I grew up playing Age of Empires, Seven Kingdoms, Supreme Commande, Total Annihilation, and recently Planetary Annihilation. They Are Billions shakes up the research tree into a refreshing out-of-play system by wrapping it into the overall campaign so that you're more locked into a play style that suits you. I don't see this as a detriment; not researching the same techs in each play is more accurate to how a real story would work. This game has a massive spectrum of difficulty. Different enemies, different environments and choke-points, different overall difficulty settings. This game can be as easy as Seven Kingdoms 1, or as hard as Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance when versus a cheating AI Rush. Plus, the additional game modes (the isometric point-and-click hero RPG-like missions and the king-of-the-hill defense missions) wrapped into the campaign shake it up. There are not nearly enough RTS games being made today, but They Are Billions came in with not only a well-playing game, but a nice twist on much of the formula.
