Populous: The Beginning

Welcome to PopTB.com! This is a website about the classic PC game Populous: The Beginning, also known as Populous 3, developed by Bullfrog.

PopTB aims to introduce new players to the game and its online community of players (Populous: Reincarnated) and make it easy for them to get started playing this challenging god-style RTS!

Play Populous: The Beginning Online

You can start playing Populous: The Beginning online immediately by following these steps:

Download the Populous installer (~25 MB) and run it.
Click “New User? Create an Account”, and enter your desired username and password.
Join a game!

The Populous online gaming lobby

The Matchmaker is a custom-built online gaming client designed to connect Populous players from all around the world so that they can participate in online multiplayer games. It will be automatically setup by the Populous installer. Among other features, it includes custom maps, automated skill-based rankings, match history and statistics for each player, and support for mods.

This is a LIVE, auto-updating screenshot (every minute) of the Populous lobby right now!

Player rankings

Player rankings available based on a method which calculates skill, with match history and stastistics for every player. Every played match has its own page.

Populous patches

Populous patched for the ultimate gaming experience. Graphical bugs fixed, custom resolution and FPS unlocking available, various glitches fixed and much more. Regular updates to make Populous better.

Custom maps & modding

Hundreds of custom maps are available and playable at the click of a button, with full modding support. Auto download available.

Powerful anti-cheat

No cheats are known to work in multiplayer games thanks to the anti-cheat technology.

Player profiles

Customizable player profiles for every player. Statistics include graphs of skill over time and game outcomes, allies, rivals, favorite maps, and more.

Universal hosting

No configuration required for hosting games! Hosting available at one click for everyone, with no extra lag.

shaman-divider

Reviewer	Score
GamePro	Editor’s Choice
PC Zone UK	92 out of 100
PC Gamer UK	90 out of 100
more reviews…

Description

Populous: The Beginning (Populous 3), a real-time strategy video game, is easy to start playing, yet very hard to master.

The successor to Peter Molyneux’s mythical Populous, the game is critically acclaimed for having far surpassed the original, which is regarded as a masterpiece for its time to begin with. Reviewers praised its beautiful 3D graphics, the complexity of high-level play, and the completely new style of game it introduced, which has not yet been correctly imitated by any following game. The game immediately developed a strong competitive scene which remains very active in 2015.

Populous: The Beginning adds a whole new element to strategy games, putting the player in control of the Shaman, an unit which can make use of devastating spells such as earthquakes, firestorms and tornadoes, yet can be quickly killed like any other unit, and which must battle with other Shamans first in order to do devastating damage, thus adding an action element to the game.

It is regarded as one of the best real-time strategy games of all time, which is proven by the fact that over a decade after its release the community is still very active, with a solid base of competitive players. As of 2015, there are hundreds of players active in the online multiplayer community.