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Gameloft are clearly on the Android case at the moment, with a much improved conversion of the revered PC management sim. The tutorial starts out with a handful of mundane wood choppers and stone miners but pretty soon you are engulfed in inter-related resource chains. By the time it gets to needing armies, you’ll be frantically clicking round the screen to ensure you have the economic might to support them. Even better, the interface works fine once you work out how the hell it functions. Luckily, you can fast forward through the boring bits and slow down when everything looks about to turn chaotic.
So, where are the niggles? Well, managing resources through a series of sliders that determine a pecking order for who gets what may save a few clicks but it needs better explanation. However, this too is a common feature of Sims and RTS’s; after the basics are mastered, there are some things you’re expected to work out for yourself.
Settlers HD is ambitious stuff – which succeeds far more often than it stumbles.
