From a gameplay perspective, although each game tends to feature its own set of innovations and nuances, broadly speaking, they are all built on a simulation of a supply and demand economic system in which the player must maintain the various chains of production, building up their military strength and the robustness of their economy so as to defeat their opponents and achieve certain predetermined objectives.

Common game mechanics include resource acquisition, economic micromanagement, managing taxation, maintaining a high standard of living, trade, and technology trees.

[19] After Heritage of Kings received a negative reaction from fans, the next game, The Settlers: Rise of an Empire, returned to foregrounding city-building over real-time strategy.

[15] In the first five games, the primary goal on each map, broadly speaking, is to build a settlement with a functioning economy, producing sufficient military units so as to conquer rival territories.

[24][25][26][27][28] In Rise of an Empire and Paths to a Kingdom, the importance of military conquest is scaled back, with many maps requiring players to accomplish certain predetermined tasks tied to the economic strength of their city.

So, with Heritage of Kings, there is little focus on micromanagement, daisy-chain economic processes, or construction, and more on technology trees, combat, taxation, and workers' motivation.

[31] Paths to a Kingdom features a more robust economy and focuses on micromanagement, daisy-chain economic processes, city organisation, upgrading buildings, technology trees, and trade requirements.

[32] Additionally, for the first time in the series, the gameplay in Paths to a Kingdom is flexible enough to allow players to develop their settlement based upon one (or more) of three basic options - military, technology or trade.

In all games except Heritage of Kings, serfs transport materials, tools and produce, and populate and perform the requisite task of each building.

[47][48] In Rise of an Empire and Paths to a Kingdom, once the settlement's quota has been reached, new settlers can only generate once the player has increased living space, either by building new residences or upgrading existing ones.

[54][55] The first four titles in the series feature a broadly similar economic system built on a foundation of basic supply and demand, and in all four games, the player can control the economy in various rudimentary ways.

[66] Rise of an Empire features a considerably streamlined economic model when compared to all previous titles, with the most basic production chains of any game in the series (usually involving only two buildings).

[86] The original Settlers game was conceived, designed, and programmed by Blue Byte's Volker Wertich, who was inspired by titles such as Little Computer People, Populous and SimCity.

[67] Designing a game which could handle such complexity proved far from simple, requiring over two years of development and programming, with much of this time spent "teaching the computer the basic facets of running an economic system.

[67] His biggest challenge was getting the computer to understand and accurately simulate supply and demand, which, once the necessary buildings have been constructed, is handled almost entirely outside the privy of the player.

[90] For the sequel, Blue Byte decided to leave the gameplay relatively unchanged from the original, although they did implement a more strategic battle system, whereby players can send out scouts and utilise a stationary offensive weapon.

[91] When developing this single-player story, the team initially took the concept too far, designing maps which placed tight limits on what the player could and couldn't do, and featured scripted events which would happen at certain predesignated time.

To tackle this problem, Hess and Wallner elected to exaggerate the settlers' proportions, giving them disproportionately large weapons and tools, as correctly sized implements would be too small to be seen.

The recultivation of the barren lands is an important component in the strategy against the dark menace and emphasizes our efforts to reposition the settling aspect of the game in the foreground.

In June 2001, they revealed the next game, The Settlers: Heritage of Kings, would be a milestone in several senses - it would be the first to use 3D graphics and it would be released simultaneously for Microsoft Windows and the console market.

He also explained that for the first time, a Settlers game was being developed with an eye to the international market, particularly North America, as the series had traditionally sold poorly outside Europe.

[113][114] Speaking prior to the release of 10th Anniversary, Ubisoft's business development director, Ralf Wirsing, attempted to put the overall franchise into context: With the five parts of the series published so far, three different generations can be defined.

[121] The next release in the series was Die Siedler: Aufbruch der Kulturen, a 2008 German-only spiritual successor to 10th Anniversary featuring very similar gameplay.

In the early stages of development, Blue Byte looked at the two previous games, Heritage of Kings and Rise of an Empire, both of which had been unpopular with fans, to see why they didn't work as Settlers titles.

[125] In the lead-up to the release of Paths to a Kingdom, Grindel admitted, "with Settlers 5 and 6, we lost many loyal fans, despite having a larger base target group.

[149] On the other hand, GameSpot's Ron Dulin argued that it played almost identically to The Settlers II, citing "surface changes [which] make only a moderate improvement".

[23] Heritage of Kings received mixed reviews, with many critics arguing the graphical changes, streamlining of micromanagement, and foregrounding of combat stripped the game of the unique Settlers identity.

Gameswelt's André Linken lamented the designers' "unwillingness to restructure" the repetitive mission goals of the original,[155] although VideoGamer.com's Paul Devlin called it a "lovingly crafted remake".

[156] The Settlers DS received a very negative reaction, with critics citing unresponsive controls, a poorly implemented HUD, and, especially, game-breaking bugs.

[68] The Settlers HD received positive reviews, and was lauded for replicating the original game on a portable device, and for successfully adapting the controls to a touchscreen.