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[Fierhorn]

I found an old copy of this game but for some reason it keeps wanting to install on my D: and E: drive witch are my CD drives. I can not no matter what I do get it to install on C:........anyone that can help please do so.

thanks

Michael

[Vanshilar]

This was one of my favorite games from way way back! I remember going through and beating the game on impossible as each of the different families.

One tip/cheat that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere is that the merchant option doesn't check for whether or not you have sufficient resources when you trade. So you can still trade away your timber for gold even if you have 0 gold.

Also, just about all abilities (except scout) will help to increase your adm/mil/dip ratings, but the fastest one is merchant. So you can also increase your ratings more quickly by trading away resources you don't have.

Another is that some tasks such as food, timber, and attack take twice as long to complete in winter (Oct to Feb I think) compared with their usual rate, so you should try to do them in summer instead; stick to iron and gold in the winter, for example.

Lastly, I've always just gone for a mass number of archers. Archers grouped into a bunch take out everything including knights, especially when you start them in the corner of where you're allowed to place them (so that the enemy comes at you only a few at a time rather than all at once).

Has anyone gone through and looked at how the plots worked? I know that there's one that gets you an additional rating point in each of the categories (the "Etienne the spy" one) but I don't know if there are other "good" plots out there.

Unfortunately, I can't help much with install issues -- on all the machines I've had, the game worked fine when I simply ran the castles2.exe file, I've never had to use the install.exe file (or maybe that was too long ago).

[Maxor127]

This was a fun game. I liked coming up with castle designs. And I liked the events that popped up.

[gumpy]

A fun castle building, and conquest game.

i don't know how you beat it on impossible. i get OWNED EVERY TIME I PLAY. ive beaten it on easy trying on hard. off topic but any of you guys played ufo enemy unknown

Dear Friends,

After seeing the posts about Castle's II I couldn't help but add in my own review and thoughts/reflections about one of the best games ever made. (yes I am bias)

First I want to start off by saying that my parents got this game for me when I was in like 3rd grade at a booksale in my Elementary school and I have played it off and on for almost 20 years. I've played lots of different games of various types but I keep on being drawn back to Castles II. It has a special place in my heart and for a few of my friends it has become sort of a cult classic.

What made me get so attached to this game was the fact that it is difficult to master. Even the easiest difficulty can be challenging at first.
The two other difficulties Hard and Impossible are both fun in their own way.
I beat the Impossible difficulty before the Hard because the Impossible is much more intense military wise while Hard is much easier to beat militaryi-wise unless you have some diplomatic strategy in my opinion.


After about 20 years of playing the game I have come to realize that there is A LOT more strategy to the game than people might first realize. The review mentions that combat is very simple. I have to disagree.

I do not want to give up the game secrets but everything can be honed in the game from resources/allocations to the combat.

The combat is very complex. Archers standing in trees for example shooting out at soldiers on the plains do much better offensively than archers in the open shooting into trees. Also the different terrains totally change the speeds at which the different units move. Because many battles take place on a field with different terrains, one would want to position their troops in a way that they have the best cover or maneuverability. The positioning and formation of soldiers can totally win or lose a battle. Again, I'm not going into too many specifics but the composition of soldiers that the enemy has vs your composition of soldiers- unit moral (happiness) and offense/defence - home field advantage, terrain...gods it gets so complicated. Number of archers... starting position. The fact that if you are defending you get to decide over what terrain the battle takes place.

Well I guess that is what lit a fire under my-

I hope you guys enjoy the game and I'd recommend it to anyone!

Good luck!

-Aren

[Borodin]

I have to agree with Aren. This is one of *the* prime game candidates for a modern do-over, in my opinion. It really had a very solid, complex strategy/RPG/sim engine underneath, and good combat rules.

[tristanzz]

This post is old, but I'm interested in hearing about some plots too.

Originally Posted by Vanshilar

Has anyone gone through and looked at how the plots worked? I know that there's one that gets you an additional rating point in each of the categories (the "Etienne the spy" one) but I don't know if there are other "good" plots out there.

I remember some from when I was plodding along building castles after conquering every territory.

The plot dealing with civil unrest and corruption can bring some points in. I think I remember that when you choose to fight corrupt judges, you gain an admin point and lose a political point (vice versa if you side with the nobility instead). Could be useful, since the admin points are harder to achieve than political points owing to merchant tasks.

Arinseult the philosopher brings in a point if you recruit him. I think it's admin.

If you drive away all the bees, you get happiness points. I think you need to "send for the bee charmer," or something. This could be great early on. Spending a couple gold to get happiness is far better than having to run the task.

I can't remember exactly what material rewards you get when you diffuse a situation between your troops and their girls, but in one of the possible endings you get laid


Is there a really bad plot? Mercurato and the search for the kingdom of Prester John. Don't bother. The thing lasts over a year and during that time you will be steadily sending out commodities and troops. Once everything's assembled, I believe there are three possible endings depending on where you choose to investigate. In one your whole expedition gets whiped out, in another, you get a rather dinky number of troops all your troubles, and the happy ending gives you something like 10 of each commodity and multiple military points. But it isn't worth it. You can put all the expenses to better, earlier use at home.

Originally Posted by tristanzz

Is there a really bad plot? Mercurato and the search for the kingdom of Prester John. Don't bother. The thing lasts over a year and during that time you will be steadily sending out commodities and troops. Once everything's assembled, I believe there are three possible endings depending on where you choose to investigate. In one your whole expedition gets whiped out, in another, you get a rather dinky number of troops all your troubles, and the happy ending gives you something like 10 of each commodity and multiple military points. But it isn't worth it. You can put all the expenses to better, earlier use at home.

It is really expensive and time consuming (the secret society plot takes the same amount of time but does a lot of good with little expense), but it is not bad at all if you know what you are doing. When you actually get to a rich kingdom in Africa (not Prester John's actually), you get the opportunity to trade with them.

There are several options of trading ("X food for Y gold", etc.), and here is where my inner munchkin kicked in. I figured this out almost 15 years ago, and I do have it written down somewhere, but I don't remember the details.

Following a certain combination of trades (I had found out the optimal one) you can get all commodities to 99. If anyone is interested and can't figure it out (it is a bit difficult to crunch the numbers) I'll try to find my notes or rebuild them.

hey all... does anyone have an up-to-date link with the game manual? Or is it only me who ends up dying because I get asked questions that reference it? (The "think you are an imposter..." etc. questions) Getting very annoyed, because I also can't figure out how to stop the credits from playing all the way through before I restart!