They Are Billions (hardcore RTS) 1.0 release (now 1.0.4)

[Stg-Flame]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/644930/They_Are_Billions/

The game finally got its 1.0 release yesterday and have already included a QoL patch to fix some of the bigger complaints from day one players. The full game released with a new survival map and a full campaign which appears to be incredibly in-depth but still just as challenging as the survival maps. They did tone down some of the requirements and adjust the starting difficulty of the campaign so it's a little more accessible to new players. That being said, I'm an older player and have unlocked all the original survival maps and I still lost on the first campaign map twice. It's challenging, but fair once you learn the ropes. This isn't a game where you can zerg rush the enemy or push out and establish new bases right out the gates - it's all about managing your economy while fending off hordes of zombies.

If people are interested in this game, or trying to get into it, I can list some tips for beginners.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I love the idea of the game and really appreciate that the dev included RTwP functionality so you can stop the game and issue commands (this should be a staple in RTS games, not that there are many RTS games anymore). I was never anywhere near top tier RTS talent even when my twitch reflexes hadn't gotten to where they are today (in my mid 30's).

The game is on my wishlist and is really the only "early access" (of course, now release) game that has ever been put on my wishlist. Looks like a really great genre mash-up concept (RTS + Tower Defense Waves if I'm understanding this right).

 

[Stg-Flame]

It's more like an economy game with heavy RTS elements and tower defense mixed in. You have 6 offensive units and multiple defensive structures and there are 6 special zombie types and millions of normal zombies (which also have variants mixed in with varying health and damage). It does an absolute outstanding job of making you feel like you're actually trying to build a town with nothing amid a completely hostile environment. There are zombies incredibly close to your base and they are sound sensitive, so using a loud unit to clear big clusters is a very bad idea. You have to be very aggressive with your expansion if you don't want to get bottlenecked early and since resources cannot be shared between buildings (all production buildings have an area of effect - more trees inside the sawmill AoE means higher wood production but it also means another sawmill cannot overlap into each other's AoE, same goes with hunting and fishing cottages, power mills, quarries, etc.) you need to give some thought into your layout. Hogging a huge cluster of trees with one sawmill might get you lots of wood with that one sawmill, but if you moved it over a few spaces and sacrificed a few resource points with that one sawmill, you could toss another one on the other side of the trees and nearly double the initial output. This is just an example and really only applies to the harder survival maps. So long as you expand at a regular pace, you'll have plenty of space to build.

Also, the pause function is pretty much required for both new players and veterans. Not to mention if you build while the game is paused, you can delete/reclaim a building at full cost, whereas if you place a building with the game running and decide you don't want it there, you only get 50% resources back. At the start, I normally have all my rangers and offensive units expand outward and start clearing the surrounding areas but since I don't micromanage every single unit (this isn't SC2 competitive playing), I need the pause function to rescue a unit when they wander too close to an enemy or start to get swarmed.