settlers 2

[Skanky Burns]

Its easy to figure out where the flag for new buildings will be then, and your road system should have been designed with the hooking up of this new building in mind. Creates efficient and stylish road nets.

Learn how to build roads before you complain about them.

[DrSpike]

Yeah, gamers today, no patience.

[lord of the mark]

yah, well it would be easier to learn things if there wasnt this bug where every so often the game crashes if i click on the pigeon who notifies you of messages. Once its done that, the bug wont go away till ive restarted the computer. Then it goes away for awhile, but is liable to turn up again.

Building roads - im not yet to the point where I know in advance where Im going to put my buildings. Yeah, I could pause, and plan out where every building should go using pencil and paper - THAT sounds like fun I mean it almost makes planning out the perfect block system in Caesar3 sound joyful, by comparison. At least there I can build seminormal looking roads.

I mean ive already got to plan out which of the building sites im offered will disappear when i build something.

Lacking a manual, and seeing no analytical tables about the game anywhere online, im trying to get an intuitive feel for resource conversion ratios, optimal building ratios, and the like. While actually trying to, like, play a game.

[Skanky Burns]

The level of planning I use is: A main road will go here with a barracks at the (current) border. This section I will use for cutting wood, down here some farms...

Speaking of ratios, I use 2 woodcutters per tree-planting guy. Two or three lumbermills will do me for the whole game unless I find lots of wood building up in my hq without being cut, then I build a fourth. I normally build two sets of baker/mills (one of each) and one donkey farm, pig farm and slaughterhouse. Then I clear land with spare woodcutters and build lots and lots of farms.

I have my hq and all storehouses never accepting water or wheat in them, so all wheat and water stays stockpiled outside of the producing buildings. I can then see at a glance if I need more of these buildings. Needless to say, all these buildings are built at dead-ends on my road network: to do otherwise would block traffic with all the excess goods they have produced that aren't yet needed.

Another good hint: Build your roads by hand. Don't click on the new building and then click on a flag on the existing road network and expect the computer to design an efficient connection between the two of them. Also, use 2-bit roads always. You will (hopefully) soon learn tricks you can use to make sure all roads are 2-bits in length.

[lord of the mark]

So what do you build near HQ? anything? im getting the sense that is where things get congested, but spreading out the entire settlement, even buildings like mints and metalworks and armories, is stretching willing suspension of disbelief for me.

I guess i expected something with at least the illusion of being a sim, like the Impressions citybuilders - this is rather a more abstract strat game, in citybuilder dress.

[DrSpike]

Settlers is in a way unique. There are many similar games in various directions, but none that have that Settlers feel.

Even if you end up not really liking it it's still a key part of your gaming education.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Settlers is in a way unique. There are many similar games in various directions, but none that have that Settlers feel.

Even if you end up not really liking it it's still a key part of your gaming education.

Oh, im not saying i dont enjoy it, in a "unique" way.

[DrSpike]

Stop whinging then.

[lord of the mark]

Actually skanky's posts have helped somewhat.

and of course education is advanced by challenging the teacher, no?

and of course that I finally found gold in chapter 3 helps too

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Edit(all good advice though! ).......

Also, use 2-bit roads always. You will (hopefully) soon learn tricks you can use to make sure all roads are 2-bits in length.

what do you mean by 2-bit? like with no juctions, just a begining and an end, or maybe its a measurement of pixels?
The way i try to do it is with as few crossing points as possible. So for example my food producing buildings i try to put in one long road(with the obvious sections where the building flag joins it). And i try to keep them in the order that the product will get processed.

So say with a wheat farm - i try to put that at the end of the road, the furthest out from my HQ. then coming towards the HQ i would build in this order:

Wheat Farm/Mill/baker

now as Pigs in the Pig farm need Wheat i would also considering placeing that near to the wheat farm/mill intersection, so some of the wheat gets quickly to the pigs.
Then on a seperate road from the pig farm, again leading back to the HQ, id put:

Pig Farm/Butcher

and so on.

I try to end up with as geometric 'spider web' type road network as i can.
Mostly just long lines of roads heading back to the HQ with the odd cross over road where a certain good might be needed in another chain.

But best of all i just like sitting back and watching + listening to the wind effects and little sound efects of the different industries as your little folk go about their buisness. Its a very charming game

by the way LotM, if a slightly more realistic city-sim type thing is what your after, then if you havent yet i'd say go check out the Patrician games http://www.ascaron.com/gb/gb_patrici...ameset_ie.html

But i'm sure once you've got used to the settlers uniqueness - it will always hold a soft spot in your gaming hart.

[Skanky Burns]

By two-bit roads: When building roads manually, you have 6 directions out from the flag you can place a new road bit. From that bit, you can move the road out another 5 different directions. After this distance has been roaded, you can plant another flag*. This will lead to an efficient road network. 3 two-bit roads in a row will move goods much faster than 2 three-bit roads or even 1 six-bit road.

As the mill and the pig farm can hold 6 grains while still working on their next load of goods, I don't mind placing farms wherever they fit rather than close to the mills/pig farms. The goods get to the building and have some spare room regardless of where the wheat comes from with enough wheat production. Same with water. If I have sound on though, I put all my water wells in some out-of-the-way part of the map so I don't accidently move over the wells and hear their evil noise.

Yes, their noise is that bad.

Most of my production buildings - like the food production and the assorted metal production buildings can fit fairly close to my HQ. A donkey farm or two go wherever there is a large building space that isn't good for farming.

* Assuming you didn't bring the road back to one bit away from the original flag. Or any other flag, for that matter.

Regarding the bottle-neck that is the HQ entrance, attached below is my usual setup. The flags to either side of the HQ usually house a lumbermill as a growing empire will constantly need more wood. The dual road entrances on both sides of the HQ offsets the fact that each road from the HQ is effectively three-bits long due to workers actually entering the HQ to put stock in it. The same road structure works well for storehouses and harbours.

[child of Thor]

excellent post i'll go give your method of road building a go, sounds very efficient

Originally posted by Skanky Burns edit.......

Same with water. If I have sound on though, I put all my water wells in some out-of-the-way part of the map so I don't accidently move over the wells and hear their evil noise.

Yes, their noise is that bad.

edit........

at this thing about the wells........its puzzling me a bit, your not the only person who's mentioned it either, but i can't think of a specific time where i might have heard an 'evil' sound in the game. Something else i can check out
I'm guessing it must be a sound like finger nails on a chalk-board? i mean its difficult to imagine an evil sounding well, its just a pulley with a bucket and some water??? I find the butcher has a kind of evil sound - that chopping block sure makes short work of my cute pigs

[Gamecube64]

I was gonna get Imperialism, but I decided to get this instead. Unfortunatly my old computer can't give it sound because the sound card my computer came with got fried somehow. The only new thing on my computer is the soundcoard, and that is exactly what makes old game's sound not work. 100% Creative Soundblaster Pro compatible doesn't cover Creative Soundblaster Audigy Gamer apparently.
Oh well...

[lord of the mark]

I think ive got the two bit roads thingie. Ive just tried building the roads manually, and keeping the flags as close together as possible. Makes the roads somewhat more efficient than before, Still not exactly a Caesar3 block though - ive still got to deal with scarce larger sites, mountains, borders, etc.

Do you try to keep an iron smelter closer to the mines? Ive done that in ch. 3, to try keep traffic on the road to the mountain manageable. Still having trouble keeping the prod buildings arranged as SB suggests. Of course i was well into this chapter when we started this discussion, so maybe it will help more in Ch. 4.

[Skanky Burns]

My iron smelter is generally close to the first set of iron mines that I build. Of course, by the time the game has finished it is no-where near my latest set of mines. If only minerals didn't run out.