They Came for Earth

They Came for Earth is a real time strategy game about building an army and taking back an industrial city during an alien invasion. Start with a foothold in Detroit, establish military production, and send infantry and tanks into streets overrun by alien hordes. Your factories need supplies, your troops need reinforcements, and the ground you capture gives you the means to push further.

Build an industrial stronghold

Choose where to place factories, military buildings and defenses. Spend resources on construction, queue new units, and repair damaged buildings. Building another factory is only useful if you can keep it supplied. You have to decide when to invest in more production and when to spend what you have on the forces needed to survive the next attack.

Keep materials moving

Capture productive sites and connect them to your base with automatic deliveries. Metal brought home can be processed into military supplies for your production queues. Cargo takes time to reach its destination, so a connection on the map does not mean that the resources are already in your stockpile. Watch deliveries and local reserves to see why a factory is waiting and where more capacity is needed.

Send reinforcements to the front while keeping enough troops behind to defend the sites you already hold. Supplies and armies move across the regional map, tying the fighting to the industry that supports it. Taking useful ground helps you replace losses and build the force for the next assault.

Command the battles

Zoom from the regional overview into individual battlefields and give orders to your army. Select troops, move them into position, direct attacks, or pull survivors back when a push goes badly. Infantry and armored vehicles fight large alien swarms, with streets and crossings shaping where you can advance and where the horde can reach you.

Buildings can be destroyed and collapse onto units. Tank fire, explosions and falling structures turn crowded streets into dangerous places for both sides. Positioning matters when your own soldiers are close to the destruction.

Take back the region

Balance defending your industrial home with capturing the sites needed to support a stronger army. Secure material production, deliver supplies, manufacture reinforcements, and commit them to attacks on alien positions. The Detroit operation connects the home yard, Windsor's industrial works and the Belle Isle front, where destroying an alien relay and clearing its defenders provides the military objective.

Plan at your own pace

Pause to inspect the situation and issue orders, then resume at normal speed or use the 2x and 4x settings. Move between the map and battlefield views to follow production, deliveries and fighting. Save your operation and return to it across sessions. The aim is to turn a vulnerable foothold into an industrial war effort that can meet the invasion head on.