playing on Hard/insane

[bd1495]

hello Everyone,

if been playing the game for around 16 hours now, first time around just on the first or second difficulty, but Hard and Insane I cannot do, even with only soldiers (with or without) upgrades I cant seem to get it.

(talking about the first mission) have not tried the other ones on hard/insane yet.


I would like to get a few tips ppl use in general.

I myself tried making a long tunnel so the big enemies take longer to reach the queen.

let me know what tactics u guys and girls use.

-Patrick

 

[MikeSlugDisco]

Have a look at YouTube. Insane really is that - there aren't many who have beat the game on this difficulty. Hard takes some practice but most players with a good grasp of the game should be able to do it after some time.

 

[Rayalot72]

Formicarium upgrades don't transfer into the X.X scenarios, if that's what you were referring to.

For 1.1 specifically, you want to gradually build your way up to 35-40 soldiers, saving the rest of the food for hatching those soldiers.

Upgrading food tiles is much more efficient than making new ones, as lvl 1 provides 10 storage, while lvls 2 and 3 provide 40 and 100 respectively.

Upgrading your brood chambers isn't worthwhile . Even twice as many of the lvl 1 as lvl 3 is better, and you can make three times as many with that food. The hatching cost doesn't even seem to be any steeper for the lvl 1 spam.

For the 2.X missions, melee soldiers are generally not viable. Workers and melee soldiers are about the same effectiveness in the ability for either type of ant to tank hits, but, since more ants means a greater ability to collect food, worker ants are generally the better choice for a defensive unit. This is quite evident on 2.1, as not only is there a lot of food you'll want to collect, but most of the enemies on this level have high damage attacks which make it better to have 20 workers that die instantly than 8 soldiers who die in 1 or 2 hits.

Utilize the no-combat option where you're collecting food early on and can't fight back, or for the groups of ants you have working in the nest (do not leave them in the nest group, they will fight things that are nearby and this can easily wipe you if you need constant reinforcements).

The 2.X levels make it very difficult to use any food found above-ground on high difficulties, making it much easier to go for underground pockets during the early-game or downtime.

Rapid-fire are slightly more efficient than mortars for lvl 1 spam, but there are special cases where you can make great use of the lvl 3 mortar AoE splash (in fact, 2.2 insane is impossible without it), making the upgrade worthwhile once you have enough of them.

 

[Rayalot72]

Myself and Balanite both have videos on Youtube that show the general methods for beating each of the levels in insane difficulty.

jimscheideler also has an excellent strategy for 2.1 insane using mortars, where he also improves upon the general strategy you'd see Balanite or I use (I prefer his order of clearing the underground, in fact): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhJQhWkP-qI

 

[JonnyC289]

hello Everyone,

if been playing the game for around 16 hours now, first time around just on the first or second difficulty, but Hard and Insane I cannot do, even with only soldiers (with or without) upgrades I cant seem to get it.

(talking about the first mission) have not tried the other ones on hard/insane yet.


I would like to get a few tips ppl use in general.

I myself tried making a long tunnel so the big enemies take longer to reach the queen.

let me know what tactics u guys and girls use.

-Patrick

I play on hard difficulty and these are the strategies I used with great success for each mission.

1.1: Never make a single worker. By the time you are ready to fight the last group you should have about 60 soldiers. Don't get any upgrades. Put the soldiers tiles in front of the queen, dig the nest out in such a way that all enemies come through one tunnel that leads to the soldier chamber. Before you start the last group, make sure you have enough food in storage to reinforce your whole army at least once. In other words, if you have 50 ants, make sure you have at least 250 food since each costs 5 food to hatch. Don't start the fight until every tile has a larva on it ready. The good thing about this mission is you have complete control over battles. If you're playing challenge mode with the mole crickets, don't engage any group while they are burrowing in. Having to fight both at the same time will probably get you killed. Dig out the last group immediately after killing the mole crickets.


1.2: Don't get any upgrades. Build your tiles as far from the entrance as you can, preferably with narrow tunnels leading to them. Split your ants up into groups and hit multiple places at once for higher food income, or it may be difficult to keep a big enough army to defend yourself. If you want you can put speed tiles around the queen and near the entrance to further ensure they don't get away with your larvae.

2.1: Choose the rapid fire ants. Start the match by building small food chamber to store the dead body of the previous colony queen. Get whatever food is nearest you without trouble and then go outside. Build a bunch of workers first, with a few spitters. Gather any food you can from the second level without aggro-ing the enemy colony or any tiger beetles. Once you think you've gotten all you can, go back inside and start clearing out the underground. You should have about 6 spitters by now, and if you have enough workers to provide as meatshields you should be able to clear out the underground without dying. Don't bother going all the way down to the lowest level of the beach, it's not worth the trouble you'll face with the enemy colony at this point in time. When you are being attacked on the first night, try to time your tunnels to dig out the underground critters in between killing the crabs. Once night is over, don't clear out any more underground critters if there are any left. Go back outside. Continue to mass workers and spitters until you have a sizable force. Once you are big enough you can just camp the cave entrance that the crabs and spiders are coming out of at night.


2.2: Choose mortar ants. Start by immediately gathering the food near you, and building mostly workers with a couple of mortars. Gather as much food from the aphids as you can during the first day. Your objective on this map is to get a full hexagonal tile of level 3 upgraded mortar ants (19 of them). The AoE will destroy the enemy. Gather food from aphids the first day and as much as you can during the first night. If there are too many enemies do not split your army, keep everyone together and travel back and forth between aphids, or you can just defend one. Don't bother going onto the lower sands where the crabs and spiders are, it's too much trouble getting the food back into the nest from there with the little bit of ants you have. Stay outside during the night, killing any enemies that come to the aphids. Gather the food underground in between attacks from the ants during the day. Never clear the underground at night, you should be outside killing critters. Most people don't agree with this, but I find that the wood ant melee soldier (which nobody uses) does wonders on this map. They are extremely tanky vs other ants, and are worth getting. You need reliable tanks for the mortars, or they will miss every shot. Once you get 19 lvl 3 mortars get the rest as melee soldiers and upgrade them if you wish or just get more of them. When both colonies start attacking at the same time, pull your entire army back inside. Put all melee soldiers in one group and all mortars in another, and space their pheromone markers close enough for the mortars to be in range but far enough away for the two groups to be split. Make sure the tanks are in front, and camp the entrance underground. Also when your underground is completely cleared out, make sure you have enough food stored during the day assaults. With this strategy of camping the entrance, I lost about 6 melee soldiers for the entire last day. They are extremely tanky and before the enemy can kill them your mortars will destroy everything as they are coming in. They won't even get passed the melee soldiers.

 

[Mr_Ced]

The soldiers in 2.X have higher health, so instead of constantly using food for workers, use soldiers. This is very true against ranged troops, since they could take them out fairly quickly. Workers are good in the beginning, but soldiers could be better, replenishing cost wise.

 

[Rayalot72]

The soldiers in 2.X have higher health, so instead of constantly using food for workers, use soldiers. This is very true against ranged troops, since they could take them out fairly quickly. Workers are good in the beginning, but soldiers could be better, replenishing cost wise.

The workers and soldiers are of the same effectiveness for food per HP cost. Because you want to harvest food quickly, this makes workers far superior. The only level they might be more useful in is 2.2, if you have a lot of surplus food, as most enemies have low damage, and this will reduce lag. In 2.1, however, not only do you need additional numbers for more food, the soldier ants will die to either 1 hit or 2 hits to most enemies. This makes workers more efficient, as each can take one hit. 20 workers is enough to afford 8 soldiers, which means you'll be able to take an additional 4 hits by building workers over soldiers here. Food cost isn't alleviated either, as 5 for 2 hits vs 4 for 2 hits makes workers cheaper in this department as well.

You can test all of this in the battle simulator.

 

[bd1495]

thx for the help, its still pretty hard but im getting a bit better at the game.

im hoping to see more updates in the future, its worth the wait