Settlers 7 Demo out!

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Gawd
Joined
Aug 2, 2004
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YouTube vid of the tech in the game engine. Looks gorgeous!

Demo here! Capped at 250kbps and the website is in German but the client is all languages.

It's on Fileplanet now.

Game comes out next week. So excited! :D

Early reports are that it's like S3/S4, with a strong focus on multiplayer matches and not at all like the abysmal S5/S6. If you ever played S3, it was some of the best online gaming I've had the pleasure to play in decades. Seriously.. 8 player multiplayer was awesome.

I'm still downloading but even if the gameplay is a massive disappointment, that game engine alone looks worth zipping around for the eye candy. It's also Ubisoft so has their new DRM, but then again it's a multiplayer game so you would have to be logged into their servers to play online anyway.
 
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I'd gladly see Settlers 1/2 remake with proper graphics. Where more point was put on proper managment of economy, then on all the combat. Lost interest in series after the S3
 
I'd gladly see Settlers 1/2 remake with proper graphics. Where more point was put on proper managment of economy, then on all the combat. Lost interest in series after the S3

I completely agree. The thing I loved about S3 was that you were aggressively competing against other players with your ability to adapt to your environment rapidly and put up a functional settlement. That sinking feeling when you realised you had a logjam in your transport network or your food production and the 10 mins it would take you to fix it would be the difference in surviving or getting snuffed out of the race. It was so novel at the time to have an online multiplayer RTS where the focus was on the settlement. It still is really.

The series went downhill when they removed the production chain complexity and the construction and goods transport. Luckily, it's all back. It's a very different game when you select a building and the planks of wood, stone and building tools all have to be transported by hand to the building site.
 
I'd gladly see Settlers 1/2 remake with proper graphics. Where more point was put on proper managment of economy, then on all the combat. Lost interest in series after the S3

They were doing a 10th anniversary edition of Settlers 2 (2 & 3 were the high point in the series for me, 6 definitely the low point) a few years back, you may want to see if you find a copy of that.
 
Been playing it the last few hours, it's fantastic. The graphics engine really gives a 5970 a workout. 25-30fps with all settings on max at 1920x1080, although Crossfire doesn't seem to work outside of the main menu scene so I'm guessing 50ish fps once they get that working. Looks absolutely stunning. Don't even try with Eyefinity, the PC will asplode. I settled for single screen.
 
I'm having a hard time getting into this. I loved anno1404 but I can't stand the camera angles here. And I can't seem to find the tutorial besides those chapter videos.
 
You can move the camera freely by holding down the middle mouse button, or tap backspace to reset it. Mouse wheel raises and lowers. It's pretty standard RTS camera movement I think. You can redefine keys for all the camera movement but the redefine keys page doesn't seem to do anything, atm.

There doesn't seem to be a single player campaign/tutorial in the demo. I think you have to just play around with it and watch the videos. Took me a few hours to work out what was going on but I re-watched the videos after an evening's play and they all made sense the second time through.

The friends settings also seemed a bit hit and miss. My friend hosted a game and invited me to it but I couldn't join for some reason. I had to host an open game and have him join it on the master list, which worked. We didn't see any problems playing online after that though.

I also found a MultiGPU setting in the options.ini file. It's set to zero by default and editing it to a 1 switches on Crossfire for the main game. Framerate doubles but there is really bad tree LoD/flicker going on. I guess that's why they disabled it.

Still gooey eyed over the graphics. With crossfire enabled I was just managing 60fps at 1920x1080 on a 5970, with everything on full. It's pretty f'ing awesome, imo. Hope they have the flicker fixed in the retail client.
 
nice gfx.. not a bad game. and the DRM wasn't even an issue.
 
I thought s6 was pretty good and I was really looking forward to this, but I'm gonna give it a pass until they feel like patching the drm out, or I know it can be removed by other means. I refuse to be bound to an internet connection when I'm not playing mp.
 
OMG. Thank you OP for pointing this out to me. This is the first Settlers I have ever played and I LOVE IT! I DLed it from worthdownloading.com. They let me get it at a steady 600kb/s
 
There's no manual with the demo. I have no idea what to do.

Doesn't look like there is going to be a strategy guide for it either. :(
 
Fun Demo, I loved S3 back in the day.

I did lose my internet connection at one point today, and the whole game locked up, and displayed a message telling me to reconnect to the internet...

So yeah - fun game, drm seems to suck somewhat.
 
Does this have Ubisoft's persistent online DRM like AC2?

Edit: Nevermind - just saw the last part of the post above me. Crushed my interest in a new Settlers right there. :(
 
Does this have Ubisoft's persistent online DRM like AC2?

Edit: Nevermind - just saw the last part of the post above me. Crushed my interest in a new Settlers right there. :(

I believe both the demo and the full game have it.

Edit: Missed your edit.
 
I've been playing all weekend. I think this is the most hours I've ever gotten out of a demo. I love that they have multiplayer in the demo. I've had a few matches already and I'm all juiced up for the full game.

There is apparently a single player campaign that slowly introduces you to the game, with tutorials. It's quite overwhelming to jump straight into a skirmish but once you get the hang of it, there is a lot of depth.

I've managed to beat the AI and other players with pure technology, trade and military and some games with mixes of two or three. It's very dramatic when someone is close to winning. The music changes, the sky fills with clouds, there is a 3 minute "Countdown to Defeat" if someone hits the win criteria. So intense!

This is the best Settlers since S3 and looks to have great multiplayer in the retail. I can't wait to play big matches with teams.
 
Fun Demo, I loved S3 back in the day.

I did lose my internet connection at one point today, and the whole game locked up, and displayed a message telling me to reconnect to the internet...

So yeah - fun game, drm seems to suck somewhat.

Out of interest, did you lose your progress in the game or were you able to reconnect your internet and just carry on?

I've not seen any problems with the DRM, but then again I've not lost connection in years so hopefully won't have any. Not too fussed about the DRM as I don't plan on playing this game single player at retail. It would really suck if you had dodgy internets and did skirmishes vs the AI though.
 
Out of interest, did you lose your progress in the game or were you able to reconnect your internet and just carry on?

I've not seen any problems with the DRM, but then again I've not lost connection in years so hopefully won't have any. Not too fussed about the DRM as I don't plan on playing this game single player at retail. It would really suck if you had dodgy internets and did skirmishes vs the AI though.


im not even going to bother trying to play the demo knowing how bad my internet connection is.. it constantly drops(worthless pos comcast).. so my only choice is to wait for some one to crack the game so i can actually enjoy the single player.. pretty sad that i have to spend money on a game and then wait for some one to crack it just so i can enjoy the game i spent my hard earned cash on.. i really cant blame the game devs.. its not their fault.. its the pos publishing company that forces them to use this drm shit..
 
im not even going to bother trying to play the demo knowing how bad my internet connection is.. it constantly drops(worthless pos comcast).. so my only choice is to wait for some one to crack the game so i can actually enjoy the single player.. pretty sad that i have to spend money on a game and then wait for some one to crack it just so i can enjoy the game i spent my hard earned cash on.. i really cant blame the game devs.. its not their fault.. its the pos publishing company that forces them to use this drm shit..

I agree. Ubisoft is not Blue Byte. It would be nice to have a thread about Settlers 7 (an awesome game) that doesn't get thread crapped by Ubi DRM haters.
 
well i was bored tonight and gave in and decided to try the demo full well knowing about the DRM crap.. but regret every minute of it.. friggin game refuses to play on my primary display and theres no way in hell im playing this game on my 19" 4:3 secondary monitor.. ARG!!!! worthless pos.. this is the only game ive ever had a problem with not playing on my primary display.. this problem alone is enough for me not to waste a dime on this game.. i couldn't care less about the DRM..
 
I briefly played the demo yesterday, and liked it. I will need a lot of practice to get the hang of it. The only problem I have is that my mouse isn't locked into the display I'm playing on. It's annoying that I can't use my mouse to move right, but that could be because of Ultramon... I dunno. Maybe there's a setting I'm missing.
 
I played very briefly of the demo. My graphic video drivers were not up to date so I was playing with "low" graphic settings. Connected to UbiSoft was no problem I registered a game previously so I didn't have to create a new account.

I wasn't to familiar with the gameplay so I checked the video tutorial. That wasn't a great tutorial, seems you still had to know how to play the game before to understand what the heck was happening.

Well try and play some more this week, if it is good, will purchase it later. I did notice that the "Gold" edition is only available through digital download means no retail box copy. That is for the U.S. I guess.
 
I played a couple rounds of the demo, one without an opponent so I could take my time and figure it out. One with an opponent......wasn't very hard. It's just kind of frustrating because I am still not sure how the game decides who gets what resources first. And since you're always running out of stone and the other mined things......you get into situations where nothing is being done because everything needs stone or tools...

Combat is very simple in the demo at least...basically you need about 5 more guys than the defenders once you get past the towers to win.

Maybe Im missing something, but I don't think I'd enjoy playing this game very long if this is a true preview of it.
 
Decided to buy the game. Install it and run the game. Now... I'm waiting for the 450MB update to finish downloading. It's going ass slow, which is really pissing me off.

This should tide me over until Civ 5 or something comperable comes along. Of course, it hasn't to finish downloading first.... Bah to that!
 
Well this thing so isn't likely to turn up on Steam in the UK so I went with another digital distributor (the one that the demo links to when you exit) and it's downloading now. CD-Key arrived half an hour ago.

Bit pricey at 35 quid but if you want it in the UK and don't want to wait for Friday then you can start playing right away.
 
Well i was all for trying the demo, installed an everything. But now i have to login to play it at all. Don't want to make an account with Ubi,

Uninstalled, i won't even give it a chance due to this
 
I have never played, or heard of Settlers... gameplay vid looked good, and I just got my 2MB/Sec connection... what the hell.

All I have to say is.... DAMN I THINK THEY FINALLY FIGURED OUT A GOOD WAY TO SELL GAMES! THERE ISN'T A SAVE BUTTON!!!! DAMN YOU UBISOFT!!!!

Oh, you do need internet to get INTO THE GAME itself.

Other than that, fun game... built a big town with 3 towns takin over... no saves ):

$60 is too high.

/ramble
 
By the way

Pentium D 2.66Ghz x 2 (dual core)
2GB DDR2
Geforce 8600GT
Win 7 RC

Looks fairly good, not like the video but good.
 
I have never played, or heard of Settlers... gameplay vid looked good, and I just got my 2MB/Sec connection... what the hell.

All I have to say is.... DAMN I THINK THEY FINALLY FIGURED OUT A GOOD WAY TO SELL GAMES! THERE ISN'T A SAVE BUTTON!!!! DAMN YOU UBISOFT!!!!

Oh, you do need internet to get INTO THE GAME itself.

Other than that, fun game... built a big town with 3 towns takin over... no saves ):

$60 is too high.

/ramble

What do you mean "no saves"? You can't save a game and come back to it later? You have to play a mission all the way through at once.
 
What do you mean "no saves"? You can't save a game and come back to it later? You have to play a mission all the way through at once.

You can save whenever you want (in the full game) and all your saved games also get stored on Ubi's servers as well as your own PC. I guess if you have to put up with their DRM then at least you get synchronised saved game Cloud action.

The missions are about an hour each on average in the single player campaign btw.

The tutorial is one of the best I've seen. The campaign gradually introduces you to the game elements one by one. It's really well paced. Pretty much everything has a tooltip popup that links to a short in-engine cutscene of that thing in action. All your objectives are broken down into smaller objectives, each with info panels that pop out and give you visual breakdowns about how stuff works. It's so slick and comprehensive.

The demo just sort of throws you in there and lets you work it out yourself, which is a bit overwhelming if you've not played a Settlers game before.
 
I have the complete game - never played a Settlers game before and I have to say, it is truly fantastic. While I am not a fan of the DRM, I am sure it will be patched out later and it isn't an issue for me. But it is highly polished, fantastic UI, very well optimised (works very well on my laptop woth high settings) and is graphically astonishing. But most importantly, the gameplay is fun and addictive while maintaing lots ofs strategical options and huge amount of replayability (16 AI personalities, online ladder, map customisation and even customising your castle from hold rewards from skirmishes).

To give an example of how intuitive the game is, my wife who has never played any computer game before except Farmville and Solitaire has become immersed in Settlers 7, remembering supply chains and blonking down builings and accomplishing tasks. Yet at the same time the game is complicated with many things going on at once. I think this will be a game I will be playing for years to come. Sold on the Settlers series!
 
Im in the UK and the Collectors Edition was around £32 and comes with a constructor figure (nice and large), seeds to plant your own barley and things, poster, soundtrack etc - v good value. It does require permanent net at the moment but won't forever as I am sure it will be removed much in the same way that Anno 1404 DRM was removed a little while in. Things usually seem like a good idea at the time by game execs until the truth actually hits them. So don't let it stop you from getting this incredible game.
 
I've read, that you get military and economy paths to complete your campaign. Does it mean, that I can finally ignore the RTS-part of the game and do just as in ol'good S1-3?
 
I've read, that you get military and economy paths to complete your campaign. Does it mean, that I can finally ignore the RTS-part of the game and do just as in ol'good S1-3?

Well I never played S1-3 (or any other Settler for that matter ) but you get three paths - military, trade and research and you can focus or mix as you want. Each path is very user friendly but there is considerable depth as well - you can for example not focus on military at all and just win a game purely through trade and bribery taking over areas - or via research and monks taking over areas. However in truth, the least one should do is build up some battlements in key areas in case you are attacked (which you often may be). But you can see how the enemy are moving their troops to decide on this.

But there is definitely no need to do anything specific to win a game - everyone will be different!
 
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