THE SETTLERS by Blue Byte A strategy game for PC and Amiga Review by Bev Truter Yes, yes, I *know* Settlers was released way back in 1994, but I only discovered it over Easter, languishing on my daughter's bookshelf along with a pile of other graphics-based games. After installing it on hubby's 486 because it refused to run on my lowly 386, despite the manual insisting it would (obviously Blue Byte hadn't reckoned with my recalcitrant old 386), I intended just "having a quick look" at Settlers when I had a spare hour or two. Ha. That was about 6 weeks ago, and I'm totally engrossed, absorbed and consumed by Settlers still. This is heady stuff indeed, I can't remember being so addicted to a game since my early days of adventuring when I first discovered the Zork series. Settlers comes on two 3.5" floppy disks, and has to be installed on a hard drive and played in real DOS mode. Unlike `Theme Park' which zooms up to unplayable speeds on a Pentium, Settlers chugs along quite happily at normal speed on a Pentium. A mouse is essential as this is a click-on-the-icons type game. The graphics are probably pretty primitive by today's standards, but boy, are they cute. I know Settlers has been reviewed already in SynTax (issues 32 and 33), so I won't go into great detail here about gameplay and strategy, but rather use this review to mention a few of the very likeable aspects of playing this 'god-game'. The idea in Settlers is to create a flourishing medieval community, and to conquer any neighbouring communities by building up an army of knights who will either defend your castle, or launch attacks on the enemy, depending on the strategy you choose. You begin by selecting a suitable place in your "world" to construct a castle, and then you must gradually build a thriving community consisting of farmers, foresters, fishermen, miners, a gold foundry and a steelworks, an armourer, toolmaker, quarry worker, and a host of other workers in various professions. You choose the buildings your settlers will need - e.g. a guard hut, a boatshed, a woodcutter's hut; and build them by clicking on the BUILD icon, which displays a range of buildings available. Choose and click, and your site is marked by a cross or foundation slab. Connect the site to a road leading to the castle, and a construction worker toddles out and starts work on the building as soon as the necessary wood (and sometimes stones) are delivered to the site. After a few minutes the building is completed, the builder returns to the castle, and an appropriate settler for the building will come stomping out of the castle to move in and begin his/her daily routine of work. Come to think of it, all the settlers looked like males to me, but perhaps the womenfolk were excessively shy and preferred to stay hidden in the castle? Balancing the economic system so everything runs smoothly is essential before you even think about going into combat; and I spent about 2 weeks building enormous communities in a world devoid of opponents before attempting any of the 30 missions available. There is also a demo mode, 6 training missions, and one-player or two-player mode, where you can play against the enemy or enemies of your choice and also choose the size of the gameworld and your settlers' intelligence, initial stocks in the castle, and rate of population growth. In the missions you have no choice of opponent/s, world-size or any other statistics; whereas in the one-player mode (against a computer-controlled opponent) it's easy enough to make the enemy settlers as thick as a brick with few stocks in their castle, and with a minimal population growth, while giving your settlers Einsteinian intelligence, a castle stuffed full of goodies, and a breeding-rate like rabbits. However, stacking the odds like this in your own favour soon palls, although it's very good for the morale in your first few "combat" games. The mission games are more of a challenge, and become more and more difficult as you progress up through the levels. Hey! I'm on level 5 after 6 weeks! Only 25 more levels to go! At this rate I should be finished Settlers by Christmas 2002. All the above manages to make Settlers sound pretty dry and statistical, but not so. This is the cutest game I've seen in ages, with exquisite cartoon-like graphics creating the impression of a real, functioning world in miniature. There's the background noise of birds twittering, oars splashing as the ferryman rows across a lake, the steelworker hammering, pigs (if you've built a pig-farm) snuffling and snorting, and your geologist bellowing "Yahooo!" every time he detects gold or iron ore in them thar hills. Trees rustle in the breeze, or fall with a "thwackkk" if felled by a woodcutter, and your farmers' wheat fields grow in neat circular patterns, changing colour with the seasons. By far the most nerve-shattering part of Settlers is watching your little knights go marching off to battle in enemy lands. Will they win? Are there enough of them? Did you ensure they stayed in the castle long enough to rise through the ranks? And most worrying of all - have your miners produced enough gold to boost morale? The little blighters always defend their own buildings well enough, but gold is what they need to make them attack the enemy with any real enthusiasm. Settlers (1) is so much fun that I'm scouring the second-hand software shops and magazines for Settlers 2, and I think Settlers 3 has either just been released, or is about to be released. To quote my geologist - YAHOOO! Even if you're not into strategy games at all, I bet you'll love the Settlers series. By the way, I remember someone saying that he deliberately waited until Settlers 2 came out and then bought it, bypassing the original Settlers altogether, so obviously you don't need to play them in sequence. - o -