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[Red Sandwich]

There have been a lot of nostalgic posts about Settlers 1 in which people have commented on how much they used to enjoy playing it years ago.

I've been trying out the download from Abandonia and find much to enjoy about this game. It has considerable charm and rather more depth than I was expecting. However, what puzzles me is that none of your posts have spoken about just how broken this game is. Similarly the FAQ from GameFAQS (which was mentioned earlier) lists a few bugs but makes no mention of the real spoiler.

I'm refering to the transport system. When you start a scenario this works reasonably well. Goods are moved from the castle or from their place of production to where they are required in an effective and reasonably efficient manner. However, once the game reaches a certain size and the road network becomes more complex the transport system breaks down. Goods start to be taked to places they are not wanted - for example, I've seen great piles of fish accumulating outside knights huts, ten or more sacks of coal taken to and left outside gold mines. Heaps of assorted garbage (lumber, ore, stone, swords, shields, etc.) gradually accumulate at junctions of roads and outside inappropriate production facilities. Perhaps the most significant down side of this problem is that it becomes very difficult to get buildings constructed. Sometimes the required materials never even head in their direction and in other cases lunber and stone almost gets there but isn't actually taken onto the site - the transporter just turns around and goes back the way he came, still holding his materials. Sometimes they will take large quantities of other item and leave them just outside the site; none of them being of the slightest use to the builder.

Of course this starts to have a pretty serious effect on gameplay. In one game I was getting roundly trounced by one of the computer players because the game wouldn't build me swords and shields or on the few occasions when the armourer was supplied with steel the resulting goods were then transported to inappropriate places and left on scattered heaps where they were of no use to me whatsoever. In another game I reached the point where I couldn't get any more guard posts built and just had to watch in vain as the computer opponents encroached further and further into my territory.

So, does what I've recounted here tally with your experiences of the game? Or is Abandonia perhaps hosting an old, unpatched version?