http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22064
--- Comment #78 from Mikko Rasa tdb@tdb.fi 2010-09-28 04:48:44 CDT --- Yes, that's the bisect I was talking about.
That's a very interesting discrepancy between the two games. Did you use existing installations or make new ones with latest wine? I assume the games are in different wineprefixes? Can you run diff on the Ubisoft Game Launcher directories to see if they match (after both are updated to version 0125)?
What happens if you first install Settlers 7 Demo with its working launcher in a clean wineprefix, patch it, and then Assassin's Creed 2 in the same wineprefix? I'd assume the latter would detect an existing launcher and not install its own, thus using the working one.
What kind of loop did you mean with Assassin's Creed 2? For me, the launcher simply gets stuck with the spinning circle, apparently waiting for an event which is never delivered.
It's also interesting that UGL 0121 still works for you with AC2. Could you check this with Settlers 7 as well? For me, version 0121 refuses to communicate properly with the server ever since 0125 was released.
Can you do a +winhttp,+winsock trace to see if the games are using the same servers?