Clever - Lovely - Imperfect

Nowadays, it is not unusual for a game series to reinvent itself. A linear adventure becomes an open-world epic, a shooter series a strategy game. For me, however, the leap from The Settlers II to The Settlers III was the first time that a sequel was not modeled exactly after its predecessor. Instead of connecting houses with flags and paths, I was suddenly able to freely position my buildings and command soldiers across the map. Even though the core of The Settlers series was still the development of a functioning economic cycle, it felt like a completely new game.

In addition to the great graphics back then, the game also featured three campaigns about the different cultures and their gods. The stories revolved around the self-ironic competition between Jupiter, Horus and Ch'ih-Yu in cartoon sequences. It was a great game, but I was probably too young for it at the time and therefore never really understood it. This was to change with the fantastic The Settlers IV - more on that in due course. The third part heralded a new direction for the series, whether better or worse is up to each individual to decide. Personally, I had fun with almost every installment, whether with the gameplay of 1+2, 3+4 or the (unjustly) reviled 5th installment. However, the soundtrack definitely received an upgrade.

Games from the The Settlers-series

The Settlers (1993)

The Settlers II (1996)

Die Siedler III (1998)

The Settlers IV (2001)

The score for The Settlers III (another Gamerip) was once again composed by Haiko Ruttmann, whose artistic development can be seen in every new iteration of The Settlers . While I still had a few grumbles about The Settlers II . While I still had a few grumbles about the second game, a lot has changed in the two years between its predecessor and the battle between Romans, Egyptians and Chinese. For example, the soundtrack of The Settlers III no longer features MIDIs, but synths. This is not to say that MIDIs are necessarily worse and synths/samples are automatically better. In my opinion, the exact opposite is the case when you listen to the soundtrack of the original Age of Empires from 1997 and the 2017 re-orchestrated version of the Definitive Edition . But technological progress often brings with it qualitative developments, in the same way that there are classic cars and rusty junk mills. And so the soundtrack also contains aspects such as different tempos or volume changes that are missing in MIDI compositions.

Ruttmann uses these tools to make his work seem more coherent and at the same time a little more playful. We find many more melodies running through the tracks and instruments that complement each other within the call & response. This makes the music seem much more stringent in direct comparison to its predecessor, also in terms of the choice of instruments. This was one of my criticisms of The Settlers II, whose partly incoherent music created a crude mix in which only one or two tracks really seemed to fit the game.

In addition, The Settlers III is the first time we are dealing with different cultures that differ not only visually, but also in terms of play. This separation is largely captured by Ruttmann in the music, which differs from nation to nation. The Romans, which we will also hear in part 4 in their completed form, have a military, orderly feel and their strings and percussion are reminiscent of the soundtrack to Rome – Total War. In contrast to its serious real-time relative, however, the music is less grave and sometimes seems deliberately silly and childish, which suits the game well but may not appeal to everyone.

The Egyptians and Asians are different. While the latter fit perfectly into the Far Eastern cliché box with panpipes, gongs and zhengs, the Egyptians were culturally more oriented towards the Middle East, which is why we hear Arabic drums and flutes there. The composer does not attempt a historically accurate reappraisal of Egyptian musical culture, yet Die Ägypter 2 (The Egyptians 2) for example, sounds very much like the Romans - that could have been done better. And why Ruttmann quotes Edvard Grieg's Die traurige Bäuerin (Sad Farmer's Wife) of The Settlers II Edvard Griegs In the Hall of the Mountain King zitiert, wird vermutlich nur er selbst wissen.

This, and what the last three tracks are all about, which I found as part of another gamerip. Once again, the nameless track Die Siedler III 1 (The Settlers III 1) feels like the outro of a 1994 anime in the soundtrack, while The Settlers III 3 (The Settlers III 3) is an Irish jig. You probably don't need to understand that. On the other hand, Die Siedler III 2 (The Settlers III 2) is a pleasant surprise with its continuous motif, the rising and falling instrumentation and the relationship to the Viking theme from The Settlers IV , which pushes an average soundtrack even further and whets the appetite for the, in my opinion, perfect music of the sequel from 2001.