Populous

Another amazing game from Bullfrog, released in 1989 for a multitude of systems including the PC and SNES.

This game is so basic it's hard to write a true review about. You take control of one side and control the level of the land to either upgrade the buildings that your peons make for stronger units or downgrade them to produce units faster. This is the basic concept but there is a bit more to it. The hut is the smallest building and produces the weakest units while the castle is the strongest and produces the strongest units. The castle however also takes up a lot more land than the building just before it and takes much much longer to produce new units.

On top of population control there is your enemy who will start attacking you eventually. The higher your buildings are upgraded the more powerful units he will need to burn them out and vice verse. Then there are the god powers which you can use to do all sorts of things like throw a swamp in the middle of the other guys land or flood him out. He can use the same powers against you and if I remember correctly how much and what you can do is based on population and regenerates over time.

There is also an icon for each side that if I remember correctly you can use to attract your followers to make a strong force to attack the other side with. There are basically three ways to win, beat the other guy with your followers, beat him with your powers or declare Armageddon hope it pans out for you.

There is not much more to it than that. The game gets more difficult in the later stages and the environments change. Pretty simple but great fun.