They Are Billions news & patch notes

Hello everyone! We have been working for a while on improving and expanding the They Are Billions level editor. The first big update, available right now in the new version V1.1, allows to modify the rules of the game. You can now modify all the parameters of the units, buildings and enemies in your custom levels. Every time we make this kind of modifications we have to be very careful because it can affect both the original game and the hundreds of levels that the community has created, any change must guarantee full compatibility with everything that already exists. The modification of the rules is carried out by means of a function "ApplyRules ()" that can be used in any script of the game such as events, hordes, when activating objects or entering zones, at the beginning of the game,... Some random examples:

• When you release a neutral soldier cornered by zombies, he reveals a technology that increases the attack of your units by 50%.
• A new Titan is made available at a higher cost but with a doubled range shooting effect.
• From the Command Center you can access a market to purchase unit and building upgrades.
• A new type of random scenario with its own rules in which the infected are extremely active and nervous.

You will be able to create your own random survivals with your own rules. We have updated the level editor guide on Steam that explains all the parameters and syntax with examples of this new functionality. And that's all for now. We are looking forward to playing the new scenarios created by the Community with their own rules. See you soon!

There is always time for a celebration amongst friends, even for those who keep us safe from the zombie apocalypse. Who would have thought that cooking was one of the Sniper's skills! Happy Holidays and happy New Year from Numantian Games to all the They Are Billions community! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/28988182/6bccc95249922dbac18e1da63c86d00066ed7146.jpg

Greetings!

Great news! The Campaign mode of They Are Billions is finally available for consoles for free. To play it just let the game update automatically. It’s been almost six months of hard work. We know that some players were upset because this mode was not available for consoles at the same time as it did for PC, but it required all that time to port and adapt the game to consoles. Some games are developed at the same time for PCs and consoles because they basically work the same way, but for They Are Billions the interface and handling are drastically different. In addition, it’s been necessary to modify entire systems such as physics and text rendering, so it would work at proper speed on consoles. We’re very happy with the final result. The game is handled in an agile way and we didn’t have to change any of the content (number of zombies, difficulty ...), so that the console version is 100% equal to the PC one. And above all, we are very happy to have contributed to enrich the ecosystem of console games with an RTS as challenging as this one.

Future development

We believe that They Are Billions is already a fairly round and complete game. With the campaign mode, the survival mode, and the custom levels of the users, TAB offers many hours of play. In fact, according to statistics, each player plays more than 52 hours on average. And of course, we are looking at how to expand the universe of They Are Billions. We are considering many options. We want to continue improving the editor so that content creators have many more options and can create more complex levels. We’re also considering to extend the original game with a new campaign available as a separate DLC. However, deeper changes in the game would require a complete new development, which would already be They Are Billions 2. In a new development we could include new factions that can be played in different ways, cooperative multiplayer and versus modes, and a new Survival mode with many more options. What do you players think? What new features would you like to find in a new They Are Billions? Looking forward to your feedback.

Greetings!

We are very happy to announce that They Are Billions is available for XBOX One (right now) and PS4 on 9th July. The time has come for console players to also enjoy this RTS. Although for the moment it’s only available in the Survival mode, we will also bring the Campaign mode to this console in the near future.

An RTS in consoles?

Indeed, there are not many RTS games in consoles. This genre is mostly exclusive to PC because its game mechanics make it essential to use a mouse and keyboard. But at Numantian Games we have accepted the challenge. First of all because we truly believe that console players can also enjoy this exceptional game genre that we like so much. Second, They Are Billions within the RTS has also created its own sub-genre, a new style that has managed to bring many players who had never before played this type of games, and have enjoyed it as much as the more veterans players. In the porting we have tried to be 100% loyal to the PC version. We want the game experience to be the same. Along with Blitworks, our porting partner, a huge effort has been made to achieve a game speed equivalent to the PC, as this game uses CPUs and multicore super intensive. Few games can boast of handling 30K units in real time, each with fully independent AI. We also had to work to adapt the game handling to the console interface and we have implemented two play modes: Gamepad In this mode, the cursor and the camera can be moved with the analog joysticks. We have also enabled many shortcuts for the most typical actions that greatly improve the speed of handling. They Are Billions was always conceived as a game where strategy comes first (over player's performance) and that's why you can pause, so you can take your time and decide your strategies and tactics. This allows that in consoles, even if it is a little more uncomfortable handling with gamepad, the player establishes the preferred pace of play. Mouse and Keyboard The new consoles allow you to use any normal USB or Bluetooth mouse or keyboard and, of course, they are both supported by They Are Billions. In this case the gaming experience is exactly the same as in the PC version. Even you can perfectly play with mouse while using the gamepad for shortcuts. And that's all for now. If you have console gamer friends you can tell them that: "The zombie apocalypse, has arrived!" And if anyone is curious to see how has been the development on consoles here you can see our friends from Blitworks in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvhOg6iRFJY See you soon!

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/d91c942fac96f9e18da896891368a0a89c8189a7.jpg Spoiler: Developers are scared .... more in V. 1.0.10 ...

Greetings!

It's almost incredible that we didn’t think of this before... TAB has always stored in a Steam variable the total number of zombies killed by each player, in order to unlock the Infected Killer achievements. So, now those values are added to another global Steam variable that contains the sum of all the zombies killed by the entire Steam community. Since version 1.0.8 this information is being uploaded to the server. So only players who have opened TAB in that version or higher have been accounted for. From now on all the zombies killed are counted regardless of whether you have won or lost, or whether it is a Survival, a Custom Level or a Campaign mission. Until now only Survival wins were accounted for, meaning that the actual number of killed zombies is much larger than the one shown in the game. Ready? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Be patient!... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/10aa5a8b93a0fe5352972f61a65cddc9a8d71c06.jpg

44 BILLIONS!!! , Wow! It is 6 times the World population!

At first we thought there was some kind of error or that Steam was not processing the totals correctly. But no, all is right and it makes sense. TAB already has more than one million players and, according to Steam, the average playing time per player is 45 hours. Surely the real number is much bigger but still, 44 billion zombies killed must surely be some world record… will there be any category in the Guinness Book for this? The title of the game is no longer a hyperbole and has become, literally and empirically, true: "They Are Billions ..., yes, 44 actually. And rising!" In the new version V.1.0.10 you can see the world zombie counter. The counter is updated in real time as players get rid of more and more zombies. Move the pointer over the number and you will see what your contribution to the total has been. How far will it go? https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/7ff271f0cfdfa70867ba1dae994e8a95f0fc2410.jpg As you can see, one of the testers has contributed with more than 6 million. Definitely ready for a possible and imminent zombie apocalypse in real life! In the new version 1.0.10 we continue fixing issues and improve several things. More info in the Changes Log Version. Come on everyone! What are you waiting for? We have to reach 100 Billions this summer! See you soon!

Greetings!

We continue working to improve the game and, our number one priority, to fix all the bugs and issues. Since the release They Are Billions has between 15,000 and 20,000 simultaneous players, and has been played for more than 2 million hours in the last week. Amazing! A billion thanks to all players! Something pending to include for future versions is the counter for the total number of zombies killed by all TAB players, updated in real time on the game's menu screen. That could be very, very interesting :) Now, let us run you through everything you can find in the new version, of course, we’ll continue listening to all your feedback:

Issues when saving or reloading Games

We have detected that Steam Cloud was interfering with the game recording and the user's progress, so we have disabled it. As the game state is huge, They Are Billions uses file compression and it seems that Steam Cloud can affect the recording process when it synchronizes. All the TAB user data (saves, settings, custom levels, screenshots ...) can be found in My Documents\My Games\They Are Billions, in case you need to move them to another computer.

New Option to Save a backup of the Campaign

From the game menu within the Dashboard of the campaign you’ll find a new option to record the current state of the campaign in a new slot. You can continue when you want using the Continue option in the main menu. (This is not available inside a mission, just in the campaign dashboard). We have implemented it for two reasons: First and foremost, we do not want anyone to lose the progress of the campaign. In such a long game losing the advances due to an error or a disk problem can be a disaster. This will also allow you to perform tests with the technology tree or try different levels of difficulty... in short, experimenting a bit more with the game. In addition this new option will work very well together with the following new feature…

Replay Completed Missions

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/a4ea2aec56bfe0791d5cb87f3b32e3fc1d5cba35.jpg Now you can play missions that you have already completed, as many times as you want in the difficulty level you want. This functionality is just for fun, it will not affect any aspect of your campaign, nor the victory points or the defeats counter.

Bonus Objects on Tactical Missions

It seems that this mechanism is the one that has caused the most concern to the players and after analyzing the issue among the team we think we already know why. This mechanic was designed to encourage exploration and reward progress little by little. We love when the hero opens a door, react to the situation, kills the enemies and then explore the room’s content, finding useful objects or research points, it is a good way to constantly reward the progress of the mission. The testers knew that these bonuses are optional, so they explored the fortress, met the objectives and finished the mission, usually with 70-90% of the points earned. That's why the campaign was balanced to get that number of points on average. Those players that were more into exploring and observing could get extra points, and that’s phenomenal. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/2d9257ecacbeac43b91df30dabf19c860896eb79.jpg However, we realized that most players take it as if it was mandatory and in no case want to pass on any of the available points. So, when they achieve the mission objectives, they feel compelled to look everywhere for remaining objects, instead of leaving the mission and continue the Campaign. That of course is a boring and tedious job. It was a mistake to include in the interface the total available points in the mission because players will not finish the mission until they got them all. We didn’t take into account that most players want to complete and get everything that is available, and this mechanics would bother them too much. To improve this mechanic, we have activated the flash for objects in all difficulties and increased their visibility. Now finding all the objects should not be a problem. The campaign has been balanced for an average get of 70% of the objects, so nothing happens if you have left any behind. In any case, we take good note for future campaigns!

Improvements in the Technology Tree

Now the technologies that you have unlocked since the last mission can be modified if you fail in the new mission. That is, if you have chosen one or two technologies that have not worked well in a mission and you have lost, you can pick up others and play the mission again with the new technologies. Once a mission is completed, the unlocked technologies become permanent as before. We have also added the costs of unlocked units and structures in the help messages of the technologies, and solved the problem of the Veterans Snipers that did not receive the attack improvements of the normal Snipers.

Changes in Difficulty

It turns out that we missed a parameter in the Storm Cape mission swarm and the veteran community of TAB claimed that we were nerfing the game!?! Please calm down guys, wait until you hear the official voice of Numantian before drawing conclusions. TAB is an old-school and hardcore RTS, that's our hallmark and it will always be! In recent patches we have improved the difficulty curve of the campaign to make it more accessible in the first missions of the game as they are where new players without previous experience learn the mechanics of the game. That is why we have added new tutorial messages to improve learning. The rest of the missions of the campaign (80%) remain the same as they were originally designed. In addition, following the feedback of the most veteran players, we have increased the level of challenge of the modes Brutal and Nightmare between 20% and 50%. And, in case you think this is not enough,... please keep reading :)

New Game Mode: Apocalypse!?!

Was Nightmare mode not enough for you? So get ready... the evil TAB developers have created a new way in which the infected are hungrier, more nervous and more billions than ever. We assigned one of our testers to try the Apocalypse Mode during the weekend and, when we returned to the office, we found him huddling in a corner crying and sobbing. Burbling again and again: "Why…? Why did we do it... ? " Guys, it was very disturbing...

More changes in version 1.0.8

We have re-enabled the feature that allows that the new version changes can be consulted from the main menu. We had taken it away because translation to so many languages could take many days, something we can’t afford when they are so urgent. So we have implemented a self-translation system using Google Translator to translate them from English. Apologies if the translation is not very good or results in something totally crazy! - We have fixed the anti over-kill feature that made sometimes the units to waste shots when targeting enemies. - Mine traps works now as expected according to the delay time set by the player. - Also, dwelling without colonists (waiting the train arrival) no longer spam zombies when they have been infected. The list of all changes can be also found here on Steam forums. And this is all for now... we’ll keep on working on improving the game while you continue to reconquer the World after the zombie apocalypse. Good luck and see you soon!

Greetings!

The launch week is becoming really intense. We never thought that version 1.0 would generate so much interest, opinions and feedback. That’s a sign that They Are Billions is becoming a very popular game and, as such, generates intense debate. First of all, thank you very much to all the constructive feedback that helps us to improve the game and to correct mistakes. Thank you very much for taking the time. You know that our team is always open to everything you want to say to us. During the development of the Campaign we had a few dozens very different testers playing the campaign from start to finish using very different strategies, and always in Challenging difficulty. Although we’ve worked hard to achieve the best quality, making it as challenging and with the widest range of strategic possibilities, with hundreds of thousands of people, playing the game there are many aspects that may require adjustments and improvements. That’s what we are here for, to improve it and give you the best possible experience. We have to say that we are saddened to see that many players with hundreds of hours of play in Survival mode have written very negative reviews for the launch of the Campaign. We understand that there are people who prefer to play Survival and are not interested in the campaign, and prefer that development efforts be directed only to the Survival. That is totally legitimate, and we are delighted to hear that feedback and we will take it into account. But we've done an update with new free content, which we promised from the first day of the Early Access. And we’ve even improved the Survival with two new maps and the wandering Mutants. So, we ask for your patience as the advances in the development will come in order. The next big update will be for the Survival, but we are working on one thing at a time.

Campaign improvements V.1.0.5

Here are the most important improvements:

Difficulty in General

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/bb2ebc7a7896add97b143df8c22b517f286a097e.png Here we made a mistake when leaving the Challenging mode as the default difficulty level. In addition, many players haven’t noticed the small screen of difficulty level that appears on the Missions screen and are not aware that you can change the level of difficulty at any time. Improvement 1: Now the default mode is Accessible, which maintains a good level of challenge and is more progressive than the Challenging. Also, now when playing the first mission you will see the difficulty window explaining this functionality. Improvement 2: The general difficulty of the first missions has been lowered a bit so that it is something more accessible, especially for first-time players

Time Limit in Misiones

Some missions have a time limit because the challenge lies in getting a colony of certain characteristics within that time frame. It seems that this limit has taken many people by surprise or is simply too short for less experienced players. Improvement: So, we have removed the limit in the first missions and expanded generously in all the others. It should no longer be a problem, but we will continue to listen to your feedback and make further adjustments if necessary.

Hero Missions and Search for Valuable Items

We understand that there are players who prefer to focus on the colony mode and are not that interested in tactical missions. We see them as bonus reward phases which our testers really enjoyed playing. For those who are not very interested in these phases, we recommend playing them with the lowest level of difficulty. This will allow a quick walk through the fortresses. While searching for objects, that for us it is something that enhances the exploratory nature of the game, it’s much easier if you zoom in. Also, they’re optional, it is not necessary to collect them all. Even so we have made some improvements: Improvement: Now the bonus objects flash every so often, so it is very easy to identify them. The period of blinking changes according to the difficulty, the easier the more often they will blink. In Difficult, Brutal and Nightmare levels, they will never blink for those who enjoys a greater challenge.

Technology Tree

Some players mentioned that if you don’t achieve certain advances you won’t be able to progress in the missions. In our tests we have completed the entire campaign in Challenging with very different (and crazy) tree settings. We have even completed the campaign with only one unit: the soldier with all his improvements, without attack towers, and without any micromanaging, simply making hordes of soldiers and sending them to hunt. Also, using the Inn and its rewards without investigating any unit. And so many other situations and game styles just for fun. In the end, what we want to say is that the fun comes from exploring and creating your own strategies with the resources at your disposal, to adapt and survive, that's what the game is all about. We hope you’ll agree. Still, if you get stuck in a mission you have several options: - There are always other missions to complete first, in which your technological configuration may have an advantage, and then you can return to the previous one with more progress made. - If you are still stuck, lower the difficulty for a specific mission. The only change is that you win fewer victory points. Improvement: We have made some adjustments in the tree to make the beginning more accessible.

Bugs & Crashes

We continue working hard to correct all reported issues. We have already fixed many and we’re still working on them. We have fixed a memory leak problem related to sound that made the game consumes much more RAM than needed so it can lead to crashes and freezes. A thousand apologies for this! Now the game should be 100% stable while playing hours. Another issue we’ve fixed is that the game counted a defeat in the event of a crash. It’s already been fixed, apologies for those who have suffered it. EDIT: Also we are examining if there is any problem with the anti-overkill targets feature that it seems to work worse than in the last version. To force the update just restart the Steam client. It should be now the 1.0.5. We continue working to improve the game. Thank you very much for your support, we will continue to post the most important changes here. Quintus is waiting for you... those wild lands are not going to reconquer themselves! See you soon!

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/f178ee1deeb6a669b629f2dfb83c279e01f79ab1.jpg At last, They Are Billions reaches version 1.0. We are leaving the Early Access and the great Campaign, The New Empire, will be available for all players.

The Campaign: The New Empire.

Lead the campaign under the orders of Quintus Crane, ruler of the New Empire, and reconquer the lands devastated by the infected.

• 48 missions with more than 60 hours of gameplay.
• Build fortified colonies to survive in infected territories
• Destroy the swarms of infected with the Imperial Army.
• Make your colonies evolve with more than 90 available technologies.
• Explore the ancient human fortresses with your Hero.
• Discover the story behind the apocalypse... how did the pandemic start?

New Maps for the Survival Mode

Don’t forget the new available maps for the Survival mode. You can see this update for more info.

New DLC Soundtrack & Artbook

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/09fed05c2ff9c2ed17d7cf30db4c28b74e72477b.png Along with the Campaign we will also launch a DLC that will contain the 22 themes of TAB soundtrack at the highest quality, and the digital book “The Art of They Are Billions”, for those of you curious about the sketches and illustrations of the most important elements of the game. In the game main menu "More" you can find an option "Collector's Edition". Click there to open the content folder with these extra rewards. Hope you like them! Of course the soundtrack can be player via the Steam Music Player.

Bugs & Feedback

The V.1.0 is the most stable, lots of issues have been solved and the performance is much better than in the old version. Also it has countless of improvements in all fronts. Although we have tested the campaign to the fullest, we will be ready to quickly fix any bugs or solve any problem after the launch. As you know, in this section of the forum you can report any issues you have with the game. Please, be patient, we promise to solve everything as fast as possible, as we have always done.

A BIG THANKS!

Thanks a lot for your support and feedback during the Early Access time. You have made They Are Billions possible as it stands today, and for that we will always be grateful. We really hope you’ll enjoy the Campaign. That’s all for now, we don’t want to take much more of your time. Please go ahead and submerge yourselves in the New Empire Campaign. Just a friendly advice, don’t forget to eat and drink every few hours! (sleeping is optional)☺ See you on the other side of the Campaign!

Greetings!

There is only one day left until the launch of the They Are Billions Campaign that finally, after a year and a half in Early Access, will become version 1.0! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKRTQGHL3mc During this time, and thanks to all your support, we have improved TAB in many aspects while developing the Campaign mode almost in secret. It will finally be released tomorrow and, as promised, it will be included for free for all existing TAB players. TAB will be a fully finished game so it will leave the Early Access stage. Of course, we will continue to work on improving TAB, especially the Survival mode and the Editor, but all of that will some time later, first the priority is the campaign launch. We wanted to share with you some details for all of you who have been eagerly waiting, as we know that nobody is going to read anything of tomorrow’s announcement and will jump directly into playing the Campaign :)

New DLC Soundtrack & Artbook

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/09fed05c2ff9c2ed17d7cf30db4c28b74e72477b.png Along with the Campaign we will also launch a DLC that will contain the 22 themes of TAB soundtrack at the highest quality, and the digital book “The Art of They Are Billions”, for those of you curious about the sketches and illustrations of the most important elements of the game.

What time will it be released?

We will activate it between 9 and 10 AM Pacific Time. As there are many steps involved in publishing the new page (the DLC Soundtrack & Artbook, the announcement and so on), we do not know exactly what time it will be, but it will be in that range.

IMPORTANT FOR THE LAUNCH

Bugs and issues

The V.1.0 is the most stable, lots of issues have been solved and the performance is much better than in the old version. Also it has countless of improvements in all fronts. Although we have tested the campaign to the fullest, we will be ready to quickly fix any bugs or solve any problem after the launch. As you know, in this section of the forum you can report any issues you have with the game. Please, be patient, we promise to solve everything as fast as possible, as we have always done.

Streamers! Please, don't use the Flat Mode unless you really need to.

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/acbacaa0f5865edd9c7111cf63c6d0a96e865616.jpg The Flat Mode is designed to help you when building and some element of the scenario impedes your vision. The Flat Mode is really ugly (compare the following images), and it's a shame that after working so hard to create this awesome scenarios, especially for the campaign mode, the game ends up showing up in videos in this way. Streamers, your audience will enjoy your videos much more if you play the game as it is. Thank you very much in advance!

Campaign Difficulty

By default the Campaign is played in Challenging mode. At any time you can change the difficulty of the game from the campaign Dashboard. The difficulty level only impacts the final victory points. We recommend playing the game in Challenging mode and if you find it very hard drop it down little by little. Pro-players who are used to playing in Brutal or Nightmare in Survival mode, can also start the campaign at those levels. But we warn you, it will not be easy! ;) We hope that everyone, in one way or another, can reach the end of the game. The last scenario: "The Goddess of Destiny" is really an epic experience, do not miss it!

Enjoy the Campaign and... no spoilers!

The Campaign is full of amazing details and surprises, especially in the tactical missions. We recommend playing it without watching videos or knowing anything in advance. Enjoy playing in your own style, take your time to explore and experience everything. The best strategies are those that you discover yourself! Finally just check this amazing fan-art of our beloved Ranger Unit by Dennis Fröhlich. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9M8jI_WwAAncrF.jpg And that's all for now, see you tomorrow!

At last! The highly anticipated They Are Billions Campaign will be available on June 18th. Here at Numantian, we recommend that you ask your boss for at least one month off. That’s because, and you are being warned, the campaign is addictive - really addictive. Check out the teaser trailer of The New Empire. We hope you enjoy it! https://youtu.be/GKRTQGHL3mc The campaign will, of course be included free with the current game, and also it will be available in the 12 languages currently supported by They Are Billions.

Two new map for the Survival Mode

Along with the campaign, two new scenarios will be unlocked for the Survival mode: The Deep Forest and The Caustic Lands. - As The Deep Forest is the most accessible, it will now be the first scenario available, so that new players’ first contact with They Are Billions is not so brutal. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/44118b29c2bc4d71123c117744f66c5b8952fc5e.jpg - The Caustic Lands, on the contrary, will be the hardest of all the maps. The most dangerous infected live here and you’ll face the Doom Colony that can occupy up to 30% of the map. Scary! https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/94729310a51585133ee32d319d3288917bd12fbc.jpg In addition, the rest of the scenarios have been modified in the level of difficulty and include new dangers... No spoilers here! ;) See you soon! *EDIT: They Are Billions will leave Early Access when the campaign is launched (18th June).

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/3da9008496078ae20285617db5192bbc455d2a83.jpg

Greetings!

Today we will talk about the heroes and tactic mission in They Are Billions. The Campaign will finally have 48 missions, 23 of which are about building colonies, 15 about attacking swarms of infected and 10 will be tactical missions. As it happened to us with Lords of Xulima, the duration of the final game is much longer than we had anticipated as, according to our testers, it can take between 60 to 80 hours to complete it !?! To finish the campaign it will only be necessary to build the 23 colonies. The rest of the missions are all optional, but surely you will need to play them to advance in the technology tree, and destroy the swarms that block the routes to new territories. It is a long campaign but also very diverse, the tactical missions will specially bring a very different touch to the game. Testers’ recurring comment is that we could have created a completely new game just with them. We hope they’ll enrich the gameplay experience and will also help bring lore to the story behind They Are Billions. Something that testers also appreciate is that in these missions you can finally enjoy the graphics and animations of the zombies up close, compared to the zoomed out way you normally play in the colony mode.

The Heroes

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/076d86ee1b6e3c8dda1dfb0876455d4948e9fa03.jpg https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/6380449184820e9f13b1b6cfca481c0588acd28c.jpg At the beginning of the campaign you will have to choose between one of the two heroes. This is an important decision because the chosen hero will be accompanying you throughout the whole campaign and you won’t be able to change it. Although they have different game styles they are both very well balanced, so just choose the one you like the most. You can always play the campaign again with the other hero to enjoy a different game experience. Heroes only play in tactical missions. If the hero dies the mission will fail. At the end of a mission the heroes can go up one level and you can improve them by acquiring new perks. Each hero has a different perk tree. At the beginning you can choose between one of the 4 perks of the central part, from there you only acquire the perks adjacent to an already unlocked one. In the end, the hero will become a very powerful unit and you will clearly be able to feel his progression as you advance in the tactical missions.

The Tactical Missions: The Ancient Fortresses

The objective of the tactical missions is to recover some important technological artifacts that can be found inside the old human fortresses. These are the ten locations you can explore:

• The Last Bunker
• Alpha Communications Center
• The Weapons Factory
• The Foundry
• Hydra Power Plant
• The Prison
• Gamma Medical Center
• The Steel Fortress
• Omicron Laboratory
• Phoenix Project

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/2049fd8732068cb7899ffb9be189b15cc545dd21.jpg While exploring the fort you will find valuable objects that will grant you research points (scientific material...) to progress in the technology improvements tree, and empire points (books, old paintings, statues...) that will please the New Empire and provide you with greater influence over the Imperial Army. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/f98244921f345e9f5d63ea36866f8f23d5d858eb.jpg Valuable items appear in random places in each game, you can locate them using the mouse cursor. Any valuable object will light up and you can send your unit to pick it up. This objective is optional and it’s not necessary to find them all to complete the mission. You will also find useful objects such as hand-grenades and medical kits, and many interactive elements. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/cef301a38cee3c69e75cb6d1ffa22287ee91c537.jpg We recommend that you explore the fortresses, little by little, carefully checking everything out, and using the elements of the scenario to your advantage. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/cbfaea35b6e29e689084e78e6bf9fdbdfd645e8a.jpg https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/e7eebf91a42b71efc8bc7e7d9f0d3996e6b9f107.jpg

News from the past

When a tactical mission is completed, you will also receive an old newspaper clip with a fragment of the history of the infection that ravaged the world. When completing all of them, you will finally find out where the "Billions" in "They Are Billions" came from. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/905847c0d74bdc20e983763e8f62048b1b678fbb.jpg (If you want to know what it says you'll have to explore the ancient fortresses) And that's all for now. In the next update, we will publish the trailer of the campaign and announce the final release date. See you soon!

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Greetings!

As you probably know, before launching They Are Billions on Steam we had a presale campaign with special limited editions in which one of the rewards for supporting the development was to appear in the game credits. As appreciation to all our awesome backers, we have produced a theme song for the game credits as a tribute to the more than 3,000 people who, through their support and collaboration, have help us to make this project a reality. The theme song was composed and directed by our great composer Nicolás Diteriks, who also played the piano. Alice Dixit has lent us her amazing voice, and they are both joined by a wonderful group of talented performers: Lucas d'Angelo on the guitar, Igor de Ferran on the bass and Pablo Ramirez on the drums. We hope you like it. On behalf of the entire team, thank you all very much for your support! https://youtu.be/DZhhIAwu7Xs Note: The new credits will be available in the game in the next version.

Collector's Edition and Price Change

We are now very close to the final release of They Are Billions that includes the new Campaign mode, with more than 60 hours of play. From this week the base price of the game will no longer include the Early Access discount and its final price will be $ 29.99. We are also working in the collector's edition, that will include the soundtrack album remastered to the highest quality and the digital book "The Art of They Are Billions", that contains hundreds of images with sketches, tests and final artwork of TAB. The Collector's Edition will come out as an extension (DLC) so anyone who wants to can upgrade from the basic edition. Its price will be: $6,99. And that's all for now, see you soon in the next update: Tactic Missions and the Heroes! *If you are a backer and can’t find yourself in the credits, please let us know at: [email protected]. We will be updating the credits in the game with every new version.

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Greetings!

As we mentioned in the previous update, we hope to launch the final game with the Campaign in June. We are working very hard on all fronts in parallel: Missions of the Campaign, new interface for the Campaign, testing and balancing, cinematics, voices and sound effects, new units, translations, and some other surprises we have planned. The name of the Campaign will finally be The New Empire, which we believe summarizes the goal of the campaign very well: to build the new human civilization, after the zombie apocalypse, under the leadership of the Great Emperor, Quintus Crane. In addition, this New Empire mimics the ancient human empires, especially The Roman Empire, both in its aesthetic and in its imperialistic and conquering behavior. And all of this mixed with a rudimentary steam-powered technology and a world devastated by zombies... What do you think?

Campaign Dashboard

We have almost finished the new interface for the campaign. There are still some icons missing - we are using provisional ones - but, we can show you the most important elements. We hope you like it. The interface has the same Steampunk touch as the rest of the game, but we also wanted to bring it closer to the New Empire, with its symbols and flags. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/451eb4eee28239f6cd87100f26fbaa295f8e97b2.jpg From the Dashboard you can access three sections using the large buttons on the top right: Campaign Map, Research Laboratory, and Hero Stats Screen. On the Campaign Map, you’ll find the map that grows and unveils as you advance in the campaign. From there, you can consult the available missions and start playing them. From the Research Laboratory you can unlock new research that grants you access to improvements for your colonies. Click here for more information. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/114843e70fdf033611009f03241b3351d8215d04.jpg Finally, from the Hero Stats Screen you can see all the Hero related information including the tree of improvements. We will talk about this in the next update. Also in the Dashboard, you will find the following elements:

• Progress of the Campaign (in the center at the bottom).
• User account screen where the current difficulty level and the button to change it appear at all times.
• Total Empire points that represent your power within the Empire, necessary to dispose of your army in swarm attack missions, and overall campaign score (both bottom right).

Swarm Attack Missions

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/3ab517df3d84cfbd72b5845e424ea9f612099371.jpg As the Campaign progresses, you will find swarms that will block the way of the expansion of the Empire. You will have to destroy them by placing the defense units and structures of the Imperial Army. In these outdoor missions you will have to face a swarm of infected, which you will have to destroy while defending the Official Outpost located in the center. If the Outpost is destroyed or infected you will have lost the mission. When you start the mission, the game will be paused while you use the Outpost to select the units and defenses to deploy. Rangers and wooden barriers will always be available, as well as all the units and defenses that you have unlocked from the research tree so far. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/a97c3219a87b4108aa942c8b744fbc7af59bdfdd.jpg Each unit or defense costs a certain number of Empire points. Once they run out, you’ll be unable to deploy more defenses. When you have finished with the deployment, just press the Start button and the game will begin and the swarm will be unleashed. Use the terrain as a natural defense, and plan which type of defense is the most advantageous, according to the size and types of the swarm. The attack missions are very fast, and a little crazy, and very easy to lose. :) In any case, we think they are great fun. May Fortune be on your side! https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/6bb365338fb4816947737ca04fe1227fa392d9fd.jpg That's all for now! In the next update we will tell you about heroes and tactical missions. See you soon!

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Greetings!

Today we’ll talk about the World Map and some other elements about the upcoming Campaign Mode of They Are Billions.

The World Map

If you followed the development of our last game, the RPG Lords of Xulima, you should know that we love World Maps. They’re a great way to put the player directly into the context of the game while showing their progress. Every game should have one! In They Are Billions, we’ve taken the integration of World Map with the game even further. For an RTS game, having a world map where you can design your own strategy is a must. As the World Map is unveiled as you progress in the Campaign we will just show a few pieces to not spoil anything. Also, sorry about they are still in Spanish. Some words about the game setting: They Are Billions is set in the 23rd Century, two hundred years after civilization has collapsed from the pandemic that turned billions of humans into hungry, infected savages. In this lethal world, there’s just one city left standing, Empire City. Built by Empire Leader Quintus Crane, it has prospered and grown inside a huge meteor-impact crater. The Great Crater border serves as a massive natural barrier allowing humans to live safely from the infected. Quintus wants to expand the Empire outside the Great Crater. Your role in the game, as a young general chosen by Quintus, is to command the reconquest of the wild territories where the infected roam free. And this is where the game starts. You have no knowledge of the world other than what you unveil by progressing in the campaign. In the first mission, called "The Hidden Valley", you’ll have to build the first colony using only the most rudimentary technology (tents, rangers and hunters). https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/b1318a86bd2c2438cb8553c90f92a54b3c44aff5.jpg Once a mission is successfully completed, the surrounding parts of the world map will then be revealed, granting you access to more missions. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/2fc9ed587d15948a889602002132bf645d829db2.jpg After the first mission, you’ll have several options to choose from. Select a mission to see all the info: description, goals, rewards... Also the level (difficulty) of the mission will be displayed with red skulls, ranging from 1 (easiest) to 5 (hardest). The level of development of your colony (what technologies you have chosen to research), and your play style, will also impact the difficulty of the missions. Use all this info wisely to choose your next target in order to progress in the campaign. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/4064cfca23e496dfab1ec2faf12ee732bc85673e.jpg Some missions are blocked by swarms of infected as you can see in the first screenshot. You’ll need to obliterate them before you can continue on that path. We’ll tell you more about the Swarm Attack Missions and the Empire Army in the next update.

What are missions like?

In a few words: They Are Billions is They Are Billions, and not Starcraft, Supreme Commander, Age of Empires or any other game. They Are Billions has its own style and philosophy of play and we will always remain faithful to its essence. They Are Billions is about survival in a world devastated by billions of infected. It’s about letting players develop their strategy as best as they see fit, adapting to any adverse situation using their skills and resources. There won't be missions be scripted such us "create exactly three units of this type; build seven structures in this place price; rescue four snipers that are in this position and then destroy this damn town while such a character is directed to... and if you do not do exactly that, the mission will fail... ". No thanks. That takes away the player's freedom, going against They Are Billions’ spirit. The campaign will be similar to the survival mode but on a grander scale. Of course each mission will have objectives, but they’ll be more like "Build a colony of 10,000 settlers on the "Poisonous Swamp", or "Get rid of all the Frozen Lake Giants". How you achieve that goal will be left entirely up to you. It’s true that tactical missions will rely more on narrative and ambiance because they’re more about exploration. You’ll be able to roam freely inside the abandoned human strongholds where they take place.

What about Tutorials?

At Numantian, we’ve never been big fans of game tutorials, especially when the tutorial is external to the game. We prefer the game to be as self-explanatory as possible, with all the necessary help integrated into the interface, becoming easily visible just by moving the mouse. We like to learn through experimentation and exploration instead of following a step-by-step guide. What could be more boring?! Having said that, the survival mode is quite brutal for inexperienced RTS players. That’s why, during the campaign, some game management basic-information messages will appear at the beginning. We’ll keep them to a minimum, so they won’t become a nuisance to the experienced players. As in the campaign, you’ll start with very few buildings and units, but the learning curve will be much more progressive than in the survival mode. To be honest, They Are Billions was meant to be played in the campaign mode first, and only after that, in the survival mode, and not the other way around as it has been. :)

Campaign Score, Permadeath and difficulty

Another often controversial subject of They Are Billions is the Permadeath system that makes it more similar to rogue-like games. We’ve always thought this was the right way to go because it works perfectly for this type of game. It enhances the tension and fear that the colony will succumb to the infection. This way, the game is experienced much more realistically. Recording and loading would ruin the game experience because your decisions while playing in permadeath have real risks and consequences while if you are allowed to reload the game, your actions don't carry risk anymore as you can go back in time, so to speak, and redo it in another way. The campaign has 50 missions, which total 40-60 hours of play. Obviously the permadeath system won’t apply to the whole campaign. It’d be tragic to have to start again after playing for 40 hours! :) During the campaign, the permadeath system works as usual. You can exit the game and continue the same mission when you want, but you can’t reload an old game. If you fail the mission you’ll return to the campaign map and decide whether to start the same mission again or start a different one to gain some improvements by developing the research tree. But be aware that this doesn’t mean that you can repeat the mission over and over again without consequence... The campaign score, which will be equal to the sum of the scores of all completed missions, will be displayed in the campaign dashboard. Each mission has a maximum score based on the chosen difficulty chosen, and that you will earn when you successfully complete the mission. Watch out because each time you fail a mission, 10% of that score will be permanently deducted until you reach a minimum of 10% of the original score. By doing this, we’ll reward you for finishing each mission with the least possible attempts, and we’ll avoid metagaming situations like, “I start the mission and explore everything and with that information I start the mission again.” Regarding the difficulty, we’ve implemented quite an original and effective system. Instead of selecting the difficulty level at the beginning of the campaign, and not being able to change it again, you can set it at any time from the campaign dashboard. That difficulty (accessible, challenging, brutal...) will only affect the mission you are about to play and, of course, the mission score (the score factor). This way, if a certain mission is too hard, you can always make it easier, but at the cost of losing victory points. Unlike in the Survival mode, a mission score will only depend on its level and the selected difficulty, and not on the number of settlers, wonders, or lost units ... This is because we prefer not to encourage artificial game strategies devised only to increase the score. If you want to raise your score, select a higher difficulty level. We believe this to be the fairest system. Focusing the game on getting the highest campaign score will encourage you to play with greater challenges, and also to replay the campaign at more difficult levels to reach a higher score that, by the way, we’ll publish on the Global Campaign Leaderboard. Game on!

Development Scheduling

We’re 100% focused on finishing the campaign so it can be released as soon as possible. If all goes according to plan, that will be June 2019. The gameplay will unquestionably be finished by then, as it’s almost at 75% right now, but other elements like the video cinematic, voices, translations, or other stuff may take us longer than expected. Therefore, we’ve decided not to add new content to the survival mode until the full game with the campaign is released. Working on the campaign modifies everything in the game, while updating new content for the survival uses a lot the development resources, and we firmly believe that most players prefer to have the campaign sooner than having an updated Survival but with a more delayed Campaign. Having said that, the exciting news is that with the big launch of the campaign, the survival mode will be updated with two more themes and features like new units and structures. If will be finally the 1.0 version! Of course we’ll continue updating the game to fix bugs and other issues. And while you patiently wait, you can play the more than one thousand custom levels already available in the workshop. Indeed, the editor came much earlier than what we’d planned precisely to give more content to the players while giving us enough time to develop the campaign. And that's all folks! In the next update we will talk more about the campaign and the swarm attack missions. See you soon!

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Greetings!

Today we would like to tell you a bit more about some of the upcoming features of the Campaign: The Train and the Research System

The Train

During The Campaign you will mostly have to deal with reconquering a big territory currently occupied by the infected. In this future world there is just one city standing: Empire City, where most remaining humans live. At the beginning of the game, the Emperor commands you with the task to expand the empire throughout the infected territory. You’ll have to build colonies that will be connected by a railway network. In the campaign, the train will always play a role in the colony-type missions. In these maps the Command Center will be located next to the railway tracks that will run across the map. The train convoy will arrive at the colony once a day with a payload of colonists from Empire City to populate the colony. Therefore, in the Campaign, houses will initially be empty and "disabled" until the colonist arrive. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/9804a9a72061636c9589facd8d6fcbc5f9ac5e26.jpg As well as adding realism and coherence with the game story and the style (steampunk), the train enhances the gameplay mechanism: Structures cannot be built on top railway tracks: That's something obvious of course, but it presents a new challenge to both expanding and protecting the colony. Colonies will always have those open gaps for the infected to sneak in. Make sure you place your units and towers to defend them well. The train can destroy the infected: The train will destroy all infected units that cross paths with it! But don't worry, your units cannot be harmed. They will just be pulled apart and let the train pass. This feature can be used to your advantage. The Train won't come to the colony while it is attacked by a swarm: So the train will delay its arrival the next day. Colonists just arrive to the colony once a day: So you should take this into account when deciding when to build houses, or other buildings. You can upgrade the train by researching specific perks in the Research Tree: So when it comes to the colony it will bring not just colonists, but also resources and gold.

The Research System

During the campaign you will have access to the Research Laboratory in between missions. There you can use the Research Points you have won by finishing missions, or found while exploring the Old Fortresses. The Research system will have a really big impact in the gameplay. Consider that in the beginning of the Campaign you’ll start will a very low level of technology that will allow you just to build these elements: Tent, Wood Wall / Gate, Mill, Tesla Tower, Quarry, Sawmill, Fisherman and Hunter Cottages and the Ranger. And by contrast, at the end you may finish with highly sophisticated units and buildings that will allow you to develop much more powerful colonies than the current ones in the Survival Mode. The Research Tree has more than 90 research perks. Some of them will allow the unlocking of new buildings or units. Others consist on upgrades for buildings / units, or general improvements for your colony. There will be a great variety of them, so every player can have a unique experience while deciding how to evolve their colony. It won't be possible to research all the perks in the tree, so make sure your research strategy matches your playing style! But don't worry too much about whether you are choosing the right perks. The missions will be very open and can be played in different ways. As in the Survival mode, you will need to adapt your colony for every challenge. But also, you will always have several missions available so you can decide to play them in the order that better fits your technology level. Here you have an preview image, sorry about it being in Spanish, we will translate the Campaign when is fully completed. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/737d3762e19e1d209749526caf8fa13d100e57a4.jpg By the way, the current mayors system of the Survival Mode won't be available for the Campaign as their bonus and features interferes with the Research System that will be much more complex and deep and leave the Mayors system just for Survival and Custom Maps.

Some more features for the Editor (V. 0.10.16)

We have just updated the version, fixed some reported bugs and also added a few more elements, taken from the campaign, to enrich your custom levels gameplay and narrative. Signs https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/2c786f61875e3afbe2c1cacf6a3b7b784e9662b9.jpg You can place signs in the map to show more information (names, warnings...) about regions of different parts of the map. They are activated by units (with right click as any other interactive element). Multi-purpose Machines: The Communicator and the Transmitter https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/0daed409d90a978de35d89fe1f28544cdad7d7a5.jpg You can place these machines in the map and set an script that will be executed when a unit interact with the machine (right click). These elements are useful when you need to trigger an event in an specific moment (instead of automatic events), and when a unit reaches that point in the map. For example, you can now create more tactical maps where the player must reach and activate those landmarks to win the game. And that's all for now. In the next update we will talk about the World Map and Missions! See you soon!

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/a867e5fbbbb0257379a655cdf1a1375f25102909.png Greetings! First of all, happy New Year! We hope your New Year is off to a good start. We’re very grateful for how exciting last year has been for our studio. There are big plans for this new year and we are sure that it will be too for the great community of They Are Billions. Now, let's talk about the development of TAB, What are we working on right now?

The Level Editor

We continue expanding and improving the game level editor as it has proved to be very successful amongst the community. There are already more than 500 levels published, some of them really complex and sophisticated. We're amazed of what you’ve achieved so far, thank you very much guys! Step by step, we will include more and more features, assets, and interesting new elements to enhance your awesome designs. Some things we are working on are the modding of game rules (all the game stats and parameters), new interactive assets, and more ornament assets to decorate your levels. Also we are going to allow users to create campaign-like series of levels where the player must play them in order, so they need to finish the first one to unlock the second, and go on. That will be very useful to those great series you are creating so you can make sure the player is following the levels and the narrative in the order decided by the designer. We are also considering to incorporate some kind of persistent state through the series that can be used to create things like branched stories.

The Campaign

This is the big challenge for this year! We know you have lots of questions about it, let us answer some of the most common ones.

What happens with the Campaign, Why it is so delayed?

First, let me say that we really understand your impatience. The launch of the Campaign has been delayed from our first estimations, so we fully understand you can be a bit disappointed. But, be aware that all this extra time means that we are developing a much more ambitious Campaign than we originally planned. Given the success of TAB, we feel the responsibility to develop the best possible game. We've just got one chance to release the full finished game, and we would honestly prefer to be known as the ‘slow developers’ that have released a great RTS, than the ‘rushed developers’ with an average game. 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.

When can we test and play the Campaign?

We’ve decided not to partially release the campaign under Early Access, but release it fully at the same time that we officially launch the game out of Early Access. We will perform all the testing internally here with our team of testers and, of course, we will keep on updating you about the campaign details here. We believe is better not to release the campaign "in pieces" as it would delay the development, and it would spoil everything. We want to surprise you with the full Campaign :)

Will the Survival Mode be expanded?

Yes. The current Survival Mode will receive two new map themes very soon. One will be the easiest one, and will be the first to be played, and the other that will become the hardest one to play, even more than the Desolated Wasteland. These will the biggest expansions to the Survival Mode until the Campaign is finished. We will give you more details about them in the next update.

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! And here some more images from the Campaign, hope you like them: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/aa2802ac557939549c024cc9a0c77b2c1becc4d4.jpg https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/1164f6487c443ee7bd837409ef6b60cbd8e33a46.jpg https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/a84a02ea9390a33c4a56c00ad09fd32003f0d003.jpg https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/34234665623a4f9f4f44a8b2f6b5f1637dfae7e8.jpg Next update we will talk about the Research System in the Campaign. See you soon!

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/37d801f1174337a6138179f0fdcc340ee09f8482.jpg Greetings! After two weeks of testing the level editor and the workshop, we are glad to announce that it’s finally ready. Thank you very much to all the players that joined the editor testing group and shared their feedback with the developers. Right now there are more than 80 levels to enjoy, and we’re sure there are many more to come soon. The editor and custom levels access is now available with the new version of They Are Billions: V.0.10

Playing Custom Levels

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/57793e8de61780535ec21839a59c2a659f72568a.jpg It’s very easy and straightforward. Just start the game and press New Game. There are now more options to play: Survival, Community Challenge and Custom Levels. Select the Custom Levels option to access the Levels Dashboard. You will find there the list of all the levels you are subscribed to. Just select the one you wish to play (in some of them you can configure the map type) and good luck! :)

How to Get New Levels

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/3441cac9e363f9c247470de89892bff0756c27b7.jpg In the custom levels dashboard there is a link to the They Are Billions workshop. Select the levels you like and press the Subscribe button. You can do it directly from the workshop steam page here: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=644930 Press the update button in the dashboard for a refreshed list of levels including the new subscribed ones. Every workshop item has its own steam page, go there to give feedback or any other info to the level creator.

New Level from Numantian: The 50 Days Challenge!

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/b5508000c902342136db4bfa5d94329088901589.jpg One of the features of the level editor is that you can make the game generate a random Survival map and then modify the events, scripting and narrative to bring a new survival experience to the player. We have created "The 50 Days Challenge" which is a survival game with just 50 days to build your colony before the Final Swarm arrives. But don’t despair, you will not be alone in this task. The neighboring colonies and the New Empire will try to keep you from joining the hordes of infected by sending help periodically. Hope you like it! It’s a super fast game and a real challenge!.

The Custom Levels Editor

There are three ways to launch the Editor: - From the game main menu, go to More => Launch Editor - Or just press and hold the SHIFT key when starting the game and the editor will be launched automatically. - In the installation folder you have a LaunchEditor.bat you can use to launch it directly. These are the main features of the level editor:

• Map creation can be manually crafted or let the game generates a random survival map when the game starts.
• Custom events.
• Custom scripts to enhance the narrative.
• Advanced ZXCode language (variables and functions) to create complex gameplay mechanisms.
• Multi-language support.

Of course, it will be updated periodically to include more features to create. One of the upcoming big features will be custom modding of game rules (units, structures, stats...).

The Level Editors Guide

Before playing with the editor we strongly recommend you read this short guide we have prepared. Here it is: TAB Editor Guide

Forum & Support for the Editor & Workshop

Please, use this forum for all related info about the editor and workshop, comments, feedback, new features or bugs reporting. Also we will update there the development progress and version changes log. They Are Billions Workshop Forum

The Campaign

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/adbbf753eb3bbdf595016c123ce93474c3c3721c.jpg Now it the editor is ready we think it can expand a lot the content of They Are Billions so we can focus on finishing the campaign mode. We know all of you are asking us for the estimated launch date but we cannot give an answer yet. We would like and we will try with all our workforce to release the campaign on next Spring 2019. At the same time we will improve the Survival Mode with two new Map Themes and expanding the features of the editor to allow you to create even more awesome levels. And that's all! We hope the editor will bring lots of fun and surprises for the great community of They Are Billions players. See you soon!

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Greetings!

This is a quick update for the players that wishes to test the Editor and Workshop features of They Are Billions. For the rest of players, please ignore this update, and wait to the public release. We will announce it here as usual. Before releasing the Custom Levels Editor and the Workshop integration we would like to test it further with the community. So, for this reason we have enabled the Editor features under the Test branch of They Are Billions (v.0.10).

Accesing the Test Branch

To access the Test Branch you just have to open the properties panel of They Are Billions on Steam (right click on the game, select properties option). Then, under the page Betas, select the Test branch and let Steam update the game. This version hasn't been completely translated to all languages yet. That's why you will find some English texts in some parts of the game. We are planning to release The final version on November 25th that, as we always do, will be translated to all languages.

The TAB Editor

There are two ways to launch the Editor:

• From the game main menu, go to More => Launch Editor
• Or just press and hold the SHIFT key when starting the game and the editor will be launched automatically.

As we are planning to heavily update and expand the editor, the interface will only be available in English for now. Our intention is to have it translated to all the languages that They Are Billions currently supports when the game is finished. Nevertheless, you can create levels in any language you like,. Indeed, the editor allows you to create multi-language levels.

The Guide

Before playing with the editor we strongly recommend you to read the short guide we have prepared. Here it is: TAB Editor Guide

Testing & Publishing your Levels in the Workshop

You can test your levels locally in your computer before submitting them to the Workshop. The Workshop is still private and only accesible for the members of this group. If you wish to test the Workshop now, please join to the Numantian Games group here.

Workshop Forum & Support

Please, use this forum for all related info about the editor and workshop, comments, feedback, new features or bugs reporting: They Are Billions Workshop Forum And that's all for now. We expect to launch the Editor & Workshop to the public on 26th of November. See you soon!

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Greetings!

Just a quick update to talk about the new version published 0.92 and some news about the incoming Level Editor.

New Version V 0.9.2

It is just a minor update. It fixes some problems and bugs and also improves the general performance. It also includes these new features: Custom Keys Now you can customize most of the keyboard commands available in the game. You can do it from the Options screen, under the controls section. You can even assign several keys for the same command if you like. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/08cda579a7188f4dfb5c947752aaef50598f27b9.jpg 8 New Achievements https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/23d7f167dacdfb74fc21bf4137e1cac296ec715b.jpg We have added some more achievements that make the Survival Game more challenging and spicy:

• Open Mind Win a Survival game (Score Factor >= 100%) without using walls, gates and towers.
• Soldier Wrath Win a Survival game (Score Factor >= 100%) with just Soldiers in your army. No Attack Towers allowed.
• Ranger Revenge Win a Survival game (Score Factor >= 100%) with just Rangers in your army. No Attack Towers allowed.
• Sniper Slaughter Win a Survival game (Score Factor >= 100%) with just Snipers in your army. No Attack Towers allowed.
• No Towers Needed Win a Survival game (Score Factor >= 200%) without using Attack Towers like Ballista or Executor.
• Peaceful Win a Survival game (Score Factor >= 100%) with no new units trained.
• Unstoppable Win a Survival game (Score Factor >= 100%) without pausing the game.
• Best General Win a Survival game (Score Factor >= 100%) with no casualties. No Attack Towers allowed.

The Game Editor

We expect to release the game editor in about two weeks under Steam Workshop. With the game editor players can create and share custom levels. The editor will be updated from time to time, growing in added features. These are the main features included in this first version: - Full map creation: Theme selection, terrains, forests, mountains, ornaments... - Adding any game elements: Buildings, Doom Villages, treasures to loot, ruins, units... - Adding interactive elements, like displaying a message when a unit enter in a selected area, or creating Units (Infected) generators. - Create your own story by customizing the start, game win and lose, game events, neutral characters that join your colony. All of these with your own style and writing. - Full control of game events: Roaming infected groups, swarms, win conditions, send all infected to the Command Center, grant or remove resources to the colony... What do you think? We are confident that you will create great and original levels with this first version. Here you have some screenshots: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/392db84b47a7ed637912c4caeb5b1b46b1e13757.jpg https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/0c79dbde1d5724704f45a595b0b66167d1c66616.jpg And that's all for now. See you soon!

We have delayed some weeks the launch of the editor as we have been improving it heavily. The reason is because we want to make sure that all levels and content created with the editor will be always compatible with all future new versions of the game. Also we have added some cool features that were missing in the previous version:

• Custom Survival Levels: You can let the game to generate random maps (as the Survival Games) and just customize the narrative, events and scripts to offer your own Survival Experience.
• Custom Scripts: We have improved this part a lot. You can now interact much more with the player (dialog, menus to choose options...), and a lot of cool things to make very interesting levels.
• Multi language support: You can create multi-language custom levels to reach a wider audience.
• Custom Pictures & Sounds: Decorate your story and narrative displaying custom pictures and playing custom sounds.
• New Custom Level from Numantian: The 50 Days Challenge! A extreme and super fast survival game where you will need the help of the colony neighbors to succeed.

First we will activate the Workshop and Editor for the Test Branch. We will announce it here very soon. And after that (for 26-29th Nov) we will make it public for all players.

We have just published the Custom Levels Editor Guide.

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Greetings!

I hope you’ve had a great summer! It’s been a while since our last update. It’s not only because even the most devoted developers need to take a break sometimes, but mostly because we’ve been working hard on the game, making big changes as we develop the Campaign Mode. This, unfortunately, has prevented us from updating the Survival Mode with new content for now. So with this post, we would like to inform you on the game development and what we’re currently working on.

The Campaign

When we originally envisioned They Are Billions, the Campaign was the main gameplay mode and the Survival was just conceived as a quick game for fun, played in a random scenario, that allowed us to test and balance the game. We decided to release it in Early Access on Steam at the end of last year, as the players who played the Survival Preview (the backers) loved it. To our surprise the success of the Survival mode was so great that we decided to improve it over time, as you surely know, by continually adding content and putting a lot of work on it. But then... what’s happening with the Campaign? We’re now in a paradoxical situation in which the development of the Survival takes time away from developing the Campaign and vice versa. And both modes need to grow together since they have the same core. Otherwise, we’d end up having two different games. So now, it’s the Campaign’s turn, which is also a good thing, as we’ll include many of the features implemented in the Campaign to enrich the Survival Mode.

And How is the Campaign development going?

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. These are the kinds of missions you’ll encounter: - Colony Building: In this mission you have to build a colony on an outdoor map and achieve specific objectives (resist X days, get X colonists, get X resources...). - Swarm Attack: You’ll need to grow a big army from the Empire using your Empire Points to hire your troops. Lead them against the swarm that’s blocking your advance on the map and reach new territories where you can establish new human colonies. - Old Fortresses: This is a tactical-based mission. You’ll explore abandoned human fortresses with just a few units. In these Fortresses, you’ll discover secrets and valuable artifacts that will grant you advancements in Science, Technology and the Empire. These will boost your Colonies and your Imperial Army. The Old Fortresses missions are themselves like a whole new game that we think will improve and enrich the experience. 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). To survive, use the environment to your advantage. These fortresses hold the keys to you finding out how the world fell to the infection, with lots of lore and many other surprises along the way. We have now new artists creating hundreds upon hundreds of new graphic assets for the game. Here’s a taste of what the Old fortresses look like. We hope you like the atmosphere: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/f7ffd76ad927ca67fa08dcf531568e2981c356e8.jpg https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/96ef0aaa9100b5a60f31345b37c52bc76d06b786.jpg https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/a853603176406b5d815b802859a33542027e94fa.jpg https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/b98d04967b72e7c02e2ec91f705d46c99cd9d069.jpg https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/5dac017a6ee3c117da83b66a8c08c5eab098c50f.jpg

Incoming Game Editor

We expect to release a game editor soon, so players can create and share their Survival maps with other players. This will be officially supported and will be integrated with the Steam Workshop too. We’ll talk about it more in the next update. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/40a62e4a25810246a7ae5b23e6a8ccd9577d8bee.jpg And that's all for the moment. Keep on fighting for the humans! See you soon!

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/57a6f1c26d82e980fac5477a560adb041f4872f1.jpg Greetings! While we are working hard developing the Campaign of They Are Billions we would like to add some more spice to the current Survival Mode:

The Infected Giant

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/bb9e786d9ea40af18b9ee1ef72939f260a20f91f.jpg The Infected Giant is a very special enemy with some specific features. The Giant is a mutated infected that has grown without limit for years and years. It is so huge that the earth trembles under its passage. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/7676294794bf8b32916160aa38c84008055a7a57.jpg When does the beast appear in the game? From the beginning... They start roaming the outer border of the map, nevertheless, the Giants are so huge that you will always know where they are as their position will be marked on the minimap with a small icon. This is a great clue so you know where you shouldn’t expand your colony or move your units, at least not until you have a very powerful army to fight them. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/75f8d89d6f9f6e532456fdd2a1fa168fd803ce5c.jpg The Giant(s) appear on the maps with the Infected Population set at “Challenging” difficulty or above. So, new players don't worry, you won't need to face this beast during your first playthroughs. The Tiny Brain of the Giant Giants are huge and powerful but with a tiny brain. They cannot hear so they are not attracted by nearby activity. Also, they are almost blind, they react slowly to your actions, but be careful, once it detects a target it will chase it with terrifying speed and there are no walls in the world that can stop them! Their Deadly Attack https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/fdd792f2698f228ef5d62b6538b7971db898b236.jpg The Giant has the most powerful attack in They Are Billions. They have a very long reach and they hit everything in a 120º arc. Nothing can escape their attack, even other infected can be destroyed if they are within the Giants attack range. I'm scared... What can I do? Nothing. We recommend you avoid the Giants and don’t annoy them under any circumstance. But you can’t avoid them all game, you should kill them before the final horde comes for your colony, because they will join them as any other infected on the map. Believe us, last thing you want is to fight the final swarm and the Giants at the same time...

Version 0.9: More Features

New Difficulty Mode: Nightmare! Are you one of the pro-players that think TAB is a piece of cake? Congratulations and welcome to your worst nightmare! https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/6d3edf3da2531f2c23acb718ffa5b13f756841b2.jpg This is a new value for the Infected Population, which increases the huge population of Brutal mode by 30%!!! And it also includes a gift of three Giants on the same map. We think it is almost impossible to beat the game on this mode but it will be great fun to try. If you can beat it in the desert, you will get a score factor of 800%!! Good luck! Some technical info about this mode: We have optimized TAB even more in the 0.9 version, allowing the engine to move more and more units. That being said, this mode requires a good computer with many cores and a high speed. Using a lower spec computer can cause the game to suffer, dropping frames and running slowly when the big swarm heads towards the colony. However, the game will continue to be playable. Armor System Refactored In previous versions of TAB, the Armor value of the units are subtracted from the damage, for example, an attack of 8 against an armor of 3, deals 5 life points of damage. Now the Armor decreases the damage as a percentage instead of an absolute value. For example, an attack of 8 against a 25% armor deals 6 life points of damage. This means that now, small damage attacks like the weak infected are not as reduced by the armor as before, but the deadlier attacks (Harpies, Chubies, Giants....) are much more reduced. Also, with the new armour values, Soldiers and Titans are much more resistant to damage than the Rangers and Snipers, which is more realistic.

• Ranger and Sniper: 5%
• Soldier and Titan: 40%
• Lucifer and Thanatos: 25%

New Map Features https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/e369d86fbde98c13c3806d203f4d565e131e38b2.jpg You can find on the maps new elements to loot, food crates that add food to the Command Center and old batteries that provide extra energy to the colony. Also, we have added some more decorative elements. Some more Balancing

• Traps life increased.
• Soldier and Titan damage increased.
• Veteran Soldier and Veteran Ranger attack range increased.

New Achievements Four new achievements:

• Giant Slayer Level 1: When you kill your first Giant.
• Giant Slayer Level 2: When you kill your two Giants on the same map.
• Giant Slayer Level 3: When you kill your three Giants on the same map.
• The Most Wonderful Colony: When you build all the Six Wonders in your colony.

And that's all for the moment, we hope you to enjoy this new update. In the next one we will talk and show more screenshots from the Campaign. See you soon!

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Greetings!

Just a quick update on the game development.

Campaign Development

We are working now in two fronts, the Old Fortresses, where the tactic missions will be played, and the Trains system. In the next update we’ll talk more about them and we’ll publish new screenshots with new content. Trains on Survival Mode? As we said before we want to keep on trying to enrich the content of the Survival mode with elements from the campaign. Therefore we are also considering including the Trains in the Survival mode, but just as new environmental element. There will be a railway line that will cross the map and, periodically, there will be trains passing through the map. It will not only be a nice touch for the maps, but also an important strategic element. Obviously you won’t be able build over the railways so you’ll have to defend that parts in a different way (without walls). On the other hand the trains will destroy all those unlucky infected who happen to be on its way. That’ll certainly be something worth watching! https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/ffb107b6035336890aa0834aa3413940e10c1fa9.jpg

New Version 0.8.2

These are the new features of the 0.8.2 version, which is available now: New Army Buttons https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/760318f27c498827f34ee81b2151408e3bdcaddb.jpg Many times in the game, you want to select all the units of the same type, for example, "Select all snipers to defend the North wall....". There is a new button on the right part of the screen for every type of unit you have (Ranger, Sniper...) that also shows the total amount of each of them. Click them and all the units of that type will be selected. You can combine the mouse clicks with the Shift key to add the units to the current selection. Press F2 to select all the Army You can use the shortcut F2 to select all units available in your army. Power Plant Changes Now the Power Plant uses 10 wood units instead 5 wood and 5 stone. Before, building sawmills in the late stages of the game was something superfluous and by contrast, if you built several power plants you could easily run out of stone which is so necessary as the game progresses. We think that works much better now, as it improves the resources balancing especially in the second half of the game. Stakes and Blades Traps Judging by the screenshots and gameplay videos from players, it seems that the traps are underused. We think they are currently very useful, as they not only harm the infected but also slow them down. Another advantage is that they can be placed on the floor without restrictions and don't block the movement of your army (as the walls do). Also they would make more sense in real life, where a fortress would have one or two rows of walls with a gate protected by a series of traps. Building lots of walls randomly just to block the infected looks quite weird :) https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/67b1fcf6f6c2c5680debbfd92b97b4d23c836cf3.jpg So for all these reasons we have improved the traps: - Stakes Trap: +20% Life. + 25% damage. - Blades Trap: +30% Life. + 25% damage. Pathfinding for Swarms: Improved Performance There is a good reason why They Are Billions is clearly one of the games that manages more units in real time, units that are truly independent, every unit has their own AI and behaves always on their own. That's the reason why the infected swarms in They Are Billions looks so natural and organic. The game engine is ultra optimized in every aspect, especially the path finding, which is one of the most costly operations. In many other games with big armies, the paths are computed for a full group of units and generally those paths don't change with time as the environment is static and fixed. By contrast, on TAB every unit computes its own paths to reach its targets. This path is recomputed every few seconds to react to the changes of the environment (walls destroyed, structures built...). Thanks to that, the swarms can split in several paths or single units can leave the swarm if they have seen or heard something, as it would happen in real life. Although the game system is already quite optimized, we have gone further. Previously, all paths were recomputed if anything on the map changed, which could lead to some frame drops when there are big swarms running to the colony. Now, only if something that can affect the current paths is changed the path is recomputed. For example, the infected don't care about walls; they ignore them unless they are blocking their movement in which case they will try to destroy them. So now, if a wall in their path is destroyed or built the path won't be recomputed. What all of this stuff means to the player? We expect the game to run smoother, specially when big swarms are approaching the colony. Survival Challenge: Score Factor fixed It was an issue when computing the final score of the Survival Challenge. The Score Factor relative to the map type was not incorporated to the equation, so all score factors of the Survival Mode were 100% regardless the map type. Now that bug is fixed so your score will reflect better the real difficulty of the map. And that's all for now. Thanks for your support and see you soon!

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/4770c3a931a7e983984f0d1018a860259fed73fa.png Greetings! Here’s the teaser video we’ve prepared to announce The Six Wonders. Hope you like it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LcAbtA42ec The Six Wonders are the biggest and most amazing ones you can build for the colony. But, as mighty as they are, they’re also really expensive to build. Tons of resources are required for both researching and building them. In return, they grant very special features to the colony, and also increase the final score with extra victory points. You can only build one of each kind in the same map. Building all of them can be challenging or almost impossible, but that's part of the strategy. If you have the resources to build just one, chose carefully which will suit your colony best, given the current map, your resources production...

The Lightning Spire

This portentous structure reaches toward the sky, capturing the energy of lightning for the colony. In addition, it extends the power supply, acting as a huge Tesla Tower.

• Energy Supply: +800
• Energy Transfer Radius: 30
• Victory Points: +1500

The Atlas Transmutator

No one knows how it works, but this extraordinary and smoky metal spawn is capable of transforming common materials into precious oil.

• Oil Supply: +40 (by transmutating 20 wood, 20 stone and 10 iron).
• Victory Points: +2000

The Victorious

This unbreakable bunker stands as the most amazing symbol of the victory of humanity against the infected. It's a beacon of hope and courage for everyone in the colony.

• Colonists Hope: +20% gold generation for the surrounding dwellings.
• Unbreakable: Defenses Life 8000, Armor 10.
• Victory Points: +2000

The Academy of Immortals

In this glorious academy, the most famous heroes train the army to battle with the skills and courage of experienced veteran soldiers.

• All army units and new units trained are veteran.
• Victory Points: +1000

The Crystal Palace

This magnificent architectural wonder generates its own climate control environment, where the best crops bloom and thrive, feeding the colony even in the most barren lands.

• Food Supply +800 on any terrain.
• Victory Points: +1500

The Silent Beholder

It’s the most precise and complex machine ever created. The Beholder is installed on top of the Command Center revealing the entire map. Nothing can escape its prodigious eye.

• Reveals all the map and enemies permanently.
• Victory Points: +1500

Finally, here goes a screenshot to show you how the Wonders look in the colony: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/94d816cc77a288180ed00aa9de6ec8c04b62e5db.jpg

New Version 0.8

Of course, all the new features we talked about in our last update are now available: Flat mode (F4), World Capture (F10), the new 30 Mayors, Italian language, the new balancing tweaks, and much more. By the way, as the Flat Mode has proven to be very helpful, we’ve improved how it’s activated. In addition to using the F4 key, you can use any extra button you have on your mouse, other than the left and right ones, to activate this. For example, you can use the central button that is usually available by pressing the wheel.

What's Next?

Now, we want to put most of our workforce into developing the campaign and finishing the game. In the meantime, some of the new campaign content may be added to the Survival Mode, such as new map themes, new infected... and new features. As many players have requested, we’ll improve the frequency of our updates to two or three weeks at most. We’ll share more about how the development is going, and tell you, the players, more about They Are Billions. We hope you like this new update! Looking forward to watching those mega screenshots of your colonies with your amazing wonders. See you soon!

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Greetings!

As you know we are working on a big update for They Are Billions (V.0.8) with The Six Wonders, that we expect to publish on the 5th of May. Yes, it has been delayed, sorry about that! The main reason is that we have to translate all the new stuff into 12 languages which pushed back the release dates and also requires extra testing time. Meanwhile we have used this time to add more features suggested by you, the players, to improve many aspects of the game. Apart from the Six Wonders, which we will go more in detail in our next post, we want to talk about the new features of the upcoming 0.8 version.

New Language Available: Italian

Finally, we have finished the translation to Italian and it will be included in the next version 0.8. They Are Billions is now available in twelve languages!

Flat Mode (F4)

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/0b8f3564134d8d4e8cc3be775f251de927dc3027.png This is really helpful! You can toggle the Flat Mode with the F4 key. When activated, mountains and forests will be displayed just as flat coloured cells, allowing you to see what’s behind them, making it easier to build near those hidden parts of the map.

More Building Assistance

The cells that are in the map limit, where building is not allowed, will be displayed without energy so that it is much easier to know where the limit is and plan your defences accordingly. Also, when building, all existing objects will turn semi-transparent as the mouse moves over them, to improve the visibility behind them.

Chasing Command for Groups of Units

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/ce7bff15d3a03e823c26fdd59532b5e4ac6558a4.jpg You will really love this feature! Now, all units in the same selection slot will automatically go in a group formation when they are in the chase command mode. Just select a group of units, save them in a slot with right click and then activate the command chase.

The Inn 2.0

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/73070686af40eb5c3ec452153ceff71bcec275f2.jpg The Inn has been improved in several ways. It’s influence radius is now bigger, and It’s building margin reduced by one. Mercenaries come to the Inn every five days, except the first ones which will come after just one day. Also, the number of days remaining for new mercenaries to arrive and the percentage of prestige of the Inn is now shown in the features panel. The more prestige, the more powerful the group of mercenaries will be.

30 New Mayors!

We have added 30 new mayors to add more variety to your colonies. Also, if Mayors that bring resources to the colony (for example 200 wood) provide an excess that cannot be stored in the warehouses, they will be placed as bonus items next to the Command Centre, so you can use them when needed. This can be very useful when building the ultra-high expensive Wonders.

Lots of Balancing Improvements

We have made lots of balancing tweaks, so many that we cannot cite them all here. We have improved the Soldiers (that were not so useful compared to other units). Soldiers now level up faster, they do a bit more damage, they regenerate full life in just 24 seconds, their Armour is better and gives 50% more resistance to fire and venom. Also, Lucifers do more damage, have more health and regenerate full life in just 12 seconds, and they have 75% resistance to venom. Titans attack radius has been increased by 20% and deal more damage, also they have more life and Armour, but they are more expensive. Many of the structures have also been tweaked, so now the game feels much more balanced. Also, the map generation is better now and the map scenario types have also been improved. Now, more than ever, you will have a wider range of strategic options to fight the infected and develop a successful colony.

Units Health Regeneration

We have improved this mechanic to make it more relevant in game. First we have added a tooltip for the Life text in the selection panel which will tell you about the life regeneration rate of the unit. Units start to regenerate health after two seconds without having received any damage. It will then regenerate a fixed number of life points every second:

• Ranger: 1 point / second. Full life in 60 seconds.
• Soldier: 5 point / second. Full life in 24 seconds.
• Sniper: 1 point / second. Full life in 150 seconds.
• Lucifer: 40 point / second. Full life in 12 seconds.
• Thanatos: 3 point / second. Full life in 83 seconds.
• Titan: 8 point / second. Full life in 100 seconds.

Press F10 to take a Mega Screenshot of your entire colony!

This is just amazing! Have you ever wanted to show off your colony to your friends? Does your colony look amazing with your Six Wonders? Have you won the game without using walls or with any other crazy condition and you want to show it to the world? Now you can! :) Just press F10 whenever you like and the game will render an ultra-big image of the full map. This is especially amazing when the final horde comes to the colony as all the map is revealed. You can configure the resolution of the image in the options screen, the highest value being 256 mega pixels!! Just check this. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/2f16aead17d2a1e70f02144bfbbfa27a58244bcc.jpg We hope you like the new changes for gameplay and the Survival Mode. Of course, we keep on working on the campaign secretly behind the scenes. After this big update on the 5th of May, we will share with you more details about the highly anticipated campaign. Thank you all for your incredible support! See you soon!

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/4cbca065a277c6c1beff16d2a8953c6af283f4b3.jpg

Greetings!

It has been an old dream of ours here at Numantian to have the opportunity to record the soundtrack of TAB with a philharmonic orchestra. Our composer, Nicolas Diteriks, did a tremendous job collaborating with Johannes Vogel, who conducts the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra. His orchestra has a great deal of experience recording music for videogames (Castlevania, Batman Arkham Origins, Assasin’s Creed III, Lords of the Fallen). It was an amazing experience and we’re thrilled with the final result. We hope the final results will make the playing experience of They Are Billions even more intense and engaging. For a sneak peak of the recording session follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qht8FHOqr7I

New Special Building: The Inn

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/6da35e316d285b9dc1f30566b1e5b4dfcfab0723.jpg Build an Inn for your colony to attract workers and mercenaries from the surroundings. Inns are very big and expensive buildings, but they have certain special features that can significantly help you in developing a successful colony. You’re only able to construct one Inn per colony, and you have to research it first in the Wood Workshop. These are the goodies! Happier Colonists The colonists surrounding the Inn will get increasingly happier as they visiting the first-floor tavern causing them to spend more money there that will fill the colony reserves. Workers for the Colony You can expect lots of travelers visiting your colony to enjoy the Inn’s hospitality. Be sure you have enough food for your guests and also keep the fireplace stoked with enough wood to keep the rooms warm and cozy. Mercenaries There are a lot of lonely heroes roaming these dangerous and desolated lands. They aren’t ones to linger, but they love to stop for a rest and to enjoy a good beer. They can be hired by a fair price. Build as many colonist houses near the Inn as you can to keep a steady stream of animated colonists and to attract more and better mercenaries.

More news about the development: The Incoming Wonders

They’re taking more time than expected, but they are looking terrific! They’ll be the biggest and most awesome buildings we have created. We expect to have them finished for the next update, but for now, let’s give you the names of the Six Wonders: - The Beholder - The Lightning Spire - The Transmutator - The Victorious - The Academy of Immortals - The Crystal Palace

More news: 150+ new mayors on the works!

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/f157563764c74e3560f4534c5a4e6a62ef2d1af8.jpg It’s true, we haven’t gone mad, more than new 150 mayors are coming!! As some you surely remember we launched a supporting campaign (http://www.numantiangames.com/support-they-are-billions/) for They Are Billions some time before the official release. We offered special rewards for the fans who wanted to back the game. We’re happy to announce the three highest rewards: the Lucifer, Thanatos and Titan ones, included the creation of a custom mayor inspired in those backers who purchased it. It’s a massive job! We have to contact the backers, draw a portrait and design their mayor, which requires a lot of feedback, changes, balancing, testing and translating all the slogans into eleven languages. So it is taking some time. We plan to release the mayors in stages, adding a pack of them with every new version. We’ve already created 30, and they’re all looking awesome. They’re going to add a lot of variety to the game. For example, there’s a new one that pays you a gold coin for every zombie killed :)

New Version 0.7: Changes Log

- New Special Building: The Inn - New Game Option: Show all alerts. It display all the alert events even when the action is happening inside the camera view are. - All music themes scored by the Bratislava Philharmonic Orchestra. - Buildings whose production is paused now displays an icon on the map. - Some balancing tweaks: Foundry and Engineering Center now costs 3000 gold.

And that's all for the moment...

We expect that we’ll publish the Six Wonders in the next update, but perhaps we will release a prior update with some of the new mayors. . . stay tuned!

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/4cbca065a277c6c1beff16d2a8953c6af283f4b3.jpg

Greetings!

It has been an old dream of ours here at Numantian to have the opportunity to record the soundtrack of TAB with a philharmonic orchestra. Our composer, Nicolas Diteriks, did a tremendous job collaborating with Johannes Vogel, who conducts the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra. His orchestra has a great deal of experience recording music for videogames (Castlevania, Batman Arkham Origins, Assasin’s Creed III, Lords of the Fallen). It was an amazing experience and we’re thrilled with the final result. We hope the final results will make the playing experience of They Are Billions even more intense and engaging. For a sneak peak of the recording session follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qht8FHOqr7I

New Special Building: The Inn

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/6da35e316d285b9dc1f30566b1e5b4dfcfab0723.jpg Build an Inn for your colony to attract workers and mercenaries from the surroundings. Inns are very big and expensive buildings, but they have certain special features that can significantly help you in developing a successful colony. You’re only able to construct one Inn per colony, and you have to research it first in the Wood Workshop. These are the goodies! Happier Colonists The colonists surrounding the Inn will get increasingly happier as they visiting the first-floor tavern causing them to spend more money there that will fill the colony reserves. Workers for the Colony You can expect lots of travelers visiting your colony to enjoy the Inn’s hospitality. Be sure you have enough food for your guests and also keep the fireplace stoked with enough wood to keep the rooms warm and cozy. Mercenaries There are a lot of lonely heroes roaming these dangerous and desolated lands. They aren’t ones to linger, but they love to stop for a rest and to enjoy a good beer. They can be hired by a fair price. Build as many colonist houses near the Inn as you can to keep a steady stream of animated colonists and to attract more and better mercenaries.

More news about the development: The Incoming Wonders

They’re taking more time than expected, but they are looking terrific! They’ll be the biggest and most awesome buildings we have created. We expect to have them finished for the next update, but for now, let’s give you the names of the Six Wonders: - The Beholder - The Lightning Spire - The Transmutator - The Victorious - The Academy of Immortals - The Crystal Palace

More news: 150+ new mayors on the works!

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/f157563764c74e3560f4534c5a4e6a62ef2d1af8.jpg It’s true, we haven’t gone mad, more than new 150 mayors are coming!! As some you surely remember we launched a supporting campaign (http://www.numantiangames.com/support-they-are-billions/) for They Are Billions some time before the official release. We offered special rewards for the fans who wanted to back the game. We’re happy to announce the three highest rewards: the Lucifer, Thanatos and Titan ones, included the creation of a custom mayor inspired in those backers who purchased it. It’s a massive job! We have to contact the backers, draw a portrait and design their mayor, which requires a lot of feedback, changes, balancing, testing and translating all the slogans into eleven languages. So it is taking some time. We plan to release the mayors in stages, adding a pack of them with every new version. We’ve already created 30, and they’re all looking awesome. They’re going to add a lot of variety to the game. For example, there’s a new one that pays you a gold coin for every zombie killed :)

New Version 0.7: Changes Log

- New Special Building: The Inn - New Game Option: Show all alerts. It display all the alert events even when the action is happening inside the camera view are. - All music themes scored by the Bratislava Philharmonic Orchestra. - Buildings whose production is paused now displays an icon on the map. - Some balancing tweaks: Foundry and Engineering Center now costs 3000 gold.

And that's all for the moment...

We expect that we’ll publish the Six Wonders in the next update, but perhaps we will release a prior update with some of the new mayors. . . stay tuned!

Greetings!

This is a quick update to talk a bit more about the development and incoming features for They Are Billions. It has been a long time since our last update because we have been working in parallel on different parts of the game, not only for the Campaign but also for the Survival Mode.

The Six Wonders

Six new buildings are coming... and they are the greatest ones! They are extremely expensive to research and build. Not many colonies will have the capacity to even build just one of them. After all, we are surviving in a zombie apocalypse so there is no place for such luxurious and opulent wonders... BUT, if your colony has plenty of resources or you want to take the risk to build one of them, they can grant you very special rewards. Your colony will be the envy of all. :) One of them, the cheapest one, will be the Inn/Tavern we mentioned in old updates. Finally we had to change its function as it was conflicting with other elements of the Campaign. In the next update, we will show you all the Wonders and explain the special rewards. A quick look ahead on the Six Wonders, all of them will give you extra victory points if you win the game. The extra points will be very useful for the veteran players that try to get the highest score possible for the Survival or Community Challenge.

The Soundtrack Scored by the Bratislava Philharmonic Orchestra

Our composer, Nicolas Diteriks, is about to record the soundtrack of They Are Billions with the 60 musicians of the Bratislava Philharmonic Orchestra. This is going to be epic! In the next update, we will show you some videos. Stay tuned!

How is the final score computed?

Many people have asked us how the final game score is computed. This method could change in the future, especially with the new Wonders coming. Right now, we use this formula: - If the game is won the score is: Score = 10,000 + Max(0, 5000 - 10 * Colonist Infected) + Max(0, 5000 -10 * Soldiers Died) - If the game is lost then: Score = 1.000 * (Number of Days Survived / Total Days to Win) - Extra points for colonists: Score += Max. Colony Population / 2 - Extra points for infected killed: Score += Max. Infected Killed / 10 And then the final score is multiplied by the score factor. For the Community Challenge, the score factor can be 100%, 115%, 135% or 155% depending on the map type.

The Campaign Development

There is much to do in the Campaign. We know the expectations are very high, so we want to create something really special. We are producing lots of new assets and implementing many more features. As many of you already know, in the Campaign you will have to reconquest a huge territory from the infected under the orders of the New Empire. We want the campaign to be non-linear, so the player can decide if he or she prefers to explore an old human base in search of new technology or attack a huge swarm of 200K infected that is blocking a new territory to build a colony with their imperial army... Together with how the player progresses in the science and engineering tree, relation with the new empire, map reconquest strategy, and selection of objectives will make each campaign unique. http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/9d69d8f735cc41cf5349a51c9c8bf9cc7ba997c7.jpg We want to add a lot of optional content so players that are stuck and cannot progress will more have more options to expand their army and advance in the technology trees. Although this decision could change later, we would like to continue with the Ironman Mode for the missions, in the sense that you cannot reload old saves while playing a mission. Of course, if you lose you can repeat it again. Also, you can save freely when you are in the intermissions Campaign Dashboard. And that's all for the moment, see you in the next update!

Greetings!

This is a quick update to talk a bit more about the development and incoming features for They Are Billions. It has been a long time since our last update because we have been working in parallel on different parts of the game, not only for the Campaign but also for the Survival Mode.

The Six Wonders

Six new buildings are coming... and they are the greatest ones! They are extremely expensive to research and build. Not many colonies will have the capacity to even build just one of them. After all, we are surviving in a zombie apocalypse so there is no place for such luxurious and opulent wonders... BUT, if your colony has plenty of resources or you want to take the risk to build one of them, they can grant you very special rewards. Your colony will be the envy of all. :) One of them, the cheapest one, will be the Inn/Tavern we mentioned in old updates. Finally we had to change its function as it was conflicting with other elements of the Campaign. In the next update, we will show you all the Wonders and explain the special rewards. A quick look ahead on the Six Wonders, all of them will give you extra victory points if you win the game. The extra points will be very useful for the veteran players that try to get the highest score possible for the Survival or Community Challenge.

The Soundtrack Scored by the Bratislava Philharmonic Orchestra

Our composer, Nicolas Diteriks, is about to record the soundtrack of They Are Billions with the 60 musicians of the Bratislava Philharmonic Orchestra. This is going to be epic! In the next update, we will show you some videos. Stay tuned!

How is the final score computed?

Many people have asked us how the final game score is computed. This method could change in the future, especially with the new Wonders coming. Right now, we use this formula: - If the game is won the score is: Score = 10,000 + Max(0, 5000 - 10 * Colonist Infected) + Max(0, 5000 -10 * Soldiers Died) - If the game is lost then: Score = 1.000 * (Number of Days Survived / Total Days to Win) - Extra points for colonists: Score += Max. Colony Population / 2 - Extra points for infected killed: Score += Max. Infected Killed / 10 And then the final score is multiplied by the score factor. For the Community Challenge, the score factor can be 100%, 115%, 135% or 155% depending on the map type.

The Campaign Development

There is much to do in the Campaign. We know the expectations are very high, so we want to create something really special. We are producing lots of new assets and implementing many more features. As many of you already know, in the Campaign you will have to reconquest a huge territory from the infected under the orders of the New Empire. We want the campaign to be non-linear, so the player can decide if he or she prefers to explore an old human base in search of new technology or attack a huge swarm of 200K infected that is blocking a new territory to build a colony with their imperial army... Together with how the player progresses in the science and engineering tree, relation with the new empire, map reconquest strategy, and selection of objectives will make each campaign unique. http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/9d69d8f735cc41cf5349a51c9c8bf9cc7ba997c7.jpg We want to add a lot of optional content so players that are stuck and cannot progress will more have more options to expand their army and advance in the technology trees. Although this decision could change later, we would like to continue with the Ironman Mode for the missions, in the sense that you cannot reload old saves while playing a mission. Of course, if you lose you can repeat it again. Also, you can save freely when you are in the intermissions Campaign Dashboard. And that's all for the moment, see you in the next update!

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/ea285a3f4eb28d81d970093793fc731963259a23.png

Greetings Survivors!

We have a lot of news to share about our most recent big update V0.6!

Nine New Languages Available!!

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/13f567f707c1d5c02bd4836fe0ffef267dffec9f.jpg Now the game can be played in Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Korean, Japanese, Russian, German, French, Polish, and Brazilian Portuguese. The game should start selecting the language automatically. If it does not work please select the language from the Options screen. Of course, consider the new translation in a beta state as is the game. We will check and improve everything with time. Also, you can use this forum to give us feedback or reporting issues. Each language has its own forum discussion. Our translators will check the forums and update everything as soon as possible.

Are you the best survivor? Try the Community Challenge!

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/aadd1ba54a7d271aa8c945d6073207a3ca50a6ce.jpg Finally, it is here! Every week, starting on Monday there will be a new Community Challenge where you can play the same survival map and compete with the entire They Are Billions community. The scores will be uploaded to a leaderboard where you can compare your score with other players or friends. You have just one opportunity to try every challenge, so be careful!

Some More Features for V.0.6

Waypoints for Patrol, Travel and Attack Commands http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/fd9c311152d9312898d3a0c2fe619b987e050685.jpg Now you can add more waypoints to a unit’s path when using the commands Patrol, Travel, and Attack. To do so, just keep the SHIFT key pressed when selecting the target of the command. It also works for the Move command. This can be done with the right button, just keep the SHIFT key pressed to add more points. The Old Towers http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/955fb68160991f11baa074f326764dc3f1b4f86c.jpg Now in the survival maps, you can find some old fortified towers that were infected and abandoned some time ago. You can reclaim these structures and have them join your colony. They can be reactivated once they are repaired. Explosive Barrels A new bonus you can find in some of the ruins. Explosive barrels can be carried by Soldiers, Snipers, and Lucifers and placed anywhere you’d like. If a unit shoots the barrel, it will explode causing devastating damage to the surroundings. Be careful, because they will detonate more barrels within range. They can be very useful to lessen a big swarm, or even blow up a full Doom Village! New Dwelling Models http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28988182/3735d821a749d83892ebac20cc270c053c1f1ce5.jpg We have created more models for the wood and stone houses. They share the same style as the older ones but add a bit more variety and beauty to the colony. New Swarm Music Theme Our great composer has created a new atmospheric theme for the swarms. Hope you like it. Also, very soon we will record the entire soundtrack with the symphonic orchestra of Bratislava! Some more minor changes: - Improvement: Commands activated with the keyboard are more responsive (they are activated on key down, instead of on the key up event). - Improvement: When Steam Overlay is activated the game pauses automatically and when it is closed the game continues from its last state (paused/playing). - Improvement: When sending a unit to attack a position, now the travel indicator is displayed in the color red. - Improvement: When attacking a specific unit with the attack command, a small red indicator will be displayed under the target unit. - Fixed: When using the command attack key repeatedly the units cancel their current action even when attacking the same target area. - Fixed: Steam Overlay activation could leave some phantom keys pressed. - Fixed: Technology names in mayor description. - Fixed: Graphics glitch with patrol path line.

F.A.Q Available in the forum

We have published here a Frequent Asked Questions post that should answer the main questions about the game. We will update the F.A.Q periodically with more information. And that's all for now. In the next big update, we expect to add some more features like the Lost Tavern, the Monuments and Wonders and the Great Telescope (the first new addon for the Command Center). Stay tuned! See you soon!