The Settlers: Heritage of Kings

Did You Know?

• The Expansion Disc added two new combat units: light and heavy sharpshooters.
• The Legends Expansion Disc introduced a random map generator.
• The Gold Edition, released in November 2005, contained the original game and the first expansion.

Gameplay

The Settlers: Heritage of Kings is a real-time strategy game controlled via a point and click interface. On most maps the primary goal is to build a settlement with a functioning economy and produce enough military units to defeat the opponent. The player engages in economic micromanagement, constructs buildings, researches new technologies, manages taxation and workers' motivation, and gathers resources. The game mechanics differ substantially from earlier Settlers titles, with less emphasis on micromanagement and daisy-chain economic processes and more on resource gathering, technology trees, and combat. The game offers two modes: single-player and multiplayer. In single-player, the player can play campaign missions or individual non-campaign games. The original release includes fifteen campaign missions; the Expansion Disc adds nine more, and the Legends Expansion Disc adds three campaigns of four missions each and one of five missions. Multiplayer can be played via LAN or online, with game types including Conquest, Technology Race, and Point Game.

Plot

Set during the days of the Old Empire, the game begins when King Mordred's Black Knights, led by General Kerberos, attack the village of Thalgrund. A young man named Dario drives them off and then heads to Ridgewood, where his mother is mortally wounded. As she dies, she gives him an amulet, revealing that King Keron was Dario's father and that the amulet must stay with the legitimate heir. Joined by his childhood friend Erec, Dario seeks to defeat the Black Knights and depose Mordred. They travel to Crawford to speak to Dario's uncle Helias, who explains that the amulet is one of several artefacts that together form an orb representing the king's strength and honour. If reassembled, the orb would legitimise Dario's claim to the throne. Keron had split the orb and smuggled Dario and his mother out of the castle before being killed. Helias joins Dario and Erec as they search for the remaining artefacts and reunite the princedoms.

Development

After acquiring Blue Byte in March 2001, Ubisoft stated its aim to make The Settlers a global leader and develop it on other platforms including PlayStation 2 and GameCube. In June 2001, Blue Byte revealed the next game would be the first in the series to use 3D graphics and would be released simultaneously for Windows and consoles. Throughout 2001, Blue Byte sought feedback from critics, focus groups, other developers, and forums, asking what the core of The Settlers was and what did not work. The only idea rejected outright was including hobbits and elves. Early in development, the designers decided to streamline gameplay and build mechanics that were complex but not complicated. Creative director Thomas Friedmann defended reducing micromanagement, arguing that construction games had often served as interfaces for Excel tables. Blue Byte's design philosophy shifted focus from logistical management to managing settlers and buildings, with simple menus, minimal statistics, and graphics that clearly represented game events. Art director Thorsten Knop described the graphics as an aquarium effect, with many purely aesthetic animations.

Reception

Heritage of Kings received mixed or average reviews, with an aggregate score of 58 out of 100 on Metacritic based on twenty-nine reviews. PC Games' Petra Fröhlich scored it 85%, noting it was a Settlers game in name only with virtually non-existent economic cycles, but praising the heroes, sound effects, animations, and graphics as some of the most beautiful in the strategy genre. IGN's Dan Adams scored it 6.5 out of 10, arguing the graphical changes and combat focus stripped the game of its unique identity; he cited repetitive mission design and lack of combat strategy as weaknesses, and called it a below-average game. GameSpot's Jason Ocampo scored it 6.4 out of 10, criticising the glacial pace, repetitive missions, underdeveloped combat, and practically non-existent enemy AI, though he praised the graphics. Eurogamer's Kieron Gillen scored it 5 out of 10, calling it brutally average and criticising the simplification of micromanagement and the use of heroes, concluding that Blue Byte had ended up with something the same as everything else but not as good.