Mission 4 : On the high seas

This is what you've been waiting for. This is the first map with ships. The map is fun, relatively easy and has plenty of ways to win with different strategies.

You start out with a viking close to your home base. If you assimilate him into your borders, you learn how to build a shipyard and haven. You'll need these because your main island has only coal. You'll need gold and iron if you want to win the game. Or not.

In fact, both enemies are allied. You can catapult them down, mow through them and into the gate. You could even build a haven next to red and go straight for the gate. It is within striking distance if you properly play your hand. This is a map you can enjoy several times.

The southern island has iron. The island directly south of the main island contains dinosaur bones. This will be a theme in the game telling you where the gold is to be found. Probably because gold comes from meteors and dinos were wiped out by meteors. Sounds entirely logical to me. This game sure has its own style.

I did it

I must have been about 7 years old when a friend first showed me the demo for Settlers 2. Last week I celebrated my 27th birthday. Yesterday I celebrated finishing Settlers 2 for the very first time.

Twenty years.

That's something to ponder.

In hindsight, the game wasn't particularly difficult, but I had to learn a few things here and there. Back when I started this blog, I lived in an apartment without internet. I quickly beat the first 6 missions but got stuck on the seventh. Soon after, a neighbor gave me his wifi pass and Guild Wars 2 released. That game occupied me for the majority of my gaming time for over a year, hence the delay on finishing this game.

To finish this game I had to learn two important things which I didn't know 20 years ago. Soldiers have to be upgraded in fortresses, catapults don't break peace.

To finish it today, I had to learn to sit back and sink a few hours into a game without being distracted by online games, videos and partners. This game is slow, the mechanics clunky. Moving your army around to optimize coin use can easily take 20 minutes.

I'm interested in speedrun times. Anything less than 10 hours for the full campaign would be very impressive.

Chapter 3 : The Pass

The name from the third map, The Pass, comes from a pass between two resource rich mountains. The terrain will force you north into gold deposits and then westwards through the titular pass. You'll stumble upon two enemies once you're through.

This map is easy and fast. I would even say it's unremarkable. Your enemies have almost no gold and will quickly run into productivity problems while you can expand at your leisure and train an extremely strong army.

After this map, the stakes will be raised considerably. Enjoy while you can.