First of all, W2 can be thought of as a simulation, but it's a lot closer to an RTS. The main features that identify this are its resource gathering and the building of structures that unlock new capabilities. You play as one of three protagonists in the Wild West setting, each of whose names are those of famous movie stars, in their less-well known identities: Marion Morrison (aka John Wayne), Maureen Fitzsimmons (aka Maureen O'Hara), and Terence Stevens (aka Steve McQueen). Picking one of these will give you a different overarching ability during gameplay, like access to a bank for the raising of taxes, or free upgrades to your farm. Which you choose may seem arbitrary at first, but longer experience with the game will reveals how each of these abilities are important to your overall strategy.

Basic gameplay revolves around building up your township to different degrees. All towns start out needing a well. After that's done, other structures can be created. This is an RTS staple, so the mechanic should feel familiar enough to those who've played that genre, but there's a slight difference at hand concerning units. Rather than creating unit types at certain buildings, dwellings are constructed -- shacks, hotels, etc. -- and then citizens move into town to populate it. These citizens can then be assigned to different tasks as part of the workforce; they can as easily be reassigned to anything that requires extra hands. It's important to keep an eye on the Food resource meter -- it keeps track of how much food you have versus how much you have capacity for. Each new citizen reduces that total, so it's something worth watching, or your town will start to decrease in size, and with that decrease you'll see fewer resources being harvested as well.

Play develops by the completion of various quests. These come in different flavors -- sometimes it's as simple as building a particular structure, sometimes it's the amassing of a given amount of a certain resource. Frequently these quests are given by NPCs, with the standard exclamation mark over their heads. Usually in the form of a request for resources, these NPCs will usually stick around after receiving their request and offer to become part of your outpost, adding to the workforce. Keep in mind that when this happens, it is at the cost of an extra mouth to feed. It's important to remember that you can refuse their offer to stay.