The Settlers II - Hints Original author Joe Grant Bell Taken from the Net Settlers II by Blue Byte can be a fascinating game, but also a frustrating game, largely because the control you exert over your settlers is so indirect. It's fascinating because you can watch your civilization grow and flourish, each little settler performing his tasks with little or no guidance from you. But it's frustrating when you'd like to affect the game more directly, marching settlers here and there instead of controlling them through subtler actions. This article will illustrate several techniques for improving your control over your civilization, both in economic and military terms. Starting Economies In the early stages of your civilization, all your buildings will be quite close together, so the only real concern is which structures to build. First build a woodcutter next to a suitable bunch of trees and a quarry next to a pile of rock outcrops. Build a forester right next to the woodcutter, to replenish the supply of trees, but 'turn off' the forester's production (with the red X) immediately after it has been built. If you don't do this, you'll find the center of your civilization so crammed with trees that you can't build any new structures. Only re-activate the forester when the tree supply is getting low. Also build a well, a sawmill right next to the woodcutter, and a fishery if water is convenient. The fishery will build up a decent supply of food for later mining operations. Hunters' lodges are generally not worth building, as the supply of game tends to run out faster than the supply of fish. Finally, you should build a farm if you can find a suitable area with lots of open space around it. This completes the first phase of your settlement. Expansion and Consolidation After these bare necessities have been established, it's time to acquire the remaining supplies you'll need for a successful civilization. You should also be expanding in this phase, at least until you run into your neighbors. Build barracks at the fringes of your settlements to expand your borders. Build guardhouses instead of barracks when you know you'll be approaching an enemy border. Watchtowers should only be built when dealing with a potentially deadly foe, and fortresses are generally not necessary, except in the grandest of wars. During this expansion you'll probably find some mountainous terrain; send geologists to determine what resources can be found there. You need to build gold, iron and coal mines during this stage if possible; granite mines generally aren't needed if you have granite bluffs for your quarries. Once the mines are established, you should add a mill and bakery next to your farm (but not so close that they impinge on the fields). These buildings will help produce bread, which greatly speeds your miners' efforts. Also build a brewery if you have discovered enemy nations, as a brewery is necessary if you're to create more soldiers. More on this later. As near to the mines as possible, build a mint and iron smelter. Then make a metalworks if you're low on tools, and an armory if you've discovered any other civilizations. The metalworks is not needed if you have sufficient tools; check the game manual's listing of buildings for which tools are required at which structures. If you do indeed make a metalworks, you should always use the Tools window to adjust which tools are most likely to be produced. Don't be shy - increase the sliding bars of the tools you want to the maximum and drop the others to nearly the minimum. Extra Structures You do not need to build a donkey breeder, pig farm or slaughterhouse. The pig farm/slaughterhouse combination adds more food to your mining efforts, while the donkeys speed up transportation - but you can ignore both in a pinch. Similarly, do not build naval buildings (shipyards and harbor buildings) or storehouses unless you really need to. Some scenarios require ships and storage, while others - especially the early ones - do not. You should always try to build two or more extra farms, however, as this will increase bread and beer supplies. If you intend to build a pig farm or donkey breeder, then extra farms are absolutely vital; the grain gets spread pretty thinly between the brewery, bakery, donkey breeder and pig farmer. An extra mill is needed if you have four or more farms. Warfare First, it's vital to understand how soldiers are made. Here's the equation: 1 Helper + 1 Sword + 1 Shield + 1 Beer = 1 Soldier Helpers are the little guys that run back and forth on roads. You'll almost always have a surplus of them in your headquarters, so they aren't a problem. The trick is getting an armory to churn out swords and shields, and a brewery to churn out beer. Get all these items together in your headquarters at once, and turn up the recruitment rate (the first sliding bar under the Military menu) and you'll have soldiers aplenty. Gold is critical if you want a good army. Soldiers become better if they have a good supply of gold flowing into their barracks. You can control the flow of gold coins to each military building by checking or unchecking the gold coin icon. It's generally sensible to turn off the flow of gold in the interior of your realm, as it's an area your enemies will hopefully never reach. To compensate for this lack of training, increase the second sliding bar under the Military menu, which allows your stronger soldiers to rush to the defense of any building that's come under attack. Waging war is essentially a matter of gold regulation. First you build a military structure next to your enemy's border, and allow gold to go there (i.e., don't turn off the gold coin button). This will attract any free soldiers that are sitting around in your headquarters. Note that "free soldiers" are any soldiers that are not already posted to a military building, and are not actively defending headquarters (remember, you can adjust how many soldiers defend headquarters with a menu reached by clicking on headquarters itself). If you reduce the number of soldiers defending headquarters, the surplus men will leave headquarters for any under-staffed military structures. Don't leave your headquarters undefended, though! If you have problems getting enough soldiers to man your border outposts, then be sure that you are producing enough beer, swords and shields to create new ones. Also make sure that your recruitment level under the Military menu is at maximum. Once your border outpost has enough soldiers, mount an attack on the enemy's nearest military building. Use your strongest soldiers if it's a big target, and use weaker ones if you've got soldiers to spare and you're attacking a small building. (You can adjust what type of soldiers will attack with a button on the attack menu itself.) Once your men have taken over the enemy outpost, it becomes yours. Since soldiers are generally scarce and you'll want to continue your expansion, immediately turn off the gold supply to the building you mounted your attack from, and let the gold supply continue to the building you've just taken over. This way, soldiers from headquarters will march directly into the newly conquered outpost instead of filling up the old one, which is now well behind the front lines, and hence doesn't need as many soldiers. This is the key to successful conquest: always cut off the gold supply to your interior military structures, thus directing soldiers to fill up the outposts on the edge of your realm. As your borders expand, keep turning off the gold supply to buildings that are no longer on the cutting edge of your attack. Ideally you'd have enough soldiers to fully man all of your buildings, not just the border outposts, but in reality you seldom have that luxury. Catapults are an excellent alternative to all-out attacks, especially when you don't have the manpower to overwhelm an enemy building. Catapult hits gradually reduce the number of soldiers who can occupy an enemy building, eventually destroying it if allowed to attack unchecked. However, catapults become useless once you've taken over or destroyed all enemy buildings within a short radius. Therefore, only build them next to large enemy structures like towers and fortresses that you can't handle by conventional means. This reduces the enemy's ability to attack your borders with large numbers of troops. Catapults also can be used when you'd like to take over a large enemy structure but cannot do it without reducing the manpower inside it first. Final Hints Don't be afraid to dig up roads that are not productive! Keep digging up and re-building roads to your best advantage as you create new buildings: it's free and instant, so there's no reason not to continually move them until you attain the most direct supply routes possible. One common complaint with Settlers II is the lack of speed: the game can drag in the middle to later stages as you wait for resources or soldiers to build up. Never fear! There's a poorly documented key that speeds up the game. Press V to enter double-speed mode, and the game will move along at a significantly faster clip. Press it again to return to normal speed. For those who really have a need for speed, type thunder during normal game play and an exclamation point will appear in the top right corner of the screen. Now press and hold the Alt key, and simultaneously press a number between 1 and 6. Depending on which number you choose, you can set the game at normal speed (1), double speed (2), or anything all the way up to six-speed (6). As an added benefit, pressing the F7 key while in Thunder mode will reveal the entire world map. Good luck! - o -