They Are Billions First Impression - "Well, shit. They are billions!"

"Crane! Why are you shouting? / I'm shouting because this fucked-up infected motherfucker with guts hanging out his mouth just spit a bunch of toxic snot at me! / Not a bad reason. "

-Crane and Karim (Dying Light)

They Are Billions is one of the games that caught my attention mostly because of its steampunk theme and one that I wanted to write about.. but I forgot to. To be honest, I do think the game looks awesome, but I didn't expect this game were going to be this good. It turns out to be surprisingly popular and fun in its early access stage. 

This was my first time having a massive army swarming up my walls and watch towers since my daily 1 vs 8 in Age of Empires that I loved so much many years ago. Fun RTS, cel-shading graphic, and most importantly.. steampunk. That's enough to hook me up to an early access game.

^{These are the only units available currently.}

Of course there's a couple of lack of things in its current stage and it's not so 'big' yet, there's still only a few units variety, maps, only one faction to play, and also there is no... Blimp! Steampunk goggles and top hat, brass cogs, tesla sh*ts and steam-powered factories, Victorian era buildings, they are all there but not steampunk airship, which is should be in this game, in my opinion. I hope they add it in future updates, and please.. future "update", not future "DLC Pack". 

Just like your usual RTS games, it started with an HQ building and a couple of units and then expand your empire starting from building resource gathering structures ASAP such as hunter's cabin and woodcutter, until your small base finally became large city or empire or whatever you want to call it.

But for the food gatherer, you can't always go in order Hunter's Lodge>Fisherman's Cottage>Farm in every match, because the map is randomly generated so you need to quickly analyze what's around you and decide what to build first in seconds. Randomly generated map is a nice system to keep you from boredom when there's only 4 maps to choose. 

The game is not so hard even in brutal difficulty, yet also not to be played so "slowly". As your colony grows larger you'll also need to pay more attention on every. single. thing. The zombie horde attack in large number but all it takes is only one zombie to screw everything up. 

I once lost my attention on the other side of my peaceful town and didn't see this one prick attacking one of my buildings until it destroyed. When a building destroyed, the colonies turned into zombies too and go for the other buildings and keep multiplying in numbers and everything went to sh*t.

The more noise you make the more zombies you attract, that's something I wasn't aware of that this game has such detail. In early game it's good to have Rangers that uses silent bow and arrows and Sniper that can one-shot kill further than Ranger. And the Soldier is suited better for defensive in early games rather than running around cleaning up the area to expand teritory.. because they are loud. But I like it loud, and fast, so I send them out with spirit!

I misheard this soldier guy dialogue "On your order." to "Onion order." the first time I heard him talk when I clicked on him. Now it can't be unheard. 

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I still have no idea when the horde will come and how long until the next wave come, but surely it's not random. But I think it's good that way. It makes you worry if it comes when you're not well prepared yet. It makes you even more panic when the incoming wave theme started to play, and it's so good. 

^{The incoming horde theme music.}

Like the human units, the zombies also has variety too, but minus the attitude (Seriously, the Ranger is a smug). From a zombie that can run, to the one that can jump over the damn walls, and the big one that just demolish the damn walls, also the one that spit poisonous acid to the damn walls.

The horde attack is getting harder and harder on each assault, but they can still be dealt with quite easily because they attack only from one of the four sides (North, East, South, and West). Although I hold my pants tight when I deal with the waves. Plus the technology is cool enough to fight zombie hordes. 

Started with a ballista tower and I thought it's powerful already. But there are much more effective defensive buildings and units such as the Shocking Tower that can insta-kill the normal-sized zombies in a wide area and the Titans, a gentleman piloting a mech that deals damage in small AoE. 

One tips for playing this game is never stop building, build until you fill the whole map if you can. Because units and defensive buildings are not so easily made and to have your own small swarm of units takes quite a long time to make. But the right buildings and units in the right positions is more important than numbers. 

But I don't know if I could still say that when I face the final wave, even your pants holds your hand back because the hordes comes from all directions, and they are billions! I played twice and have reached the final wave twice as well in brutal difficulty... but also lost twice. Shame. 

^{These aren't my screenshots, if you haven't notice. I forgot to take screenshots or record my gameplay... Twice (smh)}

Mistakenly placing a structure could be so disadvantageous, because demolishing structures only give you half the build costs back. I did this so many times already because I want everything to be symetrical in this game, especially the walls' pattern and the numbers and position of the towers along the walls, but unofortunately you can't have it entirely like that in this game. So I reminded myself "Psst, this is not Clash of Clans." and I laughed for some reason. 

They Are Billions is fun, but not incredibly fun. And I see a couple of rooms for improvements here, as I mentioned before maybe expand the unit variety, add different factions to play with different technologies and units too, more maps, save game function for the casual difficulty, etc. Also day/night cycle perhaps? Because the gameplay is to survive for many days, from 80 to 150 days, but the time of day is only change the number. I'm looking forward to see what's Numantian Games will add in future updates. 

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That's my first impression of They Are Billions. Do you have any tips for playing this game, or any thought? Let me know in the comment. Thanks for stopping by, Steemian! 

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Images source: Numantian Games