[Guide] The Settlers I History Edition

In this special blog we will provide you with a basic understanding about the game, how to manage your first settlement and how to fight some enemies.

After you started the game you see a very similar screen.

The knight in the shiny armor, you probably recognize him from the intro, is you. As handsome as ever. Next to your profile picture you see a mouse icon. If you click on the mouse, you can choose if you want to play with a friend in split-screen or alone. You can choose the input controller for your friend in the config-menu before you launch the game.

You also see three bars having the color blue, green and red. These indicators are very important. The blue bar indicates the stocks of a settlement at the beginning of the game. A large stock allows for rapid expansion and procures certain advantages. A small stock creates problems when the city begins to expand.

The green bar indicates the intelligence level of the settlements controlled by the computer. This level affects the rapidity of their actions and reaction.

The red bar represents the growth rate. The higher it is, the faster your settlements will reproduce and the faster you can expand.

If you play the game for the first time we recommend to keep your own blue and red bar above 50%.

It is now time to start a game. For the first game we suggest to play without any enemy or a very weak one.

As soon as the game finished loading we see the game world and we can freely move around with the right mouse button. You can change the controls in the config menu – you can even switch to the legacy controls as it was 1993 / 1994.

It is now time to find a good spot to build our castle and start our own settlement.

You should look for a lake, trees, stone and some mountain ranges. If you see a mountain range you can use the geologist symbol to know what resources are hidden underneath it.

With a left and right click (at the same time, or using the middle mouse button) on the “Pickaxe and Shovel” icon you display all of the possible building locations. After you found the perfect spot, it is time to build your castle. If you activated fast building mode in the game options, simply double click to place your castle.

By placing a lumberjacks hut, a forest house, a sawmill and a quarry your basic supply of goods is covered. The settlers need roads so that they can access the different areas of their settlement. There is a flag in front of each one of your building. In the beginning, you must construct a road when you want to build your first house. You will see a flag in front of the construction, just like the flag in front of your castle. Click on one of the two flags and a symbol for the construction of roads will appear in the pointer and in the lower left of the menu. Connect the flags together and you see your small little helpers leaving the castle. The shorter the distance between two buildings the better. If you have longer paths, make sure to place flags where possible. This will divide a longer path into two sections and you have more carriers helping transporting the goods. A good road network ensures the rapid transfer of goods and, when there are problems with the transportation, allows you to more readily find other solutions.

As you probably want to expand your settlement you should build guard huts in all 4 directions. This will ensure that you have enough space to build farms, industry to produce gold ingots and swords and shields to recruit soldiers.

Let’s focus on military buildings and enemies.

You already expanded your territory by placing guard huts. If there is no enemy around your flag next to the building stays white. When the enemy is closing in, a black stripe will appear and when the enemy approaches, the stripe changes to a black cross. In the last case you need to prepare for an attack.

The flag does not only indicate the danger level, it will also tell you how many knights occupy the building. The higher the flag is raised, the more knights are in in the building. A hut can contain 3, a watch tower 6, and a castle 12 knights.

In the military menu, as seen below, you can decide how many knights should occupy the building. Simply click on the plus and minus to change the setting. The second option lets you decide how many knights will stay in the building when you decide to attack the enemy. This will guarantee that enough knights stay behind to defend your territory.

Of course there is more that we could tell you, but we want you to explore the world of The Settlers 1 History Edition on your own.

Before we sign off, one important note. BE OBSERVANT: Look at your statistics from time to time, analyze your development mistakes or the negative results of an operation and try to find the best solution. A small change may have a profound effect. It is wiser to carefully plan your construction schedule and your strategy instead of building things haphazardly.

You can find a game manual, in German, French and English in the installation folder of the game.