Ubisoft announced today that Blue Byte studio is working on a DS version of “The Settlers”, a real time strategy game. Players will be able to conquer the world as the Romans, Vikings, Asians, and Nubians. Unfortunately, no plans to include a multiplayer mode have been announced yet.

Ralf Wirsing, director of the studio, says that the gameplay of the original Settlers translates well to the DS with its touch screen controls. Using the stylus, you can direct units, adjust your view of the map, and switch the top and bottom screen display.

Graphically, it looks a lot like Settlers II (PC), which was released in 1997. Expect to see Settlers DS released towards the end of 2006 in Asia and Europe. There are no current plans to publish the game in the US.

A few details on the game:

* The Settlers on the Nintendo DS will feature two campaigns, the Roman-campaign and the World-campaign. Of course, the game will also feature a free-play mode in which you can take on the CPU using every race available (Romans, Vikings, Nubians and Asians).
* 30 different jobs and 6 different types of soldiers will be available in the game.
* The game features 7 continents consisting out of different landtypes (forests, lava, ice, swamps)
* The game is controlled using the stylus
* The top and bottom screens can be swapped in-game. This way you can use your stylus to navigate using the map, or select and give order to your settlers. Using the stylus its also possible to zoom in on your settlers.

Jeux-France has more Settlers DS screenshots

More info on the Settlers series

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source: Jeux-France - DS-X2