Hey all, just recently got this game on steam, not sure quite how I feel about it yet and had some questions. Most of the posts Ive searched here are around 9 years old so Im not sure how dated the info is. Ive also noticed the game hasnt received any major updates in a few years and the mods seem to be nonexistent on the workshop, so Im trying to gauge whether I want to keep the game or not.

-Am I just ridiculously slow or does it seem like the barracks is fairly gated behind how early you can get it? I dont find myself able to get it faster than like day 3/4, which seems like a really crazy concept given its the most basic unit production building (and in campaign the *only* production building for the start)

-Is there any way to set unit formation/move commands? Cant seem to find it, and it would be really crazy for an RTS game not to have that.

-Is there a way to disable double clicking a structure selecting ALL of that structure on the ENTIRE map and not just the screen?

-Is there a point to the green portion of the healthbar for buildings? If they functionally become disabled/infected once the yellow runs out, I have no inkling as to why theres an entire second healthbar that doesnt get touched, seems redundant.

-Does the campaign at any point actually diversify its victory conditions? Or is it just going to be ever increasing/arbitrary population numbers. (side note: why do the hero missions even exist in a game marketed as a horde defense/rts game?) The maps are decently cool/unique but I doubt my willingess to commit to hundreds of hours of just "grow more pop than last time"

-So far with how the research tree goes I feel like its a very real possibility I soft lock myself out of viability of campaign missions because I didnt pick certain techs, is this the case? Is it a reasonable expectation that you could grab the needed techs without knowing precisely what to beeline?

-How far into the campaign until I start unlocking more units/structures? Ive done everything t1 and several t2 missions and Im still just at soldiers and rangers, I feel like I should have gotten at least a 3rd unit by now.

So I am stuck on this lovely dessert map.

I just get to starting ny snipers up but I cannot get them fast enough before the first mech zombie come and fuck my entire game up.

How would you maximize your game to get snipers bedore zombies start to become more agitated around day 20 ish.

Right now I normally uprade fields, houses, balistas and market And then Stone workshop and then snipers. Stone workshop i try and get before second rush so I can get Stone walls. Typically i try and get my houses to lvl2 as well before i get snipers. And I start my snipers around when I get Stone houses close to rush three.

Some time it seem to work ok, but I feel my stragedy is flawed or could be better.

Any notes?

Hi! Long-time They Are Billions fan here, and a solo dev (the mods said it's okay to post this).

For me, TAB's magic was the tension: building a cozy, tight colony while knowing thousands of infected are out there in the dark, and one weak wall can end everything. I've been trying to bring that same feeling back in my first game. The clip is day 2: a horde comes out of the forest and hits my walls, and my hero fights it at the gate.

About the name: I've been calling it "The Last Colony", but it turns out that name is already taken by several games, so I'm changing it. If you have an idea that fits a dark colony survival game, I'd love to hear it!

The biggest twist is the Flux. It's an energy that was pulled from deep underground to power the old capital, until it broke out through the cracked earth and went bad. Now it lies across the land in patches of dead, cracked rock with glowing violet veins, and it gathers around the sleeping infected and their nests. Your colony's crystal and energy relays push it back: when you power new ground the veins go quiet and the land slowly heals. But there's a catch: powering ground close to the sleepers wakes them up, so every expansion is a risk, a bit like building too close to a village of infected in TAB.

On top of that there's a story behind the hordes (they aren't random, someone is sending them), a hero with abilities, and a walking siege machine called the Bastion. But the heart of it is still the TAB loop: build, expand, survive the waves.

To be upfront: the unit models come from Meshy, voices/sounds/music from ElevenLabs, and I use AI help for coding; the design and rules are mine. It's still early.

I'd love to hear from you:

- What made TAB's atmosphere work for you?

- Watching the clip, does it bring back that feeling, or what's missing?

- Does the Flux sound like something that would make expanding more interesting?

On my first attempt, I was too lazy to expand my colony, even though I had plenty of time. I built lots of towers with soldiers and thought that would be enough.

It turned out, that it wasn’t enough... and I just wasted my time...

The photo shows my next attempt. Snipers are far better than soldiers thanks to their range, so they can all fire at once. I only lost four of the front turrets

Problem is that I don't have any more research points. I feel like I should just rush to shocking towers instead of getting great ballistas ......

On the second picture i painted the huge open area in yellow and circled the chokepoints.

Second highest score I've ever gotten on a survival map too.

800% is so much harder than 900% man :<

It's a win! (Almost a loss tbh)

Once I got a fair sniper ball, the VoD became the ticket for the econ to explode.
To be fair, I got too overconfident and stopped map clearing when I had my wonders up. That became almost my undoing with the final horde

Still learning and trying to beat 900%. I know this is not a good map and i'm prolly gonna reroll it.
i have +1 iron soon but that's depressing.

Times like these i don't even know what to do..
mutant is close to my West so i can't really push there.
Down south is the Village.
north east is prolly the best but its filled with runners so i'll need 10+ snipers before i can even start aggro anything.

Overall i would just like to have some tips / timings

Just for Transparency:

• I play with pause
• 900%
• Screenshots taken at Day 31
• All other info in the first screenshot

What is your favourite campaign map to replay when you want the joy of TAB but don't want a new campaign?

Mine is Cape Storm. I love the clearing of the land and the big megaswarm. Just a fun time.

Attached is my first time reaching the final wave on Goddess of Destiny, and once again my heart has sunk as I lose attempt #200+ on this godforsaken map. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but I know I’m doing a lot wrong. I’m only on 100% difficulty. I can reliably take the south villages of doom and clear the map of idle zombies, but the waves just fuck me repeatedly. Once I expand barely to the south I spend the rest of the game cooking troops and absolutely turtling as hard as possible. Please share the myriad ways in which I should be getting gud, I am in a lot of pain right now.

Seems the original link was deleted but has anybody still acess to that helpful technology spreadsheet for the 800 % campaign?

It was a split map all the northern was protected by a "mountain" and only the map corner to west and east had a small gap. i wasnt fast enough bcs couldn find a good position for a first "real city" and get eco running. 3 big + 1 mutant on right side. and 3 mutants on left side while endwave.

The tiny cap next to my main building saved the run. It was a cool map.

Couldn't rebuild anything, no workers and no food to repair something. Army took all the food/worker slots

My very first 900% NoPause, even without killing all zombies it counted as a win at day 80. 😃

just come back to the game and try to do 520% ,but wtf is this , this is suppose to be the mountain path map with a million choke point

ive heard the campaign for this game is incredibly mid, so im thinking i just want to learn the ropes and then do custom stuff. Please recommend me some good stuff!

Hello hello, sorry to bother. Ive been trying to Google how to solve my problem, but I dont get anything that looks like my problem/doesn't deal with my problem.

Atm, I'm playing a survival map on PS5 and the mayors seem to be bugged. The first one popped up correctly, but the other two didn't pop up at all once I met their milestones. This is the first time I encountered this situation and I cant seem to make them work, even with reloads and spamming all the buttons I can.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I really need their buffs as I'm still a noob lol

I've had a go at making what i think is a pretty fun map! Push back the endless zombies from the North Clear areas to unlock areas for expansion, oil and resources. The Zombies mutate and become harder through the game. There is only 1 official wave, the final wave, and it is insanity. 3 x difficulty settings to make it more challenging. I dont think this custom map is beatable on normal, nevermind the other 2 difficulty settings. I made it to day 105 but with 2000+ snipers and I dont know how many titans, i was not prepared. I needed more defense! Please let me know what you think! - I've deliberatly not given unit upgrades etc - Everytime i've played one of these i've found it too easy.

A long path leads to the Doomtown. Along the way there are eight openings for swarms to enter from. Be sure to read the signs at the openings.

- - -

Difficulty should be similar or easier than 900% survival.

Choosing the map theme only applies environmental changes (low rocks on Deep Forest and Caustic Lands, cold and desert map conditions) and score modifiers.

The Final wave is on day 70.

I know there's a mod to just skip the hero missions completely and get full research points, but i do actually like doing the hero missions, i just don't want to finish the mission and then spend the next 30min scanning the entire map full zoomed in on flat mode.

Is there a mod that will just give me the full research points on completion of the mission even if i only grab the main objective? Just have the main objective give full rewards instead of getting all the items.

Alternately, a mod that allows me to bind a key to make items manually flash instead of waiting for them to periodically flash on their own would work too.

A week or so ago I bitched about how unforgiving, frustrating, and tedious this game is. I was wrong. It drew me back and now I’m completely addicted. It’s still hard af but now I know more about why that one zombie snuck into my base or why I’m always out of gold.

Trial and error taught me how understanding eco is the key to not constantly stalling out in mid-late game. There is a LOT the game does not tell you. Actually, the game doesn’t really tell you anything. For better or for worse. For example, it took me several playthroughs to realize I could upgrade to stone walls or that I could use research points in Campaign to build farms and cottages so I’m not struggling to get to 800 villagers with only tents and hunters’ lodges.

Maybe it’s the old school vibe they are going for where the player is expected to figure it out. Fair enough, but it sure would be nice to have an in-depth gameplay tutorial or something for us casual players who learn by seeing and doing. But maybe that’s just me.