Posted September 08, 2017
The Settlers 2: 10th Anniversary - Vikings
The original Settlers 2 was one of the first PC games I ever played, if not the first one (not counting stuff like the pinball game that was included in old windows versions), and to this day it is the only one of the series I have really played for an extended amount of time, after having been greatly disappointed by The Settlers 3 when it was originally released. Maybe one day I'll give it or one of the later games another try... however, I kept coming back to this one, first to the original more than ten years ago when I played through the campaign for the first time (when I had started playing it almost 20 years ago I didn't really know how everything worked and I mostly played without opponents, just building stuff the way I liked it), and finally to the remake only about a year ago (when it was already 10 years old itself). As the Vikings add-on is not available on GOG (probably due to it never having been released in English), I didn't get the game here but bought a retail version, fortunately one without any obtrusive DRM, that included the add-on.
I played through both the campaign of the base game, which was a remake of the original one with additional narration and a ridiculous story about missing women added to it (probably relating to the fact that there are no female settlers in the game - I wonder how they reproduce, as warehouses have an unlimited supply of new settlers), and while it was nostalgic fun to revisit these missions with a new look, every mission essentially was the same - build a town, defeat the enemy, reach the portal. Just as it was in the original.
Now, the add-on campaign, on the other hand, was a little different. Unlike in the original one, where you only played the Romans, you get to play each of the four tribes throughout its course. Granted, they all play exactly the same and only look different, but that's just the way it was in the original, and I don't mind that they didn't change that, it's one of these things that are just part of the game. The story is also better, although not exactly great, but it is enough to bind the missions together, even as you switch sides multiple times. But the missions themselves are where the game truly shines. You still have to defeat at least one enemy tribe and reach a certain point (instead of getting to a portal you have to destroy the enemy's headquarters), but along the way there is much more variation and challenge than in the original campaign missions. You have side quests and secondary objectives, get to fight alongside other tribes, have to deal with an ally becoming hostile and even do a little bit of "trading", although this basically means you have to produce a certain amount of a certain good for the plot to advance to the next stage. Some missions are scripted in that the opponents only do certain things (like progressing beyond a certain point) once you have done other things (like building a harbor on their island) first, and it is possible to exploit this once you know what will happen and when. It's by no means perfect, but within the limits of the game, it works pretty good. There are many more missions with seafaring than in the original campaign (and even that had a lot more of it in the remake than the original one, in fact that was one of the biggest disappointments of the original for me, to learn that ships were only available in very few campaign missions and not in the normal scenarios I used to play at the time), and while this means the opponent often has no way to reach your own headquarters and defeat you entirely, it can still be quite challenging to defend your outposts and get the goods you need there in time (and if the opponent manages to occupy all "harbor tiles" you have no way of getting back onto his island, so you've basically lost, even though you may still have a flourishing economy on your home island).
Anyway, it was great to experience this game again in a new way, both in terms of graphics and the new campaign. I guess for now I'm done with this game once again, but who knows when I will be back again. Maybe in another ten years.... ;)
The original Settlers 2 was one of the first PC games I ever played, if not the first one (not counting stuff like the pinball game that was included in old windows versions), and to this day it is the only one of the series I have really played for an extended amount of time, after having been greatly disappointed by The Settlers 3 when it was originally released. Maybe one day I'll give it or one of the later games another try... however, I kept coming back to this one, first to the original more than ten years ago when I played through the campaign for the first time (when I had started playing it almost 20 years ago I didn't really know how everything worked and I mostly played without opponents, just building stuff the way I liked it), and finally to the remake only about a year ago (when it was already 10 years old itself). As the Vikings add-on is not available on GOG (probably due to it never having been released in English), I didn't get the game here but bought a retail version, fortunately one without any obtrusive DRM, that included the add-on.
I played through both the campaign of the base game, which was a remake of the original one with additional narration and a ridiculous story about missing women added to it (probably relating to the fact that there are no female settlers in the game - I wonder how they reproduce, as warehouses have an unlimited supply of new settlers), and while it was nostalgic fun to revisit these missions with a new look, every mission essentially was the same - build a town, defeat the enemy, reach the portal. Just as it was in the original.
Now, the add-on campaign, on the other hand, was a little different. Unlike in the original one, where you only played the Romans, you get to play each of the four tribes throughout its course. Granted, they all play exactly the same and only look different, but that's just the way it was in the original, and I don't mind that they didn't change that, it's one of these things that are just part of the game. The story is also better, although not exactly great, but it is enough to bind the missions together, even as you switch sides multiple times. But the missions themselves are where the game truly shines. You still have to defeat at least one enemy tribe and reach a certain point (instead of getting to a portal you have to destroy the enemy's headquarters), but along the way there is much more variation and challenge than in the original campaign missions. You have side quests and secondary objectives, get to fight alongside other tribes, have to deal with an ally becoming hostile and even do a little bit of "trading", although this basically means you have to produce a certain amount of a certain good for the plot to advance to the next stage. Some missions are scripted in that the opponents only do certain things (like progressing beyond a certain point) once you have done other things (like building a harbor on their island) first, and it is possible to exploit this once you know what will happen and when. It's by no means perfect, but within the limits of the game, it works pretty good. There are many more missions with seafaring than in the original campaign (and even that had a lot more of it in the remake than the original one, in fact that was one of the biggest disappointments of the original for me, to learn that ships were only available in very few campaign missions and not in the normal scenarios I used to play at the time), and while this means the opponent often has no way to reach your own headquarters and defeat you entirely, it can still be quite challenging to defend your outposts and get the goods you need there in time (and if the opponent manages to occupy all "harbor tiles" you have no way of getting back onto his island, so you've basically lost, even though you may still have a flourishing economy on your home island).
Anyway, it was great to experience this game again in a new way, both in terms of graphics and the new campaign. I guess for now I'm done with this game once again, but who knows when I will be back again. Maybe in another ten years.... ;)
