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
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!