They Are Billions In-Depth Review (Early Access)
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- Опубліковано 1 чер 2018
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Hey folks,
I'm back with an in-depth review of They Are Billions! Hope you enjoy. Apologies for the long delay in content.
Production Notes:
-- The in-game help guide demarcates the resources in a different way and labels them differently. I decided to stick with "Capacity" vs. "Growth" because I think it hews closer to the underlying design, but just a heads up if you're looking for the official terminology.
-- The razor-thin margins section has a typo under "Income" - 4 tents provide +8 workers, not +2.
-- Steam Spy sales data was obtained before Valve shut off their store API. I'm not a Patron of Steam Spy so I don't have access to the newer data; the commentary here is therefore based on memory + the general sales range provided on Steam Spy as of publication.
References:
-- www.pcgamer.com/how-zombie-pl... (dev interview, game vision)
-- www.pcgamer.com/they-are-bill... (article on turtling in they are billions)
-- steamcommunity.com/stats/6449... (steam achievements)
-- store.steampowered.com/app/644... (store page)
-- www.pcgamer.com/the-decline-e... (quote from Joe Bostic)
-- steamspy.com/app/286000 (Tooth and Tail sales)
-- steamspy.com/app/644930 (They Are Billions sales) - Ігри
That was one of the best reviews I have ever watched. Great job man
For me, it all comes down to the starting position and how much impassable terrain i have available.
Excellent review! It gave me a few ideas....
Perhaps to fix how strong/useful walls are and how that impacts expansion choices-- Make it so that long walls cost more and more per consecutive unit wall/defensive structure. Say you're building a wall of length ten, perhaps the first 5 units all cost the standard amount then at 6 it jumps up, and jumps up a little for each new unit of wall. A unit wall might normally be 10 gold, but the 6th one might be 11 then the 7th might be 12 etc. Or instead of upfront costs longer and more walls could increase in an upkeep cost exponentially. Those might be terrible ideas I'm not sure, just sprung to mind.
My second idea is MUCH cooler. In order to incentivize mid-game strategical thinking you could modify the way that those infected towns work. You could turn them into something more like raids that give high level loot as a reward. To be honest, I am unsure of how they work now as I've only watched and have not yet played. Here is how I think they could work, though. Say, within the lore, mankind has fallen from what it once was because of the zombie apocalypse. So there is a ton of old and forgotten tech. Within those old towns are the blueprints/models of that tech that might be very helpful in either the logistics of your city or in combat. BUT the zombies are there (it's infected.. duh) the longer you wait before attempting to take one of those towns, the more the zombies corrode and diminish the possible loot and discoveries that await a player there. I understand that taking those large infected towns are a mid to late game ordeal done with a large number of units. Well this sort of loot system would encourage players to figure out how to safely get in there to get the good tech earlier, this would provide a battle for micro in the mid game as well as strategic thinking as to when you are ready and is it worth the risk. It could be pretty punishing too, go in with too few units and you gotta thousand zombies set loose from their hiding with not enough forces to deal with them.
Additionally, this idea could provide more tech options and special units which might diversify the play experience a little more.
this is so great. posted it on /r/games
Thank you!
Excellent review - thank you!
Regarding difficulty, I agree with Keith Burgun's notion that there should be a ranking system for single player strategy games, which scales the difficulty based on your rank. I haven't played this game, but it seems like population/length could easily be proportional to your rank.
Awpteamoose yea really
Ayyy he's back, good to see you brown. Great vid
Noah Fletcher agreed
Good to see you too, and thanks!
This review is best understood by players who have already experienced the game. The careful articulation and poetic intellectual waxing is done well and your delivery feels like a radio advertisement or book, but the end product can leave people at a loss as to exactly what it is you are saying.
well it is a review, not a tutorial...but I agree with you
really great review, thanks for making it!
Fantastic review; you articulated all of the pros and cons so well, and I am now suddenly fully aware as to why I find the mid/late game so dry. That said, it really is a fantastic game and I don't hesitate to recommend it to strategy fans. This is a great channel and my second of your videos I've watched; subscribing and seeing your low awareness would urge you to create a Patreon page for ongoing donations!
Very nice indepth review!
great video, quality work - thanks so much.
Awesome review. You deserve more subs/views!
You deserve many more subscribers. Great video!
Talk about in-depth! Whoosh. Thank you for an excellent review. They Are Billions remains on my wishlist until they add new modes.
Elann Suvat played yet ?
He's back!
Bigger maps would do wonders for the mid game. Currently it’s too easy to clear the map and expand to the edges
I very much appreciate the depth and completeness of your analysis, so thank you for the good watch. The thing that most stands out to me about They Are Billions is that your enemy is not an AI that makes decisions or adjusts to your strategy, but rather a mindless predetermined force just like the waves of a Tower Defense game. Now, a TD where the waves were intelligently configured to counter your defense would be something neat, but from the few that I have played, that is not how they work. The result is that this game sacrifices aesthetic choice of strategy for puzzle-solving correctness.
this is a sharp review
I am generally not compelled to leave comments but it needed to be said: this was a really good production and an excellent review. Good work good sir.
6:38 let the math class begin, lol
great video.
You are an articulate genius
Great game. I play everyday for about 100 days now. Final wave might reach my home soon.
One of the best game reviews I've ever seen.
Better than frostpunk ?
Thank you for this review. As a diamond sc2 player I'm always looking for new rts games and was thinking of buying it. I'll pass now for sure.
As someone who has played around 7k ranked StarCraft matches myself I'm not sure I can really compare the two game. Mainly because you are always playing against AI and AI zombies at that. The AI is never going to change how it plays you can simply find your "build" or successful strat and repeat over and over without other players forcing adjustments. In They Are Billions it's only the randomized maps and different difficultly levels of maps that force adjustments.
The game certainly has some issues, starts to get repetitive after a while, and doesn't control anything like StarCraft 2's near perfection in terms hotkeys, pathing, and etc. With that being said my first 35~40 hours in the game could be described as pure addiction and the games systems stoked all my love for the RTS genre. The game is not complex enough and you eventually feel like you have the game figured out but the initial time you spend with it is very fun and well worth 20~25 bucks IMO.
I also found a lot of enjoyment watching people play game both as a means of learning it and watching their frustration when they accidentally let a zombie by in the greedy pre-wall stages of the game. I would kind of love to watch Vibe or HTOMario fire up the game again someday just for laughs but I don't think any of the StarCraft streamers have really messed with the game since launch.
What do you guys this of frostpunk ?
Great in-depth review, great information. You broke down every aspect of the game and it makes me really want to buy it and give it a go.
That said, your intonation is exactly the same in every single sentence, it's really off-putting for me as a viewer.
What, review sites make garbage reviews while lacking understanding? Call me surprised!
I hate the last wave mechanic. It is utterly unpredictable and you can loose hours of progress
The way you end every sentence triggers me.
Go listen to Arrekz gaming, you will love this guy after watching half of one of his videos. It's just something you deal with when someone has good content I guess.
I really want to watch this video but the way your tone fluctuates up and down seemingly randomly in order to articulate your sentences is extremely off putting.
Imagine Kermit explaining something to you and it is immediately much better!
But I agree...I like him and his videos, but I understand people finding his speech patterns weird and off-putting.
Fortunately there's plenty of other reviews out there to satisfy your ears
I found this difficult to watch, The voice narration is hard to listen to, Because it's difficult to understand. The reason being that it's very monotonous, And way too fast. Also your spouting off game terms that mean absolutely nothing to me. Yes it's very detailed. But only if you have any idea what the narrator is talking about. For me this was nonsensical gibberish, While quick flashes of the game kept popping by.
Great review! Good insights.