Hi, can anyone help? - I have been stuck in level 4 (high seas) for ages! - I have constructed 6 ships, 2 harbours (full of timber, stone & have hit the send expedition button), I have mined the area of gold, coal, expanded my boundaries & have a thriving community and still I have received no notification to sail - the ships register just show me the ships & nothing else!.....What am I doing wrong??

Also is it true that the DS version has a bug that won't load chapter 6??....am I entitled to take the game back??

Thanks for your help......Nic

On the harbour menu, after choosing the ship icon, have you found the Prepare Expedition icon?

Hi Megg,

Thanks for the promp reply!

I have hit the Prepare Expedition icon, which faded, but i am not sure now about selecting the ship icon in the harbour menu?.....i will look at the harbour menu more closely when i get home.......will let you know!

Thanks & regards

Nic

I think that you would have had to have found the ship icon at the harbour to find the Prepare Expedition.

I tried a free play map earlier, just to try the shipping out on the pc version that I have. I had one little ship merrily sailing across from one harbour to another - but you can't choose what goods are placed on the ships - the program just delivers what it considers necessary to complete the task you are doing at the destination harbour. ie after building the new harbour I placed a small tower to expand the land, and my ship firstly took just one piece of wood across, before coming back for more.

By the time I stopped, I had a coal mine, gold mine and mint, and a couple of fisherhuts on the island, but didn't have time to keep playing to see if the same ship carried the gold coins back to the mainland. But I had a watchtower there, and gold coins were going to it.

I remember having problems like you many years ago on the original S2, and built more ships hoping to make it work. Now I wonder if you have just confused the ships with so many.

Is the harbour built where the water is deep enough for the ships to sail. That was one problem I had.

Hi,

Well I spent some time on the level double checking what I have done....I have made sure that I hit the prepare expedition icon on both my harbours - but the ships are still sitting there!

I might start the level again, as you said I might have confused the issue by having too many ships? - A few more questions if I may?

* Do I need to build the shipyard right next to the harbour?
* Does it matter which comes first, the harbour or the ships?
* I am only placing the harbours where I can on the construction view (large building with an anchor) do I need to somehow build another harbour for the ship to sail to?
* What is the requirement of the harbour before the ship can sail (is it just planks & stone?)

Thanks for all of your help.....I am still a novice to the game and I found the instructions which came with the game to be very poor!

Nic

I buiit the shipyard fairly close to the harbour, but not sure that it matters. If you build the harbour first, maybe wood, stone, etc will be stored there while you are preparing a ship.

Try working with only one harbour on the main land and one ship to start with. You may be able to get more adventurous later.

After you "Prepare Expedition", when the ship is ready it will be loaded with sufficient building materials to build a harbour at the ship's final destination. There will be a compass with points that you click on to direct your ship to new land where there is a spot for a harbour.

Place the harbour building, and the goods and builder will disembark and start building. Depending on the land, the next building may need to be a tower to expand, so place that. All being well, your ship will go back to the original harbour and pick up the necessary goods to build it. On my trial game, the ship only carried one wood on its first trip back. When this building is complete the ship will go back for a soldier.

As I said, you have no control over what goods are carried on your ship - the program works that out.

A manual would need to be huge to cover all the little tricks/workings that are needed to play any game - most need some experimentation by the player.

Success!!.....I started the level again (should of done that hours ago!), and quickly expanded the borders, built ONE harbour & a shipyard nearby. I then started the expedition once I had a fully constructed ship, the ship then merrily went to the harbour and the compass appeared on the ship register and away it went!.....I have another community on a southern island now mining iron........Thanks for all of your help!!

- I am thinking of getting a "settlers" on PC can you recommend a good version? - is rise of an empire similar to the version I am playing now?

Regards

Nic

Now you might like to be a bit more adventurous - after saving your game - and try building another ship and send it out to a different destination, to see what other goodies you can find. If it doesn't work out, then reload the save.

Regarding which Settlers for your pc, personally I like S4, but that is getting an old game, and expecially with vista and some graphics cards is giving problems.

So I would suggest that you download the demo for Rise of an Empire. There is a lot of micromanagement in it, with only one storehouse, and keeping your settlers happy while you advance your knight. Unlike S2 where you have limited control where you send your soldiers, you do have control of them in RoaE.

how do i make a harbor building

There are only certain places along the coast where you can put the harbour. Look for a clear straight edge and try there. When you find a spot where one can be built, it will show you.

Sorry, but I can't explain any better than that.

I have reached DS level 6 about 3 times now. It won't save, it crashes, then it loses the chapters so you end up back at Chapter 2.

I don't know if it's just my game that's faulty or if it's a bug.

Kath

@Kath read about level 6 here,http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/7711057942/m/4991066885?r=5371043985#5371043985 where people recommend playing the mission through without trying to save.

Please help. I've the same problem. I've done the level loads of times, built as many as nineteen ships and several harbours. the shios sometimes visit, but often don't. I'm stuck with stuff at one harbour I can't get to go anywhere else. mostly the ships just move round between the harbours they don't need to be at. Ubi tell me the game works and its a gameplay issue.

I know that shipping can be tricky, but I think that you would have more luck with just one ship and harbour, so that the program doesn't become confused. Unfortunately, you have no choice on what is sent apart from setting the appropriate buildings and having the storehouses to accommodate the goods. ie if you are trying to ship ore back to the mainland, etc.

hi all

i am having the same ship problem on level 8 ie ships do not move frm the yard to the habour anyone else had this problem

many thanks matthew

quote:

Originally posted by megg:
There are only certain places along the coast where you can put the harbour. Look for a clear straight edge and try there. When you find a spot where one can be built, it will show you.

Sorry, but I can't explain any better than that.

i've got loads of straight edges but there are only those yellow flags it doesn't show that I can build a harbour there what can i do?

I struggled with ships on level IV, the Roman Campaign on The Settlers DS for a year! In the end one solution seemed to solve everything...

DO NOT SAVE

The Settlers on the Nintendo DS is incredibly buggy and has gotten some pretty bad reviews because of this. In my experience I've found that saving and re-loading games can intefere with the 'triggers' in the game. So for example you may start level IV, save, then re-load the next day and the triggers for your ships are messed up. Meaning that once they're built, instead of them sailing off to the Harbour to moor up and await orders, they just sit on the beach instead, where they were built and do nothing.

If you ask me the game has been rushed, quite poorly programmed and Ubisoft don't really wanna know.

It's incredibly risky for obvious reasons but I've found the only way to keep the game as smooth flowing as possible is to NOT save my game. Instead, when I'm done playing I just pause it and close the lid. You just need to keep an eye on the battery as unlike Sony's PSP the DS does not save any game currently being played into a temporary memory until charging commences. So just make sure you keep the battery charged up, be careful not to accidentally eject the game cartridge from the back (great design Nintendo, thanks - I've done that loads of times) and you SHOULD have no problems.

Once you have completed level IV it will permenantly save your progress anyway. Allowing you to then select level V from the Roman Campaign main menu - along with the ones you've done up to that point (just in case you want to do them again? lol).

Summary:

1) DON'T save your game - just close the lid - this should stop the game from developing bugs.

2) HARBOURS can only be built on a LARGE BUILDING + ANCHOR symbol. The first of these you encounter on level IV of the Roman Campaign is south west of your HQ (on the beach).

3) SHIPS can only be built on a beach so build your shipyard as close to the Sea as possible.

4) Once a ship has been build it should automatically go over to your Harbour, moor up in the bay and await orders.

5) Once the ship is waiting TAP on the harbour, then TAP on the 'Start Expedition' buttom. It should 'grey out' and your settlers will than gather the stone and timber required to build a new harbour in a far away land. You'll have to wait for a spare builder to come along and get onboard too.

6) Once there's a builder, the right number of stone and timber loaded onto the ship you will be notified it is ready to sail.

7) TAP on the ship that's waiting to set sail and then TAP on the little arrow pointing in the direction you want the ship to sail of to.

8) It will notify you once it has made landfall and if you then TAP on the ship again at its new location you will see an ANCHOR symbol. TAP it and the builder, his stone and his timber will disembark and he will begin building a new harbour at that location. Meanwhile your ship will probably set sail back to your main harbour.

9) I find ONE ship PER PAIR of harbours works best. If they need to 'double up' on a particularly busy 'sea lane' they will. But they will transport stuff automatically and for the most part do a pretty good job of it.

I hope this helps - if anyone is still having trouble let me know!

How about on level 8. The ships I build won't go to the harbour.

In my experience, whenever I've needed to build/use ships the only thing that's stopped them is me saving my game onto the cartridge/loading a saved game from the cartridge.

So first, make sure you play level 8 without doing any saving or loading (you can simply select whatever level you want to do from the Campaign menu).

If, even with no saving and loading, the ships refuse to work then restart the level, and get them built as soon as possible. Try to keep the number of harbours you have to a minimum too. They get easily confused if you have too many.

Seriously, Settlers on the DS is extremely 'buggy'. So temperamental! But try those two things and get back to me if you're still having problems.

Thanks for the tip! It worked. Of course now I have to make sure I close my DS when I'm done for the day and/or make sure it's plugged in. Thanks, again.