They Are Billions is the new phenomenon of the moment, an RTS/City Builder where the main goal is to survive an endless zombie invasion.
The title is obviously not one of the easiest on the market, especially for the less skilled with RTS and this guide is dedicated to them.
How is the title structured
The goal of every game They Are Billions is survival.
The colony will have to survive mainly two types of threats, both linked to the presence of zombies on the territory:
- Zombesque Raids: They only come from one direction and contain the bulk of the enemy forces.
- Random Spawns: Present every 20 days, coming from all directions and not to be confused with the main raid mentioned above.
- Village of doom: Hive containing the bulk of the opponent's forces; cleaning it up will lead to rewards in really nice resources.
Explore your surroundings at the start of the game!
This is a golden rule that belongs to the majority of RTS in the market.
Exploring what surrounds one's starting point is often essential to fully understand the development of one's own game; in this way it is possible to find the first groups of resources and understand where to place farms and facilities.
Just be careful not to go too far from your starting point, if you attract the runners you will have to salute some of your troops forever.
Random spawn of resources
Remember that your resources have a cap beyond which they are lost. Pay attention to your cap when you find random spawns of resources is a golden rule.
Clean up the area with the soldier.
After exploring your surroundings select the soldier and start cleaning the slower zombies nearby.
He is perfectly capable of eliminating multiple zombies at once as long as he remains in the vicinity of the village, making him move away will increase the chances of him dying in the jaws of some zombie runner.
Use the pause.
Basic but always effective: give yourself time to think and put in place a long-term strategy that works.
Take advantage of the single player nature of the title to your advantage!
Upgrade your facilities.
Perform upgrades on the structures only when you have no chance of physical expansion due to lack of space. This is because the advanced version of a facility has a high cost of ownership compared to its productivity and risks being a dangerous sting for your economy.
Zoom and warnings.
When a fight starts the game will signal you with a warning of some kind. This does not happen if you keep the view on a very large percentage of the map.
Remember to use the extended zoom for a short time, otherwise you'll end up with fights in progress without even realizing it.
Make fun of the opposing AI!
The cinema has taught us that zombies are extremely stupid and attack anything you can see in front of them, including walls.
They Are Billions is no exception and his zombies possess an artificial intelligence worthy of what the film world has taught us.
If they are not chasing some kind of unit, they attack the first structure in front of them.
By strategically placing pieces of wall around the surrounding area of our village you can find out in advance which side the zombies will attack on and adapt accordingly. Just remember to take a look at the warning alert.
Boost your economy.
Let's assume that in They Are Billions Economy means the whole spectrum of resources that can be obtained and enhanced: gold, wood, food, energy, number of workers, etc.
Once you find your balance in the amount of structures dedicated to economics and how many dedicated to the creation of military units.
Also approaching the endgame it is necessary to build a large amount of stone quarries to obtain the stone necessary for the creation of units and defensive structures such as the stone wall or the executor.
Build them outside the walls as well.
Expanding aggressively once a defence worthy of the name is set up is one of the best choices that can be made.
Remember to repair damaged structures, it always costs less than rebuilding them from scratch!
How many settlers are needed ?
Each player should have between 1800 and 2000 settlers at work in the final stages of their game. Obviously this result will be obtainable as you become familiar with the mechanics of the game, take it only as an ideal value.
Don't surround yourself (unnecessarily) with walls right away.
As the most seasoned RTS players already know, the walls are capable of defending the scared player and condemning the rookie.
It is useless to surround your village with walls from the beginning because, by doing so, you will lose resources for economic/military expansion.
A pair of rangers is enough to contain the invasion during the first moments of the game and it is wise to close the natural bottlenecks on the map with walls to greatly simplify the defense operations.
You don't even have a lot of towers.
The discord made for the walls also applies to the towers; if they are built soon they become economically heavy to support.
They extend the attack radius of the units you put inside them, very useful against runners if you don't want to waste time kitting them out. Build them if you don't want to have to check a lot of different units every time.
Expand your territory.
Many walls, besides crippling the economy in a serious way, would have forbidden your colony to expand.
Expanding means gaining more space for your farms and facilities to increase your earnings and stabilize your economy.
It is important to remember that it is smart to place your structures close to easily defensible points in order to minimize defense costs!
Better veterans than dead.
Standard units such as rangers, soldiers or snipers can get a tremendous power up when they upgrade to veteran status.
This status is obtained after killing a large number of enemies and gaining enough experience in the field. Once you get damage status and stats will double, making all units much more powerful than they already are.
Do not mix units of different types.
If you're a fan of micromanagement, ignore this advice, but if you have problems doing three or four things at once, remember not to mix your units in the field with other units of different types.
By doing so, you minimize risks due to increased complexity in managing units.
Remember to support sensitive drives.
Powerful units like Thanatos or Titans need other units at their side.
A good idea is to send in the front line the Thanatos and leave the Sniper behind the task of dealing with the most powerful infected present in the raids or the Village of doom.
A similar thing can be done for shocking towers that need to be supported with normal towers to deal with the majority of enemies.
Exterminate the big one before the last wave.
The last zombie raid of the game also contains all the trutte of the various Village of Doom on the map. A good idea is to eliminate the Village of Doom before the arrival of this last terrifying wave.
The best timing to start the purge is after the third zombie raid.
It takes about fifteen snipers to eliminate a Village of Doom; once you get them, arm yourself with patience and get closer to your target. With the extra resources obtained in the mission, replenish your economy and troops to go to the next target.
Keep in mind the amount of time between raids.
It takes about ten days between zombie raids.
Being found unprepared or with the army busy purging a Village of Doom is practically game over.
Gather the troops the day before the raid arrives and replenish the ranks.
The first citizen.
The choice of the mayor is very important in the course of your game.
The choice of the mayor is made when your colony reaches a cap of inhabitants:
- 30 inhabitants
- 200 inhabitants
- 600 inhabitants
- 1200 inhabitants
Every time you get to the cap you are faced with a choice between two mayors randomly chosen from a list. Each mayor has specific bonuses that you can read when you make your choice.
There are no universally valid councils in this regard because the mayors adapt to a plethora of different game styles.
