| 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/distribution | 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] The first in The Settlers series of video games, it was the first game of its type, blending together principles that 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 65,536 individuals, all behaving autonomously.[3]
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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.
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.
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 congestion. 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.
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.
The pace of The Settlers is much slower than other modern games of this nature due to a variety of factors. The characters mostly walk along paths specified by the user, as does materials and resources. Most materials and resources have to be processed a few times before the material is useful to the player.
Evidence of slower pace can be seen in the statistical screens, which shows a graph to 50 hours of gameplay, and a reminder to save the game being set at up to one hour.
The slower paced game can potentially make time-dependent features longer to play out. Training knights to the highest levels or waiting for fishermen to catch fish may take a while.
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 that 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.
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.
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 U.S. publisher SSI. However, starting with the second part in the series, The Settlers also became the official title of the series in the U.S.
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.[7]
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