The Settlers: Rise of an Empire: Windows

Ubisoft - 008888683629

3.1 stars from 8 review(s)

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Settlers: Rise of an Empire (PC-DVD)

The Settlers series returns for a sixth iteration, with new and enhanced gameplay features added to the

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city building and strategic economy based gameplay. In The Settlers Rise of an Empire, the player builds lively, bustling towns in a medieval world. Everything is visible, lovingly animated and realistic. Each settler has his or her own daily routine, with a range of different actions and behaviors that can be observed by the player at all times. This enables the player to get the best out of the settlers, build up a flourishing economy, tend to the settlers' needs and protect the empire against danger from the outside. By expanding the empire, the player can aspire to becoming a legendary king or queen. The most popular features of the predecessors in the series have been retained and many of the fans' desires and wishes were incorporated into the new game to create a very special Settlers atmosphere. The result is a realistic medieval world, captured in intricate detail. The game features an immersive, yet transparent economic system based on the resources, wares and goods produced by the settlers in their various trades and occupations. Key Features: Create big, bustling medieval cities: Plot your expansion, manage your resources wisely and provide for your people. The Settlers Rise of an Empire offers gameplay that is easy to pick up and allows everybody from newbies to strategy experts to enjoy the game. Protect your citizens and your empire: Build up armies, vehicles and walls to protect your empire. Everything depends on your economy: Is your empire wealthy enough to supply a powerful defense force? Exciting multiplayer experience: Work together with one friend and play against another team: Will your division of labor be efficient enough to beat your opponent? A full living, detailed atmosphere: The RenderWare engine creates an extremely detailed universe with numerous plants, animals and other details that will attract the player. In The Settlers Rise of an Empire, the player builds lively, bustling towns in a medieval world. Everything is visible, lovingly animated and realistic. Each settler has his or her own daily routine, with a range of different actions and behaviors that can be observed by the player at all times. This enables the player to get the best out of the settlers, build up a flourishing economy, tend to the settlers' needs and protect the empire against danger from the outside. By expanding the empire, the player can aspire to becoming a legendary king or queen. The most popular features of the predecessors in the series have been retained and many of the fans' desires and wishes were incorporated into the new game to create a very special Settlers atmosphere. The result is a realistic medieval world, captured in intricate detail. The game features an immersive, yet transparent economic system based on the resources, wares and goods produced by the settlers in their various trades and occupations. Key Features: Create big, bustling medieval cities: Plot your expansion, manage your resources wisely and provide for your people. The Settlers Rise of an Empire offers gameplay that is easy to pick up and allows everybody from newbies to strategy experts to enjoy the game. Protect your citizens and your empire: Build up armies, vehicles and walls to protect your empire. Everything depends on your economy: Is your empire wealthy enough to supply a powerful defense force? Exciting multiplayer experience: Work together with one friend and play against another team: Will your division of labor be efficient enough to beat your opponent? A full living, detailed atmosphere: The RenderWare engine creates an extremely detailed universe with numerous plants, animals and other details that will attract the player.

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Reviews

(8)

Strong city-building sim, but lacks anything resembling a challenge.

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The Settlers: Rise of an Empire: Windows

Alright. Let's see here.

This was hyped to me as "Like Stronghold 2, except with more focus on city life than combat."

That was a pretty fair comparison. In Settlers, your main object of any mission is to build up a city infrastructure and promote your knight to new ranks in order to gain access to better buildings.

It's a beautiful game to play. When you really get a city rolling, you'll be entertained merely by zooming in and watching your settlers go about their business. The cities themselves feel alive and are nicely detailed. You really will feel as if you're lording over a medieval settlement.

Resources are scattered around the maps, which are divided into regions. You can't build in a region unless you've claimed it by setting up an outpost. Through this system you can slowly expand the territory you control and gain new trade partners or plots of land. In some maps expansion is a necessity, just to gain the space you need for the farms to feed and clothe your settlers.

I should

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remark again on the prettiness of the game. The seasons cycle, the peasants talk in the streets and hold festivals when you promote your knight, and mutter when there's not enough food or they're cold.

It's definitely a fun simulation game to play, but there aren't many deep details to delve into. It's fairly superficial. This won't bother you much, though. You'll be having too much fun watching the settlers go about their lives.

Now a few negatives.

I mentioned before that the focus wasn't on combat. Well, I just mentioned it a second time--it really needs to be discussed. For starters, there is a grand total of two basic military units: swordsmen and archers. That's it. There are also spies, mercenaries, and siege equipment, but you'll almost never use them. It's pretty much those two lonesome unit types. You'll never build a large army, either. Four squads--two archers and two swordsmen--are enough to completely dominate most enemies in the campaign. There are a couple of occasions (mission-specific) where you will have to build a single battering ram and only use it once--then you can leave it to rot if you want.

The only other real negative is the difficulty.

Namely, there ISN'T any. Difficulty, that is.

You can beat this game blindfolded and with the speakers muted. It's really that easy. You'd almost have to try harder to lose the levels than to win. For most of them, it's just a matter of time before you achieve victory--in 75% of missions, there's nothing to challenge you. Nothing at all. No enemies will attack you. No natural disasters will damage your town. The very biggest threat in the entire game is wolves, who will occasionally attack a lone settler.

Despite the flaws, this is a very fun game. If you can find it with a cheap price tag, it's worth picking up. You will spend several hours building up cities and enjoy every moment of it.

Eventually, though, you'll eject the disk--because you will have built every building, promoted your knight to the top of the tree, and have not a single challenge to overcome.

8 review(s) | 0 comment(s) |

8 price(s) | 127 days ago at

Pass!

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The Settlers: Rise of an Empire: Windows

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

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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.

8 review(s) | 0 comment(s) |

8 price(s) | 191 days ago at

Simpler than Stronghold 2

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The Settlers: Rise of an Empire: Windows

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

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8 review(s) | 0 comment(s) |

8 price(s) | 191 days ago at

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