This is my favourite game of the series, and the last"good old"Settlers(not counting 10th Anniversary and Rise of Cultures)! Also, the description on the Youtube video promised"high-resolution graphics"...
"Settlers IV HD"? Well yes, please!
Anyway, feel free to use this topic to celebrate the release, or say whatever you want about it. :)

By the way, how long do games usually take to be released since they're"announced"? One or two weeks, maybe?

EDIT: I clicked on something right above my message, and now I've got a red thing... Did I accidentally report myself?
EDIT 2: Okay, nevermind, it's gone.

I already have it and unfortunately it's kind of insanely hard. :D Well, not so much as impossible but every mission, EVERY ONE, is get your ass up and D-fence built FAST. There is no exploration, no time to build/upgrade; the second a scenario starts you are under fire, even on 'easy'.

I got it too(the german Gold Edition +, that is, even featuring the New World expansion), and I never got that specific problem or found it too hard... What mission were you playing?

Not that it's too hard, I miss represented that sorry, but it just seemed every mission was the same RUSH RUSH RUSH. I like that in a RTS but not every mission, or seemingly every mission. In S3 there were several like that but there were also several instances of 'build up slowly, get a solid economy, get a solid army, attack when ready'. Maybe it's just me but it seems the enemy, be they strong or weak, is on your ass from the get go on every mission. I stopped playing not out of frustration but rather monotony.

Well, I have to disagree with that...

I mean, of course it is a good idea to build up a good colony from the start, but Settlers IV offers many different mission types(if I remember correctly, there was a mission in which you had to lead a thief to steal a statue... The only thing was to keep your thief alive! No settlements involved!), and I always got the feeling that it was more balanced than Settlers IV;

there, once you start producing soldiers, it pretty much depends on which player can produce more soldiers before the first attack happens.
On Settlers IV, it's not only the ammount of soldiers, but also the class of the soldiers itself and the fact that the magic system is more complex(well, not that it was EVER complex on a Settlers game, but...).

Oh, but the best thing on Settlers IV are the different races; sure, Settlers III had nice things like being able to burn asian buildings, as they were made out of wood... But other than that, the ressources needed to build a building and the visuals, there wasn't really a difference in playing...
Settlers IV focused a lot on that aspect; the different races had different building traits(Mayans needed insane amounts of stone, but could build on desert and had more resistent buildings, and trojans, though being balanced as romans, did also need more ressources than they did. This made them able to build on nearly every terrain, what romans couldn't), and th different units... Those were awesome(special mention to the trojan one, as it could deal area damage).


Anyway, though you thing the rushy game is S IV, and I think it's S III, I think we both can agree that both games are great, can we? :) Let's agree to disagree.

Fair enough. When I'm done with my current RPG binge I'll have to go back and give it another spin. To be totally honest I've only played those initial three groups with the three missions each (Romans/Vikings/Mayans). I would assume the actual 'dark' campaign and some of the expansion stuff will offer some nice change of pace.

Well I played S2 and loved it. I also played S3 but didn't care for it too much. Those of you who have played S4; how does it compare to 3?

I always like to compare them like that;

Settlers 1 and 2 are very alike, and so are Settlers III and IV.

Some say that Settlers IV is an updated version of III... May be true, but in my opinion it's also more balanced. If you didn't really care for S3, chances are you won't care about this too, but watch some videos on Youtube. You may get a better impression.

Out of curiosity: Settlers 4 had that annoying bug that LAN games desynchronize after about half an hour, if you play with AIs. Has this, by chance, been fixed in the GoG release?

I'm not sure, but I wouldn't bet on that horse.
GOG's release is pretty much the"standard"english Gold Editon; still has the same resolution problems with modern computer as the original releases, and everything seems the same.

Going to start a MP coop game right now, though. Will let you know.