Although a long time ago i played one of the first settlers for the 1st time (thanks to pev) i thought i'd endulge into a little resource strategy. So i went and bought this.

What a pile of shit. I had the entire thing sussed out within hours. There is nothing more to this than upgrading your city and building outposts. The former essentially is just a visual thing, the latter is to give you a sense of territory. But nothing more than a sense.

It's a kids game right? Here I am slating this thing that cost me £30 thinking it was made for people with a slight understanding of reality.

That's why I play settlers II.

Or at the very least, Settlers II the 10th Anniversary edition with nice graphics and XP compatibility.

Settlers has become Age of Empires. I've played 2 and 4, 4 was the one that got me into it and I love that one the most still (but I also enjoy 2). #5 (Heritage of Kings) was just AoE, they changed away from the cartoony graphics and humour of the settlers game, introduced building upgrades (I mean wtf? Settlers don't upgrade their buildings... they build what they want from the bloody start) and just generally ruined it. Still an ok game, but NOT a settlers game.

Then #6 was released. I bought it, hoping. I read the back, it made it sound like old Settlers was back, and to be honest it DOES play more like old settlers. But not enough. Nowhere near enough. Its slightly less AoE looking, but not enough. You still upgrade your buildings. There are what seem to be totally pointless buildings (clothes... settlers have never needed clothes dammit!), you get some stupid knight to act as your avatar and 'level up' and you don't claim more territory by building at the edge of your own territory or sending out pioneers... no all it takes is your knight to walk into the pre-sized territory and build one tower, and the lot becomes yours. It's far too easy as well; Settlers IV on normal mode is actually ridiculously hard and hard mode... ouch!

I havne't touched it in a few months. In fact it actually just made me long to play Settlers IV again, so I reinstalled that. It's not a bad game. Not at all. It just isn't a Settlers game.