Conan Unconquered
Assemble a massive army, build an unconquerable base, and send your heroes out to fight and explore. From the Command & Conquer veterans at Petroglyph comes the first ever survival RTS set in the savage world of Conan the Barbarian. Play solo or team up in multiplayer in Conan Unconquered’s action-packed co-op Mode where you build a shared stronghold and fend off the hordes together. The people of Khoraja flourished during its years of peace and prosperity. But they also turned lazy and feeble. The devious and tyrannical wizard Thugra Khotan looks to seize this opportunity and is marching his army to claim your kingdom as his own. You must awaken your people from their apathy, you must build your city defenses and fend off armies of attacking monstrosities. How long will you be able to stand against the invading hordes? Play solo or with a friend in the intense and action-packed multiplayer Co-op Mode. Choose between four different heroes, including Conan, with their own special abilities. Research new technology to build more advanced structures and improve your defenses. Randomly generated maps ensure that every playthrough is unique.
Steam User 15
I actually liked the game better than the one it's mechanics are inspired by: "They Are Billions".
Mostly because having one unit get through your defenses doesn't cause an inevitable game over (which often happens in T.A.B.). Also if you fail a campaign mission you just re-try it, it doesn't put a permanent demerit on your score because you don't have the galaxy brain needed to do succeed at every mission on your first try (a T.A.B. "feature" that I always disliked).
>>> (I found They Are Billions very frustrating, so apologies for the mini rant).
On it's own merits, this game is mostly about building up a town/fortress, researching new technologies (to unlock new units/defenses), building a perimeter of walls/towers (sometimes using choke-points, other times defending more wide open areas), and fighting off hordes of enemies that come from different sides of the map. (And eventually from all sides on the harder missions at the later stages).
I kinda wish the hordes showed up a bit less frequently, as often you only have a minute or two to build up a bit of your economy before another wave shows up.
>>> (There's a feature to delay the next wave by 30 seconds, and I often found that to be pretty critical to get a few extra moments to put out fires and get my guys in position).
>>>>> (Doing that lowers your score multiplier, but even with the lower multiplier I usually end up with a higher total score when more time is added, as it gives me more time to build my base/forces and kill the outer guardians).
*(Like with T.A.B. you can pause the game to place buildings and issue orders if things get hectic, but most missions I didn't need to use it more than a handful of times).
The fire mechanic is probably my least favorite feature, certain enemies can light buildings (and units) on fire, and it will spread and do damage over time (including to stone buildings, frustratingly enough).
>>> (It takes your units a bit to put out the fires and sometimes it seems to spread faster than you can deal with it. I wish that the repair button would just take care of the fire when there are no enemies nearby, or there should be some kinda building/unit that can put out fires faster than the others).
Overall though, I liked being able to build up layered walls with towers and defenses, and level up my troops by having them move from area to area during the waves (at least until the later waves on the harder levels where you'll need troops everywhere), and aside from the fire/disease mechanic I don't think anything was too frustrating.
I also liked that the Tier 2 units (that you have to research to get) were a lot tougher, hit harder, and usually had either area of effect attacks or longer range to justify the increased resource cost. Though any of the units/buildings that used "Star Metal" I tended to only use very sparingly, since there's hardly any of those resource nodes on the map.
I also liked that the main hero can level up several times, eventually becoming a "one man army" that can usually hold one of your choke-points nearly by themselves.
There were some missed opportunities.
There's a comic in game that's quite well illustrated and well written, but it's a side feature that you read outside the main game. I think with some work they could have inserted pages of it in-between missions and made things more immersive.
I also think that the Market place not auto selling your excess resources is a bit of a no brainier, and something that causes you to have to do extra micro-management from time to time. (This is something T.A.B. did better, as their market frequently did auto sell extra resources).
It's also odd that pausing the game makes it far easier to upgrade your buildings, as without it you have to click on them and find the upgrade button.
>>> (I kinda wish you could just select multiple buildings then upgrade all of them. Or have it so that the upgrade overlay from the pause menu could be turned on/off without pausing).
As mentioned before, I wish you could put out fires (when no enemies are nearby) with the repair button. Either that or have some building/unit that can put them out more effectively.
>>> (The fire mechanic often requires unit micro-management, making it frustrating to deal with as you're often already pressed for time in-between waves as is).
Also this game has Co-Op, I've tried it once or twice and it can be pretty fun; though it uses shared resources, so sometimes you can interfere with the other players expansion plans by accident if you're not careful.
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Overall, even though I like this game better than "They Are Billions" (as I found that T.A.B. too frustrating to enjoy), I'd say this game could use a bit more polish and balancing to go from good to great.
I'd give it a solid 7/10, I could see myself playing this for another 20-30 hours, and it was well worth the purchase price.
So if you want something kinda like T.A.B. (but not as ridiculously difficult), give this game a shot.
Steam User 2
Underrated, severely. And it is a mistake to call it an RTS, this is more like a tower defence gem with some minor topdown adventure/"city builder"/RTS elements.
Steam User 0
Overall an enjoyable game I would say is a lesser version of "There are Billions'.
The developer has essentially stopped work on it and the 'community' is directed to their website where there is virtually no activity, so there really isn't great information on strategy, tips, deeper points of the game, etc. It's a shame because I think if they allowed Steam to be the primary community for the game, it'd have much more longevity.
I am 'done' as of hour 37, which I consider a pretty good value for the price of the game.
37 hours is what it took me to play the campaign through and play a game or two of endless mode.
I personally feel like the end-game is wonky: the tower selection and end-game balancing really makes it difficult to truly enjoy any kind of endless version of the game.
Steam User 0
Great RTS base defense game. Challenging but fair. Economy, combat and upgrades are all pretty solid and well designed. The game seems to struggle a bit on my machine but maybe that's just me. Sometimes the units refuse to respond for quite a while and the path finding can be a bit wonky. Fire OP.
Steam User 0
Hey, for all intents and purposes its a competent, well done RTS mechanically. My brother and I always talked about how fun a game built around the missions in other RTS games where you just need to defend the base for a certain amount of time, and this game delivers a fun experience within that pitch.
BUT
Why are myself and my brother having such a muddy time trying to get coop to work? I doubt it will get fixed, and I don't want to badger them more than what a lot of other more tempermental fans have, but it keeps crashing on my brothers computer with a glitchy window that won't play in full screen, told him his drivers were out of date, updated them, still nothing, turned off bonus effects as was suggested by the devs in a similar post, still similar wacky issues. LOVE the game, Love the vibe, essence and gameplay, you guys made a good game, but just fix these little things and itll be a GREAT Game!
Steam User 1
not as bad as cringelords say. would be nice if auto-save wasnt so invasive and a hindrance on performance and gameplay though
Steam User 5
I am really enjoying this "finished version" of They are Billions. I love the theme, and I really enjoy how it makes you think about how you are going to use your finite resources. Big thumbs up from me!
EDIT: July 19th-----
I now have 80 hours in the game. I am still learning new things! This is one of those games where it is easy to learn the basics, but hard to master.
I love starting up a game and trying new things .. for example... go down the magic path early instead of the going right for the Engineer upgrades early.
I must say, I had trouble until I started to double up my walls. I finally managed to finish the last of the 5 mission "campaign" (it has 25 waves) in a breeze after I did that. That's a key point!
-----Wall-----
Tower
-----Wall----
That is your key to not getting wiped out after wave 10 or so.
You can adjust the difficulty, but it is not easy! But it isn't supposed to be. You can pause the game as you like and think about your strategy. This game puts the "S" in RTS. You have to think about how you are going to spend your limited resources. This game is to the RTS genre that Dark Souls is to the 3rd person action game. Yes, it can be difficult, but when you succeed the satisfaction that you get from it is that much greater.
People moaning about difficulty I think just need to practice more. There is a reason why there is no in-game save feature, just like why you can't save willy nilly in Dark Souls. I saw someone describe this as an RTS rogue like. I think that is accurate.
Also, several of the reviews that came out when this game was released mentioned various bugs and annoying quirks. The devs have been *great* with the updates and responding to player feedback. The bug where your guys wouldn't put out fires by themselves has been fixed for example.
Look, if you get into this game from the right mindset, you will love this game as much as I do. But if you just want to win right away without any kind of a challenge or using your mind then you may have to take a pass.