Pest Termina ~ Swarm Defense

Overview

Pest Termina ~ Swarm Defense is a $8.99 hybrid strategy game from solo dev Alesic Studio that launched November 10, 2026. The loop is two games stitched together: on a world map you grow your base one day per turn, and when a raid hits your sector, you drop onto that region's battlefield and hold back a horde in real time with RTS controls. Win means stopping the Final Assault on the HQ Heights on day 50.

The swarm is not a metaphor. Raids reach ten thousand enemies at once, by land and air, and the hive evolves differently every run, so a defense that carried you on one campaign can collapse on the next. Localized into more than 15 languages at launch, with 22 achievements, four difficulty levels, and a guided Practice Battle that walks you through the controls step by step.

Who it is for: They Are Billions players who want shorter sessions, fans of They Are Billions-style horde pressure who prefer the pressure in instalments, and anyone who likes the "build in peace, panic on schedule" rhythm.

Who should bounce off it: players who want pure turn-based puzzling or pure RTS. Half the game is each; if you only like one half, the other half will feel like homework.

Getting Started: Your First 50 Days

1. Do the Practice Battle before anything else. It teaches RTS controls with step-by-step guidance: line formation, attack-move, building placement. Twenty minutes here saves you a blown campaign later.
2. Settle for production, not for pretty borders. On the world map, every sector you claim is one day closer to the next raid. Grab sectors with production buildings in mind: troops and turrets come from buildings, not from territory size.
3. Read the horde clock. Hordes advance one tile per day. The tile they are on is public information, so every turn you can count exactly how many days remain before contact. Do not spend those days on decoration buildings.
4. Fight every raid, even the boring ones. The longer you wait, the bigger the raid. Early battles are cheap practice for the day 20+ waves where the real evolution kicks in.
5. Expect day 50 to be a wall. The Final Assault on the HQ Heights is not a scaled version of earlier raids; it is the exam. Build your economy with the exam date in mind from day one.

Beginner mistakes to avoid

• Building turrets without Walls. Turrets on open ground melt to melee chaff. The game gives you Walls, high ground, and Outposts as structure; use at least one of the three before placing guns.
• Ignoring air enemies until they arrive. Raids come by land and air. A ground-only defense line wins the first three battles and loses the fourth.
• Hoarding commander abilities for the "right moment." Each commander has three abilities with cooldowns. Using them to save twenty troops on day 12 is what keeps twenty troops alive on day 40.
• Teching greedily into elite units. The tech tree runs from marines up to drone carriers and prism tanks. Marines with Walls beat elites without economy. Production first, shine later.
• Fighting on procedural terrain you have not read. Seven terrain types generate fresh each battle. Ten seconds of reading choke points before placing the first Barricade is worth more than any micro.

Core Mechanics Explained

The world map: one day per turn

The turn layer is an economy puzzle. Each turn is one day: develop sectors, raise production buildings to make troops and turrets, research upgrades. The hive advances one tile per day on the same clock, so the map is a countdown wearing a 4X costume. Your decisions are sequencing decisions: what to build, in which order, before the swarm arrives. Sector choice matters because raids land on specific battlefields; if the horde is two days from a sector, that sector's defenses are what you fight with.

Defense battles: RTS controls under horde pressure

When a raid reaches your territory, the game drops onto that sector's battlefield in real time. You build Barricades and turrets around Walls, high ground, and Outposts, and you command troops with classic RTS verbs: line formation, attack-move, Bunkers, Assault Gunships. Ten thousand enemies is not exaggeration, so the game is about throughput: your line's damage per second versus the horde's bodies per second, with terrain deciding how many bodies can reach you at once.

Commanders: four play styles

Each of the four commanders ships with unique starting troops, a passive, and three active abilities. The commander choice shapes both layers: starting troops determine your early world map aggression, while abilities are your panic buttons in battles. Pick one per run and learn its rhythm before rotating; a commander you know beats a commander that theoretically counters the hive strain.

The evolving enemy

New enemy types appear as days pass, and every run evolves the hive differently. This is the run-to-run variety engine: your day 30 answer last campaign may not exist this campaign. Scout what the swarm has become before committing tech, and treat unknown new enemies as puzzles rather than damage sponges.

Step-by-Step Strategy: A Campaign Template

1. Days 1-7: economy. Claim adjacent sectors and raise production buildings. Troops from buildings beat troops from thin air; your only combat goal this week is surviving small raids.
2. Days 8-14: first defense lines. With steady production, pre-build Walls and turrets on sectors in the horde's path. High ground placements double the value of every turret you own.
3. Days 15-25: tech and scouting. Push up the tech tree toward your mid-game comp (Bunkers and Assault Gunships for defense-heavy play). Watch what evolutions the hive has shown and tech against them.
4. Days 26-40: consolidation. Repair, reinforce, and build depth behind your lines. The battles in this window are the attrition check: if you are losing turrets faster than you produce them, your economy is a day or two behind schedule.
5. Days 41-50: the HQ Heights. The Final Assault comes to you. Layer your defense: Walls in front, Barricades and turrets behind, troops in line formation on high ground, commander abilities saved for the moment the air wave crests. Ten thousand bugs arrive; the battlefield can only fit so many at once, and that number is your win condition.

Advanced Tips

• Anchor every line on terrain, not buildings. High ground and choke points multiply firepower. A modest line on perfect terrain outperforms a rich line on flat ground.
• Keep one Bunker's worth of reserve troops. Battles are lost in the second wave when your line is at half health. A mobile reserve lets you patch the breach without dismantling your formation.
• Attack-move, never plain-move, through unscouted space. Idle troops walk past enemies. Attack-move makes them fight what they meet, which matters on procedural maps with blind corners.
• Count the tiles, then budget days. Since hordes advance one tile per day, you can always compute the exact turn a raid lands. Planning production backwards from that number is the whole turn layer.
• Adapt your commander usage per hive strain. Evolving enemies mean your ability timing changes run to run. The ability that bursted the melee wave last run may need to save for flyers this run.

FAQ

What kind of game is Pest Termina ~ Swarm Defense? A hybrid: turn-based base growth on a world map plus real-time defense battles with RTS controls. You develop sectors one day per turn, then fight raids on that sector's battlefield when the horde arrives.

How do you win? Stop the Final Assault on the HQ Heights on day 50. Until then, the goal is economy: survive every raid while production, research, and defense lines keep compounding.

How many commanders are there and what makes them different? Four. Each has unique starting troops, one passive, and three active abilities. The choice changes your early expansion pace and your battle panic buttons.

How big do the swarms actually get? Thousands, sometimes over ten thousand enemies at once, attacking by land and air. The official site calls it "a true swarm," and the battles are built around throughput, not individual duels.

Is the map the same every run? No. Seven terrain types generate fresh every battle, and the enemy evolves differently every run, including new enemy types appearing as days pass.

Is there a way to learn the controls safely? Yes. A Practice Battle mode teaches the RTS layer with step-by-step guidance, and four difficulty levels scale the campaign. It is the recommended first stop before starting a real run.

How long is a campaign? Fifty in-game days, with battles interspersed as raids hit your sectors. A full run is an evening-scale commitment, shorter than the all-sitting marathons of comparable colony horde games.

What languages does it support? More than 15 at launch, including English, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Polish, which is unusually broad for a solo-dev strategy launch.