I love wandering around my local Wilkinson’s store. I always end up buying something; even if it’s not what I went in for. I was looking for a new back pack but I found a budget copy of The Settlers: Heritage of Kings. 

I’ve played most of the series of Settlers games, starting at the first. If I remember correctly this came on a single floppy disk. This latest version occupies just of 2Gb of a DVD. Games have expanded quite a bit over the past decade!

Settlers 1 and 2 were great and I spent many happy hours playing them. Settlers 3 was a disappointment as the graphics seemed much more cartoon like and childish. I didn’t buy Settlers 4 until I saw it very cheaply a couple of years ago. This was much better and I enjoyed it, but I got stuck on quite an early level and gave up.

I quite like Heritage of Kings. It looks a lot nicer than the earlier versions, probably because it’s rendered as 3D objects rather than 2D sprites. However, the economic model has been dumbed down and goods just magically transport themselves to where they are needed. I liked sorting out the transportation bottlenecks in Settlers 1 and 2, just as I enjoyed designing efficient signalling for my trains in Transport Tycoon Deluxe.

One thing that is much improved in Heritage of Kings is the battle sequences. In the early versions you created knights to guard castles. The one-on-one battles outside each castle were very simplistic. In this version there are a number of different types of soldier with different strengths and weaknesses. In the later levels of the game you can deploy your army in different formations, create cavalry and even have cannon to attack your enemy’s buildings.

I’ve still got a number of levels to go to finish the game but I have enjoyed my time playing it so far. Once I’ve completed it I’ll probably buy the next version, Rise of an Empire.