They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Jun 20, 2019 7:34 am

My understanding is there's two tech unlocks issues people are hitting - the first is the top-most of the three maps you're offered after completing the first mission, which is much harder unless you've unlocked farms, and one of the first swarm missions you get a bit later, which is near-impossible unless you've unlocked spiked barricades. I haven't done either mission yet though so can't comment.

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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Lee » Thu Jun 20, 2019 11:36 am

It does seem that the unlocking system needs more work for that reason. Another friend has said how it fucked up his next game in getting the wrong unlock.
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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Jun 20, 2019 1:04 pm

Have completed the first 9 missions now - three survival-style scenarios, three hero base explorations and three swarm defenses - and I'm enjoying it. Although I bumped it down to easy because while it's still a challenge I dislike banging my head against the same maps over and over when there's no in-mission save and one poor decision can ruin an hour's progress.

Re the tech tree, if I have one piece of advice, at least early on, it's to prioritise the ones that give you new building types, over the ones that give % upgrades to existing buildings and units. I'd only take the latter if it leads directly to a new building type unlock. I'd also do the hero missions first as they come up as they are pretty easy and give a decent amount of XP you can use in the tech tree (the third one gives 360 research point, so just that is enough for 2-3 tech unlocks).

I made a misstep first of all by selecting an upgrade to the fishing building... only for the next three maps to have no water to fish from! After that I prioritised unlocking farms to boost food production - as a comparison, a well-placed hunter cottage gives between 18-20 food while a farm gives 84 - worker cottages so you don't need as many tents swarming your base (tents can also be upgraded to cottages once you've unlocked them) to hit the population targets, a ballista tower to aid base defense, and lastly soldiers to help with the swarm missions. I also unlocked the spike traps to help with the latter.

I think the % boost unlocks sound nice in theory but I think the usefulness of having extra storage capacity or 20% more unit health pales in comparison to the new buildings you get.

The one exception was 20% hunter attack damage I just picked up, mainly as they're my chief attack unit so far and that sounds very useful, at least until I get into mechanised units.

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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Jun 20, 2019 6:19 pm

Looks like they've rushed out a bit of a balancing patch, which seems to address most if not all the concerns people have voiced so far:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/644930 ... 4289506164

TL;DR:

- time limits removed from first missions and elsewhere made more generous
- difficulty of the default game mode ratcheted down a tad
- collectibles on the hero maps now blink occasionally to make them more visible
- bit of balancing to the tech tree to help newbies

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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Lee » Fri Jun 21, 2019 11:31 pm

Got to 3rd mission tonight when streaming. Oh boy did I do some extremely bad fuckups on the first map till I got past it. Had a look at the research screen and they've added a crap ton of stuff to it so I can see why they say 60 hour campaign. I'm going to stick to mostly unlocking the buildings as I noticed that in the meadow map if I had took the fisherhut upgrade I would have been several handicapped. I'll do the upgrades to them at some point or you know when it's needed to get to a new building to unlock.

Oddly enough I get weird in game lag at times where stuff freezes before resuming and it's not the saving part but not also that frustrating just annoying a bit.
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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Rusty » Sat Jun 22, 2019 4:45 pm

I get those weird stutters too. Maybe it's loading in some audio or something.

On the whole it's fun. I tried killing some zombies from a , seemingly random, horde and got completely pwned. No idea what the strategy is for it. I have to protect a building in the building and spend my points on defences. /shrug
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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Sly Boots » Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:48 pm

FWIW I'm enjoying the campaign anyway, coming up to the 50% mark.

Contrary to what people are saying on the forum I think there is a point to the different levels - they teach you different things, like having to deal with restricted space when building a colony, or the importance of upgrading, or using terrain to your advantage and so on.

And within the survival missions there's some variety. I quite like the levels that start without any infected on the map but a huge swarm due in x number of days. It's a different pace, super-quick expansion and trying to judge when is the best time to start setting up defenses. The one where you have to defend a single bridge against a huge horde was brown-trousers time.

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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Rusty » Mon Jun 24, 2019 6:23 am

Been away all weekend but I'm itching to get back at this and have another go at the various levels. I think I've got a solution for the horde level.

I watched someone else do one of the levels I struggled with and they had farms! That would have made it so much easier. I do wonder how much tech choices affect the game flow. The devs have said they've tested all sorts of tactics and can still win.
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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Sly Boots » Mon Jun 24, 2019 6:36 am

Yeah, farms was one of the first techs I went for, as soon as I saw the population requirements ramping up, and wooden cottages as well for the same reason. Tents -> cottages doubles your population, then cottages -> stone houses doubles it again, and farms can sustain that growth with each one offering up to 64 food whereas hunters and fishermen only bring in 10-20.

A couple of other recommendations as you move up the tree - unlock markets and then build your houses in a ring around them, as they reduce the food requirements for those houses quite considerably, meaning you can build more. Warehouses a bit later on mean being able to store more gold and goods, which is important as you unlock higher-tier units that require 3k+ plus gold to research in-mission (initially you can only store 2k). I discovered this the hard way -_-. Warehouses also boost the productivity of surrounding buildings, so good when placed near your mines, energy mills etc.

Ballistas are great for defending walls right into the middle of the campaign, when you start to unlock higher tier towers. Lots of people say WASPs, the gun emplacements, are excellent also as you can group them together and they don't get targeted by enemies unless they're directly in their path. I haven't unlocked those yet, I think I neglected that tree for some reason, but intend to get them at the next opportunity.

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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Rusty » Mon Jun 24, 2019 7:08 am

It just a little bit different from survival mode in that everything is available with unlocks, in that version, compared to you can only get stuff you've unlocked externally in campaign mode
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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Sly Boots » Mon Jun 24, 2019 7:15 am

Yeah, it's like I said above, it's best to prioritise the tech upgrades that give new buildings or units, much more useful that the ones that give % buffs to things. If you do that, and have a fair idea of what you're doing from the EA/survival mode, then the pacing seems ok so far.

God only knows what it's like for newbies though, which is what a campaign should be geared around. I can see that it would be really easy to screw yourself over by picking the wrong techs, and possibly be left with no choice but bailing on a run 10 or more hours in and having to start again. I think there needs to be some kind of respec available, like maybe one free respec just as a last resort.

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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Sly Boots » Mon Jun 24, 2019 2:44 pm


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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Sly Boots » Mon Jun 24, 2019 6:36 pm

Props to the devs, they continue to make tweaks and improvements. One of the changes in today's update that caught my eye was that if you fail a mission you can refund the techs you unlocked immediately prior to that mission.

Basically if you make a bad choice when upgrading that stymies you on the next mission you get the chance to make a more informed choice.

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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Sly Boots » Tue Jun 25, 2019 9:39 am

Protip: Even if the mission text categorically states there are no swarms on the map, expect swarms. -_-

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Re: They are Billions - shambling out of EA on June 18th

Post by Lee » Tue Jun 25, 2019 1:23 pm

The hero missions seem to be alright if let down with trying to pixel hunt for the most part. Be nice if the people you rescued turned up for the next mission you pick as a one off, unless they state how they are going elsewhere.
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