They Are Billions

[forameus]

Anyone had a go of this yet?

Watched a Let's Play and decided to see if it would run on my average laptop, and it did.  Early access but seems fairly polished.  In lieu of a video that explains it (I'm at work) I'll try and do so.  Basically it's a real-time strategy game.  You start out with your command center and 4 soldiers in a randomly generated map surrounded by resources but with only a limited space to build in.  From there it's mostly settlement building and liberally applying walls.  Why walls?  Because periodically you're going to have zombies trying to get at the townspeople.  First it's just a few, but every so often the game will show it's main selling point - fucking hordes.  You'll get a warning and a minute or so to prepare, then hundreds of the fuckers will descend on a specific point in your defences, and will usually tear it to shreds.  The aim is to survive the length of time you set at the start of the game.

Really enjoying it so far, even if it is truly unforgiving.  You can expanding quite well, seemingly in a great place, then they'll start attacking you from all sides until you can't hold them back.  Once they've broken through they can infect anyone they catch, and it's quite something to watch your best laid plans slowly dissolve.  The developers claim they'll be able to render hordes of up to 20000.

Would highly recommend it if you're into that kind of thing.

[GiGi]

Sounds cool. I'd give it a go.

[GiGi]

Hmm. £17 for yet another early access game. The trailer looked good but if really need to see more gameplay. I like the idea though.

[Romeo]

16 minutes ago, GiGi said:

Hmm. £17 for yet another early access game. The trailer looked good but if really need to see more gameplay. I like the idea though.

I got PUBG early access, think it was £26 buggy as hell but a great game, will give this a look.

[forameus]

53 minutes ago, GiGi said:

Hmm. £17 for yet another early access game. The trailer looked good but if really need to see more gameplay. I like the idea though.

Yeah, I suppose it is a bit steep for Early Access.  Will say though I haven't really noticed any problems with it that make it seem too early access, if that makes sense.  There'll be quite a few let's plays up, worth taking a look.  Or grab it off Steam and give it an hour, then refund if it doesn't seem up to it.  

[GiGi]

PUBG is a 100 man battle royale which was already a tried and tested formula and since its multiplayer you can do squads with your mates. That was a big selling point to me. Some games can get away with early access so I'll have a look but PUBG is near infinitely replayable and hence worth the money.

[GiGi]

I watched enough of the game that I thought it was worth a punt at £17. It's really addicting but I'm finding it pretty hard even on the 'accessible' difficulty. 

Always that one wee sly wave that breaks though when you were looking somewhere else and as soon as one house falls you're completely fucked haha. 

Will report back when I can beat the first level. 

[Buddist Monk]

This is an excellent wee game. Very reminiscent of old school RTS games, and with a difficulty to match.

The game offered on Steam (although I recommend buying it via Humble Bundle - the only difference is that some of your cash goes to charity) is just the survival "beta". Initially it was meant to be a campaign based game but in the alpha the single player "roguelike" survival demo was so bloody good they've released it early and at a lower price.

Do not be put off by that, or the early access tag, in any way. This game is a solid as any AAA games out there. The campaign will be added on soon, and buying the game now will guarantee you that update. The devs are constantly updating and tweaking the gameplay - I think something like 5 updates in the last week alone!

In terms of strategy, it's a real classic RTS. Random generation means your best strategy is based on your spawn location, enemy spawn location(s) and resource locations. The AI is a sneaky fucker but predictably sneaky. Your military just clever enough to do shit, but not clever enough so you have to stop micromanaging them. And the progression from a 4 house hamlet to a 1000+ population city is both well paced and a thing of utter beauty.

As for the final waves... ...I honestly haven't had so much fun in years. While perhaps there might not be "literal" billions but f**k me it certainly feels like it!

Scraping into 2017 (inb4 the lock) I would genuinely call this one of the best games of the year!

 

 

[GiGi]

This game is so hard it's doing my tits in but I can't stop trying anyway. I've bumped the difficulty back to 100% (which is 'normal' btw) but I keep getting pumped by buildings getting swiped early game (which is game over, one big building of yours spawns 4+ new zombies and you have no troops to stop it) or find out one of my choke points or defences wasn't strong enough the hard way. 

[forameus]

Haven't played for a while, but agree with everything your'e saying.  It has an unforgiving difficulty level, particularly when you can be almost an hour into a save, expanding quite well, then get hit with that one wave that you can't hold back.  I don't know how people can get past the higher difficulty levels

[GiGi]

1 hour ago, forameus said:

Haven't played for a while, but agree with everything your'e saying.  It has an unforgiving difficulty level, particularly when you can be almost an hour into a save, expanding quite well, then get hit with that one wave that you can't hold back.  I don't know how people can get past the higher difficulty levels

I watched a streamer doing map 4 on 500% difficulty WITHOUT FUCKING PAUSING. 

Must have been a Starcraft master. Mesmerising. 

[Buddist Monk]

15 hours ago, forameus said:

I don't know how people can get past the higher difficulty levels

Each game/map is different so there is no set formula, but in terms of the hordes you just need to know where your progression curve is.

For example, ideally you want stone mined and double figure worker population by day 5 or 6, by day 11-14 you'll be getting hit with the first wave. Depending on the map/level you have set this wave should be containable with soldiers/archers and some basic wood wall. Stone, workers and power are required for the soldiers centre, without it you are not going to be able to expand (or defend) and if you don't have one by the first wave (and producing at least some new recruits) you are going to find life very difficult. It's not impossible for you to defend the first wave with the 5 units you get at the start but it's highly unlikely to work for the second.

One important thing is to get your soldiers/archers levelled up. Early game, you will not get specials or runners unless you're just about to run into a city, so while you have free time as your resources build up, you need to send either a couple of rangers or a soldier to get kills and up their XP. The difference is hugely noticeable. A solider will double tap enemies, while an archer will fire much more rapidly. Ideally you want at least one or two veterans for the first horde.

For the second horde - sometime in the early 20s - you should be looking to, if not already have, a wood warehouse. The solider centre and the wood workshop are key to your early game survival. The wood workshop provides you with farms and ballistas and the stone workshop, while the stone workshop will grant you stone walls and the foundary.

Unless you have access to the ballistas by the 3rd wave, and ideally stone walls, then you need to have a large military force with a good sprinkling of veterans.

From the 3rd wave up to the 7th, stone walls, a good defensive force and ballistas can keep most things at bay but for any further you will need executors.

If you are playing the first map on default difficulty then the end wave can easily be contained by a combination of executors and thanatos units. Lots of them, granted, but it doesn't need any higher tech.

 

[Buddist Monk]

Learning the game's AI is key too. It's way sneakier than you'd expect zombies to be but you can use that to your advantage. Take this example:

You have a simple square area walled off. For argument's sake we'll say that the corners of these walls are choke points so the enemy can only come from direct N/E/S/W.
The AI will trickle zombies towards your wall, these are mini hordes and tend to be no more than 5 enemies and are easily dispatched but that is exactly what the AI wants.

Again, for this example you have access to ballistas but haven't placed them yet but the best place in our imaginary map is the South. Take your units and defend the rest of the walls fairly securely. Leave the South to have one unit patrolling. Ultimately what you want is to convince the AI that South is where it should throw the horde. As it sends in it's mini hordes allow the South the get hit a little more, while the enemies everywhere else get despatched fairly rapidly.

Now, come the next horde, the AI has already identified your weak spot (or at least your perceived weak spot). When it's announced nobody will be surprised to see it comes from the South. If you can leave placing your ballistas so that they are finished building just after the horde arrives, they will take out the horde fairly quickly and all because you had tricked the AI into attacking the location you wanted.

 

There are lot of little AI cues to how the game works and how you can take advantage of those things.
 

[Buddist Monk]

Just a little update on some of the changes coming in v0.5 (we're at 0.4.9 just now)...

Quote

New Building: The Tavern of Lost Souls
Would you like to attract mercenaries and strange travelers of all kinds to your colony? Nothing better than offering a beer near a fireplace.

Competitive Mode: Challenge of the Week
Every week you can play a specific map that will be the same for all the players. All players will compete in the same map and their score will be registered in a Leader Board. Players only will have a chance to play the Challenge of the Week.

They Are Billions - Development Roadmap

[forameus]

I jacked everything down to the lowest difficulty levels just to try and get to the 150 day mark unscathed.  Got further than I ever had before, was feeling quite good about it all, then they found the one part of my camp that was less defended.  Narrow canyon between a rock-face and water, not really enough space to properly fortify, and just two Rangers in a tower to stop them.  They broke through, turned a few tents and other structures, then got to the command center.  Game over.

Put up the difficulty slightly for the next run after learning some tricks (up at 10% now) and have gotten to day 54 before switching it off last night.  Think I've repelled three hordes so far, including one that broke through the walls but still got beaten back.  Hadn't played in a while but really enjoying it again.

EDIT: Day 87, quite a few waves repelled, then a huge horde approaches where I thought I was well-defended.  Killed all but 2 or 3 of them, but they broke through and that was that.  This game is unrelenting.

[forameus]

After pushing closer and closer, I managed to reach the end game for the first map.  I'd been reading guides on where to concentrate your money, and got to the point on my last playthrough that I had ridiculous amounts of gold and never really struggled for resources.  Massive base, and managed to build 5 Titans that I sent around the map clearing everyone up.  By day 135 I had cleared every infected from the map and felt pretty happy.

Then got the THEY ARE BILLIONS warning, which I'd heard about but never seen.  Oh.  f**k.  Me.  It reveals the map at that point, and from all four directions stream fucking hunners of the things.  The way I'd read was that there was a finite number of infected on each map, so assumed if I'd cleaned it out, I'd have it easy.  But with the game juddering away, not quite able to handle the number coming at me, I watched as every defence I had started to fall.  I was watching one group when another easily pushed through the barrier closest to the command center, and that was that.  Day 143, just a few short of the end.  In seething tears by that point.

Still going to back to it though.  This c**t of a game.