[Suggestion] Suggestion about queen mobility

[HofNerd]

The first suggestion is for granting the player the option to build additional queen nursery tiles. These would be expensive and very slow to build maybe? (Queens sure are picky.)
The player would also get a button (similar to upgrade maybe but only works on queen tiles) to make the queen slowly move to her new tile. This allows players to have their queen move deeper into the nest. (Probably very usefull for late-game.)
As I understand the game is made around having one point to attack. (The queen) But since the target is the queen and not the queen nursery, it should be fine right?

 

[Mr_Ced]

The first suggestion is for granting the player the option to build additional queen nursery tiles. These would be expensive and very slow to build maybe? (Queens sure are picky.)
The player would also get a button (similar to upgrade maybe but only works on queen tiles) to make the queen slowly move to her new tile. This allows players to have their queen move deeper into the nest. (Probably very usefull for late-game.)
As I understand the game is made around having one point to attack. (The queen) But since the target is the queen and not the queen nursery, it should be fine right?

The devs have the same thoughts on this as wall placement, where it would make levels hard to balance.

 

[MikeSlugDisco]

If we did this it would almost certainly have to be in set locations (so you can't send your queen in a super defensible position decided on by the player).

 

[Rayalot72]

If we did this it would almost certainly have to be in set locations (so you can't send your queen in a super defensible position decided on by the player).

I feel like basing it on the starting nest and where dirt is would be well-balanced, since it wouldn't allow the player to do anything they couldn't have set up from the start.

 

[HofNerd]

If we did this it would almost certainly have to be in set locations (so you can't send your queen in a super defensible position decided on by the player).

Thing is, with buildable walls any position may be made super defensible if the enemy can't dig out some walls.
A player could hide the queen in the back of the nest at the end of a long narrow tunnel. (Making the fight to get to her very slow as only few ants can attack each other.)
That player can be starved as long as the attacker can keep the tunnel blocked by constantly letting in new ants.
The casualties will eventually drain the defender's food. (But it can be painfully slow.)

A way to change the situation coulbe be to make the attacking ants widen bottle necks if they are blocked there.
Example:

Player A is defending his queen with 100 black ants. He has set up the path to the nest entrance to be a 1 tile wide tunnel. He has decided to hold the enemy for as long as possible at the 1 tile wide part of his nest.

Player B attacks the nest of player A with 200 black ants. He also has dominated the overground, granting him a food income for keeping up the attack. The black ants soldiers enter the nest.

The two groups of soldier ants collide in the 1 tile wide tunnel in the nest. Most of the attacking soldiers are stuck behind the fighting, as they are blocked by other ants. So after a few moments they blocked attackers start widening the tunnel by digging 1 tile to the side on each side. (Like happens in nature I think?)

In the now much wider tunnel the fighting goes 3 times as fast as before, and the defenders get overrun. The attackers bring the fight to the defender's queen and kill her.

 

[Mr_Ced]

Thing is, with buildable walls any position may be made super defensible if the enemy can't dig out some walls.
A player could hide the queen in the back of the nest at the end of a long narrow tunnel. (Making the fight to get to her very slow as only few ants can attack each other.)
That player can be starved as long as the attacker can keep the tunnel blocked by constantly letting in new ants.
The casualties will eventually drain the defender's food. (But it can be painfully slow.)

A way to change the situation coulbe be to make the attacking ants widen bottle necks if they are blocked there.
Example:

Player A is defending his queen with 100 black ants. He has set up the path to the nest entrance to be a 1 tile wide tunnel. He has decided to hold the enemy for as long as possible at the 1 tile wide part of his nest.

Player B attacks the nest of player A with 200 black ants. He also has dominated the overground, granting him a food income for keeping up the attack. The black ants soldiers enter the nest.

The two groups of soldier ants collide in the 1 tile wide tunnel in the nest. Most of the attacking soldiers are stuck behind the fighting, as they are blocked by other ants. So after a few moments they blocked attackers start widening the tunnel by digging 1 tile to the side on each side. (Like happens in nature I think?)

In the now much wider tunnel the fighting goes 3 times as fast as before, and the defenders get overrun. The attackers bring the fight to the defender's queen and kill her.

I would like this, but level three ants already do this job. Especially when you start to talk about mortars.

 

[HofNerd]

I would like this, but level three ants already do this job. Especially when you start to talk about mortars.

Can you please clarify what "this job" is? As it cannot refer to widening tunnels in the enemy nest, as that is not in the game.

 

[Mr_Ced]

The job is to prevent the enemy from turtling a attack by making small tunnels, which is actually encouraged. However due to the mortar's AOE attack this strategy is not as effective.

 

[HofNerd]

The job is to prevent the enemy from turtling a attack by making small tunnels, which is actually encouraged. However due to the mortar's AOE attack this strategy is not as effective.

Thing is, if that player defends it means he/she can't reach outside the nest. This means they can only spawn a limited number of new ants. Any ant species can keep the defender stuck in the tunnel by constantly sending new soldiers in.

Wood ant mortars area damage would undoubtably cripple a defender more quickly. Wood ants in general are way more powerfull than other ant species. (So I can see them being more level with the other species in the future maybe?)

Assuming all ant species are roughly the same strength, (assimetrical balance) the defender can buy a lot of time by holding the opponent in a tunnel, but they will eventually starve. If that defender has stocked up tons of food it could take a very long time to drain all of it.

Adding tunnel widening for attackers would resolve parts of this. The defender would be overrun as soon as the attacking ants widen the tunnel. Forcing them to fall back to the next bottle neck, or to the queen.

 

[Scyobi_Empire]

I just want to upgrade the Queens's tiles so I don't have 7 slow ants getting outpaced by larger workers.

 

[MikeSlugDisco]

I just want to upgrade the Queens's tiles so I don't have 7 slow ants getting outpaced by larger workers.

Not that this might not change in the future, but the queen tiles have a unique property whereby they will spawn a worker for free even if there's no food (to prevent slow death). We're not entirely comfortable with the balance issues that might arise from free upgraded tiles.

 

[Scyobi_Empire]

Not that this might not change in the future, but the queen tiles have a unique property whereby they will spawn a worker for free even if there's no food (to prevent slow death). We're not entirely comfortable with the balance issues that might arise from free upgraded tiles.

I noticed that when my queen died a slow death from 1 ant because I ran out of food, I thought it was a bug. The worker and attacker died at the same time.

 

[HofNerd]

Not that this might not change in the future, but the queen tiles have a unique property whereby they will spawn a worker for free even if there's no food (to prevent slow death). We're not entirely comfortable with the balance issues that might arise from free upgraded tiles.

If they would cost the same to upgrade (20 food per tile) as normal worker nurseries and the food storage provided does not change, I cannot (yet) see how it would alter balance as the only thing changing would be the level of the 1 free worker?

 

[MikeSlugDisco]

If they would cost the same to upgrade (20 food per tile) as normal worker nurseries and the food storage provided does not change, I cannot (yet) see how it would alter balance as the only thing changing would be the level of the 1 free worker?

At the very extreme of those circumstances, in that respect, almost always you're just delaying the inevitable. It wouldn't be nice to put a popup saying "Just restart, you're going to die" but it also wouldn't be nice to let the player just sit there indefinitely or wait around to be killed, hence the free worker. Upgrading that free worker will drag those latter instances out further - particularly on the time-sensitive levels (anything past 1.1).

 

[Daniel7Sly123]

If instead of upgrading the tiles make a overall upgrade to the queen strength.
With this i mean make a special upgrade optinon to the queen and is workertiles,like Have 3 different levels:

1º: the normal queen has we know it but with egg laying colldown(2sec.s or 1,5 sec.s) and less health
(egg laying colldown will make upgrading the queen more valuable)

2º level: max queen health incressed by a littled. egg laying rate reduce to 1 sec, workers level increasd to level 2. +4 tiles that spawns lv1 royaldefendersoldierant, +6tiles of royalworkers (With this upgrade the queen group cannot be removed from the nest group) (I dont know how much food this upgrade should cost but around 500 to 850 food)

3ºlevel: max queen health increassed, no laying eggs colldown, +2 tile of royaldefendersoldierant, royaldefendersoldierant lv increased to 3, royalworkers lv increassed to 3.(food cost probably1000+ food)

royaldefenders would be like normal soldiers but with a littled bit of extra health and make part of the queen group or royal gruop and cannot leave the nest or leave the queen.

with this i feel like upgrading your queen is like upgrading your collony like lv1 queen for the beggining lv2 for mid game and lv3 for late game when u have a huge collony.

What do u think?

 

[HofNerd]

At the very extreme of those circumstances, in that respect, almost always you're just delaying the inevitable. It wouldn't be nice to put a popup saying "Just restart, you're going to die" but it also wouldn't be nice to let the player just sit there indefinitely or wait around to be killed, hence the free worker. Upgrading that free worker will drag those latter instances out further - particularly on the time-sensitive levels (anything past 1.1).

I see. It has to do with the 1 free worker spawning at the queen of all workers are dead while an enemy is attacking the queen. It will repeatedly spawn, delaying defeat by tanking some hits.
In most cases the queen would die very quickly if the nest is overrun. But if the enemy was just strong enough to kill all ants, they probably will kill the queen very slowly, that is where it would make a big difference. (Personally I tend to hit restart when I see too many enemies in the nest and my forces are decimated.)
The level 3 ant can take far more damage than the level 1. This makes the defeat delay much longer without adding much of value, as defeat would be already certain at that point.

I can think of two ways that the free worker defeat delay would be minimal/non-existant. (I'm not saying they're good ways.)

1. No queen worker spawn when enemies are right next to the queen.
I think this would remove most of the defeat delay from queen nursery worker spawns? The queen worker group is so small this should not be significant in any other situation?

2. Upgraded queen workers stay at level 1 combat stats.
I think this would not change the defeat delay, as the combat stats of the queen workers have stayed the same? But they would get the increased movement speed and job completion speed of their regular same level workers for the same cost.