Settlers 6

[Adagio]

There's an open beta here:

http://www.gamespot.com/test/thesettlers/index.php

This open beta includes a single-player tutorial mission and support for online or LAN play in four multiplayer maps.

Downloading now, but I wont be able to try it out before late tomorrow or saturday


It was just posted today it seems. The file you need to download is 1.1 GB large

[Adagio]

So far so good... not the best game, but still a bit fun


There seems to be two ways to win a game (in MP at least):
Promote your hero as much as possible (which requires a large town and lot of time) is one way, the other is just to get rid of the enemy
I only played one MP game (which ended with my computer showing the BSoD ) where I went for the peaceful ending, while the enemy went for the bloody victory. My computer crashed just as he attacked me. I was very closing winning through peace, so if I could withstand his army I would have won (and his army wasn't that much better than mine, so I believe I could have won)... but we'll never know

In this beta there's unfortunately no option to play against the AI. I don't know if this is because 1) BB/UbiSoft doesn't feel we need the AI for testing 2) The AI is not ready 3) The game ships with no AI like "Settlers V"... If it's 3 then I doubt I'm going to buy it

The game does have a lot of bugs at the moment. One of the worst ones is this one: In my first "game" (SP against nobody) the game froze about 5-10 times (each freeze is about 10 seconds). But this is a beta so no surprise there. The game is fully playable though

What annoys me about this game is that there's no documentation for most of the features. In my first game I played in the dessert, but nowhere could I find a spot where I could place beehives. Considering that you need beehives to reach the next level, you will not be able to win the game through peace

Anybody else who has tried the beta?

[Asmodean]

I am downloading it now. Wasn't aware that the beta was there

Asmodean

[Adagio]

It is still new, so there's not many good players around yet

I'm using my old nick with _ at the end when playing online, so if you ever see ADG_ that's me
You need an account at ubisoft to play online, while you need an account at Gamespot to get an activation code

Btw, if download is slow you can also find it on torrent sites



I wouldn't call this a Settlers game, but at least it's fun to play

[Adagio]

Yay, finally won a game (not that I've ever lost any, all games just ended with the other players losing connection). Sure, it wasn't a perfect game, as it was a 2 vs 2 game, by ally got disconnected before the game started, and I only met one of my enemies (so I take the other enemy also lost connection). And the only enemy left was a newbie (well, we all are, but this looked like his first game ), so it wasn't that hard to take him out

One of the things that annoys me is that it's not really possible to see who is still in the game. I actually thought both my enemies was still in the game, but to my surprise one has left and I missed the message

Originally posted by Adagio
2. The buildings are built way too fast

Unfortunately it's the same speed in the game. On the beta forum at Gamespot a lot of people have complained about this, but I doubt it will change

[Asmodean]

To me, it is not a settlers game either. I have always felt that the core element in a settlers game is the moving of resources.

E.g. dude no. 1 takes wood from one flag to the next, where dude no. 2 takes over and carries it to the next flag where dude no. 3 takes over etc.

That idea was fun, and it still is 10 years later. If the rest of the gameplay could be molded around that central concept, it would be a settlers game. As it stands, it is still a good game, but it is not settlers

Asmodean

[Adagio]

There's a huge thread on the gamespot forum where people are complaining that this is not a Settlers game... kinda the same discussion as when they where making the fifth game

I have been playing a lot of MP games, but so far I have only been able to finish one, the rest of the time I either win because the others gets disconnected or that I get disconnected

In almost all games where we played more than 40 minutes I consider myself the winner though, as the enemies don't have enough protection to withstand my army. In the game that just ended a few minutes ago I had already burned down several of their buildings, taken some land and destroyed their army, but then I got the lost connection to server error...
I didn't even give it a try to reconnect

I would be much happier about this game if it was just called Rise of an Empire. I would love to see a game that takes the core concept of the earlier Settlers games and mix it together with what we have learned the last 10 years, that would be great

[Adagio]

There's a single player demo available as well, which includes the tutorial from the beta and a SP game with an AI. Finally I get some competition
But I do believe the AI has cheated a bit as the bandits never attacked them. For that to happen they would have to give 200 gold often to them or they get the peace for free. Giving away 200 gold all the time should ruin them

[FrostyBoy]

Hey Adagio, I'm curious as to why it works for you but not me.

I have downloaded it 3 times, twice there was a crc error.

3rd time, I managed to get it installed, but when I have to activate it using my beta key that was emailed to me, it times out or something, I can't remember, but there is an error. I have tried all the options available to me. I checked the forums on gamespot, other people having the same problem as me, but no solution. Kinda strange.

[Adagio]

Did you try to download it using torrent?

Not sure why you can't activate. When did you try to? Yesterday the server was down, but it seems to be up again now. maybe that could be the problem

[FrostyBoy]

Last week, 3 days in a row.

I dont know where to get it from torrent. I have searched around for it, but found nothing.

[Adagio]

Googling for "settlers VI" torrent beta found several results

It's the same way I found the SP demo (just replace beta with demo)


After playing the demo the second time I have noticed that the AI is totally scripted. I have high doubts about the game being shipped with a real AI. I posted a message about this on the gamespot forums shortly after the beta was released, but people quickly dismissed it. Now it seems like I'm right

They made the same mistake with the last game... how can they make huge mistakes as this twice?