Special spy units can be used to try and spy into enemy lands, which will appear as own units to other players - but the camouflage does not work for enemy soldiers, and it is possible to let soldiers patrol around a settlement to ward off spies. Such surprise attacks are possible because Settlers 3 employs a Fog of War display – only areas of the map around own units are visible. This allows tactics such as sneaking in a group of soldiers to an enemy tower which protects important buildings, and if successful, thereby destroying the enemy's economy – which is hard to recover from. When capturing such an enemy building, the land ownership is transferred, and all enemy buildings in the newly owned land are destroyed. The goal of attacks is to capture enemy towers and castles. It also is possible to build additional things, like ships and ports, war engines with ammunition factories, storage places, trading posts, and several others.Ī battle of Romans (red player) fighting against Asians (blue player). Also, mining and processing of gold is necessary in order to increase the motivation of soldiers, as well as building temples and supporting them with sacrifices in order to get powerful mages who are important in battle. In parallel to the above, it is also important to increase the owned lands to have room for building – this is done by constructing towers and castles. The resulting iron ore is processed by an iron smelter, and a weaponsmith can then finally produce weapons, which are used in barracks to train soldiers.
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After food production, mining for iron and coal can start. Fishermen, water works and farms provide the base of food production, where crops need to be either processed by a windmill and a baker, or fed to pigs who then are brought to a butcher, before resulting in bread and ham. Residences are important to get enough settlers to carry around goods and build buildings. Usually, the player will start by building foresters, woodcutters, stonemasons and sawmills to get base building materials. All buildings require wood and stone to build, and all settlers need living space, which results in a complex chain of infrastructure required before big armies may be produced. Iron and coal is needed to produce weapons that are needed to 'recruit' soldiers, which in turn requires mines and food production. Part of a Roman village, with three residences, a temple, a watch tower, a sawmill and a waterworks visible.Īs in the original game and its sequel, Settlers II, a Settlers III game is played by building up a working economy to produce military units, and then going to war against enemies. The player assumes the role of a leader trying to prove they are talented enough to impress their god by conquering other civilizations and capturing as many territories. A messenger arrives with a message from the god's god telling them they must find a worthy leader or the universe and everything in it will be destroyed. The game begins with a cartoon-ish cut-scene depicting three gods: Jupiter (leader of the Roman Pantheon), Horus (the falcon-headed Egyptian sun god) and Ch'ih-Yu (the legendary Chinese dragon).