From: gregleg@microsoft.com (Greg Legowski)
Subject: Re: Populous II IBM Overview!!
Date: 25 Jan 93 19:12:20 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

(My comments will be based on the Amiga version, which I've played quite a
bit on my brother's machine.  My PC version should be arriving sometime this
week, so I'll have a better comparison then...)

Anyway,

In article <1993Jan22.183204.24567@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> jennifer@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>[NOTE: This game is not available in stores yet.  Should be next week. I got
>mine through the upgrade offer by EA for owners of Pop I or Civ].  
>
(Discussion of sound card support deleted.  One comment I'd like to add, though
is that developers have limited resources and can't be expected to support
EVERY possible combination of hardware out there, especially when it comes to
PC sound cards, etc.  It's too damn confusing for consumers to pick boards, let
alone developers to try to support them.  I'm not justifying support of only
one board (or documented support of only one board, as the case may be), BUT...

>DIFFERENCES FROM THE AMIGA VERSION 
>
>As mentioned, so far, no heartbeat.  NO COPY PROTECTION AT ALL!!! 

Yay!  On the Amiga version, the copy protection involved showing the face of a
"diety" and asking the user to input the number appearing under that face in
the manual.  Not terrible, but annoying.  I'm glad to hear they got rid of it
for the PC port...

>DIFFERENCES FROM POPULOUS I
>
>Instead of just one set of  effects there are many effects,
>grouped into these categories:
>
>People effects-they effect population
>     Perseus-I think he's the equivalent of the Knight from Pop I

Actually (on the Amiga version, anyway) Perseus was the "smart" hero -- he'd
always attempt to move around swamps, etc., to avoid getting killed.

>Vegetation Effects-Effect vegetation of the world
>     Plant Fungus-Deadly fungus spreads around and covers
>     territory. Touch it and you die.

Fungus is the same as swamp, except that instead of just throwing down a
random pattern, each click you make lays a single spot of fungus.  The
fungus can "grow" the same way the old game of "life" (anyone else remember
this ;-) did.  On the Amiga version I used to love laying glider guns and
spaceships and watching them march through the computer's territory ;-)
The rules seem a BIT different, though -- a single spot of fungus will
"live" but not grow, while in life a single cell would've died...

>Earth Effects-Effects earthly disasters and some benefits
>     Earthquake-Different effect from Pop I.  These earthquakes
>     can be aimed, and also cross the screen boundaries.  Very
>     nasty, because walkers fall into the crevices the
>     earthquakes create.

Right.  The ground doesn't shake anymore, instead a crack starts at the place
you point to in the direction the pointer was, well, pointing.  Powering up a
lot in earth will result in HUGE cracks.  These "cracks" can also tear down
hills, etc.

>     Heracles-A double strength Hero

Meaning that when you create Heracles, the population bar of the hero will
double.  Aslo Heracles can walk over the cracks from earthquake instead of
falling in and dying.

>Water Effects-tidal waves, whirlpools, etc
>     Tidal Wave-effects the entire world, equivalent to Pop I
>     flood, but it looks a lot cooler.

Well, not quite.  Flood in Pop 1 just lowered the land of the whole world by
1.  In Pop 2, Tidal Wave create a huge wave front that tears across the world
eroding the land away.  Powerful waves can tear down even high land right into
the water (meaning that building on level 2 isn't necessarily going to protect
you from a tidal wave -- in Pop 1 it would take to floods to put level 2 in the
ocean.  On Pop 2 a single good tidal wave can do it...
More comments after my copy gets here... :-)

--Greg
gregleg@microsoft.com