I spent some time in Peru a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed the ants and the other insects, animals etc. that share their lives. I have only played the game a couple of minutes and I'm already excited about all the possible unique scenarios that can be built around different ant species.
When I saw that the team is busy working on Leaf-cutter ants, I got excited about all the many interesting things that can be represented:
- Them bringing in the harvested leaves to grow and farm their own fungal garden.
- The idea of including the mutualistic relationship that they have with the Painted Ant-nest frog. These frogs complete their whole lifecycle in the Leaf-cutter ant nest and the ants let them be as they presumably protect the nest from certain intruders e.g. spiders. They also have their enemies e.g. snakes that come after them.
- There are also many species of beetles that mimic the ants in looks and scent and spend their lives with them as they have more protected lives living in between all the ants.
- I don't know if there are birds in the game yet, but I also enjoyed seeing the birds, aptly named Antbirds, that follow the ants as they move to either eat them but mostly to eat other insects etc. that gets disturbed by them.
The Antbirds were more with the Army ants, another type of ant with a completely different life history and ecology that will also be very interesting to build scenarios around e.g. their daily food raids. Other ant types that I also remember that are again different, are the solitary Bullet ants and then the very interesting Tangarana ants that live in and in close symbioses with the Tangarana tree.
Something else, that really freaked me out, but which I found fascinating was that we often saw ants that were taken over by fungi, turning them into Zombies. They climbed unwillingly, under the control of the fungus, to a high spot where they bite on to the tree to stay in place until they die and the fungus grows out of them. The fungal spores then had a nice high point from where it can spread once they are released.
Anways, so many different possibilities and variation that can be built into the game just by focussing on how different ants live their lives and the interactions they have.
When I saw that the team is busy working on Leaf-cutter ants, I got excited about all the many interesting things that can be represented:
- Them bringing in the harvested leaves to grow and farm their own fungal garden.
- The idea of including the mutualistic relationship that they have with the Painted Ant-nest frog. These frogs complete their whole lifecycle in the Leaf-cutter ant nest and the ants let them be as they presumably protect the nest from certain intruders e.g. spiders. They also have their enemies e.g. snakes that come after them.
- There are also many species of beetles that mimic the ants in looks and scent and spend their lives with them as they have more protected lives living in between all the ants.
- I don't know if there are birds in the game yet, but I also enjoyed seeing the birds, aptly named Antbirds, that follow the ants as they move to either eat them but mostly to eat other insects etc. that gets disturbed by them.
The Antbirds were more with the Army ants, another type of ant with a completely different life history and ecology that will also be very interesting to build scenarios around e.g. their daily food raids. Other ant types that I also remember that are again different, are the solitary Bullet ants and then the very interesting Tangarana ants that live in and in close symbioses with the Tangarana tree.
Something else, that really freaked me out, but which I found fascinating was that we often saw ants that were taken over by fungi, turning them into Zombies. They climbed unwillingly, under the control of the fungus, to a high spot where they bite on to the tree to stay in place until they die and the fungus grows out of them. The fungal spores then had a nice high point from where it can spread once they are released.
Anways, so many different possibilities and variation that can be built into the game just by focussing on how different ants live their lives and the interactions they have.