When you think of city-building game franchises, chances are pretty good that The Settlers isn't the first name that springs to mind. Although German developer Blue Byte may have been topping the charts in Europe with these sedate simulations of medieval life for nearly 15 years now, the series has never gained the stateside prestige of something like Sim City or even Caesar. But this second-rate status might be coming to an end with the latest addition to the line. The Settlers: Rise of an Empire is the most fulfilling game in the series, adding easy-to-play charisma to the usual Middle Ages economics and trimming much of the micromanagement that made playing past releases in the series as much fun as doing your homework.


Despite the aggressive subtitle, gameplay here compares more closely to building an ant farm than it does to building a real-time strategy empire. As with previous Settlers games, the focus of the solo campaign is a mix of stereotypical city building with traditional Age of Empires-like resource gathering and soldier recruitment. Most of your efforts continue to be centered on developing a medieval city, which means you spend virtually all of your time constructing resource-gathering huts, erecting castle walls or gates, and trading with neighboring villages.

The Settlers: Rise Of An Empire - The Eastern Realm Tech Info
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Blue Byte
Genre: Strategy
Release Date: Apr 18, 2008 (EU)

Minimum System Requirements
System: Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 512 MB
Video Memory: 128 MB
Hard Drive Space: 1000 MB