I am surprised not every single person in this forum has heard this game!
Empire of the Ants is my all time favorite strategy game, and quite possibly the first game I ever played.
What i really liked about it is that the game had some really well thought out game design. I particularly liked that worker management was nearly hands (or mandibles) free. You set priority on tasks and open and close resource zones. And workers did everything on their own. I haven't seen any other game that implemented this of design and it really shifts the focus to production and long term planning. (In stark contrast to age of empires, or starcraft where micromanagement of your economy was more important than long term planning.) If you don't plan ahead for at least the next 10 or 20 mins in Empire of The Ants you could end up in a world of pain.
In addition the campaign was challenging in a very different manner to most strategy games. Most games develop their campaign missions focused on a very specific game mechanics that are learned or mastered as part of succeeding in that mission. However Empire of the Ants would throw curveball missions that were very difficult and usually required out of the box solutions to win. (The Terror Fields being a prime example.) This made going through the campaign very rewarding when you figure out how to crack the puzzle. This is in opposition to just min-maxing the game mechanics to gain an overwhelming advantage, which is what most RTS games do.
In addition the nice thing was that your faction the Russet Ants had pretty weak soldiers, but had a strong variety of them. (The jack of all trades) While the enemy ants were often masters in one particular niche. (except for Termites, Termites were just crap at everything) However each opponent could be overcome with the right usage of troops and tactics, that gave a refreshing experience with each species. (Hint: to defeat the Harvesters let "Soldier Ants in Training" take the brunt of the charge then send in the rest of your warriors to kill the enemy.)
It is unfortunate that i never got a chance to try the multiplayer, and of course that you couldn't play other species (especially the bees or wasps). If anyone on here has a chance I suggest you try and find it!
Here is some gameplay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHPHfIONAbQ
