Interview with Peter Ohlmann
Here you can read an old interview of Peter Ohlmann conducted by The Knight. This interview was conducted on September 17, 2000. Keep in mind that there was no The Peasants Rebellion at this time and the decision to cancel the Mission CD had been made.
Why was the development team of The Settlers II divided into several smaller companies after development or during the conception of the third title?
“After we had finished working on The Settlers II, Adam Sprys and I decided to leave the team in order to realize our own projects. It is not so simple to explain to other people, but let's just say that there were conflicts of interest with certain people.
The founders of Funatics (i.e. Thomas Häuser, Thorsten Knop and Thomas Friedmann) were just like us also formerly employed by Blue Byte. They left Blue Byte about a year after we did and founded Funatics Development (Catan and Cultures).”
What projects are Joymania currently working on (in addition to the programming of Cultures, in which you and Sprys participate)? And which persons are officially part of Joymania?
“We are currently working on a new project, though I can't reveal anything since it is still in early planning stages.
Officially Joymania consists of just Adam Sprys and me, though we have freelancers helping us on occasion.”
What is the stage of a sequel or the Mission CD? Why was the Mission CD cancelled?
“The main reason for the cancellation was that we had problems with our distributor, TopWare. In addition we were working on Cultures and didn't have enough time to develop K&M further. Early next year we will be releasing a small gift that all K&M fans can freely download. I can't reveal further details yet.”
Why will Knights and Merchants 2 never be released?
“Never say never. When we have gathered enough new ideas, we will possibly release a sequel.”
The latest patch (V1.32) creates more bugs! Why is this version so flawed?
“I am not aware of these problems. I'll try to fix these problems the next time and then possibly release a new patch.”
Can we expect further patches?
“Look above.”
After 20 missions and a simple tutorial the game is completed. Playing the missions again is pretty boring and the price of 80 DM is pretty steep. Are there other scenarios? And why only 20 missions?
“Well, I think 20 missions is a good amount, though some additional missions would be nice. Just wait and see what you will be receiving in 3 months.”
There were a few buildings and units that were removed. Why did these not appear in the game? Especially the “house”would have fit perfectly into the game!
“The house was originally in the game, but it was very annoying when your subjects were constantly walking to their houses. Considering the constant fighting you would not have been able to repel the enemy properly. An alternative, the house system used in Age of Empires was discarded as the unused houses would take up too much valuable building space.”
Footnotes: The free gift as most have probably figured is The Peasants Rebellion. Why it wasn't released as free in the end is unknown, but chances are ZuXXeZ Entertainment had something to do with it.