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[PC] They Are Billions

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[PC] They Are Billions

Unread postby icycalm » 14 Nov 2017 05:51

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http://store.steampowered.com/app/64493 ... _Billions/

Steam wrote:They Are Billions is a Steampunk strategy game set on a post-apocalyptic planet. Build and defend colonies to survive against the billions of the infected that seek to annihilate the few remaining living humans. Can humanity survive after the zombie apocalypse?


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icycalm
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Unread postby icycalm » 12 Dec 2017 19:20

Just released. I wonder what the max unit count is. Judging from the trailer, I'd say it's in Cossacks territory. Around a few thousand.

Official Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX1rPWPN4DI

Pretty cool trailer.

I asked the devs for a Steam key lol.
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Unread postby icycalm » 06 Jan 2018 01:00

No. 2 bestseller on Steam right now, right under PUBG: http://store.steampowered.com/search/?filter=topsellers

It's good, but not that good. I need to review it at some point.

Notice the boost in PA sales. Titans is in the top 20. (Right under Northgard, lol.)
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Unread postby icycalm » 02 Mar 2018 02:09

First part of my review: https://www.patreon.com/posts/17302456

Development Update: The Incoming Wonders
http://steamcommunity.com/games/644930/ ... 8238264284

They are adding a lot of shit.

I will resume playing when the campaign is in, and the second part of my review will come after that.
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Unread postby icycalm » 20 Mar 2018 06:08

http://steamcommunity.com/app/644930/di ... 919671514/

Numantian Games wrote:What? Why no multiplayer? Just let it be two player co-op in the same colony. It is so easy!

Sorry. It is not easy at all. The problem is nothing related to how several players can interact in the game (such as coop, competitive, zombie team....).

The BIG issue is that the game engine and architecture must be changed in a way that TAB won't be TAB anymore. Here is the technical explanation for those who are interested.

If two or more instances of a game can be played at once, then the state of the game must be shared between all players OR the game must be 100% deterministic and synchronized.

- Sharing the State: This method works with games with a small state, like FPSs, arcades, platforms, where the game state is just some hundreds of bytes... But in RTSs the game state is very big (megabytes), and in the case of TAB it is huge because the game manages up to 20K units in real times plus all the colony buildings, colonists... (dozens of megabytes per frame) So this option is just impossible to use for this kind of game.

- Game Synchronized: In this case, the game must be 100% deterministic, so if you play the same game with the same inputs at the same time, the game behaves exactly the same. So just the commands executed by the players are shared between instances. This is how works in Starcraft, Supreme Commander or Factorio. So, what is the issue here? The performance could be 4-6 times slower. TAB has a custom engine heavily multi-thread optimized, where AI, physics, drawing, and sound runs asynchronously so everything can be executed disordered which means no determinism. Making the game deterministic means that only one single thread for logic and physics is available. We would have to change the game drastically (much smaller maps with smaller zombie populations and small swarms). Instead of 20K units in real time, we would have to change the game to just 3-4k or less. So, one of the best features of TAB would be missing...

Just check this blog post of how the developers of Supreme Commander dealt it with the multiplayer challenge:
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/126 ... esyncs.php


First time I hear of this stuff.
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Unread postby icycalm » 06 May 2018 23:07

From Discord:

I wrote:We really shouldn't be playing TAB at all before the campaign comes out
We are doing things assbackwards basically
First you finish the campaign, and then you play the "endless horde" mode if you are still not fully sated with the game
Now the campaign will seem like child's play to us
And given how well the team has done everything else, it will be a shame because the campaign will probably be cool too
The Curse of Early Access, I guess
Those of you still sitting on the sidelines, sit tight (edited)
because once you start playing this game, you can't stop
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Unread postby icycalm » 07 Aug 2018 00:45

So the campaign was scheduled for spring, but we are near the end of the summer and it's still nowhere in sight. In the meantime, however, we have a new update to tide us over:

Something Giant is coming!
https://steamcommunity.com/games/644930 ... 5780277947

The new difficult level sounds like overkill, so I definitely won't be playing it any time soon, but the giants are cool, and I still haven't tried the trains that were introduced a while back, so I am looking forward to getting back into this game soon.
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Unread postby icycalm » 07 Aug 2018 18:31

I wrote:It would be nice if the devs refrained from telling us how to beat their game in their very own updates. Don't spoil your damn game for your players. This is a strategy game. You give us a new enemy, and you tell us the best strategy to beat him? How does that make any sense? Let us figure out our own strategies ffs.


Posted in the Steam comments of the latest update right about two posts by a dev, so I am sure they will read it.
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Unread postby icycalm » 27 Sep 2018 10:56

Campaign Development (I)
https://steamcommunity.com/games/644930 ... 0309820589

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Numantian wrote:The Campaign development has been much more time consuming than we anticipated. We’re committed to delivering a great Campaign and not just a bunch of survival scenarios that you have to play in sequence. We want to add there all that is lacking in the Survival Mode, to have a perfect and rounded experience.

In the Campaign you’ll have a big World Map where you’ll be able to choose what kind of missions to play to reconquer a big territory from the infected. Every mission accomplished will unlock new missions, but be careful because infected swarms will block your path to new territories. You’ll have to destroy them with your personal Imperial Army.


Sounds like they are doing a proper job with the campaign, which explains why the delay from the original release target of last spring. I've completely stopped playing the game because I don't want to spoil it any more for me in Survival Mode. They've already added a bunch of stuff in Survival since I last played (trains, the giants, etc.), so I want to experience it first in the Campaign at its proper place before I take Survival on again. Hope it doesn't take much longer, but I'll wait as long as I have to.

They are also adding hero units, by the way:

Numantian wrote:You’ll have to venture into these infected places with only a handful of warriors (and a Hero, but we’ll talk about heroes later).


This game is so awesome it would have been a GOTY 2017 candidate if so many other awesome games hadn't come out last year. LiF might still make it in if I play Wildlands and BotW and I am unimpressed, but TAB is a long shot after that. From the games I HAVE played of 2017, my current GOTYs are For Honor, LiF and TAB, in that order. (Though I haven't played that much of LiF yet, and chances are it might end up higher when I do.)
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Unread postby icycalm » 30 Nov 2018 01:40

Campaign pushed back to "Spring 2019"... A full year after the original target window.

Workshop & Editor Available Now!
https://steamcommunity.com/games/644930 ... 6526791246

At least this means it should be good. And they have been adding more stuff in the meantime, like the custom level editor that just released. Some cool-looking levels are already available for download.

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I wouldn't play any of this if I were you though. I'd wait to finish the campaign first, because any playing you do before that will just spoil that.
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Unread postby icycalm » 16 Jan 2019 14:07

Development Update
https://steamcommunity.com/games/644930 ... 7986736489

Numantian Games wrote:Think that the Campaign is going to be like a new full game with 40-50 hours of content! We have literally created hundreds of new graphics for the Campaign. Indeed, the investment in the Campaign has been much larger than for all the Survival Mode.


Numantian Games wrote:Will there be more units in the game?

Definitely yes. We have already several new infected ready and, right now, we are working on the Empire Heroes. All of them are been reserved for the Campaign. There will also be new upgrades that players can research in the Campaign, like the Laser Titan. Once the Campaign is released we are thinking about adding new game modes and integrating some elements of the Campaign to the Survival. That’s the future we are working on!


Numantian Games wrote:Next update we will talk about the Reseach System in the Campaign. See you soon!


Campaign images:

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Definitely worth holding out for the campaign, from the sounds of it.
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