Once in a while you find an old game that makes you stay up until 4 am without noticing and Settlers 3 is like that. I haven't played it back in the day so there is no nostalgia involved but damn this is pretty hooking. Your dudes move very slowly, work at their own leisure and information is quite sparse ingame but in the grand scheme of things it's extremely relaxing and meditative, even.
While it does share a lot of similarities with other TA games, this one has the coolest setting and one of the more engaging RTS campaigns out there, with the constant shift in perspective for different factions and the stylistic narrative inbetween missions. Mechanics-wise it does a lot of unique things, some good and some questionable, some useful and some useless. I personally am a huge fan of the drag box to select unit attack targets, the infinite summoning queue and being able to put additional mages to help summon units faster. Unit movement is interesting with the rotation rates being so relevant for certain units like ships and zeppelins. Unit veterancy is also very nice with the added golden armor they gain. Sadly the interface is kind of bad and doesn't describe anything ingame. Above all else I find the Soundtrack of this game to be one of Jeremy Soule's best, just under his Dungeon Siege music.
As someone who was very used to Settlers 1/2 this is quite the drastic change in gameplay and general focus, being more of a traditional RTS with some heavy city building instead. If you look at it for what it is rather than as a Settlers game, it can scratch quite a few itches at once. Sadly the songs get very repetitive though so I suggest muting the music and playing your own stuff.
