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Settlers, The (Serf City: Life Is Feudal) cheats / Settlers, The (Serf City: Life Is Feudal) hints / Settlers, The (Serf City: Life Is Feudal) faqs / Settlers, The (Serf City: Life Is Feudal) solutions Settlers, The (Serf City: Life Is Feudal) hints The Settlers A complete selection of hints and tips - By Simon Burrows Introduction ------------ Well, it's a little time now since this smart little strategy game from Blue Byte software was released. It is said to be a cross between Sim City and Populous, but also has links to games like Utopia, Powermonger, Genesia, and more vaguely to Theme Park, Mega lo Mania and even another of Blue Byte's creations, Battle Isle. The game itself has two titles: "The Settlers" being the English release, and "Serf City: Life is Feudal", the American. It is really a sort of medieval foray in which you must build your own little settlement with the aim of ultimately attacking, and defeating, your enemies. After my successes in writing about games like Sim City 2000, Theme Park, UFO: Enemy Unknown, and Desert Strike, I've now decided to create this huge selection of hints and tips to cover the widest area of features deserving of mention in this game. This documents covers the main aspects of the game in parts 1 to nine, (for example, buildings, roads, food, mines etc.) then the final part, part ten, covers a very loose step-by-step guide you could follow to help yourself through the first few minutes of the game. Anyway, enough chat. Onto the tips... Part One - Placing your castle Obviously, the first building you've got to worry about is your castle. The positioning of this at the start of the game is a big factor in how successful you can be later on - so choose your position wisely. Firstly, take a bit of time to survey the whole area to see what the possibilities are. There are a few obvious hints in location choice like you must be near mountains, forests and lakes. Also, remember that deserts are completely useless, so it's no good building in one of these. There are two options available to you really: either you place your castle quickly before his, or you let him go first to give yourself longer to think. The first of those two can lead to your opponent placing his castle near your border to limit your movement once he knows where you are, but if you take the second option you could find that your opponent takes the prime spot in the landscape leaving you in a less desirable position. I recommend that you take this second option, because, although you may lose out on the best spot, this is far better than being crippled by your enemy starting up near your border and shutting you off from some vital resources. Part Two - Starting up When you have your castle down you need to start building up your little town. It's quite likely that the area around your castle worth building on (ie, the flat land) is cluttered with rock and trees, so by placing a quarryman and a lumberjack you can clear the area ready for building, and generate some useful building materials at the same time. When the area is clear and ready for building on, burn down the two huts, and you're ready to go. Probably your first job after doing this is to build some guard huts at the limits of your territory. This will expand your area quickly, which is, or course, one of the main ideas of the game in the first place. Now you need to think about creating the rest of your town. When you initially start up, don't try to build too many buildings at once. If you do this, your workers will be slowed down and your knights spread thinner over your territory. At the beginning of the game you will find that you will need quite a lot of everything, but things should get easier as you go through. Just remember that you WILL run out of wood, for example, if you forget to build a sawmill early on, so always be on your toes and build everything that you're going to need. One of the best layouts for a town is to have your castle near the centre, and the different 'industries' to each side. So, for example, you could have your castle in the middle, then mines and metalworks to one side, food and farming to another, and forestry and saw-milling to a third. This will reduce travelling time to a minimum, and avoid clogging up roads. Part Three - Construction One thing to think about before constructing a new building is enemy presence. Do not build anything new if you know that the enemy is within reach, especially if that enemy is building, or is about to build, a watch-tower or guardhouse. If you do do this, and you are unlucky enough for his building to be completed before yours, his border will sometimes approach and invade your territory, cutting off some of your buildings. This leads to the building being destroyed, together with all the stock inside it, which is a big loss to any player unless you're cheating! As well as putting buildings near to the stocks they will use (Eg, fisherman's huts near to the lakes), it is also important to think about where to position them in relation to other buildings. For example, buildings that rely on each other would be much better close by to save lots of time travelling between them, and buildings that go together to create a little 'production line' would be best in that order, with the last building near to where the final product will be used. Two useful examples of this may be :- æ A lumberjack, a forester and a sawmill close by will create an almost constant stream of building planks ready to be sent off to wherever they're needed, and it involves no interaction with the castle, saving time, and reducing congestion. æ By having foundries on the foothills of mined mountains, and then blacksmiths and toolmakers in between there and the castle, you create a little production line. Basically, the iron ore from the mine goes to the foundry, the coal from another mine and the iron from the foundry go to the blacksmith and the toolmakers, then the weapons and tools from the tool-maker and blacksmith can be transported directly to the castle for distribution. ...Creating these little set-ups will save time, reduce congestion, and probably increase output as well, so it's worth thinking about it when laying down your buildings etc. Part Four - Buildings Early on it is advisable to set building occupancy to weak, because there is no need to guard buildings which won't get attacked this early on in the game. It is far better to leave your knights in the castle where they will get trained up quicker, and be ready for attack. Later on in the game when the enemy comes close in a threatening mood, increase the occupancy level again ready for the oncoming attack. Boatyards are only important in those levels where there is lots of water about. Remember that you will only need a certain amount of boats, so to conserve wood, turn off it's delivery to the boat-yard as soon as you have enough boats, otherwise you're just wasting it. Obviously castles are very important, and you will undoubtedly know quite a lot about them from playing the game and from the manual. One thing I can add is a little cheaty tip you can use when placing your castle. If your enemy finds an excellent place to put his castle in a level, immediately restart the level and place your castle there before he can! Ooooh, what fun! Farms are the other main food source for your settlement. A farm can produce corn for flour then bake the flour for bread, as well as growing corn straight for pig food. (Don't you ever wonder where they get the yeast from??) You should find that two farms will suffice for a small settlement, but after a while you will find the need to build more as demand for food increases. Obviously, the best place for farms is in wide, flat areas where farmers can have the best fields. Fishermen's huts are also very important at the start of the game, because fish are the easiest way of feeding your workers. As an added problem in the game, it is quite possible to 'over- fish' a lake, so it's best not to build too many huts around one lake, and, instead, to conserve stocks by allowing reserves to re-build after each fishing spree. Sawmills are very important buildings because they process the trees cut down by your woodcutters into planks ready to be used in building. You are really going to need a sawmill right at the start of the game to get straight to work at creating the necessary materials for early building. A warehouse is very similar to a castle, so is a very important building and should be protected by at least one stronghold. If you lose a warehouse it can be a very big blow to your campaign. One of the best 'uses' of a warehouse is for training knights because they will be taught much faster in a warehouse than in a stronghold. These two are obviously also very important because without them you won't even have the wood for the sawmill to plank. Because the two do completely opposite jobs (ie, one cutting down, and one planting trees), it's a good idea to have the two working in harmony with each other, so that as one chops down an old forest, the other can start planting another. If you're wondering about the best place to start a new forest, one that grows on the slopes of a mountain is your best bet since this uses up otherwise useless land and conserves the flat land for building on. Part Five - Roads If you are to become successful in this game you will need to have a good road network at all times. If your network is poor, or non-existent, things can get completely clogged up as you build a bigger and bigger empire. Important goods can get slowed down as transporters move less-important goods out of the way, and this leads to everything slowing down and becoming much less efficient! The best road-network to construct is a little Milton Keynes type grid of roads that covers your whole land. This is best as it gives your workers and transporters the best chance of a direct route to their destination, saving valuable time and helping to reduce congestion. The worst road-network you can build is one where all roads lead to and from your major buildings in sort of star shapes. This doesn't work at all because, for anyone to go anywhere they have to take long routes to places they don't want to go to, before they can then go on to their desired destination. One thing you musn't do is to change the path to a building whilst rock or wood is being transported there. This will bewilder the men doing the transporting, and more than often they'll just turn around and head back the way they came! Another aspect of transporting is the 'flags'. Transporters will always take the shortest route possible to their destination, and this is calculated by the number of these 'flags' that are passed - the more 'flags', the longer the journey. Because of this, reducing the number of flags to the minimum will also minimise transportation times. When laying roads, try to keep them as flat as possible. If it is a necessity to lay a steep road (appearing red), then put a flag either side of the hill, so you have one transporter going up and down the hill slowly, while other transporters can go further, quicker. Whilst building roads, you must take into consideration the land that they take up. If you build too many roads you will start taking over more and more land leaving less space for planting new trees to replace those already cut down. The more and more you do this the less and less trees you will have in the future, and as trees are the most important ingredient in expansion, this is no good thing. Basically, although you do need roads, you need to be a little careful in where you put them, so you need to plan ahead and not just chuck them down all over the place. Part Six - Mining, Tools and Weapons When deciding which mines to build, remember that coal mines are far more important than the other, so you should have at least twice as many of these that the alternatives. It is important to get a tool maker up and running BEFORE you run out of tools because he cannot make them quickly. It doesn't really matter where you build his hut, so just slot it into any available space. When attack is impending, it is important to build several blacksmiths with their support structures, plus mines and gold foundries. If you don't take these precaution you won't have weapon stocks when battle arrives, and it will be too late then because weapon production is very slow. It is best to space your blacksmiths, gold mines and foundries widely around your land so that your enemy cannot halt your whole production with just the capture of one of your guard posts. (Ie, he may stop the production of one mine, foundry or blacksmith, but you will have many others, a long way from the captured one, which can continue production for you.) Part Seven - Food At the very beginning of a new game then the best food to produce is fish, because this is a quick and easy way to feed your mine workers. All you need to do is build your fisherman's hut near the water and you're away. One of the silly parts of this game is the fact that the only need for food is in feeding miners. But, hey, don't complain; this means that if, for some reason, you don't have any mines working, you don't need to produce any food at all! The above means that you don't need to produce as much food as you might think. Over-producing just wastes time as your little men lug bread, bacon and fish around your roads, creating congestion too. It also means that if you are busy making too much food you're wasting land with farms that you don't even need! If you do have mines running (which 95% of the time you will), then I recommend that you don't bother with pig farming. Instead, once you've got up and running a bit, rely less on your fisherman by building up until you have three corn farms, a baker and two windmills. This lot should do the job of feeding the workers from at least ten mines all year round. Part Eight - Attacking Unlike in other, similar games, battle isn't the best way of doing things. It is far better to hang on and not fight until you absolutely have to, in order to give yourself the best chance of winning. Also, there is no point in fighting for small pickings, so only fight when there's something good to be won like a mountain containing a vital material. Instead of directly attacking your enemy (ie, sending in your knights), it is better to keep enlarging your territory by building guard posts on your border. Doing this gives you the opportunity to rotate your knights between the castle and the guardpost, so some are defending the guardposts, whilst the others are training in the castle. You can then keep rotating this, ensuring that the guardposts are always satisfactorily defended, and you will ultimately get a good strong army of highly ranked knights ready to attack when needed. Getting your knights into good nick before making your first attacks is vital. At the start of the game you'll find that your knights have low armour, and are in bad training. The best way to get them trained up is to build plenty of warehouses, because they offer the best training. If that's not an option, knights can also be trained in the garrisons, although this is less proficient. The best rule to use is that your knights should be used as late as possible to give them the best chance of being successful. The first thing to remember is that only 'military' buildings (watch-towers, strongholds, and guard towers) can be attacked during play. The first thing to do when weighing up the possibility of attacking a building, or just when trying to find out about it, is to look at the flag that is flying outside it. Of course, the colour of this immediately shows you who occupies the building, but you'll also find that the higher the flag is flying on the pole, the more soldiers are defending the building. This allows you to see whether it's likely you'll be able to capture the building or not. The best attacking tactic is to save your game before every battle, and then again if you win the battle. That way, if you lose, you can re-load and be none the worse for wear. This allows you to try some more risky attacks like using only one captain to attack an enemy castle. This kind of battle is possible to win - one in about five tries usually - so you can keep restarting until you make it. When you do come to make an attack, don't just attack anything - it is important to make the attack count. Try to select targets that will cause the most problems for your enemy if you control them. For example, if you can find a well-used road in his empire, then attacking and controlling this means that whatever used to pass down it cannot any more. An example would be a road where raw materials go from a mine to a foundry - after all, it's no good your enemy mining iron ore if he can't get it to a foundry to process! Another possibility might be to attack and cut off a little 'pocket' of your enemy's territory, so there's no way he can expand it or try and get it back. This allows you to destroy it, or keep it and gloat to your enemy for as long or as little as you like! Finally, when selecting a post to attack, look to see whether your opponent is fickle enough to have but one blacksmith or foundry. If he does, and it is possible to attack these, it is possible for you to halt your opponent's entire weapon or tool production in one fell swoop! Another good reason for attacking might be to take control of a guard post which has an extremely valuable resource piled up by the flag outside. It may get to the stage where it is worth doing this at the loss of a few knights, because the resource is so valuable for you to get control of. (Or, if you're mean like that, so your enemy can't have it!) If you are looking to attack a big enemy fort, you must have a strength and morale level of at least 90%. To increase morale, collect gold, as each piece collected will increase your knight's morale, and you'll also find that winning battles has a positive effect on morale. Another thing to think about is your supply of weapons. I suggest that you build a weapon maker as soon as possible to give a large collection of weapons. The raw materials needed for swords and shields are coal and iron, so take these into consideration when you position things too. Another thing to bear in mind with knights is their tiredness. If they have to walk a long way to the front line they will get tired on the journey and be less effective in battle. Their status is shown with four symbols ranging from active on the left to sleeping on the right, so refer to this to help you plan out battles. Part Nine - Defending Defensive possibilities in this game are rather limited to say the least! If you find yourself in a situation where your front line has an unsatisfactory number of knights, you can reduce the number manning third line and inner guard posts, and some will then leave these areas and go back to the castle. From the castle the knights can then go onto the front line and man the unsatisfactorily defended guard posts. The main problem with this method is that the knights will spend a long time walking around, so you must act quickly so you don't get attacked before the knights arrive. If it comes to the situation where you can see the enemy marching upon one of your guard posts, there is little you can do about it! As long as the enemy is still a fair way away, (if they're close you won't be able to do this) you could destroy the targeted guard post so that, although it will be lost, it won't get into enemy hands. Another possibility would be to find the nearest enemy garrison and attack this. If you are lucky, your troops will begin to march on this, but they will meet the approaching enemy army on the way, and begin to attack them there. This means that your building stays in safety - at least for now. The only thing to worry about is the fact that your troops must see the enemy ones, or vice-versa, for the confrontation to occur, so if there's a mountain in the way, for example, the two armies could march past each other and you'll look incredibly silly! Part Ten - An Example Step-by-Step Start The following guide by no means compensates the tips in parts 1 to 9. It does not cover many aspects of the game, and misses out some vital tips. It's just a quick piece to help you get into the game and start your own little civilisation. The first decision is placing your castle. It might be a good idea to survey the different mining locations first, and position it at the best of these; one with water and forests if possible. The first buildings to construct should be guard posts on your border to expand territory. After this you can loosely say that you now need at least one of each construction except for the boat yard, butcher and pig farm. The first to get up and running should be some mines, so get the geologists out and find some good mines, then get them set-up. Next you'll need to find some food for the miners, so build 1 or 2 fisherman's huts by a lake. Next you need some building materials. Build a woodcutter with a forester so that one compensates for the other, then build a stone cutter. When the latter of these has exhausted the surface stone in the area, burn down his hut then build another for him somewhere else, otherwise he'll be forever perambulating around your land trying to find his way home! You now need to convert the logs from the woodcutter into some wood planks ready for building. To do this, build a sawmill close to your castle. As well as this, build the other manufacturing buildings, going in the order of production, with the final building closest to your castle (ie, mine furthest away, then foundry, then tool-maker, blacksmith and goldsmith closest to the castle). Soon you will find that your miners start running out of food, so get a corn farm up and running. To process it's corn you'll also need a windmill or a baker nearby. As your power becomes greater, it would help to build a new goldsmith to get more morale-boosting gold, and another armourer to increase your fighting power. That'll do for now folks... Hope this increases your success in this smart game... Simon Burrows Other Settlers, The (Serf City: Life Is Feudal) cheats hints faqs solutions: 1. Settlers, The (Serf City: Life Is Feudal) cheat codes 1. Settlers, The (Serf City: Life Is Feudal) faq and solutions |