The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom Options

[Tanegar]

I've wanted this game for a while now, and Impulse has it on sale for 50% off as part of their Thanksgiving sale, so I bought it yesterday. It's interesting, and very different from other strategy games I'm familiar with. In many ways it's more of a management sim than an RTS: your ability to give direct orders is severely limited, and there's a heavy emphasis on economics with many resources and production chains. The game's only serious failing is the interface. Building things and waging war are quite straightforward, but there's a huge amount of information under the hood and no readily comprehensible way to get to it. For instance, each building shows its current efficiency in its tooltip, but it's not immediately apparent how efficiency is calculated or what you can do to improve it. After playing for a little while, I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on the game, but it would be nice to have some sort of in-game encyclopedia to refer to.

If games like Dungeon Keeper, Startopia, and Evil Genius are your thing, you should definitely check out The Settlers 7.