Granite, and a blast to the past

I must have been 7 when I first played the Settlers 2. I didn't even play The Settlers 2, but the demo. In this demo there were some restrictions, but it was one of the best demos imaginable as the single possible map showed a lot of fun mechanics. Everyone remembers the red ships sailing by and wanting to make those yourself. Everyone cheated to level 4 to have fun with ships. And whether you liked spitting Vikings or masked Asians more, these you would play in the full game.

One other thing the demo showed however, was Granite Mines.

For the longest time I believed these things to be useless. Even my first "adult" playthroughs years later I didn't build a single one. Funny how bad habits can stick. The reason being that the Demo did not include catapults. Catapults require stone, and without catapults, stone loses a significant amount of value.

In the full game however, Catapults are an integral part of battle strategy. For some reason, catapult attacks to do not break alliances and do not declare war. As such it is possible to whittle down a strong enemy until you can roll them with your troops. This is often the case as the enemy tends to have lots of gold in the later missions while the player doesn't. The player does tend to have lots of stone on the other hand, including many locations for granite mining.

This means stone is no longer a building resource alone, but actually worth a dead enemy General. For not needing to go through the whole production process, it is actually a very efficient weapon too.

To go on a slight tangent that will underline many further articles: Winning in Settlers 2 is not so much about battling the enemy but rather battling the game mechanics. I have no idea why catapults maintain peace. The Cold War would not have been cold with the two powers exchanging rocket bombs. North Korea won't slowly annex South Korea by bombing all military personnel while maintaining the current sort-of peace. Catapults are, to me, a mechanic that breaks immersion, yet in this game you will battle the rules, not play a strict simulation.



Note: A full review of the Demo Mission will also be written eventually. It is pretty good.