Settlers 2 Gold

[Guest]

Question: anker.dat?

Does anyone know what the person was talking about when they mentioned anker.dat and the command anker map.swd?

Is there a program called anker out there somewhere because I cannot find it anywhere and I don't want to make a lot of harbors the way the map program from merri does it.

[Guest]

The recruitment process is max and I'm fighting a two front war without any offensive soldiers. Is there any way to speed up the process?

I thought that you needed swords and shields (which I don't have), but I was gaining soldiers even without them in my HQ. I do have beer though.

[Eagle of Fire]

You can't have new recruits without swords and shields. And I think that beer speed up greatly the recruitment process.

What you probably mean is that if you send gold to your guardhouses, those soldiers will with time and training get upgraded until they get the rank of General. Those Generals are greatly superior warriors who can take many a hit before dying...

[ALYSANDER THE GREAT]

I really like the game settlers 2 gold version. I could watch and tend to those cute little guys all day long, they become like a second family to me. I don't have many friends. These guys stick with me through thick and thin and i can always count on them to put a smile on my face.

[wachtwoord]

I really really like this game, though i want to play this in multiplayer mode.

So I attached 2 mouses and all it acomplishes is I get to move the player one mouse-icon with 2 different mouses. When i attach the second mouse to the COM2 port I get the canoot connect to COM2 error and when i ignore the error I get the very same behaviour. How can I fix this?

thanks in advance :)

[Eagle of Fire]

I never tryied it myself, but you could try out this program (http://www.electracode.com/4/joy2key/JoyToKey%20English%20Version.htm). If it works, make sure to come back to tell us. You'll help a lot of people in this thread this way! :)

[Guest]

Well I'll chekc it more closely when I have more time but that seems like software I already have (I have a cordless rumblepad and a non-cordless one by logitech). It maps joystick input to keyboard or mouseinput.

What I can't get this game to do is accept inputs form a second input device for player 2. Ven with the keyboard there are only like 2 buttons that work for player 2 (one off them was zoom and the other is showing all the places you can put houses, spacebar for player one).

This software would work great if I'd know where to map the joystick inoput ti, which, unfortunately, i don't :)

[The Fifth Horseman]

To COM 2 aka the second mouse port.

[Guest]

I have a quick question.
I'm stuck on "Sea Routes" for no other reason then I can't find anywhere for a harbor. I read through the walk through put out by 2 Bad, and it says nothing but "in the south-east". I've been both south,east, and west and have found nothing. I have my people pretty much wrapped around the peninsula and There is nothing on that entire stretch of coast line for a harbor. Am I missing something?? I have begun planting wood cutters and chopping down sections of wooded beach to see if maybe it was over grown but I'm about out of luck with that as well.

Any help would be WONDERFUL haha

[Mighty Midget]

Are you sure you are supposed to build harbours on that map in the first place? If I remember correctly, not all buildings are allowed on all maps.

[Sarahroo]

That question was from myself.

On this particular map the only good supply of gold is on another island, so there is no way to build up your army unless you build a harbor somewhere.
The first few maps you can't build harbors because you don't know how. You then run into some viking guy who teaches you after that it's usually a must on most maps. I'm going to advance into enemy territory and see if I can find it further south-west as I've run out of south-east haha.

[Sarahroo]

anyone?

[Eagle of Fire]

If you click on one of the icons on the bottom, you'll be able to see all the places where you can build buildings. Try to look for a building with an anchor at it's side, that's where you'll find the place to build an harbor and a shipwreck.

Sometimes you need to clean up the map a little before you have access to those harbor places.

[Sarahroo]

I have cleaned the entire beach, and I've been using the build mode and I still am at a loss.

I did decide to start the level over again and see if I can find it on a fresh level. Perhaps it's a glitch?

[dodgerman20001]

reading some of the problems through this topic, now rules are rules and you can't download copyright stuff, what you should have done was remove the first post with the link, because it looks as if the link was live to download for a time and some ppl may have got it, i may be wrong?.

[Mighty Midget]

Don't worry :) That link will only take you to Abandonia's own S2G page where you will find a NO-GO buttion where the Download button usually is. The reason for these links is just to connect the game pages (with the reviews , screenshots and extras) with their forum pages.

[Orpheus]

I have a problem, new laptop with xp, and settlers 2 runs fine. But all the colors are inverted. Any ideas as to how to solve the problem?

[Icewolf]

I think running it in 256-color mode should help.
Right mouse-click on excuteable>Properties
Somewhere in there... :unsure:

[TheMazzter]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Graaf @ Jan 15 2005, 04:04 PM) 51361</div>
Hallo

How do one beat chapter 5 of the Roman Campain (The Wasteland)??

My army just cannot get strong enough. And my coal and gold is too little.

Thank you in advance for your kind assistance.
:bye:
[/b]

Wait a serious long time before attacking them, they won't attack you if you don't attack them, there are a few spots in the area containing gold, be sure to extinguish them. Use your gold good, preferably in castles near the border. If you think you're strong enough you can attack (if you're trough the stonefield on the west tough). Once you're near enough the enemy you can build one or more catapults (stone enough here) to slow them down without really attacking them (they still won't attack you). Later you can start attacking them. A fery nasty trick when they attack you is to delete the attacked building before your enemy occupies it.
Hope this will help.

[Guest]

Hello everyone. :)

I'm sorry for bumping this thread; I seem to have come a bit late. But my question is, why aren't my helpers going to the road? I have 100's of helpers nearby, but no one is going to the newly-made road. Is there a limit as to how many helpers there are outside? I have waited for a long time, but not one came out of the storehouses.

To those people that can't understand what I'm asking: When you erect a flag, a helper comes out of the storehouse and stands next to the flag; waiting to carry goods to the next flag. Well no one is coming out anymore, and all the roads without helpers are congested with goods. This is in the first level where you can build boats btw.

One more question: I'm using an XP computer and every time I exit the settlers it has a 50% chance of the screen halting and I have to hold down the off button, which isn't good for the computer, any suggestions?

If anyone could help, it will be appreciated. Thanks.

[Mighty Midget]

Are there any workers left in your HQ? There is a number there telling you how many are ready for work.

About stability on XP: Have you tried to run the game with DOSBox? I did and it worked like a charm.

[Ruststrong]

*First Post* Same person here. Yeah, there are two storehouses fairly close to the site where there are no helpers. And both of them have 100 helpers. But no one is coming out. I'll post a screen shot if necessary.

And, I'll try DosBox, it should clear things up. Thanks for the quick reply. :)

Edit: In case you're wondering, I registered a while back but I posted here as a guest to type a quick post, but I didn't think anyone would be replying soon. So I logged in.

[Mighty Midget]

Ok, have you set the priorities straight? Try to raise the priority for the storehouses.

[Ruststrong]

I got all the priorities on default, so it shouldn't be a problem. I'll post a screen shot to give a better view of what's happening...

[Ruststrong]

Sorry for the double post. It wouldn't let me Print Screen. I'll try to put the priority higher. It might not be that though, because I've always had no problems with the default settings. Maybe there's a limit on how much helpers you can have out at once? But i dug up all my obsolete-mining roads, and they just returned to the storehouse without coming to the area in need of helpers, so that can't be it. I have three harbours on one continent, and I heard it isn't good if you have more than one harbour per continent. Could this be the problem?

[Mighty Midget]

I never played it that far, but it sounds plausible, if you have heard this could cause problems.

PS: You can use the Edit button on your own posts if you have additional info after posting.

[Ruststrong]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mighty Midget @ Aug 28 2007, 05:03 PM) 307252</div>
I never played it that far, but it sounds plausible, if you have heard this could cause problems.[/b]

Ok, I'll try burning two of the harbours on my continent so there's only one left.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mighty Midget @ Aug 28 2007, 05:03 PM) 307252</div>PS: You can use the Edit button on your own posts if you have additional info after posting.
[/b]

I didn't notice them buttons. LOL But I'll edit in future.

[Eagle of Fire]

I've never experienced either problems. I always play Settlers 2 on XP, with the use of VDMSound.

There is no logical explanation on the worker shortage problem. I'd suggest that you start over and try again if it's still a problem. I do remember that you don't need the boat to win this mission, you only need to get to the other islands to get iron and especially gold to get strong enough. Once that's done, continue to your right and you'll eventually reach the gate.

[Ruststrong]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Eagle of Fire @ Aug 28 2007, 06:01 PM) 307256</div>
I've never experienced either problems. I always play Settlers 2 on XP, with the use of VDMSound.[/b]

Strange. I play settlers 2 on a Compaq laptop, so it might only be a problem for that specific brand.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Eagle of Fire @ Aug 28 2007, 06:01 PM) 307256</div>There is no logical explanation on the worker shortage problem. I'd suggest that you start over and try again if it's still a problem. I do remember that you don't need the boat to win this mission, you only need to get to the other islands to get iron and especially gold to get strong enough. Once that's done, continue to your right and you'll eventually reach the gate.
[/b]

Ok. I'll restart the level. I settled about three Islands, one of which contained Iron and was large. The other two were rather small Islands. I built too many expedition ships than I needed (about 15).

[arand]

Probably not so, but it doesn't happen to be roads on an island (connected by waterways) that are uninhabited.

What you could do, if unable to get a screenshot, is to send the savegame in question.

- Arand

[Eagle of Fire]

You should be easily able to make screenshots if you fire up DOSBox to use along the game. :)

[Ruststrong]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Arand @ Aug 29 2007, 12:23 AM) 307327</div>
Probably not so, but it doesn't happen to be roads on an island (connected by waterways) that are uninhabited.[/b]

No, this is my main self-supporting Island were the problem is. ^_^

I've realized earlier that connecting two Islands with waterways isn't a good thing to do as it will clog your roads. Even if the Island has life on it (by life I mean people).

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Arand @ Aug 29 2007, 12:23 AM) 307327</div>What you could do, if unable to get a screenshot, is to send the savegame in question.[/b]

Sure. For some reason, when I press Print Screen, there's no paste button in paint... I also tried on the Gimp but no luck.

Eagle of Fire: <strike>I just downloaded the latest version of DosBox, and I'll see if that will allow me to print screen. </strike> I forgot. Yesterday I started the game again and overwrited the save game... No screenshots. Ah well, next time it happens I'll post a screenshot. The new Dosbox works really well, but I prefer to run Settlers 2 without it because it lags.

[Eagle of Fire]

There is a special option in DOSBox to make screenshot. I garantee you that it will work. I think, if my memory still serve me well, that it's CTRL-F7.

[Ruststrong]

I edited my post before you typed yours. Like I said, I sadly overwrited the game yesterday because I was agitated that it wouldn't work.

[Eagle of Fire]

You'd need to ajust the cycles on DOSBox to have a normal speed... ;)

[Ruststrong]

Ok. I'm still fairly new to DosBox, so I don't know how to use all the features. But thanks for telling me. Anyway, I'm just playing the level again and if the same thing happens I'll post a screenshot. I have a question, what tool does a miller need? I know that a baker needs a rolling pin, but what about a miller?

Thanks in advance.

[Icewolf]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darian @ Aug 29 2007, 01:20 PM) 307459</div>[...]I know that a baker needs a rolling pin, but what about a miller?

Thanks in advance.[/b]I think his mill is sufficient for him... :sneaky:
The grain-management is the hardest part in this game IMHO.
I always have LOADS of farms... LOL

[Ruststrong]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Icewolf @ Aug 29 2007, 10:03 PM) 307472</div>
I think his mill is sufficient for him... :sneaky: [/b]

So he doesn't need a tool? :w00t:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Icewolf @ Aug 29 2007, 10:03 PM) 307472</div>The grain-management is the hardest part in this game IMHO.
I always have LOADS of farms... LOL
[/b]

So do I. But I seem to not build enough mills and bakery's.

I'm currently building a catapult near yellow's borders, to destroy their guardhouse(s) to err.... Redesign their borders... Yeah, that's the ticket. LOL Anyway, yellow is the one with the gate isn't it?

[Icewolf]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darian @ Aug 30 2007, 08:31 AM) 307686</div>[...]Anyway, yellow is the one with the gate isn't it?[/b]Uh, I didn't read everything you posted before but I think that differs from game to game. I mean the enemy's color and stuff... :unsure:

[The Fifth Horseman]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Eagle of Fire @ Aug 29 2007, 09:13 AM) 307416</div>
There is a special option in DOSBox to make screenshot. I garantee you that it will work. I think, if my memory still serve me well, that it's CTRL-F7.
[/b]
CTRL + F5.

[Matt Samyel]

Darian: I think that in millis baker, and baker needs "rolling pin"

[Ruststrong]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Icewolf @ Aug 30 2007, 05:51 PM) 307698</div>
Uh, I didn't read everything you posted before but I think that differs from game to game. I mean the enemy's color and stuff... :unsure:
[/b]

Of course. I typed before that this is the first level where I can build boats. :) This is the one where I verse red and yellow and they're on the same continent as I am. I also don't have Iron on my continent, so I have to sail to an Island far away where I can build Iron mines... I'll check the level... It's mission 4. 'On the High Seas".

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ Aug 30 2007, 06:38 PM) 307708</div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Eagle of Fire @ Aug 29 2007, 09:13 AM) 307416
There is a special option in DOSBox to make screenshot. I garantee you that it will work. I think, if my memory still serve me well, that it's CTRL-F7.
[/b]
CTRL + F5.
[/b][/quote]

Yeah, it's CTRL + F5.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Matt Samyel @ Aug 30 2007, 09:47 PM) 307761</div>
Darian: I think that in millis baker, and baker needs "rolling pin"
[/b]

Interesting, so both of them need a rooling pin.

[Icewolf]

There's no baker in the mill, there's a miller in it of course! ^_^

[Matt Samyel]

right

[Ruststrong]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Icewolf @ Aug 31 2007, 07:12 PM) 307952</div>
There's no baker in the mill, there's a miller in it of course! ^_^
[/b]

Ok, this is getting confusing now. LOL

Another Question: Can you trade with other tribes/civilizations? Example: 5 stones for 10 wood. That would be good if you could...

[Matt Samyel]

Yea, there's miller in mill

Darian: You can't trade...

[Icewolf]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Matt Samyel @ Aug 31 2007, 11:31 AM) 307959</div>Yea, there's miller in mill[...][/b]And I don't think he needs any tools since you don't produce millstones... LOL

[Ruststrong]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Matt Samyel @ Aug 31 2007, 07:31 PM) 307959</div>
Yea, there's miller in mill

Darian: You can't trade...
[/b]

I didn't think you could... But I think it would have been a nice little feature.

[Matt Samyel]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Icewolf @ Aug 31 2007, 11:37 AM) 307963</div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Matt Samyel @ Aug 31 2007, 11:31 AM) 307959Yea, there's miller in mill[...][/b]And I don't think he needs any tools since you don't produce millstones... LOL
[/b][/quote]
Every(except scouts and geologs)need a tool, i think...

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Icewolf @ Aug 29 2007, 02:03 PM) 307472</div>
The grain-management is the hardest part in this game IMHO.
[/b]
hardest is fighting Asian Warriors

[Ruststrong]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Matt Samyel @ Aug 31 2007, 07:46 PM) 307971</div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Icewolf @ Aug 31 2007, 11:37 AM) 307963
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Matt Samyel @ Aug 31 2007, 11:31 AM) 307959Yea, there's miller in mill[...][/b]And I don't think he needs any tools since you don't produce millstones... LOL
[/b][/quote]
Every(except scouts and geologs)need a tool, i think...
[/b][/quote]

Scouts and Geologists need tools too? It makes sense, but... I never noticed them grabbing tools; they seem to respawn in storehouses even if there's no iron smelter and metalworks...

[arand]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Matt Samyel @ Aug 31 2007, 09:49 AM) 307971</div>
/.../
Every(except scouts and geologs)need a tool, i think...
/.../
[/b]

I am quite ceratain that new geologists requires hammers, it's just that you usually don't need to make more than a handful, same with diggers (shovel) & builders (hammer).

As for scouts, I am not certain, spears would be a possibility but I doubt it...

- Arand

[Eagle of Fire]

You need the hat and cape for the scout, hammers for the geologists. And they don't respawn: they go back to base once they are done. Scouts can be killed by ennemy soldiers if you send them in ennemy territory, though.

[arand]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Eagle of Fire @ Sep 1 2007, 02:13 AM) 308113</div>
You need the hat and cape for the scout, hammers for the geologists. And they don't respawn: they go back to base once they are done. Scouts can be killed by ennemy soldiers if you send them in ennemy territory, though.
[/b]

hum, there is no such thing as a 'hat and cape' in settlers 2....
And scouts cannot be killed... not according to what I've seen.

Perhaps you are thinking about settlers 3...

- Arand

[Eagle of Fire]

Nope... I'm definitly talking about Settlers 2. ;)

Maybe the "hat and cape" icon is their job icon, but they definitly use some kind of tools when you want to create some. And they definitly can be killed, though it's extremely rare that a soldier will catch them.

[arand]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Eagle of Fire @ Sep 1 2007, 01:45 PM) 308166</div>
Nope... I'm definitly talking about Settlers 2. ;)

Maybe the "hat and cape" icon is their job icon, but they definitly use some kind of tools when you want to create some. And they definitly can be killed, though it's extremely rare that a soldier will catch them.
[/b]

Okay... I gotta see that.

EDIT:
Just checked that up, scouts indeed needs bows, same as hunters (and the scouts' symbol is a racoon hat).

Haven't managed to get my scouts killed yet though, takes good planning to pull that off i think

- Arand

[Doubler]

I never had scouts killed by soldiers either :huh:
takes good planning to pull that off i think[/b]I once build a hunter's hut near the border in one of the mountain maps. Bad decission, as I steadily started to lose hunters :P - The hunter would constantly die of starvation after he'd crossed the mountains and tried to get back from the other side of the map (which would mean he'd wonder around randomly).
Would that count as good planning? :D

[Eagle of Fire]

Well, maybe my scout who died bad lucked his time and jumped in the middle of an assault... But I clearly remember seeing it happenning. :P

[Ruststrong]

Yes, the noob (me) is back!

Question: Is there a manual for this game? It would be great if there was.

Edit: I just bought the game CD (not packaged in a box). So, no text manual.

[Matt Samyel]

i don't know, but we can do our one :D

[Beltona]

Correct me if i'm wrong but i settlers 2 gold not free to download? Why is the site still telling it's esa protected?

Anyway it's a super game, als like the settlers 2 ten year anniversary. Pretty much the same game only better graphics.

[Dave]

It's a 1997 game by Blue Byte Software so it's under ESA protection until next year.

[Beltona]

okay i was a little confused because some sites offer the game as a freeware game. Thanks for the info,

[Dave]

No problem.
Settlers 2 is abandonware (1996), not the gold version :)

[Doubler]

Is there a manual for this game? It would be great if there was.[/b]There is one for Veni Vidi Vici at least. I have it somewhere. Flipping the pages you could see a roman general fighting a viking private :D

Anyway, if I can find it and if it's in English I could scan and upload it. Of course, since the game isn't on the site, I'm not sure if the manual would be allowed :unsure:

[Guest]

Sorry if I missed something, I didn't look through all 21 pages, but I have built a barraks but no soldier is going there! (I have 40 of those left.) Could it be because it's too far away?

And how do I get things into my storehouse? I can only get stones in from the local quarry.

[Eagle of Fire]

If you have a traffic problem, it may take a while (sometime a long while) before something you ordered long ago step out from your order(s). The way to reduce said traffic is to build new storehouses at strategic points and turn the traffic of certain close commodities to there.

You can do that by doing a special click on the storehouse and selecting wares to stock. If you click on the arrow button on the bottom then select a ware, they will take all of it out of this particular storehouse (or your castle, works too). If you click on the X button instead, they'll refuse to stock those and will redirect the ware to another storehouse.

I think it cover your question. Just post back if you need to know anything else. :)

[_r.u.s.s.]

you do have a road to the buildings right? then things should get inside automaticaly

[Guest]

LOL I accidently destroyed a vital road that meant no resources got up North. I don't really stand much of a chance at winning the Europe map now...

Thanks guys anyway.

[Drafix]

Well, this is my first time i have a problem like this... I was going well with my 6th(?) map campaign but then the villagers stopped training to become soldeirs. I have about 20 shields and 20 swords but nothing. I have about 3 buildings that need a soldier to occupie it but then simply wont become soldiers and come. I have in the military window the option to the villagers to become soldiers at max. I have even gold coins but no more soldeirs... can any1 help please? (Sorry if my english is not that good)

[Drafix]

The BEER!!! I forgot the beer for the soldiers xD Sorry :whistling:

[poohead999]

How the hell do i even download this???

[_r.u.s.s.]

how the hell do you even read "NO GO"

[BranjoHello]

Hmmm...it's 2008...this should be abandonware!?! :wondering:

[frappo]

hi i need help... how do u download it xD im just tooooo stupid !!!!!!!!!
thanks

[Eagle of Fire]

You can't. You plain can't.

Don't you see the ESA logo where the download button is supposed to be?

The most likely explanation is that the game is still sold, so it's not abandonware. It was available in the past though, and this is why there is a review about it.

[arete]

The BEER!!! I forgot the beer for the soldiers xD Sorry :whistling:

Reminds me of that guy in the kitchen in Can't Hardly Wait -- "Do not drink the beer! The beer is bad!" LOL, still a private joke I have with my brother.

I first played this game on CD in German. I know, like, five words of German, so I'm surprised I learnt to play it so well. I suspect because the GUI interface is so good...

[BranjoHello]

This one is much better than the first one, no wonder that it's so popular. :amused:
But I doubt it will hold my attention for long. Cultures rules!!! :D

[arete]

Sorry, I had to ask :D (part of my campaign to have 20 posts and therefore enter the ISO cellar). Wasn't Blue Byte on the list of Vivendi subsidiaries who have left ESA?

And it *has* been ten years. Hopefully they won't do somethig silly, like give it away for free with the ten year anniversary version... :weird:

[The Fifth Horseman]

:cool:
Blue Byte is Ubisoft's subsidiary, not Vivendi's, but the ten-year protection has indeed expired and Amazon only has second-hand copies left now.

Downloadable again!

[doridea]

Two quick questions ladies and gents: Is it possible to reenforce say a fortress from a watchtower's defences (say by moving said defences to the fort); and 2 can the small craft be created and used with the landings without having to have a harbor? That's all folks, bye.

P.S. Hope you all enjoy the upload to Ralroad Tycoon Deluxe. It would be nice if Settlers had a similar flow chart for beginners.:idea:

[Juanca]

Any Manual for this game?
tried to find it at the underdogs but there is nothing.
also at the replacementdocs but there are only some
manuals for settlers 2- 10th anniversary (a remake) and
at abandonia there is a manual for settlers 1. which could fit better?
or anyone would like to upload the manual?
it is a great game!!

[jasonmloh]

How the hell do i even download this???

Some games are protected by ESA (Entertainment Software Association). Their primary function is to control software piracy, meaning, you are suppose to buy the game at the retail price, and buying from pirates is illegal on planet earth. On the other hand, if you see a "DOWNLOAD" button on any of the game reviews crash your internet connection. :idea:
________
EXPERT INSURANCE (http://xpertinsurance.com/)

[arete]

On the other hand, if you see a "DOWNLOAD" button on any of the game reviews crash your internet connection. :idea:

Huh? :huh: nothing here will crash your internet connection. And this game is abandonware now, so download away.

[The Fifth Horseman]

I think he meant "go ahead and do your best to crash your internet connection". Kind of like saying "break a leg".

[arete]

"Break a modem!" :nuts:

[_r.u.s.s.]

pft, arete got all violent after she got into the appocalypse strikes back

[arete]

pft, arete got all violent after she got into the appocalypse strikes back

LOL _r.u.s.s.

[dark schneider]

Hello all.
I have some questions, first: is necessary the preview game to play this game?
second: If not, how can i play it? the dos4gw is crashed and dont have any S2.exe.


thx

[arete]

Did you download from this site? Cos there was an S2.exe and an install as well. I use DOSbox in WinXP and it works fine. I just dragged the install across the dosbox shortcut and ran it, then closed that and opened the S2 file the same way.

[dark schneider]

Hello
Thank you very much, i've downloaded it again (the last time i have downloaded it from abandonia too but i think what the connection has lost...) and this time have the Install.... sorry for the inconvenience and thank you again.

[arete]

Pleasure. Enjoy it ^_^

[MikeJey]

Hi,

I read sth. about that u can play this game online !?
But i dunno how! Does anyone know how I can play online? cos i wanna play with my friends :)

it would be nice
thx

[Seen]

As far as I know you can only play this game MP on the same computer. Maybe you got confused with the 10th anniversary edition. Which, btw, is very unstable in my experience.

[lazarusdynamic]

So, I've been playing this game for a while, it's taken me several tries to figure out all the odd ways of controlling things, and right now I'm facing a dilemma.

I know that I need 1 beer+1 sword + 1 shield to make a soldier, but my beer is in one shipyard, and the weapons are in another. There's no way to force the ships to take something specific, so I can't figure out how to get them in the same place to make new soldiers.

Could I "stop store" on all the storehouses except one and then put them into circulation? Or is it that I need to build all those buildings near each other so it goes faster?

Someone else mentioned not having more than 3 ships. On what grounds? It seems to me that more ships means more shipping capacity, at worst a few extra would be redundant, but not detrimental.

[Eagle of Fire]

I think the guy who told you 3 ships max was right. I stopped playing this game at one of the sea levels (you need to go mine for iron and gold on an island to survive) because after a while the ships just get "stuck" all at the same place and never move again.

Must be a bug somewhere...

[iRepublic]

I cant open my Settlers 2 game, after i download it.
I go to S2.exe and then, when I open it it say :
S2.exe
The system cannot open COM2 port requested by the application. Choose 'Close' to terminate program.

Then, I click ignore.
After that my screen went black, and then it return to my windows >.<
I want to play this game so badly. It reminds me of my childhood when I have teh CD xD

[bobson]

Have you tried to use DosBOX ?

[iRepublic]

I have Dosbox but I think it'll load automatically using that.
I still cant play the game, I tried to re-download it and it still have the same problem :(

[Fubb]

hey, i have 2 mice. How do i plug them both in, and set one as like, comm2 or w/e so i can play with a friend? Cause my cousin loves this game too :D

[wells]

I have Dosbox but I think it'll load automatically using that.
I still cant play the game, I tried to re-download it and it still have the same problem :(

I don't quite know what you mean by "it will load automatically", but if that means, you start the game in windows, hoping dosbox will do anything automatically, of cause nothing will happen.
If you run the game properly in dosbox and nothin happens, maybe your dosbox - version doesn't work.

[The Fifth Horseman]

That's what she thought. We explained everything to her in the Chatbox.

[eramis]

If you have sound but there is still no music in the game you probably chose the wrong midi soundcard in the setup.exe.
under win xp "General Midi (Roland MPU-401 interface or 100% compatible)" worked for me and will hopefully for you :)

Im playing level 4 currently and now have couple of ships .. maybe 8 or 9. they are doing well so far although they sometimes do empty shippings ^^

beer is not necessary to get soldiers. just adjust the setting at the top of the MILITARY MENU. if you push it up more settlers are used to recruit new soldiers. i always found this setting useless, because you always have enough unemployed settlers in the base or in storage houses. so turning this setting to max doesnt really harm anything.

[_r.u.s.s.]

If you have sound but there is still no music in the game you probably chose the wrong midi soundcard in the setup.exe.
under win xp "General Midi (Roland MPU-401 interface or 100% compatible)" worked for me and will hopefully for you :)



man, you're missing on fabulous tunes if you don't run under dosbox (or VDM sound) but just play with the actual Roland MPU under pure windows. that chip just doesn' sound right and it's not how it was meant to be. plus you don't get any sounds

the ones that sound like they were meant to be are Creative Labs Sound Blaster or Ad Lib

so definitely, give VDMsound or DOSBox a shot

[genestarwind]

Loved this game, thoroughly addicted though i always got stuck around the wastelands level fighting the sons of nippon. Quick bit of advice in the install folder there is a notepad entry full of 0's called mission.cfg or mission.dat if you open it in notepad and replace all the 0's with 1's you can select any level to play {^_^}

[eramis]

man, you're missing on fabulous tunes if you don't run under dosbox (or VDM sound)

i got sound under windows using soundblaster 100% comp.

i never thought it would make so much difference. i had dosbox already installed and tried s2 now. sounds and music sound really better... thx man!

[BiffaloBuff]

As far as I can tell, there are 9 stages to the World Campaign. The first is Europe. After completing this mission successfully, Greenland, Africa and North Asia open up as options. After completing either of these, other areas of the map become available for conquest.

As in the Roman Campaign, it's you vs. everyone else combined. Note, however, that the winning criterion is neither controlling 3/4 of the occupied area nor total annihilation. You must obliterate everyone else's headquarters.

Europe: If you finish this mission successfully on your first attempt, that's pretty impressive. I was slaughtered twice before achieving success after learning the geography and one crucial area in particular. If you can get this far and survive the initial wave of attacks, you're home free, although it will take quite some time.

Africa: The landscape is a bit unusual here, especially in the early going, so you'll have to adapt. The assignment is pretty easy, although again fairly lengthy. You'll cover nearly the whole continent, and if you click on the map, you'll see it's shaped like Africa. I hadn't noticed this with Europe, but had the saved game, and it seemed to also resemble the continent. I suspect the internal geography is fairly accurate too, although I don't know enough to say for sure.

Greenland: This one is reminiscent of the Thor's Island mission. You'll have to work for it, but it goes much more quickly than the previous two.

North Asia: If you want to torture yourself, try this assignment. It's positively brutal. Two of three opponents have all the resources: gold and coal for quality, coal and iron for numbers. And more and more I get the feeling that battles are rigged in the game. It certainly seems as though I lose 3/4 of the general vs. general battles when both are healthy (and yes, I have a functioning brewery, for what that's worth). Finally I realized I'd overlooked a third source of gold, some distance from home base. But coal, normally in abundance on most maps, is fairly scarce here! After a huge amount of time, I wore 'em down and won a war of attrition on my first attempt on this mission.

North America: Here's the continent with which most of us have the greatest familiarity, so I was looking forward to exploring it all. Sadly, the arrangement precludes this, unless you want to play for fun. Still, I was able to see the Rocky Mountains, Great Lakes, some of the Mississippi River and mountains out east. The assignment is not a cakewalk, but isn't terribly hard either. It goes more quickly than most of the others.

That's all for now! There are missions for South Asia, South America, Japan and Australia as well, but I haven't gotten to them yet.

Bill

[Goulash51]

Hope this is not off topic, but I am a longtime fan of Settlers II and to be honest I love playing it. However, I have recently found Widelands - http://wl.widelands.org/ - which is basically a clone of settlers II except under current development and open source. For any of you guys on Linux (like myself) it negates the need for any emulation (dosbox) which is a bonus. Especially for people like me who enjoy a game on their laptop, but don't like DosBox chewing up the battery and spitting it out.

Anyways, you guys probably already knew about widelands, but I didn't have time to read 36 pages of thread to check fo re-posting faux-pa's
:max:

[guest]

Does anyone know how i can get a gamepad to work with this?
With settlers 1 on dosbox it works automatically as joystick, but 2 demands a mouse. I tried the JoyToKey program, but it just sends the input to the primary mouse.

[Szilvio]

I am afraid, you'll need a mouse, as gamepad options are not programmed into S2. Emulating Gamepad as a mouse it rarely happens...

[Guest]

I just downloaded the gold edition from this site, but when i try and run the game from the file 'S2', it says it cannot run the program as it cannot access COM2. Does anyone know what this means and how i can bypass it ? It gives me two options with that msg, either to close or ignore - ignore will run the game, but the coulours are messed up :(

Any ideas or suggestions greatly appreciated as tis was one of my fav games when i was growing up :D

[The Fifth Horseman]

I believe the COM2 problem was adressed either earlier in this topic or in the Troubleshooting forum.

[Eagle of Fire]

Wasn't it simply the matter of clicking on "ignore"? :p

[Guest]

Ah yes, i looked earlier, someone else did ask but you guys answered it in chat ;) Do i have to use Dosbox ? Ive never used it before, so if i could do it without that'd be great, after all ive downloaded settlers 1 and that works fine in XP. Having said that, i get the same colouring issue with Sett1 if i try to play in SVGA...

If i choose the 'ignore' option, the game plays but the colours are screwed, kinda like a negative if that makes sense ?

So, to Dosbox or not to Dosbox ? :P

[The Fifth Horseman]

DOSBox.

[Icewolf]

DOSBox.I'd like to add:
ALWAYS DoxBox since we are talking about DOS GAMES... :sneaky:

[Yes Or Nay]

I'd like to add:
ALWAYS DoxBox since we are talking about DOS GAMES... :sneaky:

Not always the best option, might I add. :) Some games work also with VDMSound (and sometimes they DO work better/with less tuning than with DosBox).

Since VDMSound only emulates parts of an DOS enviroment, most notably the sound hardware, games often run smoothier. Not always tho'. :)

[Unregistered1231231414]

Not always DOSBox - Settlers 2 works fine without it on my laptop.

[Paco]

Game is now sold at GoG (http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_settlers_2_gold_edition).

[MasterandCommander]

For some reason, this game left an impact on me, after I finished playing it years ago.

Out of nowhere, a while ago I suddenly had a craving for playing this game again.

I played the CD to death back in the 90s: I even tried to repair the old thing, but in doing so I damaged the disk beyond repair. I no have no disk, but still the lingering withdrawal symptoms.

It's now late 2009, and I don't even have an interest in games anymore (mentally matured), except this one. I can't explain why my mind won't let this baby go, except that for some reason I have an imprint in my mind that it gave me some deep satisfaction. I'll probably get bored of it eventually after I get my hands on it again, but it's burning a hole in my frustrations.

Anyway, here's all the calculations I've made to play and make maps for the game seamlessly:

Hardest possible amounts of people, tools and wares (via manipulation of .RTX files, as well as via making a map in the map editor to account for this, or to make it so that this works by checking the HQ territory terrain of any other map):

People: None or 1 Geologist (if locations of resources have not been ratified, but this basically reduces the difficulty).

Tools: 1 Hammer, 1 Pair of Tongs

Wares: 59 (minimum required on a 2 mine for each resource ratio)-71(minimum required on a 3 mine for each resource ratio, however 2 mines is sufficiently difficult, as 3 makes no difference to the degree of difficulty within the level of process, but extremely difficult and almost impossible to make wood stockpiling feasible within the parameters of how many stone deposits you can put into an area for a quarry, so this is the one decided to be the choice) Planks, 2 Stones, 2 Coal, 2 Iron Ore, 2 Iron

This is the minimum and most difficult requirement for any Headquarters.

P.S. This takes into consideration that the emergency building program (Which gives 4wood and 2 stone, if memory serves). If this is inaccurate, take the deficit in resources into consideration.

Build Metalworks. After that, start building a Quarry. While it's being built, make a Pick-Axe at the Metalworks, via the tool-making menu. Stop production at the Metalworks as soon as it's made. Make sure the building gets occupied, so make sure the tool is available BEFORE the Quarry has been built. After quarrying 2 stone, build an Iron Smelter. During the construction, via the tool-making menu, make a Crucible in the same way you made the Pick-Axe, making sure the tool is made before the construction of the Iron Smelter has been completed. Stop Metalworking production. Make SURE no more resources end up taking up spaces in the metalworks. If excess resources have been sent out from HQ, cut the road connected to the Metalworks, and demand the resources back via the menu you get from clicking on the HQ.

HQ territory area = no trees within a cutting area, but there are stone deposits of 36 (based upon needing to start a wooden plank production process on location only once)-82 (based upon the stockpile of wooden planks at a positive rate of 1 every time a forester, woodcutter and sawmill need to be built and demolished) .

Area = 6 or 8 iron ore deposits in the ground, depending on location being Inland, Island or coastal, with a further requirement of at least 2 or 3 different mining locations.

Area = 6 or 10 coal deposits in the ground, again depending on 2 or 3 different locations.

At the Iron Smelter, make 2 iron. Start building a Coal Mine where the coal is, while you send the iron to the Metalworks, and start making a Pick Axe. After the Coal Mine has been built, start building a Fishery IF you're near the coast, or a hunter IF there are animals around. If there are no animals around are there are no coastal areas to fish (very rare), then the following deposits need to be funded with food from the wares located in the HQ, so account for this in the final sustainable tool-making process. While the Hunter or the Fishery is being constructed, make sure the tool of either the Bow and Arrow, or the Rod and Line are made before the construction is completed. Now, your miner is now fed to extract the coal.

Now there's coal, but no iron. You're going to have to demolish and let the Coal Mine burn, after the very few deposits you extracted have exhausted the mine of its coal.

Now build an Iron Mine, where the Iron ore is. Extract the Iron, which should be sent to the Iron Smelter, along with the necessary amounts of coal for 2 iron.

Now, make a Scythe at the Metalworks, while building a Farm from the resources gathered from the quarry. After the Farm has been made, start making a Mill. After that, a Bakery. While that's being constructed, make a Rolling Pin at the Metalworks.

Construct a well. The economy for the production of food for the mine, can now extract enough to produce the proper amounts of resources required for the Iron smelter to make a further 3 iron. Now while you're making your Forester, make a shovel at the Metalworks. While you're making your Woodcutter, make an Axe at the Metalworks. While you're making your Sawmill, make a Saw at the Metalworks.

Now, the economy can sustain itself in the production of wood. In an island scenario, the economy will need 69 planks, not 40, as there are further amounts of stone and wood needed.

As construction is now sustainable, there should be no problem in making a Brewery. Divert the needed grain from a Farm, when the mines have been exhausted, to produce Beer.

Now that Beer has been made, build an Armory, while making a Hammer at the Metalworks. A sword and a shield is made, and a military unit has been recruited (private).

Now make a military building, and cross to a further expanse of territory, where resources can be constrained according to the difficulty. For the highest level of difficulty, there should be no gold whatsoever on the map, and the coal:iron deposits ratio should be 2:1, with there being the minimum construction areas, as well as the minimum resources required to further expand the territory. It should be calculated how long all of this can possibly take, then in order to factor this into a further level of difficulty, make it so that the enemy computer will border territory as soon as the terminal amount of resources that are the minimum required to win, are put at the furthest possible level of reach. The bigger the map, the less margin of error there is for military building location choice.

As a side note, if you're used to the timings of the economy, then try to time everything to be as proximal as possible to everything else, in order to make things run faster.

For added difficulty, make it so that each building once made redundant in its necessary use to sustain a working economy, HAS to be demolished, in order for there to be space to build the next. This means that for the Mill, once all grain that's needed for the sustainability of the economy has been made into flour for the Bakery, it HAS to be demolished to build the Bakery in the first place. The same can go for the placement for the Farm, the Iron Smelter, the Metalworks, the Armory and the Sawmill, and any other buildings for that matter. This can be done by the terrain being harsh in the territory, by there being enough unusable areas to limit the construction to the very minimum required.

For further difficulty, you will have to enable Harbors and Shipyard Ship Construction, as well as the shipping to work.

In the scenario you go for a further difficulty, then a Harbor will HAVE to be constructed, and the expedition should replace the military building, with the expedition landing at a certain location, where there will be the resources to either further expand the territory, or further increase the level of resources required to send another expedition, to another island location, where eventually after the set amount of expeditions needed has been met, the location has been found where the resources can be sourced from, via the production of a military building, to further expand the territory from the final expedition's Harbor location.

Instructions for this case:

Build a Harbor, and do NOT start sustainable plank production before you do this. Construct a Hammer in the Metalworks, while making a Shipyard.

Construct a ship. This is 13 planks of wood, if anybody didn't realize.

Have enough resources for an expedition. There is no room for a sustainable amount of wood to be constructed, as the Harbor and Shipyard were required to leave the island, and their locations would have taken up the space to get the wood and the area for the buildings to harvest and produce planks from any trees planted by a Forester. However, it could be further made more difficult, by making wood sustainable on the island first, in order to build a Harbor and a Shipyard, and then start the economic production of wooden planks, for the location of an expedition that does supply enough space.

For something more irritating than more difficult, make the land as elevated as possible.

To clarify:

Building Location for all buildings: Castle Marker with an anchor (Harbors can be built), OR Castle Marker for Inland difficulty (but these statistics do not relate to this, so make a note in accordance with this).

-59 Planks, 2 Stones, 2 Coal, 2 Iron Ore, 2 Iron

Metalworks: 2 Stones, 2 Wooden Planks.

-57 Planks, 0 Stone, 2 Coal, 2 Iron Ore, 2 Iron

Pick Axe: 1 Iron, 1 Wooden Plank.

-56 Planks, 0 Stone, 2 Coal, 2 Iron Ore, 1 Iron

Crucible: 1 Iron, 1 Wooden Plank.

-55 Planks, 0 Stones, 2 Coal, 2 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Metalworks demolished for space to build Quarry.

Quarry: 2 Wooden Planks. Quarrying gives 36 stone, then:

-53 Planks, 36 Stones, 2 Coal, 2 Iron Ore, 1 Iron

Quarry demolished, for Iron Smelter space (all stone deposits are located on mining areas).

Iron Smelter: 2 Stones, 2 Wooden Planks. Iron Smelter gives 2 Iron, then:

-51 Planks, 34 Stones 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 2 Iron

Iron Smelter demolished for Metalworks location.

Metalworks: 2 Stone, 2 Wooden Planks.

-49 Planks, 32 Stones 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 2 Iron

Pick Axe: 1 Wooden Plank, 1 Iron.

-48 Planks, 32 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 1 Iron

Coal Mine: 4 Wooden Planks.

-44 Planks, 32 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 1 Iron

Rod and Line OR Bow and Arrow: 1 Wooden Plank, 1 Iron.

-43 Planks, 32 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Metalworks Demolished for Fishery or Hunter location.

Fishery OR Hunter: 2 Wooden Planks. This exhausts at a production of 4, if possible. If not, a maximum of 9 is allowed from this food resource, so a farm MUST be built for the final piece of coal or iron.

-41 Planks, 32 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron, 4 Fish or Meat

Collectively, mines (4 Fish or Meat) make minimum of 2 Iron, 2 Coal in accordance with exhaustion required to be no more than 2 per mine:

Coal Mine demolished for Iron Mine miner.

Iron Mine: 4 Wooden Planks.

-37 Planks, 32 Stones, 2 Coal, 2 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Fishery or Hunter demolished for Iron Smelter.

-35 Planks, 30 Stones, 2 Coal, 2 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Iron Smelter Makes 2 Iron.

-35 Planks, 30 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 2 Iron

Iron Smelter Demolished for Metalworks.

-33 Planks, 28 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 2 Iron

Metalworks makes Scythe: 1 Wooden Plank, 1 Iron

-32 Planks, 28 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 1 Iron

Rolling Pin: 1 Wooden Plank, 1 Iron

-31 Planks, 28 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Metalworks demolished for Farm location.

Farm: 3 Wooden Planks, 3 Stones

-28 Planks, 25 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Farm produces up to 6 grain, which takes 6x longer than it would normally take, due to there being only 1 location to grow the grain.

Farm demolished for Mill.

-26 Planks, 23 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron, 6 Grain

Mill makes Flour. Mill Demolished for Well, or visa versa.

-24 Planks, 23 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron, 6 Flour

Well produces 6 Water. Well can now be demolished for Bakery.

-22 Planks, 21 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron, 6 Water.

Bakery Makes 6 Bread. Bakery demolished for Iron Smelter.

-20 Planks, 21 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron, 6 bread

Coal Mine constructed and mined. Exhausts at 4 coal. Demolished.

-16 Planks, 21 Stones, 4 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron, 3 bread

Iron Mine constructed and mined. Exhausts at 4 Iron Ore. Demolished.

-12 Planks, 21 Stones, 4 Coal, 4 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Iron Smelter makes 4 Iron.

-12 Planks, 21 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 4 Iron

Iron Smelter demolished for Metalworks.

-10 Planks, 19 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 4 Iron

Metalworks makes a Hammer, a Shovel, an Axe and a Saw.

-6 Planks, 19 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Metalworks demolished.

Forester built.

-4 Planks, 19 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Forester demolished after all available placements for trees have been exhausted (keep it to a minimum of 7 planting locations, for repeating the wooden plank collecting process to a maximum limited by stone deposits).

Woodcutter built.

-2 Planks, 19 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Woodcutter demolished after all trees are chopped down. Sawmill built.

-0 Planks, 17 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Sawmill demolished after all logs are made into Wooden Planks. Process repeated upon desired degree of difficulty.

Wooden Planks stockpiled to 23. As 6 are required for a reproduction of wooden planks, wooden planks total in HQ is 29.

-29 Planks, 17 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Build Shipyard.

-27 Planks, 14 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Make Ship.

-14 Planks, 14 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Demolish Shipyard, construct Harbor.

-10 Planks, 8 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron

Make an expedition. Repeat process for desired result of difficulty.

-6 Planks, 2 Stones, 0 Coal, 0 Iron Ore, 0 Iron (required for wood reproduction)

Upon landing at expedition, make sure there is:

-at least 2 coal deposits
-at least 2 iron ore deposits
-at least one castle marker building location
-at least one building location at least far enough away for a military building to be placed
-any more stone deposits not found in original HQ location, for quarrying required for further expeditions, if desired
OR
-granite mine deposits

If there is not, then you will have to find another location, and source the resources for another expedition from the HQ territory.

Once you have settled and extracted enough resources to now begin the production of swords and shields, you need another hammer to be made first.

Iron Smelter first: make as much iron as you can. Then demolish.

So, build a metalworks at the expedition location, as there is no room at your HQ location (it's taken up with the harbor), and burning the harbor and making a Metalworks, then making ANOTHER harbor is really inefficient at this point.

Now make a hammer for the Armorer, from the iron.

Demolish the Metalworks if the space is needed for the Armory (as it should be: this is the most difficult map that can be made), then make swords and shields. This is funded in iron and coal, with the additional resources from the surrounding location, as well as that you have supported via either a fishery or a farm, mill, well and bakery combination. I would suggest to be made more difficult by establishing a need for a woodcutter, forester and sawmill, to be built and reconstructed, for the construction resources of those buildings, as well as making a maximum of two (for an established build, produce and burn mechanical location, as well as for the barracks) building locations (small and castle), with the small building feasibly far enough away, so that building a fishery would be useless on top of the location.

After making the swords and shields, build and demolish in the correct order, what you need to make beer. Now if needed, ferry the resources back to hire a private.

When it comes to mined resources and food resource estimations, the minimum is assumed as being 1 in both cases, when it comes to the editing process. So perhaps it's possible to create 4 fish in a set location to be fished, or 4 deer (or whatever you desire to hunt) to be hunted. Also, the required amount of resources from the mines should be set to 2 or 3 from each mine. So in this process, the required amount of mines is 2 or 3.

By the reading of all of this, you can tell that I'm completely full of thoughts about the game.

Well, here are more things to help:

If you have gold coins, then it seems you need more gold coins than troops, right? WRONG: you only need 1 gold coin per private, as long as you have at least 1 officer, 1 sergeant and 1 private first class. It costs only one gold coin per military unit, to make each and every one of them a general, with a start-up cost of 3 gold coins, WITHOUT the officer, sergeant and private first class available.

You need to build either a Watchtower, or a Fortress. For the purposes of economic efficiency, I recommend a Watchtower, as this costs less stone to make. However, a Fortress in the long run is probably wiser, as the extra territory given to it, as well as the extra military strength within a single location, could be more viable in times of war. However, you DO have a choice, so choose wisely. If you're relatively an amateur at micro (using the keyboard and mouse) in the game, then the Fortress is for you, as the Watchtower can be tricky to micro, as there is a smaller margin of error. The only thing limiting the choice, would be that you have 4 or less gold coins, which means that a watchtower is far more effective.

Key: G = General, O = Officer, S = Sergeant, P1 = Private First Class, P = Private

For a Fortress, you start with 9 soldiers, like this:

P P P P P P P P P

With no upgraded units, it's an extra cost of 3 gold coins. 3 Gold coins used, and it looks like this:

O S P1 P P P P P P

After each gold coin after this, you get one more general, like this:

G O S P1 P P P P P
G G O S P1 P P P P
G G G O S P1 P P P
G G G G O S P1 P P
G G G G G O S P1 P

Now at this stage, you may want to stop gold coins going into the fortress.

So far you've used 5 or 8 gold coins. What most people do, is use 4 more to produce 4 more generals. DO NOT DO THIS.

Depending on the availability of privates, it's feasible to keep that additional private, as you may need him later. Also, in case there's already a coin on the way, you can plan ahead for that problem. Either use one more coin (if you have 6 more privates), or keep it for later.

Now, empty the building using the military territory menu, and then what type of military unit you want in the fortress.

Depending on how many times you want to use this military upgrade trick, will depend on what units you want back in the fortress.

Whenever you need to fill it all up with generals, do not get rid of your sergeant, officer and private first class. They can be used later for another building. Always keep your officer, sergeant and private first class until the very last 3 coins, and even then, if there's any privates left, then they will become the officer, sergeant and private first class. So in reality, you will always have 1 officer, 1 sergeant and 1 private first class, unless you have 3 more gold coins than soldiers.

This being the case, the mining ratio works like this:

For every piece of gold mined, there are:

-5 pieces of coal mined
-2 pieces of iron mined

If granite is found, for every 5 coal mines, 2 iron mines and 1 gold mine, you can build 1 granite mine, and expend 1 miner. This ratio works out because every piece of stone that's used by the catapult, has the capacity to kill one unit.

But there's a problem. You have an EXTRA process going on for the Armory, so Iron will always be lagging behind the coal, causing coins to be made quicker than soldiers, as well as Beer. The initial amount that's mined, isn't important to the initial amount made. What you need to be focusing on, is the spread and speed of the resources to fit the building, and the net amounts of coal, iron ore and gold to be in the ratio of 5:2:1, in the representation of what's made from them. So, what actually will happen within an economy, is a slowing in production, even if there are the correct ratios of coal, iron and gold within the economy, to represent the finished product. To fix this, you need to either build your economy around taking this into account, or providing a surplus of resources to keep everything ticking over. Making excess resources is inefficient, and is the easier option.

To have the most efficient economy, all wooden planks, food, and subsidiaries that go into making them, are to be made sustainable. So these need to fit around the needs of what isn't sustainable, relative to the time and efficiency that's needed.

I'm not sure exactly how long it takes to plant a tree, cut down a tree, then make it into a wooden plank, because apart from making a log into a wooden plank, it varies and is a rough science. However, as long as you have stones and wooden planks, then construction is as efficient as the road network you have. As it's the most difficult to accurately calculate the time it takes to get, then it should be the one that has the least level of priority within the network. Stone on the other hand, has a higher priority than anything else, when you have catapults that are within range of enemy military buildings.

When it comes to construction, it's best to get things relative to their processing, ready as fast as possible. If you've acquired new areas to build, then you need to at first check if what you can build there can be passed within the network, and not compete against other resources that have already established themselves, that have already been calculated to be prioritized before whatever you will produce after the building has been occupied, and production starts. Then, and only then, do you start building. But when you can, you do it steadfast.

For particular foodstuff, you're looking at particular networks.

Meat is by far the most difficult thing to make it as efficient as it needs to be, so it should be the last thing to add to the economy.

Fish is unsustainable, so it becomes a foodstuff that's very useful at stockpiling and when first available, ideal to supply directly to an unsustainable source. Fisheries should be replaced as soon as they are exhausted, with a Bread network.

Bread networks are the sustainable lifeline of the foodstuffs, and are more efficient than meat. The process in order to produce the bread, can seem to start with how long it takes the grain to grow. This should be negligible: the grain is actually disconnected, and the Farms relate to the Mill, and that connection is not the one you need to focus on. As each process relatively takes the same amount of time as the next, when the miller makes the flour, and the well produces water, the only amount of time that's waited upon, is the time it takes to get there, from door to door. This time, is the one to prevent an inhibition in productivity, but if addressed by means of incorrect substitution of this time with yet another producer of a subsidiary, causes an excess. The time of the process itself relative to the time it takes to get from one place to the next, needs to be calculated to the % it takes. This is why proximity is so important: as yes, you can have 2 mills to one bakery, and yes, 2 wells to one bakery, but what happens is that the proximity is the thing that has to suffer, to stop excess causing too much traffic.

In digression, things to calculate:

However long it takes to make a sword or a shield, should be how long it takes to provide and deliver the coal, as well as make and deliver the iron. The accuracy of this can be increased with calculating what is the shortest time you can get the resources from the Coal Mine, and what's the shortest time you can get the resources from the Iron Smelter. In doing this, you can readdress the imbalance in the amount of processes it takes for coal, relative to the amount it takes for the iron.

However long it takes to make the iron, should be however long it takes to provide and deliver both the iron and the coal. What's important is making sure the amount of coal that comes, is exactly the same as the amount of iron. This is by far the most difficult balance, as the coal itself is already in harmony with how long it takes to make iron. This means a separate amount of mines for the Iron Smelter, in a separate location is needed to keep productivity, as well as stopping excess. Sourcing coal from relatively the same location, should be avoided, and at the very least, do not source coal from the same mine for both the Armory and the Iron Smelter.

However long it takes to mine the coal, should be however long it takes to get the food to the mine.

However long it takes to make the bread, should be however long it takes to supply the bakery with flour, as well as however long it takes to supply the bakery with water.

However long it takes to make the flour, should be however long it takes to supply the grain to the mill.

In order to fully ascertain the network, what first needs to be calculated, is what equations fit around whatever design the network can best be determined to be.

Processes should never be reliant on a network, where different parts of them intersect, so there has to be a means of priority, to calculate which one is taken. IF this cannot be avoided, then there needs to be the calculation of how much longer it will take with whatever passes along the network.

However, to start with, all processes should be aligned, from the very first manufacture. This means building times need to be calculated.

In order to calculate building times for buildings, what should be built first, should be what is highest on the list of what can be subsidized for with excess. If no excess is present, then you follow the means of priority along the order of each and every process.

What should be built after taking this into account, is the base of which the chain of supply starts. In the case of the most efficient military economy, this will be what makes the food. Fisheries can be built a lot later than Farms need to be, relative to the building of the mine itself. The relativity of the mine to the Farm, is that the mine has to wait for the Farm, Mill, Well and Bakery to be made, and for the process to produce bread, in order for it to be finished and occupied.

As a builder takes as relatively the same amount of time as it takes for each individual wooden plank, or each individual piece of stone, you can further quantify how long it will take in the relationship to what's being built.

For example, if the builder has to make a slightly longer trip to a building that has to be built after another building that it relates to in proximity, then it should be added to the time it would take, for both buildings to be ready for each other.

Take the relationship between a Watchtower or a Fortress, and the Mint.

If the Mint is closer to the HQ or Storehouse, then it will take less time to build, relative to the time it takes for the Fortress in its process to be built.

Let's give a more specific example, that pretends that both will have their builders arrive at the same time, as well as the resources needed to build, to be sent at the same time. Actually, a more efficient process would be the resources needed to start with, are sent to the HQ or Storehouse from the source, at relatively the same time it takes for both to be built, without an interruption in what the builder is doing.

Now, a Mint requires 2 wood and 2 stone. That's 4 time periods of building. The military unit will take as long as the guy making the coins will take to get to the building, so that's discounted. Obviously in the case of the relationship of proximity, both need to be accurately calculated.

However in this case, only the fact that the Fortress requires 4 wood and 9 stone, is the fact to consider. A ratio of 13:4, so the Fortress will take 325% longer to build. The Mint takes approximately 69.23% less time than the Fortress. So, roughly 70% into the time it takes into making a fortress, will be approximately 10 build periods into the manufacture, which is 4 wood and 6 stone into the build. So at that time, the builder should start to build, in coordination with how long it takes to make a gold coin.

Bakeries are relative to proximity, and this number is taking into account there are no fish and no meat, as well as not taking into account the mines will exhaust. Do not forget to either build a storehouse near the next mine requiring bread, or if it's unfeasible and ultimately unproductive to transport the bread across such a location, to build a storehouse where the Bakery is, to stop excess clogging up the economic network. If it's at all more efficient, then calculate if you can do both.

Farms I'm not sure about, but if I remember rightly you needed 2 per Mill... but a farm at 100% production EVENTUALLY gets the productivity of the Mill and the Bakery up to 100%, however the real-time productivity is halved, I think. Remember, however long it takes to get all the Grain that's harvested to the Mill, should account for the fact the Mill has 6 slots, and at the very least, those slots should never be full when there's grain being transported from the farm. Farms usually can usually grow and harvest 6 Grain from the surrounding area, so what I think is the case, is that a Miller uses 6 Grain twice as fast as it takes the Farmer to grow and harvest the 6. Obviously if it's less or more multipliers of how long it takes the Miller to go through the 6 delivered, then that's the answer to the amount of Farms needed.

Do not use Fish on mines that are either at almost the end of their life, or have very little resources shown by either the geologist, or if you're cheating, the map editor.

Do not waste Fish on Granite mines, if you can help it.

Depending on your speed at the game and the amount of builders you have (or can possibly afford to "hire" with the use of newly made hammers, at the expense of military units), it will depend on how many sawmills, woodcutters and foresters you need. The maximum amount you need for any speed, is 6 Sawmills. Making any more will overflow your roads, even if you have an efficient storage network.

I've read somewhere that it's 3 woodcutters for every forester, but that's not sustainable... it's 2 woodcutters. Eventually the productivity of the woodcutters suffers, as the trees slowly dwindle. Especially in built-up areas, where it takes a lot longer for locations to be found, for trees to be planted. I recommend AGAINST the advise you normally read about not building a forester next to your headquarters: it's not about if you build one, it's about WHEN you build one. Build it last (if there are trees around: if not, then build it just before the woodcutters, so that when the first trees are ready to be cut, the woodcutters occupy as and when that occurs) after all other buildings (make sure you leave space for it), and because it needs no road network after it's been occupied, cut it off from the transportation network.

It's quite difficult to show the most efficient road networks and economic networks, when I can't screen shot the game... but, I'll try to explain the most efficient lines to get everything working and being produced as rapidly as possible.

It all falls under the rules of proximity: if it can be passed on as quickly as possible to manufacture the next process, then it will be done that way.

Let's start by assigning your headquarters. Contrary to popular belief, you need a maximum of 4 road networks, not as many as possible coming from the Headquarters. The ONLY thing passing into the headquarters should be Wooden Planks, Stone, Swords, Shields, Beer and Tools (if needed), as there should be an efficient storage network already manufactured, before excess production from foodstuffs occurs, when mines exhaust.

Let's figure you have all the tools you need, in order to manufacture the correct economy. So to start with, the Metalworks is pointless.

This means you only need 4 lanes of traffic: For Swords, Shields, Wooden Planks and Beer.

The only problem with this game I would change, would be the case to stockpile wooden planks. I find that if you're building something, the wood shouldn't have to go the HQ or the storehouse, then go all the way back along the road network to wherever you're building. It seems you can't do this, which is a shame.

Anyway, From the 4 lanes of traffic, you have 4 spirals of building, when it comes to the proximity network. None of these should really overlap, unless congestion inhibits the network. In that case, recalculations would be needed to reaffirm the relationships of time between each and every process, so everything comes together at the same time, for the same resource.

If a road requires lots and lots of flags, it's too long: that's the rule on flags. There are exceptions, but generally you won't need to make a road that's sole purpose is to ferry one resource back and forth.

The brewery, armory and the sawmill need to be the buildings that are the closest to the HQ or storehouse. There shouldn't be the need to make flags at all: the flags of the buildings themselves should join in such a short length of road, that there's no place to put flags.

Waterways are by far the worst method of transporting any goods. They are a novelty at best, and cause contraflows in economic traffic. The only time they are useful, would be that they are the only choice for ferrying goods back and forth from a location. This is HARDLY ever the case, and when the alternative is a long and winding road that takes longer, then that would be the time to choose them. You're not going to be left with no alternative (it's a more time-consuming alternative, usually), unless somehow the territory borders have been manipulated by forces outside of your control. They do not carry people, so you can't build anything except roads and flags, to somewhere that is only connected by waterway.

The problem with proximity, is that there needs to be a feasibility for it to exist in the first place. Figure out how much space you need, depending on certain locations.

For example, tight spaces caused by no build locations and surrounded by rich mining areas, calls for a storehouse to be built as close as possible, as it's a single building needed for proximity, rather than a series of buildings.

If food and mines are separated by huge distances, this is the way to go.

Mines drive the location of all buildings, except military buildings. Prioritize proximity along the lines of the process.

OK, so as a rule, you should use IF functions for proximity.

IF mine, then:

nearest place available, build Bakery / Fishery / Hunter (based upon which will be the most productive, divided by the amount of time it takes to go back and forth from the nearest location, and the most efficient from that is what you should choose)

IF room for Bakery, then:

-Mill as close as possible. The Mill goes with the Bakery, so if there's no space for a Mill right next to the Bakery, forget about being productive.

-Well is the same. 2 Bakeries to 1 well, usually.

IF room for Mill, then:

Farm as close as possible. Again, it's pointless to waste time having long road networks, to fit everything in your territory. If you can't build everything close to each other, don't bother.

IF all of the above, then:

Whether it's Sword and Shields, Iron or Gold Coins, build what's needed to continue the process.

Really, it's more complicated than even that. Any further complications to be discussed, will be made upon request.


Integrated spoiler tags (they are not only useful to hide spoilers but also to keep the navigation intact when writing long texts ^_^ ). ~Luchsen

[Oskatat]

cant read all of your spoiler, but i think once upon a time you had way too much time.

and too mature? when are you too old to play a game? I hope your kids already left the house

[MasterandCommander-Guest]

It's all 0s and 1s. Playing a game when broken down, is simply reordering boolean. It has no application to life whatsoever: you are alive, so you have no need to play. Computers playing computers makes more sense.

In reality, nothing is affected by you playing, apart from the passage of time, and the lack of input into other problems and challenges you encounter in life.

It's one of the most ignorant things you can do.

Using escapism as an excuse, is simply burying your head in the sand, and won't let you find any further solutions to any dilemmas you have encountered.

The primitive part of your brain is the only thing controlling the desire to play: in my case, my post should read as the primitive part of my brain causing my to have an addiction to economy simulators, because they strike a conceptual appeal to the idea surrounding resource economies (no finance), which are much more viable and lack the volatility of a free financial market. Due to the passing recession, this would be a time to reinforce this concept, but no governments have participated in any action towards such a market.

[Tomekk]

It's all 0s and 1s. Playing a game when broken down, is simply reordering boolean. It has no application to life whatsoever: you are alive, so you have no need to play. Computers playing computers makes more sense.

In reality, nothing is affected by you playing, apart from the passage of time, and the lack of input into other problems and challenges you encounter in life.

It's one of the most ignorant things you can do.

Using escapism as an excuse, is simply burying your head in the sand, and won't let you find any further solutions to any dilemmas you have encountered.

The primitive part of your brain is the only thing controlling the desire to play: in my case, my post should read as the primitive part of my brain causing my to have an addiction to economy simulators, because they strike a conceptual appeal to the idea surrounding resource economies (no finance), which are much more viable and lack the volatility of a free financial market. Due to the passing recession, this would be a time to reinforce this concept, but no governments have participated in any action towards such a market.

What are you doing on this FORUM posting in a GAME's topic then?

Get a life.

[arete]

Hahaha, ok, no more flaming, please, or these posts will be removed.

[CyberDiablo]

I've translated the game's article into Turkish. I really like Settlers. I've first, second, third and the 10th year anniversary edition of the second.

[arete]

Awesome :OK:

[fleabag]

How do I expand my borders?

[arete]

Select any house, manor or castle nearest your border - make it a military outpost. Build a road to it. Once it's built, soldiers will be sent to it, and when they enter the building, your boders automatically expand. Repeat.

Be prepared for when enemy soldiers come and attack your outposts: If they kill all your soldiers, they walk into your building and it becomes theirs, and all your buildings around it burn down, so build multiple outposts and castles.

Catapults automatically destroy any enemy military buildings within reach, so keep them supplied with stone.

To make more soldiers, you need 1 sword, 1 shield and 1 beer. (Yes, the game was developed in Germany.) To train your soldiers, you need to send gold coins to them once they're in their building. Unfortunately, the game cheats so even low-level enemy soldiers kill my generals. Which is why I prefer Age of Empires 2 these days ;-)

[fleabag]

Select any house, manor or castle nearest your border - make it a military outpost. Build a road to it. Once it's built, soldiers will be sent to it, and when they enter the building, your boders automatically expand. Repeat.

Be prepared for when enemy soldiers come and attack your outposts: If they kill all your soldiers, they walk into your building and it becomes theirs, and all your buildings around it burn down, so build multiple outposts and castles.

Catapults automatically destroy any enemy military buildings within reach, so keep them supplied with stone.

To make more soldiers, you need 1 sword, 1 shield and 1 beer. (Yes, the game was developed in Germany.) To train your soldiers, you need to send gold coins to them once they're in their building. Unfortunately, the game cheats so even low-level enemy soldiers kill my generals. Which is why I prefer Age of Empires 2 these days ;-)

Thank you very much!

[arete]

Glad I could help for a change. Usually the games aren't ones that I'm familiar with *^^

[RTS_fan]

Is it possible to play this game multiplayer with dosbox using direct IP connection?

Does anyone do this?

[Josefsson]

This is a great game!

[_r.u.s.s.]

well, i'm not sure right now but i think that settlers 2 used ipx for multiplaying

which means that you can play ipx multiplayer with your friends using dosbox, that one can create a virtual ipx network via regular tcp/ip

of course, you'd need to have a dos version.. i don't know how they ported the dos version to windows on gog where it's sold..
but i'm pretty sure they're using dosbox too, so if you managed to take out the original dos files and set stuff up manually you'd be able to create an ipx virtual connection easilly

[Pex]

I don't remember the last time I got so much carried away playing a game that I stayed up to almost 2am without realising it. This game did it to me last night :D

It's interesting that most of the time I stayed up late playing it was a turn based game (famous 'one more turn' rule). But with Settlers 2 it was 'let's just explore one more area, let's just capture one more enemy outpost, well, now I need to destroy that catapult...' and so on. The only reason I stopped playing (and therefore realised what the time was) was because of a nasty bug :( For some reason it happened that I wasn't able to move my mouse pointer all the way accross the screen, which made one third of the screen to the right hand side was inaccessable. I also wasn't able to scroll the screen in that direction which obviously made the game impossible to play. I loaded the old saved game now and everything seems to work fine, so I hope it was just a single accident rather than a rule.

Before I give my $0.02 about the game, I want to say that I never played any newer Settlers game before (my friend google told me they're up to part 7 now). I gaves first Settlers a go, but it didn't "click" for me. It took me a bit to figure out how to start the game for single player and then I had no idea what to do :p I guess just another game when part 2 surpassed part 1 in everything, not just bringing cosmetical improvement (similar examples imo are HoM&M, Warlords, Civilization).

What I like about the game is the whole idea of the community where everyone has a role and everything has to work well in order for the community to thrive. It's very similar to another game I loved - Cultures (http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/cultures). I'm assuming that the authors of the latter have stolen a few things from The Settlers, but it still had some original ideas.

Another thing I like is that you can replay the same scenario and try a different approach - put your farms in different areas and your industry in some other again (only mines need to keep more the less same spots, of course). Progress with small barracks, claming just a bit of teritory at the time or buld fortresses straight away for big expansion. Clear a forest to get the land you need easily and then replant the other area where there is not enough space for big building anyway. Or keep the forests where they are and foccus your building elsewhere.

Of course, I found a few things about the game that desired some improvement. That AI again... My helpers tend to take wheat from one farm to the furtherest possible mill, and at the same time wheat from a farm close to that mill to the brewery next to the first farm mentioned. Also even if I close production in a building, they still keep bringing raw materials to it. And finally, speaking of raw materials, those priority adjustment do not work for me on default level. Unless I intervene, my donkey farms never get any wheat, while mills keep having a full stock. Similar situation is with coal - mints hog it, leaving my iron smelting and armory on 0% ;) But then when I adjust it, nothing works on 100% anymore, even with at least one coal mine (but usually more) per building.

Another sort of complaint is that after the initial set up and building a working community, the game turns into how fast you can expand to the enemy border and then how quickly you can conquer them. There's no need to build more infractructure in the newly conquered territories (except for roads). But it could be the case only with these first few scenarios - I'll wait and see if it changes later in the game.

And final complaint is about the music - it really starts to get annoying after only five minutes or so. Sound effects are ok (unless there are sheep on the screen), but I always turn off the music.

So, all added together, this game is for my 4 out of 5 :)

[arete]

I got cross when the enemy's soldiers, even the low-level ones, ended up always killing my generals. Even though they had about four more hitpoints :( It was so biased that i got fed up and stopped playing. Besides, half the campaigns had opponents with so many high-ranking soldiers to attack with that there wasn't any time to even start building an infrustructure. Although in the low levels playing was a lot of fun. Stupid goths and Nubians CHEATED!! :wall:

[Pex]

So far my elite soldiers dispatch easily those low ranked enemy ones, though they struggle with the enemy elite. But...

I thought that AI had only minor problems - it was before I played my first mission that involved sailing ships. So, this is how it all started...

After "conquering" a few nearby islands I decided to expand into land controled by enemy factions. So, I built a fortress but for some reason no troops came to occupy it. I wasn't sure what was going on, since in previous missions it was happening automaticly, but when I checked it turned out that I had no soldiers left. I made sure that I didn't turn recriutment off and I didn't, my armoury was working at full speed and I had some 200 kegs of beer in storage. The tricky part was that my armoury was on one island and my brewery on the mainland. AI can't recognize recruitment as a need and therefore put beer and swords and shields in the same warehouse. So I decided to build a brewery on that island and another armoury on the mainland, which solved the problem, but I had to wait of course for both productions to pick up.

What happened next was that the armoury (and iron smelting) on the island ran out of coal. Now I had around 170 units of coal in my HQ, but none in the harbour connected to it, so AI couldn't think of moving some of that coal to the harbour and then shipping it to the island that needed it. I did it manually (by setting 'Take out of store' for coal in HQ and 'Stop storing' in every other warehouse with land connections to HQ except for the harbour I needed). After what seemed painfully slow since the coal taken out of HQ was first used to fill every production that needed it (with land connections to the HQ) to the brim, harbour finally started getting some coal. But instead of shipping it to the island that needed it, it kept feeding those same productions with it :cry: In the end it turned out that I had to set coal on 'Take out of store' on the island harbour (one near the armoury) that had no coal to start with, in order for my ships to bring coal there. I have no idea why it had to be that way when before the first harbour ran out of coal it was working normally - ships were bringing coal to the island automaticly.

It doesn't end there... My production of soldiers both on mainland and the island was steady again, but for some reason the number of soldiers coming to the latest fortress was still quite low. Then I figured out that no soldiers from the island were coming. Why? Well, I had two harbours on that island. Instead of sitting in one harbour and waiting for a ship to pick them up, they kept walking from one to the other, trying to catch up a ship or something. If only by an accident a ship would arrive at the harbour right on time it would pick up a soldier, but not necessarily - some ships just preferred to go around empty with no particular mission in mind. Setting one of the harbours to 'Stop storing' soldiers didn't help either - they kept walking to it and then walking back to the other. In the end I had to pull down the road between those two harbours so the soldiers would settle in one and wait for the ships.

And when I mentioned ships, they are something special. If you call an geologist or a scout to an island, they'll bring every single one they can grab there (instead of just one). Similarly, they brought all gold coins to the the harbour connected to the latest fortification (which is good), but when I build a simple guardhouse back on the mainland in order to be able to access some mining areas, they moved all those coins back, even though the guardhouse needed only 3 coins for its only soilder to reach elite status. And I even had a mint with land connections to that guardhouse.

Now back to soldiers - I know this is not exactly AI, but the script, but sometimes I have a fortress close to the border that is full of soldiers and during the time they all become elite. Now, due to some conquests, that particular fortress becomes redundant (it's not on border anymore so it doesn't need to be fully manned). Instead of those soldiers moving straight to the newly coquered fortifications, or to those that send their troops to conquer above mentioned fortifications, they move back to the nearest warehouse/harbour, while empty places get filled in by recruits. Not only those recruits are, well, innexperienced, but in this latest mission they were also coming from another island, which meant they needed time to get there. Because of that stupid algoritam, enemy managed to reconquer a couple of fortifiations :wall:

And for the end a honourable mention of enemy AI. They don't attack you unless you attack them (at this level, maybe they get more agressive later). That is fine - they're peaceful guys, but I build forts near the border and make their building burn down - they still don't consider it as an attack. I build a catapult and keep bombarding nearby barracks - they just keep dutifully reinforcing those barracks for every soldier I kill. Of course, stupid algoritam for catapult where helpers don't bring next stone until the first stone arrives (and therefore making your rate of fire depending on the proximity of the warehouse) gives them plenty of time to do that. But eventually they run out of soldiers and my catapult destroys the barracks - enemy still doesn't consider being under attack.

Then I finally attack their fortification and immediately they start retaliating. How? Usually by sending a ridiculously small number of troops against my strongest fortification in the area. Only those too far to reach it attack easier targets. So, I wait for a bit, kill their elite troops and if I had patience to wait longer I could probably kill them all, but I move in for a kill and capture their HQ too easlily, cause their own catapults were on the opposite side from it (close to the friendly border) and therfore useless to stop my expansion. Like you would think that all forts I built right next to their border would've given them some clue of my intentions ;)

So, this is the end of my comments (ok, rants). I'll keep playing the game, only paying more attention not to depend too much on AI for moving goods/resources around and I hope there won't be a mission where I actually must have two harbours on the same land mass (and connected by roads). As for the enemy AI, well, I'll just exploit it ;)

[fortydayweekend]

I don't remember the last time I got so much carried away playing a game that I stayed up to almost 2am without realising it. This game did it to me last night

Yeah, you know the game is addictive when the sun is coming up and you're still playing... :-)

That said, it's definitely got a few annoying quirks. Luckily though there are ways to work around most of them!

For some reason it happened that I wasn't able to move my mouse pointer all the way accross the screen, which made one third of the screen to the right hand side was inaccessable.

I had this too, in DosBox - try rolling your mouse to the top/left side of the screen if the bottom/right are inaccessible. It might "reset" it.

Or even better try running straight out of windows. When you get an error message on loading just hit "ignore" - (it just can't find a second mouse port which doesn't matter for single player).

My helpers tend to take wheat from one farm to the furtherest possible mill, and at the same time wheat from a farm close to that mill to the brewery next to the first farm mentioned. Also even if I close production in a building, they still keep bringing raw materials to it. And finally, speaking of raw materials, those priority adjustment do not work for me on default level.

Yeah, the default settings suck. I usually set everything to be equal priority - that way it won't try heaving grain halfway across the map to a Mill when there's starving Donkeys and Pigs right next door. You can then tweak this if you want to, or just turn buildings on and off instead.

The other trick is to have a storehouse near your buildings that need the raw materials, to catch the overflow. So the excess grain and ore goes into the storehouse, and then when it's needed it's just a short hop to the smelter or mill or whatever. The raw materials (mines/farms) can be a long way from the storehouse, but the manufacturing buildings should be as close as possible.

Make sure that the other storehouses/HQ are set to "not accept" the raw goods. If you've got one "city center" with a storehouse and all of your industry around it, the distribution will be very efficient. On huge maps you might need two centers.

The other key is to have enough surplus - if you're always on 0-10 grain or coal then new stuff will be sent to empty buildings clear across the map. If your buildings are always stocked then new stuff will go to the storehouse - i.e. in the direction you want it.

The AI is actually very good at distributing stuff as long as you get your layout right. If it's not working then you're doing something wrong :-)

Also check for bottlenecks on roads - if there's more than one good waiting to be picked up at any flag, add more roads. There's no such thing as too many roads.

the game turns into how fast you can expand to the enemy border and then how quickly you can conquer them. There's no need to build more infractructure in the newly conquered territories (except for roads).

Yeah, I agree - most of the missions you don't need to actually conquer anyone for territory, and you end up with just fighting at the end. And when you outgun everyone else by 3-1 it's a foregone conclusion...

You might want to try editing the World Campaign missions - make a new folder called "WORLDS" in the main game folder, copy over the maps from DATA\MAPS2 and change the extensions to .SWD. Then you can open them with the editor. Add some extra starting positions closer to your own, and maybe adjust the resources.

So far my elite soldiers dispatch easily those low ranked enemy ones, though they struggle with the enemy elite.

It should be roughly 50/50 for the elite vs. elite. Your generals should eat enemy privates for breakfast. And if your privates are fighting enemy generals, you're doing it wrong ;-)

So, I built a fortress but for some reason no troops came to occupy it. I wasn't sure what was going on, since in previous missions it was happening automaticly, but when I checked it turned out that I had no soldiers left. I made sure that I didn't turn recriutment off and I didn't, my armoury was working at full speed and I had some 200 kegs of beer in storage. The tricky part was that my armoury was on one island and my brewery on the mainland. AI can't recognize recruitment as a need and therefore put beer and swords and shields in the same warehouse. So I decided to build a brewery on that island and another armoury on the mainland, which solved the problem, but I had to wait of course for both productions to pick up.

Or you could just set one storehouse to "not accept" beer and weapons - it will send all the ones it has to the other storehouse. One at a time, yep, but quicker than reproducing everything :-)

What happened next was that the armoury (and iron smelting) on the island ran out of coal...

I'm not sure what happened there - I've never tried shipping coal to industry an island.

Well, I had two harbours on that island.

That's probably the problem - more than one harbour per island screws things up completely. Also I read somewhere that you shouldn't connect islands by roads if there's also harbour connection.

There's so many little things that can go wrong with expeditions and islands, it's the most annoying part of the game to learn. But if you get it right it will work fine. You have to plan a bit more carefully - do you want the Armory etc on the island, or back on the mainland? And what goods do you set the Harbours to accept or not accept.

If you call an geologist or a scout to an island, they'll bring every single one they can grab there (instead of just one).

I hadn't noticed that - but I usually call all the geologists to a new hill anyway :-) They prospect the whole hill and I "build" a mine on every spot I want one eventually. But I don't connect them all with roads - just one or two or whatever I want right now. When a mine runs out I delete it and connect up a new one. That way you don't have to prospect a hill more than once or twice.

they moved all those coins back, even though the guardhouse needed only 3 coins for its only soilder to reach elite status.

Using coins on a single soldier is expensive! Ideally you should only be giving coins to soldiers in full watchtowers and fortresses... barracks and guardhouses should be immediately set to "not accept" coins.

Why? A single soldier will take 5 coins to go from private to general. But 9 soldiers in a fortress will take 12 coins to ALL become generals. So you get roughly four times as many generals from the same amount of gold.

I have a fortress close to the border that is full of soldiers and during the time they all become elite. Now, due to some conquests, that particular fortress becomes redundant (it's not on border anymore so it doesn't need to be fully manned). Instead of those soldiers moving straight to the newly coquered fortifications, or to those that send their troops to conquer above mentioned fortifications, they move back to the nearest warehouse/harbour, while empty places get filled in by recruits.

Yeah, you basically want to tell your soldiers where to go, but there's no simple commands for "go here". But there are ways to move them where you want them using the sliders.

First up, training - you want to fill towers and fortresses with privates so you can send them gold, then you want those generals to head back into storage. Assuming you know what each slider means by now, choose "Weak Defenders" and "Max # of soldiers" in all three locations. All your buildings should fill up. Set your towers to accept coins and let them upgrade.

When they're done, choose "Min # of soldiers" in all three. All your buildings should keep 1 soldier and the rest will head back to storage. Repeat as many times as you like to train up as many generals as you can/want.

Secondly, you can now change to "Strong Defenders" and max out the "border" occupancy rate - this will send your new generals off to the front.

Another trick is when you've taken over a bunch of enemy buildings and they've all got 1 of your generals sitting in them uselessly. You want to keep the building but you want your general back for attack.

Make sure your border occupancy slider is on maximum and change to "Weak Defenders". Then connect the newly-conquered building(s) by road (and set to not accept coins). Privates will march out of storage and fill up your new conquests. This means when you attack you'll get the general back out.

Basically you'll need to do a fair bit of adjusting to get the results you want - but there is a way to do everything you want. As long as you have enough soldiers of course...

And yeah they do walk all the way back to storage before going out to new locations. So - build a storehouse close to your front line before an attack, and be patient... or if you've got enough soldiers open another front so you can be attacking in one direction while the other is waiting for reinforcements.

And for the end a honourable mention of enemy AI.

Yeah, the AI sucks at attacking, defending, training soldiers, and doesn't build nearly enough catapults considering how genocidal the human players are.

They do a reasonably good job of building an efficient settlement though.

The only way to adjust the difficulty is with resources... so if you want to make a mission or map more difficult you can use the editor and maybe give the AI more easy gold.

I also like your idea of having to use conquered land - so maybe adding some extra computer players blocking access to iron and farmland would work to give that effect.

Some of the World Campaign missions are pretty cool - Africa is huge and a real challenge in terms of organisation. If you do the WORLDS/copy/rename thing you can play them as individual maps.

[Pex]

Haven't really had a chance to play this game since I wrote the previous post, but I thought I should reply to this thread anyway.

I had this too, in DosBox - try rolling your mouse to the top/left side of the screen if the bottom/right are inaccessible. It might "reset" it.

Usually all I need to do is save the game, exit to dos(box) and restart it, so it's not such a big problem, just a minor annoyance. It doesn't happen that often either.

Yeah, the default settings suck. I usually set everything to be equal priority - that way it won't try heaving grain halfway across the map to a Mill when there's starving Donkeys and Pigs right next door. You can then tweak this if you want to, or just turn buildings on and off instead.

I'm' putting everything on equal priority as well, though it also means that you need to have at least one raw material production per one building that uses it. The reason I used quotations it that it's not necessarily raw material - I build two iron smeltings, one for armory and one for metalworks.

The other trick is to have a storehouse near your buildings that need the raw materials, to catch the overflow. So the excess grain and ore goes into the storehouse, and then when it's needed it's just a short hop to the smelter or mill or whatever. The raw materials (mines/farms) can be a long way from the storehouse, but the manufacturing buildings should be as close as possible.
Yeah, I've been doing that. Although all that micromanagement tends to annoy me sometimes, it's also necessary to make everything work fine. But...

Make sure that the other storehouses/HQ are set to "not accept" the raw goods. If you've got one "city center" with a storehouse and all of your industry around it, the distribution will be very efficient. On huge maps you might need two centers.
Problem is with harbours. You can tell your harbour not to accept coal if you want to ship that coal to another island. But if you use same raw material in more than one place (as in different islands) that's when it becomes tricky.

Or you could just set one storehouse to "not accept" beer and weapons - it will send all the ones it has to the other storehouse. One at a time, yep, but quicker than reproducing everything :-)

Yep, but again the problem is when harbours come into play. If you set a harbour not to accept something, you won't be able to ship it to a different island. But if you have a harbour full of beer and another full of weapons, AI can't realise that it needs to move one of them to another harbour in order to produce soldiers. Like I said, I solved the problem by actually telling harbour that didn't have beer to 'take it out of stock' and that was the clue for my ships to bring beer there. Funny but efficient.

There's so many little things that can go wrong with expeditions and islands, it's the most annoying part of the game to learn. But if you get it right it will work fine. You have to plan a bit more carefully - do you want the Armory etc on the island, or back on the mainland? And what goods do you set the Harbours to accept or not accept.
Like I said, it only works to a certain level. And planning is possible when you're replaying mission and know exactly where raw materials are, but in reality you often just build one stage at time and sometimes using limitted space you have as efficiently as possible.

But don't get me wrong. It's still a great game. It's just a pitty some of those issues exist and spoil the overall experience sometimes.

[Tomica]

Are there any user modifications to this game?
I don't mean the custom scenarios.

I mean, were there any user-made graphics for this game?
New unit types?

I saw the games in which those places were "empty", so the games could receive more unit or terrain types.

[Eagle of Fire]

Adding new unit types could theoretically destroy the balance of the game. And that's what make The Settlers and The Settlers II different from modern games.

So I guess not...

[ocisdfsdf]

Where is the nearest vein of gold in the Europe map (world campaign map 1)? The guys from the Greece region have some and they are slaughtering me. I have looked in the Italian mountains and in the big mountain north of Italy (the Alps?). I can only find iron and coal.

P.S. your forum captcha is terrible and annoying. Just use Recaptcha when you need a captcha, and drop this 6 glyph garbage the forum uses.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Just use Recaptcha when you need a captcha, and drop this 6 glyph garbage the forum uses.Yesss... the guy who was supposed to install it didn't quite finish the job and isn't working here anymore. The one who replaced him doesn't have the time. Do the math?

[just_me]

Where is the nearest vein of gold in the Europe map (world campaign map 1)? The guys from the Greece region have some and they are slaughtering me. I have looked in the Italian mountains and in the big mountain north of Italy (the Alps?). I can only find iron and coal.
Go North, through the path up the right side of the northern mountains. Gold is just on the other side. Get there before the yellow player does.

[jamotide]

Do the math?

Maths!

Is the new release of Settlers 2 better than the original, anyone who tried them both have an opinion?

[grevls]

Go North, through the path up the right side of the northern mountains. Gold is just on the other side. Get there before the yellow player does.

I have just been doing the Europe campaign. It is a bit of a race to get to the first batch of Gold. It is on the northern middle part of the Alps. Just keep building military buildings upwards. There's not a huge amount and you need to get there before the yellows. This should be enough to expand your empire to a decent size and hold off any enemy attacks.

The other races that get Gold is Purple, Red and Black. Purples get the most but it doesn't last long. If you want a piece of it you'll have to invade and defeat them quickly.

The rest of the Gold gets exhausted before you really get a chance to get at it.

I did discover, however, that there is a decent deposit of Gold in the northern most area of Scotland. There is also some iron and coal deposits across England. This will require you to push through the yellow team to get there.

You do not have to build a ship to get to Britain. There is a very small bit of land linking it to France.

Just use your map to head in vaguely the right direction.

There is nothing on Ireland except sheep. No rocks, no trees, just sheep. I don't know if thats meant to be some kind of joke!?

Anyway I found the best way once you've got your first batch of Gold is to make sure you keep hold of it, exhaust the mines and then slow play it until you can push to Britain.

I defeated the enemies in the following order: Purple, Red, Black, Yellow, Green.

I hope this helps. I had been searching all over the net for tips and gold locations for Europe and found nothing, so I hope this of some use to someone.

I only rediscovered this game recently and I can't stop playing it. Just the right balance of strategy and fun!

[Traderman1981]

So, I digged Settlers 2 Gold edition from drawer and wanted to play big game on 256x256 map. I made my own map for 7 players. But trouble starts when, just after starting - few minutes into game - game wont send helpers on road, builders to sites ect - and if sometimes it does, it takes like forever. It seems thjat game can't handle bigger then certain ammount of buildings and its getting bugged to place its not playable (i.e. - I have 5 fortresses near enemy but soldiers wont go from nearby stockhouse).

before you reply: I have soldiers (like 100 in each storehouse)
I have maxed DosBox ram side to 64 and it doesnt affect this issue.

I remember, that I had this problem with old-old PC 133Mhz Pentium with 32 ram on Windows 98, but later on I updated PC to 266mHz and 128MB and it was much better on gameplay

Anyone knows how to address this issue? Seems pretty bad to be able to create big world and not be able to play it...

[Pentti Hilkuri]

I've got exactly the same problem, on sea routes chapter. Helpers aren't getting to roads, everything gets fucked up. I've used all there is on both islands and burned them, still not helping the problem. Every 3-5th section of the road gets a helper and it doesn't even help to create just one longer section of road.

So, I digged Settlers 2 Gold edition from drawer and wanted to play big game on 256x256 map. I made my own map for 7 players. But trouble starts when, just after starting - few minutes into game - game wont send helpers on road, builders to sites ect - and if sometimes it does, it takes like forever. It seems thjat game can't handle bigger then certain ammount of buildings and its getting bugged to place its not playable (i.e. - I have 5 fortresses near enemy but soldiers wont go from nearby stockhouse).

before you reply: I have soldiers (like 100 in each storehouse)
I have maxed DosBox ram side to 64 and it doesnt affect this issue.

I remember, that I had this problem with old-old PC 133Mhz Pentium with 32 ram on Windows 98, but later on I updated PC to 266mHz and 128MB and it was much better on gameplay

Anyone knows how to address this issue? Seems pretty bad to be able to create big world and not be able to play it...