settlers 2

[lord of the mark]

Just bought this used, for $5(US). Wouldnt have gotten it now, as im still immersed in MoO2, but its a rare bargain bin find.

Your thoughts on this game?

[Alex]

/me waits for ADG to come along.

[laurentius]

Worse than S3 but great atmoshphere and nostalgia value. Does it run on XP?

[Skanky Burns]

Great game, runs on XP. Not that I've gotten sound to work. It takes a lot of patience though to play, especially training soldiers before invading the enemy. I tend to have a full castle to train my soldiers in. You can thereby train 6 privates into generals at the cost of only 1 gold coin each. Doing the same with a single soldier at a barracks costs 5 gold, with 2 soldiers training them both costs 6 gold.

[DrSpike]

Worse than S3?? What are you smoking. Settlers2 is a great game (albeit a little aged now) that should provide you $5 worth of entertainment easily.

LotM - sort out a good resource base first.

[General Ludd]

Yes, very good game. Best in the settlers series. (well, I never tried the original, but...)

[Skanky Burns]

S3 was a different game to S2. Both are worth playing as they are different games with vastly different strategies.

[Adagio]

Did you buy the gold version, or just vanilla S2?

Without the addon, the game runs fine in WinXP (though without sounds), but if you install the addon I couldn't get the mouse working (not everybody has this problem though)
About 6 months ago I wanted to play the game again, but couldn't get the game working, so I found some software (from MS) called Virtual PC. I then created a new drive (in the software) and installed Win98SE, so when I want to play S2 I simply have to (when in WinXP) start Virtual PC up, start Win98SE, then play the game, which uses about a gig just for me to play S2

Settlers II and III are two totally different games. S3 is a version of the game for those who want a fast game (lasting less than 90 min). In 99% of all maps you don't have to think twice about where to build what and when. S2 is more complex compared to S3 in most ways. A game of S2 often takes more than 5 hours, and if the map is very large, and you've got lots of enemies, then you'd probably also end up playing more than 10 hours
Some people don't like the road building part of S2, but I kinda like it, since IMHO it adds more possibilities for the player to screw up, if he doesn't know how to make a good road-network
War is in S2 very simplified, so if you were looking for another war-game, then S2 is not the game for you. This is not just another AoE clone

[Adagio]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Yes, very good game. Best in the settlers series. (well, I never tried the original, but...)

Yep, S2 is the best Settlers game ever. It mostly improved on the first settlers game (adding more stuff, while they almost didn't remove anything)

The only things from S1 I miss in S2 are:

Boats (not ships) in S2 can only travel a very short distance, while in S1 they could travel infinite. This travel distance is just too short to make the boat usefull
When playing against people who haven't played the game much, there was this funny thing you could do, if they made a certain mistake (which as a newbie often did). The mistake was to build a road next to the borders. If they did this I could connect my roads to their roads. Often I just made them (the other players settlers) build a few houses (like a woodcutter or such), before I disconnect from their road-network and connect to my roads. This gives me a free buildings and free workforce
Always fun to see their faces when they discovered what happened

[Adagio]

Oh, and just FYI, there's a group of Germans who's trying to make an unofficial addon to S2, where they're planning on making MP a reality, while they're also trying to make the game a bit more deep in other aspects of the game.
I haven't been around their forum, so I have no idea how much they've done for now, and how much they expect to be done (and when)

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Adagio
Did you buy the gold version, or just vanilla S2?

Without the addon, the game runs fine in WinXP (though without sounds), but if you install the addon I couldn't get the mouse working (not everybody has this problem though)
About 6 months ago I wanted to play the game again, but couldn't get the game working, so I found some software (from MS) called Virtual PC. I then created a new drive (in the software) and installed Win98SE, so when I want to play S2 I simply have to (when in WinXP) start Virtual PC up, start Win98SE, then play the game, which uses about a gig just for me to play S2

Settlers II and III are two totally different games. S3 is a version of the game for those who want a fast game (lasting less than 90 min). In 99% of all maps you don't have to think twice about where to build what and when. S2 is more complex compared to S3 in most ways. A game of S2 often takes more than 5 hours, and if the map is very large, and you've got lots of enemies, then you'd probably also end up playing more than 10 hours
Some people don't like the road building part of S2, but I kinda like it, since IMHO it adds more possibilities for the player to screw up, if he doesn't know how to make a good road-network
War is in S2 very simplified, so if you were looking for another war-game, then S2 is not the game for you. This is not just another AoE clone

1. Its the plain vanilla version, Im pretty sure.
2. Im NOT running XP, so that shouldnt be a problem.
3. I expected it to be different from AOE clones - somewhere closer to a citybuilder, IIUC?

[Adagio]

You're right, it's closer to being a citybuilder than AoE (and it's clones), so you're on the right track

If you like this game, you should try to find the Mission CD addon, it adds something nice to the game, like an map editor (and makes it possible to use maps you can find on the numerous S2 fan sites)

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
S3 was a different game to S2. Both are worth playing as they are different games with vastly different strategies.

If different means worse, then I agree.

[Skanky Burns]

I like them both for different reasons. S2 is vastly superior of course.

[DrSpike]

So you agree with me; stop being awkward.