There was no central castle anymore where the goods were stored and storage areas, while being cheaper and faster built than in the previous games, had only limited space. Theoretically, only one tower had to be held since otherwise the game would be lost.
Unlike in previous games, it was possible to expand territory without building towers. To make up for this, towers didn't have a minimum distance anymore so they could cover each other. This allowed fighting even when the enemies were far away, like in Starcraft or Age of Empires. It was possible to control settlers directly. The developers introduced a mana system in Settlers III where the players could upgrade all new soldiers permanently or cast spells. Small differences of the nations - Romans, Asians and Egyptians - were in building costs, war machines, mana production and mines. The singleplayer maps featured different objectives as well. The original game came with three campaigns of ten missions each, as well as some maps for single- and multiplayer mode. It features single- and multiplayer gaming.
It was created and published by the German developer Blue Byte and released in late 1998. The Settlers III (German: Die Siedler III) is a real time strategy game with focus on the player's economy.
