The Settlers® 2: Gold Edition

Settlers is from an era before such things as tutorials existed in any meaningful manner, so the game makes exactly zero attempt to explain new concepts as it's assumed that you've read the somewhat wordy printed manual. Bear in mind this was entirely normal for the time. Luckily the 1st mission is almost entirely sandbox in nature, and you can goof around almost with impunity. If you're used to the fast-paced action of modern games you're going to be disappointed. Think of this more like a macromanagement sim - you tell your dudes where you want various things, and how you want them linked up. Then it's just a matter of watching & waiting to see if everything works, or needs adjusting. Settlers is a very 'hands off' game. It has a ton of information buried in the vaguely opaque UI about stats, usage, resources etc. Most of it is not too interesting or useful, but there are also controls for prioritising various things. Being a very macro game, these controls take a while to have any effect as they filter through the system. The whole process of building a settlement and slowly balancing the various needs is quite enjoyable in a chill not needing too much effort kind of way. The missions don't offer much in the way of novelty after everything has been unlocked though, so if the macro gameplay isn't really your bag then the game might start to feel a bit stale after a while. Where the game stumbles a little is the 'combat'. It's handled a little like a fight in dubbed kung-fu film - everyone on both sides line up to take thier turns fighting 1-on-1, with the winner staying on, and the last man standing wins the battle for thier side. This process is very random, and it is possible for 1 guy to completely dunk the entire opposing team on his own. Which is v. frustrating if that's you. Also worth mentioning that on almost every map there is some time pressure in the form of resources that run out. Farms & trees are infinite. Everything else, not so much.

First of i must thank Gog,com for bringing us these lovely old timer games...this is a very slow peaceful game yet challanging to get the economy growing & clear out the many bottlenecks we expereince as our settlement grows...This old game comes Dos box ready U can straight away play it on windows 10 without any hasle....its not for anyone wanting to reach the end game within days....graphics still very apealing & cute..love the music too

Settlers 2 aka "Gold & Catapults" is the best settlers game. It has much better interface than Settlers 1. And it is the last installment of the game where you build roads to connect your farms, mills, woodcutters, sawmills, etc. to create wonderful logistics network.

Settlers 2 brings back so many happy memories, as it was the game which introduced my wife (then girlfriend) to PC gaming! When we get the time, we now play the open-source equivalent, Widelands, which is highly recommended.

I bought this game as my very first PC game, did not play this for probably 20 years when I found it here. Nostalgia is only a word, to weak to describe what I felt. It's repetitive in the long run but difficult enough to keep you interested. This version looks and feels like the original.