Optional Beta 0.22 Available Now - Tug of War, Freeplay AI

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
An optional beta is available to all Steam owners of the game running a 64 bit Windows system. The idea with these occasional builds is to give people access to new things that need wider testing, with the understanding that there are likely to be crashes and balance issues. We would appreciate feedback if you can provide it.

The beta code is summertimeants. If you’re unfamiliar with how to activate a Steam beta, here’s how to do it:
  1. Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"
  2. Choose the "Betas" tab
  3. In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter summertimeants
  4. After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "openbeta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
  5. Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch
Due to the unpredictable nature of beta tests, we strongly recommend you back up your formicarium saves before you play:

You will find your saves on Windows in:
C:\Users\[YOUR USER NAME]\AppData\Local\EotU\Saved\SaveGames

Note that AppData is usually hidden; you can either un-hide the folder in the files settings or just type it into the bar. If you make a copy of this folder and save it somewhere else, you can restore your saves by replacing this folder with the backed up one.

Headline Features

New Extra Level - Tug Of War
  • An auto-battler game mode in which you pit your chosen build against an AI opponent
  • The enemy has a number of different builds to choose from; to beat it you’ll need to be smarter and faster!
  • Instead of gathering resources you are given food periodically based on how well you’re doing
  • Push back the enemy and kill their queen to claim victory
Freeplay AI Colonies
  • AI enemy colonies can now be added to a new freeplay game in the setup menu
  • In this first implementation their AI is basic so they don’t have a difficulty setting (it is greyed out; this will be expanded on later) but you can give yourself a challenge by having them cheat to varying degrees
  • A new victory condition - Conquest - can be set in Advanced Options. To achieve it, all enemy queens must be killed
Fixes & Balance
  • Fixed an issue where a loaded harvestman’s leg could cause the game to crash
  • Can no longer place markers for nest group underground via minimap
  • Blocked side routes for the huge whip spider on Aggrandise (preventing your ants pathing through its chamber unintended)
  • Underground enemy icons are now scaled based on how many points they provide. This should make it easier to gauge threats before attacking
  • Allied creatures now show health when camouflaged
  • Ramp collision improvements
  • Reduced point value of army ant media
  • Marker calculations have been improved (should be more responsive)
 
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MedinB

Colony
Wait, we can battle other players colonies with this. But I don't know how to do this.
 
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MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
Wait, we can battle other players colonies with this. But I don't know how to do this. Rip.

If you have their save file you can! There's not an in-built way to do this and I don't think there will be, but perhaps people can upload their formicarium colony saves here (not a user-friendly process).
 

MedinB

Colony
My save files turned into notepads! May need to change that but how do I put a file here? I don't see some option here.
Figured it out!
 
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MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
The game icon in the taskbar also turned into the UE4 icon for some reason?

Yep that's just a simple "we forgot to tick a box". It wasn't worth rebuilding the project again for such a minor thing for a beta.
 

MedinB

Colony
Tug of war has spoils return to fomicarium, fix this. This isn't the Nintendo Entertainment System.

I shouldn't have to hard quit to play the level, lol.
 
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TheRexYo

Queen
An optional beta is available to all Steam owners of the game running a 64 bit Windows system. The idea with these occasional builds is to give people access to new things that need wider testing, with the understanding that there are likely to be crashes and balance issues. We would appreciate feedback if you can provide it.

The beta code is summertimeants. If you’re unfamiliar with how to activate a Steam beta, here’s how to do it:
  1. Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"
  2. Choose the "Betas" tab
  3. In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter summertimeants
  4. After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "openbeta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
  5. Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch

Headline Features

New Extra Level - Tug Of War
  • An auto-battler game mode in which you pit your chosen build against an AI opponent
  • The enemy has a number of different builds to choose from; to beat it you’ll need to be smarter and faster!
  • Instead of gathering resources you are given food periodically based on how well you’re doing
  • Push back the enemy and kill their queen to claim victory
Freeplay AI Colonies
  • AI enemy colonies can now be added to a new freeplay game in the setup menu
  • In this first implementation their AI is basic so they don’t have a difficulty setting (it is greyed out; this will be expanded on later) but you can give yourself a challenge by having them cheat to varying degrees
  • A new victory condition - Conquest - can be set in Advanced Options. To achieve it, all enemy queens must be killed
Fixes & Balance
  • Fixed an issue where a loaded harvestman’s leg could cause the game to crash
  • Can no longer place markers for nest group underground via minimap
  • Blocked side routes for the huge whip spider on Aggrandise (preventing your ants pathing through its chamber unintended)
  • Underground enemy icons are now scaled based on how many points they provide. This should make it easier to gauge threats before attacking
  • Allied creatures now show health when camouflaged
  • Ramp collision improvements
  • Reduced point value of army ant media
  • Marker calculations have been improved (should be more responsive)
HELL YES
 

MedinB

Colony
Not only that, the nest entrance is closed and whenever I play a mission it crashes...
 
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MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
This is why we run betas. I've logged the issues.

Not getting crashes myself but I can confirm the territory / royal jelly and nest entrance issue. Are you getting crash reports? Remember to email them in.
 

MedinB

Colony
Just a quick reminder to everyone, if you want link your save files (formicarium) copy here!
 
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TheRexYo

Queen
Also, not that this is top priority right now, but I've found a slight oversight (not a bug) in Freeplay AI. That is that, since the ants that the AI chooses from are hard-coded (they can only use the four current ant types), they can't use other types of ants even if they have them unlocked. For example, I recently made a colony file with all the non-playable ants but no standard ants, and the AI didn't know to build the other types even though it had access to them.

This might not be a problem now (because technically they aren't supposed to be usable), but as Fire Ants and other species come out, things will get progressively more difficult to code as time goes on. My suggestion is simple: have the colonies iterate through the available ant species and build using that, rather than a hard-coded list of ant species that it can build. It might take a couple minutes (maybe an hour if something goes wrong) longer to program, but it's worth it in the long run.
 

TheRexYo

Queen
Just a quick reminder to everyone, if you want link your save files (formicarium) copy here!

Mike you better put your gray one and once you're done with your twitch on here Lol.
I would upload my 'special' colony for fun here, but it doesn't work with the AI at the moment. I'm hoping they'll fix it, but I doubt it since it's not really necessary to make accomodations for unplayable ants at the current time.
 

TheRexYo

Queen
Found another error, by the way! You can't save in Freeplay at the current time. Either that, or the Freeplay AI prevents saving. One of the two. I haven't actually played a match without the AI since it was released! X)
 
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