[HN Gopher] 29 years later, Settlers II gets Amiga release
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29 years later, Settlers II gets Amiga release
Author : doener
Score : 83 points
Date : 2025-08-13 18:30 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gamingretro.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (gamingretro.co.uk)
| typpilol wrote:
| Settlers 3 and the expansion for it were great
|
| I loved the economy style and not many games have similar styles
| even today.
|
| It was a good split between resource management and combat.
| fidotron wrote:
| Someone at Ubisoft was doing well when they agreed to officially
| license this. I have believed for a while that they should be
| attempting to sell off the Blue Byte IP, and maybe studio, to
| make the most of it while the nostalgia for it still exists.
| SamBam wrote:
| Great! Now someone needs to finally work on that Day of the
| Tentacle release for the Compaq Portable!
| Razengan wrote:
| Slight tangent: The enduring charm of "retro" games (whether
| actually old or just imitating old games) and the cults around
| old platforms, shows that there is some value in "constrained
| computing" environments. The PlayDate has also been moderately
| successful hasn't it?
|
| The constraints often seem to encourage increased creativity.
| Maybe partly because of the challenge of pushing those
| constraints, the level playing field (when competing vs all the
| other developers on such platforms), and/or the lack of
| "pressure" (i.e. you don't _have_ to make a game that looks like
| the latest Unreal 69 tech demo or whatnot)..
|
| Maybe it's time for a new current-day platform that's similarly
| "constrained" _on purpose?_
|
| The capabilities of the DS seem like a sweet spot. Put it in a
| Switch form factor and throw in a Commodore 64-like OS, complete
| with Python or Lua or some other language that's easy to pick up
| and also relevant in the broader world.
| extraisland wrote:
| Most of the charm of retro-computing is Nostalgia and yearning
| for the simplicity of older machines.
|
| I own two Amigas. The OS boots pretty quickly and you can start
| using your computer. Until the invention of NVMEs did I have a
| PC that would boot as quickly as the Amiga. There are no
| distractions when using the machine, no forced updates, no
| stupid notifications. It just works as a computer.
|
| I have a collection of Amiga, PS1, Dreamcast, PS2 and PS3
| games. The games are relatively cheap and or free (a lot of
| games are abandonware or can be pirated without anyone really
| caring). Unlike a lot of modern titles _are actual games_. They
| are fun, pretty much just pop in the disk and play.
| garciansmith wrote:
| A lot of it is nostalgia, but I know children who love old
| games that were made 20+ years before they were born, so it's
| not just that. As you said about your old games: "they are
| fun, pretty much just pop in the disk and play." There are
| plenty of great old games that are still good, even without
| certain modern conveniences and game design.
|
| Playing old stuff on original hardware is a bit different
| (especially computers, as you noted), and there nostalgia has
| a greater pull I think. But even then, to experience a game
| as it originally was, you need to resort to that hardware. I
| recently used a MiSTer to compare how games looked on a CRT
| and modern screen, and it was super interesting to see the
| differences (e.g., colors being more vivid on the LCD, but
| effects like glowing lights were only visible on the CRT).
| extraisland wrote:
| I honestly think a lot of the modern games (especially
| triple A), kinda miss the point. The gameplay just isn't
| there. A lot of the better indies are filling the gap
| though.
|
| I recently played the original PS1 version of Resident Evil
| 2. There is something about the game that the original
| missed. There was a bleakness throughout it that is kind of
| missed in the remake (the remake btw was very good).
|
| Also the CGI cutscenes on the games felt like a real treat
| at the time and they are not that long, just long enough to
| get the point across.
|
| RE2's intro is like a few minutes long, sets up the
| scenario and you are playing the game.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=748Tu4dUORE
|
| The Ridge Racer 4 intro still holds up. I was gobsmacked at
| the time when I first saw this. It still looks pretty good
| despite the low resolution.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVIj0nIM7fk
| garciansmith wrote:
| I think constraints can bring about creativity. The Playdate is
| a good example, though it's extremely niche (they've sold what,
| 100,000 of them or something?). And it fits your description of
| a modern-day platform that's constrained in particular ways. It
| has been interesting to see the ways devs have used the system
| to make unique games unavailable on any other platform.
| Sesse__ wrote:
| > Maybe it's time for a new current-day platform that's
| similarly "constrained" on purpose?
|
| You have the fantasy consoles, where Pico-8 is probably the
| most well-known example.
| araes wrote:
| Partially the constraints.
|
| Building a functional, modern, 3D rendering engine that meets
| current gamer requirements for "good enough" is also extremely
| challenging, time consuming, expensive, error prone, and often
| frustrating.
|
| It then cascades into further difficulties about textures,
| modeling, rendering speed, machine requirements, compute
| language requirements, and "required" features.
|
| A lot of this arrives at the expense of story, game design, and
| art.
|
| If it must be c++, it must be AAA graphics (texture size, model
| polys, lighting complexity, shadows, physics based rendering),
| it must run 30 FPS on current mid-range, it must be trendy de-
| jour feature (open world, social tie-in, achievements,
| crafting, ect...), it must be always on networked, it must be
| cross platform, and it must be monetized - that's a lot of
| developers focusing on something other than - "is it fun?"
|
| That's a lot of talent acquisition and churn, that's a lot of
| collab / communication / meetings, that's a lot of development
| hardware, that's a lot of funding focusing on something other
| than - "is it fun?"
|
| It also ends up being a relatively severe barrier on "is it
| viable?" If it needs a million players just to break even, then
| you're quickly getting into the movie blockbuster pattern. Do
| whatever it is that sells blockbuster tickets. It it needs
| 50-100,000 players, then you can make a game with 5-10 people
| in a couple of years, sell it for $15, or something reasonable,
| and still break even on $75k salaries.
| rafaelgoncalves wrote:
| wow, impressive! this game bring so many good memories.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| What's the best way to play Settlers II as of 2025 on a PC or
| macOS? Is there a GOG-style version that still works as of today?
| It's unclear how well this version still does:
| https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_settlers_2_gold_edition
|
| Actually same for Settlers III, I remember that one fondly as
| well. They lost me a bunch around the switch-to-3D era.
| janten wrote:
| https://www.siedler25.org/index.php?lang=en
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| Yeah this, although it seems to have slowed down I
| development. Last time I checked, scrolling was really laggy
| on Linux, and the according bug report was quite old. Man I
| wish I had more free time to dig into stuff like that.
| hkt wrote:
| I can confirm that this will play game files as they were
| from the 1998 or so "total heaven" triple pack of settlers 2,
| sim city 2000, and civilization 2.
|
| As an aside: what an incredible era.
| mnky9800n wrote:
| Yes I was playing sim city 2000 the other day. What
| surprised me the most is how it's so focused on simply
| letting you create the different systems and letting them
| interact. Like it's almost not a game as much as it is a
| simulation that lets you participate in decision making.
| arp242 wrote:
| I played the gog version about two years ago; worked fine. It
| uses dosbox.
|
| Settlers 3 also worked fine on wine by the way, although
| personally I don't care much for it and much prefer 2 (the
| original, not the "10th Anniversary" remake, which is pretty
| bad IMO).
| 3036e4 wrote:
| GOG games that use DOSBox I just run the installer and then
| copy the game files to run in my own DOSBox-X installation.
| They will run forever even if GOG stopped supporting the
| games on some new OS.
|
| Sometimes launching a game is a bit tricky, buy it usually
| just comes down to looking in the GOG DOSBox conf file and
| see what they do.
| kookamamie wrote:
| > 68040 with 40 MHz
|
| No one had this stuff.
| icedchai wrote:
| Yep. 32 megs of RAM was unheard of on an Amiga.
| doener wrote:
| Yes, but it's not surprisingly high for a 1996 PC game.
|
| "You needed AT LEAST a fast 486, and preferably a pentium, to
| run this on the PC. Being upset that an 030 isn't supported
| is ridiculous. Reminds me of the people back in the 90s that
| complained that SimCity2000 didn't run smoothly on their
| 1200."
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/amiga/comments/1mp1z3v/29_years_lat.
| ..
| npongratz wrote:
| Not _completely_ unheard of but I get your point :). Babylon
| 5 's pilot's animations (and I believe opening credits) was
| rendered in 1993 on sixteen souped-up A2000s, each with 32 MB
| of RAM.
|
| https://www.generationamiga.com/2020/08/30/how-24-commodore-.
| ..
| icedchai wrote:
| That's pretty cool. I know 32 megs was _technically_
| possible with the right boards, I just didn 't know any
| normal person that had one. I had an A3000 with 5 megs (4
| megs fast, 1 megs chip) and I thought it was bad ass for
| the time.
| kleiba wrote:
| The screenshot looks super crisp! Amazing. But in all honesty,
| this release is more for an Amiga on steroids than what a typical
| Amiga looked like 29 years ago.
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