Populous 2 SNES FAQ v1.1
By: populator
Contents:
1. Introduction to Populous 2
2. Story
3. PC vs. SNES
4. Basic Game Play
5. Screen Layout
6. Controls
7. Settlements and Walkers
8. Leaders, Heroes, and the Bronze Orb Thingy
9. Beginnings and Endings
10. God Powers
11. Strategies
12. Codes
13. End Notes
------------------------------
1. Introduction:
Populous 2 follows up Populous, a late eighties/early nineties real time
strategy game in which you attempt become a god by beating all the other gods
and your father, Zeus, at the game of the gods, known as Populous. To win,
you need to have your tribe of blue clothed people out breed and annihilate the
opposing red clothed people. To aid in this endeavor, the player is granted a
number of god powers which can aid the growth of their own people and
significantly hinder that of their foes' (providing an excellent outlet if you
have bossy parents).
------------------------------
2. Story:
The story is fairly simple, to become a deity and assume a position among the
other gods, you must defeat each of them as well as big daddy Zeus in three
round matches of Populous. Opponents include Prometheus, Hermes, Demeter,
Ares, Gaia, Athena, Apollo, Hades, Poseidon, and Hera.
------------------------------
3. PC vs. SNES:
The version of Populous for the SNES has been drastically scaled down from the
PC version. Instead of 900+ levels in which your next opponent is determined
by your performance against your current opponent, you face sixteen different
gods over 48 levels in a linear fashion and are unable to progress to the next
match unless you beat the current one. Also, you don't get to select your
god's appearance, and the AI seems to be the same no matter what strategy you
employ, to me at least. I should add that all this information has been
gleaned from reading various websites; I haven't played the PC version
personally.
------------------------------
4. Basic Game Play:
Game play is fairly simple: you spend the early part of the game flattening
ground for your population to grow and inhabit, and then once you've amassed
enough people to have access to god powers, you spend your time hovering over
enemy settlements, dropping pillars of flame and whatnot at the appropriate
locations. Occasionally, you must return to your settlements to repair damage
and direct population expansion.
------------------------------
5. In-Game Screen:
Once you've started a game, the look of things can be a bit confusing if
you're not used to it. The main part of the screen is a close-up view of the
game map. Most interaction with the game takes place here. You should see
a number of blue clothed people (walkers) marching about who promptly settle
on flat ground and become buildings or settlements. Your opponent is clad in
red, but otherwise is identical to you.
Above and to the left of this main window is the overall land map. White
flashing dots represent your settlements, yellow flashing dots represent enemy
settlements, red dots are red walkers, blue dots are your walkers, flashing
dots of any color other than these have been afflicted with plague.
Above and to the right of the main screen is the coliseum which shows how the
two populous' compare in size. If you select the question mark from the
populous controls menu, this area shows the information about the selected
object.
Below and to the left of the main screen is the god power selector, more on
this further down.
Below and to the right of the main screen is the populous control menu; also
see below for more information about how to use this.
------------------------------
6. Controls:
Most of the action takes place in the main window in the middle of the
screen. The cursor, that funny looking conglomeration of arrows with a black
cross at one tip, is controlled by the d-pad. The portion of ground beneath
the black cross is the place that will be targeted by a push of the button.
If you direct the cursor off of the edge of the main screen, the screen will
scroll in that direction.
Use the B button to lower ground or select something. Hitting the B button
while positioned over the lower right-hand corner of one of your buildings
causes it to send out a walker (this is known as "sprogging" in the somewhat
annoying lingo of Populous), and allows for rapid expansion in the early part
of the game.
Use the A button to raise ground.
Use the Y button to access the option menus. One push of the Y button will
enter the player into the overall god power menu. The choices from left to
right are people, nature, earth, wind, fire, and water. Use the B button
when you've positioned the hand icon over the one you want, and it will let you
choose a god power from that family of god powers, or. . .
Pressing the Y button twice will enter the player into the available god
powers from the god power family currently selected (it's less complicated than
it sounds). For instance, if you've already chosen fire from the first menu
then pressing the y button twice will let you pick from the fire god powers --
pillar of flame, fire storm, summon achilles, or volcano -- without going
through the first menu again.
And just to keep you on your toes, hitting the Y button a third time enters
the game options/populous controls menu. In the SNES version, the game options
are fairly limited (game speed most notably). The populous controls let you
tell your blue clothed heathens how, in general, they should behave, whether it
be aggressive, docile, or merge with the leader. From the bottom of the
screen to the top, the menu options and their effects are:
A) Go to papal icon: leader and walkers go to icon and merge there.
B) Docile expansion: walkers attempt to settle before fighting.
C) Military expansion: walkers will look to fight opponents if possible.
D) Go to leader: walkers will merge with the leader if there is one.
E) Information: not terribly helpful, but it provides size and arms level info
about a settlement or walker.
F) Game options: little can be changed here in the SNES version of Populous.
Hitting the Y button four times (count 'em, four) causes reality to melt away,
leaving only you and your SNES in a universe of blackness and eternal video
playing. Or, it might cause game play to resume as before.
------------------------------
7. Settlements and Walkers:
At the beginning of a game, you will notice your walkers march around for a
bit, looking for flat ground to settle upon. The size of this settlement is
determined by the amount of flat ground available to a walker. This can range
from the micro tent if only one square is available to the castle if two
squares of flat land are available in all directions. The advantage to having
large settlements is that they produce stronger walkers and generate mana for
god powers more quickly. At the beginning of the game large settlements can
hold you back unless you sprog because they take a while to populate.
You can tell how strong a settlement is by the location of the flag on its
pole. The higher the flag, the more people living in the settlement. A
settlement spits out a walker automatically when the flag reaches the top of
the pole.
------------------------------
8. Leaders, Heroes, and the Bronze Orb Thingy:
You'll notice early on in the game that one of your units (either a walker or
a building) has a golden sun over its head or building. This is your leader or
pope, and corresponds to the enemy unit with a silver, medusa head hovering
it. This unit grows a little faster in a settlement and fights a little
tougher as a walker. You can cause all of your walkers to merge into this unit
by selecting the fourth icon from the bottom on the populous controls menu (hit
the Y button three time to access, remember?). Obviously this merger greatly
increases the strength of your leader unit, even if it does prevent you from
expanding your settlements during the process. It also allows for a truly
prodigious hero unit to be produced via one of your god powers when you have
enough mana to do it.
You can control where your pope walks by placing the Papal Icon (Bronze Orb
Thingy) wherever you want, usually enemy settlements, by using the god power,
Place Papal Icon (see the God Powers section for more info), and then causing
all of your walkers to head towards the papal icon (first option on the
populace control menu). Once there they will merge with your leader unit in a
glorious display of blue electricity after taking over/beating up any nearby
enemy units or settlements.
If for some reason you lose your pope then the next walker to touch the bronze
orb thingy will become your new pope.
You can have any number of heroes in addition to your pope, but only one pope
at a time.
The strength of your pope is determined by the number of people that have
merged together to form it (this can be a bit tricky because your walkers can
be quite weak, especially at the start of the game, so just because a lot of
walkers have merged together doesn't guarantee a strong pope or subsequently
formed hero).
------------------------------
9. Beginnings and Endings:
Before each match begins you will be presented with a screen that shows what
god powers will be available for the coming match and the rules of the match.
The rules of the match are in a column on the right part of the screen. Items
with a blue x by them will be unavailable for the next match. So if there's
an x by raise/lower enemy land, you won't be able to make mountains out of
their settlements in the coming game (the computer doesn't always have to play
by the same rules).
One note: for some reason, the can't fill swamp option doesn't seem to work
on SNES -- for you or the computer.
At the end of the match, if you've won, the opposing god will give you
"Reveration" (I really don't think that's a word) in the form of blue
lightning bolts and a small bonus to one of your god power families. On the
next screen, you can invest the blue lightning bolts into a god power family of
your choosing. The higher the number of a particular god power family, the
more
devastating the underlying god powers will be. You can earn more lightning
bolts by having a higher score, which on the SNES seems to be determined by how
much you've used your god powers during the previous match.
------------------------------
10. God Powers:
These are divided up into six groups: people, nature, earth, wind, fire, and
water. You can tell what god powers are available by the tiny colored bars
that appear beneath the family selection menu. A power is available even if
its corresponding bar is just slightly filled.
Note: some of the god powers are directional, and, when selected will cause a
rotating arrow to appear around the cursor on the main map. Just wait until
the arrow is pointing in the direction you want and then unleash whatever upon
thine enemy.
Second Note: Heroes are unaffected by godpowers from the same family. For
example, Adonis is immune to swamps. -DragonAtma
**** People:
Raise/Lower ground -- you start the game with this ability and rarely lose
it. It requires little to no mana expense.
Place Papal Magnet -- if you have a leader (or pope) this places the bronze
orb thingy anywhere you want.
Summon Perseus -- the coolest looking of the heroes in my opinion, this
changes your leader into Perseus and unleashes him upon the red peoples to
pillage and burn. Also, "Perseus is the most intelligent -- he
has the sense to move around baptismal fonts, swamp, and so on." -DragonAtma
Plague -- this creates a fast spreading plague on one of the enemy
settlements, signified by a circling raven. It drastically reduces the mana
production, population growth, and fighting ability of all affected units.
Additionally, "plagued people instantly vanish when armageddon is declared!"
-DragonAtma
Armageddon -- ends the game immediately by causing all settlements to turn
into walkers who then make war upon each other until one side or the other is
victorious. If you have access to this power, you'll probably be on the verge
of victory anyway.
**** Nature:
Create trees -- originally I couldn't think of a good use for this power,
however:
RCheronis provided this strategy which employs trees: ". . .
[trees have] given me many a quick victory. The key is that you can set them on
fire. Since they're so cheap in mana, you can build a huge forest around enemy
settlements right at the beginning of the game, and then set them on fire. As
soon as the fire hits the trees, it'll branch off in all directions burning
down any houses in its path. I've won several games this way before the enemy
had enough mana for swamps."
Floral bloom -- causes flowers to grow over an area of ground. Unlike its
cousin power above, this is actually somewhat useful because it allows the
granite ground from volcanoes to become inhabitable again.
Swamp -- not one of the more spectacular powers of the game, but one of the
more useful. Create a bubbling morass around the opposing leader and watch
the approaching walkers get sucked into the bog.
Deadly Fungus -- I am the fungus god! I am the fungus god! Creates a square
of deadly fungus which changes into a pool of people eating fungus after a few
seconds, and when planted repeatedly expands in the following manner:
"Fungus actually follows the rules of Conway's Life. . . fungus appears in
cells with exactly 3 neighbors, and dies out unless there are 2 or 3 neighbors.
Placing fungus according to the keypad's 2, 4, 7, 8, and 9 keys (a glider)
makes the patern travel northwest until it hits something; placing it on 2, 4,
5, 8, and 9 (the r-pentomino) forms a pattern that'll expand over a HUGE area
if not interfered with. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life for details."
-DragonAtma
Summon Adonis -- lover of Venus and veg-head, Adonis is the Nature hero. Use
this power to convert your leader into Adonis. Adonis is kind of a lame hero
because he divides every time he fights, cutting his strength in half with
each combat. Still, he's mostly effective.
DragonAtma contradicts me arguing that, "Sure, Adonis splits into two heros,
but that means he can fight two battles at once!"
**** Earth:
Build road -- creates a road to make your walkers travel faster towards
wherever the road leads.
Also, "Roads. . . CAN be used to deny enemies of farmland," by building a lot
of them in their territory. -DragonAtma
Build wall -- creates a wall around your settlements. Be warned, you can only
start a wall once, all other wall pieces must connect to the original.
Earthquake -- begins a fault that keeps growing for a certain amount of time,
and then opens up to become a gaping chasm which swallows all walkers dumb
enough to walk into it. A very useful god power, just make sure your own
people don't start falling into the chasm once the beat down is on.
Create Mountain -- causes an uprising of ground that is uninhabitable until
reflattened. Gaia's version of this spell creates a humongous MOUNTAIN, which
is quite a pain. I never developed my Earth power beyond the point of being
able to create a pimple of dirt with this.
Summon Herakles -- you may know him better as Hercules of Kevin Sorbo fame.
This power converts your leader into the hero Herakles, who inflicts double
damage on all those he faces. A very useful hero, his damage against
opponents makes him worth twice the populace that went into creating him.
**** Wind:
Lightning bolt -- calls a single bolt of lightning against your foes. This
comes in handy when you build up your wind power a bit because it becomes
accurate to where your cursor is instead of random within a several square
radius. Use early and often to keep opponents from building up.
Lightning storm -- like lighnting bolt, except that it affects a large area
for a period of time. This power is modestly devastating if you haven't put
much strength in wind. Beware the storms that Hera and Artemis cast at you.
Whirlwind -- hard to control, but it can be effective if you haven't got any
other options. "Whirlwinds also create whirlpools if they're over water."
-DragonAtma
Summon Odysseus -- changes your leader into the hero Odysseus, fastest of the
heroes. Pretty much the same as the other heroes but faster and with an
extremely strange looking helmet.
Gale Force Winds -- Creates a powerful gust that turns all the settlements
that fall in its path into walkers. I never used this power extensively, but I
believe it extends in a straight line from one end of the map to the other and
moves in the direction you've commanded.
**** Fire:
Ah, fire. This power brings back many wonderful childhood memories.
Pillar of Fire -- Go Old Testament on the red peoples by creating a pillar of
fire that swirls bout in the vicinity of its creation, charring everything in
its path.
Fire storm -- like thunderstorm except, well, it's fire instead of lightning.
This power remains fairly weak unless you spend a lot of experience on your
fire ability. Some of your opponents, like Apollo, have truly devastating
fire storms, though.
Summon Achilles -- convert your leader into Achilles. If you saw the movie
"Troy," you know that Brad Pitt was pretty hot playing Achilles; Populous does
"Troy" one better by making Achilles so hot that he causes things to catch
flame -- literally -- whether it be walker, settlement (provided he's strong
enough to defeat them) or even the native flora and fauna.
Volcano -- causes a large volcano to appear. This is the most useful of the
god powers for me because it renders the ground it effects uninhabitable (no
rebuilding). This power does effect a large area, so avoid using anywhere
near your own settlements.
"The PC version has a fifth (but sucky) fire power: eight streams will
shoot out from your leader (one in each direction, of course.) I'll stick
with forest fire and Volcanos." -DragonAtma
**** Water:
Create Basalt barriers: causes a wall to form in the ocean as a barrier to
land expansion. Though seemingly useless, these do stop the computer from
expanding in a particular direction for a little while.
Also, DragonAtma adds, "Basalt walls. . . have a 100% chance of stopping tidal
waves! Use them well, and you can GUARANTEE that your land will be dry."
Whirlpool -- this power causes a land eating whirlpool to appear off of your
enemies' coasts. Too unpredictable to be very useful, but if it does go in
the direction you want it to, it can be devastating.
Baptismal fonts -- creates a cluster of pools that change any walker that
enters it into a unit for the other side. After swamp, this power is the
great scourge of the computer. Place it in enemy walker traffic lanes or
around their leader to gain new walkers quickly, or target hero units such as
Achilles or Helen to convert them to your side and send them right back where
they came from.
Summon Helen -- Circe was so beautiful that she turned men into swine (not
that hard, really). In Populous, Helen is so beautiful that she causes all of
your walkers to follow her and your settlements to convert into walkers that
follow her for a while before casting themselves, like heart sick lemmings,
into the sea. For me, Helen is the most deadly of the heroes because she won't
die unless you kill her or convert her with baptismal fonts.
Tidal wave -- when used, creates a wave that spreads in all four direction
from its point of origin and swallows a large portion of the low lying ground
(and whatever might happen to be on it) into the ocean. This one's a bit hard
to control because it affects such a large area, but if used with caution, can
cause great harm to the enemy cause.
------------------------------
11. Strategies:
I'll try to keep this as brief as possible (because I could go on and on and
on and. . .)
In the early levels, you should be able to win easily by continually creating
mountains on your opponents settlements (Don't forget this strategy in later
levels either: putting a big mountain where your settlements meet the
computer's can be quite effective if the match's rules allow it). Or, if
you're a more advanced player, take advantage of the computer's slow growth
rate by sprogging like a demon.
Once you've played about 25 levels, you'll have to sprog in order to win. At
this point, I find it most effective to grow my settlements as quickly as
possible towards the opposing settlements. This hastens the conflict and
prevents the computer from having a much greater amount of land than you to
draw people from.
Take advantage of the computer's tendency to focus on the leader unit by
harassing it. On the levels in which you have swamp or baptismal fonts this
is quite easy, but careful use of whirlwind or any of a number of other god
powers can also be effective. Also, I switch my populous to a military focus
once the computer begins sending all its walkers to the leader, so that while
all its walkers are moping towards the leader, I am slowly leaching away
opposing settlements.
Hang in there, usually the computer grows a bit more quickly than you in the
beginning, just keep dropping those whirlwinds or baptismal fonts as they
become available. It does take a toll and gradually turns the game in your
favor. Sometimes, you can even overcome being vastly outnumbered with a
little luck and the well placed god power.
Don't Underestimate the power of the basic lightning bolt. You get it early,
and if you use it often, the computer may never really get off the ground.
Also you earn points for using god powers, so you increase your score a good
bit by using this power frequently.
I got really stuck on two levels in this game. The first was one of Gaia's
levels which I finally won with careful/lucky use of whirlwind on the leader
unit. The second was the Hera level which starts you out on three separate
islands. I couldn't beat this one until I prevented her two population groups
from merging by building up my settlements between hers. It messed up her
"gathering" of walkers when they had to walk through my settlements to get to
their leader.
Additionally, DragonAtma contributed these strategies for using god powers:
Plague and baptismal fonts should NEVER be mixed, as it allows the
plague to spread from your opponent's people to yours. Plagued people spread
the illness to any settlement they enter, so targetting the enemy leader
works well.
Again, be careful with baptismal fonts! If you use them, DON'T use
plague and try to avoid using heroes.!
Walls (plus swamps or baptismal fonts) are a great way of keeping the
enemy leaderless (and therefore heroless!). If the enemy papal icon is on a
swamp or similar disaster, he'll raise the land ASAP...assuming he can! So
quickly place walls around it to prevent that. If (say) the magnet and
swamp are on 5, and walls are on all but 2 and 5, he won't be able to
change the land!
I normally don't use whirlpools, with one exception. If there's a lake
in enemy lands, I'll put it there -- it'll can go in ANY direction and
cause mayhem! And any one caught in one instantly drowns -- even if water is
set to harmful not fatal.
Earthquake and Gale work well together. Just make sure enemies are
being blown TOWARDS the quake not away from it!
Lightning Bolt can rapidly drain your mana. I use it frequently, but
mainly to scorch enemy lands.
Achilles will burn any trees he passes. If any walkers are next to
them, free kills!
------------------------------
12. Codes:
If there are any cheats, I don't know of them. This is a fairly obscure title
for SNES, so if anyone knows of any and e-mails them to me, I'll include them
in revisions.
For those playing on PC, DragonAtma suggests the following technique for
enhancing your statistics, "You can make large boosts to your stats by editing
the PC password. . . if nothing else, changing the fourth character from A to D
will add 12 lightning bolts."
I am not sure about the game's replayability, but if you just want to play the
final Zeus matches, this code (from one of my games) will start you at the
first of those three levels.
L9kbXQGjNGf:S
-----------------------
13. End Notes:
Direct all feedback about this Strategy Guide to:
[email protected].
Wishful thinking here.
I couldn't find an SNES manual for Populous 2, so the information on god
powers and other assorted items is provided in conjunction with the game manual
for PC reproduced on the following web site:
http://emulazione.multiplayer.it/stgraveyard/game_reviews/Populous2/
Populous2_manual.htm
DragonAtma pointed out that the hero, Helen, is the same as the historical
Helen who was responsible for starting the Trojan war. Interested parties can
read "The Iliad," the first surviving epic poem of European culture, which
chronicles the events of that war from a Greek perspective (they did win after
all), or you could see the recent movie "Troy," which pretty much tells the
same story.
Thanks to RCheronis for his contribution to the god powers section.
An extra-big thanks to DragonAtma for his corrections, suggestions, and taking
the time to help me make this FAQ much better.
Mostly this guide is based on my own trial, error, and frustration at not
being able to find any useful information about this game anywhere else.
Feel free to use and/or reproduce this FAQ in any endeavor for which it's
useful, only I expect a fair cut of any money that it might directly bring in
(this is conceivable -- barely).
Populous 2 is a copywrited property, and any abuse of those rights may be
prosecuted by law (at least, that's what we're lead to believe, though it
doesn't seem likely unless the creators of the game really are greek deities
who will come and cast lightning bolts and otherwise maledict you for
tampering with their divine product. Don't tempt fate, that's what I always
say, so it would seem to be in one's best interest not to mess with the game,
unless you really need to, as one sometimes does). Okay, enough of that.
You're still here?
Go away.
