The Settlers, Gameloft’s first entry into the iDevice’s as-yet lackluster RTS genre, is now available from the app store. With its brand recognition, deep gameplay, and pleasant presentation, mobile gamers may finally be able to fill the void.

The Settlers began life in the early ‘90s on the Amiga and PC and, many sequels later, has finally found its way to the iDevice. Having little experience with RTS games, we were drawn in by the graphics and perceived depth of play. Thus far, we have been pleasantly surprised. The goal of The Settlers is to take control of a group of people and build a fully-functioning society, complete with flourishing economy, steadfast military, food producers, religious leaders, and all of the other facets of society that are necessary to grow and thrive. While we expected a lot more hands-on interaction, it turns out that our duties rely heavily on the “set it in motion and watch where it goes” mentality, which may be what makes this game so easy to get into.

You must choose to play as the Romans, the Vikings, the Mayans, or the Dark Tribe. Regardless of which you choose, the game focuses on the completion of missions specific to each group. There is an extensive tutorial, which came in very handy to acclimate us to the game’s many nuances. It turns out that a great deal of planning is required to build a proper society. There is a need for everything from housing to food to ore and more. Of course, in order to obtain these objects, you must attain the most basic elements, such as food to feed the workers. In order to get food, you need hunters and fishermen. In order for these people to be successful, they need bows and poles. And so on and so on… It’s a wonder anything ever gets done in our village. The logic always seems to come back in a circular fashion.

The gaming area is laid out well, with plenty of buttons offering instant access to anything and everything you may need. Some information windows can be hidden when not in use, and the game gives an adequate amount of information as to what is currently selected and happening. Objectives can be pulled up with just a tap, and control of settlers and the building of structures is also just a tap away. If certain functions cannot be carried out, the buttons will be grayed. You can also zoom for a better view or access a map to quickly move around your establishment. Perhaps the nicest feature is the fast-forward button, which allows you to skip past the tedious process of moving about and building structures. As much fun as watching life unfold can be, we often want instant gratification and Gameloft provides us that outlet.

At any rate, gameplay is actually a lot of fun, promising to keep us enthralled for some time with all that can be accomplished in this little world. The graphics are very nice, and it’s fun to watch all of the people interacting with their environment, whether it’s building towers or simply moving within crowds. The soundtrack is pretty cool, though it can get tiresome after a while. You can play music from your own library in its place, though our modern music did seem out of place given the setting. Controls can take some getting used to. Everything is touch-based, but there are menus upon sub-menus to wade through. These menus, sadly, are filled with graphic buttons without text captions, making it difficult to determine what each does and which we need. We spent nearly 10 minutes trying to find the vineyard by randomly tapping around the environment before giving up and using the tutorial to see which building it was. Once you spent some quality time with the game, things do get a bit easier, but it can be very confusing initially.

Replay value is difficult to pinpoint, based on the mission-based play. For some people, replaying missions can be fun each and every time. For others, once they’ve done it, they will have no interest in doing it again. There is plenty to keep you occupied for a long time, and the lack of other quality RTS games could, by default, keep fans playing this game longer than expected. We enjoyed our time with The Settlers, which is available for $6.99 in the app store. As it stands, The Settlers is a solid 4-Dimple game with a lot to offer.

The Settlers gets our AppSmile 4-Dimple rating: