The steampunk zombie survival RTS They are Billions has become a sensation over the new year break. You build bases, suck resources out of the terrain nearby, and then produce as many soldiers as you can to withstand the increasingly fervent attentions of the zombie hordes nearby. Instead of hunting down an enemy base, all you have to do is survive to win. Sounds easy, doesn't it? It's not. It's horribly, horribly hard.

As the game kicked my ass repeatedly earlier today, I was reminded of a few different games that have toyed with this formula before. It looks like an RTS, thanks to the base building and unit production, but plays like a tower defence game. Here are a few other good games that explore this curious in-between space, mainly by throwing thousands of bad guys at you.

StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty

If you want to hold off hordes of enemies as they run riot through your base, then the Terran vs. Zerg singleplayer missions in StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty are a good choice. In Haven's Fall the Zerg move to infest human settlements as your Terran army tries to stop them. In Outbreak you start surrounded by zombified settlements that vomit out hordes of aliens every time night falls—sound familiar? StarCraft 2 marines look pretty similar to your basic gun troops in They are Billions, and TaB's watchtowers are basically StarCraft 2 bunkers.

Desktop Tower Defense

There is a strong tower defence element to They are Billions. Waves of creeps attack from different directions and mindlessly throw themselves against your defences until you or they are toast. Most tower defence games, like Defense Grid: The Awakening, funnel creeps into a set path that you cover with gun turrets. Desktop Tower Defense and They are Billions share a more open format. In both games you funnel the creeps into kill zones using the most efficient unit/tower placement you can invent. DTD has an advantage because it's free and you can play it in your browser.

Revenge of the Titans

Revenge of the Titans features giant city-wrecking Pac Man ghosts instead of zombies but, deep down, they hate the living all the same. This wave defence game has a much more developed resource system than Desktop Tower Defense, and you can place buildings with a bit more freedom than games like Defense Grid. Plus it has satisfying lasers that you can control with your cursor.

Infested Planet

Another RTS about fending off thousands of enemies at once, Infested Planet sets your desperate last stand on a luminous neon world swarming with hundreds of alien creatures. You command a squad of five marines on a desperate mission to find a chokepoint and throw down some turrets. If you hold off the horde long enough you can start to spend resources and upgrade your squad's weapons. Look out for the hives nearby—they spawn increasingly tricky monsters as you fight through the campaign.

Project Zomboid

Project Zomboid is a survival game rather than a RTS game, but you're still gathering resources, building defences and fending off massive hordes of zombies. Death is inevitable, but it's the horrible, lingering journey full of disease and suffering that counts. Project Zomboid has been receiving new features since its Early Access debut in 2013, and has evolved into a deep, clever sandbox game that, like They are Billions, will kill you ruthlessly over and over.

Our own Matt Sayer once used Planetoid Pioneers as a platform for (somewhat successfully) turning a Mazda 323 into a moon rover, but developer Data Realms reckons it's better suited to exploring planetoids filled with unique vehicles, enemies and items. Today the studio announced players will be able to do just that when the game leaves Steam Early Access and officially launches on Steam and the Humble Store on February 8, 2018 for $20.  

Planetoid Pioneers was pitched as a physics-driven space adventure game, its main hook being its diverse game modes. Different planetoids present radically different challenges, Data Realms says, which are held up by "seamless" co-op play. 

There's also a big emphasis on player-made content. "Players can create their own weapons, vehicles, characters, even their own world and drop them into the game while it's running," DataRealms said in a press release. "User-generated content can be shared, rated, and downloaded via the Steam Workshop, while the best of it is automatically incorporated into the game."

Last November, we spoke to Data Realms' Dan Tabar about this curation system. To hear Tabar tell it, Planetoid Pioneers was wholly built around "the idea of elevating modders into contributors who are empowered and encouraged to work alongside the official development team." 

In celebration of Planetoid Pioneers Early Access graduation, Data Realm's first game, Cortex Command, will be free on Steam from February 3 to February 4.  

We like the deep-sea-living sim Subnautica quite a bit around here. Enough to include it among our choices for "best underwater games" last summer, which is admittedly something of a niche sub-genre—but still a valid recognition of its quality. It's also not terribly far off of two million owners on Steam. That makes it easy to forget that the game is actually still in Early Access. 

But after three years of availability, and recent updates that include stealth submarine technology, high-fiving fish, and eye candy, developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment announced today that the full launch is scheduled to take place on January 23.   

The livestream will include the premiere of the Subnautica cinematic trailer, developer interviews, actual sea creatures (although I'm guessing they won't be interviewed) and the "live pushing of the Big Red Launch Button." The stream will begin at 6:15 pm ET/9:15 pm PT, and will be carried on Twitch. You can sign up for a reminder at unknownworlds.com.

It looks slick, doesn’t it? A polished SWAT squad that knows exactly when to move and which angles to cover. When Door Kickers comes together it’s a fluid dance of flash grenades, muzzle flashes, and dead terrorists. The problem is that you start each mission with two left feet. The short video above is the result of more than two hours of testing and probing, trial and error, and many trips back to the drawing board. Polishing it off was genuinely one of the best feelings I had with a mouse and keyboard in 2017. Quite impressive for a game that came out in 2014.   

It was the release of a side-scrolling spin-off called Action Squad that brought me back to Door Kickers and, having played a bit when it first released, I wanted to see if I was still any good. The stage was 255th Precinct, a mission with 16 terrorists packed into an overrun police station. I had to clear them all without dying to get three stars and make sure the hostage they were holding kept his skull intact. Hardest of all, I was shooting for a ‘single plan completion’, which means plotting out your police officers’ moves during a paused ‘planning phase’ at the start of the mission, then setting it all in motion with your fingers crossed. 

Here’s what happened. 

Take point

In Door Kickers, the choices start when you see a level for the first time. You assemble what you think will be the best squad for the job, and kit them out with guns that match the mission’s balance of long sight lines and tight corridors. I saw a mixture of both, so picked a variety of close-quarters specialists and officers that could hold their own at range. 

I like to split squads of four into two groups, so I selected a point man, Monk, to head up one group and Sebastien, carrying a riot shield, for the other. Behind them were Angela and her SMG and the M4-wielding Bryan (yeah, the naming system isn’t one of its strengths). I figured there were two main routes to take. The first group would clear out the big room in the top left, and the second would head to the hallway in the bottom left.

[The images below are all gifs. If you're on mobile you might need to tap them so they animate.]

I ordered the top group to pick the lock of the first door they encountered to avoid noise, but my second group, Monk and Bryan, went in more aggressively, fanning out across the bottom hallway. They were promptly shot in the back by an enemy lurking in the corner of an adjoining office. 

Next time, I told Monk to lob a grenade through the window to the office first, investigate, and kill anyone in sight. Meanwhile, Bryan would take cover to the top of the corridor, ready to murder anyone curious enough to pop their head out of the door to the right. 

It didn’t exactly go to plan. Door Kickers is a game of angles, and if you’re off by a few degrees you get punished. During the planning phase, you can click and drag with the right mouse button to tell your squad members which way to face at any given time, ensuring they check any danger spots. When you pull it off and get them spinning like a top and popping headshots, it feels great. But I hadn’t quite cracked it. Monk caught the slightest glimpse of an enemy but the route I had plotted quickly took him out of sight. Bullets tore Bryan’s back apart. No good. I’d have to be more exact. 

A precision machine

After a couple of tweaks I got the angles right: I told Monk to look left, then right, then move on. I also told him to stay put until any tangos in sight had been killed, another useful command in your Door Kickers arsenal. But as so often happens, once I solved one problem another arose. The loud bangs attracted guards from the long corridor to the right. When they opened the door I had a clear line of sight to the hostage, but the terrorists guarding him could see me too. They shot him in the head immediately.   

I tinkered for 15 minutes to find a way around it, trying to reach the door and chuck a flashbang to blind the guards before crossing the threshold. But I couldn’t get there in time: the noise of fighting always brought enemies running through the door, opening up that sightline. The hostage died again and again, poor fellow. I even tried sending my team to the door via a completely different route, coming from above rather than from below. But it was no use. 

I wrote the whole area off as a bad job. Maybe a four-man assault on the room at the top left would be a good way to start. Then my squad could wrap all the way around the map, and come at the hostage guards from the back, hopefully catching them by surprise. That was the theory. In practice, too many cops spoil the broth.   

I knew from testing that there were normally enemies in the top left corner of the large room, and sometimes to the top right as well (Door Kickers’ enemy placements are semi-random). My plan was to flashbang both corners, sending the two squads in simultaneously, one from the left door, one from the bathroom to the right. I sent Sebastien and Angela round to the bathroom, while Monk and Bryan stayed put at the first door, ready to breach. 

When Monk opened the door to throw a flash in, Bryan could pick off anyone he could see with his M4 before moving in himself. And when Angela opened the door, Sebastien could block any damage with his shield. In hindsight, I should’ve just put them all in safe positions and moved in when the enemies were stunned, but with a bit of tinkering it still worked a treat. I could get all four officers into the room without taking any damage, and clear out the enemies without an issue.   

But Door Kickers wouldn’t let me off that easy. The noise from the fight stirred the enemies near the hostages, where Monk and Bryan had initially been. The terrorists spread out across the unwatched bottom of the map, often having clear shots at the backs of my squad. Sometimes my squad survived, but I couldn’t risk it—and besides, it made it much harder to track the terrorists’ locations (you can see one of them sneak up behind me in the clip below).   

Lockdown

To contain the terrorists, I was going to have to confront the bottom of the map, and that dreaded hostage door. Monk and Bryan were given back their unenviable task. After experimenting for a good 15 minutes I found that if I didn’t throw the initial flashbang into the small office, enemies wouldn’t cotton on straight away, and therefore the hostage door would remain closed for longer. 

As Monk swept the room and cleared the enemies in the office, I placed Bryan at the end of corridor looking up into the bathroom, in a position where he couldn’t see the hostage even if that door had opened. And after Monk had finished his rounds, I set him up at an angle, ready to pounce on any strays. 

As you can see, it worked a treat. The pair stood there mopping up any enemies that came to investigate, and it meant that Sebastien and Angela above could operate in relative peace. All I needed was a plan that would let them clear the top-left room and sweep around the top of the map. 

I ditched Sebastien’s shield to give him more mobility. Angela would flash the room from the bathroom, as before, and to control Sebastien I set up my first ‘go order’. Basically, you place these at points in your plan and an officer won’t proceed past that point until you hit the corresponding letter on your keyboard (A, B, C, D). It means you feel more involved than, say, Frozen Synapse, another top-down tactical shooter, because you play an active part in the action. Hitting the button at just the right time can be the difference between success and failure.  

When Angela’s grenade went off she and Sebastien (on my command) stormed the room, covering each other’s angles perfectly. The stunned terrorists were sitting ducks. I cleared the room and made my way the courtyard at the top of the level. Finally, I was really getting somewhere.   

Take no chances or prisoners

Bursting through the door into the courtyard at the top of the map, my officers were met by a pair of goons. The first time I ran out, my guys won. The second time, Sebastien took a headshot and went down. This deviation is a core part of Door Kickers: you have to build a plan for every situation, and give your officers as much advantage as possible in case of a bad dice roll. To stack things in my favor I flash-banged the garage before poking my head out. 

I love the feeling when you roll out of cover and obliterate stunned enemies. "X-Ray down," your squad says as they steam forward. My pair swung into the garage simultaneously to take out another enemy inside, and then I had a clear run back into the precinct. 

There was only one door between me and the hostage. Monk and Bryan were waiting, on my go order, to swing around and take a shot at the guards and anyone else nearby. I just needed a distraction to give them a chance. I told Sebastien to crowbar down the door. When he and Angela were ready, I’d activate Monk and Bryan’s go order, and the whole thing would turn into a giant ball of death that, hopefully, the hostage could steer clear of (your squad can’t shoot hostages, so I wasn’t worried). 

The first time I tried it, Sebastien got his head blown off as soon as the door fell. When you break down a door in Door Kickers the guy doing it just hangs around for a few seconds after, presumably to stash their crowbar and pull out their weapon. So, I positioned Angela so she’d be looking through the door when it burst open, ready to shoot down the offender. 

The last bit of the puzzle was the timing. I had set a go order for Monk and Bryan to come in from the left, creating a crossfire. I had a couple of muck-ups where I brought my left squad in too early, shooting one terrorist but giving the other just enough time to pull the trigger before his own head was blown off. Eventually, I got it down, and the two guards fell within milliseconds of each other. The only thing left was to hunt down the remaining terrorists with some simple patrols, and that was that. I’d done it.

And now I just want to do it again and again. According to KillHouse Games their sequel, Door Kickers 2: Task Force North, will release at least its Early Access version in 2018. I can’t wait, though I hope it can fix one huge issue with the game’s planning system: you can’t move a waypoint without destroying every order after it. If you’ve set up a long chain of commands you can’t alter an early one without starting over, which is criminal. 

If KillHouse can fix that, and maybe throw in a few more command options, I suspect Door Kickers 2 will be a stone cold classic.   

If you're looking to up your stealth game in Fallout 4, creep on over to Nexus Mods and slip the Tactical Distraction System mod into your bag of tricks. The mod lets you whistle or toss a bolt, creating a sound that will catch the attention of an enemy (or enemies) in the vicinity, luring them over.

These two features work a little differently. Whistling will lure an enemy over to the spot you whistled from, so you can either whistle and then scuttle away, or wait in place to take them out. Throwing a bolt, meanwhile, will lure the enemy to the location where the bolt hits the ground. It's a bit reminiscent of Metal Gear, or Hitman.

Your enemies won't be sitting ducks, modder FLipdeezy promises. They'll search around the area carefully, and they won't be distracted if they're already in combat.

The ability to whistle is automatically added as an inventory item upon installing the mod, while the bolts will need to be crafted at a chemistry station. Check out a video of the mod in action below.

Montreal-based studio Spearhead Games, best known for the action RPG Stories: The Path of Destinies, announced their next game today: Omensight, a "time-looping mystery action game" which serves as a "spiritual successor" to Stories, according to this FAQ. 

Omensight puts players in the shoes of the time-bending Harbinger and tasks them with solving a murder in the fantasy world of Urralia. The murder kickstarted Urralia's destruction, you see, and you've got to crack the case and prevent it.

As the Harbinger, players can manipulate time to see events from different perspectives and follow different characters connected to the murder. "Appear alongside them during their final moments to learn how their decisions unfold, or confront them and foil their plans," Omensight's reveal trailer description reads. Some of these characters can also become companions. 

Your sleuthing also involves some slashing, mind. You're a pivotal player in several stories, and when those stories call for action, Spearhead reckons you'll need to "make use of the Harbinger's sword techniques and creatively combine time-slowing spells." Spearhead says there are over 12 bosses and 20 enemies in Omensight, with the game itself clocking in at 12 to 20 hours long by their estimate.

The teaser trailer above doesn't give us much of a sense of how Omensight will play, but we do know it's built in Unreal Engine 4. Spearhead plans to release Omensight on PC "very soon." 

Tales get told on the internet and not all of them are true, and a wild story about the development of Morrowind that recently popped up on 4chan definitely had a hard-to-believe ring to it. But it led someone claiming to be a former employee of 2K Marin to suggest that, based on his experiences while working on BioShock 2, the story was at least possible. When another commenter questioned the purported dev's credentials, he proved it by revealing a hidden debug code that, he claimed, had never been seen before. 

"In BioShock 1, go to the second half of Hephaestus where you first encounter Ryan in person. Use Incinerate to get you down to 1 HP, then use it again on the area where the cutscene triggers and walk into it. You'll die right when the scene starts, but wind up in a Vita Chamber outside the map. Turn on Art Captions and you'll see a developer message about Paul Hellquist not doing his job," the mystery developer wrote. "No one has found this bug yet publicly, it's in all versions." 

Lacking the time to install and power through BioShock myself to confirm the claim, I opted to reach out to Ken Levine, thinking (without really thinking) that "Kline" was some kind of hip developer street name—like K-Fed, but for videogames. Obviously, that is not the case.

"Kline would be Chris Kline, technical director/lead programmer of BioShock. But [the code] seems consistent with dev team jokes," Levine gently informed me. "Programmers can be merciless on us designer when we do stupid stuff."

He also helpfully shared a spot of Kline-related trivia: "When Chris (one of the nicest guys you'll meet) would refuse a feature request due to time constraints, we would say we were 'De-Klined'."

Kline confirmed that the code was in fact the real deal, although somewhat disappointingly he pointed out that this isn't actually the first time it's been seen: A Twitter user shared the discovery with him in September 2016, although it doesn't appear that very many people noticed.

"It was never supposed to be visible to end users. It's there because some objects in the game were supposed to have descriptions when you put your cursor over them, but others were not, and therefore it wasn't possible to write code to automatically validate all the content in the game for the proper presence or absence of descriptive text," he explained. 

"The lead designer (Paul Hellquist) and I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out how to make this less error prone, and in the end Paul just promised that his team would 'take care of it.' Being a skeptical programmer, I wanted to make sure that the QA team could easily identify objects that the design team missed, so I set the default object description to that cheeky message."

"The message was embedded in the code in such a way that it should have been removed from the final build of the game, and I believe (though I haven't personally confirmed) that in the original releases of BioShock it indeed was removed. However, it definitely appears in the Remastered edition of the game, so perhaps something changed in the build process for that version which prevented it from being stripped out."

Despite the shade thrown, Kline echoed Levine in saying that the message was all in good fun. "Some people think it was some kind of insult to Paul, but far from it—it was an 'in-joke' between us both. I always smile when I see people posting images with that message. It reminds me of all the amazing camaraderie and colleagues I had while working on BioShock. It was an amazing game made by fabulously talented people, and truly one of the greatest experiences of my working career."

He also confirmed Levine's story of "de-Klined" feature requests.

A video demonstrating another very tedious way to trigger the debug text is down below.

Whether you enjoy turn based games or a good RTS, 2018 will present some interesting options. Naturally, the brace of current 4X games like Civilization 6, Stellaris and Endless Space 2 will continue to receive expansions and updates throughout the year, but there are a bunch of new titles to look forward to besides. Here are the ones we're most excited about, and a few that we can expect to see appearing in 2019 and beyond.

Frozen Synapse 2

Developer: Mode 7 | Release date: 2018 | Link: Official site

Frozen Synapse was a sleek, streamlined tactical squad combat game released in 2011. A tight variety of weapon types and smart asynchronous multiplayer helped it to stand out, now the sequel plans to couch these combat encounters in a procedurally generated city populated by embattled corporations. As in the original game, you give orders to your neon operatives in five second bursts by drawing out pathing and aiming instructions, then you press 'go' and watch your orders play out. The core combat is proven, but we'll have to see how the addition of an overworld relic-hunting metagame builds on those fine foundations. The digitised cut-glass cities already look gorgeous.

A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia

Developer: The Creative Assembly | Release date: 2018 | Link: Official site

Total War fans waiting for a return to history could be in for a treat as The Creative Assembly debut the "Saga" series. It's a sizeable Total War game with a much tighter focus on a particular flashpoint in history, namely the aftermath of Alfred the Great's victory against the Vikings at the battle of Edington. Three factions are poised to fight for control of the British isles, but the country is rendered at a much greater scale than we've seen before in a Total War. Take a look at the map at the end of the video below and you can see how the game intends to zoom in and explore the territory in detail.

BattleTech

Developer: Harebrained Schemes | Release date: Early 2018 | Link: Official site

We like everything we've seen so far of this turn based mech combat game. You spend half of your time engaging enemies with a squad of highly customisable mechs, and half managing your mercenary organisation in a tough universe where betrayal is a constant risk. Learn more in our interview at the PC Gaming Show, where we learned more about your home base and the strategic metagame that binds your missions together. BattleTech/MechWarrior creator Jordan Weisman is onboard, so long-term fans of the BattleTech universe can expect a detailed and authentic take on the universe.

Into the Breach

Developer: Subset Games | Release date: TBA | Link: Official site

It is a good year to be a mech fan. Into the Breach, from the developers of FTL, doesn't have an official release date yet even though from what we've played it could come out tomorrow and be brilliant. It's a turn based tactical combat game set over a tightly limited turn count. In each encounter you have to do is survive an onslaught of giant creatures burrowing up from beneath the planet's surface, but where many strategy games rely on dice rolls and happenstance to generate drama and tactical dilemmas, Into the Breath shows you everything. You know exactly how and where each enemy is going to strike next, and how much damage they will do. Then it's up to you to craft a perfect series of attacks to push enemies around the battlefield and blow them up for sweet XP.

Phoenix Point

Developer: Snapshot Games | Release date: 2018 | Link: Official site

The creator of the original X-Com, Julian Gollop, is returning to the genre he helped create with an exciting modern take on the formula. Bodypart targeting, mutating enemies and a grittier look all help separate Phoenix Point from Firaxis' recent XCOM reboots. Soldiers will have willpower and endurance stats to model how stressed they feel when they get shot by alien crabs with miniguns for arms, and there are multiple human factions with their own tech preferences. Of course you can expect to repurpose crab tech for your own purposes, in true X-Com fashion.

Age of Empires: Definitive Edition

Developer: Microsoft | Release date: Early 2018 | Link: Official site

This could be a dream remaster of one of the best loved PC series ever. The art has been updated to look good at modern resolutions, the population cap has been increased, you can zoom out, pathfinding has been adjusted, you can attack-move, there's an "enhanced orchestral soundtracK" and more. The package will include the original campaign and the scenario editor. The only drawback is the game is releasing "exclusively to Window 10 PCs" according to the Microsoft Store page. Hopefully we'll see it coming to a wider range of PCs later.

Wargroove

Developer: Chucklefish | Release date: Early 2018 | Link: Official site 

This will look very familiar to Advance War players, but we're sorely lacking bright turn based tactical games like this. Wargroove's four factions are depicted in vivid pixel art, and include exciting unit types like 'dog' and a very excited archer. Careful positioning and adjacency bonuses are everything in the Advance War formula.

Abandon Ship

Developer: Fireblade Software | Release date: Early 2018 | Link: Official site

An FTL-esque oceanic romp set in a procedurally generated seascape full of pirates and the odd tentacle monster. You order your crew around your vessel during sea battles as they load cannons, fix holes in the hub, and fend off boarding attempts. Meanwhile you have to target your enemy using a range of attacks, from cannons to chain shot that ruins sails. Between battles you navigate between ports to take on missions, earn bounties and upgrade your ship.

Phantom Doctrine

Developer: Creative Forge Games | Release date: 2018 | Link: Official site 

If the phrase 'Cold War XCOM' piques your interest, keep an eye on this tactical squad game in which you command a team of agents. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to sabotage opposing nations, recover intel and flip enemy agents. Stealth is preferable of course, but you can charge in with a machinegun if the circumstances warrant. There is no in-game footage yet, but the first screenshots are full of moody lighting and period outfits.

Looking further ahead

Age of Empires 4: Easily one of the most exciting  strategy games on the horizon. A slim concept-art only teaser trailer reveal suggests that it could be some way off, but genre-specialists Relic Entertainment are developing the project, It's a great opportunity to bring back a bastion of PC gaming.

Warhammer 40,000: Gladius—Relics of War: In the grim darkness of the future there is war on hexes, where futuristic units take it in turn to annihilate one another for the glory of their respective factions. Warhammer 40K stalwarts the Ultramarines, Orks, Imperial Guard and Necrons  duke it out in this follow up to Slitherine's Sanctus Reach and Armageddon.

Forged Battalion: Forged Battalion is a colourful RTS from the vets at Petroglyph. You forge your battalion using an extensive unit customisation suite before taking them to the field to battle The Collective. It's due to enter Early Access soon but the final release date is as yet unknown.

Phantom Brigade. Another mech game—hooray! This one features turn-based battles in destructible environments and, true to the genre, heavy war machine customisation between missions.

Following the Cree announcement last week—and the criticism that followed—2K and Firaxis have unveiled the next civ en route to Civilization 6. Led by Golden Age ruler Tamar, Georgia will feature in the geopolitical strategy game's incoming Rise and Fall expansion. 

As detailed in the 'First Look' trailer below, Georgia's unique ability is Strength in Unity whereby the player receives an additional bonus when transitioning into a Golden Age. Naturally, this means Georgia is better placed to achieve and, crucially, maintain Golden Ages over rival civs. 

Replacing the Renaissance Walls, Georgia's unique building is the Tsikhe—Georgian fortresses situated atop neighbouring hills and rocky cliffs that provide faith. Moreover, the Khevsureti marks the Georgian's unique unit whose melee approach leverages a combat bonus on hill terrain. As such, the Khevsureti ignores all hill movement penalties.

As for Tamar herself, her leader ability is Glory of the World, Kingdom and Faith. It's described thusly: 

Tamar can declare a Protectorate War after gaining the Theology Civic. Considering Tamar’s upbringing—and how she was known to inspire her troops before battle, they gain bonus Faith for a limited time after declaring a Protectorate War. In addition, Georgia gains bonuses as they continue to deliver the word of God. An Envoy sent to a city-state of your majority religion counts as two. 

More information on Tamar the Great can read via this blog post. Georgia is set to arrive in Civilization 6's Rise and Fall expansion, due February 8, 2018. 

Update: After failing GOG's idiosyncratic internal curation system earlier this year, Zachtronics' Opus Magnum was denied access to the CD Projekt-owned digital storefront. As outlined in our original story below, the process appeared as confusing as it did complicated—particularly given the quality of the game in question. 

Now, GOG has reversed its decision. "We did it! You did it! And then we did it! It's good to finally have the brilliant-yet-approachable Opus Magnum," reads this tweet, before pointing those interested towards the game's newly-launched store page and a limited-time ten percent discount. 

When quizzed about its U-turn, GOG followed up by saying that despite its curation process, it does take what its community wants into consideration with every decision. 

Another tweet reads: "The game's outstanding quality and community demand speak loudly and clearly—we're human, we're not infallible, but we're also not immovable. It's great that we get to listen, reevaluate, and bring Opus Magnum's to our catalog in the end—it's every bit worth it."

Our original story follows.

Original story: 

Opus Magnum, the latest puzzle game from Zach 'Zachtronics' Barth, received one of our highest review scores in 2017. Alex gave it a 91, calling it "one of the very best puzzle games of the year, if not the decade." It's somewhat surprising, then, that it was rejected by game distributor GOG. 

In a recent tweet, Barth shared a statement sent by GOG, which explains that Opus Magnum hasn't appeared on the storefront because it "did not pass [GOG's] internal curation system." Further explaining its position, GOG wrote: 

"We take into consideration many other factors than just the actual game itself—the reviews we provide for example do not review the game in general; so like an objective game review like on PC Gamer or what not—but we do it from the angle of our entire user-base." 

I reached out to GOG for clarification, and the company confirmed the statement Barth posted is legitimate, adding that they "don't want to comment further on it." 

Opus Magnum's rejection sparked a debate around how videogame storefronts are curated, with Steam's much-maligned Direct program serving as a counterpoint. Naturally, some backed up Opus Magnum, while others argued that missing a gem or two is a small price to pay for weeding out the sort of shovelware that routinely clogs Steam's new release page.