leaves Horus to fight on, whilst he pillages both Egyptian and Amazonian lands. Disgusted, Horus withdraws from the fight, and Jupiter, in a temper, cuts off his own troops, leaving Ch'ih-yu to see out the conflict alone. HE summons Q'nqüra to ask how she was defeated, and she explains that she allowed the men to win. When HE asks why, she explains "for you. These gods and their peoples are just overgrown children. When they lose, their tantrums destroy, and it's your world they destroy". When HE asks her what her future plans are, she explains: "If my Amazons are to deny themselves comparable conquests, then they will embrace the men instead. In this embrace, control will soon be ours, and the men will never know they've lost". Impressed with Q'nqüra's cunning, HE speculates "you might be just the god I've been looking for". Development Concept and design Work on The Settlers III began in January 1997, prior to the release of The Settlers II: Gold Edition. Initially, Blue Byte had no immediate plans to do a third title in the series, but due to the unexpected popularity of both The Settlers and its sequel, Volker Wertich (designer and programmer of the original) and Thomas Hertzler (Blue Byte CEO and the series producer) decided to begin development. Wertich had not been involved in the making of the second game, because, as he describes it, "after two years programming The Settlers, I didn't really want to see those little men for a while". However, by 1997, he was ready to resume working on the series, eager to implement ideas which he felt would allow the game to compete with rival titles such as Warcraft II and Anno 1602. Wertich's core design principal was to preserve the most popular elements of the Settlers gameplay, but improve the graphics, and both expand and improve upon the game mechanics as much as possible. He began by going through feedback from fans of the first two games, and quickly saw two recurring suggestions; to improve the unreliable shipping system from Settlers II, and to implement online multiplayer capabilities, something he began programming immediately. The first major design decision Wertich made related to the complexity of the game's economic system. Due to the innovations he planned to introduce to the mechanics, and because the supply and demand-based gameplay of Settlers III was going to be more