The Settlers Online

Still buggy, and you do need a reasonably current PC with goodish graphics and a moderate processor and probably close to 12gb Ram.

However, the worst of the login issues and bugs do seem to have been dealt with. There is new content fairly regularly and frequent events. Still not really family friendly but if you contact BlueByte/Ubisoft and explain multiple users at the same IP address, they are willing to allow that.

There are still unexplained bugs, but they do have the staging site to test ahead and that seems to have helped. PvP isn't necessary and to my mind leaves much to be desired, but on the whole, it's a fun game and you can play without spending money!

I played this game for a whole six months. Then Flash went away. THEY KNEW FLASH WAS GOING AWAY. Then they scheduled the transition just before the Christmas event. MAC players and 32-bit Windows and STEAM players were EXCLUDED from playing. People that had used Facebook Logins had to "migrate" to get to the new "client" and setting up the account became a monumental task. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. They have no remedies for STEAM and MAC players. They just booted them to the curb. A good 25% of the players missed the Christmas event entirely, and I only got on the last week of the three-week event. They are planning ANOTHER transition between Valentines Day and Easter to ANOTHER Flash-type product. I guess that they want to get rid of another 25% of their constituency.

game !!

Not a game for playing with family if you all live at home. If you all play on the same network the similarity of the IP addresses gets support thinking that you are running multiple accounts. Worse still if you have a youngster and create an account for him/her using your-mail second address and use the same payment system as your own account. How nay youngsters have access to their own e-mail address and bank account/credit card? Aset of gaming rules set in the dark ages comes to mind. They are supposed to stop people cheating by farming several accounts to feed a main one. Since friends are often willing to trade raw materials for a minimal payment in return for you doing the same thing when they are in need the game managers really need to get their act up to date as their rules simply suck. There is no warning of a possible ban - they act as judge, jury and executuioners and apply bans without warning. NOT A FAMILY FRIENDLY GAME IN ANY SENSE.

It's not all bad but other players don't give much of their money making schemes away. There are adventures that can involve more than one player so you sell the loot spot and have hem take out an NPC. The game is slow to develop and frustrating when you need raw materials when they are not available. I mean too hard to come by because not enough of them in the game. The buildings can be leveled if you have the resources. lol Easy at first though but by level 50 fun to look for and fun to wait for. Enjoyed most of it but lost interest when things got too hard to get without spending cash for diamonds. Had $1000 invested so didn't want to continue.

Terrible game.
I played this game for 4-5 years until i encountered the "support".
Ridiculous overwatch of the game and insane amount of micromanaging.

Im just thankful the support supported me in stop giving them my money and time.
After i got banned for nothing i havent played since, this is one of the stupidest games ever to play.

Never join this game

Do not join this game

Or at least, don't join their US servers.
The game itself is the *worst* tamagotchi I've seen so far - search, building and other waiting times are set up such that in order to really use your resources efficiently, you basically gotta be online 24 hours. Mines collapse everytime they are being depleted and need to be searched for again, again and again - every day the same sisyphus task. Given that the fighting system just flat sucks, with the troops set up the way that you're just bound to waste a maximum amount of them when you fight AI, this makes for a pretty frustrating and annoying gaming experience just from the game setup.

Given that there was no PvP when I was playing, this translated into lots of bored players in the global and trade chat rooms, and that turned toxic quite fast, since mods hardly online and players with too much unproductive energy to spend. Harassment, personal attacks and insults were so rampant on Ares that there were constantly forum threads dealing with the issue. And the interesting point is that it was actually the most senior players who created this kind of atmosphere and kept the "discussions" on that level, not the occasional trolls that were showing up too. And given that the senior players are the ones who are spending the money, nothing was being done about it ever unless in one particular case - your reports to admins were just being ignored.

And should you ever have the bad idea of trying to point out these things in the chat rooms, you are immediately the new target, being harassed, viciously attacked and mocked upon. (Happened to me in the help chat when I tried to rein in a senior player who was openly trolling and insulting new players seeking advice.)
I don't know about servers in other countries, they might be more civilized and respectful over there.

Third reason not to join: the game is still extremely buggy, servers crashing regularly, etc.

But besides there being better building games of the same genre available online, do NOT join the US servers - toxic atmosphere, harassments and constant bickering absolutely guaranteed. (Unless new PvP mode changed something about it, but I would not count on it.)
Very bad gaming experience, do not join this game.

"Social aspect" ???

Sitting in front of a computer playing a game is not social. Social is being together with other people, in the same room.

I have been playing 6 months and its great. Yeah you get a few glitches now and then but it is a fun friendly community based game that is very addictive!

Another great game ruined by wretched staff acting like heroine addicts with their hands in your pocket and telling you they don't REALLY expecting you to believe it. Don't give them a dime. It will be like giving change to the homeless on South Park. It won't satisfy them and they will immediately want more. More will come asking/demanding it. And like all the other F2P makers, they will ruin your game and attack you trying to get more money out of you. Support, they only support themselves. The best reply I got so far was "Do you know how many lines of code I have to read through?" It took 3 or 4 nasty messages before they would even agree to do their job, sort of notly. They are the WORST.

been pIaying for over 3 years IvI 50 and IvI 5 isIand unfortunaIy i was hoping they wouId bring pvp into it they did say they were going to but that was 2yrs ago not heard anything since i have Iots of probIems with this game biggest is new content for IvI 50 pIayers {highest IvI} they dont seem to care anymore they had our money once u reach IvI 50 and ur isIand is IvI 5 their is no other goaI to achieve apart from amassing miIIions in res and coins which u dont need anymore, they couId have made this game great but they dont want to spend the money in dev department so the game is going to die sIowIy, BB never comment on any new stuff they are working on anymore they dont give the pIayers anything to Iook forward to or post anything in their forums about where the game is going, they just bring out new buiIdings and adventures which haIf the time they are pointIess buiIdings or just reaIIy boring adventures, the customer service has taken a dive 2 you either get caIIed a Iiar or suck it up basicaIIy, its such a shame for something that couId have been great but if u got a brainceII more then me dont pIay this game their are aIot better out their!

and note to BB puII ur finger out and spend some money might make me change my views but atm settIers onIine sucks thumbs down

I would actually advise against playing this game. Having played for a little over a year I can say that the game has gone down-hill since then... especially in regards to global chat. With the implementation of the new MOD program players are now being discriminated against for being in a certain guild. Players are now being banned from global chats for asking why they are being warned by these new MODs. Many players were informed to send in a support ticket if they were having an issue, but when the ticket is sent in, the player receives no reply from support. It would seem that Support is no longer concerned with its paying customers, which is really very sad. I have seen more players leave the game in the past month than I have in the past 6 months... It has become apparent that UBI has lost interest in this game and is now letting it be moderated by people who like to play favorites.

This game is a waste, don't bother.

A fun throwback to the original, I have played quite a while but now quitting due to the luck element involved in adventures- often you spend days building armies and end up with nothing in the end if your luck is bad. Also the community is rather rude, and the moderators are ban-happy, banning players for often little to no reason. I think this is because its just volenteers the moderate instead of BB staff. All in all I would say its not worth your time guys, great system but poor overall execution. Might try battledawn as suggested above, or back to the amiga version.

u should all try battle dawn its better than this game and its true strategy game

play the offline version, better of this game here and anno online

I played this game for 3 months, got to level 40, only kept playing that long because I thought it had to get better. It doesn't. The 'adventures' are the same every time, and are full of unnecessary time delay. In fact the entire game is full of pointless time-sinks. Even the quests are mind-numbingly dull. Seriously, quests like 'have your friends buff 5 of your buildings!' or 'But 2000 Granite from other players!'. No other way to say it, this game is utterly dire. Checked back there today, they are apparently coming out of Beta, but I stopped playing & deleted my account 3 days ago, & the game was still riddled with bugs at the time. Thank Christ I paid no money for it. My advice - stay well away from this tedious dross.

i plyed this game for a while, and while it can be called an economic, empire building game, unless you love just hunting npc missions and hate the pressure of pvp this game is not for you. This game lacks pvp, while there is a certain strategy to the missions it is essentially a coiners empire building paradise.

nice game!

I was a fan of this game until I had to deal with support..

I had one bug while I was at max level (takes about 6 months) and their solution was to wipe my account and reset it to level 1; they also offered me junk compensation of 0.1% of what I had ..

It would have been a fair game if it wasn't for critical bugs to trow 6-8 months of gameplay to trash.

It reminds me very much of Anno 1404

good game , i love this game , seriosly

Hard to figure out how to play. I read many useful guides, but they were a bit outdated. Mostly, the quests had imprecise language, or too few words to describe what you have to do. The tutorial does not actually walk you through things. You have to puzzle out the quests yourself.

At one point, I could not finish one of the quests. It just would not give it to me, although I had accomplished the quest. Without it, i could not move to the next step. I ended up stuck, and shut it down. Wasted 2-3 hours.

i like this game , very interesting

whoa what a bunch of useless commentsm bloodly trolls if you have any other suggestions stfu, anyone can complain,

There was games out before Farmville. Settlers goes all the way back to the Amiga, 1993 actually so any crap like farmville is just a clone.

I dont norm play these sort of games but I gave it a shot and its actually pretty decent and yea the trading does rock. just save your gold for upgrading buildins later on.

I hate farmville with a passion but given the theme of this game and history it has I gave it a shot and so should others its not bad at all.

Settlers online actually let you settle for more fun and excitement!

It is easy to mess up at the beginning, basically do not pay with gold when trading unless its a small purchase for the initial quest. Otherwise your going to be stuck with no gold because no one ever buys anything with gold because you have to be level 30 before you can mint coins.

Otherwise it is a great stride away from the normal, click to upgrade something that takes days and have to pay to actually get ahead versions of these games and I would highly recommend it. Do not be ashamed if you have to restart :p

One of the most fun building games I ever played. Its easy. And the trading is boss!

Sylvia thinks this game suxs

Very easy game, good for beginners. Once youve mastered the one simple concept of the game, it is more about building your city then strategy.

no offense but, browser based + farmville/cityville like display?, you know what'll everyone think.