Populous II - Strategies
AAMOT PER AXEL
I'm around level 125 on Populous II, and I'm facing a bit of a problem:
I don't have knights, armageddon, Heracles, Adonis, Helen of Troy or Flood.
The most powerful weapon I have is to make mountains of un-fertile stones.
So I can't seem to win. I *can* use fighting mode of course, but it takes
aaaaaaages. Any tips on strategies, anyone?
I'm also interested in general strategy-tips.
Has anyone tried to avoid flood by building high ?Does this work?
When using Helen of Troy, do you have to use e.g fire to kill your opponents
people as they wander around after her, or do they eventually die by
themself?
Is there a way to get rid of plague if a large number og your population is
infected, or do you have to kill every infected person?
When using Adonis, they can all suddenly die, is this because you need mana
to support every single Adonis ? I have noticed that the mana-bar starts
going up and down when using Adonis.
And lastly, how do you get the most points when winning a game. I have
sometimes populated almost the entire screen, but not gotten more than
20-25.000 points. What makes you really score?
Thanx in advance for any help.
AAMPE2AA ( Per Axel Aamot )
Olav Nyboe
|> Hello World!
|> I'm around level 125 on Populous II, and I'm facing a bit of a problem:
|> I don't have knights, armageddon, Heracles, Adonis, Helen of Troy or Flood.
|> The most powerful weapon I have is to make mountains of un-fertile stones.
|> So I can't seem to win. I *can* use fighting mode of course, but it takes
|> aaaaaaages. Any tips on strategies, anyone?
|> I'm also interested in general strategy-tips.
|> Has anyone tried to avoid flood by building high ?Does this work?
three almost all your men will survive and the computers men will
die
stuff deleted
|> Thanx in advance for any help.
|>
|> AAMPE2AA ( Per Axel Aamot )
--
//// Olav Nyboe // Email : ol...@stud.cs.uit.no /
/// Stakkevollveien 298 B // Phone : +47 83 74375 //
// N-9000 TROMSOE // ///
/ NORWAY // ////
Eric Bergan
>Hello World!
>I'm around level 125 on Populous II, and I'm facing a bit of a problem:
>I don't have knights, armageddon, Heracles, Adonis, Helen of Troy or Flood.
>The most powerful weapon I have is to make mountains of un-fertile stones.
>So I can't seem to win. I *can* use fighting mode of course, but it takes
>aaaaaaages. Any tips on strategies, anyone?
>I'm also interested in general strategy-tips.
Using the "lesser" powers effectively can be the key to some of
the levels. Some have already been mentioned:
- plant trees in an opponents area, then torch them
- use lightening to repeatedly hit the enemies leader, particularly
when he's in 'move to papal icon' mode
- whirlwinds that take a leader out to sea, and set up lots
of whirlpools can be interesting
- building walls around the enemies papal icon after the leader
is killed. Ditto swamp under it (or in the direct line of
march to the icon)
>Has anyone tried to avoid flood by building high ?Does this work?
To some extent. But floods really aren't the biggest problems.
The enemy is pretty stupid about using floods, and seems to nuke as
many of its own people as yours.
>When using Helen of Troy, do you have to use e.g fire to kill your opponents
>people as they wander around after her, or do they eventually die by
>themself?
They'll eventually die of starvation, but that can take a long
time. Sending a few heroes after them speeds up the process greatly.
>Is there a way to get rid of plague if a large number og your population is
>infected, or do you have to kill every infected person?
You have to kill every infected person. I've never been successful
in completely erradicating plague once I get hit with it. But then again,
neither has the enemy...
>When using Adonis, they can all suddenly die, is this because you need mana
>to support every single Adonis ? I have noticed that the mana-bar starts
>going up and down when using Adonis.
I haven't noticed this.
>And lastly, how do you get the most points when winning a game. I have
>sometimes populated almost the entire screen, but not gotten more than
>20-25.000 points. What makes you really score?
Beats me. I'm around level 500, and I've had games where I was
sure I'd get around 40K-60K of points and ended up with 10K, and
others that I thought were easy, where I'd get about 15K and got 40K.
Maybe there is wraparound?
--
eric
er...@netlabs.com
Keith Steiger
>The most powerful weapon I have is to make mountains of un-fertile stones.
>So I can't seem to win. I *can* use fighting mode of course, but it takes
>aaaaaaages. Any tips on strategies, anyone?
On worlds where you don't have armageddon, and don't have any of the heroes,
you just have to lead your people around by the nose with the papal magnet
and switch to fight mode when you have a huge leader deep in enemy
territory. And yes, it does take ages. These worlds are not too uncommon,
so get used to them.
>Has anyone tried to avoid flood by building high ?Does this work?
The height of your total land doesn't matter to tidal waves (don't call it
flood, it doesn't work like flood). What matters is the height of the land
it hits. If you build a set of mountains between you and the tidal wave,
the wave will stop when it hits them, regardless of the height of the land
behind them.
>When using Helen of Troy, do you have to use e.g fire to kill your opponents
>people as they wander around after her, or do they eventually die by
>themself?
After Helen has gathered up all (or nearly all) of the people on the
opposing team, she does something very strange. She goes up to one of them,
and you hear her lyre-strumming sound go into automatic-fire mode, and both
she and the person she's next to take damage at what appears to be the same
rate. Being that this opponent is generally much weaker, this doesn't take
too long. She then goes to the next one. I have decided to call this the
dreaded "screw 'em to death" attack.
By the way, does it annoy anyone else that two heroes that touch will group
into one new hero, and not always of the type you want? Once I had a Helen
and an Odysseus gather together into an Odysseus, and I was really peeved.
>Is there a way to get rid of plague if a large number og your population is
>infected, or do you have to kill every infected person?
As far as I know, you have to drown them one by one. This can be a pain.
>When using Adonis, they can all suddenly die, is this because you need mana
>to support every single Adonis ? I have noticed that the mana-bar starts
>going up and down when using Adonis.
Remember, when you use Adonis, every time he wins a fight, he splits into
two Adonises, each with half the population. This means that a 1000-man
Adonis can go to 20 50-man Adonises in an amazing hurry. And this means
that these weak Adonises lose a lot of fights, and losing fights costs mana.
>And lastly, how do you get the most points when winning a game. I have
>sometimes populated almost the entire screen, but not gotten more than
>20-25.000 points. What makes you really score?
Some of my hypotheses--
Using lots of different powers seems to add points. I will usually use the
cheap powers (like planting trees, for instance) gratuitously, just because
I think it adds points. This may be what the manual means by "raising
popularity among your followers".
And, very frankly, I think getting beat up gains you points. I've gotten
the most points in games in which the opposition volcanoed me three times.
This means that it's hard to score high at the low levels, where the
opposition is too stupid to hit you hard.
And remember, people, the computer gathers to papal magnet far more often
than he should. When he does, swamps, baptismal fonts, fungus,
thunderstorms, pillars of fire, hurricanes, and any number of other attacks
can hurt the computer badly. Listen for the sound of his papal magnet
moving.
--
Keith Steiger...@reed.edu--"I am what you see. I cannot be otherwise."
Disclaimer: Reed College tries very hard to ignore its students' opinions.
Holmgren Lars
I tried to cheat by altering my powers in a saved game file,
but there seem to be some sort of a checksum (possibly several).
Is there anybody out there who has knowledge?
/Lars
AAMOT PER AXEL
Replying to my own posting here .... ( eh ).
A thing I discovered late last night when I was playing:
- When playing on levels when you can't raise/lower lands you don't
populate yourself: If your opponent's leader wanders inside your
own territory - hit the place with earthquake and pray that he
falls in. If he does, your opponent will NEVER be able to get a
new leader for the rest of that round. I watched an endless
stream of enemy people just aching to jump into the bottomless
pit under their papal magnet - a beautiful sight.
-Per Axel-
Jason Lowe
now. Unlike some of these accounts, we have only observed the following
formula: # bolts = score div 13000. Many times we would get 12976 or so
and not get a bolt, but get 13007 and get a bolt. This happened similarly
throughout. We both are at worlds 400+. Neither of us, however, have
ever received more than 4 bolts (63000 points or so). Weird. Also:
Has anybody ever noticed that statue next to where your bolts appear in the
summary screen? It seems to change into different figures as you advance in
the game. I've seen a normal person, a red fighter figure, and a white
scholarly looking figure.
--
Jason Lowe | // | Take the Oath. Watch Ren and Stimpy!
sti...@uiuc.edu | \X/ Amiga! | "And look, he's beating up on our cheese!"
Janne Salmij{rvi
In <1992Mar19....@urbana.mcd.mot.com> qba...@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Quentin Barnes) writes:
>I've made it to around land #197. Below are some of my observations,
>techniques, and questions I have up to this point.
I'm at 448 now.
>Scoring:
> Also, I've noticed that there is not a direct correlation
> between score and number of lightning bolts earned. I've
> gotten a score of 12K with zero lightning bolts, but gotten
> lower scores (~8K) and earned a bolt.
3 examples: 1) I got 927 points and 7 bolts (won the world)
2) I got about 59000 points and 1 bolt (won)
3) I've many times got 40000 to 60000 points when losing
a world
--
- You can hear the sound of two hands clapping. + Janne Salmij{rvi
- Now how does one hand sound ? + jh...@cc.tut.fi
-- + jh...@ee.tut.fi
Roy Trevino
In article <1992Mar19....@urbana.mcd.mot.com> qba...@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Quentin Barnes) writes:>>I'm around level 125 on Populous II, and I'm facing a bit of a problem:...
>>I don't have knights, armageddon, Heracles, Adonis, Helen of Troy or Flood.
>>The most powerful weapon I have is to make mountains of un-fertile stones.
>>So I can't seem to win. I *can* use fighting mode of course, but it takes
>>aaaaaaages. Any tips on strategies, anyone?
I use the "sweep manoever" to clean up this problem. Send your leader
deep into enemy territory with lots of followers. Then, sweep sideways
along enemy coastline (with lots of followers). The followers will
pass through and take over enemy settlements automatically. Wait till you
get to the levels where you can't move your papal magnet.
>>I'm also interested in general strategy-tips...
See below.
>>And lastly, how do you get the most points when winning a game. I have
>>sometimes populated almost the entire screen, but not gotten more than
>>20-25.000 points. What makes you really score?
>
>>Thanx in advance for any help.
>>
>>AAMPE2AA ( Per Axel Aamot )
>
>
>I've made it to around land #197...
>
>Scoring: Except for a few weird cases, the best I can figure scoring
> works is that you maximize "battles won" + "battles lost"
> while minimizing "battles won" - "battles lost". I think
> the idea is that you are fighting to "entertain" Zeus,
> so you need to have a close and exciting battle to make it
> "interesting" for him also while keeping the number of days
> around 400. Take too long or go too quick and the
> score goes down...
>
>Roads: I've found roads to be useless. My people never seem to use
> them so I given up trying.
They are useless.
>
>Damaged walls: How do you fix a damaged wall? If an earthquake
> splits a wall and leaves a gap, I haven't been able to figure
> out how to close the hole in the earth or to patch the wall.
> Bug or feature?
Feature. Can always try to plant flowers there.
>
>Fungus: Fungus is fun. My favorite configuration is: ++
> + ++
> ++
>
> The ++ configuration is stable. Add the extra one on
> + +
> ++
> the end to 'trigger' the fun.
>
>Plague: If I've been plagued, my approach is set 'go to magnet' and...
Plague doesn't really seem to affect game play much, as the computer
never declares armageddon.
>
>Bugs: Has anyone had the end game window go nuts? I've messed it...
>--
>Quentin Barnes
>qba...@urbana.mcd.mot.com | ..!uiucuxc!udc!qbarnes
As someone who has finished the game (thank god, it was ruining my life :),
I can assure you that the scoring is entirely random, ie:
score = rand(60000 or so);
Much discussion has been made about scoring, but any reasons border on
superstition. Sure, killing the leader *seems* to get more points
*sometimes*. Sometimes using lots of effects *seem* to give more points.
Etc etc. The programmers put this in the game so they could be amused by
the puzzled players and their soon to be vaporized theories.
As for impossible games, there are a few. Just for kicks, try out
woheaf (487) sometime. You are guaranteed to lose in less than two
seconds (seriously). There were 4 levels out of ~225 levels played that
I could not win. Two times due to volcanoes, once because I didn't write
down the name of the level, and #487. On 4 occasions I eventually had to
use computer assist to win.
Bugs: I have noticed many. Sometimes, people get stuck in the top
corner. Sometimes your papal magent looks just like the opponents.
If I have spliner (screen blanker) running before I start, the mouse
cursor dissapears if I pause too long. The most annoying bug is that
sometimes when I right click on the goto magnet icon to zoom to my
leader, the closeup map zooms instead to the top of the world. I then
have to hunt around for my leader. The same happens with my zoom to
magnet and zoom to hero icons. Sometimes, lightning bolts of experience
are not reflected correctly when you go to build up your deity. Sometimes
this is in your favor, sometimes not.
Background: I played the first 350 or so games on an A1000, but about
that time, I got an A3000 (25MHz), so I finished it up there. Much
faster game play, otherwise, it would have taken too long to finish
the game, and I may have quit.
Some of the strategies I haven't heard discussed yet:
*** CAUTION *** SPOILERS FOLLOW *** *** CAUTION *** SPOILERS FOLLOW ***
FUNGUS: Use a single spot directly on top of enemy settlements to rip
up their house/castle. Do this on the coast, and if they are in goto
mode, the land will just stay bare. Do this on a common border with
yourself, and you are free to populate the land yourself. Don't clean
up the fungus either, just leave it and you will be pleasantly
surprised how many of the enemy will fall in later.
FLOWERS: Use this on your land to clean up earthquakes, swamps,
fungus, fonts, burns, most everything! Especially when you can only
raise or only lower land or neither. Much easier than repairing by
hand, even if you can.
LIGHTNING: Mark enemy leaders and heroes with ? before zapping to keep track
of when to quit (not necessarily when they are dead).
TORNADOES: Place directly in water near enemy coast. The create whirlpools
have a *much* better chance of moving inland than if you place them on land
to begin with. Also use like fungus to tear up settlements so you can have
the land.
ROADS: Have never ever found a use for these. Generally, this game has been
deep enough that every effect is incredibly useful at some time or other, but
not this one.
HELEN OF TROY: The most dreaded sound is that of the enemy Helen. On
some games, you can still make a hero out of these useless people
though. My favorite way of getting rid of Helen is with a font. On
another note: Once Helen has rounded up every last enemy, it seems
that she starts killing them (her energy goes down as if in battle).
Anyone notice this?
PLANT HERO ADONIS: When pitted against one of these, go into attack
mode, sprog lots of guys near the enemy Adonis. This will split him
up more and more, and you get lots of mana for each one you will
eventually kill. Then we're talking serious revenge time.
BASALT: Yes, there is a use for this stuff. When playing with no
raise/lower option, use this to make a path to enemy islands that you
can't get to, or merely to make a quick automatic path across the
water.
NOTES: I have never seen the computer use: armageddon, fungus, roads, walls,
lightning, basalt.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Roy Trevino Intel Corp.
E-mail: rtre...@sedona.intel.com Tel: (602) 554 2816
00je...@bsu-ucs.uucp
I agree here. The closer the game is, the more points. Makes sense,
the entertaining Zues idea.
>>
>>Roads: I've found roads to be useless. My people never seem to use
>> them so I given up trying.
>
> They are useless.
>
Not entirely. Use them against *evil* people. Make a swamp/fungus and
build a road out from it. His people will walk along and die. Great fun.
Seen it done several times.
>>
>>Damaged walls: How do you fix a damaged wall? If an earthquake
>> splits a wall and leaves a gap, I haven't been able to figure
>> out how to close the hole in the earth or to patch the wall.
>> Bug or feature?
>
> Feature. Can always try to plant flowers there.
>
>>
>>Fungus: Fungus is fun. My favorite configuration is: ++
>> + ++
>> ++
>>
>> The ++ configuration is stable. Add the extra one on
>> + +
>> ++
>> the end to 'trigger' the fun.
>>
>>Plague: If I've been plagued, my approach is set 'go to magnet' and...
>
> Plague doesn't really seem to affect game play much, as the computer
> never declares armageddon.
True: Doesn't seem to matter except that mana goes down a little. If
plagued I generally just try to "hurry up" in killing the enemy.
>
>>
>>Bugs: Has anyone had the end game window go nuts? I've messed it...
>>--
>>Quentin Barnes
>>qba...@urbana.mcd.mot.com | ..!uiucuxc!udc!qbarnes
>
>
> As someone who has finished the game (thank god, it was ruining my life :),
> I can assure you that the scoring is entirely random, ie:
>
> score = rand(60000 or so);
>
> Much discussion has been made about scoring, but any reasons border on
> superstition. Sure, killing the leader *seems* to get more points
> *sometimes*. Sometimes using lots of effects *seem* to give more points.
> Etc etc. The programmers put this in the game so they could be amused by
> the puzzled players and their soon to be vaporized theories.
What?!?! No way. There is no way that it is entirely random.
I've watched *several* people play (I live in a dorm with lots of god-wanna-be
people playing on my computer.) I agree with the statement made above. The
closer the game (i.e. the more "entertaining" it is to Zeus) the better
the score.
>
> As for impossible games, there are a few. Just for kicks, try out
> woheaf (487) sometime. You are guaranteed to lose in less than two
> seconds (seriously). There were 4 levels out of ~225 levels played that
> I could not win. Two times due to volcanoes, once because I didn't write
> down the name of the level, and #487. On 4 occasions I eventually had to
> use computer assist to win.
>
> Bugs: I have noticed many. Sometimes, people get stuck in the top
> corner. Sometimes your papal magent looks just like the opponents.
People in the top corner: Have been affected by Helen and then fall into
baptismal font. Obviously they become very confused in looking for a Helen to
follow that doesn't exist. (Example: A blue man starts to folow a red Helen.
He falls into a font and becomes red. He remains "seduced" by Helen but
because of his alignment change he's looking for a blue Helen. Blue Helen
doesn't exist. Utter confusion.)
> If I have spliner (screen blanker) running before I start, the mouse
> cursor dissapears if I pause too long. The most annoying bug is that
> sometimes when I right click on the goto magnet icon to zoom to my
> leader, the closeup map zooms instead to the top of the world. I then
> have to hunt around for my leader. The same happens with my zoom to
> magnet and zoom to hero icons. Sometimes, lightning bolts of experience
> are not reflected correctly when you go to build up your deity. Sometimes
> this is in your favor, sometimes not.
Hmm... I've had no problems. Running on an Amiga 2000.
My copy is from Europe. Perhaps the one relased in the state has a few more
bugs?
Yup. That's exactly what she does. Like a vampire. Seems to be one-for-one
from what I've seen. Could be a different ratio however.
>
> PLANT HERO ADONIS: When pitted against one of these, go into attack
> mode, sprog lots of guys near the enemy Adonis. This will split him
> up more and more, and you get lots of mana for each one you will
> eventually kill. Then we're talking serious revenge time.
>
> BASALT: Yes, there is a use for this stuff. When playing with no
> raise/lower option, use this to make a path to enemy islands that you
> can't get to, or merely to make a quick automatic path across the
> water.
>
> NOTES: I have never seen the computer use: armageddon, fungus, roads, walls,
> lightning, basalt.
I think walls are just to confusing for the computer.
Perhaps the programmers were lazy?? Maybe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| // MIGHTY MERLIN |UUCP:00je...@bsu-ucs.uucp |
| // "The sage of might"|bitnet:00je...@bsuvax1.bitnet |
| \\ // |internet:00je...@bsu-ucs.bsu.edu |
| \X/ | bsu-cs!bsu-ucs!00jeeaton |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quentin Barnes
[...]
>Has anybody ever noticed that statue next to where your bolts appear in the
>summary screen? It seems to change into different figures as you advance in
>the game. I've seen a normal person, a red fighter figure, and a white
>scholarly looking figure.
I assumed that the figure was the appearance of the god you were
fighting. I never bothered to compare it frequently enough when
the god changed enough to be sure.
>--
>Jason Lowe | // | Take the Oath. Watch Ren and Stimpy!
>sti...@uiuc.edu | \X/ Amiga! | "And look, he's beating up on our cheese!"
Louis Perrochon
at least 2 or three times.
Could it be that the statue at the end is your opponent in the current
(just finished) world?
Louis Perrochon
--
This is a .signature virus. Copy me to your .signature
signature of lper...@iiic.ethz.ch deleted
Jim Chagnon
>>Has anyone tried to avoid flood by building high ?Does this work?
> To some extent. But floods really aren't the biggest problems.
>The enemy is pretty stupid about using floods, and seems to nuke as
>many of its own people as yours.
Raising and lowering land more than 2 levels can cost alot of mana, so
if your land is low, build walls 3 - 4 levels high around a good area,
and if it's high, just level it high.
Building your entire land 2 high is not enough. I found out the hard
way. :-o
>>Is there a way to get rid of plague if a large number og your population is
>>infected, or do you have to kill every infected person?
> You have to kill every infected person. I've never been successful
>in completely erradicating plague once I get hit with it. But then again,
>neither has the enemy...
Send them all to the papal magnet, build under infected buildings to get
all the infected people out, and when the last one gets to the magnet, turn
them into a hero. Be aware that if they have to travel long distances
through your teritory, they will infect a large portion of your population
along the way. In this case, quarantine them with a ditch (water, 2 sqares
wide).
If plague victims are near the enemy, baptismal font a few first, and
give the enemy a taste of his own medecine. This seems to be the best
method of dealing with Helen of Troy also.
> Beats me. I'm around level 500, and I've had games where I was
>sure I'd get around 40K-60K of points and ended up with 10K, and
>others that I thought were easy, where I'd get about 15K and got 40K.
>Maybe there is wraparound?
I think the manual says something about speed and difficulty, but
it seems the faster I win, the less I get!
> eric
> er...@netlabs.com
jcc
Ove Kalkan
Place the Magnet upon an enemy's fortress, of course the
best is good enough, deep in it's terretorie.
You Poeple will come tegether and during their way to the
Magnet they will attack many huts.
At least your target will be occupied.
Then place the Magnet upon another house.
The effort: Your poeple will invade the enemy's country.
If the evil one will start any godly attack
on your new settles, he will lose his own worshipers too.
Bye, Ove
Any comments ?
00je...@bsu-ucs.uucp
Yeah, works pretty well except if you're far away from the enemy. Make sure
that you at least build up for a while and then try the above strategy.
Otherwise your walkers may die attempting to get to the bad guys.
8-)
--
Steven Green
them ! ) lighning bolts of experience on my "spend experience" screen after
receiving only 2 or 3 on the previous screen.
Pretty weird ? It has'nt happened to me again ( unfortunately ! )
Steve Green
Glenn E. Volkema
you can still get enough experience to warrent a lightning bolt but you
are only able to place them after a victory. I'll bet you lost the previous
three or four worlds and stored the lightning bolts until you won a game.
So long and thanks for all the fish...
Glenn