In The Settlers — Rise of an Empire, players build lively, bustling towns in a medieval world. Everything in this richly detailed, realistic world is visible and lovingly animated. Each Settler figure has his or her own daily routine, with a range of different actions and behaviors that can be observed at all times. The ultimate objective of the game is to expand your empire and become a legendary ruler.


The Settlers series has been around since the dawn of time. As much as it's had its share of problems over the years, it's hard not to genuinely care for it in a strange "I love watching sea monkeys grow" kind of way. It's almost always had charm along with some decent gameplay features, but never quite managed to put together enough successes to scale that wall of greatness. Settlers has even gone so far as to slide backwards in recent iterations. Happily the latest attempt by Blue Byte, The Settlers: Rise of an Empire, is one of the best so far and definitely better than The Heritage of Kings. It's one of the easiest in the series to get into and has the best visuals the series has ever seen. It's still got some problems with trading, combat, and pacing, but the overall package is pretty decent.

The main gist of the game remains pretty loyal to Settlers of yore. Build up a settlement, harvest resources, expand outward, train some soldiers to defend, and create the best and safest place for your life-loving melon-headed subjects that you can. It's a simple system and one that's hard for some gamers to find entertainment in, but tends to be endearing for those of us that enjoy watching towns sprout from nothing but a patch of dirt.

It definitely helps that this is the most complete package we've seen in Settlers history. Whereas Heritage of Kings was good technically but offered up very little personality, Rise of an Empire has plenty of personality as the series has moved back to bright and cheery colors and cartoony characters with big heads and great animations. The detail afforded to all of the structures is pretty great. Everything from the architecture to the settlers hanging out the window pounding out the laundry adds something to look at. Seeing your settlement grow in size and become a bustling little town is definitely fun.

Of the big features changed in Settlers, my favorite is perhaps that maps are divided into several territories. Each of these territories have resources associated with them including wood, metal, fertile land, or some sort of food source. In order to be able to take advantage of any of those resources players have to go out and place an outpost down, which costs resources and money, which will force players to explore and think about where to spend their beginning resources to expand rather than just claim the first territory to come along. Other players (human or AI) can try and take this outpost by damaging it enough to capture it. This simple mechanic will help players get out of their starting city, capture land and be forced to defend it, which is a good thing as lazy good for nothings are boring to play against.

The big problem with and otherwise good mechanic is that every building and road in the territory blows up once the territory changes hands. Not only is it aggravating to the guy that built it (as it probably should be), but also the guy attacking. I'd just as soon take all of the structures as my glorious prize for assaulting the enemy and would prefer it if it was an option to convert the settlers there or simply kick out the old settlers, keep the buildings, and choose which ones for my settlers to inhabit.

Game features:
* A realistic and lovingly detailed atmosphere:
Discover an incredibly detailed world, rich in animal and plant life, and full of fascinating details just waiting to be explored.
* Four climatic zones :
Four climatic zones and four seasons have a massive influence on resource management and gameplay.
* Natural interaction of the settlers :
All settlers lead individual lives and interact with one other in a completely natural way.
* Protect your citizens and your empire :
Raise armies, build machines and construct walls to protect your empire. Everything depends on the economy: Is your empire wealthy enough to maintain a powerful defensive force ?
* An exciting multiplayer gaming experience :
Play cooperatively with a friend or against other teams: Is your division of labor and supply of goods efficient enough to be able to defeat your opponent ?


Minimum system requirements:
* Windows XP, Windows XP (64-bit), Windows Vista, Windows Vista (64-bit)
* DirectX 9.0c (June 2007 release)
* Pentium 4 2.0 GHz, Athlon XP 2000+ processor
* 512 MB RAM
* 128 MB DirectX 9.0c-compliant video card
* 2 GB free hard drive space




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