Siedler 6 Open Beta

Yesterday I played the open-beta of Siedler 6 for about five hours. It includes a tutorial mission as well as a LAN game.

I know, it is only a beta of the game, but the demo has to be much better if they want me to buy the game. The graphics are good, not great but nice. The interface is very intuitive and the sound is pleasant. I can’t say anything about the KI as the tutorial has little and the LAN none.

The town centre and the castle were preset. As always with these games, I got woodcutters first, a fishing hut and a fish smoker. Then a stonecutter, an iron mine, some hunters, leather tanning, and so on.

It went all very smoothly. The buildings can all be upgraded in two levels (three in total) but as upgrading is cheap and easy, I always upgraded every building ASAP. The main character can also be upgraded when different conditions the player has to meet. What can be built is related with the level of the main character (which there are six or so different ones to choose).

There are two kinds of roads, a gravel and a stone. As the stone road is wider than its gravel brother, you just can’t build a stone road over a gravel one if you have buildings on both sides. You might even have to tear down some buildings to improve the road. Which should be changed for the final version.

The warehouse tends to get full very easy. The things you don’t need can be sold. And this is important to do, because if the warehouse is full, the workers stop working and even get poor (because they can’t sell anything). So selling the surplus is very important!

Military. I could build swordfighters and bowmen as well as siege towers, catapults and rams. I would like to be able to build also spearmen and cavalry! I would also very much like the possibility to disband troops (or at least I couldn’t find that option).

As there was no KI I couldn’t fight. It also bothered me, that wild beasts such as bears and wolves constantly respawnd. I got annoyed of the constant “your settlers are under attack”.

Where does settlers stand now. I would say that right now, Anno 1701 is still holding the title. The graphics with Siedler 6 is better, but Anno 1701 still is more fun.