Legal Notice

Copyright, trademarks, disclaimer, privacy and imprint.

1. Not an official product

This project is an unofficial, private fan project. It has no connection to Ubisoft Entertainment, Blue Byte GmbH (now Ubisoft Düsseldorf GmbH), GOG sp. z o.o. or any other rights holder of The Settlers IV. They do not support, review, license or endorse it.

“The Settlers”, “Die Siedler”, “Blue Byte”, “Ubisoft” and “GOG” and their logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. They are named only to describe which game this software works with (nominative use). This implies no partnership and no endorsement.

Questions, bug reports and support requests about this project go only to the operator named in the imprint, not to Ubisoft, Blue Byte or GOG.

2. What this project is, and what it is not

• It is an independently developed game engine, written in Rust, that works with the original data of The Settlers IV Gold (GOG version 2.50.1516).
• It contains no game data: no graphics, sounds, music, videos, maps, texts or program files of the original game. These are read at runtime only from the user's own, legally acquired copy.
• It contains no decompiled or copied code of the original game. The behaviour of the original was studied only for interoperability (cf. § 69e German Copyright Act (UrhG) and Art. 6 of Directive 2009/24/EC). No code was taken over.
• It is not a substitute for buying the game. It cannot be played without your own copy.
• It does not emulate the original program (no Wine, no emulation).

3. Copyright

3.1 Engine source code

Copyright © 2026 Philipp Anné. The source code of this engine is licensed under the MIT License:

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026 Philipp Anné

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

The MIT License covers only this project's own code, not the game data or third-party content.

3.2 Original game

The Settlers IV and all its content (graphics, animations, music, sound effects, videos, maps, campaigns, texts, scripts, program files) © Ubisoft Entertainment / Blue Byte. All rights reserved. This content is not part of this project, and the project neither distributes it nor makes it publicly available. Use of the original data is governed by the licence under which the user acquired their copy (e.g. the GOG terms of use).

Screenshots that this engine produces from the original data show copyrighted content of the rights holders.

3.3 Third-party content and software

• Community HD patch (optional HD graphics, fonts): not shipped with the app. It is downloaded directly from its provider (settlers4-hd.com) only at the user's explicit request, or read from a file the user selects. Its own terms apply. The included fonts have their own licences (e.g. SIL Open Font License for Junicode and HermeneusOne).
• Embedded fonts: Junicode Bold (Peter S. Baker) and HermeneusOne (Pablo Impallari, Rodrigo Fuenzalida) are included in the app unmodified, under the SIL Open Font License 1.1; licence texts in the appendix.
• Settlers.ts (github.com/tomsoftware/Settlers.ts, MIT License): used as a reference for understanding the file formats.
• Rust libraries (crates): the engine uses open-source libraries under their own licences, mostly MIT and/or Apache-2.0. The licences and their full texts are listed in the appendix: third-party licenses.

4. Disclaimer

The software is provided free of charge and “as is”, without any warranty (see the MIT License). It is under development; deviations from the original game, bugs, crashes or data loss (e.g. of saved games) are possible. Use it at your own risk.

The operators of external links and third-party services (e.g. the HD patch, GOG) are solely responsible for their content. No legal violations were apparent at the time of linking.

Liability for intent and gross negligence, and under mandatory statutory provisions, remains unaffected.

5. Privacy

5.1 The app

The app collects no personal data for advertising or analytics and contains no telemetry. It opens network connections only in these cases:

Settings, saved games and unpacked game data are stored only locally on the user's computer (~/Library/Application Support/Siedler IV/).

5.2 This website

This website uses no cookies, no tracking, no analytics and no externally loaded fonts or scripts. When you visit this website or the app checks for updates, your browser or the app necessarily transmits your IP address, the requested file, the time and the user agent to the server. The server may store this information in log files to operate and secure the service (legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). [Insert log retention period.] The privacy policy of the respective operator applies to the HD patch server and to GOG.

You have the right to access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing and objection regarding your personal data, and the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The controller under the GDPR is the operator named in the imprint.

6. Imprint (Impressum)

7. Notice to rights holders

This project aims to respect the rights of Ubisoft, Blue Byte and all other rights holders. If you believe that content of this project infringes your rights, please get in touch via the contact address above. Justified notices will be reviewed promptly, and content will be removed where appropriate.

Appendix: third-party licenses →