Leaf Cutter Free Play Mode Suggestions

[Buffalo981]

I feel like one of the most fun things that could be added to the game in free play mode is a large, interesting jungle map, similar to 3.1, maybe, but with more water. Obviously you guys have said you will do extensive work on free play to make it suitable for leaf cutter ants. I have a few suggestions for landmarks:

Army Ant Invasion: similarly to 3.2, army ants periodically invade the overworld, and will destroy pretty much everything. Unless there is a strong enough leaf cutter force, which must be significant to deal with the army ants, the player must retreat all of his forces underground until the army ants leave.

Whip Spider Face Off: Also similarly to 3.2, adult whip spiders will face off like when coming in contact with each other

Hidden carnivorous plant?

River (map feature): In the jungle map, perhaps water could periodically flood a section, or create an impassable river for a certain time period.

Created this post so others can give their suggestions too.

 

[Rayalot72]

It might be nice if freeplay had more tangible (optional) goals, so that players can boot up a new freeplay colony and "win" even though the game never really ends. This is probably just me not liking the mode much, though.

Certain landmark options should be applicable to non-jungle maps, so that leaf-cutters can still be played in them (and the opposite should be possible in any new maps, obviously).

An option to disable creature-to-creature combat, and, when they're added, the ability to assign the enemy colonies to a single team.

Make it possible for groups of ants with rounded compositions not tied to any colonies to spawn, similar to how trapjaws can appear as of right now.

 

[Rayalot72]

It might also be nice to have more intelligent creature behavior. For one, it would be nice for their group composition to have a chance of containing a mix of sizes and types (so you might M and S wolf spiders in a pod, or A rove beetles with A larvae together).

Something else I've seen complained about that I would also like to see changed is creatures that attack the nest (given nest invasions are enabled) running at you one at a time, and constantly. It would be way more interesting if they formed larger groups first, and then all attacked at once, forming more of a "wave" behavior. This would make freeplay more reminiscent of the formicarium levels without using explicitly structured waves as with the "attack waves" option.

 

[MikeSlugDisco]

It might be nice if freeplay had more tangible (optional) goals, so that players can boot up a new freeplay colony and "win" even though the game never really ends. This is probably just me not liking the mode much, though.

We recorded a bunch of generic narrator victory lines for freeplay when we recorded the leafcutter lines - I'm not sure if optional victory conditions will make it into the first iteration of the re-worked freeplay but they're definitely on the cards.

 

[TerrificTimmeh]

You could try incorporate a system that sees plants grow in stages as well - so they could start out as seedlings by night be worth 60 food, by day 300 by next day 630 etc. To whatever cap works in balance. So leaving plants to grow will gain slightly more food over time. It would add another layer to harvesting for the leaf cutters while incorporating additional food to keep the colony going.

 

[JohnSlugDisco]

An option to disable creature-to-creature combat

Do you mean put all the enemies on the same team (all the random creatures)?

 

[Rayalot72]

Do you mean put all the enemies on the same team (all the random creatures)?

Pretty much, yah.

 

[TerrificTimmeh]

Not sure how practical but you could introduce fire. Natural elements are always a nice touch. Consumes food sources in an area and kills bugs/leafy foliage.

 

[JohnSlugDisco]

I did want to introduce events and fire would certainly come under that category (though not sure how that would work). Ill note it down in ideas but I think that one could be a bit of a stretch.

 

[TerrificTimmeh]

I did want to introduce events and fire would certainly come under that category (though not sure how that would work). Ill note it down in ideas but I think that one could be a bit of a stretch.

I don't know much about ant life. Does wind slow them down? If you were looking at natural things, having a wind event (possibly after a brief warning like the sound of leaves rustling or a visual clue) that could potentially slow your ants down when on the surface is another weather idea.

 

[Mr_Ced]

I think flooding caused by rain would be a sort of necessary thing to include in the rainforest levels, since rain happens pretty often in rainforests. They wouldn't be called rainforests for nothing!

 

[WennFirst]

Will one day be able to recover food from the dead bodies of allied and enemy ants ??