Has unit balance/building balance ever been addressed?
This is really great, and has really sucked me in this weekend.
Without much reading of the thread, nor watching many videos or reading much really I opened the first game… and found there was no tutorial. I’ve decided to forge on and avoided any faqs or hints since, relying purely on my RTS knowledge. It’s all fairly intuitive in terms of what does what buts its really tough going. Although vastly improved in the last few goes I’m yet to find a build that generates me resources and defences to stop anything more than a dribble of early zombies.
Yeah man, TAB is absolutely best enjoyed organically without spoiling yourself on build orders or whatever. The discovery and experimentation processes here are really great.
Two UI things that took me a while to figure out that might ease some pain points:
- Units and buildings cost upkeep. Like, advanced units might cost a resource upkeep that you should absolutely be aware of when deciding how you do.
- Pausing buildings is the best way to get out of the weird vapor lock you can build yourself into with population/energy. Just turn off a quarry or something until you can get the houses built that you need to staff a new mill, and you’re good.
pokes thread
I see they buffed soldiers.
Did they ever solve the issue with too-frequent unwinnable starting positions (not enough wood, doom town in immediate vicinity)? Are non-final waves actually a threat instead of trivial?
Campaign news and lots of screenshots:
http://www.numantiangames.com/2018/09/27/they-are-billions-update-campaign-development-i/
I still play this from time to time and it is a blast. I am looking forward to the campaign. EA done correctly.
I’ve been slowly working my way through each map on each difficulty level. So far I’ve completed all 4 maps on 120 days with Brutal difficulty and the first three maps on Nightmare.
I like to get a good army going and clear the map before the final wave. The giants are nasty. I usually take a group of 8 to 10 titans to kill them. Or if I get the mayor that gives my Lucifer’s +50% damage, then I burn the world down.
Desolate Wastelands is a hard one because of the lack of available food. If I can survive past the first few days, I generally can go for awhile, but I have to do a tech check around day 55 or so. If I’m not done researching nearly all the stone stuff and starting into the Engineering Center, I’m pretty much dead because I won’t have good enough units and defenses for the end game rush.
Wow.
Brutal and Nightmare? You are far out of my league.
Impressive. I gave up on the game. I got tired of the RNG of the maps and wasting hours of time to see if I could survive the final onslaught. I only survived, I think at 50 or 70%? I expand to fill the entire map, but then my outer & inner walls just fold. I watched a lot of youtube’s and I don’t see anything miraculous or noteworthy. They just get the RNG where the mobs go to walls that are better defended. Me? It seems all walls hold except 2 and it’s always a different two.
I think it’s great some people like you have figured this out. According the to stats, something like only 13% have won on challenging mode, so I’ll count myself as part of the 87% that just can’t get it.
It really is a shame because I love TD and this has all the makings of a great game, but there is no learning. It’s too RNG. I see they are coming with a map editor and seed, so that will help a great deal.
I love this damned game almost as much as I hate it.
I very rarely win and I can almost never replicate my success. Then there are the times when I have a great map with what appears to be a clear path towards defense-in-depth and victory… some single unnoticed zombie somehow sneaks through my patrols and wipes me out. It’s maddening.
And yet… I look forward to playing pretty much every day. I will sit down at the computer intending to play something entirely different, but once Steam comes up and the game is highlighted I have no choice but to give it another go-round.
So much about this game is so good, but I do not enjoy the complete wipe that letting a single zombie through often entails (especially early). The lost resources and time are bad enough for getting your buildings trashed, since this is Turtle Econ Boom Ramp: The Game, but the snowball effect is just brutal.
Could be I’m missing something, but I restart so many maps when my dipshit patrols don’t quite cover some new expansion and one little leak trashes half my colony.
You can just force quit when a lone zombie gets through and you don’t feel like starting over. You can restart the game back at your last auto save. Or you can “save” by copying the save file in My Documents somewhere else.
Is there a certain difficulty setting you have to put it to to see giants? 2 complete maps and I haven’t seen a single one.
The best player I know of ( Deadly Optics - formerly AznElite - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChOpAw7clTSCro_5x-cKCeQ ) will often demolish the structures close to the breakout spot to decrease the snowballing, put up some temporary walls to slow the group down, and give his troops time to get there to fend them off. It puts him a little behind, but it doesn’t end the game with a snowball. At least not usually. He’s not a low-key streamer, which is not to my taste, but he knows the game backwards and forwards.
Here’s an example, at 32:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thXJWjcwl6o
This just hit EA Premiere if anyone was considering getting that sub for Anthem/BFields/BFronts/etc. This was one of those I was always looking to get but never pulling the trigger due to backlog. Now, I don’t need to make a choice. Just make time.
Finally! Victory! Desolate Wastelands on Nightmare at 120 days.
That took forever to beat and I don’t think I’ll be able to beat it again anytime soon. Getting a Desolate Wastelands map with enough food resources is difficult.
My final army was about 90 snipers, 30 Thanatos and a few Lucifers. I had about 15 days before the final wave so I added several layers of walls/spike traps all around my base, then just trained snipers.
The hardest spot was where two waves merged into the spot closest to my Command Center, but throw enough Thanatos and snipers at a problem and it solves itself.
I think I’m done killing zombies for a while.
June? Ugh. That’s, like, months away.
-Tom
Tom. 5
What mode exists in the current version if not a campaign? Is it sandbox?