28th March 2018, 9:29 PM
They Are Billions is an RTS/building simulation game in early access on Steam. I got it last week, and have been completely hooked since; Steam says that I've played it about 23 hours, and that's probably accurate. The game has issues, and I can see why there is a bunch of controversy in the games' Steam forum, but overall it's a great and really addictive game. I'm really liking it, so I thought I should make a thread.
Basically, They Are Billions is a base-building-focused strategy game that runs in pausable real time. As in building sims like The Settlers, Tropico, or to a lesser extent Caesar, the core of this game is building up a large base and dealing with the nested requirements therein. Unlike a standard RTS such as Starcraft or Command & Conquer, but like those aforementioned titles, here resources do not run out, the challenge is getting all of the ones you need. There are a bunch of resources, and all buildings require not only a build cost, but also an upkeep cost in several resources. So, you need to keep scaling up every element of your base in order to expand and go up the tech tree, which requires a lot of space and planning. Fortunately you can pause at any time, and that is key for base-building purposes! I don't love management sims like The Settlers as much as I do traditional RTSes, as learning and managing this kind of games' complex, nested trees of building and resource dependency are not my favorite thing, but this game balances it well: it has more than enough depth to be hard to master, but is not as complex as some in the field, thankfully.
Building your base is the main focus of the game, but you do also control combat units. You don't need to manage peasants or such, once you build a building they do their thing automatically, but the army does need to be controlled. You only have five or six types of units you can build, so far at least, but it's a decent variety and the several types of towers add to your ability to defend your base as well. The unit-control element of this game still needs work, though -- the pathfinding is REALLY terrible, and trying to target a specific enemy may or may not work, which can be a big problem. I really hope that they refine the games' pathfinding and unit control systems before the final release. You really need to micromanage units. At least you can pause though...
As for the game, so far there is only one mode, survival. The devs promise a campaign of some kind will be in the game eventually, but it's not yet. In survival mode you control a human colony, and try to survive the zombies in that area. Maps here are randomly generated, though you do aways start in the center. This survival mode is not endless, however -- if you manage to survive 100 days, you win. Over the course of those 100 days waves of zombies attack you. Additionally, the map is full of zombies you can go out and try to kill, or deal with when they get close to your base. You will need to kill some in order to expand, or to reduce the number of zombies that will get attached to waves or attack you during a wave. It's a simple formula, but it works very well and leads to great tension as you try to get a base that will be able to withstand the next wave. On the downside though, the game is repetitive. Outside of the random factor of the map and where zombie waves come from, every game plays pretty similarly, as you build your base going on the same tech tree, expand, wait for waves that roughly attack at the same times every game (though, again, from random directions), and such. It's a great game and so far I'm definitely not bored of it, but They Are Billions doesn't have the variety you might expect from a great RTS.
Still, overall so far I love this game and am hooked to it. I've been playing it some almost every day...
Basically, They Are Billions is a base-building-focused strategy game that runs in pausable real time. As in building sims like The Settlers, Tropico, or to a lesser extent Caesar, the core of this game is building up a large base and dealing with the nested requirements therein. Unlike a standard RTS such as Starcraft or Command & Conquer, but like those aforementioned titles, here resources do not run out, the challenge is getting all of the ones you need. There are a bunch of resources, and all buildings require not only a build cost, but also an upkeep cost in several resources. So, you need to keep scaling up every element of your base in order to expand and go up the tech tree, which requires a lot of space and planning. Fortunately you can pause at any time, and that is key for base-building purposes! I don't love management sims like The Settlers as much as I do traditional RTSes, as learning and managing this kind of games' complex, nested trees of building and resource dependency are not my favorite thing, but this game balances it well: it has more than enough depth to be hard to master, but is not as complex as some in the field, thankfully.
Building your base is the main focus of the game, but you do also control combat units. You don't need to manage peasants or such, once you build a building they do their thing automatically, but the army does need to be controlled. You only have five or six types of units you can build, so far at least, but it's a decent variety and the several types of towers add to your ability to defend your base as well. The unit-control element of this game still needs work, though -- the pathfinding is REALLY terrible, and trying to target a specific enemy may or may not work, which can be a big problem. I really hope that they refine the games' pathfinding and unit control systems before the final release. You really need to micromanage units. At least you can pause though...
As for the game, so far there is only one mode, survival. The devs promise a campaign of some kind will be in the game eventually, but it's not yet. In survival mode you control a human colony, and try to survive the zombies in that area. Maps here are randomly generated, though you do aways start in the center. This survival mode is not endless, however -- if you manage to survive 100 days, you win. Over the course of those 100 days waves of zombies attack you. Additionally, the map is full of zombies you can go out and try to kill, or deal with when they get close to your base. You will need to kill some in order to expand, or to reduce the number of zombies that will get attached to waves or attack you during a wave. It's a simple formula, but it works very well and leads to great tension as you try to get a base that will be able to withstand the next wave. On the downside though, the game is repetitive. Outside of the random factor of the map and where zombie waves come from, every game plays pretty similarly, as you build your base going on the same tech tree, expand, wait for waves that roughly attack at the same times every game (though, again, from random directions), and such. It's a great game and so far I'm definitely not bored of it, but They Are Billions doesn't have the variety you might expect from a great RTS.
Still, overall so far I love this game and am hooked to it. I've been playing it some almost every day...