pat!'s Settlers 7 initial thoughts thread...

Download game today
Die prematurely tonight!

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[pad11]

Okay, I'll post my thoughts, as they progress, in this thread...Full Disclosure for some of the new folks, I tend to be very forgiving of games once I buy them.  Essentially, I feel like once I've shoveled out the cash, I might as well be a glass-half-full type of person, so please take any 'positive' comments about any game I talk about (with the exception of the The Guild series, which ROCKS UNDENIABLY!!!!) with that caveat in mind...just want to be honest with where I'm coming from!

45 minutes into the game, some initial thoughts for you!

* The graphic engine is a doozy. I'm floored by it.  While the whole theme is 'cartoony', it is still done beautifully.  I've fully maxed out the graphics on my 295 GTX co-op.  I haven't tried it on my two 8800 sli set up yet, not sure how they'll handle it.

* It is, at its heart, a strategic ECONOMY builder.  You can, with proper imagination and pre-planning, create a bustling city.  The key is to think ahead when placing residences.  Since buildings don't require a constant upkeep, once they're built, you're okay.  Space is always going to be an issue in the campaign, I believe, so keep that in mind.  You can keep work yards to the back of houses or at least just to one side.  There actually, if you think about the medieval time period this game is trying to represent, a level of realism to that.  Basically, zoning really didn't come into play back then for smaller settlements and towns.

* For data/economy/trade junkies like me, the UI gives you access to sooooooo much info!  And there really are a solid chunk of items in this game to concern yourself with.

* I have not had a problem in 45 minutes w/ needing to be online...yeah, big whoop at this point, huh!!!

That's it for now, I'll post more as I get more time to play.

pat!

[Khalan]

Thanks Pat, sounds OK so far.  Keep us updated, maybe I'll end up changing my mind about it eventually.

With placing residences and other buildings that can have workshops added on, does it show you the space that it will need to fit these extras when you're placing the initial building?  Hope that makes sense.  Would hate to be placing houses around and then discovering there's no room to expand them.

How's the pace of the game, can you take your time to build, or are there rivals that you have to rush to get military for etc?

* It is, at its heart, a strategic ECONOMY builder.

This sounds good.

[pad11]

Khalan:  Definitely shows you each of three spaces that you can extend on to the houses...but note that houses do NOT have to have extensions built on them...(because some settlers, like soldiers, etc.) need places to live too!

As for pace, it's just to early for me to tell, I'm in the tutorial and I'm sure that the AI at this point is holding off based on where I'm at in the tutorial, so maybe later I'll be able to answer that question.

pat!

[City Builder]

In the first 3 campaign scenarios, you don't have to rush at all, just build at your pace.  Of course I think it's the first 7 maps in the campaign where it's still considered the tutorial.  If you like you can practice in skirmish mode, first with no AI, and then add one AI and then more AI as you feel more comfortable and you'll likely find that you are rushing to beat them to technology advances and or sectors on the map that you want.

Personally I've found the hardest thing in this game is creating tools, it seems it doesn't matter that the warehouse right next door to the toolmaker has iron bars and logs in stock my tool makers are almost always showing "efficiency 9%" (insert any number from 9 to 39) and very rarely show a positive number in green for the toolmakers.  I'm starting to wonder if there is a bug in there.

I've usually got a lot of houses initially in the game that have no workshops and act purely as residences.  Once things really ramp up however, I use the space at the back of the house as I put my houses right next to each other and only leave the back space available most of the time, then I put some work shop on it as needed if I just need a little bit more since they are usually far away from the real work houses that produce most of everything, and then I use the storehouse in town that we start with to start pulling stuff in for them to work with.  It's never efficient however as the tutorial guy keeps reminding me that my setup is inefficient.

[pad11]

A couple more random thoughts...

First, had my first go-round w/ not being able to connect to play the game today...ten minutes of time lost...freaking Ubi and the DRM...

Second, the campaign, in my mind, is a must play.  I don't know, I just LOVE it and for me, giving that I like to turtle in games like this, it is really challenging me now.  I really do have to think of one linear way to get those victory points and then stay focused until things start to roll....

Third, the castle forge is mind-numbingly cool

pat!

[City Builder]

Thanks for keeping us up to date Pat.  Even though I own the game too, I always look forward to the insight that you pass along to us here at CBG, as it often lends me some ideas on other ways that I can play the game that we are playing at the time.

I'm not sure though what you mean by "like to turtle in games like this".  Does that mean that you gather up as many military units as you can and go and attack the enemy (or go to achieve a goal you need to achieve) by mass forces and they glob together like a turtly with it's hard shell?  If does it maybe mean that you like to gather up mass quantities of military units and wait for the opponent to come knocking on your door?

Personally I have a tendancy to sit back and collect my military units in my home sector and wait for the enemy to come close enough that I can strike them, this way they've usually already weakened their units by making the trip across the map to some degree, but of course I can't do that in the campaign as I have to go on the offensive all of the time so far into map 5 or 6 now.

Castle forge really is cool, and will only be made better by all those pieces that we can buy with the gold coins that we earn in the game to buy inside of the shop.  Last time I looked in the shop, there seemed like a lot of stuff we can buy with enough gold coins.  I may have to find somebody that also isn't any good at skirmishes and we'll just keep tossing the win back and forth at each other so that we can equally earn some gold coins to get some of the cool castle pieces in the game shop.

Anyway, I look forward to any more thoughts you come up with, I'm sure to learn something about the game that I'll not discover on my own.

Thanks for sharing.

[pad11]

Thanks CB!

'Turtling' is basically sitting back, getting the economic engine working in your favor, building up units and basically being defense while you fortify everything at your home base....

pat!

[City Builder]

Ahhh, thanks.  I kind of figured that's what it really meant, and it's pretty much how I play I guess since I wait for the AI to come to me, already substantially weakened.

Looking forward to your next update.

[pad11]

Another thing...I'm certain this can be fixed in a patch...but no screenshot ability?  Really?  The game is downright BEAUTIFUL.  Would love to be able to take some screenies w/out having fraps or something running in the background.

pat!

[Khalan]

Wow, that is surprising.  I assume you could print-screen and alt-tab out to paste it (if you have enough RAM), but it should have a screenshot key.