I've been keeping an eye on it and almost bit back when it was freshly released. Seemed like a cool take on mixing RTS-lite with tower defense with zombie hordes. Knowing that eventually you will fail at least in the current available game mode when I was watching it (around the Steam Winter Sale timeframe), seemed interesting and "challenge accepted". I just about bit, but held off.
It had garnered a lot of attention early on, but at least with the folks and places I frequent I haven't heard much of it in recent weeks. That could be because of Stellaris 2.0, which is the current buzz.
I also know that Rusted Warfare received some recent updates, and damn is that game entertaining if you're looking for a classic C&C-style game with a lot more going on. Plus it's cheap.
As far as They Are Billions, it's on my wait for a really good sale or wait to see what else they develop before I invest in it. I like the art style, I like what they've done so far, but I want to see it become more fleshed out or see if it's going to stay narrowly focused on the TD gameplay. It seems like it could really expand into some other options, and a meta map or global map style (like Rimworld sorta).
Did you get TAB yet?
Anyone else playing Stellaris 2.0 with/without Apocalypse DLC? I'm having a good time. I will say the early-mid game is MUCH slower now. The biggest early game changes are that you can't break up your starting military fleet to explore. You must use science ships to explore and survey systems, so exploration slows down. At least your starting system is fully surveyed. But I do like this change I would like to see a little speed boost to the game at normal speed though.
To take over a system you must build a station there, which is more expensive the more jumps away from your currently occupied space zone is. If it is immediately neighboring, it is pretty affordable. But the resources they have you rely on also limits how fast you and the AI can expand. These stations can host defenses as well, which helps keep attackers at bay, at least long enough for your fleet to come in and dominate them. Also when attacked by pirates, they're not destroyed but rather when they run out of hull, they are disabled for 30 days before being repaired.
Stations can be upgraded to be bases that can build ships, deploy more defenses, have economy, fleet and naval capacity bonuses, etc. You can only have so many starbases though, but you can increase the limit over time and research.
With that being said, bases can build military ships, but not civilian ships (colony, science, etc.), planets can build civilian. For some reason the first couple hours of my first 2.0 playthru (still playing it), I was unable to figure that out lol. Don't be like me.
You can have multiple fleets and the game is supportive of it. But you have 2 capacities, a military capacity and naval capacity. From what I gathered so far, Military capacity is based on the military rating for different ships, where naval capacity (more important IMHO) is the actual limit of ships based on how much capacity they take. You can increase both capacities over time and eventually I can see naval surpassing military capacity but at least a few solid hours into my game that hasn't happened yet. I'm not a pro player though.
Fleets use more energy and minerals now, so keep that in mind when trying to build a bigger fleet than your economy may support early on. The early focus IMHO should be more evenly placed between energy and minerals now.
Do have defenses and at least 1 fleet for dealing with the pirates that pop up here and there. They increase in challenge as you increase in size from what I've seen so far. Mostly a nuisance but they do cause some trouble, taking out mines, stations and their defenses, destroying part or all of a fleet, etc.
Definitely have 2-3 science ships early on, makes a helluva difference in finding good planets and getting research bonuses.
The game feels like it is now focusing more on turtling while you build your empire, which is fine by me, but it does slow things down noticeably. And to be frank I felt that Stellaris pre-2.0 was still a touch slow. Overall though even with said slowness the game flows well.
I'm sure there's plenty I'm forgetting but I gotta get back to work lol.
There are some bugs, but Paradox has already released the first "hotfix" patch in their true fashion. Whether it'll keep me entertained or if I'll go back to playing more GalCiv 3 and Polaris Sector is yet to be seen. Combat has been spruced up a little bit, but not enough micro-ing for my taste...I also want to see more fleet management than exists...but don't expect I'll ever see it in Stellaris. That ensures I'll keep playing Polaris Sector.
I still feel that my limited time is more effective in GalCiv 3, so I don't expect I'll drop that one anytime soon, plus the AI just kills me lol. Looking forward to 3.0 and the upcoming DLC for this one as well.
lovin it
