In 1996, at a time when Realtime Strategy Games were more popular than ever, one game series decided to take a different approach to the genre and remove direct control over units and production. Like an actual Roman commander, in Blue Byte's Settlers II you don't tell each of your soldiers directly what to do, or what to produce. Rather, you give orders like "conquer that fortress", "attack those barracks", or "allocate more iron to the forge". And then your friend comes over with a second mouse so you can fight it out in split screen.

Join us as we discover what the word "Wuselfaktor" means and whether an indirectly controlled strategy game makes any sense at all.

Our hosts Martijn ("Tijn") and Florian ("rnlf") are joined by DGC members Wes ("Wesbat") and Benedikt ("Eulisker"), as well as Christopher ("Spike") from the "Return to the Roots" project.

[ download mp3 ] (160 mins, 184 MB)

Thanks to our producer Pix for helping to make the podcast happen, and thanks to DGC member Console for editing the audio.

Thanks to all who make this show possible, we couldn't do this without you!

* Return to the Roots is a faithful reimplementation of the game

* Our guest Christopher (Spike) made a video tutorial about training soldiers efficiently

* Settlers II review on GoodOldDays.net by DGC member Mr. Creosote

* The Settlers II.net is an online encyclopedia on "The Settlers II Gold Edition" and "Return to the Roots"

* A large collection of custom maps on Isch und Ivans Settler II page

* Siedler 2-MissionCD is an unofficial game extension by Jürgen Nagel

* Christoph Kamon's bachelor's thesis.

* Widelands is a free, open-source real-time strategy game inspired by Settlers II.

* Official Amiga-version of Settlers II released in 2025