THE SETTLERS 2 - Ch 9: The Grey Island

                       by Bev Truter

This is the penultimate chapter of the Roman Campaign in Settlers
2, and boy, is it difficult! But chapter 10 is harder yet - I've
given up on Ch 10 after four restarts; I know my limitations!

The grey island of the title in chapter 9 is aptly named, as the
world your settlers inhabit is a dark, colourless, dismal place of
volcanic ash and red lava pools. However, undeterred by the
depressing scenery, your little settlers manage to farm, mine,
battle, etc. just the same as always. In this game you'll have to
build up your men quickly, and head northeast-ish towards the
narrow gap in a huge mountain range before the Yellows burst
through. If you can manage to hold them off here for a few hours
while you mine for coal, iron and gold, you stand a chance of
overpowering them. But they are persistent little beggars, and will
repeatedly attack any military buildings you build near the gap, so
catapults are really a necessity to hold them back. I built two
fortresses, one close to the gap, and another south of that one, as
the sneaky Yellows also crept in around the other side of the
mountain, along the shore of the drab green lake to your south.

During this stalemate at the gap it was a case of losing buildings
to the Yellows, catapulting them back to their side of the gap,
building more watchtowers, and then seeing them overrun by the
Yellows yet again. Don't forget to keep a watchful eye on your
gold, steel and weapons production, and make sure you're running
at maximum efficiency by fiddling about with the distribution menu
of grain (to the brewer, mill and pig farms) coal (to the mint,
smelter and armoury) and steel (to the toolmaker/metalworks and
armourer). You'll need extra picks and lots of food for the
miners, and I built two smelters and two armouries to churn out
the swords and shields as quickly as possible.

After six and a half hours of see-sawing back and forth at the
mountain gap and getting nowhere I decided enough was enough, and
suicidally attacked a fortress, watchtower and guardhouse one
after the other on the Yellows' side of the gap; repeating the
attack on the fortress two or even three times when the first
attack failed. Astonishingly I finally took all three buildings in
quick succession with my very last handful of available men,
watched the Yellows' catapult and storehouse disappear in flames,
rushed for the SAVE button, then sat back and relaxed.

Forcing a way through the mountain gap was the hard part, but once
through the gap and into enemy territory the Yellows seemed to
collapse in a heap, and after another couple of hours you should be
way ahead of both Yellows and Reds on the military statistics.
Finding exactly where the Reds are is a bit tricky - they're hiding
away on a long, thin peninsula to the southeast of the island. If
you used loads of catapults you will probably run out of stone, so
I found it was best to destroy any of my own catapults that were
unlikely to be used again, before they filled up with their full
quota of four stones. If you find the Reds quickly enough, i.e.
after 8 or 9 hours, there should still be a barrier of unquarried
stone between you and them; but it might be better to take things
slowly, destroy your rearguard catapults, and not rely too heavily
on finding more stone in front of the Reds.

There was no granite to be found in the mountains, and only a fair
amount of gold. To squeeze as much gold as you can from the
mountains to the north of your headquarters, send a geologist to
the same area once the first lot of gold mines are exhausted and
destroyed, and repeat this a third time. A geologist will often
find more gold there, particularly if you first demolish all
mines, roads, and flags in the area that was exhausted.

I felt terribly sorry for the poor Reds. Stuck out on their barren
little peninsula without a tree in sight, they had soon run out of
wood and were never a threat. Once you are through the gap in the
mountains it's just a case of heading first east-ish, then
southeast through the Yellows, finding the Reds' peninsula, and
working your way through the Reds to the gateway, on the northern
tip of their peninsula. This chapter took me about 13 hours to
finish; not the longest chapter, but definitely the
toughest...excluding the dreaded chapter 10!

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