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Populous: The Beginning
FAQ and Walkthrough
By Chris Morton
a.k.a. Steric Hindrance (steric_hindrance@hotmail.com)



Table of Contents

1. Introduction
1.1 Copyright Info
1.2 Revision History

2. Gameplay
2.1 Controls
2.2 Tribes
2.3 Buildings
2.3.1 Trees
2.3.2 Hut
2.3.3 Guard Tower
2.3.4 Warrior Training Hut
2.3.5 Temple
2.3.6 Firewarrior Training Hut
2.3.7 Spy Training Hut
2.3.8 Boat House
2.3.9 Balloon Hut
2.3.10 Guard Post
2.3.11 Reincarnation Site
2.4 Followers
2.4.1 Shaman
2.4.2 Brave
2.4.3 Warrior
2.4.4 Preacher
2.4.5 Firewarrior
2.4.6 Spy
2.4.7 Wildmen
2.5 Spells
2.5.1 Blast
2.5.2 Convert
2.5.3 Magical Shield
2.5.4 Ghost Army
2.5.5 Swarm
2.5.6 Invisibility
2.5.7 Land Bridge
2.5.8 Lightning
2.5.9 Hypnotize
2.5.10 Bloodlust
2.5.11 Teleport
2.5.12 Tornado
2.5.13 Swamp
2.5.14 Flatten
2.5.15 Earthquake
2.5.16 Erode
2.5.17 Firestorm
2.5.18 Angel of Death
2.5.19 Volcano
2.5.20 Armageddon
2.5.21 Forge World
2.6 Worship Objects
2.6.1 Vault of Knowledge
2.6.2 Obelisk
2.6.3 Stone Head
2.6.4 Totem Pole
2.7 Combat
2.7.1 With Warriors
2.7.2 With Preachers
2.7.3 With Firewarriors
2.7.4 With Spies
2.7.5 With Boats
2.7.6 With Balloons
2.7.7 With the Shaman

3. Walkthrough
3.1 The Journey Begins
3.2 Night Falls
3.3 Crisis of Faith
3.4 Combined Forces
3.5 Death From Above
3.6 Building Bridges
3.7 Unseen Enemy
3.8 Continental Divide
3.9 Fire in the Mist
3.10 From the Depths
3.11 Treacherous Souls
3.12 An Easy Target
3.13 Aerial Bombardment
3.14 Attacked From All Sides
3.15 Incarcerated
3.16 Bloodlust
3.17 Middle Ground
3.18 Head Hunter
3.19 Unlikely Allies
3.20 Archipelago
3.21 Fractured Earth
3.22 Solo
3.23 Inferno
3.24 Journey's End
3.25 The Beginning

4. FAQ

5. Other Stuff
5.1 Contact Info
5.2 Acknowledgments




1. Introduction
Populous: The Beginning is a fantasy war game by Bullfrog Production Ltd.
Like in earlier versions of Populous, you play a demigod who uses mana and
magic to strengthen your own tribe and destroy others. Your avatar is the
Shaman of one of the tribes who aspires to godhood (and I throught just saving
the world in other games was enough of a power trip). wrote this guide because
I discovered that there really wasn't a very comprehensive Populous: The
Beginning (P:TB) guide on GameFAQs, and I hope that someone finds whatever
help I can offer on this game useful.


1.1 Copyright Info
This document is copyrighted by Chris Morton. This guide may be printed out
for personal reference, but it may not be copied, in part or in any form, for
any profitable purpose without my express consent. This guide may not be
posted to any website without my permission (just ask first, and I'll let you
if you want to put it on your site), and it must be posted in an unaltered
form. The sites that have my permission to post this guide are:
http://www.gamefaqs.com
http://dlh.net

1.2 Revision History
3-16-03: Began writing this Guide
6-13-03: Finished writing this Guide




2. Gameplay
Populous: The Beginning consists of 25 levels, where each level is one world
in the solar system. Once you conquer a world, you can move on to the next,
or replay any previous level. The goal of each world (with one exception,
level 19) is to destroy the other tribes on that world. Enemy tribes are
considered destroyed when all of their followers (including the enemy Shaman)
are dead or converted to your side (see 2.4.4 Preachers). See the section on
Combat for more details. This section gives a general overview on how to play
P:TB, though it may be helpful to refer to the in game help or the manual.



2.1 Controls
P:TB is a very mouse oriented game. Virtually the entire interface is
point and click. The solar system map is very self-explanitory, just click on
the world from the bottom of the screen, and then on the hand button at the
bottom right to start the level. In a level itself, the screen is divided into
two sections. On the right is the map window where the action takes place.
You can see only part of the world at a time, but if you move your mouse to the
sides of the screen, you can scroll over to other parts of the map. The left
and right arrow keys will rotate the map window so you're looking in another
direction. The up arrow key moves the view towards the direction you are
facing, and the down arrow moves away. If you left click on any of your
followers on the right side of the screen you will select them and be able to
issue orders to them. Left click and drag the mouse to create an illuminated
patch of ground, and when you release the left mouse button any followers
within that patch will be selected. Orders are given by moving the mouse
somewhere else and left clicking. If the spot is open ground or a building
that the selected followers can do something with, the followers will move to
the spot you selected. If you click on an enemy follower or building, your
followers will move to attack. If you click somewhere your followers cannot
get to, a message will tell you so and your selected followers will stand
still with thier hands in the air. Usually this happens when there's a hill
too steep to navigate or water in between the follower's location and where
you told them to go. Note that you cannot cross water without a boat or
balloon, and if a follower falls into water he instantly dies. To have a
follower do multiple things (i.e., move to certain points in order or do
multiple tasks) hold down the control key, a number will appear by your
cursor, and click on the things you want done. For example, if you select a
brave and click on a tree and then a building that is being constructed (with
control held down) the brave will chop some wood from the tree and then take
it to the construction. If you right click an object (follower, tree,
building, etc.) on the map screen you will query it. Queried followers will
display their health (a white bar) and an icon for thier current task.
Buildings will display how many followers are in them, or how many are working
on them plus the number of bales of wood needed for their completion if that
building is under construction. Query a tree to find out how many bales of
wood it contains and query a worship object (i.e. Stone Head) to find out how
many followers you need to worship at that object (discussed later). The left
side of the screen is the Control Panel. At the top is a mini-map which
displays a portion of the globe. Your follower's locations are given by blue
dots. If there are any enemy followers in sight of your people or Guard
Towers, other collored dots will be shown. Below the mini-map are three page
controls for (from left to right) the Buildings Panel, the Spells Panel, and
the Followers Panel. The Buildings Panel contains buttons for all of the
buildings you currently are able to build. Clicking on one of those buttons
will transform your cursor on the map screen to a white buidling plan cursor.
The size of the cursor depends on the size of the building to be built. There
will be a white arrow on one side of the plan, indicating the entrance of the
finished building. Pressing the space bar will rotate the plan so that the
entrance appears on another side (See the Buildings section for more info).
Left clicking on the map where the plan is all white will set that plan down
on the ground, while right clicking cancels. The Spell Panel contains buttons
for all of the spells your Shaman can currently cast. Spell buttons with red
or blue dots are spells that can be used immediately. See the Spells section
for more information. Lastly, the Followers Panel displays a table of what
all of your followers are doing. The columns of the table match up to the
follower type icons directly above the panel (these icons stay on the control
panel regardless of whether you have the Building, Spell, or Followers panel
on). The first line in the Follower's Panel is the number of followers of a
certain type that you have selected. The second line is the number of idle
followers. The third is followers in a building. The fourth line is
followers working, either construction or guard duty. The fifth and sixth
lines are followers in boats or balloons, respectively. If you click on any
entry in the table, you will select a random follower from that category and
be able to issue orders to him. For example, if you click on the braves
column in the idle row, you will select one idle brave. If you click on the
boat or balloon row, you will select the boat or balloon that that follower
is in. If there are more followers in that vehicle, regardless of type, you
will select them too. Also note, if you hold the control button and click on
an entry in the Followers Panel, you will select 5 followers in that category
(i.e. 5 idle braves). If you hold shift you will select all of the followers
in that category. Right clicking on one of the entries in the table will
center the camera on the follower that would have been selected. In between
the page tabs for the three panels and the panels themselves, are several
other features of the control panel. On the first line below the page tabs,
there is the Commandee Toggle Button, Shaman Icon, Query Button, and Enemy
Tribes Icon. The Commandee Toggle Button relates to the Total Followers, and
will be discussed below. The Shaman icon shows the status of your Shaman at a
glance, what direction she's facing, whether she's moving, casting a spell,
being attacked (the icon will flash red), or dead (in which case the Shaman
isn't displayed). You can immediately center the map on the Shaman by right
clicking on the Shaman icon on the control panel, and select her by left
clicking. Selecting the Shaman from the control panel automatically brings up
the spells panel. To the right of the icon is a white bar which shows the
Shaman's current health. If left alone she, and all of your other Followers
will eventually heal. Above the Shaman's health bar is the query button.
Click on this and a little question mark cursor comes up. Left click on
anything to bring up the in game help for that topic. (Side Note here, I of
course used the in game help as my primary source and had it open while
writing this. If this guide sounds in part a little like the help text, it is
because I'm trying to keep the names and notation consistent and not confuse
people. My appologies to Bullfrog if it looks like copy and paste, I'll have
some real original thoughts later in the guide.) Lastly, the enemy tribes
icons are (up to) three red/yellow/green bars on the right side on the control
panel. They flash when followers from that tribe are dying (hehe) and when a
Shaman dies there's a little magical flourish that involves those icons to
show who killed whom. Below all of that stuff are the total follower icons.
These icons are the ones that show you which type of follower you're selecting
in the Followers Panel. The icons are (from left to right) overall followers,
Braves, Warriors, Firewarriors, Preachers, and Spies. The overall followers
icon is a red/green bar, which is full and red if you have more followers than
allowed by your housing, full and flashing red and green if you have the max
followers for your housing, and low and green if you have fewer followers than