Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Populous: building high

While not as good as Populous the Beginning, the original Populous is still a fine game.  Unfortunately, after a while you realise that there is a key tactic that will see you through most levels: raising your land higher than your opponent.


It means that the start of the levels can be a little slow, as adjustments raising land a few squares use up a lot of mana, but as soon as you have a few forts or even castles in place, this isn't an issue any more.  Indeed, it allows you to farm the castles quite effectively - putting in a minor hill near a castle which reduces it to a fort and makes the population split, leading to two castles instead.


Once you have a nice flat plateau, you can wait until you get the flood ability, and use that - a couple of times in a row - to get rid of most of the enemy's population.  And from then on it's plain sailing.


Now, once you start getting into the higher levels - 400 plus - your opponent often makes a first move which makes it more important to have a larger settlement earlier.  But even then you can build on two steps and gradually raise the lower one.  Building high is the key.

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