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CD Player's Site Hints, Tips, Strategy and FAQs for playing Populous III online

• Populous The Beginning: Prima's Official Strategy Guide - This is a source book for many tips and tricks to help you on your way to shamanhood. It contains detailed suggestions for all the spells, followers and maps, some of which are not to be found on this site (yet!). However, the multiplayer maps are only sketchily covered, and the multiplayer strategies suggested are faily basic. The book is also out of print now so it will get increasingly hard to find, although Amazon still (November 2002) list it second-hand (search for 'populous' in the books section). You may also be able to get a copy from your local lending library. The full details are:

  Populous The Beginning: Prima's Official Strategy Guide
  Tyler M and Rennie J
  1998 Bullfrog Productions Ltd. 268 pages.
  ISBN: 0-7615-1205-5
  Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 97-69343

• Populous Game Site (www.populous.EA-Europe.com) - The navigation bars on the site offer various help screens, once you get into the 'Play Online' section, as follows. Note that the links below take you to the unframed pages, so you won't see the navigation buttons etc.
  • Game Info (click on the info button on the circular structure in the top-left of the screen, then select 'Game Info') - leads to 5 screens, entitled:
    • Features
    • Characters
    • Spells
    • Buildings
    • Tech Specs
    
    
    Nothing much here for online gaming, but the TechSpecs section does go into details about supported video cards.
  
  Once you have clicked on the 'Play Online' button from the top menu of the site home page, a new menu appears, with the following help screens (amongst others):
  • Hints and Tips(again, click info button on the circular structure in the top-left of the screen, then select 'Hints and Tips') - Primarily for the offline game, but useful nonetheless.
  • Online News (top bar) - Tells us that the online game is now working again! It's not date stamped, but this page has not been updated for at least 18 months.
  • Rules (top bar) - Details on how the scoring works, the league table and player grades.
  • Leagues (top bar) - A league of the highest scoring shamen. This system only works sporadically. Shakey Jake has a breakdown of who's active, and how they got their scores on his web site.
  • FAQ's (top bar) - Answers to questions on browsers, lag, chat, bandwidth and latency, plus some troubleshooting tips. Have a look at the reference card too.
  • Playonline Help (top bar) - Basic description of the lobby and huts, latency and chat.
• EA's Game Support Centre - This site is intended to serve the UK and Eire but obviously has wider applicability. There are only three specific questions relating to Populous in their FAQs, but there is a range of more general material which may be useful. There is also a feedback section and option to ask questions.
• EA's FAQ email service - (This may no longer work - but by all means try it.) Send a blank email with '510' (without the quotes) in the subject line to UK-SUPPORT@EA.com and they will email you their Populous FAQ sheet by return. It covers the following topics:
  • Technical issues (crashes, viruses, CD-ROM problems)
  • Gameplay issues (frozen followers, totems, fog of war, force command)
  • Multiplayer issues - (sound, TCP/IP games, patch)

  The other FAQ sheets they offer (which are not specific to Populous) are as follows:

  Subject Line	FILE LIST
  105	I need a diagnostic program, I am using Windows 95/98
  110	Blue Screen Crashes when running the game
  115	I am having trouble running my DOS game in Windows 95/98
  120	Troubleshooting guide for DirectX and Windows 95/98
  125	How to update video card & sound card drivers in Win95/98
  130	I am having trouble with the game reading/installing from the CDROM
  135	I am having problems using my Controller in Windows 95/98
  140	I cannot get my modem game to work
  145	I cannot play my game over my network
  150	Regular System Maintenance guide for Windows 95/98
  155	UK Warranty information
  160	I require further support but I do not have the English version of the game

  If you want more than one title, put all the numbers you want in the subject field, separated by single spaces, like this: '123 128 246' (again, without the quotes).

  They also offer a range of FAQ sheets for other games. Send a blank email (ie. without numbers in the subject line) to get the full list. (Actually, you can put whatever you like in the email. This is the response you get to any support question - you have to email again to get through to a human being.)

  
  
• The 6 Commandments from Bullfrog - 6 major strategy hints from Bullfrog (who wrote the game). More applicable to the single player game though. There are another 8 articles of general interest listed under 'Populous' on the P page of the CD Mag archive here or click the links at the top of the 6 Commandments article.
• Shakey Jake's Populous site - A site designer after my own heart! Simple, clean and fast. Shakey gives a partial list of single player walkthroughs aimed at giving the fastest times, plus the times to beat, plus maps and orbit-views for the multiplayer maps, as indicated at the start of each map section above. He has also cracked the coding of the maps in the game, and was the first to convert them to mini maps using a contour palette. You can see a thumbnail of every map in the game on a single page here.

  Nice one, Shakey.

• The Populous Reincarnated - This is the source for all the new multiplayer levels which Gabber and his friends have put together, but is also much more than that. The Forums have well-used discussion threads for every aspect of Populous, and there are some very knowledgable members. If you have a problem or a query, this is probably the best place to find the answer. There is also a new launcher and a programming project to improve online Populous.
• Blue Shaman's Command Post - Very full site with everything that you could possibly want to know about the single player game, including full walkthroughs for most of the levels, but nothing much for the online player. In particular, check out the Q&A page.
• The Populous Shrine - Superb, prize-winning site. If I'd found it before I started building this site, I probably wouldn't have bothered! As it is, I would recommend you read there if you can't find what you're looking for here, as I am aiming at filling some of the gaps, and enjoying the opportunity to insert my own rabid comments. One page which is really worth checking out is the detailed description of how you get mana, and how to optimise it. I haven't seen that anywhere else. Down since 6 April 2002 but back up again now (10 May 2002) after some behind the scenes discussion - Yay!
• Walhallah's Site - Getting fed up with playing quitters, cheats and other low life? Wallie has stuck his neck out and compiled a list of players who don't do that stuff. If you think you should be on the list, look out for him in the EA Poulous lobby.
• Inca Warrior's Site - At first site, this page appears to be just a set of links to Populous-related sites, but there is more to it than that. The New Worlds Readme link takes you to a full set of the New Worlds maps as contoured bitmaps, so that you can see what they look like before you play them. He also has a copy of the No-CD crack, which is useful if you get tired of playing as green or yellow, and a copy of the original Populous game - Populous 1.
• Return of the Spies (aka Ted's Populous Site) - Some basic info on the game, but notable for the downloadable utility which allows you to play the single-player games as multi-player.
• Zach's Site - Gives his strategy tips for the 'Two Crabs', 'Sandy Castles' and 'Craters' maps. On his home page he also links to a page of online hints and tips, but it seems to be broken.
• Xtremegamer 2000 - Some interesting ideas on use of spells.
• Para-Tanka's Populous News It looks potentially interesting, but all the links from the home page are broken (18/2/01)
• BomBer_mAN's Populous Site - Heavy use of animations makes this site a little hard to use, but there is some useful stuff. You might have a look at his 'religious page' (which has nothing to do with Populous) for an alternative viewpoint to those we normally hear. His new home page has a flash animation which takes 3 minutes to download on 56k modem, (not the link above) so be warned!
• King DBM and Death Warrior's Site - Gives some online strategies (Click strategies - I can't link direct because of frames) and a full list of spells with their ranges and mana costs. Did you know that you can get 5 earthquakes for the cost of one bloodlust?
• Robert Davies Populous pages - Another full set of walkthroughs for the single player levels.
• Gamefaqs - Overview of Populous, but with very little info for online play (text file).
• Gamefaqs - And another text file.

• Discussion groups

  These can be good resources when you get really stuck - when you've RTFM'd, and checked the web sites, of course. A polite question posted on a discussion board or message board will usually get what you need. Unfortunately, the really active message boards tend to be inside the clan sites, and hence members-only.

  Populous discussion group

  This Yahoo mail group is still running sporadically, though no one could call it lively. Join the existing 44 members and help to grow it!

  Kevin's Populous League

  Another Yahoo mailgroup, which had only got 4 members at 24 November 2002. You have to be a member to read the posts, and membership applications are vetted. I joined to see what was happening - nothing's happening! There have been no real posts for months, just an automatic weekly tournament reminder which the moderator has forgotten to turn off. For some reason it is listed in the dating section, and restricted because it 'contains adult material'. Very strange.

• If you've tried all the above, and still haven't found the answer you're looking for, you could always try sending an email to the Electronic Arts address hidden away on the Populous site navigation bar (populousfeedback@ea.com). You could also try the following local EA support addresses (lifted from the Bullfrog site):

  Brazil
  France
  Germany
  Italy (Web site)
  Netherlands
  Spain
  Sweden & Denmark
  UK
  You could also try mailing Bullfrog (who designed the game and who promise on their website to read every message they get --- though not necessarily respond. Their address is feedback.bullfrog@ea-europe.com

• DaznSaz's site - This link works (unlike many which I found while browsing). Tips and links here. Not any more - this site was down at 6 April 2002 :(
• Froodle's Place - Populous as described from the point of view of the Dakini Tribe. A bit cutesie, but done well if you like that sort of thing. There is a long long Q&A page, but I couldn't actually find much useful on it. Last updated December 2000 and the site has been down since October 2001.
• Populous HQ - This is a well designed noticeboard site (credits to PhantomX), dedicated to Populous, which anyone can access. In order to post your own messages, you have to register, but that's no big deal. It provides a good opportunity to talk to players who are not in clans, or who are in different clans, when they have more time than in the lobby. There are only around 30 members at the moment (2 June 2001), probably because it has only recently gone back online after a few months' absence. It deserves to be more widely supported. Site down from early December 2001.

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