I don't remember the last time I got so much carried away playing a game that I stayed up to almost 2am without realising it. This game did it to me last night
It's interesting that most of the time I stayed up late playing it was a turn based game (famous 'one more turn' rule). But with Settlers 2 it was 'let's just explore one more area, let's just capture one more enemy outpost, well, now I need to destroy that catapult...' and so on. The only reason I stopped playing (and therefore realised what the time was) was because of a nasty bug
For some reason it happened that I wasn't able to move my mouse pointer all the way accross the screen, which made one third of the screen to the right hand side was inaccessable. I also wasn't able to scroll the screen in that direction which obviously made the game impossible to play. I loaded the old saved game now and everything seems to work fine, so I hope it was just a single accident rather than a rule.
Before I give my $0.02 about the game, I want to say that I never played any newer Settlers game before (my friend google told me they're up to part 7 now). I gaves first Settlers a go, but it didn't "click" for me. It took me a bit to figure out how to start the game for single player and then I had no idea what to do
I guess just another game when part 2 surpassed part 1 in everything, not just bringing cosmetical improvement (similar examples imo are HoM&M, Warlords, Civilization).
What I like about the game is the whole idea of the community where everyone has a role and everything has to work well in order for the community to thrive. It's very similar to another game I loved -
Cultures. I'm assuming that the authors of the latter have stolen a few things from The Settlers, but it still had some original ideas.
Another thing I like is that you can replay the same scenario and try a different approach - put your farms in different areas and your industry in some other again (only mines need to keep more the less same spots, of course). Progress with small barracks, claming just a bit of teritory at the time or buld fortresses straight away for big expansion. Clear a forest to get the land you need easily and then replant the other area where there is not enough space for big building anyway. Or keep the forests where they are and foccus your building elsewhere.
Of course, I found a few things about the game that desired some improvement. That AI again... My helpers tend to take wheat from one farm to the furtherest possible mill, and at the same time wheat from a farm close to that mill to the brewery next to the first farm mentioned. Also even if I close production in a building, they still keep bringing raw materials to it. And finally, speaking of raw materials, those priority adjustment do not work for me on default level. Unless I intervene, my donkey farms never get any wheat, while mills keep having a full stock. Similar situation is with coal - mints hog it, leaving my iron smelting and armory on 0%
But then when I adjust it, nothing works on 100% anymore, even with at least one coal mine (but usually more) per building.
Another sort of complaint is that after the initial set up and building a working community, the game turns into how fast you can expand to the enemy border and then how quickly you can conquer them. There's no need to build more infractructure in the newly conquered territories (except for roads). But it could be the case only with these first few scenarios - I'll wait and see if it changes later in the game.
And final complaint is about the music - it really starts to get annoying after only five minutes or so. Sound effects are ok (unless there are sheep on the screen), but I always turn off the music.
So, all added together, this game is for my 4 out of 5
