Basic Mechanics

This page shows the basic game mechanics. These mechanics may be applied differently in specific missions to provide more variety in gameplay.

Units

You usually start with a queen and 3 active workers. A queen chamber usually has 7 tiles. Each queen tile can hold a nanitic worker and 10 food. You can't build, delete or upgrade queen tiles.

Your queen can only lay eggs. It is immune to disrupting effects and repositioning effects. The screen flashes red when the queen has below 25% of its health. You lose when the queen is dead.

Nest jobs will be done in this paticular order: digging, building and spawning. Workers in nest group will do it automatically while workers in other pheromone groups can only do nearby jobs. They will ignore resources and enemies when they are tasked with nest jobs. Each nest job can only be done by a single worker, except for digging.

The 7 nanitic workers can do anything that normal workers can do. If you don't have workers and food, a nanitic worker is spawned for free to help revive the colony.

Soldiers can't do nest jobs. They are divided into 4 groups: melee, range, tank and medic.

Digging

You can only dig in the black area in your nest.

You must click on a tile in the black area to mark it for excavation. Workers will do it as long as the marked tiles are reachable. You can click again to cancel the task. Up to 2 workers can excavate a tile at the same time.

The nest entrance is a diggable tile. Up to 7 workers can excavate it at the same time. Workers always leave this job for last.

Underground marks

Hidden creatures in underground caverns show up as marks in the black area. Green question marks represent allies and docile enemies. Red exclamation marks represent aggressive enemies. You can estimate the strength of the respective creatures through mark size.

Small food show up as silhouettes in the black area. Large food are entirely hidden.

The entire cavern is excavated immediately when you dig into it and the residing creatures are released into your nest. Aggressive enemies immediately move toward your queen.

Building

You can only build in in the excavated area in your nest. You must choose an option in the building tabs then click on any parts of the excavated area to mark it for building. You can click again to cancel the task.

Similar tiles can be built adjacent to each other and form a chamber. Active ants from the same chamber form a control group.

Ants speed up by 10%/ 20%/ 25% on highway tiles and slow down by 50% on other tiles in their nest. Each highway tile costs 5 food to build.

Upgrading

You must choose the upgrading tool in the building tabs then click on the chosen tile to mark it for upgrading. You can only upgrade up to level 3. Upgraded tiles have higher capacity and effects. Upgraded ants are immediately healed and have better stats. Upgrading cost is the same as building cost.

You can only upgrade tiles with enough upgrading points. You need 6 points for level 2 and 12 points for level 3. Each tile gives 1/ 2/ 3 upgrading point to similar tiles and highway tiles around it. Each wall tile gives 1 upgrading point and each highway tile gives 1/ 2/ 3 upgrading points to any adjacent tiles.

The most cost-efficient shape that allows you to upgrade all tiles to level 3 is a nineteen-tiled hexagon.

You can enable tile information to see level and upgrading points.

Deleting

You must choose the deleting tool in the building tabs then click on the chosen tile to mark it for deleting. The chosen tile will be downgraded before it can be deleted completly. Downgraded ants are immediately healed.

You receive 66% of the cost as seeds after deleting a tile. Food are left on the ground along with the refund and the corresponding active ants will be dead.

Spawning

Workers bring eggs from the queen to empty brood tiles. Eggs gradually turn into active ants, as long as there are enough food. New eggs will be placed afterward but the larvae stops growing midway if the respective ants are still alive. Each brood tile can hold multiple active ants but can only incubate one ant at a time.

The population is represented by a pair of numbers. The left one means active ants. The right one means the maximum population you can have based on the number of brood tiles. Worker population is separated from soldier population. The queen isn't counted.

Moving

Active ants from the same chamber form a control group. Control groups are represented by the respective ant icons in the control panel. If you want to split an established control group, you must split the respective brood chamber by deleting the inbetween tiles.

New control groups are automatically put in nest group. You can control up to 5 pheromone groups, which are assigned with roman numbers from I to V. You can move any control groups between different pheromone groups.

You must choose a pheromone group in the control panel, then right-click anywhere on the map or the minimap to place a pheromone marker. You don't control individual ants. Ants in the respective pheromone group will move toward the marker.

Ants must form a trail while they are moving toward a pheromone marker. A small percentage of ants will stop midway and go back to the nest entrance if they are on the surface or to the queen if they are underground. The shortest path is always chosen.

Control groups in the same pheromone group respond in order from top to bottom and left to right. The number below a pheromone marker shows the number of responding ants. Responding speed becomes slower if you have a lot of ants in a single pheromone group.

You can prevent your ants from gathering, attacking or mounting by clicking on the respective icons on the right of the control panel.

Ants are dead if they get stranded and can't find the way back to the queen.

Nest entrances teleport creatures between the surface and the respective underground areas. You can place pheromone markers on top of a nest entrance to make your ants enter.

Gathering

Ants automatically bring any food in sight back to storage. Food are dropped on the ground if storage is suddenly full. Food disappear when they are used.

Small food can be directly carried away. Large food must be taken apart and can be harvested by multiple ants at the same time. Ants can only cut out certain amount of food each time. Enemy ants aren't edible.

You can enable resource information to see food amount and harvest capacity.

You can disable gathering to prevent your ants from picking up food. They still have to bring carried food back to the storage. Food gathering is the least prioritized job.

Each food storage tile costs 5 food to build and can hold 10/ 40/ 100 food.

The same mechanics are applied to leaves and dead vegetation when you play as leafcutter ants and termites.

Attacking

Ants automatically follow and attack enemies in sight. Workers can ignore enemies while carrying food.

You can enable creature information to see health and level of creatures.

You can disable attacking to prevent your ants from initiating combat. They still retaliate after taking damage and have to finish the ongoing battles.

Camera

You can move the camera around by pushing your cursor against the edge of the screen. You can zoom in or out by turning the wheel on your mouse.

You can click anywhere on the minimaps to move your camera there.

You can press a specific hotkey (F9 by default) to enter basic photo mode, or press it together with Shift to enter free photo mode. The game is paused and camera can only be controlled by hotkeys. User interface is removed to let you take better screenshots. You can look at unintended places on the maps or go out of bound in free photo mode.

You can unpause and continue playing the game by using hotkeys while in photo mode.

Trivia

• Placing different pheromone markers makes different chirping sounds, which indicates that pheromone is a form of ant communication.

• In real life, the first few workers are nurtured using the queen's own body fluid. These nanitic workers are weak and have to take care of the queen for their entire life. They soon die after the stronger workers are ready to venture outside. This explains why you can't build, delete or upgrade the queen chamber in the game.

• In real life, nests are naturally designed with intricate chambers and pathways. In the game, upgrading points and speed penalty motivate players to strategically build tiles within chambers and establish pathways between them to facilitate efficient ant movement.