The Settlers IV, released as The Settlers: Fourth Edition in North America, is a real-time strategy video game with city-building elements, developed by Blue Byte and published by Ubi Soft. Released in Germany for Microsoft Windows in February 2001, in the United Kingdom in March, and in North America in August, it is the fourth game in The Settlers series, following The Settlers (1993), The Settlers II (1996) and The Settlers III (1998). In August, Blue Byte released an expansion, The Settlers IV Mission CD, featuring new single-player campaign missions, new maps for both single-player and multiplayer modes, a random map generator and map editor, gameplay improvements, and bug fixes. In December, they released a second expansion, The Settlers IV: The Trojans and the Elixir of Power, containing new single-player campaigns, additional single and multiplayer maps, improved graphics, and additional gameplay tweaks. In March 2002, The Settlers IV: Gold Edition was released, containing the original game and both expansions, plus fan-made maps for multiplayer mode, and two minigames. In November 2009, Gameloft ported the original game to iOS, under the title The Settlers. Although featuring updated graphics and utilising touch controls, the gameplay, game mechanics and storyline are identical to the original. In April 2010, The Settlers was released for webOS, specifically optimised for the Palm Pre. Gameloft later released HD versions for iPad, bada, Symbian and Android. In 2013, the Gold Edition was released on GOG.com. In 2018, the game was re-released as The Settlers IV: History Edition.
European Windows cover art
Screenshot of The Settlers IV, showing terrain corrupted by the Dark Tribe, which can only be reclaimed by using gardeners on the affected areas. The context menu on the left shows the player has selected a single level 2 bowman, and their army's offensive strength is at 111%.
Screenshot of The Settlers HD on Symbian, showing how the game's controls and HUD have been ported to a touchscreen device; the mail icon on the top left is for notifications, the building icon on the bottom left brings up the building menu (which is further subdivided into different menus for different types of building), the greyed out image on the bottom right is to select any speciality settlers, and the star icon on the top right is to display the
The Settlers is a city-building and real-time strategy video game series created by Volker Wertich. The original game was released on the Amiga in 1993, with subsequent games released primarily on MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows: The Settlers II (1996), The Settlers III (1998), The Settlers IV (2001), The Settlers: Heritage of Kings (2004), The Settlers: Rise of an Empire (2007), and The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom (2010). There are also several spin-offs; The Settlers II (2006) is a remake of The Settlers II, The Settlers DS (2007) is a port of The Settlers II for Nintendo DS, Die Siedler: Aufbruch der Kulturen (2008) is a German-only spiritual successor to 10th Anniversary, The Settlers HD (2009) is a handheld remake of The Settlers IV, and The Settlers Online (2010) is a free-to-play online browser game. With the exception of The Settlers HD, Ubisoft Blue Byte has developed every game in the series, as well as publishing the first three titles. From The Settlers IV onwards, Ubisoft has published all titles.
Screenshot of Paths to a Kingdom showing how the player can set up base buildings and work yards
Screenshot of Heritage of Kings showing the 3D graphics and redesigned HUD
