Previews// Settlers: Rise of an Empire

In my case, I ended up having to hop along to a nearby village and buy some sheep. For no particular reason, you understand. I just thought it might have helped matters. It didn’t, and it became quite apparent I was cack-handed at the game. It was the most settling fun I’ve ever been cack-handed at, mind you. Nearby villages are valuable assets in Settlers: Rise of an Empire as you usually depend on them for trade deals. They can, however, come under attack from Vikings (who will happily burn houses and steal women with cheeky grins on their stout, bearded faces) and trade with other kingdoms – how you react to these disasters and situations is entirely up to you, but is also something to deeply consider.

Benedikt showed us that the game world is dynamic in nature – every action has a consequence. For instance, do you ask your woodcutter to chop down all the trees in the area and thus leaving no chance of finding nearby deer to hunt, or do you leave some forestry there and use that area as a regular hunting ground? What if you hunt the deer too much though? Will you be able to supply food from an alternative source if you make the wildlife in that area extinct?

Things like this, coupled with the many different actions and animations that your Settlers perform as a direct result of each decision, really give me pause for thought. And this is coming from someone who really only uses his computer to play simulation games (don’t laugh, I could frag you). I pulled Benedikt to a corner to talk more about the game, and the mounting animation and scope of the game appeared to be the truly challenging part of development.

“Of course, you have the actual programming – you have to code all the data and content – and we’re still working on the game, so there is still a way to go. I think the most difficult issue is having to go through all the logistics – you solve one problem and two come back at once. So, for instance, we have these animations that we want to use for this one action, but if you’ve done something else beforehand that action might be different, so you’ll need another animation to cover that.”

Other climates were shown which detailed environmental difficulties that the player may face during construction of their village – a Scandinavian-style map was designed with beautiful blue hues and snow all over the landscape. In this particular example, we were shown a huge lake freezing over, which will naturally cause problems for any fishermen you have in your kingdom – or in fact any fishermen you happen to trade with.

A climate based on the African continent shows the challenge set for those not used to the extreme heat. A cart of merchandise is being carted across a river and very quickly gets ambushed by raiders – a situation remedied if you set a knight or troop to protect your cargo. The European climate brings its fair share of concerns too, this time regarding cleanliness. An example was used where a butcher failed to look after his house and as a result, the place stinks.

Introducing the newest addition to the Settlers universe... women! Not to put too fine a sexist point on it - because the men can just as easily clean their buildings if they’re not married - but wives are more than happy to do a spot of housekeeping while the husband is out doing his bread winning thing. The concept of women in a game where looking after a realistic and immersive world is the ultimate goal seems like a no-brainer, so we asked Benedikt why it’s taken this long:

“During Settlers V, our graphical artist said ‘women only cause problems’ [laughs].” Benedikt said. “With Settlers it was quite a challenge how we were going to add the women, because on the one hand we didn’t want to make sex a game mechanic. We didn’t think something like that would fit into the Settlers style. But we still wanted to have a realistic way to introduce women to the series.”