Brilliant game brought low by DRM nightmare
Please do yourself a favor and check over at the Ubisoft Settlers forums before you go any farther with this purchase.
Just to clarify, Ubisoft's DRM requires that:
(A) You have a constant connection to the internet while playing the game. This includes playing the single player portions of the game. I have not lost my personal internet connection even once while playing.
(B) You are able to connect and validate on their servers. This is the killer. Their servers have been down almost every time I've attempted to play. There are numerous posts on the forums where other users are experiencing the same issue: My internet is up, your server is down. The only communication from Ubisoft at this point is "we're looking at it."
To make matters worse, if you lose (A) or (B) during your game (even single player), your game will lock up, crash to the desktop, or occasionally simply notify you that the network connection has been lost and then exit to the desktop "gracefully." Please notice that *none* of these "connection lost" options include the ability to save your game.
Buyer beware.