The Populous Vault

Populous: The Beginning

For those of you who just bought a copy of Populous: The Beginning, you are in for a real treat. Populous: the Beginning is a fun three-dimensional strategy game that is cram-packed full of levels and different skills. The game's 3-D graphics engine is a bit old but it is still provides some pretty solid gameplay in my opinion. In fact Populous did so well that Bullfrog (the company responsible for making Populous.) had released an expansion disk for the game, but sadly it was only ever released in the UK. For those of you who are new to Populous on-line you will find that the learning curve is very steep, but don't give up, "The bigger they are the harder they fall!" they always say. In other words keep playing, you'll win eventually. Here is a quick tip for those of you who are new to Populous. Make sure you beat all of the single player levels first, so you can get a feel for the game before you go online. Oh yea, one more thing, make sure you download the Version 1.01 patch before you try to play online, otherwise the game will not work online and you will get a lot of other online players mad at you. You used to be able to go to the Populous homepage at, www.populous.ea-europe.com, but now you can find it at http://www.strategyplanet.com/populous/.

Mission Disk

For those of you who don't own the mission disk, it was released in 1999. It was called, Populous Undiscovered Worlds. The game added 12 new single player levels and 12 new multiplayer levels for you to conquer as you please. Aside from the extra levels there were no additional spells or buildings, but the new variety of levels make up for it. Undiscovered Worlds can be played on the Populous: Reincarnated Matchmaker just as you would select a map-pack. Unfortunately, there are no sites completely dedicated to giving you information about Undiscovered Worlds at this time.

Populous: Reincarnated-New Worlds

Populous New Worlds are third-party levels designed to play on Populous. The levels are very unique and original. Populous New Worlds install into your game as Mods in the Populous: Reincarnated Matchmaker. For help installing map-packs click here. Go to, http://strategyplanet.com/populous/ to get more information on Populous New Worlds.

A More Direct Approach to Getting Started Online.

The first thing that you need to do is ensure that Populous is installed. Make sure you install the full game, and if possible, place it in the default directory.

After the game is installed, you must download the patch. Version 1.01 and 1.03 are completely compatible between eachother; however, Version 1.03 has extra utilities that come with the game. I recommed downloading Version 1.01 and then installing the extra features as you need them. You can get the patch (Version 1.01) off of my downloads page. I have made an unofficial US patch and an unofficial UK patch for those of you who ahve a slow connection and do not wish to wait fourty five minutes to downlaod a nine megabyte file. If, however, you do not have the US or UK version of Populous, then you will need to download the largwe patch. All three files do the same thing, although the smaller two are for specific nationalities of the game.

After you have installed the patch, you may wish to install Undiscovered Worlds. If you are fortunate enough to have an Undiscovered Worlds disc, the patch is also on that. After you have installed Undiscovered Worlds (UW), you may wish to install the optional update to it. This update is used to fix a problem that occured in regular Populous Single Player levels after installing the UW mission disc. This patch is not required, but it will resolve the issue. It too can be obtained from my downloads page. If you are using Windows XP, you may need to run the game in Compatibility Mode after installing UW. Do this by finding the shortcut(s) to the game and right-clicking them. Choose "Properties" and then click the tab labeled, "Compatibility". Then place a check in the box next to "Run this program in compatibility mode" and then choose "Windows 98/ ME" from the drop-down list. Press APPLY and OK and it should work. In some rare occasions, the game will still fail to start, if this happens, simply reinstall the original game patch downloaded off of this site again (For US and UK Versions only). If this does not work, then you will need to make direct shortcuts to the proper executable files within your Populous directory. The installation of UW is completely optional.

The next step only needs to be done if you have a router or a NAT Proxy. Simply download and install the router fix from Populous: Reincarnated by clicking here. From this page, look for the Network Hosting Patch and download it. If you do not have a router or a NAT Proxy, then you do not need to worry about this, although applying the patch will not harm anytihng. After doing so, you will need to open your router configuration and foreward port 7575 to your LAN IP address. Because all routers work differently, the specific steps cannot be covered on this website, so it would behoove you to consult your router manual for information reguarding accessing its configuration or using port forewarding.

After this step, all that needs to be done is to install the Matchmaker so you can play online. You can figure all of this out from my tutorial by clicking here. Just follow the information on that page and you will have the basics on how to obtain, register an account, and use the Populous: Reincarnated Matchmaker. There are always, of course some better more in-depth information on how to use the software at Populous: Reincarnated, but my tutorial will get you started, especially if you are not very computer literate.

Before going online, it is recommended that you read some rules of typical online gaming etiquette. Please read over these two articles to avoid making enemies within your first week on the Populous: Reincarnated Matchmaker. By following these suggestions, it will help you and everyone else better enjoy their time playing Populous Online, and when everyone is happy, then Populous does better.

Read about etiquette from CD Player's Website. - Click Here

Read the Populous: Online Code of Conduct. - Click Here (Edited from its original version.)