Settlers IV

                 Demo from www.gamershell.com

                       Reviewed by Sue

It was only when Carolyn Brown remarked to me that she was 
playing Settlers IV that I remembered I'd been unable to run the 
demo when it came out back in 2001. This was on my old 
computer and I wondered if the new one ('new' being a relative 
term!) with its 3D graphics card etc might cope better. I 
downloaded it and was pleasantly surprised to see it did, 
because I'd really enjoyed the previous games in the series. I 
suppose it and SimCity were my introduction to strategy and 
'god' games. I've been hooked ever since as, for me, they took 
over from text and graphic adventures. 

The demo has two tutorials and a single player game plus an 
online multiplayer option through the Blue Byte Game Channel. 
The first tutorial shows you how to get the community supplied 
with raw materials - wood and stone. The second one 
introduces priests and shows how to increase the population by 
building new huts. 

In single player game your men have to destroy the Viking 
settlement near your village. You're told there's another 
settlement nearby too, somewhere in the mountains.  
Unfortunately you can't save the game. 

The display of Settlers IV is quite different from previous ones. 
The figures are much rounder and more solid. The buildings and 
scenery too are more Toy Story than Snow White if you see 
what I mean - less cartoon like.  Strangely there doesn't seem 
to be a main building like a castle where all the goods are 
stored. Maybe the full game is different but in the demo the 
goods are piled in little groups in the centre of the starting area. 
There aren't any roads either. Settlers just pick up items and 
carry them about.  And I'm very disappointed there doesn't 
appear to be a prospector! I miss his cry of "Yippee!" as he 
found the mineral he was looking for.

The standard buildings are here. The Woodcutter chops down 
trees which go to the Sawmill. A Forester plants new trees. 
Hunters and Fishermen can catch  game or fish. Farmers grow 
grain which goes to a mill and then a bakery where water is also 
needed. Mines are where you find coal, iron and gold. Weapons 
and tools are produced in special buildings. To create more 
soldiers you need a Barracks, weapons, armour and optionally 
gold for higher level soldiers. 

But there are complications over earlier versions. Different 
miners like particular forms of food. Iron miners prefer meat 
while gold miners relish fish. So just baking lots of bread (loved 
by coal and stone miners) won't be enough. You also need a 
fisherman and a pig farmer for the best effect. 

Fighting is easier in some ways though it can be hard recruiting 
exactly the soldiers you want - swordsmen or archers in the 
demo. I made the mistake of going to visit my friend Freda on 
Sunday afternoon while the demo was running. I thought by the 
time I came back, my men would have got lots of iron, weapons, 
wood and stone. I discovered they'd been attacked, lots had 
been killed and the coal mine had been exhausted so smelting 
had stopped and no further soldiers had been recruited. 
Meanwhile the opposition were a seething mass of vicious 
looking goblin type creatures. I tried, but I was just too far 
behind to stand a chance.

Yes, a great game. Well worth waiting to play the demo.  If only I 
could have saved ...









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