I was very displeased with this game. As a stand-alone game, I at best tolerated this game. This plays like a very generic old RTS. It feels worse than Warcraft 2, and is completely incomparable to the likes of Starcraft and Warcraft 3, which have fairly similar release years. The building aspect is OK, with having to level the area taking time as well as the actual consrtuction. However the combat aspect is very poorly done, in my humble opinion. Now, to compare to its predecessor, Settlers II (which is up there in my "favorite games"). I did not like this game at all. Blue Byte have removed a lot of what I liked about the game, and added little of what I liked in compensation. They removed the roads, which in my opinion set Settlers II apart from other RTS games, in a good way. They added an "active" part of combat (read normal RTS mechanics), which I felt was very bland, replacing the passive "send out your troops and hope they survive" way of combat. The game in general also feels much less smooth than Settlers II, which confuses me. So in summary: If you want a proper RTS, there are far better options than this one, for example the Command and Conquer series; Starcraft series and the Warcraft series. If you are looking for the Settlers (I or II) experience, go back to them, or go for the Settler II 10th Anniversary edition. This will probably disappoint you.
