Screen Shot Saturday - A Major Concern

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
In awe of the size of these ladies.

Meet the Leaf Cutter majors - the deadly tanks of Atta cephalotes, and the largest of their species with the exception of the queen. These absolute units are huge soldiers - whilst they will collect leaves for the fungus gardens their main role is to fight and protect the colony. Huge muscles are housed in their heads which power mighty slicing jaws - they can easily cut through chitin and skin alike.

In Empires of the Undergrowth, Leaf Cutter majors will have either a "taunt" or a "stun" ability (player's choice), representing their imposing presence on the battlefield. Taunt will make enemies want to attack them preferentially, whereas stun will temporarily disable nearby foes. Combined with their high health pool, this means they can efficiently distract whilst other units such as mediae get in extra damage to the affected creatures. They will also have an extremely powerful attack - although it is slower than that of their smaller brood mates.

HQGM1l1.jpg


QsjOLEc.jpg
 

Mr_Ced

Colony
This will be interesting because we will have access to different roles that have a major difference in cost of food.
 

Rayalot72

Maximum difficulty
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Speculation based on mechanics of tiger beetles:

The taunt ability is going to be much more useful with only a few of the majors, while the stun ability is going to be extremely powerful with a large number of majors. This is due to the fact that taunting is the most reliable way of protecting low-health DPS units, but with enough stuns you can effectively "stun-lock" the enemy so that they're incapable of doing anything.
 

Rayalot72

Maximum difficulty
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
In addition, the stun-lock will likely only be viable against single or few grouped up foes. Taunting will be better for larger numbers of majors against a large number of enemies, particularly if they're spread out.
 

Raptorofwar

Queen
Backer
I doubt the devs will let stun locking be a thing. I think the stun will be on initial contact, meaning the enemies won't be stunned for very long.
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
There's going to be lots of balancing of course but yes, currently stun is a shorter effect with a far shorter range on it than the taunt. Both taunt and stun have cooldowns too.

Buffalo981 said:
Look's great! I'm assuming we can upgrade the majors so they become significantly bigger?

Yessir.
 

Mr_Ced

Colony
It would seem that majors with the taunt ability would be effective against rapid fire, While the stun would be effective against mortars.
 

Rayalot72

Maximum difficulty
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
MrCed2003 said:
It would seem that majors with the taunt ability would be effective against rapid fire, While the stun would be effective against mortars.

Taunt would only be effective against any ranged units if it's long range. Stun will likely be best against a few foes in melee.
 

A cool guy

Worker
In awe of the size of these ladies.

Meet the Leaf Cutter majors - the deadly tanks of Atta cephalotes, and the largest of their species with the exception of the queen. These absolute units are huge soldiers - whilst they will collect leaves for the fungus gardens their main role is to fight and protect the colony. Huge muscles are housed in their heads which power mighty slicing jaws - they can easily cut through chitin and skin alike.

In Empires of the Undergrowth, Leaf Cutter majors will have either a "taunt" or a "stun" ability (player's choice), representing their imposing presence on the battlefield. Taunt will make enemies want to attack them preferentially, whereas stun will temporarily disable nearby foes. Combined with their high health pool, this means they can efficiently distract whilst other units such as mediae get in extra damage to the affected creatures. They will also have an extremely powerful attack - although it is slower than that of their smaller brood mates.





"A Major Concern". *Bu-dum ching!* The Pun! xD I just realized that! I did not "Ant"icipate that there were going to be puns in newsletters xD
 
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In awe of the size of these ladies.

Meet the Leaf Cutter majors - the deadly tanks of Atta cephalotes, and the largest of their species with the exception of the queen. These absolute units are huge soldiers - whilst they will collect leaves for the fungus gardens their main role is to fight and protect the colony. Huge muscles are housed in their heads which power mighty slicing jaws - they can easily cut through chitin and skin alike.

In Empires of the Undergrowth, Leaf Cutter majors will have either a "taunt" or a "stun" ability (player's choice), representing their imposing presence on the battlefield. Taunt will make enemies want to attack them preferentially, whereas stun will temporarily disable nearby foes. Combined with their high health pool, this means they can efficiently distract whilst other units such as mediae get in extra damage to the affected creatures. They will also have an extremely powerful attack - although it is slower than that of their smaller brood mates.

HQGM1l1.jpg


QsjOLEc.jpg
since it was weeks and weeks ago since this bottem picture was made, the Majors look very much smaller than now.
 

Rayalot72

Maximum difficulty
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Are the Army ants going to be around as strong as the Leafcutter Majors, or are do they just look menacing?
Chances are there will need to be some tests done in the battle sim, but this may end up depending on the difficulty you play on. It's very uncertain how difficulty affects enemies, but it would seem as if they're far more resistant to damage in insane vs easy.
 

Buffalo981

Queen
Extremely Helpful Person
Army ant soldiers do higher damage the longer they are in a fight, apparently, so they can probably tear leaf cutter majors apart given that they are provided enough time. Probably smaller ants in swarms like medium and minors will be better against them. Media are supposed to be 80 food, majors 150 food, according to Mike on steam, so I'm thinking minors will be tougher than the average worker for an early form of defense before a player can afford media.
 
Army ant soldiers do higher damage the longer they are in a fight, apparently, so they can probably tear leaf cutter majors apart given that they are provided enough time. Probably smaller ants in swarms like medium and minors will be better against them. Media are supposed to be 80 food, majors 150 food, according to Mike on steam, so I'm thinking minors will be tougher than the average worker for an early form of defense before a player can afford media.
Wait! the army ants can eat the players ants??:eek::eek:
 

Mr_Ced

Colony
Given this information, I can already tell stunning the army ants is going to be much more effective.
 

A cool guy

Worker
Army ant soldiers do higher damage the longer they are in a fight, apparently, so they can probably tear leaf cutter majors apart given that they are provided enough time...
Now this is truly a Major Concern. XD. Leaf cutter ants are my favourite type of ant, so I really do care for them. As MrCed2003 had said, the "Stun" ability is probably more useful against the army ants.
 
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