====================================== The Settlers II Gold Edition Copyright 1995-1997 Blue Byte Software English / US Version 1.51 CONTENTS 1. Memory Requirements 2. Smartdrive 3. Two-player Mode 4. Screen Display - VESA Driver 5. Autorun (WIN 95) 6. "Unlimited Play" Mode 7. Alliances Setting (Unlimited Play) 8. Storage of Merchandise 9. Protecting the Headquarters 10. The "C" and "S" Keys 11. Emergency Program 12. Changes since The Settlers II 13. Blue Byte News 14. Contacting Blue Byte 15. Brief walkthrough of "Chapter 1" 16. Map Editor 1. Memory Requirements The Settlers II Gold Edition requires around 7MB of free XMS memory. If you do not have enough XMS memory available, the program will first try to run in a memory-saving mode. This means that certain graphics will not be loaded. If this does not work either, you could try running the program without music. To do this, start with the NOSOUND.BAT batch file. 2. Smartdrive If you are using MS-DOS, we recommend you use the "SMARTDRV" program. This will reduce the loading time of the game. Please see your DOS instruction manual on how to use this program. 3. Two-player Mode A second mouse is needed to play this game in two-player mode. It should be noted that Player One (the player on the left of the screen) uses the mouse which is supported by the mouse driver. Typically, this mouse will be connected to either a PS/2 port, or COM1 or COM2. The second mouse must be connected to a free COM port. This must be either COM1 or COM2. Two-player mode is only possible in "Unlimited Play" mode (see below). 4. Screen Display - VESA driver Settlers II Gold Edition supports the VESA VBE standard for the support of SuperVGA graphics. Many SuperVGA graphics cards are directly compatible with VESA VBE. If you have problems with your graphics card, try the following procedures: If you have received a VESA VBE driver with your graphics card, install this and then try running the game. Many VESA VBE drivers can be installed directly from DOS. Follow the instructions in your graphics card manual. 5. Autorun (WIN 95) If you have problems in Windows 95 with the Autorun option, please go to the AUTORUN.TXT file. There you will find a list of possible fault sources. 6. "Unlimited Play" Mode In this mode you can choose from 30 different scenarios and determine your enemies as well as various other options. - Scenario Select a map. The size and maximum number of possible players are displayed. You can reduce the number of players by unchecking the box on the far left of each player. - Alliances Here you indicate which players are allied to each other. - Game objective When is a game won? This is determined here. - Merchandise in the storehouse Here you can set the initial value for raw materials and workers for the players. In the "Unlimited Play" mode the same starting conditions apply to all players. - Exploration If you set this switch to "Off", all players can see the entire playing area and all the enemy's buildings at the same time. "On" is the initial setting, which also applies when playing through the "Campaign". - Start position If you choose "according to sequence", the start positions of all players are the same each time the scenario is started. If you wish to play out large scenarios in "Unlimited Play" mode and do not have sufficient free memory, reduce the number of participating peoples by selecting members of only one race as opponents. Make sure you do not have "People vs People" selected in "Alliances" (see below). Some of the larger scenarios are accessible ONLY to users with more than 8MB of memory. 7. Alliances Setting (Unlimited Play) You can set who will be your ally or foe here. In "People vs. People" all peoples of the same culture are on the same side. "Human vs. Computer" means all computer players are against you. "Every man for himself" means that all players (computer or human) are opponents of each other. NOTE: As soon as a player attacks his allies, these become his enemy. At the same time, the allies of the people attacked become the attacker's enemies. From within the game, the alliances can be checked in the General Statistics window. The colors of the allies are shown as small rectangles in the players' portraits. 8. Storage of Merchandise In the Headquarters and Storehouses it is now possible to individually decide for merchandise and workers whether or not they may be stored in this particular storehouse. Players can also choose which goods are to be taken out of the Headquarters or Storehouse. 9. Protecting the Headquarters Players can choose how many soldiers will protect the headquarters. They will then only leave to defend the HQ. 10. The "C" and "S" Keys During the game, key "C" shows you the name of the building. With "S" you can also see how efficiently your buildings are being used. 11. Emergency Program If you receive the message "The emergency program has been activated" in the message window, your remaining stores of wood have been reserved for building a Woodcutter's hut and a Sawmill. You should then build these immediately. 12. Changes since The Settlers II Tip: Don't build more than one harbor on each island/continent, transport will be more efficient this way. If you experience any Registry problems in Windows 95 please contact technical support or follow the DOS instructions for installing and running the game. Please DO NOT try fixing your Registry Database in Windows without first calling technical support from either Blue Byte or your computer manufacturer. 13. Blue Byte News This CD also contains an edition of the latest Blue Byte News. Change to the NEWS directory and run the INSTALL.EXE program to access playable demos and great videos of upcoming Blue Byte Software programs. 14. Contacting Blue Byte For technical assistance and further information about any Blue Byte products, please contact us on our hotline 847-995-9981, between 8:30am and 5pm Central time. Or email us at hotline@bluebyte.com with the subject line "Technical support" or "Information Request". You will find further information on Blue Byte Software, our products and great tips for The Settlers II series on our Internet homepage: http://www.bluebyte.com 15. Brief walkthrough of "Chapter 1" There is a lot to do in "The Settlers II Gold Edition" so keep playing and you will keep finding new things to try. Once the chapter starts you will get a message window - this window will pop up from time to time to give you new information and tell you what to do next. The first thing you need to do is to build a Woodcutter, Quarry and a Sawmill. Press the space bar, you will see the screen fill up with golden flags and buildings. The flags represent places where you can build roads, and the buildings show where you can build each of the three sizes of buildings. The Woodcutter should be first. Click on one of the small golden huts, above and to the left of the HQ (tent). It is important to remember that a woodcutter will need trees nearby to cut down. The window that pops up is the action window, it allows you to do many things throughout the game. Right now it shows all the types of buildings you could build at this location. Move the mouse over the building that shows the Woodcutter on the bottom of the action window and click. A empty lot with a blue flag is now on the screen. Now you need to connect the blue flag in front of your HQ to the one in front of the soon-to-be Woodcutter. To do this click on the flag in front of the Woodcutter, the action window comes up again, this time with different options. Click the build road option and then on the flag in front of the HQ, you now have your first road. Builders and helpers will now come out of the HQ and start to build the Woodcutter's quarters for you. You can watch them moving building materials (wood and stone) to the new building site and begin construction. Now you need to build the Quarry. The Quarry is also a small sized building. Follow the same steps above but build the Quarry close to the outcrop of rock to the lower right of the HQ. After all, to create stone for building the Stonemason needs large amounts of granite to work with. Do not forget to connect your new building to you road network. Next is the Sawmill, where the carpenter works. The Sawmill is the first medium sized building you will need. You must click on the golden icon of a 'L' shaped building on the map and in the activity window. Build the Sawmill as described above. Do not forget to connect your new building to you road network. By now you should see a dove on the bottom left of the menu bar on the bottom of the screen. Now click on the dove to open the Post Office window. You will receive many messages here, from the attack of other peoples to where a Geologist finds new raw materials. To close most windows you can click the top left corner or right click anywhere inside the window. If you're not sure what a button does press the 'i' key and move the mouse over the button, it will give you a short description on the button. You can also click on the '?' in many windows to get a more complete explanation on what that window does. Now experiment. Try clicking on the HQ and to see what you can do there. You can see what raw materials you have left, how many people of each profession you have and how many soldiers are set to defend your HQ. You should not need to make adjustments to the HQ often, so be careful, you can unbalance your whole economy here. Click on the Sawmill to see what stock is waiting to be turned into boards for building. There are many other windows and functions in the game, you have a good start, pay attention to raw materials and supplies. Above all else ... 16. The Map Editor When you edit the position of your headquarters, you need to choose the "castle"- symbol. The distribution of your raw materials are shown as percentages in the test window. Be sure to have two times as much coal as iron and gold. The percentage shown for granite contains only the deposits in the mountains. If you choose a resolution higher than 640x480 but it does not work, then you may have only 8Meg of RAM or your graphics card does not support this mode. Try selecting a different mode or switching back to 640x480. When entering a map name and creator name please make sure to use the ENTER key when done. If you do not the information may not be saved correctly. Have fun! Copyright 1997 Blue Byte Software. All rights reserved. Manual, text, graphics and names are copyrighted. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, broadcasted, transferred or translated into any foreign language without written permission from Blue Byte Software. Rental of this product is prohibited. 'The Settlers II Gold Edition' is a trademark of Blue Byte Software. 'Microsoft', 'Windows' and 'MS-DOS' are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other product names used in this publication are registered trademarks of their respective companies.