1.	What exactly is Return To The Roots?
2.	What is going to be implemented into the game (provisionally)?
3. 	How do you legally secures you from ? You won't get in legal trouble with BlueByte?
4. 	Will I still be able to play the original Settlers 2 after the installation of Return To The Roots?
5.  	When will Return To The Roots be completely finished?
6.	I wan't to help out. What can I do? What kind of skills or knowledge is needed?
7. 	Where can I download Return To The Roots?
8. 	Who or What are the nightly's?
9. 	Are you planning to charge money for Return To The Roots in the future?
10. 	What are the pro's and con's of this project, compared to S2DnG?
11. 	Why the hardware requirements are so high?
12. 	I want to play a singleplayer game, but if I click on "Singleplayer" - "StartGame" nothing happens.

1. What exactly is Return To The Roots?
Return To The Roots is going to be a reprogramming of the popular old Settlers 2 with new features like: Network Support, games in higher resolutions and also working on other OS than Windows, for example: Linux or Mac OS X. The original graphics and sounds are thereby used, but the game is completely new written.

2. What is going to be implemented into the game (provisionally)?
The main objectives are platform independence, the multiplayer, and playing in higher resolutions (what about stability? Quite important IMHO :D). Furthermore, we are working on a new AI and new (optional) peoples, the Babylonians. Thanks to the open source code there can be much more extensions developed over time.

3. How are you legally protected? Don't you have copyright issues with BlueByte?
You need the original Settlers 2 Gold to play Return To The Roots. Beyond that, no original files are changed, they're only used by RttR. You could call it also an add-on or a modification (mod).

4. Will I still be able to play the original Settlers 2 after the installation of Return To The Roots?
Yes, of course! As stated before, the original Settlers 2 files will not be changed in the process of installing RttR. We only copy our files into the directory tree from the original game. In this case, no files are being replaced.

5. When will Return To The Roots be completely finished?
Most of the functions from the original game are already implemented. You can follow the current state of development if you download Nightly Builds (developer versions) or look into the changelog (put link here maybe?). Most likely there still will be more updates and developments, even after a "version 1.0" release.

6. I wan't to help out. What can I do? What kind of skills or knowledge is needed?
In total there is mainly programming work to perform. Programmers with abundant knowledge in C++, possibly OpenGL-, AI- and network programming are always welcome to help speeding up the work. You can find the source code on Launchpad. If anyone feels like translating RttR into their own language, he/she is always welcome.

7. Where can I download Return To The Roots?
You can find the actual test versions in the "Downloads" section.

8. Who or What are the nightly's?
We are calling the daily created builds from the actual source code nightly's. They can be found in the "Downloads" section.

9. Are you planning to charge money for Return To The Roots in the future?
No, of course not, not alone for legal reasons. This is just a hobby project. Those who wish to donate are welcome to do so (look at the PayPal-button on our site).

10. What are the pro's and con's of this project, compared to Settlers II 10th Anniversary?
This is a hobby project instead of a commercial project. Accordingly, we can't keep up with the graphics from Settlers 2 10th Anniversary, but we don't consider graphics as important as originality for example. The Settlers 2 graphics are still nice to look at, even after 10 years. Especially in higher resolutions this becomes much clearer. Through the 2D graphics we got considerably  more resources which we can put in more important things like the path-finding or the AI. We also don't have a publisher, which averts pressure from us. Apart from that, we will also deliver a decent multiplayer mode, which incidentally does not use a complete engine, but 100% of our own work. Therefore, all options are open, from save to replay function. It will therefore go further with improving and we won't suddenly end, as it (except for small patches) is usually the case in commercial games after a release ;)

11. Why the hardware requirements are so high?
In order to run RttR a 3D graphics card with at least 64 MB is required, the absence of one often is the reason for bad performance. RttR uses OpenGL to render the landscape "live" which is the common thing to do today. If you would implement "useful" software rendering, the landscape had to be rendered by the software in advance and you would need "real" 2D libraries (e.g. DirectDraw under Windows). Since the effort is, at least in our humble opinion, many times greater than the benefits from using it, we have not implemented any kind of such functionality. If you got extreme performance problems, try installing the latest drivers of your video card manufacturer.

OUT OF DATE
#12. I want to play a Singleplayer-Game, but if I click on
#"Singleplayer" - "Start Game" nothing happens.
#Return To The Roots still owns no single player mode. But you can #use the multiplayer to start a game
#with computer opponents. Details can be found in the readme file.