The Settlers® 2: Gold Edition

There are two ways to play this game. You can play it properly and advance through the game, battling enemy nations as you go, in your ongoing conquest to... well, I dunno, I never got that far. Because I played it the other way: I just built stuff and watched the Settlers mill about for the first few stages. It's like a precursor to The Sims, except if you actually progress, there's battles and sieges instead of tickle fights. This game is considered by far and wide to be the definitive entry in the franchise. There was even a 10th Anniversary remake made not altogether long ago, which sadly saw a very limited release. (It's pretty awesome too.) Having tried the others briefly, this is the one I keep coming back to -- despite my insistence on doing nothing but building. For speed demon strategy gamers this game may be a bit disconcerting; no matter how well you know the terrain and how quickly you're able to dispatch orders, your Settlers can only do their tasks so fast. They have a very casual attitude towards everything. But if you enjoy watching little sprites run around -- in a beautifully animated little world -- cutting trees and prospecting for gold as you lay out your plans for conquest, you'll find yourself right at home.

This was my first real and good game and I count it to my favourites until today. Before that I had only one lame racing game that I played just because there was nothing else. But after I got The Settlers 2 (Die Siedler 2) it was like discovering a whole new world of games. I even still keep the box and have it on my shelf. This is so long back but I'm sure i spent a whole lot of my childhood playing this game and I think since I can now run it on vista I will play it again the following weeks.

This game is over 10 years old and it's still impressing me. The first time I've played The Settlers 2 was on a demo that came in a CD from a magazine in 1996. With outstanding handmade graphics (that still looks beautiful on the age of the near-perfection 3d), simple mouse-only gameplay and hours of puzzling challenges on a totally immersive universe. The Settlers 2 is definitively a must-have for all strategy games lovers.

Often my friends and I will lament the modern Settlers games which have strayed very far indeed from the original "classics". Such reflection will often result in us going back to The Settlers II, the game which we and the vast majority of fans consider to be the height of the series. It isn't long before a sad realisation hits us... The Settlers was never that good. In The Settlers II you must develop an empire and doing this requires that you harvest natural resources such as stone, wood and gold and make sure that every trade within your borders has the resources it needs to function. The emphasis in The Settlers II is on the efficiency of your roads and therefore your transport system. Goods not getting to their destination in a timely fashion can result in a disasterous chain reaction throughout your realm. For example, if your pig farmer doesn't get grain to feed the pigs with then he can't take them to the slaughterhouse, that means no meat for your miners, gold or otherwise and if there's no gold then the mints can't make coins and you can't promote your soldiers meaning you'll likely be outclassed by the AI. Your basic settlement will consist of a woodcutters, sawmill, forester, stonecutter and of course a storehouse or townhall to house the goods. When the time is right you then expand with an iron smelter, metalworks and armoury. The trouble is that if you've done this once you've done it a million times and if you intend to conquer the largest maps the game has to offer that's exactly what you'll be doing. I still maintain that anyone who finishes the continental maps contained within the Mission Pack must have a superhuman tolerance for boredom. You see a great deal of your time playing The Settlers II will be spent waiting. Waiting for goods to arrive at their destination or waiting for something to be built. This is why if there is a particularly long talk or radio show I want to listen to I will often play The Settlers II while doing so. It's kind of like the gaming equivalent of absent-mindedly clicking on random web pages except in The Settlers II you will eventually get something done. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that slow games are bad. In fact I'd say that most of my favourite games were "slow games". However those games are also tense and exciting, The Settlers II rarely is. The climax of any map is when you encounter an enemy nation and your little soldiers are battling it out to decide the fate of that lovely little farming community you spent the last half an hour developing. When I was a kid The Settlers II was one of my favourite games. I think it was because it was fairly complicated to me at the time and was like some mystery I had to figure out. Now though, I have to face the truth, it just isn't that great. Yeah it's cute in a way that the modern Settlers games aren't but so what? Just because your guys occasionally skip and blow bubble gum doesn't mean the game is good. I think the best thing about The Settlers II is the music. Track number nine, The Dead Field of Battle, specifically. I don't know who is responcible for it but that is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard in any game ever. Check it out on YouTube or something. Perhaps this review sounds overly negative. The Settlers II isn't a bad game, it's actually a good game, just not THAT good. It's certainly the highlight in a series which overall is pretty mediocre.