GameSpots Ron Dulin scored it 6.4 out of 10, finding similar problems to Adams and Dy, and comparing it unfavourably to Impressions Games' City Building series. Finding it too similar to Settlers III, he felt Blue Byte had failed to move away from a reliance on combat. He also criticised the mission variety and the lack of combat strategy, writing, "it's never more complex than moving all of your units slowly through enemy territory, hoping you'll have some left after your opponent doesn't". Although praising the basic supply and demand-based gameplay and the graphics, he wrote "The Settlers: Fourth Edition is really just the same old game with the same old problems".
