When was Settlers 3D announced?

Settlers 3D was announced out of the blue on the 14th of July, 2002. The official press release can be seen here It was definitely a bit of a surprise, since the Settlers IV page hadn't been updated for months beforehand and BB had previously sworn that there would be no Settlers V, although we did have some prior warning.
It wasn't origionally called Settlers 3D (no name was given), and we weren't even sure if the game would be in full 3D.


When will Settlers 3D be released?

I personally have buggered BlueByte for about half a year saying "whatever you do, don't release a release date". With Settlers IV the public pressured BB to release Settlers IV 6 months after the first release date, and still half a year before they should have. BB have faithfully abliged so far, just saying "perhaps next year". Unfortunately Ubisoft haven't, giving a general release date of "forth quarter 2004". Judging from past successes in meeting release dates (and personal experience being a computer programmer!), I'd say expect it half way through 2005 :P
When it's actually released will depend, of course, on many things. If everything goes smoothly it might even be ready the end of the year - but something always goes wrong :P Chances are it's going to be sometime late 2004, or even 2005.


If there's going to be a release date, where will I be able to find it?

Your best bet would probably be to go to the German Settlers site - www.siedler4.de. If you don't know German use a translator like Babelfish.

Who is the manager of the English Settlers Community?

Frankly, I don't really know. Ubisoft basically pushed BB out of the way with English support, and Cartrix spawned up for a while, but he didn't last. BB Contact and BB Guybrush have popped in occasionally but Conti have been told "go away" and most people would rather Guybrush work on Settlers 3D then on the English community.
The official manager of the English Settlers community is still Cartrix, though I don't know what he is doing.
The last official BB post was last december ironically promising new moderators. Ubisoft still haven't delivered on that one.


OK, I've found this fan-site. What are some of the others?

The two main "fan sites" are SFS and Settlers Nation. Settlers.net was one of the biggest but faded, as did settlers.co.uk and the catapult hall. The Settlers Map Base has the biggest forums by far (even bigger than the Ubisoft ones!), along with the best maps. If you're going to get into the community go there straight away!
A great fansite that definitely looks great is Romulus and the Romans, although no news is given there. Another place for great forums, although it is scarsly updated with news and such is arrows10.net

What do we know about the gameplay?

Quite literally, we know nothing. BB have only promised "radical" changes.

What engine is the Settlers: Heritage of Kings using?

Settlers 3D will be using the Renderware engine. This engine is also used in a few other popular products like Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, Everquest: the shadows of Luclin, and Mortal Kombat 5. It's a rather promising engine that should make the game look and run quite well, although
I'm not sure how well it'd go with a pure strategy game.
The official press release can be found here. Renderware's official website is www.renderware.com

What about bugs including Desyncs and Fatal Errors that seemed to plague Settlers IV?

BB have promised many times that there will be a minimal of bugs in Settlers 3D, but we'll still make them promise again and again.


What platforms will Settlers: Heritage of Kings be running under?

PC is definite for this one, and rumours have been floating around quite a bit about consoles. Whether those are true or not I don't know, though it seems very likely indeed.


Who are the developers making Settlers: Heritage of Kings?

As far as I can tell, there are only a few developers left over from Settlers IV, and there is definitely a new head of development, being BB Guybrush.