I apologize for my lack of German, but I love settlers too much not to get involved. If someone could perhaps translate for me, I know google doesn't do a very good job of translating to German.

Okay, I have no idea if this is the right place to post, perhaps there needs to be an english section? I don't know, but I've got many ideas about this game. So, I will explain.

The first thing about me, is that I am not from Europe, so, like many people out there we learnt to play this game on the English versions. We also weren't able to get involved with much of the multiplayer functions of the game, because it wasn't an option for us. I am definitely rare, but I know that there has to be plenty of people out there.

Why is it that settlers 2 is so good? There are plenty of games that are more complicated, I think what makes Settlers 2 so good is the simplistic nature of it. Yes, I find the game simplistic. It always has been. Which is the reason why 3 and 4 and those new games have failed. Settlers 2 is like a race, it's a race to become stronger then your opponent. It's a race to pick your tactics, and apply them. Your timing becomes critical.

If you are playing settlers and you run out of planks of wood and clay, you have basically failed tactically, and you will not win from this point. What I find the best about this game is maximising every second you are playing. For most of us, we find it hard to maximise, most the time it's because our opposition isn't smart enough. The AI is no challenge at all to anyone who has played for more then a few minutes.

Multiplayer is the only way to solve this. I cannot believe that not that many people play this game, there is nothing better then this. I play this game on a daily basis, constantly playing the same map over and over, each time, I am trying to get the most out of it.

At the moment, my obsession lies with Settlers 2: TNG, vikings expansion. My favourite map is the 80 x 80 green mile with the gold in the centre. I will play this game over and over, and I have never been defeated at it. My partner plays against me, she's okay at playing it, but still, I need more of a challenge.

For many here, you probably will hate me saying this, but I actually like Settlers 2: TNG over the old settlers 2. It's not for the graphics, because I couldn't care less about them, and in fact, I find the interface in 2.5 a lot better. The reasons that I like TNG are as follows:

* The ability to move soldiers out of buildings, to me this is perfect, it means you can have a front line, and hold it, and all the buildings behind this line can be empty. I think this is very important for the game, I know that you can do this in 2.5 via using the sliders, but building evacution is a good tool to use.

Take for example, I attack my enemy, then evacuate the building which the troops came from, enabling more troops to come to the front line. As buildings aren't replenished when the attacking troops are in the field, so by hitting the evacuation button for a bit, you force more troops to come to the front. Big advantage.

* Building placement, the thing I love about TNG, is the way you can toss way more buildings next to each other, as terrain seems to effect building placement less. In TNG my method of building is to place a flag, then run a road to the south-east, then east, and place a flag there. Do this over the entire map and you have a tonne of 2nd tier buildings. A negative I find in 2.5 is the way building placement effects your ability to place other buildings near to you.

* Farms work better. In TNG, I block the dirt where I don't want the farmer to plant, I force him to use 4 blocks of dirt that are the closest to the flag. This increases production significantly, and also enables farms to be placed much closer together without stopping each others production. Imagine if you will a flag and a farm connected to it. From this farm, you run a road to the south-east 2 squares and flag it. From the original flag, you run a road to the north-east, east, north-east and flag it, and then from the original flag you run a road to the west, south-west, west and flag it.

From the two flags on the left and right of farm that are 3 away, you run a road 2 squares from each flag to the north-west and flag them. At these two flags now, you place farms. From these farms you run a road that goes between the two with a flag half way at the top of the original farm, and then a road north-west for 2 squares. The end result is a tonne of farms in a pattern which enables 14 farms to be placed in green mile all of them able to achieve the most productive 4 crop placements.

In 2.5 the farms do not work as well, when I tried this in 2.5, crops would appear in two places to the left, but not the right. Some issues with this maybe? Not sure why.

So, yeah, my suggestion is ease the rules on building placement a little bit, more like TNG.

Also, as a lasting point, I cannot stand that new game, the interface is terrible, you know the cultures game? I didn't like it one bit.

Thanks for your time.

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4 me the greatest advantage of settlers 2 against the crappy new one ist that u cant controll sth directly.

thats what makes the flair of s2 so graet^^

its like an aquarium, u cant controll every detail, but whit the right placement its easy to controll everything, evacuate buildings needs to destroy them!, and i dont think thats a good idea

on the other hand, if im ur enemy i will immediately attack empty buildings and conquer them without loosing troops...     so real great idea;)

sry but i hate s2 TNG its just graphical improvement and has lost the real flair of settlers2.

but anyway nice to have some not germans here welcome and hf and gl 4 some I-net games^^

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I'll explain the evacuate buildings a little better.

Take a stronghold, now me I adjust the attack and defence sliders such that in a stronghold I am left with two troops when I attack.

So, I'm attacking the enemy, and the stronghold is only replenished with new troops at the moment that the troop that used to be in the stronghold is killed or occupies the building of the enemy. So, to counter this, what you do is you tap the evacuate building button, move one of the two units out, and then turn evac off. What this does, is it enables the stronghold to be sent brand new troops from the nearest storehouse. Combine this with a storehouse right next to the stronghold with 30+ generals, and you have wave after wave if generals that can be sent within a minute of the first attack.

It's the ultimate tank rush. Now, the reason I like S2:TNG, is because it allows me to use my favourite tactic, which is use a couple of strongholds on the front line to upgrade my troops with gold. Place the storehouse nearby, and you are indestructable. The problem is, many players do not have the opportunity to develop good tactics, because we are only as good as the competition that we face, which of course creates the further problem that Settlers is incapable of innovating unless people face off in battle with real players.

If someone can recreate green mile for s2.5, then I challenge anyone here to the ultimate fight. See, this is the only map I ever play, because in my opinion it's the only map in s2:tng that is any good. See, big maps aren't for skill, they are too open, and there is no incentive to maximise yourself. The only way to develop skills and tactics is to shrink the map down, and apply set limits to all of your resources.

This is why Green mile is such a good map, because you get the resources you start with, and everything is highly limited. Though, I'll be honest, the only change I'd make is reducing the number of fish, there's way too many fish. If I chuck all 6 fisheries in one corner, I can defeat all 3 opponents before running out of fish, in fact, I can exhaust all of the coal on the map well and truly before I even get close to running out of fish in just one quarter of the coast.

Limits are what makes maps good. Limit space, limit resources. And for god sake, place the gold in a central position on the front line where everyone has to fight tooth and nail for position. If anyone out there is capable of defeating me on green mile, I'd love to play you. Maybe I should convert the map myself?

S2:TNG is not just new graphics, there are a few things that have advanced, but most players don't see them because they don't sit around for hours with no opponents with the speed on high, literally trying new stuff out to get the best results. Like the farms, if you can force the crops into 4 neatly placed spots close to the flag, then you can literally increase production by maybe 50% over random placement. You can plant 4 crops in the time it takes for the first to be finished.

I never played S2 the original to the point I do with TNG. But, I think relaxing building placement is a positive for TNG, and allowing evac is also a good tactic.

As for your point about empty buildings being taken easy, well, the empty buildings are always in area' where the enemy cannot reach. You use soldiers on the front line. I find TNG is better for limited resources, whereas, the original because you have less tactical control over how you use coins, you need to have a tonne of extra resources to compensate.

Anyways, perhaps make it an optional setting when starting a multiplayer game?

I have a tonne of innovative ideas. But, here's a question, have you ever wondered what the most efficient way to quickly expand is? Stop building anything else. Use barracks quickly to get a good position. And my favourite is the 2 pronged freeway. You have two flags which are placed one accross, and one down from the previous, and then you run two roads inbetween the two flags. Meaning that given donkeys, those two flags have 4 workers moving between them instead of the max of 2.

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i played s2 a long time and usig baracks to quick expand is basic skill^^
two roads between two flags is not everywhere usefull, in most times its wasted ground.

but ur right if u say that the gold adjustments in the original is real crappy, i said that myself several times and its one of the little things that need to be edit, the seafaring is the second and there are a lot of more of little things that need to be reviewd.

but still u wont change my mind about s2 TNG i played it like 2 houres and i dont liked it, and i dont see a need to play it anymore cause the original is ways better, and every change u can explain can be integrated in the new game that build here, i dont have anything to do with them, but i think they like to hear new ideas ;)

and overall i dont think playing only one map can be enjoyable 4 more than a day, so sry bout that^^

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Yeah, I'd love for some of the changes in S2:TNG to be intergrated into 2.5, I'd love to stop playing TNG. I'd happily switch.

As for the one map, I'd say the issue is the lack of small maps to play. There are different types of players, people who like big maps, people who like small maps. I personally think small maps are the way to go. But, S2 isn't known for it's small maps.

As for seafaring, in my opinion, I could care very less if Seafaring even existed. Every map that seafaring exists on is crap. There is a good reason that they never ever got seafaring to function properly, and that's because it's a complete waste of time. If you ask me, it should be removed from the game. The sea should be a boundary you just cannot cross. The same goes for water roads, off with them too!

As for gold, they designed the gold, so that the bigger the building, the less gold you needed to use to build up your army. But, if you ask me, it would be better if you designed the game so that troops were built up in the storehouses, and not the actual military buildings. The reason for this, is gold becomes too tedious to organise, especially if you aren't going to have an evac function. Evac is needed to keep upgrading troops.

Okay you have two storehouses, the one closest to the front line has the privates, but refuses generals, and the one furthest has the generals but not the privates. When the stronghold on the front line is full of generals, you evac the building and let it become full of privates instead so that you can keep building your army.

You can do this in S2.5 but it's a little bit more tedious. It can work, but it's a different tactic that requires a stronghold say positioned next to the furthest storehouse and troop production isolated to just that one building.

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