Game is too slow yet also very fast

[Dread]

I wanted to enjoy a rts. I've been following They Are Billions but never really watched any gameplay, this was a game I truly wanted to experience for myself. And i'm just as dissapointed as I am happy. It's an rts survival sim yet it's missing some elements that make it fun. I'm only using this discussion to write out my thoughts before I make a review.

-Saving: Playing the campaign so far and missions already take 30-60+ minutes to complete, the fact that if you lose you have to restart is a huge time waster. My favorite RTS Company of Heroes and Dawn of War you can start a campaign or custom map and by the end of it feel rewarded for winning or losing and can quickly hop back in another one. They are Billions has no reward for losing, if anything it is almost annoying that you have to restart because it isn't "I could have done better" its "I should have done better". I'm playing Coast of Bones(100% difficulty) and besides being on my 3rd restart I finally was on day 48 and got annihilated because I was pumping out tents and cottages when I should of been pumping out more troops(I had 10 rangers and 40 soldiers). I have no desire to play that mission again, whereas in another rts I'd be fine hopping straight back in. I'm not saying save scumming should be allowed but in time increments or days it should save your progress so you aren't forced to restart completely.

-Time:I feel like half the time I spend in this game is just waiting, waiting for things to build, troops to train and zombies to attack. Sure in those zombie attacks, it feels faster but a game should try to be fun for every minute, how long can I realistically admire my base while waiting for the train to come along and my resources to be stocked back up. A 2x or 3x speed would greatly benefit those that would rather speed up game speed but frequently pause. Heck even Stronghold HD has a game speed setting.

I could spend the hours needed to become good at this game and do the campaign or survival on 800% but I like to have fun with a game and any extra hour is because I enjoy getting good, not getting good so I can enjoy the game. Overall I'd give the game a 7/10.

[Andrewbh2003]

i get what your saying but thats by design

TAB is very much a niche game in a already niche genre it is a RTS at its core that gears towards the "hardcore" it is worth noting that at difficulties below 50% it can be played in a very casual/forgiving way and you dont get punished for playing on a lower difficulty that you feel comfortable with

save scumming or any save system as already explained would kind of destroy one of the foundations of the game if you really really must you can just create manual back ups of your save and do so that way

as for time thats more of a skill issue caused by lower difficulties being more forgiving you very very rarely are in a/should be in a "Idle state" especially on higher difficulties as you need to be constantly doing something as time is a very very valuable resource a fast forward option would more often than not either get you killed or be not used at all

for a good idea of what i can be refering to go watch a no pause 900% run and see how hectic it can get at times

with that said i hope you can look past this and enjoy a very addictive and fun game once you get the hang of it

[amjadken]

I know you can't save but it would be nice if the game at least auto saved after each wave. that way you don't have to start from scratch. I am talking about survival mode not the campaign.

[QWEEDDY2]

Stop complaining about saving. You can make backups - and thats enogh. This is more Tower Defense than usual RTS. it un-normal save-chating for that game design.

About time... You always must pay attention. Only horde siege missions is chill missions.

[Begemot]

You can always use Cheat Engine to increase or decrease game speed. It makes hero missions much more fun and helps to skip horde missions faster.

Slightly off-topic: Why a save feature is called save scumming? I can understand this when people abuse save/load to pass a chance based check in a game.

Maybe it's not a perfect comparison, but imagine if you had to configure your network, screen resolution, install all drivers, etc. every time you turn on a computer and those people who could avoid this by saving and loading were called save scummers.

[CodeMonkey]

TBH I havent played Campaign much... I really prefer the Survival mode.... Maybe give that a try? I think it is much more fun

[Dread]

Okay I have just completed the first mission on 500%. I also did the first hero mission on 500%, so far easy just like 100% but I'm guessing because its first level. I'm learning a bit more at a time, so far I still believe Saves would benefit or increased game speed. Especially for micro.

[TheSuit]

One tip.
Why are you waiting for things to build?

You should be sending your troops to actively clear areas. Even 4 rangers can clear quite a bit.

[jecht69]

Originally posted by The | Suit:

One tip.
Why are you waiting for things to build?

You should be sending your troops to actively clear areas. Even 4 rangers can clear quite a bit.

What if you've already cleared the map? continue building up? at some point it is pointless since you'll easily wipe out any wave. Also, my pc can't handle massive populations. Beyond just simple lag, at some point some reeeeeally weird stuff starts to happen, like pathfinding gets turned off, troops and zombies begin walking through trees, mountains and water, and most civilians and even units get stuck in place while playing the moving animation without ever moving, even when ordered to.

[flamin_shotgun]

I know I am responding to this post pretty late. But I completely agree with jecht69 , Begemot, and Dread. After several survival games, it is simply too slow. And there should be a save option so you can make up for a mistake and have to start all over. It sucks to lose a 4-8 hour game in 30 seconds. Especially when several of those hours were sitting and waiting for the buildings to build, money to come in, resources to restock, units to build, etc. This is usually a feeling I would get in a game like Endless Space 2 in the last 20 turns of the game, just skipping turns waiting for things to just finish. And for those that say "spend the time clearing the map" I did, the map was clear 40 days in. A group of 25 snipers clears the maps in not too long. But building up your economy and defenses for the final wave takes the other 90% of the game. And if my defenses don't hold up, I have to start all over, at least save after every wave so I can load 2 waves back and redo my setup.

[red255]

1. How are you getting a 4 hour game when the game lasts like 1 hour?

2. if you shoot the command center, and bring up the lose menu then alt-f4 it loads the more recent autosave when you load back in.

[ramboing]

RTS aren't big moneymakers like the simpler games where you control 1 guy, so you don't have too many options. Basically, Starcraft 2. Others are pretty minor.

They are Billions is pretty unique though. It has its flaws. For me, the incomplete hotkey setup and inability to leave lifebars on would have rendered it un-playable. But, you can pause. And I enjoy pausing and optimizing everything. Since I enjoy playing with pause, the hotkeys are no longer that important. The lifebars can be set by our good friend and enemy Windows, which will consider you to be holding down a number key forever if you turn off numlock while holding it.

People complain about the campaign, but I thought it was great. The "attack" missions are not done well, but the hero missions are actually pretty good if you use mouse software to bind a couple buttons to "attack click" and "move click" and the regular missions have huge variety. Definitely don't just jump to a high difficulty.

[QWEEDDY2]

Instead of mouse software (which ones are tash and cause problems in games), player can just use KB (for speedup attack trick too).
Unfortunately, this ot affect heroes missions playability. Something missing there for sure, some fun part...

[Crypto Gamer]

On lower difficulties game is much slower as you can easily clear the whole map and wait for waves and less zeds mobs and waves does not force active gameplay(micro and macro,noise manegement) as much.

There is a lot of downtime if you play semi decently so you can idle a lot and be okay.

Higher difficulties have much more mobs including from waves and there is less time overall and noise manegement is very crucial during early game.

There is almost no down time game almost is forced ABC(always be clearing)on you and there is a little downtime.

If you play "very well" you have a few ingame days for the next day and during the whole game your were constantly microing,macroing stuff with very little downtime.

If you play "very well" on lower difficulties you can clear the map with maybe 50% the time left do macro while being half sleep waiting for time to pass very slowly until your over built macored for 40 days defences rolf stomp the weak low difficulty waves.
Game is ultra slow paced as you played too fast for the difficulty.

That said in campaign 800% hero missions are ultra slow paced due to instane amount of mobs.Likely take twice as long as on 100%.

Some swarm missions are extremely ultra slow paced there is one againts 20000 slow shambler walkers on 800% who even if they are zero threat to your army take about 30-35 real life minutes to clear.

Aka you leave your army at the station go eat do the dishes and come back 30-35 minutes later with zero active engaging play.......

But campaign colony and survival missions usually only feel slow paced if you play above your intended difficulty or your macro sucks and you play too slowly.

Coast of bones is about 1 hours long,if it takes 4 hours means you paused about 3 hours that is okay,as the game adapt to your apm speed but that also means you pause a lot in order to do macro,micro etc.

And yes you can lose an 4-8 hour game if you make mistakes within 30 seconds usually by having weak economy by the final wave.
VAST majority of us failed the final wave likely for the first time.

That said normal survival is about 2-3 hours long more if you pause.

And if your PC is slow gameplay slows down even to half or lower so that can make game slower too.

There is a gameplay option called "fast timer optimalsiation" useful for strong PCs to make the game faster.

A 80day survival game is about 1 hour 45 minutes on it with no pause on a strong PC.

Yes game could have used a few quality of life like health bars always on

.TAB is an RTS which is nieche and even with that nieche it is a hardcore survival RTS with wave defence type RTS game so suber nieche but for that specific audience it is very well done that is why many still play it even tough it is single play only.