Fluffeh (my boyfriend) just got a new, shiny laptop and I’ve sort of taken over the daily use of it since it’s much better than my own laptop and he usually works from his base unit. Settlers VI runs like a dream on this one, so I took the opportunity to get some better screenshots than I got from my laptop and figured I’d make a blogpost with them. I have cropped the images a fair bit, so they make more interesting pictures than having my whole screen on. Hover the mouse over the pictures to see my comments.
Settlers: Rise of an Empire is one of my favourite games, and the one I play the most after World of Warcraft. It’s a nice strategy type game, without being all about winning battles and stuff. In fact, in many scenarios there’s no need for fighting at all. I like building villages that turn into towns that turn into large cities, with a vast surrounding countryside.
Here’s a trailer for the game:
As you can see, this is a very sweet and cozy game in many ways. I haven’t played through all of the campaign part yet, but my impression of the game is very good, nonetheless.
One thing I really love about this game is the festivals where the workers go an get spouses. These ladies look so sweet the way they dance around the men and when they later stand on the streets gossiping with other spouses, or going on errands to get food, clothes or whatever else. Here are some festival screenshots (unfortunately taken on my laptop, so not the best quality!):
And a more focused cropped part:
One thing in particular that I like about the spouses is that they come in different shapes, both thin and fat, and as far as I have noticed the thinner spouses are not preferred over the fat ones. I believe they are fairly equally distributed.
Like I mentioned farther above, I really like the non-military aspects of Settlers. I have tried some earlier Settlers versions, but it is Rise of an Empire that stands as my favourite. This is because you organise villages/towns/cities, with farms and other gathering professions outside of the village. To me, it makes it look a lot like a realistic medieval(ish) world and something I can relate to (I read a lot of fantasy and historical books), so my village sort of becomes my own private pretend-world.
You can also play the game online against other people, but I haven’t done that, and don’t know if I will in the future. At the moment I’m perfectly happy playing it for myself, and I can do that for hours on end, no problem!
