You’re staring at a gap in your wall. It’s barely a few pixels wide, a tiny oversight in a sprawling city of wood and steam. Then, you see it. A single, solitary zombie—a "runner"—shuffles toward that gap. You click your Rangers frantically, but they’re on the other side of the map clearing a forest. The runner slips in. It hits a tent. Suddenly, that one zombie becomes four. Then twenty. Within three minutes, your entire colony is a graveyard. They Are Billions doesn't just punish mistakes; it harvests them.
It's been years since Numantian Games dropped this survival RTS, and honestly, nothing has quite filled the void it left. Most strategy games want you to feel powerful. They give you a hero unit or a tech tree that eventually turns you into a god. Not this one. In this world, you are always the underdog. You're always one bad pathfinding glitch away from a total wipe. It’s stressful. It’s unfair. And yet, Steam players still sink hundreds of hours into "No Pause" runs on the 800% difficulty setting.
The Steam-Powered Apocalypse That Redefined Defense
When They Are Billions first hit Early Access, the RTS genre was, frankly, a bit stagnant. We had StarCraft II for the competitive crowd and Age of Empires for the nostalgia hunters. Then came this weird, Victorian-steampunk mashup that threw twenty thousand units on the screen at once.
The tech behind it was actually pretty impressive for an indie studio. Numantian used a custom engine that allowed for a massive number of individual AI agents—the "billions" of the title—to pathfind simultaneously without turning your PC into a space heater. Most games cheat by making hordes act as a single "blob." Here, every single zombie is a distinct entity with its own target. That’s why the infections spread so realistically. One zombie bites a worker, that worker turns, and it cascades. It’s a literal virus simulation hidden inside a base builder.
Survival is the heart of the experience. You start with a Command Center, a handful of soldiers, and a very limited patch of green land. You have to balance resources that feel constantly at odds with each other. You need Wood for walls, but you need that same Wood for Power Plants. You need Stone for Soldiers, but you need it for Cottages to increase your population. You’re constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul, and the clock is always ticking toward the final wave.
The Learning Curve Is Actually a Vertical Wall
Most people bounce off this game within the first two hours. That’s not a guess; just look at the achievement data. Only a fraction of players have actually beaten a map on the higher difficulty tiers. Why? Because the game refuses to hold your hand.
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There is a specific cadence to a winning run. You have to expand aggressively to claim resources, but every inch of land you take is another inch of wall you have to defend. If you build too slowly, you won't have the economy to survive the Day 90 wave. If you build too fast, you'll pull a "village of doom" (those infested ruins scattered around the map) and get swarmed before you even have a barracks.
Basically, you're playing a high-stakes game of Tetris where the blocks are trying to eat your face.
Why the Campaign Polarized the Entire Fanbase
We waited a long time for the "New Empire" campaign. When it finally arrived, the reaction was... mixed. To put it mildly. Some people loved the lore—the idea of Quintus Crane trying to rebuild a fallen civilization from a literal crater. Others felt the mission design was repetitive.
The biggest point of contention? The "Hero" missions. These are tactical, single-unit levels where you control Caelus or Calliope through a bunker. They are slow. They involve a lot of clicking on glowing objects for "research points." Honestly, they feel like a completely different game, and not necessarily the one people signed up for. If you’re coming into They Are Billions today, my advice is to treat the campaign as a very long tutorial and the Survival Mode as the actual meat of the game.
The research tree in the campaign is also a trap. If you don't pick the "Shock Tower" or "Soldiers" early on, you can actually soft-lock your entire save file because the later missions become mathematically impossible. It’s a design choice that screams "old school gaming," for better or worse.
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The Units You'll Learn to Love (and Hate)
- Rangers: Your best friends. They’re fast, they’re quiet, and they don’t pull "aggro" from the map. You’ll use them to kite giants like a matador with a death wish.
- Soldiers: Loud. So loud. If you fire a gun in this game, every zombie within three screens will hear it and come running. New players often build ten soldiers, start shooting, and wonder why a literal sea of undead just deleted their base.
- Thanatos: This guy is a walking cheat code. He carries a rocket launcher that clears entire swathes of the horde. If you don't have at least ten of these guys behind your walls by the final wave, you're probably toast.
- Lucifer: The flamethrower unit. He looks cool, but he can't shoot over walls. Use him at your own risk. Most pros ignore him entirely.
The 800% Club: How Pros Actually Win
If you watch streamers like Beastyqt or TacticalTrident play They Are Billions, it looks like a different game. They play on the "Desolate Wasteland" map with maximum zombie density. At this level, a single mistake isn't just a setback; it's a reset.
The secret isn't just "building more stuff." It's "noise management." Every unit generates a specific amount of noise. If you stack too many units in one spot, the noise level crosses a threshold, and the map "wakes up." Success at the highest level requires an almost surgical understanding of how to pull small groups of zombies without triggering a stampede.
They also use "scratching posts." This is a pro tactic where you build single wooden poles or tiny sections of wall ahead of your main defense. The zombies stop to hit the pole, giving your snipers time to pick them off. It’s goofy, it looks weird, but it’s the only way to survive the early game when your economy is garbage.
Modding and the Long Tail of Content
Numantian Games hasn't updated the game in a while. In any other genre, that would be a death sentence. But the map editor saved this game. The Steam Workshop is overflowing with custom campaigns that are, in many ways, better than the official one.
There are "Tower Defense" style maps, "Hero RPG" maps, and even maps that try to tell a more coherent story than the base game. If you've beaten the six standard survival maps, the Workshop is where the real challenge lies. Some creators have made "nightmare" maps that make the 800% difficulty look like a Sunday stroll.
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Is It Still Worth Playing?
Honestly, yeah. There is a specific tension in They Are Billions that no other game—not even the "clones" like Age of Darkness: Final Stand or Conan Unconquered—has quite nailed. It’s the feeling of looking at your clock and realizing it’s 2:00 AM, you’ve been staring at a wall for forty minutes, and you’re genuinely terrified to press "Unpause."
It’s a game about logistics as much as combat. It’s about building a perfect machine and then watching it get clogged with teeth and rot. It’s frustrating. You will lose. You will lose a forty-hour run to a single zombie that slipped past a gate you forgot to close. And then you’ll immediately start a new map.
Actionable Steps for New Survivors
If you're just starting out or coming back after a long break, don't jump into the deep end. You'll just get discouraged.
- Prioritize the Market and Bank: These aren't just "nice to have" buildings. They are the backbone of your economy. The Market reduces food consumption, and the Bank boosts gold income from nearby houses. Place them in the center of your residential blocks.
- Double-Wall Everything: A single layer of stone is a suggestion. Two layers of stone with a gap in between is a defense.
- Snipers are King: Set your Snipers to target "High Level Enemies." This ensures they take out the Spitters and Harpies before they can wreck your frontline.
- Pause Frequently: Unless you're trying to show off, use the spacebar. Use it to check every inch of your perimeter. If you see a gap, plug it. If you see a lone zombie hitting a wall, kill it.
- Expand to Chokepoints: Don't just build in a circle. Look for mountains and lakes. Use the terrain to minimize the amount of wall you actually have to build.
The world of the New Empire is cold and unforgiving. It doesn't care about your feelings or your "perfect" city layout. It only cares if you have enough Executors and Thanatos units to hold the line when the music stops and the screaming starts. Good luck. You're going to need it.
Next Steps for Mastery:
To truly master the endgame, focus on Tesla Tower placement to leapfrog your way toward high-resource patches without overextending your power grid. Once you can consistently survive the first 30 days without losing a single building to infection, start practicing "kiting" with a single Ranger to clear space for your first expansion. This skill is the fundamental difference between a casual player and someone who can tackle the Desolate Wasteland.