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Playing The Settlers 2 on macOS with DOSBox

Posted at Oct 6, 2024 20:09:12 — Last modified at Feb 25, 2025 21:25:09

DOSBox emulates an old Intel x86 PC for running many old MS-DOS games – including the original The Settlers 2, the first computer game I’ve ever played, but which unfortunately no longer runs on modern computers and operating systems.

The German edition of The Settlers 2 is freely available here. Simply download and extract the content into a folder, for example: /Applications/Siedler2/.

After installing DOSBox:

  1. Open DOSBox application
  2. Mount folder where game is installed: mount C /Applications/Siedler2/
  3. Navigate into mounted folder: C:
  4. Launch the game: S2.EXE

You can press Option-Enter to enter full-screen mode in DOSBox. Press it again to switch back to windowed mode.

You can also configure DOSBox to automatically mount folders on start-up. In the [autoexec] section of the DOSBox settings file /Library/Preferences/DOSBox 0.74-3-3 Preferences, add:

mount C ~/Applications/Siedler2/

For more details, see the DOSBox wiki.

There is also a community-developed addon, called Return To The Roots, including new game settings, maps and buildings.