Hibernation

Information

Name	Hibernation
Categories	Extra Documentary
Environment	Mountain
Player species	Wood ant
Player units	Wood ant worker Wood ant soldier Wood ant shooter (rapid-fire)
Surface	Yes
Features	AI colonies Heating
Music	Hibernation Theme
Remix	Yes

A wintry mission where you must help your wood ant colony survive the harsh winter of an alpine mountain range.

Objectives

Keep nest temperature above the skull mark.

Have 300/ 525/ 880/ 1300/ 1600 vegetation in storage when surface temperature is at the lowest.

Settings

Your wood ant colony must keep its nest temperature high enough to survive the winter.

You must take decay into account and gather more vegetation than the requirement to complete the final objective.

The mission starts during the day. It snows from the third day onward. Snow completely covers the forest floor on the fourth day.

Pine needles and pine seeds are scattered on the ground. You can find some aphid clusters in the center of the map.

You only have access to rapid-fire shooters. You start with 7 worker brood tiles.

Heating

The 2 progress bars on the screen indicate surface temperature and nest temperature. Surface temperature increases slowly during the day and decreases immensely at night.

Nest temperature is equal to surface temperature. You gain extra heat based on the amount of vegetation you store. You gain drastically less heat when nest temperature is 50% higher than surface temperature. You lose when nest temperature is below the skull mark.

Heater tiles are only available in this mission. Heater tiles cost 10 food to build, can hold up to 10/ 40/ 100 vegetation and dissolve 4 vegetation every 60 seconds.

You can't gather both food and vegetation at the same time. You can choose which resource to gather by clicking on the respective button beneath the bars. Your ants will drop the unchosen resource immediately when they are in the nest.

Ants have their own temperature, which is equal to surface or nest temperature. Ants are permanently crippled when their temperature is below the skull mark. They move and attack more slowly over time, even if environment temperature has increased afterward. They become dead when the speed debuff reaches maximum.

Ants can get rid of the crippling debuff and speed up by ?/ ??/ ??? after walking over occupied heater tiles.

Non-player colonies

Enemy wood ant colonies are on the same side. They don't invade your nest and aren't affected by surface temperature.

The blue colony only has access to rapid-fire shooters. The yellow colony, the green colony and the pink colony only have access to mortar shooters.

Enemy colonies only gather food within their territories and don't care about vegetation. If you move toward certain locations on the map, the corresponding colonies will come to chase you off.

The pink colony is eliminated in the evening of the third day. The green colony is eliminated in the morning of the fourth day. The blue colony and the yellow colony both are eliminated in the evening of the fourth day.

Notable enemies

Other enemies are on the same side and are hostile to the ants. They aren't affected by the temperature.

Devil's coach horse beetles, woodworms and woodlice live in your nest. They don't intentionally move toward your queen.

Surface enemies don't invade your nest. They disappear completely from the fourth night onward.

Devil's coach horse beetles and woodlice roam the forest floor all day. Woodland wolf spiders only appear at night.

Ladybird beetles only attack the aphid clusters on the first day.

Trivia

During the victory cutscene, the wood ant queen comes to the surface to enjoy the warm sunlight.

This mission is a reference to Natural World: Attenborough and the Empire of the Ants. The wood ants in this mission aren't Formica rufa but some closely related species.

Woodland wolf spiders are only available in this mission. They are recolored medium and large beach wolf spiders.

The music tracks in this mission are remixes of various Christmas songs: Jingle Bells, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, We Three Kings and Twelve Days of Christmas.