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The Settlers: Rise of an Empire Review
User Submitted The Settlers: Rise of an Empire Reviews
Date: 2008-10-29
Not a "blitz" game
I must say that I was surprised at how good this game is. I read a lot of reviews from different online sources before buying the game, most of them giving it a poor score. I think the reason is that most "hard core" RTS players are used to a different style of game. Enemy soldiers are not going to build up and rush you within the first five minutes of the game. If you're into the blitz style RTS, this game is not for you. The refreshing pace of this game allows you to focus on developing a stable economic, social, military, and diplomatic structure.
One situation a player might face is the decision to either to build a stone road, build a new wall, upgrade a fortress, or build up their castle. On one hand, building a better road will improve the speed that people travel on it, which in turn improves the flow of resources. Building a wall will force an enemy to attack with siege weapons, by preventing them from using torches to burn down what would normally be a wooden palisade. Upgrading a fortress will provide extra defense in the contested regions of the map. Upgrading the castle could meet one of the requirements to promote the rank of their knight. All of these choices require stone, which you will have a limited quantity of.
The slow pace of the game allows you to take your time in making decisions, and explore the details and personalities of the game. Each map has its own set of challenges to overcome, which keeps the player interested. Instead of figuring out the formula and repeating it tirelessly, you are forced to adapt to your environment and situation.
The game is not without flaws though. The AI is pretty dumb. If there's an archer group standing by a person getting mauled by a lion, they won't shoot the lion until it switches targets to them. For the most part, you have to control your military's every move. The military units can only destroy buildings with torches, which they carry only one of. This will force you to run back and forth with your army, to destroy the enemy castle. Another thing is that siege weapons only work on walls. You can't use a battering ram to destroy a building. The performance of the game is also lacking. In other games with similar geometry and texture quality, the FPS will be higher.
Date: 2008-07-24
Good Game
I thought this was a very well-made game by ubisoft. The amount of detail in all the aspects were really quite cool. One should get it and try it oneself. Enjoy.
Date: 2008-07-17
I'm going to settle this right now...
A farmer walks out during the warm season and collects his wheat, which he in turn takes back into town. There, a baker turns the wheat into bread, which will be bought and consumed by an iron minor. The iron minor brings iron ore into town which a blacksmith will pick up, and turn into swords, which will be used by your fighting men paid for by the taxes of everyone on this chain.
It's the social chains like this that make Settler RoE a unique game. And this is essentially what settlers is all about; building up these chains as best you can. The game has a good campaign as well; every mission is different while the basic principal remains the same: keep your people fed, clothed, clean, and happy. Basically, it's sort of like civilization, but focusing on one town.
As a bonus, once the campaign is over, you can play any number of "free-settlement" maps, were your goal is to build the best city possible, while others have a specific goal (How long can you hold out under a barons taxation before revolting?) . Also, a downloadable map-builder and bonus maps should create some interesting opportunities for replay ability.
However, it does tend to get a bit repetitive. This game aimed to rival a lot of other games... but came up short towards all of them, thus dropping it all over. After your thirtieth near-identical city, you'll be asking "What now?" Combat was also somewhat disappointing: Swordsmen or archers, and couple that with some siege equipment, those are you're only choices. That in conjunction with some technical errors put another nail into the coffin of Blue Byte, although not quite sealing it. Settlers RoE could have been better, but it feels more like an attempt to bring back the dead.
If you can find it for cheap, than this game is worth your money.
Date: 2008-07-12
How to get around the "please insert original disc" message.
The game is great, but the copy protection is annoying. Ubisoft offers no web-based support for this game, but BlueByte forums.
1)Install game.
2)Install patches.
3)DVD is only for installation; Remove it.
4)Click the desktop icon for the game.
5)Choose the button that says "activation."
6)Enter your key, at the back of the manual book.
7)Download the text file from the website that opens.
8)Open it & copy everything.
9)Paste everything into the box that wants the rediculously long activation code.
10)Play without & disc, enjoy the fruis of your labor.
I CCB )combat city builders) recommend the Age of Ampires & the Anno series (aka 1503/1703 AD).
Date: 2008-06-09
Strong city-building sim, but lacks anything resembling a challenge.
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 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.
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