As William Criswell said in his (too harsh) review of the game for Game Bytes, '.Probably the best way to describe gameplay is to walk through one of the production systems. The second best thing in my opinion is the wonderful interplay of various variables in the game, which combine to create a fun and reasonably realistic economic model that is far from boring.

You will spend a lot more time looking at the various serfs as they go about their business than concentrating on the game ) They are bigger than Populous people, which makes them more detailed and easier to notice the various jobs - especially in SVGA mode. One of the best things about the game, and one of the first things you will notice, is the great cartoony animations of all the units. You do this by giving one of 21 possible occupations to each of your 'serfs,' and building 24 types of buildings. Similar to Populous, The Settlers lets you control little computer people and lead them to control the entire world. A great start to a great series, The Settlers (published by SSI in the USA as Serf City) is a fun micromanagement game that is based on a tried-and-true 4X idea, but executed in an innovative way: by letting you control the smallest units possible in a game.

Download the settlers vii for free