Hey all,

I've reached a mid-100 level now and I'm pretty much stuck. Regardless of what I do, I can not seem to defeat a higher level opponent once they become very fast. I've noticed that the AI can remove rocks easily (without having to remove them in the ocean), making volcanoes to be less effective then they are against me. Also, as he is very fast, both earthquakes and swamps seem to have little effect as he simply rebuilds so fast; it's as if I didn't do anything to him.

Basically, once he gets volcanoes, he just spams them constantly and I have no way off dealing with them.

So, I'm pretty much stuck as to how to win at this point.

Any advice?

If he keeps spamming volcanoes, just build at the highest elevation. If he can volcano AND earthquake, this won't work.

Well, I guess I'm getting a bit ticked with the way the AI plays. I've noticed that he can make rocks disappear without having to lower the land all the way, his cities spawn new citizens constantly (unlike my own), and he isn't restricted to raising / lowering in areas where only cities or towns exist (which is the rule on the map I am playing).

How do you beat an AI who isn't restricted by any rules or limits?

I finally was able to build up enough force to flood him and it did nothing as he was able to save all his units.

Earthquakes, swamps, volcanoes and floods do next to nothing to him.

I remember having similar difficulties on later maps when playing the SNES version (no, I never did "beat" the game). Part of it, I think, is luck.

As I recall, you don't have to lower the rocks all the way into the water to remove them. Experiment in earlier levels to find out to do it.

I can't speak for city production; I don't know how that works beyond it takes awhile for cities to get up and producing (the more people they start with, the faster they start producing).

And you and the AI may have different restrictions on a level. I think there should be a comparison somewhere so you can see who is operating under what rules.

I seem to recall multiple floods being needed to drown out the AI decently well because they can raise land so much faster than a player. Also, use a combination of earthquakes and volcanoes to disrupt AI attempts to flatten land.

Overall, good luck. I recall the AI being really rough later on.

Yeah, some rocks can be removed simply by changing the land. Others need to be actually lowered into the sea. However, the AI doesn't seem to have this restriction. Either that, or there is some trick that I don't know about.

Funny thing is, the only levels I seem to have problems with are the rock and lava maps (Mordeord 138 & Nimdicon 139). For some reason, the AI can expand so much more quickly than I can. Even on previous maps, he was very fast speed yet I could outpace him.

Thanks for the tips.

Victory!

I did a little research on the web and found some tips for expanding a bit more quickly. I also found that you can wear the AI down over time simply by constantly expanding and building up. I noticed that the AI doesn't always use his mana most effectively and you can use this to your advantage.

A couple other things that I found out. Making two volcanoes in the same spot produce a very huge volcanoe which is much more effective. Also, swamps can be very useful if placed strategically.

Congratulations!

Any chance of sharing the site you mentioned? Thanks!

I am stucked around the 140s maps myself - the CPU spams volcanoes and knights, the latter ones eating through my civilization and making it impossible to win as I can't produce knights at the same speed nor enough mana to drown his in swamps continously. Any more detailed strategy from some recent players?

Hadn't checked this in some time. In case others are looking for it, here it is:

http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/docs.php?id=1258

Same here. Very soon in the level (lava world) CPU spams volcanoes, sends his überknights to massacre my people and the only thing I can do is wait for my mana to rise high enough to at least fix the ground.
I looked for hints and strategies, but how can I apply them, if there is a volcano every five (?!) seconds and most of the time I don't have enough mana to clear the ground, let alone do more mana cost magic?

While I fight for life, CPU expands his territory filled with castles and there is nothing I can do to slow him down. CPU clears my volcanoes, swamps so fast it does not affect him the slightest. If I manage to make a strong knight, he will eventually succumb to the swarm of enemy knights (meanwhile he creates another Mt.Everest next to the previous one).

If only we were on the same level, but clearly the CPU fixes ground, generates mana and people way faster than me and that is just a little bit frustrating (I like a challenge but come on).

I mean, I should be the asshole toying with the opponent, not the other way around. =)


P.S.: Apology for long post, I just would like to finish the game after 30 years (and before Cyberpunk release).

Try to attack early (merge->papal magnet->attack, then settle, then repeat); if have the bolt may kill tons of baddies by bolting the leader (AI will try to raise a new leader, then just keep bolting the people as flock to the magnet); if have the swamp works the same (spam swamp all around their castles).
If the game is too fast may slow it down via the option; also, remember to turn down the computer assist if see it wastes too much of your manna

So I'm hopelessly stuck on level 139. I can't even begin to wrap my head around what the AI is doing.

I don't understand how they can possibly expand as fast as they do, nor spam volcanoes as early and as quickly as they can. I compare us on the map, and by every measure I have at least as many, if not more castles than them. But I barely have the mana to hit them with a swamp every few minutes, much less the quake a minute they send my way.

I try to build on top of the volcanos, but the rocks prevent me from creating castles, and they just spam knights at me anyways.

I try to build up there earlier, so the volcanos do less, but it takes too long while they expand too rapidly.

I try attacking them early, but they recover faster than I can attack, and it seems like a waste of mana and my attention. Quaking them just seems to make them expand faster. Swamp is instantaneously cleaned up.

Allegedly this AI is set at low aggression and very fast reaction, but I don't understand how "low aggression" is consistent with the relentless barrage of knights and volcanos that get sent my way. How is it even possible to win this?

I just want to get past this level. I looked up cheats, but they don't appear to work properly? One site said hold down TAB and hit F1 twice, another said F11 twice. A text box is supposed to pop up, but I've never seen it with either one.

Just help. I was enjoying the game a great deal the first 100 worlds or so. But this just seems broken and masochistic now. is that normal? is it just time to give up?

Ok. So after much effort, well, no. I didn't beat the level.

I hacked the game.

Brushing up on x86 assembly and DOSBOX's debug tools, I figured out the bytes that set if you are in conquest mode or not. I then found the checks that prevent you from altering the enemies abilities if you are in Conquest most. They are at hex address 102a1 in POPULOUS.EXE. Changing the value from 74 (jump if equal) to EB (just jump) allows you to press B during play, and edit the enemies abilities, aggression and response times even in Conquest mode.

I may not have the reaction times, or the steady mouse hand, at my age to compete with the AI at the highest reaction time. But I'll consider this a hard won victory over it all the same.

So I know this topic is quite old now, but I figured I'd share something I found in an internet search totally by chance. For whatever reason, I decided to search for the Populous manual online (Why? I dunno, GOG includes it, but I did.). And it turns out that, in addition to the manual, the original DOS version of the game also included a "reference card" (which is more like a supplemental mini-manual) that ISN'T in the GOG package. That's at https://archive.org/details/populousmanual/Populous-ReferenceCard-PC/ .

Why GOG doesn't include this, I have no idea. For one, it gives the correct method to change landscapes in Custom Mode. But most relevant to this topic is that there are a number of keyboard shortcuts for the game not in the manual but on the card...including shortcuts to increase (Hold Alt and press S) and decrease (Hold Shift and press S) the game speed! It looks like everything in the game is tied to the animation/graphical speed. The Alt-S combination makes the animations one frame faster, and Shift-S makes them one frame slower. It also seems like there's a "one-action limit" per animation frame. Your cursor position actually only updates when the screen animates, and you can see what I mean by the limit by slowing the game way down (You'll need to Alt-S maybe 50 times) and then trying to make a bunch of moves in quick succession.

Nonetheless, I do find that slowing the game speed down, in conjunction with some of the techniques mentioned elsewhere in this topic, *is* actually helpful in defeating Very Fast opponents. How much I need to slow it down varies from landscape to landscape; slowing it down 8 ticks on a Very Fast Rock & Lava landscape/opponent allowed me to get past Level 191.

So if you're stuck on a level, give a few Alt-S's a try and then Restart the level (Don't hit "Move to Next Map"--that restarts the current map in Conquest, but also resets the game speed to default) and see if that helps!