[Suggestion] Combat help request pheromone

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Often when a group of ants is attacked only the ants that can see the opponent attack it, often causing ants to split up or sometimes (mostly when holding a place) it causes them to fight the opponent with only a few ants at a time. (This can get costly if the player response is somewhat slow when fighting e.g. an adult praying mantis)
Enemy ants can have this too, where a few army ant soldiers defend the supply lines while the majors that walk by just out of sight completely ignore what's happening. (I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I'm just saying it feels odd to see ants that can help each other out not doing so.)
I had this idea where ants that get attacked would send out a 'combat help request' pheromone, causing surrounding soldiers (about 2 or 3 hexes away) to help if they aren't already fighting something. This makes attacking ants far more tricky for opponents as they will get swarmed if possible. I know this will probably tilt the game balance a bit, so I will leave it here and see where people take it.
 
Last edited:

pakitane16

Colony
I had this idea where ants that get attacked would send out a 'combat help request' pheromone, causing surrounding soldiers to help if they aren't already fighting something. This makes attacking ants far more tricky for opponents as they will get swarmed if possible.
1. What if you just want to let some ants dealing with weak annoying creatures while focusing on greater enemy? In 1.2 challenge, you would want to let some unfortunate stalling the cricket, and bring any free ants to the frontline. Or 2.1 if you want to camp the spawn spot and some creatures just walk by and your camp is ruin. Or in 3.X spiny crickets and whip spiders will easily destroy your backup while you can just sacrifice some ants and let them pass peacefully afterthat.
2. If this happen, 3.2 will become harder, you will usually be caught in the middle of the line, so calling more enemy ants will get you surrounded and destroyed. Just for comparison, the huge whip spider can be destroy by 15 Lv1 army ants while you need more than 24 Lv1 leafcutter major.
Funfact: in real life, army ants release alarm pheromone from their mandibular gland everytime they bite onto enemy, calling more ants to take down enemy together, instead of buffing up like in the game.
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
1. What if you just want to let some ants dealing with weak annoying creatures while focusing on greater enemy? In 1.2 challenge, you would want to let some unfortunate stalling the cricket, and bring any free ants to the frontline. Or 2.1 if you want to camp the spawn spot and some creatures just walk by and your camp is ruin. Or in 3.X spiny crickets and whip spiders will easily destroy your backup while you can just sacrifice some ants and let them pass peacefully afterthat.
2. If this happen, 3.2 will become harder, you will usually be caught in the middle of the line, so calling more enemy ants will get you surrounded and destroyed. Just for comparison, the huge whip spider can be destroy by 15 Lv1 army ants while you need more than 24 Lv1 leafcutter major.
Funfact: in real life, army ants release alarm pheromone from their mandibular gland everytime they bite onto enemy, calling more ants to take down enemy together, instead of buffing up like in the game.
"What if you just want to let some ants dealing with weak annoying creatures while focusing on greater enemy?"
They would only attack if nearby and they have attack enabled. The weak creature will likely die in under a second if the full force attacks it in most cases.

"In 1.2 challenge, you would want to let some unfortunate stalling the cricket, and bring any free ants to the frontline."
The idea was meant mainly for aboveground, but I forgot to state that. Although the range that it would need is probably very limited, so it would not impact that much. (Imagine a range of 2 or 3 hexes, just enough to get the nearby ants' attention.)

"Or 2.1 if you want to camp the spawn spot and some creatures just walk by and your camp is ruin."
To start attacking something it would need to be spotted by an ant first, so the creatures should already be near ants and would normally start attacking the ants too. The idea is to not have it work on ants in different parts of the world (underground, aboveground) so your ants can't be baited out of the nest.

"Or in 3.X spiny crickets and whip spiders will easily destroy your backup while you can just sacrifice some ants and let them pass peacefully afterthat."
If they attack your ants they are either near a harvesting line or you are clearing them to harvest somewhere. Sacrificing ants to let others pass can only be done when attack is disabled, otherwise the ants would start attacking. (Same applies to ants normally, unless only a few ants see the enemies.)

"If this happen, 3.2 will become harder, you will usually be caught in the middle of the line, so calling more enemy ants will get you surrounded and destroyed."
It's not calling more enemies from far away or off-map, it's calling them from the close surroundings. And since being in the middle of the line causes you to fight most if not all the army ants it should not cause that much extra trouble. The change is that the army ant majors guarding the edges would get support from the rest of the line, so you'd get to initially fight the line upsteam, a few ants turning back from downstream, and the majors defending the line. If you prepared properly, you should have the upper hand.
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
A simple example for when this could have use20190902171723_1.jpg
The army ant major nearby is not attracted to a fight where he is needed. The attack pheromone would attract that ant and other very close soldier ants to join the fight if not fighting already.
 
Top