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Not much time today, so I just played through the sixth level of populous. This one actually provided some challenge, but mostly due to the two opponents being annoying than anything else. The problem was, it was the first time for me to face two enemy tribes at once, but it’s still early in the game, so I can’t put up proper defenses against one tribe, while I’m off attacking the other.

Populous: The Beginning, Puzzle

The stone head grants Hypnosis, which can be used to control an enemy warrior on an island with a totem pole, which then casts land bridge between the two enemy tribes.

Because of this, I had to fall back several times, simply to stop one of the tribes from destroying to much of my village. The point of the level actually isn’t to fight against bot tribes at once. Instead, if you pray at the proper totem pole, you create a bridge between their two areas, causing them to attack each other. The problem is, this doesn’t always work, and it definitely doesn’t work all the time.

After some minor attacks, I decided to go destroy the Chumara (yellow) first, and then move on to the Matak (green). Of course, my memory being what it is, I might be completely messing up the names and the colors. Just to give myself another opportunity to make a mistake, there are three tribes in the game:

Enemy tribe colors in Populous, The Beginning:

  • Chumara- Yellow
  • Matak – Green
  • Dakini – Red

There! If I messed up, I’ll fix it later.

In any case, I eventually beat them, but it took me about an hour in total. Once I get the fire warriors, I’ll probably be able to defend my village better, allowing me to focus on offense. In any case, the game can be challenging now, but it still feels way easier than what I remember. I don’t think I got past the first ten or so levels as a kid.

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As I said, I was able to enjoy the game once the issue was fixed, so I did!

Over the course of a couple of days and a total of maybe two hours, I managed to complete the first five levels. I am now absolutely sure that my skills in gaming have in fact improved compared to my skills as a kid. Playing old NES and Sega games of my youth as an adult sometimes made me think my reflexes worsened or something. Now, I’m pretty sure I just had more willpower and time to push through my failures. It was all about playing it over and over again until you memorize the pattern.

Populous: The Beginning, Combined Forces Level

It’s never actually explained how you travel between planets.

Populous is a strategy game, though, so it wasn’t all about the reflexes. Still, in my youth, I played it on the PlayStation, meaning I had to use the dual shock controller instead of a mouse. Suffice to say, it was really hard to micromanage anything.

Boy, my mind really started wondering for a moment there. What I actually meant to say was that the first six levels felt extremely easy and not at all as hard as I remembered them. The fifth level, Death From Above, I remembered as especially difficult. Basically, you had a time limit and only a limited number of people and spells. The goal was to get to the back of a huge enemy village and pray at the statue there to summon a bunch of dragons. I was stuck at this part for weeks and eventually only managed to get through it by “cheating”. I used a boat to get to the back of the village, somehow tricked the game into letting me land at the bottom of a cliff and then used a land bridge spell to create a path to the top.

Populous: The Beginning, Death From Above

Sadly, you don’t learn the spell here, not yet.

This time, I did it the proper way and I succeeded on my first try. I’m not sure if the mouse made it that much easier, or if my skills in strategy games improved over the years, but overall, the game seems much easier than the game I remember.

It’s still fun, though, so I’ll continue to play it every now and then.

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Nostalgia!

I used to own this game on the PlayStation and I absolutely loved it. I never finished it, mind you, because it was way to much for my skills then, but I loved every moment of it. One of my favorite things was to play the first level and just build my village, bigger and bigger, until it filled the map. Of course, I had to use cheats to unlock the landbridge spell and increase land size, but I didn’t mind cheating to have fun. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The other day, the game was half of on GOG.com, so I bought it on an impulse, not realizing it has issues on Windows 7 and 8. Hardware mode crashes on startup, and, even though the game can run in software mode, it stutters to the point of unplayability for me. I spent some time trying to fix it and eventually sort of figured it out.

Populous: The Beginning, Planet Selector

I had a crisis of my own for a moment there, but I managed to get the game to run adequately.

I got some sort of custom version from Populous: Reincarnated. This pack is 96MB compared to over 300MB for the GOG.com version. I’m nut sure if it’s legal, but I payed for the game twice now, so my conscience wasn’t giving me any issues. In any case, this custom version had the same issue with hardware mode, but software mode ran smooth. What it lacked, though, were the cut scenes. Luckily, simply copying the FMV folder from the GOG packed to this one made those work two, so now I had a completely playable version. Just in case someone will need this information in the future, here it is, one more time:

How to make Populous: The Beginning run smoothly in software mode:

  1. Buy and download the game from GOG.com. Install in some place.
  2. Download the 96MB package from Populous: Reincarnated. Install in some other place.
  3. Copy the FMV folder from the GOG install location to the Populous: Reincarnated install location.
  4. Run popTB.exe from the Populous: Reincarnated install location to play the game.
  5. Optionally, increase the resolution to the maximum of 800×600 in software mode.
In any case, I could enjoy the game now, so that’s what I did.

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With all three of my neighbors eliminated, I now had the whole eastern side of the continent for myself. I decided to stop with the war and start focusing on achieving a victory condition. Since domination, unlike in Civ IV, requires me taking all of my opponents’ capitals, I decided to go for the cultural or diplomatic victory. I basically didn’t care which one it will be, so I went for both. I made a beeline for the UN, while building up cultural buildings in all of my cities.

Civilization V, Golden Age

The golden age was still active when the game was over.

Thanks to the faith income I had and the religion “elements” I’ve picked, I was now able to buy great artists at an insane rate. I was basically able to stay in a perpetual golden age from this point until the end of the game, so, of course, I decided to go for it. I used the extra income to buy favor with all the city-states and basically dominated every aspect of the game from now on.

Eventually, I researched the required techs to build the UN. I’ve built it around the same time I was able to begin construction of the Utopia project, meaning both of my goal victories were competing against each other. Finally, two turns before the Utopia project was built, a UN vote began and I was forced to vote for someone. I picked the Celts and the game was won.

Civilization V, Diplomatic Victory

It’s sort of bittersweet, since the Celts actually won. The game counts me voting them in as a victory, though.

I’m thinking Civilization V is much, much easier than Civilization IV, so any future games I play will be played on a higher difficulty. In fact, I’ll be raising the difficulty after each game I manage to win. I’ll see where that takes me.

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In my last session, I obliterated Ethiopia. In this one, I had a brief moment of peace before the war continued.

I started to build up my economy a bit, and managed to reach gunpowder units, before Russia decided to call me into a war with Montezuma. He only had one city left so, even though Catherine was completely useless, I managed to ruin him relatively fast.

Civilization V, Montezuma

It’s chieftain difficulty. Of course I dare.

I got his capital, which meant I now had two of Catherine’s cities surrounded on both sides. Since she started to really bug me by having her spies constantly stealing my technologies, I immediately moved on into a war against her. Thanks to a couple of cannons I’ve built in the meantime, the two cities she previously stole from Montezuma were mine in a couple of turns. Her capital lasted for a bit longer, but that to, was mine eventually.

Civilization V, Political Map

I said it was going to get greener.

Things are getting a lot greener now.

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I got the Gods & Kings expansion a few days ago from Amazon, so I decided to go for a round today. I set everything to random and got Gandhi as my leader.

Gandhi’s trait is “Population Growth”. This reduces the amount of unhappiness gained from city size by half, but doubles the unhapinness gained from extra cities. Naturally, this means I needed to build fewer cities, but plan to make them big as soon as possible, meaning my number one priority was to find places rich in food. The problem is, I was a bit rusty, so I was having some trouble spotting the perfect locations.

Civilization V, Starting Point

It took me a while to get the first settler ready.

In any case, I started the usual routine of training a scout and researching the techs needed to access the local resources. Soon, I met Montezuma, who I meet far to often in my games. I hated him back in Civ IV, so this hate sort of transferred to Civ V, but since all the AI opponents are very unpredictable in this game, I guess there really isn’t any reason to hate Monty any more than the rest of them.

Next up, I met Catherine of Russia, followed by Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. Ethiopia soon turned out to be my closest neighbor, but they didn’t give me much trouble. Both they and Russia took a liking for me, actually. Catherine was the strongest of my opponents, but luckily, she focused on taking down Montezuma, so I was left alone for most of the game.

Throughout the BC era, I didn’t go above three or four cities. Instead, I focused on building them up, researching my techs and improving the tiles. I managed to found a religion to, which is a new feature of Gods & Kings. I have to say, I love how religion is handled in the expansion. You basically build your own religion from various available traits. Based on how you build it, it can be an extremely powerful addition to your empire.

I decided to mix it up, but picked production bonuses mostly, since I wanted to focus on my cities and wonder building. The first wonder I built was the Great Library, which allowed me to pick Drama and Poetry as the bonus tech, which, in turn, got me into the classical era extremely early.

Civilization V - The Great Library

I always build far too many wonders.

Sometime during the renaissance, I entered a war against the Aztecs with Russia. I captured one of their cities and decided to hold it in spite of it being a bit to far into Catherine’s territory. After this war, the Aztecs were reduced to only their capitol, so they weren’t a threat any more.My next opponent, Boudicca of the Celts, I’ve met a bit later, but still well before I entered the medieval era at 125 BC. It was only after this that I finally met my last opponent – Lord Askia of Songhai. Both of these, I had very little dealings with.

With that out of the way, I decided to expand my territory a bit, at the cost of Ethiopia. Since I was playing on the chieftain difficulty, everyone was extremely far behind in tech, so the war didn’t last long and Ethiopia was destroyed.

It was getting late by now, so I decided to end my session here.

Civilization V - Political Map

I expect the map to be a lot greener next time.

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A few days ago, a pack of games was for sale on GOG.com. The pack contained a game I used to play as a kid and remember greatly enjoying. The game was Conquest of the new World and, while it has aged well, I have to admit I let nostalgia get to me a bit, since it’s not as awesome as I remember it.

Had you asked me back then, I’d probably say this game was just as good as the first Civilization. Well, I installed it yesterday and got around to playing it today. It’s fun and interesting, but nowhere nearly as deep or as enjoyable as Civilization.

Considering the topic it deals with – exploration and colonisation of the New World, you might compare it to Colonization. But, even though the overall genre is the same – a turn-based strategy, i would not call this a 4x game, nor could I Compare the two directly.

You start a new campaign of Conquest of the New World with a ship anchored to the coast of an unexplored continent, and a few units on board.

Conquest of the New World, Game Start

Pictured: The start of a Conquest of the New World Campaign

From this point on, you continue to explore with your ships and your settlers, but also start building up your town and setting up your defenses.

Your final goal is to dominate in any way possible. You can use diplomacy, conquer the competing countries, even start an independence war if the taxes you’re paying to your homeland become too much of a nuisance.

The premise is similar to a 4x game, but it plays quite differently. Basically, you start out with a ship, a small army and an explorer on the coast of an unexplored land. Your opponents do the same. You set out exploring, hoping you’ll find a good spot for a future colony. Once you explore enough, your homeland sends you a settler and you get to build your first town.

Your town collects resources, based on the buildings you have and where you’ve built them. Large, open areas are good for farms, the regions near mountains should contain gold and metal mines, while the wooded areas are perfect for logging. Of course, you also need to build up your commerce to collect goods and most importantly, provide living room for your citizens.

Eventually, you get to build more towns, conquer the towns of your enemies, cooperate with or destroy the indigenous population, basically anything that comes to mind in a 4x game. As I said, though, it’s only similar to a 4x game.

Conquest of the New World, A Developed Town

Pictured: A typical Conquest of the New World town, a bit later in the game

First of all, your cities are built more like Anno. The tiles themselves provide yields, but only in the form of how effective certain buildings are on certain tiles. Your population is important, but not as city size. Instead, it represents labor force. The more labor force you have, the more production buildings you can support at full capacity.

More importantly, while the game is turn based, the movement of units is not tile based. Instead, each unit has a certain distance it can travel over the map during your turn, which is portrayed as a bar that is slowly emptied as your unit moves. Explores and ships expend their movement slower than military units, of course. There are probably small tiles that play a role underneath the visuals, but to the player, the movement seems real time, to a degree.

Last but not least, the combat takes place on a separate screen, where you place your units in a grid with your enemy and then take turns moving and attacking. Some units can move further, some can attack from a distance; each has their own strength and weakness.

Conquest of the New World, Partially Explored

Pictured: A fully zoomed out map view later in the game. Some exploring was done, but mostly using ships, along the coast.

 

As for myself and my attempt to play, I started a custom game on the easy difficulty, built up my town and am now trying to figure out how to build another. I can’t remember if there’s some way to recruit a settler or if I have to do something else. What I did remember is that my town needed to have mountains, forests and plains in order to get all the required resources for development.

Also, the taxes I have to pay are starting to get a bit high. I’m nowhere near strong enough to throw a tea party, though.

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I’ve wasted a couple of hours on Port Royale again. I got another captain to a high enough experience level to do automatic trading and sent him with a convoy to trade in the large central area of the Caribbean. After a couple of rounds, he was bringing in about 1000 gold per day, so he’ll be a nice addition to my income. I also have a different captain working the small trade route between the two towns I have properties in. This one is bringing in about 500 a day, so not as much, put still quite nice.

Port Royale 2 - Town View

This is yesterday’s, because I keep forgetting to take screenshots.

I also tried my luck with the first scenario that isn’t a tutorial, but I failed in a very epic fashion, meaning I still have a lot to learn about the game. Still, I’m getting there.Thanks to all this, some warehouse management and investing, I got up to around 400 thousand or so, and I’m growing at an insane rate. I already have a nice wood industry going, a bunch of wheat and cotton plantations, several residential buildings and I’ve just built a cloth factory. My plan is to keep getting building permits in locations around my base of operations and focus on further increasing my passive income, so I can stop trading with my primary convoy, and start doing other fun stuff in the Caribbean.

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I bought Port Royale 2 way back in the last Christmas sale on Steam, if I remember correctly. I never really got around playing it, though the reason for that escapes me. It’s a fun Caribbean trade/pirate game, not too simple, but also not to complex. You trade goods, fight sea battles, build up or conquer towns and fight in wars as a buccaneer.

Today, I played through the tutorial scenarios, and even managed to lose the last one, so that leaves four more scenarios to finish. The game isn’t really about finishing scenarios, though. The “Free Play” mode is where Port Royale shines. You start out in a town of your choice, with a small ship, a building permit and 30.000 in cash and you get to build your trade empire or pirate fleet, whatever you prefer.

Port Royale 2 - Town

You can also buy out and improve towns to get ahead. I threw a feast in my home town here.

After completing the tutorials, this is exactly what I did. I started the free play mode and played for a couple of hours. I got one of my captains to four experience and sent him to do trading on his own, bought another ship and hired another captain, built a bunch of farms and houses in the starting town and traded up to a couple of hundred thousand. My plans are to get more captains on auto-trading, increase my passive profits and eventually build a fleet big enough to start some fighting.

I’ll probably play some more tonight.

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It took a lengthy session to complete this game, but I did it, just a few minutes ago.

The third world was called Outer Colonies, and it wasn’t too hard. As far as I can remember at this time, I only had to restart one level. Overall, it was mostly a world with typical conquer-all levels. The fourth world, Deep Space, was a lot more creative, with a level where you couldn’t build anything and one where you had to run from the enemy until you could increase your numbers enough to beat him. Due to these special levels, it was also a fast world, with the longest mission taking me 21 minutes to beat. In comparison, level 14 of the Outer Colonies, called Liberation, took me over an hour.

The final world, also had a few creative levels, but most ended with me conquering everything. Naturally, the very final level, The Centre Cannot Hold, was the hardest. I probably restarted it a dozen times before finally beating it. I’m not even sure how I did it in the end, since I didn’t change my strategy much compared to previous attempts.

Eufloria, Final Level

The final level had a dark theme.

Now that the game is won, I have access to bonus modes, but I really don’t feel like playing those. I got a total of 9 out of 18 achievements, and from the description, I think I could unlock a few more with relative ease, but I don’t feel the game is good enough to spend more time than necessary. It’s fun and relaxing, definitely beautiful, but nothing to deep. If I had a tablet, it’d probably have a permanent place on it, but there’s to many games in my backlog not to move on.The gist of it was to capture another large asteroid right at the start and then slowly conquer an area closer to the edge, since being at the centre would mean all the opponents would focus on me. Once I got out of their way, they mostly kept busy killing each other, keeping their numbers relatively small and allowing me to pick them off one by one. Once I got one of the two huge asteroids, I could launch assaults more easily and the game was pretty much won.