@editorial Thank god you picked the right decision !
I'm so glad you went back on this and decided to post-pone the game to give a better experience later on !

I can't wait for next announcements, and if it's any close to 2019 alpha, you'll have much more people happy to buy it, me included !
Good luck to all the developers and we'll see you very soon !

Hello dear "The Settlers" Team,

Again, I want to thank you all for the very difficult decision you took by delaying the game once again after all the feedback and reviews regarding the latest Closed Beta.
However, I think that it's important that we do analyze what really happened that lead to this situation. And I did fell upon a youtube comment made by a former pre-alpha tester regarding what happened.
His testimony is very interesting on the mistakes that were made between Spring 2020 and Spring 2021.

"I was invited 3x to play tests, once in the fall of 2018, in the spring of 2020 and in the spring of 2021. 
What I was able to play in 2020 was really a settlers dream, basically all the strengths of the settlers games were combined and well meshed. It was similarly complex as an ANNO 1800, looked beautiful, had a cool partly direct, partly indirect military system and also the diplomacy, which was similarly deep as in a Civilization, worked well, actually also the heroic battles. In contrast, almost everything that had to do with water (except fishing) was a total failure, as was the AI. Also, the gameplay didn't quite work yet because of immature balancing and sometimes strange UI design decisions that caused a lot of unnecessary clicking and such. In short, you could tell it was still a work in progress, but one that was heading in exactly the right direction. 
What I was able to play last year was, well, something in between the one from 2020 and what you can see in the video above, but it was more in the direction of today. For example, the fertilities had already been deleted, the hexes really came into play (before it was more of a mixture of hexes and zones of influence/building borders), there was much more focus on military, much was already "streamlined", etc. My review, like that of all the other 19 testers on site, was suitably negative and scathing, all who had played the previous version wanted it back and none really felt this was a settler. 
By the way, during the lunch break I was able to speak briefly with Volker Wertig. In summary he told me that it would only be consultants, the new game designer doesn't like building strategy and has never played a Settlers, the management wants to have a competitor product to Age of Empires 4 and market analyses would have shown that the previous version would have been too difficult & complex for the target group of building strategy gamers (yeah no it's clear - looking at ANNO 1800, Factorio, Civilization, ...) and he was deeply sad. I think he already knew what they want to do with his baby and have done now."

Here's the original comment in german :
"Mir blutet das Herz!
Ich war 3x eingeladen worden zu Anspieltests, einmal im Herbst 2018, im Frühjahr 2020 und im Frühjahr 2021.
Was ich 2020 anspielen durfte war echt ein Siedlertraum, es wurden im Grunde alle Stärken der Siedlerspiele zusammengefasst und gut verzahnt. Es war ähnlich komplex wie ein ANNO 1800, sah wunderschön aus, hatte ein cooles teils direktes, teils indirektes Militärsystem und auch die Diplomatie, welche ähnlich tiefschichtig war wie bei einem Civilization, funktionierte gut, tatsächlich auch die heroischen Kämpfe. Dagegen war quasi alles was mit Wasser zu tun hatte (außer Fischfang) ein Totalausfall, genauso wie die KI. Auch funktionierte das Gameplay noch nicht so ganz wegen unausgereiftem Balancing und teils seltsamen UI-Designentscheidungen, die unnötig viel geklicke undso verursachten. Kurzum man merkte es war noch eine Baustelle, doch eine die genau in die richtige Richtung geht.
Was ich letztes Jahr anspielen durfte war dagegen, nunja, so ein Zwischending aus dem von 2020 und was nun oben im Video zu sehen ist, allerdings ging es schon mehr in die Richtung vom heutigen. Zum Beispiel waren schon die Fruchtbarkeiten gestrichen worden, die Hexfelder kamen so wirklich ins Spiel (vorher war es mehr so eine Mischung aus Hexfeldern und Einflusszonen/Gebäudegrenzen), es wurde viel mehr Fokus auf Militär gelegt, vieles war schon "gestreamlined" usw. Meine Kritik im Review fiel wie die aller anderen 19 Tester vor Ort entsprechend negativ und vernichtend aus, alle die die vorherige Version gespielt hatten, wollten sie zurück und keiner empfand dies wirklich als ein Siedler.
In der Mittagspause konnte ich übrigens durch Zufall kurz mit dem Volker Wertig sprechen. Zusammengefasst erklärte er mir das es nur noch Berater sein, der neue Game Designer Aufbaustrategie nicht leiden kann und noch nie ein Siedler gespielt hat, das Management ein Konkurrenzprodukt zu Age of Empires 4 haben will und Marktanalysen ergeben hätten, dass die vorherige Version zu schwierig & komplex für die Zielgruppe der Aufbaustrategiespieler gewesen wäre (ja ne ist klar - looking at ANNO 1800, Factorio, Civilization, ...) und er tieftraurig sei. Ich denke er wusste schon was sie aus seinem Baby machen wollen und nun getan haben. "

Before you guys start to make decisions on what will be the next steps of your development, may we have an official response to that very important statement ?

The fact that all 19 pre-alpha testers gave negative and scathing reviews on the 2021 build, and asked to go back to the Spring 2020 build, and you didn't listen is very worrysome...
I'm pretty sure all the settlers fans here are quite worried about what will be your direction, and your last official news wasn't very enlightening on your "team's vision" of the game.
As I said in comment on your news, if the game is intended to look closer to the pre-alpha 2019, you'll have buyers ready to buy it. I just hope you'll make the right decisions in the coming months.

Again you have all my support, and I'll wait patiently on the news for the next steps !
Best regards,
A Settlers and Cultures fan.

As I was browsing to find any interesting news about what happened that led to this weird closed beta, I happened to find this comment on youtube (translated with DeepL) :
"I was invited 3x to play tests, once in the fall of 2018, in the spring of 2020 and in the spring of 2021. 
What I was able to play in 2020 was really a settlers dream, basically all the strengths of the settlers games were combined and well meshed. It was similarly complex as an ANNO 1800, looked beautiful, had a cool partly direct, partly indirect military system and also the diplomacy, which was similarly deep as in a Civilization, worked well, actually also the heroic battles. In contrast, almost everything that had to do with water (except fishing) was a total failure, as was the AI. Also, the gameplay didn't quite work yet because of immature balancing and sometimes strange UI design decisions that caused a lot of unnecessary clicking and such. In short, you could tell it was still a work in progress, but one that was heading in exactly the right direction. 
What I was able to play last year was, well, something in between the one from 2020 and what you can see in the video above, but it was more in the direction of today. For example, the fertilities had already been deleted, the hexes really came into play (before it was more of a mixture of hexes and zones of influence/building borders), there was much more focus on military, much was already "streamlined", etc. My review, like that of all the other 19 testers on site, was suitably negative and scathing, all who had played the previous version wanted it back and none really felt this was a settler. 
By the way, during the lunch break I was able to speak briefly with Volker Wertig. In summary he told me that it would only be consultants, the new game designer doesn't like building strategy and has never played a Settlers, the management wants to have a competitor product to Age of Empires 4 and market analyses would have shown that the previous version would have been too difficult & complex for the target group of building strategy gamers (yeah no it's clear - looking at ANNO 1800, Factorio, Civilization, ...) and he was deeply sad. I think he already knew what they want to do with his baby and have done now."

The link to the video with the original comment below :

If I understand correctly, the game designer didn't like "building strategy" and "never played settlers" while the management was indeed targetting an Age of Empires 4 competitor.
It seems like they already had an almost working build in 2020 !!
Let's cross fingers that they will call Volker Wertig back, and rebuild everything on the original game !

Also, for everyone's record, I checked Ubi Dusseldorf website. They are hiring a lot of people working for the snowdrop engine, as well as a "Studio Production Director". Fingers crossed !

@g_o_l_d Wait, you didn't look at what happened ?
Didn't read the news or got some feedback ?

The closed beta was an utter failure... They removed all of what a Settlers game is, made a quick basic (and broken) RTS and thought it would be enough to please the fans.
I suggest you go a bit on youtube and hear what really happened.
Cause because of those horrible feedbacks they simply delayed the game at an indefined date, to work again on it, since it was clearly not ready !

Hum... the game needs much more than just "procedurally generated maps"...
It needs a whole rework on a lot of things. The game was boring in the matter of 2-3 hours, because of its oversimplified mechanics, extremely bad AI, and awful balancing.
But I do agree with you, if they don't work on a better map system, the game will still be boring extremely quickly.

@vaubkiblis I'm not sure but I do believe the coins are for games that you purchased and kept.
If you got refunded, that means the money you paid got back at you.
So the coins got cancelled as well.

Seems fair to me.

@ubi-barbalatu Well, I'm glad to hear that you're ready to hear more ideas for the future of the game.
If you want ideas and suggestions, I might do my own take on it.

Criticism is one thing, but proposal and suggestions are much better.
I also hope you were able to properly feedback the team on the overall feeling that the alpha of 2020 was much better than the closed beta ? Especially on a Settlers fans point of view.

One last thing, will there be a dialog between the community and the dev team on the choices that will be made ? I heard the german forum is asking a lot about it.
Can't wait to hear more about your future roadmap ^^

@g_o_l_d Wait, you didn't look at what happened ?
Didn't read the news or got some feedback ?

The closed beta was an utter failure... They removed all of what a Settlers game is, made a quick basic (and broken) RTS and thought it would be enough to please the fans.
I suggest you go a bit on youtube and hear what really happened.
Cause because of those horrible feedbacks they simply delayed the game at an indefined date, to work again on it, since it was clearly not ready !

To add to what i said earlier, have this very new german video that shows what was the Alpha of 2020.
Even if you don't understand what is being said by the voice over, the images are... quite clear about what we could have got :

Hello dear "The Settlers" Team,

Again, I want to thank you all for the very difficult decision you took by delaying the game once again after all the feedback and reviews regarding the latest Closed Beta.
However, I think that it's important that we do analyze what really happened that lead to this situation. And I did fell upon a youtube comment made by a former pre-alpha tester regarding what happened.
His testimony is very interesting on the mistakes that were made between Spring 2020 and Spring 2021.

"I was invited 3x to play tests, once in the fall of 2018, in the spring of 2020 and in the spring of 2021. 
What I was able to play in 2020 was really a settlers dream, basically all the strengths of the settlers games were combined and well meshed. It was similarly complex as an ANNO 1800, looked beautiful, had a cool partly direct, partly indirect military system and also the diplomacy, which was similarly deep as in a Civilization, worked well, actually also the heroic battles. In contrast, almost everything that had to do with water (except fishing) was a total failure, as was the AI. Also, the gameplay didn't quite work yet because of immature balancing and sometimes strange UI design decisions that caused a lot of unnecessary clicking and such. In short, you could tell it was still a work in progress, but one that was heading in exactly the right direction. 
What I was able to play last year was, well, something in between the one from 2020 and what you can see in the video above, but it was more in the direction of today. For example, the fertilities had already been deleted, the hexes really came into play (before it was more of a mixture of hexes and zones of influence/building borders), there was much more focus on military, much was already "streamlined", etc. My review, like that of all the other 19 testers on site, was suitably negative and scathing, all who had played the previous version wanted it back and none really felt this was a settler. 
By the way, during the lunch break I was able to speak briefly with Volker Wertig. In summary he told me that it would only be consultants, the new game designer doesn't like building strategy and has never played a Settlers, the management wants to have a competitor product to Age of Empires 4 and market analyses would have shown that the previous version would have been too difficult & complex for the target group of building strategy gamers (yeah no it's clear - looking at ANNO 1800, Factorio, Civilization, ...) and he was deeply sad. I think he already knew what they want to do with his baby and have done now."

Here's the original comment in german :
"Mir blutet das Herz!
Ich war 3x eingeladen worden zu Anspieltests, einmal im Herbst 2018, im Frühjahr 2020 und im Frühjahr 2021.
Was ich 2020 anspielen durfte war echt ein Siedlertraum, es wurden im Grunde alle Stärken der Siedlerspiele zusammengefasst und gut verzahnt. Es war ähnlich komplex wie ein ANNO 1800, sah wunderschön aus, hatte ein cooles teils direktes, teils indirektes Militärsystem und auch die Diplomatie, welche ähnlich tiefschichtig war wie bei einem Civilization, funktionierte gut, tatsächlich auch die heroischen Kämpfe. Dagegen war quasi alles was mit Wasser zu tun hatte (außer Fischfang) ein Totalausfall, genauso wie die KI. Auch funktionierte das Gameplay noch nicht so ganz wegen unausgereiftem Balancing und teils seltsamen UI-Designentscheidungen, die unnötig viel geklicke undso verursachten. Kurzum man merkte es war noch eine Baustelle, doch eine die genau in die richtige Richtung geht.
Was ich letztes Jahr anspielen durfte war dagegen, nunja, so ein Zwischending aus dem von 2020 und was nun oben im Video zu sehen ist, allerdings ging es schon mehr in die Richtung vom heutigen. Zum Beispiel waren schon die Fruchtbarkeiten gestrichen worden, die Hexfelder kamen so wirklich ins Spiel (vorher war es mehr so eine Mischung aus Hexfeldern und Einflusszonen/Gebäudegrenzen), es wurde viel mehr Fokus auf Militär gelegt, vieles war schon "gestreamlined" usw. Meine Kritik im Review fiel wie die aller anderen 19 Tester vor Ort entsprechend negativ und vernichtend aus, alle die die vorherige Version gespielt hatten, wollten sie zurück und keiner empfand dies wirklich als ein Siedler.
In der Mittagspause konnte ich übrigens durch Zufall kurz mit dem Volker Wertig sprechen. Zusammengefasst erklärte er mir das es nur noch Berater sein, der neue Game Designer Aufbaustrategie nicht leiden kann und noch nie ein Siedler gespielt hat, das Management ein Konkurrenzprodukt zu Age of Empires 4 haben will und Marktanalysen ergeben hätten, dass die vorherige Version zu schwierig & komplex für die Zielgruppe der Aufbaustrategiespieler gewesen wäre (ja ne ist klar - looking at ANNO 1800, Factorio, Civilization, ...) und er tieftraurig sei. Ich denke er wusste schon was sie aus seinem Baby machen wollen und nun getan haben. "

Before you guys start to make decisions on what will be the next steps of your development, may we have an official response to that very important statement ?

The fact that all 19 pre-alpha testers gave negative and scathing reviews on the 2021 build, and asked to go back to the Spring 2020 build, and you didn't listen is very worrysome...
I'm pretty sure all the settlers fans here are quite worried about what will be your direction, and your last official news wasn't very enlightening on your "team's vision" of the game.
As I said in comment on your news, if the game is intended to look closer to the pre-alpha 2019, you'll have buyers ready to buy it. I just hope you'll make the right decisions in the coming months.

Again you have all my support, and I'll wait patiently on the news for the next steps !
Best regards,
A Settlers and Cultures fan.

Hum... the game needs much more than just "procedurally generated maps"...
It needs a whole rework on a lot of things. The game was boring in the matter of 2-3 hours, because of its oversimplified mechanics, extremely bad AI, and awful balancing.
But I do agree with you, if they don't work on a better map system, the game will still be boring extremely quickly.

As I was browsing to find any interesting news about what happened that led to this weird closed beta, I happened to find this comment on youtube (translated with DeepL) :
"I was invited 3x to play tests, once in the fall of 2018, in the spring of 2020 and in the spring of 2021. 
What I was able to play in 2020 was really a settlers dream, basically all the strengths of the settlers games were combined and well meshed. It was similarly complex as an ANNO 1800, looked beautiful, had a cool partly direct, partly indirect military system and also the diplomacy, which was similarly deep as in a Civilization, worked well, actually also the heroic battles. In contrast, almost everything that had to do with water (except fishing) was a total failure, as was the AI. Also, the gameplay didn't quite work yet because of immature balancing and sometimes strange UI design decisions that caused a lot of unnecessary clicking and such. In short, you could tell it was still a work in progress, but one that was heading in exactly the right direction. 
What I was able to play last year was, well, something in between the one from 2020 and what you can see in the video above, but it was more in the direction of today. For example, the fertilities had already been deleted, the hexes really came into play (before it was more of a mixture of hexes and zones of influence/building borders), there was much more focus on military, much was already "streamlined", etc. My review, like that of all the other 19 testers on site, was suitably negative and scathing, all who had played the previous version wanted it back and none really felt this was a settler. 
By the way, during the lunch break I was able to speak briefly with Volker Wertig. In summary he told me that it would only be consultants, the new game designer doesn't like building strategy and has never played a Settlers, the management wants to have a competitor product to Age of Empires 4 and market analyses would have shown that the previous version would have been too difficult & complex for the target group of building strategy gamers (yeah no it's clear - looking at ANNO 1800, Factorio, Civilization, ...) and he was deeply sad. I think he already knew what they want to do with his baby and have done now."

The link to the video with the original comment below :

If I understand correctly, the game designer didn't like "building strategy" and "never played settlers" while the management was indeed targetting an Age of Empires 4 competitor.
It seems like they already had an almost working build in 2020 !!
Let's cross fingers that they will call Volker Wertig back, and rebuild everything on the original game !

Also, for everyone's record, I checked Ubi Dusseldorf website. They are hiring a lot of people working for the snowdrop engine, as well as a "Studio Production Director". Fingers crossed !

@editorial Thank god you picked the right decision !
I'm so glad you went back on this and decided to post-pone the game to give a better experience later on !

I can't wait for next announcements, and if it's any close to 2019 alpha, you'll have much more people happy to buy it, me included !
Good luck to all the developers and we'll see you very soon !

I have to admit, I had high hopes for the game. I still try to be a little optimistic, seeing that changes are apparently planned ?
But I wanted to address something I saw in the Closed Beta forum :

"Cultures 2 was the best game ever made take some tips from that... each person that can be built and expanded into any line of work....this honestly looks like a upgraded phone game... simplistic boring.....its 2022 guys make something that at least looks good"

I can't agree more. Cultures 2 by Funatics is probably the best Settlers-like game ever made.
The population system may not be the best (even though I really love how complex and realistic it is) but for the rest, it's just S-tier micro-management game.
If you guys want to give a try of Cultures series (by the Funatics Studios that also worked on the acclaimed Settlers 2 10th Anniversary), then you'll find the whole series on GOG !

I expected "The Settlers" to be in this kind of genre. Not as complex of course, but at least near enough.
The overgrowing popularity of complex city-building like Banished, Foundation, Manor Lords etc, as well as the extremely well received and critically acclaimed Anno 1800, gave me a lot of hope for this game. The 2019 gameplay almost pushed me to preorder (something I usually never do).

The fall and crash I felt following the Beta is unexplainable. How did this happen ? How did a game that was supposed to "go back to the roots" of the Settlers became this ?
I play RTS, and I already can tell I felt more fun from other franchises like Age of Empires, Total War or Warcraft/Starcraft. The game we got in the Beta is neither a good city-builder (especially compared to what is releasing right now by independant studios), nor a good RTS. And history showed how something that is not good in two categories, fails much more hardly than a game that is excellent in one.
In this current state, I won't buy this game. Even at a 90% discount, I would still not buy it.

I really hope the promises we got by Ubi-Barbalatu will lead to some strong changes.