I love Settlers 2 because it is so like Settlers 1. I love the way you rarely directly control your people but just the buildings they inhabit. I love the little animations that the carriers do whilst waiting - waving, blowing bubbles, reading a newspaper.

SPOILERS FOLLOW.

But boy can it be frustrating.

Level 4, the island level.

So it took me a long time to work out expeditions. And even now I can be trying to launch an expedition and watching my six cargo ships go back and forward without stopping to go on the mission.

Then your Sims just won't move cargo. I'll have a port stocked with iron ore AND coal, a nearby iron smelter, and no-one moves the coal and the iron to the target.

Most of all people won't move. I have two miners sat in my stronghold but neither will move to man the empty mine.

I instruct a geologist to prospect the mountain on the island. Nothing happens. So I do it again, and again, and again...

An hour of gameplay later eight geologists descent on the island. Why ? Why then ? There were three in my castle just twiddling their thumbs from the start with six ships travelling backwards and forwards between the various docks.

And it would have been nice to get an explicit message that I did have to attack the other residents of the islands. As opposed to the "accidents" caused by building a fortress right on what was up until that point their border. No possibility of getting access to the portal by bribing them a few gold ?

Anyway without direct attack I've pushed red and yellow back from the coast enough that my south landing beaches have been linked up with my northern stronghold which at least allows access to most of my buildings without using the ships.

But it must be more difficult to get the programme to delay than to act instantly. I don't understand why there is regular disruption to production when the warehouses are stocked with the required raw materials.

Any idea how much cargo the ships move at a time ?

Anyway soon the catapults will be built which I anticipate will increase my "Lebensraum".

S.x.

The seafaring AI in S2 is a bit sloppy. Back in the days the devs didn't get enough time to fix it until the deadline for expansion pack with a map editor, so they simply disabled harbors everywhere except in the campaign.

To get it to work you need to:

1. Only build one harbor per island / area.
2. Keep amount of ships low.

Despite these actions it may sometimes take a very long time for resources to move from A to B when going overseas, but at least they usually do if you "keep it simple".

Thanks for the response. Hopefully not too many similar problems during the rest of the campaign.

S.x.