How I (and you) started playing Populous: The Beginning

[@Poxet]

My story starts the with the demo that came with SimCity 3000. It was my cousin's cd, so I could never play it much except when I went to his house. One day he lend it to me and I saw that "demos" button and wondered what could it be. That's when I found that curious little game where you could send poeple flying commically with a fireball. From then on it was replaying the same couple of levels again and again. I wouldn't get my hands on the complete game until many years later. Then it was years of playing the campaign with and without cheats. Sometimes I would just boot the game to replay level 25, just to mess around with the other tribes from the sky. Then, by sheer coincidence I stumbled upon Pop RE; I discovered there was people still playing, that it wasn't some lost relic of the 90's. I got to play for the first time with other people and revel in the chaos that team matches brought. I still play from time to time. Multiplayer not so much, though.

[@RhettTheDungeonMaster]

Yup. Simcity had a demo in 1998. That's my story. I never finished the game as a child because my mom overheard me and my friend talking about the "angel of death" so she thought it was Satan and broke my disc. Back in around 2014 as an adult I got the game to run on my iMac and beat the game for the first time. I was up night after night playing my heart out, living the good life.

[@riveness]

I came by this game from a demo in a multi buy with homeworld one. I couldn't get the full version until I got a second hand PlayStation in 2005. I played it, in tandem, with homeworld, getting me into compsoc in university. Multilayer followed on local lán. I don't play now, but it built my entire gaming life, which now focuses on hades star. Thanks, pop.

[@zoeh179]

I got a copy probably around 2001. My half-brother was dating an American girl, and she came over to the UK to visit with her parents. Randomly, her father brought me (age around 10) and my little brother two PC games. One was Populous, the other was Zeus and Poseidon. My brother and I used to play Populous together and watch each other play. I never played the online version but I played the single player campaign many times over throughout my teens and young adult life, and also played undiscovered worlds. I eventually found all the extra campaigns and have now played the majority of them. I still go back to it probably around once a year and have a couple of weeks of obsession. Bit of an addictive personality I think - plus the nostalgia of playing games from my childhood. I still play Zeus and Poseidon every now and again too!

[@Sparklmonkey]

I have no idea how I started playing Populous, I think it was a demo. But I remember playing Pharaoh, Homeworld and Black& White as well, all on PC. It's been so long since I played. I just received a gift membership and can't believe all the memories rushing back, watching your videos. Thanks for doing this and keeping the memory alive!!!

[@Shifu_Hotman]

Firstly its heart-warming to hear that most of us have had similar introductions to this game as kids. I owe my experience to my brother for introducing populous to me when I was 6 years old in 2001. He got a burned copy of the game from a friend as it wasn’t easy for us to buy any PC games at the time. This was my first RTS and immediately fell in love with it. It’s been a big part of my childhood and reminds me of home, the kind of nostalgia that brings tears to my eyes. 24 Years later and still playing, and I intend to introduce my kids to this beautiful game.

[@HESHRocketWarhead]

1:30 - Still stand by what I said there. Though I didn't add that about a year or two afterwards, my mother managed to get Undiscovered Worlds for me, but it would still be a few months before I actually played it, because I was still loosely obsessed with the base game itself. Funny that.

[@Infarlock]

Great stories to read For me I somehow got my hands on the a demo of the game through a physical disc of some racing game. Not simcity nor sims. For some reason I remember prefering populous the beginning over the racing game since I played midtown madness and I loved it, didn't need another racing game, was sad the demo had like 3 levels so I replayed it over and over, trying to do shaman only, troops only. Showed it to my good friend in class who was my neighbour, we called him 'the hacker' since he used to find early spongebob episodes that weren't here for months, it was back in the year 2000 and the very early internet days, we were all at 1st class in elementary. Few days later he found the name of the game + a pirated version of it. We were all only 6 years old and didn't even know what piracy meant back then so of course we downloaded and played it. I remember getting stuck on so many levels and we even attempted to play LAN by me throwing a LAN cable over to his house, we lived in the same building, big brother helped on this one but the connection always failed so we pulled the cable back. I remember once I reached the final level where you become a god I was so happy, it took me weeks to get there, and then I played with shaman only and troops only when possible. I love how the game is still alive to this day, love watching gameplays of it, especially on custom campaigns and maps

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

Long Story incoming! My Populous journey started in either late 1999 or very early 2000 when my dad booted it on the living room PC (I think he got it from my uncle.. but i'm not entirely sure, though my uncle had like 5 copies or some goofy nonsense) So I watched my dad play pop when I was about 6-7 and remember The second level (Night Falls) and thinking it looked so cool (My dad was able to use the hardware mode, so the game looked spectacular for that time period) I kept asking him about "what does that castle do?" which confused the crap out of him until I pointed at the Warrior Training hut, to which he would explain the function the best he could. At some point during this era I attempted to load the game but didn't know how to do anything.. I believe I loaded one of the stormy maps like Archipalego or some other gray level, I got spooked when I heard my parent's waking up from their nap and just shut the entire computer off, because for whatever reason I thought I'd get into trouble for playing a game like that. (My fears were completely and hilariously unwarranted, neither of my parents gave a single damn about me playing violent RTS games XD) I remember watching him play levels 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 especially (that one is locked in my brain) levels 9 and 10 (this too holds a permanent residence in my synapses, when I was a little older I would emulate "From the Depths" with lego structures and sink them in a pond at a family's house) I think i remember my dad getting to maybe level 13 before my parents split up. After that sometime in late 2000, I would boot up the game myself on one of my grandparent's computers which was in the living room, the very very first level I remember actually playing was Bloodlust, since I loaded one of my dad's saves, and got completely owned by the AI. I spun around in the desert for a couple minutes before red or yellow attacked me and I tried to use invisibility on my shaman to no avail. So, I think the next day, I went into another smaller "office" type room to play on another computer at the same place, and had to ask my grandfather for help with some of the keys on the board, since I was still learning at that time. starting properly on the tutorial, then level 1, and around prime-time hour I finally figured out how the game was played and probably made it to about level 3. The next for sure, I beat level 4 and like everyone else, got noob-gated on Level 5, putting the game down for awhile to play StarCraft 64 and get noob-gated there too! After probably a week or two I came back to populous to finally beat level 5 using the Shaman + 4 Preacher + Boat strategy and felt like a champion. Levels 6 and 7 were pretty easy, level 8 was a fun return after seeing my dad play it and how he built a massive settlement, so I copied his strategy, lost a couple of times until I tried sneaking in early to get the FW hut, at which point I managed to survive long enough to build a giga army take the hill by force and laid absolute DESTRUCTION on the Dakini. Level 9 I got volcano'd on the first try and was absolutely shocked at how I was supposed to beat that.. took me like one try after to beat the chumara after finding my own volcano and getting revenge. Copying my dad again I got noob-gated on Level 10, and that probably took like a week of on and off play to rack my brain (even during school down time) to figure out how to beat it. I think I remember going mass preachers and casting a couple lucky swarms to take the totem and sink the Matak. Level 11 took a few tries, but was fun to watch the AI ACTUALLY fight eachother... and then we get level 12 which is still my favorite in the original campaign. There's something about the fly-by mode on that snowy planet with all 3 tribes all fighting eachother that gave me goosebumps back then. That's a feeling of nostalgia i'd love to relive. Beat it pretty easily by letting the AI kill eachother. Level 13, 14 and 15 were all pretty tough and they all took a few tries to beat, though for 13 I tried to copy the rolling demo and surprisingly enough it actually worked out. When I finally got to level 16 it was kind of a grudge match, for it being the first level I actually played for real. Man.. that level probably took my 5 or 6 tries over a couple of days to beat, level 17 was a cake walk, but it was cool having a near full base to start. But Level 18... That level kicked my ass so many times, I had to do what some of the other pop players did and had to recruit my dad to help me setup a proper base.. eventually I would beat it on my own, but that was by far the toughest mission in the game. Level 19 was tough too, but it took about 3-4 tries in one day/night to figure out a way to wear down the Dakini. Levels 20 and 21 really forced me to think strategically and took a good while to beat, level 22 I lost like.. maybe twice before I crushed everyone. Level 23 and 24 were just a blast, I only ever lost 23 once in my entire life though 24 required me to be a little cheesy by erode-ing or flattining the little bridges to the Dakini and Chumara. Finally when I got to Level 25, and having a truly full base setup, I knew shit was about to go down... so I lost like 3 times before getting the hang of it and steering the AI into fighting eachother before beating the game. I beat Populous for the first time when I was about 9 years old in 2002, but I still hungered for more populous, so I fired up the old internet explorer and discovered something called the "Populous Spell Editor" that was my first ever internet download. After goofing around with populous modding tools for a few years, some-time in 2004 I encountered Populous Reincarnated for the first time and discovered an insane truth... YOU COULD PLAY AS THE OTHER TRIBES IN MULTIPLAYER!!! I flipped out looking at the screenshots on Popre, I saw that you could play as Chumara on something called "Oil worlds" and needed to figure out how to do that. Of course still being a kid with school, and all sorts of other responsibilities like Karate and such I didn't really look into that agin until 2005, there I would recruit my grandfather in helping my setup an email, and i would register to Popre in the summer of '05. My first game of MP was against that noob-basher guy named "General" on the MP version of Fire in the mist, but I didn't give a damn, I just liked being able to play as Red and finally have an actual challenge in so many years, the rest is history.

[@Populous3Tutorials]

back then, everyone's first online game was against general

[@VtuberMoe]

This is why its so important to have creators in spaces. I havent played P3 in a while and seeing this now makes me want to play it again but even before that I would have never known about 90% of the stuff available if it werent for this channel.

[@chelin1992]

I came into contact with the game in 1999 with a demo of the game in a CD that came with a video game magazine. I remember playing this game atleast one time every year for a number of years. I still try to come back and play the new modded campaigns the community makes.

[@AmberElfrieda8]

I'm not sure how I got my hands on it, but in the early 00's I'd spend weekends, evenings and even some mornings before school escaping into this game... I found the graphics accompanied by the soundtrack very calming and centering.

[@ebossnz6838]

Im 36 now. When i was around 11 i was taken out of my family home and put into foster homes around the country. Every second weekend i was able to stay with my mum. so every second weekend i played this game with as less sleep as possible, The music has a interesting place. it did so much for me back then. it took me so long to get to the end of the game though, its been good having this channel. i own the game on disk and i still have it, just a disc with a planet on it with spells and the case has dungeon keeper on it. cannot remember how we got it, i think one of my mums mates let us use it and never got it back. thats my theory

[@totalanarchy934]

Picked up game in late 1999 for my birthday. I randomly came across this game as well as Heroes of Might and Magic collection and Age of Empires 2 plus a few other cheap disc games. I fell in love with the game but didn't discover multiplayer until 2006. When I found I could play with other people it became instantly exhilarating. I was hooked for about 5 years until adulting became top priority. I was mean when I played but playing hard felt so good too. Watching this game evolve so much and all the players who have grown through the years has been an awesome journey. Keith's voice is still annoying, forever sounds like a 16 year old, jk.

[@thesimmertron2685]

I started playing this game as a kid on the psx in the living room of my parents house, i was that obsessed with it i purposely waited until midnight to play it; as I wasn't allowed to play it at the time, each night my mother came down to the stairs to a sound coming from the living room only to see nothing; as i had turned the tv off and hid behide the sofa before she came down the stairs, I carried on playing once she gone back to bed, for years she thought the house was haunted, until I finally told her a couple years ago that it was actually me

[@CarlaTaggarty]

my memory is a bit hazy, but I remember me and my little brother came across it as a PC demo from some other game, played it and feel it was really cool, then one day we were at a game shop and saw the game was already released, bought and played it and loved it. It was actually a pretty innovative RTS for it's time, and even to this day I can't think of any other RTS that plays like Populous The Beginning.

[@AntoniTriston]

In Germany they sold this game I think in 2000 when StarCraft 1 was new. I was about 2-5 years old and played it. I don't know how much it cost back then, but my parents bought it for me and the cool thing was that the game didn't even need a graphics card because my sister's PC didn't have one. I think I still have my original CD lying around somewhere. It has a light blue, almost turquoise surface with the Populous 3 the beginning lettering on it. After playing for a while, maybe 1 or 2 years, I scratched the game and the CD could no longer be read. and the game was never sold again and google, internet didn't exist yet and I was too young to use google properly. It took about 10 years until I saw the game again in a store for 10 - 20 euros and I bought it immediately. This is the original German voiceover audio with German text from the game. And even at that time, Google was new and the internet didn't always work for me. The Populous community now exists in 2024, so there is no problem that the game can no longer be found. But back then I can clearly remember how I found it again. I have never been as happy in my life as I was back then. There are even pictures of me in diapers playing the game on an old computer screen. standing because I was too small to sit on the office chair. Populous 3 will forever be my favorite game of all time.

[@MapOfEurasia]

Back in 1999 I was 9 years old and we had a Pentium-II 400MHz PC at home. It was the golden era, with plenty of PC gaming magazines, and I met Populous The Beginning on a demo disk on a magazine called "Giochi per il mio computer". Man, I was on the hook 🪝 I loved immediately the game and we went to the nearest PC shop (about 40Km from my hometown) for buying the full game and thank God they had it! Now I play it with the Multiverse and I have the physical copy (with the awesome cardboard box, how great are they??) sitting over my PC as a totem ❤

[@HaoLibra]

I played many games from Bullfrog at that time, I love Bullfrog, Westwood, and 3DO game studios a lot at that time.

[@phantomsidious2934]

Played the demo that came with the official UK playstation magazine, then played the full game and to this day still playing it, psone version and now playing the steam/PC version

[@alejandro94665]

Era un verano del 2006 cuando un dia encontré este juego en la pagina taringa y lo descargue, este no era el the beginning, era el age of caos (tenia 6 años en ese momento) era muy dificil pero me adaptaba a las mecanicas con el tiempo y se volvio mi top 3 mejores juegos junto con el gta sa y el age of empires 1, aunque me quede estancado en el level 5 (recien en el 2013 logre pasarlo gracias a un video de un tal fulminator) conste que por varios momentos lo deje olvidado y lo retomaba, en 2015 lo termine y ese mismo año recien descubri el the beginning original que no me costo casi nada jugarlo comparado con el sufrimiento del aoc, a mitades de ese año descubro el matchmaker y toda su comunidad, tambien el resto de campañas que habia en ese entonces, conoci este canal por la campaña de katara's voyage en español que estuvo divertido esa epoca. Hoy en dia ya no me funciona el populous por los archivos .data que no tengo idea de como solucionar y estuve sin jugarlo desde 2022, es el unico juego que me sigue dando nostalgia y aprecio hasta dia de hoy, dentro de poco lo compro por steam y estare atento a las novedades, no me olvido las partidas en el matchmaker con 300 de ping jajajaj (yo era Dalton822)

[@Rosa.Elefant]

I was around 6 years old and my dad's friend did tell me that he had tested a new game on a work day, he started around 6pm and did not stop until 4am and he had to be at work 7am. So that made curious so me and my brother asked if he could make a copy for us and he did. After that I was stuck with the pop and last time I did wana play it did not work on windows 10 so I found you and you showed me that it was still alive and I was so happy! My dad's friend is dead now but pop will always remind me of him.

[@sandremo1569]

My first time playing this was way back when on PS1. XD

[@hojios3073]

I got it for ps1 because i saw the bullfrog logo and loved theme park and hospital!

[@PunmasterSTP]

3:33 Yes that’s how I got the demo too!

[@LewisBudd23]

Got emotional reading these, this game means so much to me. Would love to hear more about how the game meant you meeting your wife? Just joined the discord!

[@simperck2777]

De pequeño siempre fui de jugar en pc desde los ajedrez y ese dia llegó. En un disco de demo, en una revista de video juegos y probe los primeros 3 niveles esenciales tanto esa colina montañosa custodiada por 2 Torres imponentes y guerreros de fuego que impedían el acceso, ante eso me emocioné tanto que no sabía que tenia 25 niveles cada uno mas entretenido, mi favorito siempre es y sera un objeto fácil, a izi target, aupongo que es el lvl 13 donde por primera ves se encuentra todas las tribus y el agua. Aun asi sin pc siguo al tanto y a la espera de un remaster imposible y poco probable, apenas consiga una pc lo mas probable sea ese el primer juego que juegue y es la verdad, Populous the begging es mi primer juego ademas de oddword abe , literalmente sigue siendo mi juego de estrategia favorito y hasta soñe que seguia jugando y allí sentí mas favoritismo tanto que me fascina la idea de tener mi propio map pack solo para multiplayer y que sea para el disfrute de todos, ya desde ahora mis 28 años siguo enamorado desde mi primer descubrimiento del fire ball hasta del swarm, un único juego que mantienen esta modalidad de dios.❤

[@Grandremone]

I also think SimCity3000 demo! Although it could've been included in another Bullfrog game, maybe Dungeon Keeper? Or that was later I think, should pick the multiplayer op again anyway!

[@sugarplumwitch6642]

My cousin had the game and I would play with him when I went to their house , then I would watch KZbin play it and then when I got good enough computer then I got game and I’m currently playing all available campaigns currently playing age of chaos and I yet to play online

[@RC_btc]

hey i just found my favourite game as kid, how do i play this on mac. i remember using crossover, doesnt support it anymore sadly. community seems dead on popre

[@MultiHimura]

Hi, is there any way to play the game with a controller, like the psx version?

[@thuonganh56]

Help ! I get much lag while playing on win 10. Could u help me ?

[@ice010]

I don't think Dune 2000 is more niche than Pop