Freeplay Idea: "Hero" ants

[Rayalot72]

This is something I came up with when thinking about John's idea to make stronger-than-normal bugs spawn in freeplay. What if different colony types could spawn a "hero" based on the start-up settings, and these would simply be much more powerful versions of normal ants, like a kind of boss mob (a black ant that has abnormally high HP with increased speed and damage; a rapid-fire ant that's harder to kill and has the slow bonus active; etc.).

I'd also quite like giving some overpowered enemy the ability to blink either out of danger or into an unsuspecting victim.

 

[AntFked]

Cool ideas and all, but I think they don’t fit too well to this kind of game focusing on ants and other insects/bugs. Ants that can blink and soldiers having greatly increased HP, speed, damage etc takes away the realism of the game.

I know a game can’t be 100% based on realism because then it takes away the entertainment value, but if you play around too much with adding un-natural behaviour for the ants it’s going to end up looking more silly than cool.

 

[Rayalot72]

This is freeplay only.

The blinking I could see being a nope, but stronger ants that can spawn I still think would be quite fun. They'd at least make the enemy colonies far more interesting to fight against.

 

[Serafine]

There ARE stronger ants, no need for hero ants. Just wait until they implement Camponotus (Carpenter/sugar ants) and Myrmecia (Bull ants). Those are HUGE (larger than the beach tiger beetles).

 

[Rayalot72]

I know there's stronger species, but I was thinking more individuals that stand out among their pack of otherwise normal ants.

Also note that I don't view them as actually being a "hero." It's more of reference to other RTS or turn-based strategy games that have that kind of style of unit (civ 5 has great generals, admirals, merchants, scientists, etc.; some games have a hero unit boost the stats of whoever they're grouped with, or simply as a stronger unit that has boostable stats)

 

[Serafine]

Ants don't have generals and heroes, they don't work that way. This is a game that's pretty close to how ants actually work in real life (there are some things you just cannot simulate, like carpenter ants taking 2 months from egg to worker), not Civilization with ant skins.
Hero ants and ant generals would completely throw any sort of realism out of the window and at that point they could as well add ants with teleporters and railguns.

The ONLY ant unit that could work in a "hero" way would be the queen of certain slave raider species that can join a raid in times of need and really screw up the defenders with her pheromones (this could be an option for the ereptor queen but it means no egg-laying and that usually kills your colony quickly, although if you have no food anyway it could be a thing).

But then such hero/leader units aren't needed anyway. There is a HUUUUGE amount of pretty weird and unique ants out there (like Trapjaws that can use their mandibles to make a backflip jump away from danger, exploding Carpenter ants or jumping Bull ants) that are fully sufficient to make a versatile and interesting unit list.

 

[Rayalot72]

Ants don't have generals and heroes, they don't work that way.

I literally just said that that's not what I actually mean. I just mean they're a stronger enemy to make combat more interesting, but I got the IDEA from actual hero/general units from other games.

The issue with just an interesting unit list is that you'd need to set up the ereptor colony you fight against. It would be much easier to simply have stronger varieties of whatever species you set the other colonies to (black ants, wood ants, bull ants, etc.).

We're not even sure we'll be able to fight against ereptors to begin with.

 

[Serafine]

I literally just said that that's not what I actually mean. I just mean they're a stronger enemy to make combat more interesting, but I got the IDEA from actual hero/general units from other games.

Ants already HAVE this.
So yes, this would totally work, we just need a species that is actually polymorphic (or di-/trimorphic like Pheidole ants).


Camponotus sansabaenus (minor, media and major workers):

Messor barbarus (minors, medias, majors and a supermajor):

Carebara diversa (the supermajors of this species are so huge that the tiny minors can ride on them):

Pheidole sinica (minor and major workers, this species is dipmorphic with an actual soldier caste, they're also of a size that would make adding them to the game feasable as they're 4.5-9mm which is much larger than most Pheidole species):

Tough ants alone however won't add any significant strategic or tactical value to the game unless you can actually (decide to) build them and form a strategy around them.
Also unless anything is done about the absurd DPS of the shooters everything other than shooters and a meatshield of workers will be useless anyway.

 

[Rayalot72]

The idea isn't that the player should make them, but rather that the AI would be able to get them based on a frequency the player decides before starting a freeplay game. This would, again, serve a similar purpose to the extra strong bugs John was suggesting, only they'd work for an ant colony working with other ants.

 

[Serafine]

Just as I said, add polygynous ants (they can work as opponents too, especially harvester ants would make for great neutral creeps, they'd basically be well-guarded resource depots).

I'd rather have them working on something like a proper ecomony for the game though because tougher opponents alone don't make a better game.