About
The Settlers II is a 1996 city-building game with real-time strategy elements developed and published by Blue Byte Software, later reissued as the Gold Edition with an expansion and graphical enhancements. Return to the Roots (RttR) is a from-scratch, actively maintained reimplementation of The Settlers II for Windows, Linux, and macOS, built with CMake, Boost, and SDL2. It adds internet multiplayer and modern-OS support while sticking to the original game's graphics and sound.
How it differs from the original
Unlike the original, RttR adds internet-based multiplayer and support for modern operating systems, though it still requires the original Settlers II Gold Edition's DATA and GFX folders for its graphics and sound.
Getting started
Download a stable or nightly build for your OS, then copy the DATA and GFX folders from an original Settlers II Gold Edition install into the game's folder before launching it via the included start script, which auto-updates and starts the game.
History
The Return to the Roots project has been maintained by the Settlers Freaks community since 2005.
Media
Additional notes
- Quirk
- The install folder itself can be a symlink, but the project warns against using symlinks or junction points for subfolders of the installation.