Playing The Settlers II
 
Expanding your borders.
Any military building, except for the lookout tower, will expand your borders. The
bigger the building the more land you will get when it's finished.

Mines not producing enough materials.
Food is the key. The more mines you have the more food they all need, and the less
each mine gets. It's best not to build additional mines until existing ones reach at
least 80% of their maximum utilization.

Not enough soldiers, empty military buildings.
There is one critical resource that many people overlook for soldiers ­ beer! You
must have beer to recruit soldiers. Another common problem is that all four resources
must be in the same location: beer, assistants, swords & shields. Also, gold is required
to promote soldiers.

Hunter not hunting, no food.
Only build a hunter where you think animals might actually live: in a forest, far
away from humans. Watch the screen for lots of little critters running around.

Cannot build a Harbor Building.
Turn on the construction aid function by pressing the space bar. There are four types
of buildings: small, medium, large and Harbor Buildings. The Harbor Building has a large
anchor on the front of it. This is the only place where this building can be built. In
the Campaign Chapters, the first time you can build a Harbor Building is in Chapter Four.
Here you will find a Viking who teaches you how to build ships. There are also several
maps in the 'Free Game' mode that allow you to build Harbor Buildings. Remember: a
Shipyard without a Harbor Building is useless!

If you are playing either The Settlers II Mission CD or The Settlers II Gold Edition the
Unlimited Play maps no longer allow you to build Harbor Buildings. The resources have
been adjusted so that all maps can be won without ships or Harbor Buildings.

Ships will not do anything or seem stuck.
This only very rarely happens ­ for example, when you lose one of your existing Harbor
Buildings to an enemy. Try building a new ship and equipping it for an expedition; this
will usually reset the shipping sub-routines. Another drastic, but very effective method
is to check which harbors the ships are bound for, and then destroy and rebuild them.

Catapult is not attacking enemy buildings.
Catapults attack automatically; there is no way for you to select who they fire at. They
must be very close to the enemy border and within range of the enemy's military buildings.
Within a few inches is best, but you will find building a lookout tower next to the catapult
can increase their range. After they fire, it usually takes at least 1-2 minutes to reload.
Catapults will not attack unless there is at least one soldier in the building.

Transportation problems.
There are several things to check.

Make sure the transport priority for the item you need is set higher. 
If there are a lot of items piling up at the flags, you may need to build a Donkey Breeder
to increase the amount of goods that can be moved about. 

Check for choke points and build bypass roads around them. Choke points are areas where
only one or two assistants are moving goods from one section to the next, and no other
transportation method is available to move the goods. 

Try using waterways to move goods along the coast. 

Destroy any inefficient roads and then rebuild new roads more compactly and efficiently. 
Never build more than one Harbor Building per continent. This can cause confusion for your
Harbor Masters. Ships may behave erratically if you do this.