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REVIEWS

.First impressions. They can be good, bad or indifferent. Sometimes they are wrong, sometimes misleading, but other times… I tried to shake the first impression that Settlers III gave, but I just couldn’t. The outside packaging was attractive enough, but all that came in that standard sized box was a lot of air and a CD case. Inside the case cover were 2 CDs and a small, totally inadequate manual. This was not a good start. The installation was uneventful, although there are numerous messages on Blue Bytes Settlers III homepage from people having problems with their CD based copy protection.

Once the game was installed, I stared in amazement at the opening sequence. A poorly animated cartoon depicting the out of shape "gods" Jupiter, Horus and Ch’Ih Yu. Now, since I have some young children, I enjoy a good cartoon with them now and then, but this was too much. I had to ask myself the question, "Just what was Blue Byte thinking about then they put this cartoon-type sequence in." The game isn’t a children’s game and the introduction is much too cutesy for teens and adults. The whole idea of picking a deity, fighting for their honor, and ultimately getting them back into physical shape seems the stuff comedies, not strategy games are made of. Still, all of these things can be forgiven if the gameplay excels. Alas, it doesn’t.

The Settlers franchise apparently was very successful in Europe but didn’t get much attention in the states. I, for one, never even saw a copy of Settlers or Settlers II. Judging from Settlers III I’m not missing much. It’s not that Settlers III is a bad game. It’s not. It just doesn’t rise that much above average. What is frustrating is that there could be a great game hidden in all that code.

Once you get past the initial presentation and introduction the game starts to show some promise. The graphics are very good and can be played at resolutions up to 1024 x 768. While the manual is horrible and the on-line one little better (there is some additional information in it), the in game tutorial is very good in taking you through the basics of game play. However, it strangely omits the entire deity aspect (temples, priests and divine interventions) given so much prominence in the opening sequence. So much for the plot setup by the cartoon! Actually, this plot is really incidental to the entire game.

Other than picking a civilization, which then decides the deity you serve, the "plot" is just a device that loosely links the campaign engine together. Yes, you can build temples, recruit priests and call upon "divine" favor, but it doesn’t appear to be necessary in every scenario (I purposely ignored this in several of the campaign scenarios an still won – granted, it may have been harder but it wasn’t necessary. Since I haven’t played all of them this way, it is possible that a few scenarios can only be won with them, but I tend to doubt it.)

Basically, the game engine is just more of the same things we have seen time and time again. Build a strong city by gathering resources and building the necessary structures. Build up a military presence. March on your "enemies" and destroy them. Settlers III does a good job early in the game. The economic relationships between the various industries are varied and interesting. For instance, you just can’t build a mine without first surveying for possible sites using a geologist, thinking of the food the miners need (they do best with several different food items), the industries needed to generate the food (farmer, miller, baker, pig farmer, butcher, fisherman), the tools needed by those industries (picks, axes, etc.), the industries needed to generate the tools (mines, forester, woodcutter, woodworker, etc.), and the list goes on and on. These relationships are at the heart of the game and in general work very well. Unfortunately, Blue Byte chose to animate, in excruciating detail, all of these activities. The first few times you see the animations, it is a wonder to behold. The little men go about their work building structures, farming, mining, cutting down trees, and a host of other jobs. The world seems alive and wonderfully detailed, but all of this takes TIME. After a while it seems like eternity for a building to be finished. Furthermore, if someone runs out of something they just stop working. This isn’t good since everything is so inter-dependent and there is no quick way to determine what is missing. More than once I tried to figure out why soldiers weren’t being recruited only to find that a mine was empty and weapons couldn’t be made. I would then build a new mine and wonder why it wasn’t working only to find out that a pick wasn’t available. Whew! Actually, these kind of things show that the inter-relationships between industries work and could even be fun if there were some types of reports that would help you figure out what was wrong. (There are some reports that can be helpful if only the manual gave enough information for their use.)

Once a thriving city is built, a military presence can be amassed and spies sent out to locate the enemy. Then it’s just a matter of overwhelming your opponent with superior numbers and troops. There isn’t much strategy involved in this part of the game and the computer AI is not very challenging. This is a pity since there is some diversity among military types – swordsmen, spearmen and bowmen. In comparison, Knights and Merchants had a much better military model, and even that wasn’t great.

To get an idea of the campaign game, simply take the above format and repeat for each scenario. And repeat. And repeat. The biggest challenges come from scenarios where the resources are scattered or scarce. In fact, some scenarios seem stacked, in that there is just barely enough time to get any type of city going before you are attacked. This makes me think that the computer isn’t playing by the same rules, regardless, it does at least pose something of a challenge.

Other modes of play are a single scenario of various maps with various conditions (resources) and a multiplayer mode. I didn’t try a multiplayer game as I couldn’t imagine playing something that would take this long over an Internet connection.

The overall user interface to the game is a mixed bag and does take some getting used to. For instance you can select a unit using the left mouse button but you move him using the right mouse button. In addition, many units cannot be selected, they just go about their work automatically. This is a mixed blessing as sometimes you would like a little more control. I also found that sometimes mouse-clicks were "lost" or not recognized by the program, leading to additional frustration and multiple clicks where one should have been sufficient.

In summary, Settlers III is a slightly above average RTS game. The formula isn’t novel, but the relationships between the various industries makes for some interesting gameplay. However, the slow pace of the city building aspect of the game and the need to micro-manage resource production may prove frustrating to some. Still, Settlers III isn’t a bad game and for those who like the genre. If structure building went faster, there was a easy way to determine why production has stopped anywhere, and the military aspect of the game was beefed up to allow more strategic elements, Settlers III might have been a winner.

Reviewed by Alan C. Fusco

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