15.The Settlers (1993). 20 Best Classic PC Strategy Games

The Settlers is one of the very few real-time strategies that featured a split screen mode for two players.

Most of the games mentioned so far focus primarily on the military aspect. Although the military and war are also present in The Settlers, except in a slightly more humorous convention, it is the economic aspect that is at the heart of this game.

The player's goal here is primarily to develop their own medieval settlement, which does not turn out to be a trivial task. The devs at Blue Byte GmbH have put a lot of effort into building a complex and meaningful engine of economic relations, in which even simple acquisition of resources is quite complex and requires thought.

The game is, in a sense, the progenitor of the now popular genre of economic strategies, in which we manage the development of relatively small communities. Many contemporary indie game developers are now trying to recreate this extremely addictive gameplay model, with better or worse results. Northgard from Shiro Games is considered to be the game closest to achieving that objective.

Just sending settlers to the mines is no longer enough to ensure peace and be able to indulge in destroying hostile settlements. This time, any collected resource must be transported to the appropriate craftsmen, so that they can make necessary products. Any such production chain requires adequate logistical support, as the extracted resources will not move themselves to a warehouse or forge. Every item is moved from flag to flag by busy porters, and if we mis-design the layout of paths and buildings, the transport of resources will stall our entire economy.

For example, to recruit a simple soldier, we need to produce a sword and a shield. To do this we need to feed the miners (farms, mills, bakeries), deliver the ore and coal to the smelter, then iron and coal to the blacksmith. This is the essence of The Settlers. Keep in mind that we have a limited number of settlers, so even seemingly simple tasks can be quite challenging in this game.