Settlers 2 10th Anniversary Strategy Guide: Gameplay Tips and Tactics

There is the strategy guide with tips for better gameplay or game Settlers II - 10th Anniversary. Settlers 2 - 10th anniversary was based on game mechanics of the older game Settlers II.

Content of this guide

• Major changes compared to old Settlers II
• Military Tactics
• Start of the Game and Economy
• Special Tips
• Cheats for Settlers II

Major changes compared to old Settlers II

The mayor game mechanics changes in 10-th anniversary are:

• Evacuate Military Buildings - You can Evacuate the buildings, so no soldier remains inside
• Upgrade size of Military Buildings - Now you can upgrade building from Barracks -> Guardtower -> Watchtower -> Castle (Fortress)
• Military buildings start with No Coins use - With Wikings Expansion pack - So you dont need to turn off coin supply for buildings manually
• Catapults are less effective than in Original Settlers - You need around three stones to kill one soldier in enemy military building
• Lighthouses and Ships are more used in many campaigns

Wikings Addon - I recommend to install this addon, not only to get new Wikings missions, but also you will have automatically turn off Coin Usage in military buildings even in base Rome Campaign

Military Tactics

In old Settlers II the many your soldiers get stuck in many military buildings out of the frontier just because the military building needs to be occupied at least with one soldier. The general trapped somewhere far from frontier was a big loss in original Settlers II. Even. Even the whole amount of soldiers was often not enough to full all buildings in territory. In that case the player need to choose, what way to expand, and what type of buildings to do.

In 10th Anniversary version is the evacuation of soldiers from military buildings, that created the hugest change in gameplay. Now your soldiers can left the non-critical military buildings, but military buildings still maintain their claimed land. Your soldiers can travel and be present only in frontiers of your empire

Soldier Tips

• You usually start campaign with 50 basic soldiers
• Evacuate any military building far from enemy
• Put your military sliders for distance all to 100% (Near enemy, Middle distance, Far from enemy)
• Focus your soldiers just in military buildings near enemy, or in storehouses
• Promote the most of the 50 starting soldiers to Generals

Mints & Promoting Soldiers

• You start with 50 basic soldiers. If you upgrade them to 50 generals, you easily win almost all Rome Campaigns without need of recruiting new soldiers
• Focus your industry on finding area with gold
• Start upgrading your soldiers even when you are still far from enemy
• Then build 2 gold mines, 2 mints, 2 coal mines, and one Castle near Mints
• Build fishermen to ensure producing of the food from the beginning
• Man the Castle with 9 soldiers, and put coins on just to this Castle
• Build two storehouses (or HQ and one storehouse). Click on Unload Generals in storehouse near Castle, and Click on Unload All other soldiers in more distant Storehouse
• When are 9 generals in Castle, evacuate the Castle. Then cancel the evacuation and man castle again
• The generals should travel to distant storehouse, so the castle will be manned with basic soldiers in nearest storehouse
• Upgrade to 9 generals in Castle again, and repeat the process
• Continue until you get promoted 50 generals. This force is enough to with almost all Rome campaigns

Soldiers allocation goal

• Keep all your basic soldiers in storehouse near Promoting Castle
• Keep all generals near frontline storehouses just with Unload all option for all other storehouses
• Warning of Bug: If you have Lighthouses, unloading some type of soldiers make the game buggy and the military buildings in distant lands may not be manned. So use just partial unloading strategy

Other notes to Gold Minting

• In some Viking campaigns you get only 2 mint pans from beginning, so build just one mint, and reserve your second pan for casting iron
• Or when you build workshop for producing tools, you should have 15 iron in beginning, so produce the new pan as priority

Catapults & Stones

• In original settlers II the catapults were great, because you can kill one soldier with every stone thrown
• In 10th anniversary edition you usually need 3 stones to kill one soldiers. It is too much
• So often you dont have enough stones to supply catapults
• When you throw away all your stone and you have no stonemasons or stone mines left, you could not build any middle or large sized buildings. That sucks
• If you mine all stones on ground, build stone mines. They need just planks, so you can build them even without stones to ease your stone situation
• So always keep in mind your stone levels and build catapults only in right places, mostly to kill generals and other high promoted enemy soldiers
• Catapults may have at max 4 stones stored inside
• Always try to capture enemy military buildings near catapults, so enemy catapults will be destroyed too
• If you capture enemy military building in enemy range of catapults, try to evacuate your captured military building. Your captured building may sustain the catapult stone thrown
• Alternatively after enemy building capture, you can even attack next enemy military building, and then evacuate the former building to preserve your soldiers against catapult thrown
• Remember: After destroying your catapult building, if you keep your flag near catapult building, you get some stones back

Building military buildings

• There are 4 military buildings
• Barracks (2 soldiers, needs 2 planks)
• Guardhouse (3 soldiers, needs 2 planks & 3 stones)
• Watchtower (6 soldiers, needs 3 planks & 4 stones)
• Castle / Fortress (9 soldiers, needs 4 planks & 7 stones)
• Always build one castle for soldiers promotion
• Use barracks for quick expansion
• Use Watchtowers (6 soldiers) and upgrading to watchtowers near borders for attacking
• Castle / Fortress have to long build time. Usually enemy build barracks quicker, and you do not complete the castle
• If you like and have place, upgrade Watchtowers (6 soldiers) into Castles (9 soldiers)

Attacking the enemy

• When enemy is near, you should have big stack of generals already, because you promote them in peace near your promoting Castle in gold location
• Attack the enemy with overwhelming force. Try to attack at least with 9 generals. Try to avoid killing of your generals. Try to avoid unsuccessful attacks
• Fighting game principle is, that your soldiers attacks always fight in priority order with enemy soldier, who do not take fight in this battle
• Your general has 7 hitpoints, and basic soldiers just 3 hitpoints. So while attacking with overwhelming number, most of your generals dont die, and after fight have from 1 to 4 hitpoints left
• Regenerate the hitpoints of your general in military buildings after fight (slower), or evacuate the building and let soldiers regenerate in Storehouse
• So keep your generals alive. Your generals should die only when they encounter enemy general
• If enemy could not have enough soldiers, he could not attack back. So after generals regeneration, you can eliminate the enemy quickly
• When you get to the middle of enemy former territory, and he has just 1 soldier or no soldier in military building, you won.

Start of the game and Economy

Starting of campaign

• WOOD INDUSTRY IS PRIORITY
• Focus on building the Wood Industry
• Build 3 sawmills from beginning
• Build 2 or 3 barracks to quickly expand to desired way
• Build some woodcutters, but dont rush. You have some trees for sawmills even in HQ in game beginning
• Keep in mind, that area around HQ is usually ideal for concentrating industry buildings. So try to cut all the trees around HQ
• Plan the place, where you will build your industry forests, where Woodcutters and Forester huts will be
• Combination 2 forester huts and 5 woodcutters is ideal
• Mime all stone deposits on the ground
• Keep your Planks and Stones production as abundant, as possible

Second Stage

• GOLD MINT IS PRIORITY
• You should have secured wood production with 3 sawmills and industry forest with foresters and woodcutters
• Expand quickly by barracks, and evacuate them after manning. Use barracks just because you need just 2 planks for one barracks
• Focus on finding Gold, and building your Gold industry (Gold mine, Coal Mine, Mint, Castle, Storehouse)
• Use fishermen until you have tools for them (You need just 2 planks for fisherman hut, and in HQ have tools usually for 9 fishermen)
• Build Shipyard near sea, and change production to ships immediately. Ship takes long time to build, so ensure, that when your Lighthouse is complete, you have at least 1 ship ready for expedition
• When you expand further, build storehouses and new sawmill nearby. That helps you to expand quicker with extra wood for barracks
• You start with usually 15 iron. So use it wisely. Build workshop and build the tools you need.  Mostly Saws for Sawmills. Then stop the workshop production

Lighthouse building and expeditions

• If you find place for lighthouse, built it (Lighthouse place is gray area with size around 9 tiles
• Try to store wood and stones near lighthouse for both quick new expedition preparation, and for later building expansion around new lighthouses overseas
• Always build sawmill near first lighthouse.
• Always try to build stone mansions near your lighthouses
• Ensure, that you have at least one ship when lighthouse is complete. So build Shipyard as soon as possible even long time before building the Lighthouse
• Launch expeditions quickly to claim all possible Lighthouse places on a map. Some of these lighthouses will stay unexpanded
• Build barracks & Sawmill near lighthouse for your primary overseas area, you want to expand. And produce Saw tool, if you need.
• Manning barracks near lighthouse may take a lot of time, especially when you dont have enough soldiers
• Use Lighthouse soldier - Have one military building near Lighthouse with soldier. When new barracks will be complete, just evacuate the first building. Soldier will visit lighthouse and then head to new empty barracks. If you dont use this tactics, you may wait ages to man the barracks, especially if you are low with soldiers.
• Overseas areas usually contains Gold, sometimes with combination of Coal
• Dont put unload all option even for some soldiers in lighthouse (like generals), because the military buildings may become unmannable by game bug
• If you are able, try to connect lighthouse areas with Water path - the way using small boats. Your moving of cargo will be far quicker.

Late stage economy

• You should already built wood industry, gold industry, and lighthouses
• Late Stage economy consists on building IRON
• Set up workshop tools production mostly for Saws, woodcutter axes, Forester Shovels, Farm Scythe, PickAxes for mines, and Mint Pod (Crucible)
• Build steady food production, mostly based on Farms, Mills, Bakeries, and Well
• Build many mines of various type. Always keep in mind to have pickaxe for miners
• Build Brewery, Iron Smelter and Armory in one place to recruit new soldiers
• Dont forget to click on Recruit Soldier Here button in Storehouse

Special tips

• Create 2 separate ways from your HQ to your expand directions. It helps to move goods quickly
• Create multiple water routes to connect islands, to ensure good throughput
• Many islands with lighthouse may be connectible together with water ways
• Keep enough place around farms for fields
• Donkey farms are voluntary to build
• Usually you dont build Pig Farm & Slaughterhouse (Mills & Bakeries are more practical)
• You can win first 8 levels of Rome campaign just with Wood industry and Gold minting industry (With 50 basic soldiers from start there is no Iron industry needed)
• Wiking Campaign (Addon) is more difficult and more fun to play

Cheats for Settlers II 10th Anniversary

If you want to cheat, there are some:

• Activate Settlers InGame Chat by Enter and write cheats:
• GiveMeSomeMore -> +10 Everything
• ShowMeTheWorld -> Reveals whole map
• INeedSomeHelp -> Instantly Win Mission
• FreedomOfMovement -> Free Circumspection
• TooFast -> Speeds up game to "Mega Speed"
• Note: Cheats are case censitive

Using Settlers Map Editor:

• If you want to find gold, coal, iron and stone location for mining, open Settlers Map Editor, and open corresponding campaign map.

Jump to start of the article

Usefull links

Back to Page List Menu