Leafcutter Ant
Information | |
---|---|
Common name | Leafcutter ant |
Scientific name | Atta cephalotes |
Environment | Rainforest |
Castes | Queen Minim Minor Media Major |
Traits | Fungus farming Taunt Heal Resistance buff Stun |
Playable colony | Yes |
Leafcutter ants (Atta cephalotes) are playable as complete colonies in story missions, extra missions and custom games.
Abilities
Leafcutter ants use basic attack by biting. You must choose either taunt or stun majors before playing.
- Taunt majors can redirect attacks onto themselves and heal. They can raise their defense at low health at level 3.
- Stun majors can stun enemies. They can affect multiple enemies at once and slow them down at level 3.
Minims are uncontrollable. They are invulnerable and can't attack enemies. Each brood tile can spawn and hold a minim without requiring food when it is built.
Food processing
Leafcutter ants automatically bring leaves from harvestable plants on the surface back to leaf storage. Leaf storage tiles can hold 10/ 40/ 100 leaves.
Leafcutter ants can only feed on fungus. Minims bring leaves to brood chambers to grow fungus over time. Brood tiles can hold 20/ 30/ 40 food or waste and cultivate 1 food every second. The queen chamber can hold fungus but not leaves like brood tiles.
Fungus turns into waste that occupies brood tiles when they are used. Minims need to bring waste to waste storage so that fungus has space to grow. Waste storage tiles can hold 10/ 40/ 100 waste and dissolve 1 waste every 5/ 4/ 2.5 seconds.
Leafcutter ants are poisoned for 60 seconds after going through occupied waste storage in their nest. Affected ants move 30% more slowly, attack 50% more slowly and lose 1 HP every second. Minims are immune.
Waste storage tiles remove 2 upgrade points from adjacent tiles and 1 upgrade point from other tiles which are one-tile away. Highway tiles aren't affected. You can only delete a waste storage tile when it is empty.
Waste storage usually can't be completely filled up. The extra space is reserved for the waste carried by the minims. Waste can't be dropped when waste storage become full suddenly.
The first leaf storage tile and the first waste storage tile are free. Later storage tiles cost 5 food to build.
You receive 66.67% of the building cost as leaves from deleting tiles. Fungus can only exist on brood tiles so leaves are left on the ground instead.
Minims panic and stop working when the queen takes damage. You can keep them working by preventing the respective pheromone groups from attacking.
Appearances
You can play a a leafcutter ant colony in:
- The Harvest (either)
- Front Line (either)
- Cramped (taunt)
- The Crucible (no major)
- Adventure (either)
You can play with leafcutter ant mediae in:
- Main story
You can play with leafcutter ant majors in:
- Main story (either)
- Extremis (either)
- Tug of War (taunt)
- Tug of War 2 (stun)
- Festive Spider (both)
- New Year's Feast (taunt)
You can also encounter non-player leafcutter ants in:
Notable stats
Leafcutter ant queen | ||
Common stats |
| |
Damage modifications |
| |
Immunities |
|
Leafcutter ant minim | ||
Common stats |
| |
Damage modifications |
| |
Immunities |
|
Trivia
- Leafcutter ant colonies have nineteen-tiled queen chambers in custom games.
- Dead leafcutter ants can often be seen in the waste storage. In real life, this is a normal behavior in most ant species because waste storage can also serve as a graveyards.
- Leafcutter ant larvae don't spin cocoon. Their naked pupae can be seen in the game.
- Level 3 mediae and majors have 100% chance to fend off phorid flies, even if they are carrying leaves. This is represented by two minims hanging on the carried leaves, defending the carriers. This behavior also occurs in real life.