The Settlers II

About The Settlers II

The Settlers II (1996) is Blue Byte's city-building game with real-time strategy elements, in which shipwrecked Romans build supply chains and armies to find their way home through magical portals.

The Settlers II in Depth

On each map the goal is to build a settlement with a working economy that produces enough soldiers to conquer rival territory, until the player controls the whole map or a set part of it. That means economic micromanagement: placing buildings, generating resources and keeping supply and demand in balance, all through a point-and-click interface with windows modelled on Windows 95. In the campaign, Roman sailors led by Captain Octavius are shipwrecked on an uncharted island and use a series of magical portals to try to return to the Empire, clashing with Nubians, Vikings and Japanese along the way across ten missions. In Free Game mode, players set their own rules and play with or against other people and the computer.

The core supply-and-demand play is broadly the same as in the first game, but much else changed. The graphics and sound were enhanced, with more movement on screen and more animations for the settlers themselves, and the four races look distinct. The economic system is more complex, and combat is more strategic, letting players use scouts and stationary offensive weapons, although soldiers still cannot be controlled directly in battle. The Mission CD added a nine-mission campaign in which Octavius's great-grandson sets out to conquer the world, along with new maps and a map editor.

Making The Settlers II

Blue Byte always intended a sequel if the first game succeeded, and with The Settlers passing 215,000 sales by June 1996 a team of twelve began work immediately, seeking fan feedback and fixing aspects of the original they had been unhappy with. Thomas Häuser, who had compiled a list of problems while testing the first game, became project manager. Released in Germany in April 1996 and in Britain and North America that August, it earned 84 per cent on GameRankings. PC Games called it "world-class" and PC Gamer praised an economy "so sound that everything you do makes perfect sense", while common complaints were the lack of direct combat control and online multiplayer. It sold over 600,000 copies, far more than the original, and was remade for its tenth anniversary in 2006.