Cheat Code

This page shows general tips and strategies for the entire game. Informations have been gathered from multiple sources on youtube, steam forum and discord. You can always play the game your own way on lower difficulty.

Informations

You can hover your cursor over unit icons in the build menu to see brief descriptions of the respective units. You can also enable advanced build menu tooltips in menu settings to see more detailed informations.

You can click on the inspect tool next to the control panel then click on any creatures to see their current stats. The stats are displayed in a pop-up window. Stats for abilities and status effects aren't included so you may want to refer to this wiki for those informations.

The game isn't made to be frustratingly difficult. You can always get through the game on medium or hard as long as you know how to respond to each mission gimmick.

Economy

Scavenging

You should make some extra workers, prevent them from attacking and let them gather small food on the surface. Observe the surface and move them away from any incoming danger. Underground caverns with enemies should be avoided at the start.

You can make soldiers once you have enough food to help gather food underground and protect your extra workers on the surface. The extra workers can later be assigned to nest jobs when your colony is large enough.

You should gather milkweed aphids as soon as you can reach them. Put some workers nearby to gain passive income.

Only hunt enemies for food when you have a large enough colony and you need some final push to complete an objective. It usually isn't worth the casualties.

Fungus farming

Workers are the cornerstones of your economy.

If you play as a leafcutter ant colony, you will need at least 19 extra minims to be on par with omnivorous colonies. The quickest way to get minims is to make extra minors. You can start making mediae to gather leaves once you have enough minims. Minors are actually about 35% more efficient in gathering leaves than mediae early game but they are less flexible and can't join combat late game.

If you play as a fungus-growng termite colony, you will need at least 19 extra level 3 minor workers. The nanitic workers should be prevented from fungus processing mid to late game because they can't be upgraded. You only need a few level 2 or level 3 major workers to get enough food early game. You should upgrade all your workers as you as you can to gain the large efficiency boost.

Termite raiding

If you play as a Matabele ant colony, you will start will some soldiers and have to raid termite mounds for food. Prevent them from gathering food, gather them somewhere near the chosen termite mound and eliminate roaming enemies nearby. Choose an open area where most termites are gathering to attack. Prevent your ants from attacking and retreat once you have enough food that all your ants can bring back. Raids should be done in large swarms to minimize casualties.

You can use 2 pheromone groups when your colony is large enough. One group should be prevented from gathering and the other should be prevented from attacking. The attacking group will constantly provide food for the gathering group to bring back. You can eliminate a termite colony for a quick boost in food but you must have lots of ants to gather most of them. Leave the dead termite queen for last.

Nest building

Resource storage

Storage should be build next to nest entrance for quick deposit, but not directly in front of it due to speed penalty. Upgrade food storage, leaf storage, lignocellulose storage and heater as soon as you can to reduce the early cost.

If you play as a leafcutter ant colony, leaf storage, waste storage and your largest brood chambers should form corners of a triangle to reduce the moving distance of your minims. You should keep waste storage in secluded chambers far away from the main path in your nest. You should build more level 1 waste storage tiles early game to quickly dissolve small amount of waste. You only need to upgrade them mid to late game when waste is building up from making expensive units.

If you play as a fungus-growing termite colony, lignocellulose storage and fungus storage should be build next to each other and parallel to the main path in your nest to reduce the moving distance of your minor workers.

Highway

It is optional to make highway tiles as moving paths if you have already had a good nest design. You can use a few highway tiles to surround and quickly upgrade seven-tiled or ten-tiled brood chambers.

Units

You should always get more workers instead of upgrading, except for when you play as a fungus-growing termite colony. The level 3 stat boost usually doesn't help much when the main jobs of workers are nest jobs and gathering food on the surface.

Soldiers benefit more from upgrading. For small and generic soldiers, you should get some a lot of them first. You can excavate a full cavern, build all brood tiles you need and leave the upgrading for later. You can get enough units to apply constant damage on enemies and scavenge any nearby food this way.

For special soldiers with exclusive level 3 abilities, you should get them to level 3 as soon as you can. You can gradually excavate, build and upgrade brood tiles with the help of some highway tiles to get access to the massive combat boost more quickly and less expensive.