I need to know if there are any differences between these two other than the graphics. I know the Gold Edition came with an expansion. Does the 10th anniversary include that as well? Does the 10th anniversary play exactly like the original or tweaked?

NEED an answer ASAP. Thanks.

Hey ya, the concepts of the game are very similar to the 2nd original one. There are expansions for it, but they were only released in Germany (obviously all in German language too).

the german vikings expansion can be installed on the english gog game too, there is even an english translation for it...

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/203258-Vikings-add-on-How-to-Install-Play-on-English-Version?p=1832447&viewfull=1#post1832447

Oh ok. But what about that Mission CD expansion that's in the Gold edition? Is that part of the 10th as well?

There are some small differences in the gameplay as well between this two versions. These are the two considerable changes in the gameplay in the 10th Anniversary Edition compared to the Settlers 2 Gold.

Regarding the military you are able to upgrade military buildings into bigger ones (if there is enough space for a bigger building) and military buildings can exist without any soldiers in it in the 10th Anniversary Edition. After soldiers occupied a military building you can recall them back without losing the land you have conquered and the building will remain empty until you send forces back into.

Regarding the economy there is a small change if you demolish buildings and the building times. In the 10th Anniversary Edition you get half of the resources back if you demolish a building, so you can't get to a dead end anymore where you ran out of wood but can't build any woodcutter or sawmill due to the lack of wood. The building times have been reduced up to 50 % so the gameplay is a bit faster with less waiting time and you can accelarete the game up to 3 times as fast instead of just double the speed.

Regarding the campaigns, the 10th Annieversary Edition doesn't include the Campaign of the expansion of the Settlers 2 which was a world map on which you had to conquer every continent. And as far as I remember the campaign in the 10th Anniversary Edition is not a copy of the original campaign but has 10 missions as well.

Here are two links, translated with google since they are german:
https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fjh-isch.de%2Fs2%2Fseiten%2Fdng_unterschiede.php
https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdiesiedler2.de.ubi.com%2Fgame_changes.php

Yeah the included 'original' campaign in S210th is 10 levels, but the first 4 are tutorial ones.

The vikings addon that is not included by gog adds an other 12 level campaign, and some (small) changes to the gameplay. Most noticable are the change in mission style, mission can have sub-goals and gold to military buildings is standard off in the addon. It also includes an updated editor. With that editor you can convert the original S2 levels to S210th ones. I'm not sure if the non-addon editor can do the same, it got overwritten by the newer one from the addon, so I can't test it without reinstalling.

edit: conversion doesn't always work it seems, that S2 europe map crashed the editor, but a campaign one I tried did work...

Another obvious difference is the updated multiplayer support in 10th anniversary (I suppose it still works via LAN?). That said, you get full LAN/internet multiplayer and tons of other improvements (way more than S210th offers) by installing Return to the Roots for S2Gold.

Hi, Thanks for the info. The problem for me is that I cant seem to find the Vikings expansion anywhere.

at amazone.de:
http://www.amazon.de/Die-Siedler-II-Generation-Wikinger/dp/B000MCHERS

Just another info about the multiplayer part. Original S2 does support splitscreen for a second player, S2NextGen instead uses normal LAN/Internet mode, as already mentioned above.

In my opinion source code was also improved as you can see with wayfinding, transport system and use of ships

Luckily there is Return to the Roots for classic S2 online multiplayer.

Here is the EUROPE map for The Settlers 2 - 10th Anniversary. It can be found on Siedler-Maps. It's converted and patched, because conversions aren't ideal:

www.siedler-maps.de/s2maps/z_K_6_Europe-907.htm

(Hier ist die Europa Karte für Die Siedler 2 - Die Nächste Generation)