Comment by oersted
3 months ago
I never played the first, but Settlers 2 was fantastic. I always preferred it to later installments because it had a strict grid of nodes, creating a complex graph of buildings and paths, rather than the more freeform pathing.
It was such a joy to grow the supply chains and deal with the all messy network logistics and bottlenecks. It sounds quite boring said out-loud, but we are in HN after all, I think you'll get it :)
Yes, S2 is still the best. Few years ago I finally finished all missions, the only thing missing is a more detailed story; but that's how it usually was in the 90s I guess.
Sounds like Transport Tycoon. I remember realising it said something about me that while my friends were building epic rollercoasters in Rollercoaster Tycoon I was much happier making train links between coal mines and power stations, creating a local and express rail serving linking a dozen cities…
I still play the open source version from time to time. They have added a lot of new features and gameplay improvements.
https://www.openttd.org/
Same! The other game that sequels never beat for me was Populous. There’s some charm in the first one that I love.
I think they also perfectly nailed something about the ambience that none of the follow-ups somehow managed to. Lightning in a bottle, perhaps.