Abandonware of the week: Settlers II

First if you don’t know how to play old games on Widows Vista/7/8, go read this article. It’s quick and easy.Then jump with me in Settlers II!

Settlers II is a real time strategy game but definitively not a click fest like other RTS. Here building an economy has a real meaning. To deploy new warriors you need to forge weapons. To get these weapons you need a forge, and ore, and coal. Of course your mines will starve without farms, windmills and bakeries. You need a complete industrial and agricultural infrastructure to succeed.

The game put great emphasis on logistics: between each waypoint there is one of your settler transporting resources back and forth. If too many resources need to travel on the same road you create a bottleneck and you entire economy will slow down. Of course you can breed mules to help, but the key is to balance priorities, build alternative routes, and create new independent logistics hub closer to the frontline. Settlers has many parameters to play with and remains amazingly user friendly for such a complex game. It is fun to design a little animated empire of builders and workers, so that when everything is ready you can watch your small roman warriors crush the enemies.

Why would you want to play it?

1. The initial exploration of the game is really fun, with many things to discover.
2.  A short game is enough to have fun. With a 4 hours session you can be satisfied with your experience and go to something else. You do not have the feeling of investing too much energy for no direct result.
3. You can play at your own pace. There is no need to be good to enjoy the game. I am not saying that the campaign is easy, just that it is very well balance right from the start.
4.  Graphics are still cute for such an old game.
5.  While the start of the campaign is nice, the sandbox mod works well like in a Civilization game.  

Why you won’t play it for too long?

1.  The strategies to beat the higher difficulties are not worth the effort. It’s only a cheating IA after all.
2.  The campaign starts to be too long after the 3^rd mission. You can stop here and already have a very good feel of the game.

Never played it? some advice for a quick start.

1. Build barracks at each end of your territory. Once built soldiers will occupy it and expend your empire.
2. The first thing to develop at first is the building material industry: 3 lumberjackers, 1 planter and 1 mill (medium building) should take care of basic needs.
3.  Link every construction site with roads and workers and materials start flowing out of the base.
4. Once you have mountains, create a road on them, send a geologist, and see what he finds. Once you have coal you can start building other industries.

Have a good time with the oldies dear reader! In your opinion, what should I play next.

EuroExark