The Settlers II (10th Anniversary)

Did You Know?

• The game received an aggregate score of 74% on GameRankings, based on five reviews.
• The German-language expansion Die Siedler II: Die nächste Generation - Wikinger was released in March 2007.
• In 2013, the original 10th Anniversary game was released on GOG.com.

Gameplay

The Settlers II (10th Anniversary) is a city-building game that also includes real-time strategy elements, and players control everything through a point-and-click interface. Its gameplay and mechanics stick very closely to those of the original Settlers II. On each map, the main objective is to create a settlement with a working economy, build up enough military units to take over enemy territories, and eventually control either the whole map or a specific part of it. To do this, players need to handle economic details, put up buildings, and gather resources.

The game offers two modes: single-player and multiplayer. In single-player, you can choose between campaign missions or individual non-campaign games, which are called Freeplay. The campaign mode involves completing a series of missions where the goal is to beat computer-controlled opponents by capturing the territory that holds the mission objective. The original version of the game had ten missions, and players could only control the Romans. The Wikinger expansion added a new campaign with twelve missions, letting players control the three original races—Romans, Nubians, and Chinese—along with the newly introduced Vikings.

In Freeplay and multiplayer modes, which can be played over a LAN or online, you pick a map and then adjust the game settings. You can set the number of players from two to six, choose the difficulty of computer-controlled races, pick which race you want to control, decide the victory conditions, adjust how many raw materials each player starts with, turn fog of war on or off, and choose whether each player begins at a fixed spot on the map or is placed randomly. The game comes with many pre-made maps for Freeplay and multiplayer, and it also includes a map editor. This editor lets players create their own maps and import maps from the original Settlers II.

Plot

Rome was hit by a string of bizarre catastrophes: all the women vanished overnight, livestock fell to disease, a drought struck, locusts swarmed, and a nearby volcano erupted. Desperate for answers, the people consulted a wandering seer. He described a vision of future peace and plenty, but warned it would come only after a long and difficult journey. Taking this as a sign to found a new home abroad, the Romans outfitted an expedition. A few days into their voyage, a storm wrecked their ships, leaving them stranded on an unknown island.

Months later, they found a portal carved with Coptic script. Not wanting to return to Rome empty-handed, they stepped through. They emerged in a hot, dry land and soon met Nubians. The Romans learned of another portal beyond the Nubian settlement and asked to use it, but were refused. Fighting broke out. The Romans defeated the Nubians, whose survivors fled through the portal, with the Romans in pursuit.

On the other side, they reached a Nubian town and discovered the Nubians had suffered the same loss: their women had also disappeared without explanation. The Nubians were at war with a much stronger Chinese force, which had cut them off from their Pharaoh, Tanotamun. Sympathizing, the Romans offered help. They fought through a Chinese blockade, broke the siege on Tanotamun’s castle, and reunited him with his people.

Passing through another portal, the Romans learned the Chinese women were missing too. They climbed a mountain to a portal and found themselves in a vast cavern. After defeating a Chinese settlement there, they were shocked to discover that the cavern’s portal led back to the island where they had first been marooned. Using supplies gathered along the way, they built a ship and sailed home to Rome. There, they found the women had returned, though no one could explain why. Reflecting on everything, the Romans concluded, “the path was the goal of our journey.”

Development

In March 2006, Ubisoft confirmed long-standing rumors in the German gaming press: a modern remake of The Settlers II would launch later that year. Business development director Ralf Wirsing explained that few games are suited for such a project, but the second Settlers title is definitely one of them. Developer Blue Byte, which had created all five previous Settlers games, chose this remake because it was the most common request from fans. Surveys in German magazines and on gaming websites also consistently ranked The Settlers II as the series' most popular entry.

A key early decision for Blue Byte was to keep the original's gameplay mostly unchanged. Wirsing noted that the game's self-contained style and indirect control—where the player manages the settlement rather than individual settlers—had not lost their appeal even a decade after the original release. The main alterations included giving each race visually distinct buildings (the original only differentiated soldiers), though all three races still play identically. The HUD was redesigned to work with larger, higher-resolution monitors than those from 1996. An online multiplayer mode was added. Demolishing a building now returns half its construction cost. The notification system was rebuilt and expanded, giving players more control over which alerts they see. A day/night cycle was also introduced.

Project manager and co-designer Thomas Häuser said the most important overall goal was to renovate the original rather than reinvent it. To maintain continuity, the team included several veterans from the 1996 title: Häuser served as lead designer and lead programmer, producer and co-designer Thomas Friedmann acted as a design consultant, and co-designer and art director Thorsten Kneisel was an assistant producer. Wirsing emphasized how closely the remake would mirror the original. Thomas Friedmann stated that the team kept the original game's strengths, specifically pointing to the reimplementation of the road network—a feature dropped from The Settlers III and all later series entries—and the emphasis on transport hubs.

Aufbruch der Kulturen

Die Siedler: Aufbruch der Kulturen came out in September 2008 as a German-language spiritual successor to Die nächste Generation, with Polish and Russian versions following in 2009 and 2010. Funatics Studio, a team made up of former Blue Byte employees, handled the development. The game runs on the same engine as its predecessor and plays very similarly, offering eleven missions where players take control of the Egyptians, Bavarians, and Scots. Before the launch, Ubisoft's international brand manager Ronald Kaulbach commented on the project. In a chat with Eurogamer.de, writer and co-designer Kathleen Kunze explained the decision to split the franchise into two paths: "That was the decision of the fans. There are those who say, 'We want to continue with the old Settlers concept'. They have great fun playing the original Settlers II. And then we have the people who always want innovation. The fanbase has, more or less, developed this way. Because of this, however, there was a lot of disunity in the community, so we decided to label things as 'Traditional' and 'Evolutionary'." Even though Aufbruch der Kulturen belongs to the Traditional strand, it introduces several new mechanics. The three factions are no longer just cosmetic reskins; each has its own economic model, unique buildings, and distinct soldiers. The Egyptian economy is straightforward, lacking the complex chain processes seen elsewhere, and can churn out large numbers of troops quickly, though those soldiers are relatively weak. The Scots, by contrast, have a more intricate economy with multiple production stages, and building an army takes longer, but their soldiers are much stronger. The Bavarians sit in the middle on both economy and recruitment speed. Magic also appears, letting each race call on their deity for economic or military help. Some production chains got expanded too: in The Settlers II and its 10th Anniversary edition, a baker just needed flour and water to make bread, but in Aufbruch der Kulturen, a Bavarian baker requires flour and salt, which has to be mined. Another addition is the sacrificial temple, where players can place a set amount of resources on an altar to earn a temporary bonus for their settlement, such as buildings shifting to areas enemies can't reach, soldiers getting an attack boost, or goods being produced faster.