Drive Them Back

Information

Name	Drive Them Back
Categories	Story Documentary
Environment	Savannah
Player species	Matabele ant
Player units	Matabele ant worker Matabele ant medic (either) Matabele ant soldier
Surface	Yes
Features	Non-player colonies Circadian rhythm
Music	Drive Them Back Theme Subjugation Theme
Extra	Challenge mode Remix Bomb mode

Without termites to eat, the Matabele will starve. They must be protected.
Well disguised assassins walk unhindered amongst the ants. (challenge)

Objectives

Eliminate 120/ 135/ 150/ 150/ 150 driver ants and prevent 30/ 25/ 20/ 20/ 20 driver ants from leaving with dead termites in a single raid.

Keep at least a termite colony alive.

Rewards

Base value: 6 territory/ 475 food/ 17 Royal Jelly

Difficulty bonus: 300%/ 325%/ 350%/ 380%/ 420%

First-time bonus: + 1500%

Challenge bonus: + 100%

Completion bonus: + 200%

New game plus bonus: + 40% x plus number

Settings

Your Matabele ant colony must repel an advancing swarm of driver ants and protect its food sources.

The mission starts at night.

You have access to 4 fungus-growing termite colonies. Colony termites disappear 2 minutes after death while other enemies on the surface disappear 5 seconds after death. Colony termite queens and underground enemies don't disappear after death.

You can attempt the first objective repeatedy until you succeed. The game only checks the requirements after all driver ants have been removed from the map.

You must choose either anesthetist or fast-responder medics before playing the mission. You start with 11/ 9/ 7/ 6/ 6 soldier brood tiles and 7 food storage tiles.

Non-player colonies

Enemy termite colonies are hostile to each other.

Minor soldiers and major soldiers are kept around the queen and are only deployed to protect the gathering groups or to defend against the driver ants.

Brood tiles with eliminated termites can't incubate for 12 minutes. This mechanic is disabled for the green colony until the the first raid ends to keep it alive for another day. Enemy colonies don't receive free nanitic workers when they don't have any food or workers left.

Enemy colonies retreat inside at noon and gather lignocellulose within their territories for the rest of the day.

Colonies eliminated by driver ants turn into dead larvae and give normal food amount despite not being counted toward the first objective.

Notable enemies

Enemies are on the same side and are hostile to the ants and the termites. Driver ants and African stink ants are hostile to each other.

Earwigs and termites live in your nest.

Surface enemies occasionally fight among themselves and don't invade your nest.

African tiger beetles and rainbow lizards only appear on the surface during the day.

Rainbow lizards escape when they have below 45% of their health. Adult lizards will take juvenile ones with them.

Earwigs, juvenile sun spiders, juvenile African giant centipedes, alligator back scorpions and juvenile emperor scorpions only appear on the surface at night.

Earwigs and alligator back scorpions can come out of unhabited termite mounds at night.

The 9 wafer trapdoor spiders appear at specific locations on the map over time.

The 3 huntsman spiders occasionally come from 3 specific spawners and follow your most recently place pheromone marker. You can only encounter one at a time. Huntsman spiders will escape after eliminating 1/ 1/ 1/ 4/ 8 Matabele ants, after eliminating any driver ants or after eating any food on the ground. They regain 100% of their health after each retreat.

Driver ants

Driver ants conduct raids on termite colonies from midnight until noon every day. Attacking waves appear on the map every 75 seconds and consist of workers, small soldiers and large soldiers. The fourth wave of each raid always retreats midway. Driver ants don't invade your nest.

The targeted mound is chosen in this specific order: green - yellow - blue - pink. Driver ants gather any food on the way and only move to the next mound when there isn't any food in the current mound, not counting the dead queen.

Large soldiers can inflict 100% more damage on termites and take 50% less damage from them.

African stink ants

Level 1 African stink ants frequently appear underground and move around through the soil. They follow the shortest paths between paired spawners after you dig into their tunnels. You must eliminate 6/ 7/ 8/ 12/ 16 African stink ants consecutively to close off each tunnel. Your progress is reverted over time if you can't finish it in a single attempt.

Level 1 African stink ants move between the initial spawner and the targeted mound on the surface at night. They disappear just before the driver ants arrive, bringing extra dead termites with them.

African stink ants gather any food on the way. They can summon an extra stink ant only once when they take damage. Summoned stink ants keep moving along the underground tunnels or linger around on the surface for 45 seconds.

Challenge

Assassin bugs appear in the evening and gather near random termite mounds until the next noon. They aren't hostile to the driver ants and the stink ants.

Assassin bugs increase in number every day, but only up to 3 for each mound. You can only encounter 10 of them on the map from the eighth/ eighth/ seventh/ sixth/ fifth night onward.

Achievements

Achievements
Icons	Name	Requirements
	Drive Them Back	Beat the mission on designated difficulty.
	No Mound Left Behind	Keep all enemy colonies alive until the end of the mission. (medium)
	All the Heals	Beat the mission without building or upgrading any soldier brood tiles. (hard)
	Peg on Your Nose	Close all stink ant tunnels within the first 20 minutes then beat the mission. (extreme)
	Pillage the Pillagers	Take 200 dead termites away from the returning driver ants then beat the mission. You don't need to put them in food storage. (impossible)
	Assassinate the Assassins	Eliminate 10 assassin bugs within 2 minutes then beat the mission. (challenge)
	I Am the Assassin	Eliminate 3 enemy colonies then beat the mission. (impossible - challenge)