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RTS They Are Billions - steampunk/zombie RTS from Lords of Xulima dev

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth


http://www.numantiangames.com/2019/07/06/they-are-billions-now-available-on-ps4-and-xbox-one/

THEY ARE BILLIONS, NOW AVAILABLE ON PS4 AND XBOX ONE!

Greetings!


We are very happy to announce that They Are Billions is available for XBOX One (right now) and PS4 on July 9th. The time has come for console players to also enjoy this RTS. Although for the moment it’s only available in the Survival mode, we will also bring the Campaign mode to this console in the near future.

An RTS on consoles?

Indeed, there are not many RTS games in consoles. This genre is mostly exclusive to PC because its game mechanics make it essential to use a mouse and keyboard. But at Numantian Games we have accepted the challenge. First of all because we truly believe that console players can also enjoy this exceptional game genre that we like so much. Second, They Are Billions within the RTS has also created its own sub-genre, a new style that has managed to bring many players who had never before played this type of games, and have enjoyed it as much as the more veterans players.

In the porting we have tried to be 100% loyal to the PC version. We want the game experience to be the same. Along with Blitworks, our porting partner, a huge effort has been made to achieve a game speed equivalent to the PC, as this game uses CPUs and multicore super intensive. Few games can boast of handling 30K units in real time, each with fully independent AI.

We also had to work to adapt the game handling to the console interface and we have implemented two play modes:

Gamepad

In this mode, the cursor and the camera can be moved with the analog joysticks. We have also enabled many shortcuts for the most typical actions that greatly improve the speed of handling. They Are Billions was always conceived as a game where strategy comes first (over player’s performance) and that’s why you can pause, so you can take your time and decide your strategies and tactics. This allows that in consoles, even if it is a little more uncomfortable handling with gamepad, the player establishes the preferred pace of play.

Mouse and Keyboard

The new consoles allow you to use any normal USB or Bluetooth mouse or keyboard and, of course, they are both supported by They Are Billions. In this case the gaming experience is exactly the same as in the PC version.
Even you can perfectly play with mouse while using the gamepad for shortcuts.

And that’s all for now. If you have console gamer friends you can tell them that: “The zombie apocalypse, has arrived!

And if anyone is curious to see how has been the development on consoles here you can see our friends from Blitworks in action:

See you soon!
 

anvi

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Few games can boast of handling 30K units in real time, each with fully independent AI.

:lol: More like 30,000 black blobs with a script that says "attack".
 

anvi

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I tried this again, still don't like it. Campaign seems a chore.

The Survival Mode seems better. Less repeating a 100 shitty small maps to unlock the already limited building options. Survival is just like having the whole game available to you right from the start. You can get screwed by the procedural world generation though. For example my first attempt I was basically in a perfect location like a valley. The entire side of my base was trees and rocks and shit. And then there were 2 huge regions of stuff on the other side of my base too, so all I really needed to do was expand a bit and then I could plug 3 small areas. Thick walls and a bunch of towers there and it would have been an easy win. Unfortunately I was a bit slow expanding so when it sent an army to attack me, they broke through my single layer walls and ended me. My second attempt sucked because there were no bottlenecks and the nearest place I could even build walls had so much stuff on the ground that it only made room for 1 layer of walls. Also the attacks that come to get you are pretty damn brutal. My first attempt I had it at 100% difficulty, my second attempt I had set at something like 60% and I still got owned. I find it stupid and incredibly goofy that the only way to survive is to build 3 layers of walls and try to fit as many towers as you can nearby, even to stand a chance.

I think the solution is to get fast at building the resource buildings, instead of playing it in a relaxing way, you need to quickly find a good spot and throw that shit down and then build more and more. And then as soon as you have some income, you need to start mass producing units and just don't stop building them. Forget about trying to save up resources, and growing your base should be secondary, mass producing units is everything because in no time you are going to be attacked by a swarm of a 100 and it is game over unless you have about 50 units of your own behind the walls.

I uninstalled again before my third attempt because it seems a bit aspie in design which bugs me, and it is also a bit dumb and simple. There is a difference between complexity and difficulty, easiness and simplicity. This game is an example of game that is simple yet difficult, and that's bad for me. You have to bust your balls to overcome how it is tuned. And yet there isn't really much reward in doing so. You have little homes, a few resource buildings that are all automated, a few other buildings, and that's basically it. Later you unlock improved versions of each of these, but it isn't something new. It is just a stronger version of the same thing. There is nothing cool to build, and you don't have any offense. I would much rather play SupCom or one of the Command & Conquer games where you defend in a similar way but then you build air transports to fly your Mammoth MkII or mobile construction yard right into the enemy base, one second after you land a huge EMP pulse on them. This game is all defending, there are no glorious assaults once you tip the scales.

Although this game is more comparable to a Tower Defense game than a RTS. In fact this game is almost identical to the Creeper World series which I found to be more fun and satisfying to play.
 
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LESS T_T

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Codex 2014
Future, "we are looking at how to expand the universe of They Are Billions": https://steamcommunity.com/games/644930/announcements/detail/1723120578710466254

Hear that? That's the sound of Xulima 2 becoming vaporware.

The New Empire Campaign available for XBOX One and PlayStation 4, and more!

Greetings!

Great news! The Campaign mode of They Are Billions is finally available for consoles for free. To play it just let the game update automatically.

It’s been almost six months of hard work. We know that some players were upset because this mode was not available for consoles at the same time as it did for PC, but it required all that time to port and adapt the game to consoles. Some games are developed at the same time for PCs and consoles because they basically work the same way, but for They Are Billions the interface and handling are drastically different. In addition, it’s been necessary to modify entire systems such as physics and text rendering, so it would work at proper speed on consoles.

We’re very happy with the final result. The game is handled in an agile way and we didn’t have to change any of the content (number of zombies, difficulty ...), so that the console version is 100% equal to the PC one. And above all, we are very happy to have contributed to enrich the ecosystem of console games with an RTS as challenging as this one.


Future development

We believe that They Are Billions is already a fairly round and complete game. With the campaign mode, the survival mode, and the custom levels of the users, TAB offers many hours of play. In fact, according to statistics, each player plays more than 52 hours on average.

And of course, we are looking at how to expand the universe of They Are Billions. We are considering many options. We want to continue improving the editor so that content creators have many more options and can create more complex levels. We’re also considering to extend the original game with a new campaign available as a separate DLC.

However, deeper changes in the game would require a complete new development, which would already be They Are Billions 2. In a new development we could include new factions that can be played in different ways, cooperative multiplayer and versus modes, and a new Survival mode with many more options.

What do you players think? What new features would you like to find in a new They Are Billions?

Looking forward to your feedback.
 

Darth Canoli

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They're going where the money is, probably a very good idea since they'd have to completely rework their Xulima formula to make it a success, not even sure they have it in them.

- Bland generic cities and quest, probably the easier part to fix
- Generic settings
- HP bloat, boring copy-paste bosses (Princes, Titans and giants, i liked the witches though)
- Average combat system relying on boring status effects (poison, bleed and wounds)
- Stun system is quite unbalanced as well
- Average UI (picking skills/spells was a bit on the tedious side)
- Boring close combat skills
- Expensive and weak magic, not to mention unimaginative
- Dull itemization

On the other hand, their RTS; which i would touch with a 10 feet pole; is rocking the retard's world, good for them.
 
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Infinitron

I post news
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth

Cyberarmy

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Playing this right now and it's kinda OK for my steampunk RTS itch (is this even a thing?) I normally love missions with base building in RTs but hero missions in this become boring quite fast and they have pixel hunting as a mechanic.................

Kinda sad that this game halted any Xulima relates content, tbh while I love Xulima it had many strange decisions as well. (HAHAHAHAHAHAs and nightmare fuel voice overs)
WELP I guess.
 

std::namespace

Guest
i was dicking around with a 600 zombies horde that blocks a path and on my fifth loss the game just dropped all my research and points rofllfes, all gone, niiiice...
how do you even create a bug like that...

also was trying to micro like hell to get past a horde of 1000 slow ones with 10 soldiers (200 empire points), only to find out that you get the empire points back after i won with 12
went to the other horde blocking and just placed all my 1k empire points in soldiers around the tower and let go of the mouse - easy win...
and i was like future planning before, roffles, like i have 1k points, i get 100 back and 150 from the next build mission so i can spend 250 plus about 300 in reserve since i have 3 hordes blocking
 

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