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

Hills Divide Us
Eye of the Storm
Two Crabs
Skirmish
All Around the World

Barricade (UW)
Battlements (UW)
Cog (UW)
Sliced Beetle (UW)
Two Way (UW)
Multiple Choice (UW)

When I started playing this map, I wrote out the following strategy:

This is a small map, so there is limited building land and any damage to your village may prove fatal, so build good defences. Start by building a firewarrior hut, so that you can repel an early shaman attack, and put some guard towers (3 is good) on the hill nearest to the Circle of Reincarnation, right next to the pass, and fill them with firewarriors. This is a good defence, because the enemy shaman will have to use several spells to take them out, and manna is limited in this map, because of the terrain, so she won't have much left for attacking your village. Don't try to put one on the other hill range, because your workers will tend to try to climb the hill from the opposing side, so you will be sending your workers to their graves! It's probably not worth trying to build towers on the further arm of 'your' range, at least at the beginning, because the opposing shaman is likely to perceive that as more of a threat and zap your workers long before they finish. Your defence will be just as strong if you concentrate on the nearer arm. Build huts as fast as you can - putting a Guard Tower on the flat land near the pass gives you a second centre to start building from.

Once you have established your village, it's time to attack. Given the limited size of your population, using an all-out rush is dangerous because, if it fails, you could be wiped out in the counter-attack, so I prefer to use a shaman attack, with, perhaps, a small body guard. If the opposing shaman has not invested in firewarriors, a balloon or boat attack can be deadly - one earthquake in the right place and they're in big trouble.

Having been wiped out several times, I moved on to this idea:

Here's a different strategy which is even more effective. The key here is early aggression - if you can steal your opponent's wildmen before they get to them you will weaken him and gain an early advantage. Every wildman you convert is one less he can have - you gain a two-follower advantage. But you have to work fast. As soon as your shaman appears, set a path for her through the pass to the opposite side of the hills, using waypoints (if you try to send her directly, she'll go over the hills, which will reduce your conversion opportunities on your own side en route). As she moves off, convert any wildmen within range and then set your followers building a warrior and a preacher training hut. Get back to the shaman and turn off 'blast' as soon as she has one shot but leave 'convert' charging and use it to convert any groups of wildmen which come within range as she moves. Aim however to have at least two shots of 'convert' by the time you arrive at the other side. Check out where the other shaman is (using orbit view). As soon as you get within range of the 'enemies' wildmen, convert the largest groups. If you are playing a newbie, he may not even realise what has happened! You then have three choices. You can take them with you and attack the opposing shaman; or you can try to sneak back with your spoils, converting the any remaining wildmen as you go; or you can use them to attack the enemy village alongside your shaman.

If, however, the other player is experienced, she may be doing exactly the same as you, in which case your shamans will meet in the pass! If that happens, fight to the death - whoever wins the battle will probably be able to recruit all the wildmen on both sides and then attack your village in force - a 5 minute victory. In a shaman duel, you will be evenly matched with only one or two blast spells each, so it will come down to fisticuffs in the end, so get some help. Call up some of your braves and send them into the fray (or convert some new ones). Even a few braves could be enough to tip the balance so it's worth the sacrifice.

As soon as the outcome of the battle is decided, get back to your village and train up some preachers and warriors and get them into the opposing village in groups of 1 preacher plus 1 warrior, and split them so that they go to different parts of the village (use shift-left click to stop them from being intercepted on the way). Take your shaman along as well, as soon as you can. Even if the opposing shaman won the duel, she will have no spells charged, and her defenders will be vulnerable to preachers who will help to replenish your numbers.

Don't forget that Populous is played on a sphere, not a flat map. On this map, it means that the two COR's are actually quite close together - across the water. Once you get to the mid-game, make sure that you charge up Land Bridge (if it is available) so that you can attack your enemy from behind, and make sure you design your defences so that you don't get wiped if he does the same to you first.

Another interesting mid-game technique (for red) is to build 3 - 4 towers on the hill nearest your CoR and put firewarriors in them. You can then build some huts on the 'enemy' side of the hill under their protection. This will allow you to steal some of his wood, and divert his attention away from your main village, where your training huts are. It doesn't work so well for blue, because blue can't cross the hill - the followers have to go through the pass. On the other hand, blue has more trees, so has a building advantage.

Another mean tactic is to use your shaman to fry some of the trees on the enemies side of the hills using blast. (Go for the trees, rather than piles of wood, because 1 tree = 4 woodpiles.) That allows you to build a bigger village.

I've written about this map at length to show you how my strategy has evolved with more experience. There probably is an optimum strategy in most circumstances, but it will often depend on what your opponent is doing too, so you have to be prepared to adapt as you go along. That's the fun thing about strategy - there are often many paths to success. One thing's for sure though: if you don't have a strategy or plan from the outset, you'll be easy meat for an opponent who does, even if his strategy is not a particularly good one.

Do you have any alternative strategy ideas for this map? Why not email me?

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This guide to Eye of the Storm has been contributed by Woofer, one of the highest ranking shamen in the league tables. Thanks Woof!

Key things with this map

1. make sure you convert all the wild men on your island quickly and if you see a wild man on your enemies island which you can reach, convert him and send him off to build a Guard Tower on his island, he'll probably get killed but at least he'll waste their time.

2. Trees are in short supply so don't build on top of them as this will prevent them from regrowing.

3. The islands are separated so its very hard for any one to rush, so you can build up first.

Playing the map -

1. Make 3-4 Guard Towers across the island, spread them out and build small camps.

2. 1. At first Guard Tower you build, construct huts around it
   2. At second Guard Tower, build a fire warrior hut and some huts
   3. At third Guard Tower, build a temple and huts
   4. Carry on building huts

3. Always important to get at least 6 Fire Warriors trained quickly and spread them out over your base, put them in huts and this will save you from a preacher rush.
4. MOST IMPORTANT! Watch your enemy, if he/she sends all his people to get trained, make sure you are prepared and watch where their shaman goes.
5. It's good to have a spread of preachers and fire warriors across your base, preachers will stop warriors and the fire warriors will see to anything else :)
6. Good luck. I can't really teach any more of what to do, just a case of going out there and playing it. Remember though, you won't learn by playing easy matches, try and play people who you think will beat you, you will learn far more from watching it in action.

Woofer

And here's another version from a new guy on the block CaoCao:

Eye of the storm is tricky, it has two islands close together with a lake in the middle (this is where the stone head is found). Start off by building a few huts (and a warrior hut in case your NME attacks early) and then getting as many wild men converted as you can.

CHARGE AWAY!: after you've gotten as much wild men as you can, charge the most devastating spell you have (except A.O.D.) and also if you have the "bridge" spell charge it up too.

DEFENSE IS FIRST: while you're doing that get as much defense as you can (if you have the bridge spell don't worry about the back of your settlement). Start off by building a fire warrior hut and filling up your guard towers (assuming you have guard towers) then place preachers around the guard towers (by this time you should have your spells ready).

TIME TO ATTACK!: once you've taken care of that you need to build up your army! Train some warriors and take two to defend your shamen, then use the rest and split them up into two groups. Then get some fire warriors to defend the shamen (you don't need much to attack with since the warriors can take care of fire warriors much more easily). Take lots of preachers with you (depending on how much they have you should try and "out preacher them") split these up and put them with the warriors.

THE "BRIDGE SPELL": Take advantage of the bridge spell and use it to make a bridge from the back of your CoR and connect it to the NME's, but first make a bridge on either side of the island and take your two groups of warriors and preachers and move them in on each side. This should distract the enemy while you make and go over the bridge to the back of their settlement. Then ATTACK! Use those nasty spells you charged up. This should take out the enemy and if not you should be able to finish them very easily because of the damage you did.

CaoCao

As with all maps, speed at the start is essential. Here's what I do, from the point at which the shaman appears:

• Turn off blast
• Select the shaman
• Send her towards the hills in the distance on the main part of your island (it doesn't matter where, for the moment, just get her moving in the right direction).
• Select the 6 braves in your CoR.
• Set them moving in the same way.
• *Keeping them selected* move your viewpoint to the main part of the island and lay down two tower plans, one in each of the main flat areas, with the Ctrl key pressed (so that the braves build one, then go on to build the other, automatically.
• Reselect your shaman (who should still be walking) and use all the charged convert spells to convert wildmen in her vicinity.
• Use the newly converted braves to lay down huts as Woofer suggested, except that I would lay down the firewarrior hut first. Use the Ctrl key trick to program them into building lots of huts in sequence.
• Go back to your shaman and convert all the remaining wildmen.

Do you have any alternative strategy ideas for this map? Why not email me?

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The separation of the players makes for a much longer game than in say, Hills Divide Us, because there is no possibility of going for a quick early kill, or of stealing your opponents' wildmen. The key to winning, I believe is to build a boathouse or balloon factory as early as possible so that you can harass the enemy, aiming for his boat/balloon house first, then the firewarrior training hut. If you can keep him from completing those buildings, you will have the advantage and be very hard to beat. And don't let him capture a boat or balloon! If you build a boat house, consider putting it in the inlet, with a couple of guard towers manned with fire warriors on each promontory to protect it from water-borne attacks. Scatter guard towers around the rest of the island as well so that you will have warning of sneak attacks. Angel of Death is a favourite weapon on this level, so make sure that you have plenty of fire warriors. Those not in guard towers should be 'on patrol' so that they return to their posts after an attack, rather than being scattered. Make sure that you leave plenty of ghosts around, as well, to give that bird something else to eat. All these things help against airborne shamen, as well.

Because of the separation, the main risk is from shaman attacks rather than rushes, so plan accordingly - don't train too many followers, but put them in huts as braves so that they build manna for your shaman to use in attacking the enemy village. Consider creating some extra land around the shores as well, as the more distributed your huts are, the harder they are to destroy. Also, wider shores mean that a sea-borne enemy shaman has to leave her boat in order to blitz your town centre, which makes her much more vulnerable.

There is however also the possibility of building a land bridge between the islands, so keep an eye on what your opponent is up to. If he is laying down land, or training loads of preachers, that may well be his plan, so react accordingly.

Do you have any alternative strategy ideas for this map? Why not email me?

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Here's a strategy from Walhalla, who is an extremely cool player:

Strategy
The problem with writing about strategy is, as also stated with other maps, that there is no perfect single strategy. It's the story about the scissors, paper and stone once again. Because it is impossible to write out all the different strategies I will here write down certain elements that one will most likely find. Skirmish is one of my favourite maps. Not knowing exactly why, I think it is because small things can shift the balance. One misstep and you lose. Here is how it goes. There are two larger plots of land with CoR's, connected by a small path. In the middle of the path there is a large hill, around which the game usually concentrates. On the hill is a head which gives three EQ's, pretty welcome, especially in situations where large spells are switched off.

Start:
As in every map, the wildies you are able to convert in the beginning increase your chances of survival against your opponent. It is rather important that you immediately start walking your shaman to the head and start converting as many wildies as you can lay your hands on. Make sure to convert most of the wildies on the path before your opponent does so. (Indication: the closer to the Head the other shaman is advanced when you meet her, the more likely it is that you find an experienced opponent here. The further she has passed the Head on the way to your base, she is either reckless or very confident that she can rush your most likely unprotected village.) Danger here: don't lose a Shaman battle because she blasts you off the hill or path into the water!

Building the village:
One thing that strikes the eye immediately is the limited space you have to build. Plan this carefully. Start building a FW hut immediately for defence. Also make sure you build some towers on the higher hills around the entrance. Two or three will do to start with as you don't want to spend all your precious wood on shiny empty towers, do you? Then it is matter to build as many huts as you can fit into your small piece of the globe. And remember not to build on trees! You will find out soon enough that there isn't enough wood. Tip: you can also build on the path to the hill.

Taking positions:
Usually one of the players occupies the hill. This is relatively easily done by having FW's patrol on it and by building towers on top. Really hard to take over. If both players are set to take the hill, prepare for a long and exhausting battle. My tip: give up the hill then, if necessary. Give the initiative to the other.

Winning:
Now the most important part of this strategy, how to win? Provided that you have your village up and running, brand new huts filled with fire warriors, warriors and priests, towers on the hills for extra safety (of course they are not empty!), then there are two starting points for winning. Either you have the Hill (initiative) or not (non-initiative). Both can still win.

The party with Initiative will most likely concentrate on getting the earthquakes and try to walk in via the front door and cast them. Non-initiative party has to prevent this. To learn how, read pieces of text about shaman-battle and defence in general. With initiative, make sure you walk in the front door using plenty of ghosts and troops and lower spells to confuse the opponent. Then try to cast on vital huts, such as training huts. Also casting on the hills give great effect as it can severely weaken the defence. Once the defence is breached and especially when the other shaman is dead, send in as much troops as possible, without having to weaken your village defence or the hill defence. Make sure you spread out your troops over the opposing village and clean it out thoroughly.

Winning from a Non-initiative perspective. One thing you can say about non-initiative is that your shaman is not likely to be on the Hill. Most likely she is in the village, defending. The init-shaman is on the other hand most likely to be on the Hill, either defending that or preparing that devastating, final attack. Need I say more? Well..ok..here comes a hint: If she is on the hill, she is not in her village, defending! This could be the right moment to finish that landbridge and walk in via her backdoor. Because it is most likely that your front door defence is stronger than her backdoor defence, this could be a decisive moment in the game. After the core of the village defence is terminated, send in your troops (and spread them out) to clean the village thoroughly, or make it a Matrix-like Mana harvesting field (with priests). The choice is yours.

Walhallah

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All Around the World is the level "Fire in the Mist" in single player, where two tribes are next to each other but the only connecting path goes around the world. It is one of the two levels without any stone heads on it, so the main point is building and troops. Red and blue have different, but still similar strategies that are listed below.

Blue's Strategy
Blue has much land and lots of trees so building is quite easy. Be careful to check on reds progress and prepare for a rush if necessary, and look out for side doors from red. One of the first things needing to be done after building a couple huts, is to make a firewarrior training hut. With this create firewarriors and start building towers on the hills about half way towards red. Also build towers on any of the hills in blues base, and where there is little water between red and blue. When towers have been built, immediately start building huts around the towers to get more mana and braves. After charging up blast and convert, start charging spells in this order: earthquake, tornado, landbridge, ghost, swarm, lightning, firestorm, and any others. As soon as the first spell (not convert or blast) is charged, attack the enemy with a few warriors, firewarriors, preachers, and shaman. This attack, if it does not destroy the enemy, will slow them down. Keep a steady flow of people on the enemy and create a short cut when landbridge is charged to speed things up. It helps if a landbridge is made going into reds base, not from blues base, for obvious reasons. Continue with attacking and defending, and the level should be won.

Red's Strategy
Red has about the same amount of land and wood as blue so the strategies are much alike. Start out the same way as blue but for towers, build more over the rim in the middle. This allows red to have control over the blue people who have to run up to, and then climb the hill while being bombarded with fireballs. That area is also a good place to build so red should start building there, and near the CoR, eventually connecting the huts. Attacks across the water are common on this level so it is good to put up defense near the water as well. Use the same attack strategy as blue, and create more land between the hill with the rim, and the CoR if necessary.

Hint: large armies are useful in this level if they are accompanied by a shaman.

IncaWarrior

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Barricade (UW)
Battlements (UW)
Cog (UW)
Sliced Beetle (UW)
Two Way (UW)
Multiple Choice (UW)

Here's a great strategy from C3:

In my opinion this is the best of all the UW multiplayer levels and better then most of the regular 2 and 3 player levels people play every day.

To start off, you're probably going to want volcano on, trust me, it makes for a funner game. You start off in this level inside a giant fortress, with your opponent in a similar one. Notice you start off with four guard towers, and once you get some firewarriors, put them in these towers. For now, start building huts and send your shaman around to convert. Going up in the towers is a good way to reach wildmen that you can't reach otherwise because you have a GIANT range. You should build inside the fortress as much as you can but its also very important to build outside also. Send braves off to different areas outside (mostly behind) your fortress to build towers and start building huts. Its also a good idea to have some braves collect wood and take it up to the top of your fortress and build some more towers. I like to build them by the towers you already have: its much harder to lightning these towers when they're in bunches.

Keep building and build extra training huts outside your fortress also. As always, keep building huts, and start charging spells. You're not likely to get rushed so I like to charge some landbridges first and make easy access to the top of the fortress. Its a good idea to put firewarriors patrolling outside your fortress, at random spaces. Don't separate them too much or they wont be effective or will be easy prey for enemies. Firewarriors also have large ranges from the top walls and should be put there. I like to put guards by my small villages around my fortress to protect them, because they are very easy targets for small groups of enemy warriors, which can easily slip by you unnoticed.

The stone heads contain volcano and armageddon, but both take a VERY long time to pray at and are easy targets for a lighting bolt so I usually don't bother praying there.

It's important to keep building and have lots of reserve troops standing by and firewarriors patrolling outside and on top of your fortress. Watch the hill with the stone head on it within a landbridge's range of your top walls. Enemy shamans can reach this wall easily and rain destruction on you from above if they get on to your walls. To counter this, take the head first. Often this is the way both of you get into each other's base, so its important to control it. Firewarriors here can even reach shamen trying to attack your base by the main entrance. Once it's under control, check around and make sure there are no gaps in your defence. Early attacking in this level is usually earthquakes, tornados, and warrior attacks on your "suburbs" or quick hit and run attacks on your main defence. None of these should be too damaging to your defence, as long as you have plenty of troops and guards.

You can do this to your enemy also. Try blasting trees and attacking relatively weak spots in a defence to annoy and hurt your enemy little by little. I found the best way to get a crushing blow to your opponent is by landbridging to the plateau with the stone head, by your base, where you can then use another landbridge to get to your enemy's walls. This can be rewarding if you do it right, but unless you have high health even one firewarrior hit sending you off the edge could kill you because of the drop. Ghost armies or warriors in front of you should absorb the enemy fire. Make sure you take out all the guard towers near by, otherwise they can kill you very quickly. A firestorm to clean up the riffraff may help. Bringing in your own firewarriors to man your enemy's walls is also smart.

Erode can be a devastating spell to your enemy's fortress, killing firewarriors and bringing down the walls. I would suggest doing this if you have the chance. Once inside the enemy base, one volcano in the reincarnation will wipe out everything inside the fortress. Taking out the enemy's wall defence with lightning or warriors can be smart also after the initial attack. Remember to set up a defence quickly on the causeways connecting both bases, so enemy shamans cannot have easy pickings on your braves. Sneaking warriors around the sides into small enemy's camps is also smart. If you don't have volcano on, tornado or earthquake your enemy's training huts first. As always, watch out for a reincarnating shaman. Placing firewarriors on either side of the causeway on the ground can be helpful if a shaman tires to walk across it, one or two hits will send them over the side.

If you both have giant bases (which frequently happens) and are not able to significantly hurt your enemy you might want to try going for Armageddon (the stone head with landbridge range of your base). Always try to take out enemy towers if you see them, (especially on top of the wall), It takes a long time for braves to collect wood and take it back up to the top. If you have the time, its a good idea to get some extra wood to the top of your fortress to build on. If you don't want to attack by the top causeways, you should probably landbridge up to the top of the fortress just the same. If attacking by the main entrance, a firestorm will clear the guards. A escort of warriors or ghosts should be used to get inside the base. C3

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Here are some thoughts to get you started on this level, from Kurtangle:

Ok. This map is a version of 'Face Off' for 2 players. Start by placing down three hut plans around your CoR. Then you should charge up 2 blast and 2 convert, then turn off convert. Bring your shaman up to the head in the middle and convert the all the wilds in your path with the 2 converts. More then likely, the other person will bring up his shaman at the same time and will try to blast you. Stand near the edge of that other tribes territory and blast her first. If you are higher, you will have longer range and will be able to hit her before she hits you. Slap Down 2 Guard Tower plans on top of the hill with the head, at the entrance to the enemy camp. Now focus on your own base. Place a warrior hut and a firewarrior hut. If you don't have enough people, then get some from inside the 3 huts you built earlier. This is when the other tribe panics and brings their followers up to the head. Blast them in the water! Ok, if by this stage you have got a stable village and 2 towers at the head build 2 more towers on the head and your base. Start charging Lightning. Once the towers are built, the enemy will probably have lightning. Don't put your shaman in the tower - it will only make it easier for the enemy to kill her. Once you have 4 lightnings you should charge Earthquake. Only pray at the head as a last resort. Once you have an Earthquake, attack the enemy village, using lightning on any towers they have. Place the Earthquake as far into the village as you can, ideally on any training huts. Keep doing this and you should win.

If you don't get the head, and if the other player doesn't say "DON'T SIDE DOOR!", then Side door and attack with the same strategy as before, with Earthquake.

I havent played this map more then 2 times but this strategy works when I do. I don't know what's in the totems, but don't pray till the end.

I hope this helps you :)

Kurtangle

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This strategy guide from C3:

When you start off on this level, you will notice there's no convert. You'll also notice you're within blast range of your enemy's island. So instead of the normal convert, start your braves building huts immediately. There is only room for a couple huts on your island, but keep your braves busy by building a tower or two on the high spots on your island and on the shore closest to your enemy's base. (There are lots of trees on your island, so wood shouldn't be a problem.) Convert can be obtained by worshipping the head offshore two islands over, and since there are so many wildman you should probably go for it. Alternatively, you can landbridge over to the island behind you which has plenty of land to build on.

If you decide to go for the convert, landbridge up to the top of the hill first, this will help you later. You should try to build towers on all the high places on your island. Once you reach the convert island, send some braves over to pray at it, but beware: you only get six shots, so use them carefully. Converting lots of braves will probably also stop your huts from producing. Keep charging landbridge, and start bringing up as much land as possible. Build training huts, and start training.

Defence in this level should consist of the usually patrolling firewarrior and warrior combination at likely point of entrance, and randomly spaced towers. At this point I would suggest putting your shaman in a hut by the narrowest area between your island and your opponent's. Once your opponent decides to attack, this will probably be their point of entrance. Let them bridge over to your island, then lightning the shaman, and open up a free attack zone. I like to send in ghosts or warriors first to draw fire and cause a distraction. Watch out for firewarriors in huts, (you might want to put some in your huts too!) and do some damage by the entrance. Remember the enemy shaman is going to reincarnate on higher ground then you, and make sure you don't get caught up on braves on your way out. Following up with warriors to remote parts of an enemy base is smart.

The front of your base will probably take a lot of damage so its a good idea to only keep a few braves around, and lots of guards. The high ground on this level should be manned with lots of firewarriors, which provides a good defence as the rest of land is generally low. Keep expanding your base, and use tornados and swarms to clear narrow causeways of enemy guards. Burning enemy trees is also smart. If your enemy has a large base, concentrate on dominating the front of their base and the main attack area. It makes it harder to get into your base and provides a launching point for attacks into the enemy base. Put firewarriors on high points in your enemy's base also.

ALWAYS watch out for the back door in this level. You are only two or three landbridges away from the back of the back of your enemy's base, and if he's having trouble getting into the front of your base he may try the back. To discourage this put some guards in the back, and if it looks like your enemy is going to try it simply plow into the front of their base.

For attacking and defending, your own tactics usually work best, use them to the best of your ability ;) Good luck!

C3

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