Genre	RTS Fantasy/magic
System	P133 (Accelerated option)
Year	1998
Developer

One of my favourite games of all time. I ran it originally on my P133, where due to having only 1MB of video memory on the motherboard, I couldn’t even run it accelerated. I then played the bulk of the missions on a P150 MMX laptop, before finally knocking off the remaining levels on my PIII 450MHz Voodoo 2. It’s fair to say that things get a little slow on the lower spec’ machines in the later levels when there is a lot happening, but it can be done. The replay factor is surprisingly high. Thanks to some snags with various hard drives, I have been through most of the levels from scratch at least three times and there are always new tactics to try on levels that proved almost insurmountably difficult first time round. As for value for money, well, many of the missions can take up to four hours to complete (at least they did the cack-handed way I went about them) and the gameplay is intense to say the least. Graphically the game looks superb (provided you have the kit), though I have heard complaints about disorientation on the fully 3D, spherical worlds that form the backdrop for each mission. Personally I think it adds to the fun.

HISTORY

The original Populous (1989) is credited with being the first of the God games. It and its sequel put you in the deity role, giving you the power of life and death over your followers, requiring you to get them worshipping you in order to generate the mana needed for the wielding of mighty spells and that. The first game was developed by a Peter Molyneaux led Bullfrog and it put the lot of them on the map, big time. This third effort is also from Bullfrog (now sans Molyneaux) and it proves, if it needed proving, that the team can still cut the mustard.

THE GAME

For this installment, effectively a prequel to the other two, you take the role of the Shaman, the (female) mystical leader of a small tribe, able to cast magic spells powered by the mana generated by her followers. Your aim is to progress through the twenty or so worlds of your solar system, fighting up to three other tribes for pre-eminence, with the ultimate reward of becoming a true god.

Your tools in this quest are the poor bloody tribesmen who fall under your spell. At the start of each level you bring into being a reincarnation circle, coincidentally converting a bunch of local wildmen to your cause. You can now command these Braves to construct the buildings your village will need, initially shacks for living in, but later on training huts for soldiers, priests and spies and facilities for building boats and balloons. The basic huts serve a couple of purposes. Firstly Braves within them generate more mana than chaps who are just running around the place. Secondly, Braves in huts generate more Braves, assuming there is sufficient living space for the new additions. This isn’t the only way you can add to your tribe, but it is the most reliable and can be surprisingly rapid given optimum conditions.

Building and repairs use wood, which the villagers get from the trees growing around the place. You can indulge in some resource management here (trees that get completely chopped down take a lot longer to regrow than those only partially used and you can toddle off and steal an enemy's stockpile), but I have seldom run into problems in the single player games. However, your people may need to travel a little way abroad to get the wood they need and that can bring you into conflict with the opposition.

The primary purpose of each level is usually the annihilation of whichever of the other three tribes are sharing the planet. As I intimated earlier, the playing field is a fully rotatable, solid sphere. There are four levels of zoom, from the useless but fun close up, through the default 30° isometric, to the high view, and the fully zoomed out hemispherical view. Most of the levels eschew the usual fog of war stuff and you get a good look at the important locations in the pre-takeoff flyby, to which it is well worth paying attention. Aside from the "Kill the enemy" brief, you will also be shown where useful artifacts reside, some of which will be integral, if not vital, to the success of your mission. On most of the early levels, there will be one or more Towers of Knowledge, usually located within the compass of a rival’s village. This edifice needs worshipping and only the Shaman will do. If and when successful (and praying at an enemy’s holy shrine can attract unwelcome attention), you will gain either a new spell or the ability to build a new building, permanently. Additionally, there are, dotted around the landscape, various other holy objects, such as Stone Heads, Totem Poles and Obelisks, all of which may be worshipped by your people (sometimes just one of them, sometimes as many as six) to gain some boon for the level. This may be a spell, or something geological, such as a landbridge to an otherwise inaccessible island. In the last few levels, it may even open the gates to Armageddon, the joys of which I will leave you to discover for yourself.

As the Shaman, you cannot die, at least not permanently, providing you still have followers. Should you be killed in battle, you will regenerate in the reincarnation circle about a minute later. If your presence was critical to a battle’s success when this happened, then you will probably have to start from scratch before you can reattack. You may well also find the enemy counter-attacking in strength and much of your village in ruins when you return. Central to every strategy is the use of the magic spells available to the Shaman. To start with, you have just the one, Fireball, but as you progress through the levels you discover the ability to convert the wildmen who populate the rest of the planet, along with defensive spells such as Swarm, which scares the enemy off with a swarm of bees, and Swamp, which can be used to protect approaches to your realm. As well as Fireball, your offensive armoury will eventually include Lightning and Hypnotise, while at the top end, you get access to such powerful magic as Earthquake, Volcano and Tornado. There are some more esoteric options, such as Bloodlust, Teleport and Angel of Death, but these tend to be pretty much mission specific, in single player at least.

The crux of the game is picking which spells to charge up, given your finite mana supply, and when and where to use them. For instance, you could choose to charge Landbridge from very early on so that you can reach a wee island with a Stone Head on it, in the hope that praying at it will give you something really powerful. On the other hand, you could also use the Landbridge spell to block access to your land for one of the other tribes (although they might just respond with a well placed Erode to create a valley). Either way, using all that mana will mean you probably won’t be able to charge up your Swarm and Lightning spells, which may well prove fatal if the neighbours pop round for a chat. You also need to think about what sort of spells may be coming your way from the opposition. Suppose you have an easily defendable, wide open space on which to construct your settlement. What then, if an enemy Shaman gets close enough to cast Volcano right in the middle of the thing?

Two types of transport become available as you progress through the levels; boats and balloons. The former are critical to success in a couple of missions, where they are the only way to cross the sea to close with the enemy, or to escape a disaster. On others they are useful, especially for ferrying troops across the water or engaging the enemy on an exposed flank, but in general, once balloons are invented, you can almost forget about them. Balloons only carry two people, but, using Firewarriors protected with Shield (which, like all spells, wears off after a while), you can build yourself a pretty effective air force. You can then use it to suppress the enemy’s defences to allow your Shaman to get into position to cast some big spells where they will really hurt.

LEVEL DESIGN AND DIFFICULTY

Bullfrog is often accused of coming up with brilliant ideas, executing them superbly and then giving the game away in the first five levels, rendering the last two thirds of the game somewhat routine and tedious. Either that or downright impossible. In Populous the Beginning, they have got it just right. The new spells and buildings are offered up at a sensible rate and you never, but never, have more than you need to do the job. The way the land is laid out in most levels suggests an optimum path to victory, but it isn’t the only one and it is even possible to discover easier and more effective ways than the designers planned. Such tactical freedom is almost unheard of in most RTS games, where only the most efficient pursuit of the staff answer will furnish success. On one particular level, Continental Divide, the preferred solution is very neat but exceedingly difficult to achieve, certainly first time around. There is, however, a second path which looks a lot more difficult, but with simply efficient execution, will quickly yield the same result. There is also a third route, round the back, which needs very careful handling, but is obviously so unexpected (from the AI’s point of view), that it always catches the enemy off guard. Each level is like this, with the possible options increasing geometrically as you gain more spells, buildings and, most importantly of all, personal experience.

A word of warning however. This is not an easy game. Some of the later levels and, particularly, the timed ones, can be very tricky indeed. One in particular, Bloodlust, late in the game, had me stumped for weeks and took about half a dozen attempts to get right. Frustratingly, it is possible to get to the vinegar strokes of a campaign, only to have victory snatched from your grasp and if the disaster is big enough, you may well end up permanently dead!

MULTIPLAYER

I’ve only tried this a couple of times, hooking two of my machines up with a parallel cable. It’s a hoot! With all spells available, prioritising the charging and use of them becomes even more critical. My opponent on one occasion spent all his mana trying to get a volcano spell, only to have his village torn out from under him by Shielded firewarriors and a couple of well cast Earthquakes. Snag is, you need one disc per machine, but you can pick up second hand copies for under £10 these days, so that’s no excuse.

SUMMARY

Superbly designed and balanced levels, cleverly paced input of new elements, wonderful graphics, absorbing gameplay and a nice dash of humour mark this out as probably Bullfrog’s greatest achievement to date, which is saying something. If this game grips you as it gripped me, you will get as good value for money as any game you could buy. Far more challenging and varied than the C&C series, and so much more accessible than any of its clones, it is a game that looks simple (indeed it has very few rules), but can get numbingly complex. The AI of the opposing tribes is excellent, especially when on the attack, where the forces are nicely mixed, knock off the defenders early and then set about demolishing the buildings in a sensible order. Indeed, for the novice, the AI is way too good and you will need to apply intelligence and guile, as well as good gaming and mouse skills if you are going to succeed, especially in the last seven levels.