Year: 2010
Genre: Strategy (Real-time) / 3D
Developer: Blue Byte Software
Publisher: Ubisoft Entertainment
System requirements for maximum rendering quality recommended by the gameGPU website:
The minimum
Operating system: Vista®, Windows 7
Processor: 2 Core Duo 2,6 GHz or Athlon II x2 240
RAM: 2 GB
Video card: DirectX®9 compatible video adapter with 512 MB RAM Radeon HD 5750 or GeForce GTX 260
DirectX: DirectX®9
Winchester: 3 GB free space
Effective
Operating system: Vista®, Windows 7
Processor: 2 Core Duo 3,0 GHz or Phenom II x2 545
Memory: 2 GB
Video card: DirectX®9 compatible video adapter with 1024 MB RAM Radeon HD 4870 or GeForce GTX 280
DirectX: DirectX®9
Winchester: 3 GB free space
Optimal
Operating system: Vista®, Windows 7
Processor: 2 Core Duo 3,33 GHz or Phenom II x4 965
RAM: 2 GB
Video card: DirectX®9 compatible video adapter with 1024 MBRAM Radeon HD 5830 orGeForce GTX 285
DirectX: DirectX®9
Winchester: 3 GB free space
Official description of the game
The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom will offer fans of the series a completely new graphic design, an improved artificial intelligence system (more than a dozen AI profiles with characteristic features), multiplayer modes with leaderboard support.
Finally, the developers promise not only to provide players with additional content after release, but also to offer them free tools with which they themselves can create new levels and missions.
Review: Playability
What we are accustomed to consider the RTS genre has recently begun to acquire a completely different interpretation. Gone are the days when the main priority was to show off your military tactical power and smash your competitors to smithereens with cunning maneuvers. Now, usually before an insignificant battle, you need to carry out a series of routine actions: build more than one city, populate it with an incredible number of inhabitants, give it water and food. There is no strength or desire left for the military part of the action. The most interesting thing is that most modern RTS strategies have either an economic or RPG bias, making us remember with bitterness the times of the former glory of War Craft…
The creators of The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom decided to eliminate this misunderstanding by choosing the path that is more sympathetic to the player. The game has the same gameplay as presented in the latest XNUMXD parts of The Settlers series. The player starts with a simple village and expands it sector by sector to eventually create his own kingdom. During this process, the player must organize production chains and build transport systems as correctly as possible.
In the game, the player is given the opportunity to choose between three unique development paths through which he can achieve victory: military, scientific and trade. Having taken the traditional, for RTS, military path of development, the player creates his own army and then, with the help of military might, defeat and destroy his enemies. Following the scientific path of development, the player must focus on researching technological improvements. And finally, following the trade path of development, the player will have to build his economy and try to capture the best trade routes that are on the world map. Whatever development path is chosen, unique units and capabilities will be available on it. In all development paths, the player wins by collecting “victory points” as he follows the course of the game.
Compared to previous installments in the series, enemy AI has been greatly improved with over twelve AI lines with unique behaviors. The game also features a new, enhanced online multiplayer mode that allows players to play with and against each other. Players can also produce and share resources. Before starting the game, we recommend watching all the video tutorials so as not to get confused in the process of the game itself.
We invite you to check out part of the video The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom, where you can see for yourself the quality of this product:
Whatever development path is chosen, unique units and capabilities will be available on it. In all development paths, the player wins by collecting “victory points” as he follows the course of the game. In the demo version we had a limited number of opportunities to appreciate all the delights of the game. In the full version, we will probably be able to fully explore all the diverse aspects of the game and provide more comprehensive information.
Review: Game Graphics
The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom is based on the Trinigy Vision Engine. The Trinigy Vision Engine supports normal mapping for textures, the radiosity lighting method, dynamic lighting and shading, particle system effects, location streaming, and post-processing effects such as HDR and depth of field. The same engine is used to create Arcania: A Gothic Tale, so you can visually imagine what the new game in the series will be like.
We can’t say that the graphics in the game are gorgeous, but they are beautiful, that’s undeniable. The environment is not pleasing with its hyper-realism, but the designers worked conscientiously, working on all the components of the visualization, as a result of which the picture acquired a fabulous character. And even the cornerstone unit models look quite nice and attractive. The entire game world is very diverse, filled with various living creatures and embellished with beautiful landscapes, which encourages only warm feelings to play.
Now let’s look at the change in picture quality under different visual settings. In total, three variations of settings are available to us in the graphical menu: high, medium and low. Moreover, to obtain the best performance, we can manually enable and disable some graphical menu items. But in our review we will focus only on three main ones.
At low settings, we are not allowed to lower the camera to the ground, so as not to see all the poorness of the textures, but even from above, the exorbitant wretchedness and clumsiness is visible. At medium settings, detail rises to a higher level, textures become sharper and rounder, plus some objects are added. At high settings, detail becomes quite respectable and we can fully enjoy the beauty of the picture.
Game cards are truly huge, and photorealistic images from modern PCs would require a pentagon filling, which would naturally reduce game sales to zero. But don’t delude yourself – even with such a low-tech graphics implementation, your video cards will require considerable extra effort…
Review: Resource-intensive game
For Prison Break: The Conspiracy you will need a Core 2 Duo 3,0 GHz or Phenom II x2 545 processor and 2 gigabytes of RAM. The game focuses on one processor core, without distributing the load evenly across all cores. So the clock frequency in this case prevails over multithreading. And video cards will require a considerable amount of video memory on board – preferably 1 gigabyte.
|
Hardware configuration |
|
| Processor |
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550@ 4.25 GHz L2 cache 12 MB, |
| Motherboard | MSI P45 Platinum 7512 (LGA 775) P45/ICH10R |
| Memory | 4 GB OCZ DDR2-1150 @ 11160, 5-5-5, 2,2 V |
| Video Cards |
GeForce 8400 GS 512 MB |
| HDD | 2 RAID0 Western Digital Caivar WD2500GL 250 GB, 7200 rpm, SATA 3 Gbit/s |
|
System software and drivers |
|
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition x64 |
| DirectX | DirectX 11 |
| Platform Driver | Intel INF Chipset Update Utility 9.1.0.1012 |
| Graphics driver |
Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 196.21 ATI Catalyst 10.2 |
All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using the Fraps program. the most resource-intensive place in the game.
All video adapters were tested at all graphics quality settings at resolutions of 1280×1024 and 1920×1080. At high settings, most video accelerators were knocked down, as a result of which it was decided to use all graphics quality settings.
Testing at low quality settings 1280×1024
Testing at low quality settings 1920×1080
Testing at medium quality settings 1280×1024
Testing at medium quality settings 1920×1080
Testing at maximum quality settings 1280×1024
Testing at maximum quality settings 1920×1080
Nvidia can provide serious resistance to AMD cards only at low quality settings. With the increase in the quality of detail and resolution, the Redskins find themselves in the undisputed leaders. Once again, ATI cards show dominant performance. However, at the highest levels of the screen, only its representatives of the HD 58XXX series show comfortable playability. The bare minimum for the highest settings can be considered a Radeon HD 5750 or GeForce GTX 260 series card, which is quite a lot even by modern standards. Cards of the GeForce 9500GT and Radeon HD 4650 level do not currently justify their purchase for games, being only a good addition to a media center.
Conclusion: The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom will allow players to choose which path they will take as the Great Monarch. The very high system requirements are puzzling, although recently this has become a pattern.
