Landmark

This page shows the mechanics of landmarks in custom games.

Mechanics

Landmarks are special locations on the surface that can take form of a variety of things. Only a limited number of landmark locations is available on each map.

Landmarks are generated based on the default map designs if landmark randomization is disabled.

Landmarks are randomly generated based on your choices if landmark randomization is enabled. New landmarks appears every 150 seconds when you look away from the surface. Existing landmarks randomly disappear over time.

Common landmarks

Small food

Small food consist of sand fleas, seeds and dead larvae. They give 5 to 15 food. They are only available if landmark randomization is disabled.

Large food

Large food and following ants are always approriate to the environment.

• Dead fish: 1200 [8]

• Pine cones and other dead creatures: 600 [12] (preset) or 1500 [12] (random)

Landmark ants only come from nearby spawners to harvest large food if landmark randomization is enabled. They gather any food on the way and don't fight each other.

Number and level of ants is affected by environmental difficulty. You can only encounter level 1 and level 2 soldiers.

Environments
Beach	Dead fish	Black ants Wood ants
Rainforest	Dead whip spiders	Trap-jaw ants Army ants Fire ants
Swamp	Pine cones Dead great blue skimmers	Fire ants Big-headed ants Little black ants
Savannah	Dead sun spiders Dead African giant centipedes Dead emperor scorpions	Driver ants African stink ants

Poppy plants

Poppy plants randomly drop seeds over time. Seeds give 5 to 15 food and disappear after 3 minutes.

Funnel-web spiders

Funnel-web spiders set up their lairs on the surface. Web randomly generates meat chunks over time. Meat chunks give 5 to 15 food and disappear after 3 minutes. Funnel-web spiders can only attack colonies.

New funnel-web spiders come from nearby spawners to populate each lair every 30 seconds. Lairs disappear more quickly if they remain empty.

Maximum population increases along with environmental difficulty. Overpopulating hosts become dead when difficulty suddenly decreases.

Root aphids

Root aphids secret honeydew over time.

Ladybird beetles land and eat aphids. Attack frequency is affected by environmental dificulty.

Milkweed aphids

Milkweed aphids secrete honeydew over time.

New aphids only appear on random host plants across the map over time if landmark randomization is enabled.

Omnivorous ant colonies can move milkweed aphids to designated host plants. Ally colonies can't take aphids from each other.

Beach maps have rosemary plants, savannah maps have aloe vera plants and other maps have milkweed plants.

Caterpillars

Caterpillars appear on magnolia saplings over time.

Carnivorous plants

Carnivorous plants only reopen each leaf every 60 seconds if landmark randomization is enabled. Flytraps have 5 leaves while sundews have 9 leaves.

Titans

You can only encounter a single size-level 1 titan in each location and they stay in one place. Great blue skimmers fly across the map and only land to fight when you discover their landmarks.

Titans can only attack colonies if landmark randomization is enabled.

Infestation

Infestation landmarks are gathering spots for enemies of the same kind. They are generated based on your choices. New enemies come from nearby spawners to populate each location every 75 seconds.

Maximum population increases along with environmental difficulty. Overpopulating enemies become dead when difficulty suddenly decreases.

Exclusive landmarks

Harvestable plants

Harvestable plants will appear in extra landmark locations if you choose to play with leafcutter ants. They only regenerate every 5 minutes if landmark randomization is enabled.

• Tiny plants: 20 [1]/ 40 [2]/ 60 [3] - regaining 100 for the entire patch

• Green plants: 615 [24] - regaining 300

• Red plants: 1230 [26] - regaining 200

Lignocellulose

Lignocellulose piles will appear in extra landmark locations if you choose to play with Matabele ants, fungus-growing termites or exploding termites. New piles appear every 3 minutes. Nearby spawners randomly generate 1 to 3 dead termites every 30 seconds.

• Lignocellulose piles: 90 [1]

Landmark fungus-growing termites only come from nearby spawners to harvest lignocellulose if you play with Matabele ants. They gather any lignocellulose on the way and don't fight each other.

Number and level of termites is affected by environmental difficulty.

Trivia

• You can encounter driver ant workers following large food landmarks on savannah maps because they are treated as soldiers in the game.