Screenshot Saturday - AI Freeplay vs AI Freeplay!

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
Here's some early results from adding AI colonies to freeplay! You'll be able to add them from the freeplay setup menu. In this initial implementation they're all enemies, and you'll be able to choose their species, colour and play difficulty.

In the 2nd image you can see 3 AI colonies after they've excavated their nests. You can also see one of our dev tricks here - all the underground nests are actually right next to each other! Of course this doesn't matter in the actual game, but it's an interesting detail to point out.

The AI will do all their own excavation (it won't be pre-built for them) but in this first implementation they do follow one of a selection of developer-made nest designs. Further in the future we plan to have the AI design its own nest.

They control their ants in the same way players do, by placing markers near interesting things. In the 3rd image you can see a clash between a leafcutter AI and a wood ant AI as their foraging trails crossed paths!

There's no specific ETA on this (because we're not very good at estimating times) but the systems are well underway at this point.

 
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MedinB

Colony
Maybe the colonies will soon have an attack wave option maybe.


AND maybe, they will AI ALLIED colonies?
 

Mr_Ced

Colony
This will single handedly make Freeplay fun for me. The possibilities are extreme with this. You could have so many challenges made with this and test your Formicarium colonies to see which is more effective.
I personally will be challenging myself to master all of the species.

I also wanted to point out: With Formicarium saves you could battle other players colonies!
 

MedinB

Colony
This will single handedly make Freeplay fun for me. The possibilities are extreme with this. You could have so many challenges made with this and test your Formicarium colonies to see which is more effective.
I personally will be challenging myself to master all of the species.

I also wanted to point out: With Formicarium saves you could battle other players colonies!
Oh, yeah! It's not out yet but I cannot wait. I put so much time on my colony.......................
 

VarmintLP

Queen
Backer
This will single handedly make Freeplay fun for me. The possibilities are extreme with this. You could have so many challenges made with this and test your Formicarium colonies to see which is more effective.
I personally will be challenging myself to master all of the species.

I also wanted to point out: With Formicarium saves you could battle other players colonies!
Atta cephalotes, Formica Fusca, Formica Rufa and Formica Reptor.

Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when their pheromone trails crossed. Only the Avatar, master of all four antspecies playable in the game, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he rekt them all. xD

Edit: Correcting acromyrmex to Atta cephalotes. P.S.: This is supposed to be a reference to the Avatar: the last airbender opening.
 
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Buffalo981

Queen
Extremely Helpful Person
Acromyrmex is the leafcutter species they use?

No they use Atta cephalotes but I think it would be cool to see a leaf cutter variation Acromyrmex added with the possible release of multiplayer after the game is complete. They could just have different stats (less health, smaller size, more damage, cheaper), and of course a different appearance. It seems like a bit of a shame to have a great fungus growth system, but only have one species that can use it.
 

VarmintLP

Queen
Backer
Made a small correction then. Someone wrote about the species they used in another post so I just blind copied it from there.
 

TheRexYo

Queen
I really hope they make non-playable ants playable in Freeplay someday. That'd make the troop choices a bit more interesting, leading to better replay-ability.
 
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