Gamescom Preview – The Settlers
After the seventh part of the Settlers in 2009, not much was heard about the game series (there was The Settlers online though). In 2018 the 8th part was finally announced and will be released in 2020.
It was important for the devs to keep the best game elements of the predecessors and extend it with new things.
The settlers arrive on the island with a ship and will unload a few start materials before they start building their settlement. Food sources can be fish, berries and meat from the animals. The production sites will need tools as the older titles did.
Animals now have an important role in the new part and there are quite a few types: Wild animals like rabbits, deer, wild boars and farm animals like cows, chicken, donkeys and pigs. They can either be used as food or like in case of the donkey for transporting your goods. Chicken also lay eggs, that can also be used for food. All animals have their own live, reproduce and age. You will also need to feed them and depending on the animal, the habitat can be very important for their spreading.
Wild animals also like to eat the berries and destroy trees and sprouts. Because of this it’s important to have enough hunters to prevent the wild animals from spreading too much. It’s also important to have a hunter close to the farms as rabbits and boars like to eat everything there. Boars can also attack the settlers which in turn run away from them.
The workers also need food. When their endurance is used up, they will sit down and not do anything anymore. The player needs to build market places and houses where the food is being cooked. The food will then be brought to the production sites. The better the food, the more endurance the workers get back.
There are three ways to achieve victory: Conquest, Path of Honor and the Path of Faith. The player manages armies of up to 200 units to conquest the enemy. It’s possible to have multiple armies that can be used strategically. For the Path of Honor, heroes are needed. The player can recruit and train them and then they fight in arenas with opponent heroes. The settlers of the loosing team will then soon start a revolt and if nothing is done, they will start working for the winners side instead. All the buildings in the area will now be the winners. The devs are not giving any info on the third option yet. Investment on the different victory paths vary. It’s very expensive to build an arena while you need a lot of military and resources for weapons for the conquest way. It’s also possible to mix the methods.
 Press picture by Ubisoft |
 Press picture by Ubisoft |
 Press picture by Ubisoft |
 Press picture by Ubisoft |
Further aspects of the new Settlers game
- Endurance and food play an important role
- There will be herbs, vegetables, corn and grains
- There are groups of goods and warehouses are for each of those groups. A warehouse can contain a maximum of 2 piles of 25 units each and the player can adjust which materials they want in detail.
- To better allocate the settlers that have nothing to do at the moment, there are resting places. This helps to purposefully gather the settlers at a certain place.
- Extending your land happens now gradually and not in one go as before when you placed a tower. There’s still a limit for each tower but the settlers move the boundary stones step by step.
- There are 4 types of Settlers: workers, carriers, construction workers and military. They have a different look so the player knows which Settler belongs to which type.
- Unskilled workers can help out in the productions sites and do all tasks that do not need an education.
- Settlers get better through education.
- The hunter can be set to hunt certain animals/age groups.
- Farms have a barn that already has two animals. After that they reproduce so the player gets more of them.
- Buildings can be leveled up which allows more workers per building and different resource can be produced.
- There are hard and soft woods as well as copper, ore and coal.
- New settlers arrive with ships. For that a harbor is needed. In the beginning new settlers are free but later on they need to be bought with money.
- The city hall and its level is responsible for the type of buildings that can be build.
- There are walls and towers to defend your land.
- There are currently no siege weapons planned
- Donkey carts need paved streets
- Settlers can transport one unit, hand carts two and donkey carts up to five.
- Walls can be damaged with hammers and axe warriors can climb the walls and kill the enemy on the wall.
- There are 6 types of weapons.
- Military can be upgraded with money.
- New military needs weapons and needs to train to win the battle. They don’t need food.
- There are several heroes with different attributes that can also be trained.
- Arenas come in three sizes.
- There is a herold that announces the tournament to the settlers in the opponents territory. The player can decide where he wants to send the herold.
- It’s important where you place the arena as settlers that go watch the fight will put down their work which in turn can lead to bottlenecks.
- There will be levels as always but also a sort of sandbox mode to just play and watch.
- Dead-ends are possible but certain production sites like the fisher, hunter and gatherers are able to eat their own food.
The Settler Alliance
The Settler Alliance reports about the newest topics and is worth a visit.
Conclusion
I really liked what I was able to see from the new settlers game. I didn’t get that far while playing as I had to look around and watch what the settlers do like I did in previous parts. The settlers ‘wuseln’ around and the landscape is really detailed. It seems I was a bit of an exception but for me, watching them is a big part of the game. In the old games I could watch them for hours.
Despite the new enhancements I felt at home in the game fast and the production chains are very similar to what we already know.
I’m not sure what to think of the new methods of winning as especially the path of honor seems a bit overwhelming. This is something for the final game to decide on though.
I’m really looking forward to the game and it’s on top of my wishlist.
Release Date & System Requirements
There are no details on the system requirements yet.
The game will be release in 2020 for PC and there’s also a physical Collector’s Edition (UBI Store Exclusive, Germany, Austria and Switzerland only). Details on all versions and how to preorder can be found here: [GC] The Settlers pre-order details
Further Reading
