.110.96 18:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The article on Falkenbach has a link to their official website, which has a forum - maybe they will tell where the melody is from if you ask there? --Allefant 23:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Settlers-uae.png

Image:Settlers-uae.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 08:12, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

purchase the game

Does anyone have a link to the Amazon page for this game (the DOS port) or atleast a Gamestop or other online store where I can get this game, all I can find is information on the Amiga port.--xgmx (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.245.21.176 (talk) 02:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Settlers for Nintendo DS

The link from the list of Nintendo DS games links to this page. When infact the game is actualy the PC version of The Settlers II NOT I. I do not know if the mission pack is included or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.78.6.178 (talk) 16:01, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Reviews

[1] lists some reviews. I think it would be good if someone who knows how could include some of them in the reception section. I don't think the one review currently mentioned seems very representative. brtkrbzhnv 14:08, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

What's innovative about this game?

The current wiki article states the game "it was the first game blending together principles that had not been seen before". This tells us nothing. I can't get much more clarity from the reference either. Relevant, because someone sais this game should be mentioned on the general article about RTS.PizzaMan (talk) 11:55, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Until this question gets answered, i'm gonna at least remove the vague claim. PizzaMan (♨♨) 15:54, 25 August 2014 (UTC)