Populous™: The Beginning: Populous: The Beginning Walkthrough [ENG]

Pretty straightforward. You worship the stone heads and vault of knowledge, then send in your troops or shaman to make sure there are no enemies left standing. The Dakini (red tribe) are passive and won’t do anything to you.

Again, not much happening. Build up a decent army of warriors and send them in to demolish the enemy buildings. The Matak (green tribe) will sometimes send a few warriors to attack you but they should be easy to defeat.

You will have to use your new swarm spell to distract enemy preachers, or they might convert your army to their side! Once you have preachers of your own, however, things will be a lot easier as they can’t be converted. The Chumara (yellow tribe) are mostly defensive and won’t attack you as far as I know.

Alternative strategy: rush in with your shaman and blast any preachers you see, while training all your braves into warriors. If you are quick, you should be victorious in 2-3 minutes.

Finally there is some resistance from the enemy tribes. The Matak will have access to the new lightning spell, which you’ll have to steal from their vault of knowledge. You should have no problems accessing it as there are few guards. Bring a few warriors with your shaman if you are worried. After that it is just a simple matter of building a large tribe and attacking when you are ready. The enemy will attack you with their shaman, preachers and warriors so make sure you have a defense force ready. I usually set up a couple of guard towers with preachers on the narrow part right before the vault of knowledge. It gives you plenty of space to build.

Alternative strategy: get the lightning spell immediately and start charging it. Send a brave to worship the stone head and use the spell it gives you to convert clusters of wildmen to your side. Build a temple and train about half of your tribe to become preachers. Then you should be able to rush in and defeat the enemy before they have finished building their base.

This is the first difficult level you’ll encounter, as there is a time limit ticking down to your doom. Immediately send your warriors to worship the stone head and totem, and send your shaman into the tower. Convert the wildmen on the island and have them worshipping too. Send the braves ahead to the prebuilt base and bring your warriors and shaman over when you can. You have to be quick and start building lots of huts to grow your tribe and train your army. I usually go for 50/50 with preachers and warriors. There are several ways of completing the level but the goal is to get to the gargoyle at the far end of the Dakini base and worship it with your shaman before the timer reachers zero. I usually send a boat full of preachers to where the enemy warrior hut is and start distracting them around the 5 minute mark, then send in the rest of my army via landbridges to escort my shaman. Try killing the enemy shaman with a lightning strike when you walk past her tower, or she can make short work of your army. You MUST reach the gargoyle before the timer runs out, or it’s an instant fail even if your tribe is still alive.

If you act quickly, you can cover the whole northern island with your huts before you begin your attack.

This is one of my favorite levels, because there are so many ways of building and completing it. The general idea is to fortify your borders with preacher towers and amass a huge army. You will be attacked by the Chumara tribe from the north and after a while the Matak tribe will connect their island to yours and start attacking you as well. There are a few vaults and stone heads to be worshipped, and they will help you out a lot. The most important one to get early is on the Matak island close to your base. Try reaching it by converting wildmen, then use the spell you get on the lone Chumara warrior on a nearby island. The rest is up to you. A classic tower defense world.

Fun idea: I usually send the braves on the Matak island to build a small settlement on the southern part of the island once they’ve finished praying. They won’t be attacked and can help you deal with the Matak before they even start attacking you.

Alternative strategy: build a temple and train your starter braves to preachers. Meanwhile get the convert spell with your shaman and convert every wildman you see. There are lots of them by the lake to the north and by the coast between you and the Chumara. Rush in once you have a few preachers and kill the Chumara before they can start training their army. When they are gone, you can use their base location to build on too, and deal with the Matak from a much stronger position.

A tricky level. There is very little wood for you to build with and after a while the Chumara will send invisible preachers and warriors to attack you. Abandon your reincarnation site and build a settlement in the middle of the island, mirroring the Chumara settlement. Build a few preacher towers on either side of the island where the Chumara will soon use a landbridge spell. Make sure you have preachers stationed around your settlement as well, ready to defend when the enemy preachers reveal themselves. Defense is key. When you can fend on enemy attacks, start training a large army and attack the Chumara through either side of the island, or use a landbridge of your own to connect to the small stone head in the middle.

Fun idea: just like in the last level, you can convert wildmen on the enemy island and build a small settlement on the edge where they won’t be attacked. Start training a small force of preachers and warriors to take out the enemy tower defenses before you attack with your main army.

Another one of my favorite levels with many different strategies. I recommend taking your shaman over to the enemy base and worshipping the vault of knowledge at the start, before the enemy defenses are in place. This will give you access to my favorite unit; the firewarrior (or FW). Now you can start expanding your settlement to cover the large area given to you, and build your tower defenses in the gap between the mountains north of your reincarnation site. A mix of preachers and FWs is recommended, with warriors patrolling below. However, there is another way for the Dakini to reach your base, close to a stone head. Be ready for them attacking from both directions. Also, send out a few braves to explore the wilderness. You never know what you might find.

Fun idea: if you cast landbridge between two mountains, you can raise the land and build large walls to block off both ways into your base. This is very useful in all levels after this, but be aware that the enemy can use their own landbridge to lower the land again or even create a ramp to get to the high ground.

Alternative strategy: start training warriors and rush in with your shaman to disrupt enemy training while converting wildmen to your side and killing any preacher you see. You can easily defeat the enemy in the first 5 minutes

This level introduces the fog of war mechanic and can be pretty hard if you don’t know what’s going on, so try scouting out the land when you can. You start out on your own island close to the Chumara village, but of course you can’t see that yet. Pretty soon they will connect your islands together though, and start harassing you with boats filled with all kinds of troops AND their shaman. You can’t see them coming either, and they will come from all directions. My best strategy is to build lots of FW towers around your settlement and blast the enemy into the water when they arrive. Try stealing their boats if you can. Make sure you have a very good defense, because the enemy shaman will cast a volcano spell on your settlement around the 15 minute mark. This will destroy everyone in its path and seriously cripple you. It’s not game over yet, though. You can rebuild and the enemy only gets one volcano. Just make sure you select all your followers and have them evacuate if you see the volcano spell being cast. It takes a few seconds for it to activate. Once the volcano threat is dealt with one way or another, it is time to start building a huge army and prepare your attack. There are several ways of going about this, so I will write down a few things I’ve tried over the years.

• Use a stolen boat to reach the small island with a stone head north-east of your tribe. It contains a single shot of the volcano spell, for your revenge against the Chumara.
• Use a stolen boat to send your shaman and an escort to worship the vault of knowledge on the south of the Chumara island and get your own boat house.
• Station boats filled with FWs in the sea surrounding your settlement as a mobile defense force.
• Use the landbridge spell to flatten the land or create new land on the coast, to help grow your settlement.
• It is possible to create a “dummy settlement” somewhere to the south on your island and have the Chumara waste their volcano on that instead. It is rare but I have seen it happen.

Alternative strategy: this is one of the last levels where you can get away with the old rush and convert strategy. The same procedure as the earlier levels. Convert any wildmen you see and bring all your followers except one with you as you take your shaman to the very south of your island. By the time you reach it, the Chumara will most likely already have connected to it, and you can rush in and overwhelm them before they have their defense ready. Don’t bother with any fancy spells and just use blast. In the worst case scenario, you will fail and be late in starting to build your settlement, but you will at least be able to see what’s going on in the enemy lands.

You need to be quick! Immediately send your shaman and trained followers into the boat and have your braves build more boats. The enemy shaman will start sinking your land and you don’t have many seconds to spare. If you are lucky you can save most of your followers, but the shaman and preachers are the most important. Send them to worship the totem on the island north of you, and watch what happens. Repair your settlement and rebuild your forces. Your time is limited before your land starts to sink again. You need to use the time wisely and reach the totem in the Matak lands. The easiest way is to send a boat of invisible preachers to start praying, and then you have a little more time to train your main force and send in another attacking party to finish off the Matak.

I was stuck on this level for YEARS and it was only through dumb luck that I managed to figure it out in the end (by building the Great Wall of Populous between me and the Matak, haha). It’s not that hard to complete, though. There are 3 things you need to be wary of.

•The Matak in the north. They will attack you often and their shaman can cast she swamp spell, meaning instant death for 10 of your followers. Deal with them by building guard towers in the wilderness, casting landbridge to limit the ways they can attack you, or by rushing over to their vault of knowledge early on and putting down a few swamps of your own on the paths they are most likely to take.
• The Chumara on their own little island. They will send boats to attack you, and their shaman will hypnotise your followers to join the enemy for a brief time. This will make short work of your defenses, but having a mobile FW navy will help taking out the shaman before she can reach you. Unfortunately they will also try to reach you by land after a while, and then they will send larger forces to attack you. Be prepared to defend against this.
• Limited building space and wood. This is actually the thing that ends up killing you in many levels. You need to create more land to build on, but that takes time. Try to find a good balance and build on the large mountain close to your reincarnation site while you prepare for the upcoming battles.

Fun ideas: it is possible to exploit the boathouse by placing one on the southern part of your island, facing the island where the Chumara will use their landbridge to connect to you. Because a boathouse requires water in front of it, it will actually sink the land if it isn’t already completely submerged. This only works on a completed boathouse though. If it is damaged, the landbridge will still be able to connect to it.
Another fun idea takes time, but it can be worth it. Use landbridge to connect the Chumara and Matak settlements together. If you are lucky, the Chumara will walk through Matak lands when attacking you, and the Matak won’t be happy about it. If you are feeling extra cheeky, you can try to create two landbridges on either side of their boathouse, effectively creating a lake so their boats won’t be able to reach you.

Alternative strategy: Have your braves start construction of your settlement while you bring your shaman to worship the Matak vault of knowledge. Convert any wildmen along the way. You know the drill by now. With the swamp spell on your side, it is possible for you to wipe out the Matak tribe early on, and have plenty of space to build a second settlement on. The Chumara will most likely only attack your first settlement, so you should be free to build as you please.

My favorite level! This is also the first time you will be facing all three enemy tribes. It shouldn’t be too much trouble though, as both the Matak and Dakini will be busy destroying the Chumara in the first 30 minutes of the game. When the Chumara tribe has been defeated, both tribes will focus mostly on defense, and occasionally send a few boats to attack you. You can take your time and build a large settlement. I will only mention a few tips and scripted events, and let you figure things out from there.

• Sometime in the first half of this level, the Chumara will try to create a landbridge between your islands. You can easily prevent this by placing a swamp on the part of their island that is closest to you. If this attack fails, they won’t have time to attack you again but they might send a few spies to set your buildings on fire. No real threat.
• The Matak will send their shaman in a boat sometime around the 15 minute mark, to cast erode on your island. This will only happen once and can easily be stopped, or repaired with a landbridge.
• Most, if not all attacks on this level will come by boat to the western part of your island. Some guard towers and patrolling FWs should take care of this.
• While the Dakini and Matak will attack each other, you can try helping them by creating a landbridge between their settlements.
• Send in your shaman and a few preachers by boat to worship the enemy vaults of knowledge. The erode and tornado spells can decimate any village if used correctly.
• Don’t be afraid of creating more land with your spells. Or you can claim the old Chumara lands, but be prepared for the Dakini and Matak to walk through that area when they attack each other.

This can be a challenging level in the beginning. The Chumara will attack you with balloons from the south, so defend yourself with FWs. The Matak will come from the north, so make sure you either block that passage with a landbridge, or have your troops defend it. Wood and land is limited, so it might be worth expanding your settlement onto the flat area to the east of where you start. I would recommend having your shaman worship the Matak vault of knowledge early on, and get the powerful earthquake spell. You should be able to chip away at the Matak land little by little until your troops can finish them off. There are several stone heads in this world, and the one closest to you contains the volcano spell. Save it for the Chumara tribe and prepare your troops for the assault. Don’t bother with their vault of knowledge. It is far easier to just steal the balloons they use to attack you. Send in your shaman to cast the volcano spell in the center of their settlement, but beware of enemy FWs shooting you down. Then send in your ground troops to finish the work.

One of the more difficult levels, and I can’t say I enjoy it much. All three enemy tribes are allied with each other, and they will come for you fast. The Dakini from the west, with spies, warriors and their shaman. The Chumara from the north with preachers protected by the new magical shield spell (FW fireballs and all spells except swamp and hypnotise bounce off them). The Matak will be more passive, but their shaman will come steal your land with the flatten spell, so there is no point staying where you are. Time management is important here, so I start out by converting the wildmen I can see (there are more south of the Dakini lands) and building as many huts as I can before I get attacked. Don’t forget about your training huts, but make sure you don’t build them close to the Matak plateau. Start training your troops. Send a few preachers to defend the north from the Chumara, but gather the rest by the reincarnation site. Build a boathouse on the southern coast and start ferrying your troops and a few braves to the small area with a stone head south of the Matak lands. Bring your shaman over last, and start praying to the stone head. Keep your gathered troops close to the mountain, because the stone head will raise the land and also give you a pretty useful spell for when you attack the Matak. But save that for later. Now you have to build a new settlement on the southern half of the Matak plateau. When you feel that you are ready, attack them and claim their land for yourself. Now you have the perfect location to build a large settlement and prepare yourself for the next fight. You can also use your new flatten spell to raise your old lands, including your reincarnation site. The Dakini and Chumara tribes might build balloon huts, but I have personally never seen them use balloons on this level. Build a few FW guard towers just in case. When you feel like you are ready, you can go on the offensive. I recommend destroying the Dakini first since they are the closest. How you go about this is your decision. I have sent in my shaman with her destructive spells, sent in my large army in balloons or just created a landbridge to their settlement. With them destroyed, the Chumara won’t be a threat. Your new firestorm spell will see to that.

Can a level be more boring? Sorry, but that is the truth. You start out with a lot of braves in a prebuilt settlement on an island. Your shaman is imprisoned on the Chumara island and it is up to your loyal followers to set her free… But there is a timer, and once the time is up, you lose. You will also lose if your shaman is killed after you set her free, so make sure she is protected. I would recommend a force of about 10 preachers and the rest warriors and FWs. Take care of the enemy preachers and FW towers surrounding your shaman, then have a few of your warriors destroy the prison. Immediately worship the obelisk with your shaman and cast the volcano spell on the Chumara settlement. That’s all there is to it. There shouldn’t be any enemies left to destroy, but you can send in a balloon with FWs just in case someone escaped the lava.