Head start / early days

[firefyte]

#10916

I remember playing this way back when, and wanted to go back to revisit it a bit… and it was exactly how I remembered it (playing original on dosbox today).

It has plenty of interesting elements, maybe strategies, but overall I always felt progress was very slow despite using speedup and I just felt bored in the long run, as I waited for things to progress. I felt the same then as I do now. I might be more tactical and able to think about stuff better (and/or save scum a bit), but I can’t pick this up for a short or even longer session due to pacing.

Attempted both the world and roman campaigns, and it felt more like progress on the roman side, but it sure does like to reset you and say ‘go again’ a few many times.

Maybe a later series title helps against the pacing, but as a ‘world builder’ I always felt civ 2 to be better for getting things done, even if even that took a long time sometimes.

[TheOmega]

#10923

Yeah, that is one of the issues with this game.
Also, at a certain point, you’ve build everything, mined everything and need to keep expanding to win the game. But then you get to a point you’re just repeating everything you’ve done before. Gameplay is rather repetitive.
Still fun, but those are two of it’s issues.

[fastwinstondoom]

#11033

Yeah, I’ve started playing now in november just so that I’ll have had time to get some chapters done before we “start for real” so that the repetetive nature doesn’t grind me down ^^

And speed up is kind of essential, V is your best friend 😀

[carbontwelve]

#11199

While I have my original jewel case version of the game *somewhere* in storage the Gold Edition was available on Gogs for £2.19 which has saved me hunting through boxes for my original version.

I haven’t played the game in over a decade and I really enjoyed watching the intro video to the game, although it played a little glitchy for me at points.

It’s just 320×200 in resolution but still looks pretty decent full screen upscaled on my 4K monitor.

Attachments:

1. 

   smackply_004_scaled_4x_pngcrushed.png
   

[TigerQuoll]

#11211

There’s things I like about this game. The graphics are pretty, it doesn’t take too long to learn, and it’s generally comfortable to play.
But I agree with the negative points people have brought up. It does get repetitive and mechanical about 1/2 to 2/3rds into a level.
Road building is frustrating too, when every building has an entrance in the same spot, and you have to try and snake your paths in counter-intuitive ways to join them up.
But it’s kind of interesting that you have to focus so much on supply chains and how different resources depend on others. I don’t think I’ve played another strategy game with this kind of focus.
I also appreciate that this game COULD have been way more micro-management heavy, but they managed to automate things in a very organic, natural feeling way. I sort of wish you could prioritise building order, but I guess that’s part of the challenge related to the supply chains.

Anyway, I only played the first mission of the demo. I might give mission 2 a shot at some point, but it kind of feels like I’ve seen most of what this game has to offer, so I don’t think I’ll be parting with my hard earned cash to get the full version (even if it is on sale on GOG at the moment).

[Eulisker]

#11212

I played so much of this game and part 1 back then. The fun in late game was always the street optimization for me. I build and build and get a completely unusable spiderweb of streets, everything gets bulldozed and rebuilt cleanly until the next time everything gets bad. So much fond memories.
I hope I have the time to play along a bit this month.

[Eulisker]

#11219

Ok i started playing today. First impressions: The game is still absolutely beautiful. I love watching the little guys do their thing.
I love the representation of everything in the Graphics themselves. If there is a bunny hopping around it means thats a good place to have a hunting cabin, if there is stones you can build a stone mason, trees means a lumberjack. I also love the little signs the geologist puts everywhere 🙂

The music is super repetitive. It helps to enable the CD Soundtrack and set it to random. But just the Soundblaster or MT32 music is always the same.
Also for some reason the scrolling should be inverted for me. I don’t really know why but i always scroll in the wrong direction.

[Eulisker]

#11224

I got to the 3rd world so far. I have a question for the Settlers cracks on here. Is there a way to get highly trained units out of the barracks and change them to simple soldiers? I made the mistake of allowing gold to be delivered to all the Barracks in my starting zone. Now i have a whole lot of Generals or whatever their rank is where i absolutely don’t need them. I need to set all barracks i build to not accept any gold in the future. As long as i don’t see any borders.

[Pix]

#11228

I’ve played a couple of the missions now. I’d go along with everything TigerQuoll said. It is incredibly slow paced and the game is in desperate need of a speed option like all the other RTS games at the time had. What really irks me about this is that this is already built into the game but you have to use the cheat option to be able to set the speed. How can speeding up the game possibly be a cheat? I could literally read a book or watch a movie while playing most of that second level. I gather that the 10th anniversary edition introduced a speed key so Blue Byte eventually came around to this idea at least. I’m wishing I’d started with that version now.

It’s technically nice with lots going on and has very pretty graphics anyway. I can see why people would like it but it’s probably not quite my scene. It does feel like more of a side distraction than something that demands your full attention in it’s original version. Maybe that’s the way everyone played it back in the 90’s?

[Eulisker]

#11230

You can increase the speed by pressing „v“.

[Pix]

#11231

They didn’t bother actually mentioning it in the manual if so. I was led to believe that feature was added in the remake. I’ll give it a go later anyway – maybe it was added at the last minute and is in the readme.

[Eulisker]

#11232

It is in the German manual of the gold edition I think. I’ll check when I am home.

[Pix]

#11233

It does work but isn’t mentioned in the readme either so is completely undocumented in the English version. Wonder how many people never found it?

I note that it only bumps it up one speed notch. If you cheat by typing WINTER or THUNDER (depending on version), then ALT 1 thru 6 allow you to pick from a range of speeds. I still fail to see why we couldn’t just have a speed slider in the options to keep this out of the cheat section. The V key certainly makes it more playable at any rate.

[Eulisker]

#11234

Nope. It is not in the german manual either. Or any Readme, patch notes in either language. I guess i found it somewhere on the internet.
It is an official feature though. Even has the nice little icon of the roman running after a clock.

[carbontwelve]

#11236

I thought I had remembered there existing a key for speeding up the game but couldn’t find it mentioned anywhere in game 😮

Might actually now be able to complete a level in a reasonable time haha!

[Wesbat]

#11237

First time playing Settlers II, I love it. It certainly has a unique approach to the strategy mechanics.

I agree the artwork is absolutely stunning, I often use the zoom-in key to watch my little fellows work!

I really loved the music, it reminds me so much of other strategy games of the time. Just wonderful. I only listened to the CD soundtrack (I can’t get MIDI to work on my system, I’ve tried!)

The game is easy enough to pick up, but takes some effort to master. By my tenth game (having to replay many a failed mission) I started getting the hang of things. By the 20th game it clicked that I can manipulate the military options to train all my soldiers in groups, making them stronger in combat.

I also discovered how to use storehouses strategically to keep reserve soldiers near conflict areas, where they fill empty posts much quicker.

This game offers so many possibilities for playing styles, it is well thought out and well executed.

The user interface gives me mixed feelings however. I appreciate the fact that you can place windows where you want, but it’s buggy. When a mission objective is reached and a briefing appears on screen, all your windows are unceremoniously closed. A fixed layout that isn’t buggy would be a better experience.

I’m only on mission VI, I will surely return to my missions over the course of the year. 8/10 ASCII stars ********

[fastwinstondoom]

#11282

This is more of a “late impression” but anyways: Glad I started in november, not that I dislike the game but it’s definitely not something I’m able to binge. I’m playing the gog Gold Edition which only has one level of “speed up gameplay” and the missions take a really long time. I find that I don’t mind that very much, I just pick it up whenever I feel like I need some relaxing gameplay.

There are absolutely some gripes to be had, several people have already mentioned the ships. Pretty groundbreaking mechanic for the time I think but also not fully cooked. The sliders for prioritizing which industry gets how much raw materials etc is also kind of broken, the one set highest gets 80% of everything, even if the remaining sliders are just slightly lower.

And then there is the catapult and the general combat “gameplay”. I see why the catapult is in the game since the combat is pure rng (if both sides have upgraded soldiers) but the later missions really feel cheesy when most of the fighting comes down to if you can shoot down enough enemy soldiers.

That being said, whenever I really sit down and play I become addicted to mining all the ore, minting as many gold coins as possible, building fortresses and generally having an impressive “kingdown”, regardless of if the mission calls for it. Pretty sure I’ll be playing this game throughout the year, with the world campaign and the free play mode.