Quest of the Amazons tells a prequel story, chronicling how Helios's daughter, Q'nqüra, becomes HIS personal assistant, engineering events so that women become the secret rulers of the universe.

Whilst the economic system and the interrelatedness of the various buildings, as well as the graphics and animations were generally praised, most critics felt it was too similar to previous Settlers titles.

The Settlers III is a real-time strategy game with city-building elements,[4][5][6] controlled via a point and click interface, in which the primary goal on most maps is to build a settlement with a functioning economy, producing sufficient military units so as to conquer rival territories, ultimately gaining control of either the entire map or a certain predetermined section of it.

[14] Whether playing Campaign, Scenario or Multiplayer mode, each game begins the same way; the player has a small settlement, a set amount of raw materials and tools, and a predetermined number of settlers.

[8] The basic gameplay revolves around serfs (the titular "settlers"), who transport materials, tools and produce, and who populate and perform the requisite task of each building.

[28] The player can also build lookout towers, which are manned by regular settlers, and which can see for great distances, but don't grant new territory.

A powerful group of nearby pirates, led by Flavius, then ally with Septimus, and pursue Ramadamses to a small cluster of islands, several of which are controlled by Tsu-Tang.

At the encouragement of his friends, Helios is drowning his sorrows, after his son Phaethon died whilst attempting to use the sun-chariot to impress women, but was unable to control the horses.

The Amazons begin their offensive by destroying a colony of Egyptians, overrunning a Roman encampment, and desecrating a sacred Asian mountain, prompting Jupiter, Horus and Ch'ih-yu to ally.

[46] After their initial attacks are repulsed, they are able to disrupt Penthesilea's iron production, hence her ability to create weaponry, forcing the Amazons to retreat to a more fortified position.

However, by 1997, he was ready to resume working on the series, eager to implement ideas which he felt would allow the game to compete with rival titles such as Warcraft II and Anno 1602.

Due to the innovations, he planned to introduce to the mechanics, and because the supply and demand-based gameplay of Settlers III was going to be more intricate than in previous titles, he felt that forcing players to concentrate too much on logistics would serve as an unwelcome distraction, and so decided to remove the need for a road network.

[56] Once on board, Wallner realised that Hess's designs were too detailed, and, as a result, were unrealisable given the current level of technology, so the pair decided to scrap them, and redesign the characters from scratch.

Hess had failed to take into account that the designs of the settlers couldn't be too complex, since small details would be lost, given their size (32 pixels in height).

Unsatisfied with the results when he attempted to use 3D Studio Max, he chose instead to build an "extremely primitive skeletal settler which we could put under the visible structure of our figures".

As it had already been decided that a new gameplay element would be "Divine Intervention", Hess suggested the plot have something to do with the gods of each culture, and the two worked out a rough draft in a single evening, based around a competition between Jupiter (Roman), Horus (Egyptian) and Chi-yu (Asian).

Hertzler and Wertich approved the concept, but it quickly became apparent that the team currently working on the game would have no time to design or render any cutscenes.

Unfortunately, the unavoidable economic impact of illegal software leaves us with no other choice if we want to continue to bring innovative and high-quality products to the market.

[64] Writing for PC Gamer (UK), James Flynn scored the game 90%, referring to it as "a much slicker, less fiddly and wonderfully deeper challenge" than the first two titles in the series.

He especially praised the complexity of the economic system, which he lauded as "a perfectly designed, hugely detailed, interlinking chain which is utterly absorbing to construct".

Her criticisms focused on the single-player campaign (which she called "streamlined [and] monotonous"), poor pathfinding for trade ships, weak AI, and occasionally misleading mission briefings.

He criticised the interface, writing "not every icon is self-explanatory, and it takes time until you feel at home", and the occasional difficulty in locating where in the production chain there may be a problem.

[69] Writing for PC Gamer (US), Joe Novicki scored it 85%, praising the removal of roads, the enhanced combat, and the addition of online multiplayer.

Although he found the pace a little too slow, he concluded, "it strikes a nice balance between the action-oriented mainstream titles and more thoughtful fare like Caesar III".

Although he praised the differentiation between the races, the introduction of divine intervention, and the supply and demand-based gameplay, he cited "a slew of glaring problems which mar an otherwise brilliant game".

[9] GameSpot's Ron Dulin scored it 6.1 out of 10, arguing that it plays almost identically to The Settlers II, and citing "surface changes [which] make only a moderate improvement".

He praised the intricacies of the economic system, writing the "level of complexity sets Settlers III apart from other real-time strategy games".

Although he praised the economic system, and the complex interrelations between the various buildings, he was critical of the lack of an in-depth tutorial, the necessity to return to the main menu so as to load a new game, and overly simplistic combat.

[23] Next Generation rated the game two stars out of five: "It's mildly entertaining to construct buildings, gather resources, and trade goods, but in the end, The Settlers III is a disappointment, lacking the creativity needed to compete in today's overcrowded RTS market".

[54] Blue Byte's development manager, Erik Simon, stated of Quest of the Amazons: "Fans of the series have been bombarding us for ages with requests to finally let female Settlers pit their skills against their male counterparts.