settlers 7

Across the last couple of weeks I've been playing settlers 7.

I've discussed it a bit before. It's basically an economic/resource management game like Anno, meets an RTS like C&C.

Well, over the weekend I played the final mission in the campaign and also had a bit of a go on the skirmish mode. I have to say I did enjoy the campaign. The story was quite interesting, and things like the cut-scenes were well done. Also, the tip system worked very well and it introduced you tot eh concepts of the game quite well. Also, the game is very pretty, with lovely graphics.

On the downside, the system of copy protection they've put in is a total pain. And I think something in the game causes my computer to crash - it was totally fine before I installed it, but then it started giving me BSODs all over the place. These reduced dramatically once I discovered you didn't need to keep the DVD in the drive, although they still happen occasionally.

Also, I'm not really the biggest fan of the Victory Point system they've put in. The suggestion from the way they're marketing it is that you can choose how to win the game, using science, trade or the military. As such, you would expect that the number of victory points available to each of the routes is the same and that earning them is of about the same difficulty for each route.

But in reality, this is not the case - some routes let you get the victory points easier than the others. Additionally, it's not true that you can focus entirely on the one victory route.

For example, say you pick science. Slightly oddly, this actually means building up your religion. To do that you need various resources and that means expanding. Now, you can actually take over Neutral sectors using your monks, so initially that's fine and good.

But how do you take over a sector controlled by another player? Or what if another player wants your sector? Well those can only be done by military force.

So that means you need to build up at an okay military force, even if just for defence. But doing that is complicated, because if another player is doing military he'll have better units, so you need those better units too. Also, it can be expensive, and one of the best ways to get cash is via the trade route.

So in other words, it's actually nearly impossible to win without having at least a bit of all three routes.

And so here's the thing - now that I've finished the campaign, I'm probably going to uninstall it.

As I mentioned, I've had a couple of cracks at the skirmish mode, and it's okay, but it's like any other skirmish mode in an RTS. Basically, you're not playing for any real objective other than to win.

I've also no real interest in multiplayer, so basically, unless I replay the campaign, there's nothing left for me to do. Which is why I love about Anno 1404 - crucially, it has a Sandbox mode.

If you're not familiar with that term, it's where you can just play the game without objectives in a 'free creation' mode. So it's a bit like an RTS skirmish mode, except with one crucial difference - it's not about "winning" (well, unless you set a particular goal when you set it up). It's difficult to explain, but it gives huge longevity and continuing interest.