Customer Reviews:
 its a real challange December 19, 2007
Maurice Byrne (ireland)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
this is one of the only games nowadays that is a real challange. it is a world of its own. the thought that has to go into it to make it work correctly is amazing. 3 to 4 years ago i got this game. it takes time to finish each mission. the ad on missions are tough. if your a player that wants a real challange have a go. you will be still playing it for months if not years
 A mistake. February 1, 2007
W. Cousin (Bournemouth, UK.)
11 out of 15 found this review helpful
Simply said, when I bought this game I was expecting one of the kind that were The Settlers I through to III but was unpleasantly surprised to find a game that almost literally made me white with rage to play.
As a Series, The Settlers had captivated my attention for the amount of effort and ingenuity that had been put into each game, and the way that there were no other games with the same kind of style-production chains and indirect style of play, still with a sense of speed, were impossible to find-other than in the Settlers.
However, this game is unnecessarily difficult and has none of the perks the last few games did. The AI is always on top of you, and though quite easy to defend against, is almost totally impossible to beat. The game is now slow and takes far too much time to get anything started, and once you do, the overall advantage of the computer and ridiculous bugs (such as being unable to reload ships and catapults with ammo) makes the game irritating and pointless.
I would recommend not to touch this game, and instead try to get your hands on the prequels, which were actually playable; or the Settlers II remake, which seems like a promising venture.
 The Settlers Blends City building and comedy and works! November 15, 2005
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
The Settlers Iv, While it has it's flaws, is a playable and engaging game, it succesfuly creates its own stile of city building, where you create production chains to keep everything in working order in your settlement. The campains have good storylines, but the dark tribe ones can be tedious. Also a few major flaws in AI hold it back (for instance Wood Cutters take it to the same sawmill, even if their are closer ones). But all in all this is a top quality game, and well worth the money
 Everything was going fine till... October 25, 2005
Matthew Willis (San Jose, CA)
54 out of 65 found this review helpful
... the sheer incompetence of the design team became blindingly obvious. Settlers IV is a tough game, unneccessarily so, and what benefits it has as a reasonably efficient supply-and-demand RTS are ruined by oh-so-many horrifically designed levels and basic unit flaws. I have, during the past three years, actually had the sad duty to purchase two copies. The first I totally destroyed in a beautiful pagan ceremony of fire and destruction, such was my overwhelming loathing for it. The second, bought once I had forgotten how much I hated it in the first place, is sitting uneasily on my desk, feeling very worried indeed.And it should be. The Settlers up till IV were very well crafted and nicely unique games, tied together through a slow but steady series of improvements to what you could see and do. IV looks, on the surface, to be yet another improvement. However, once you've played a few levels it becomes depressingly obvious that once again programmers have, instead of implementing an effective learning curve, simply gotten lazy and inserted a series of unpleasant cheats to keep you forever on the backfoot. There are, sadly, several levels so poorly designed that you can barely get started before the opposition is ravaging your land and buildings. The worst level I have encountered so far is Level 4 of the Dark Missions, an absolute beast of infuriation it is. I'm all for a hard game that makes you have to think on your feet and constantly improve, but playing a level over and over and over, 10, 15, 20 times, for literally days is not fun. Do you hear me lazy programmers? It is NOT FUN. If you seriously begin to think about destroying a helpless disk due to the stupidity and incompetence of its creators, then a mistake has been made somewhere during the design process. And Settlers IV is, sadly, one gigantic mistake. It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside a total waste of your time. Please, for your own sanity and my belief in the power of effective writing, avoid this game like the plague. Given the recent failure that was the sequel I hope that justice prevails, and that the fools who created this sad abomination are now going hungry, having been fired from their jobs for incompetence bordering on criminal neglect. If any further punishment need be meted out, I hope their bosses will give me a call. I can be very creative in these matters.
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