Friday, September 05, 2014

Populous: the Beginning: a love affair with balloons

Level 13, Aerial Bombardment, saw the introduction of balloons.  There were two enemies - the greens, who were building up on the other end of my island, and the yellows, who were on a separate island which was much smaller.  The yellows knew of building balloons; the greens knew earthquake.

It wasn't long before the yellows started to attack one end of my island, coming over a large cliff with their balloons filled with fire warriors and spies.  My village was severely damaged, and I had to quickly rebuild my firewarrior and priest training huts.


The greens were leaving me alone, which I ensured by raising a tall cliff across the island.  No boats meant no access.  After a few more raids by the yellows, I was able to train us a decent number of firewarriors, and I placed then across the cliffs which the yellows were travelling over.  This was a remarkably successful tactic, and it meant that I was able to collect a fair few of the enemy balloons myself after dispatching the occupants.  This meant that my defences became ever more strong, as firewarriors' reach increased.


It also meant I could take my shaman, along with a lone firewarrior, in a balloon to start to terrorise the greens.  I first concentrated on killing all the firewarriors and destroying their training hut, which meant that nothing could touch me as I hovered above the sea - other than the shaman, of course, who kept coming over and getting hit by lightning for her trouble.  Much use of tornadoes, lightning, erode and hypnotise later, and the greens fell.

I prayed at the nearby vault, and gained the earthquake spell.  Back to the cliff, and I find that several yellow balloon parties have been foiled, meaning that I can grab loads of balloons and fill them with firewarriors for a bodyguard party.


I pray at the second vault, learn how to make balloons, then build a land bridge across to the yellow's island so I can get a huge army of warriors and priests over, to join my firewarriors.  The limited size of the yellow island had ensured that their army wasn't too large - even though they were mostly firewarriors - and the level was completed.


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