not sure if this would work but perhaps you could have a simple mesh that is same as the terrain, but doesnt get rendered, and still can unrender actual terrain, which would allow the pathfinding to work and hopefully less memory taken up
probably something that would work better in terms of still having smooth gameplay but a big map would if possible only load the terrain that can be seen, and only entities will work when not on screen, but all major terrain and stuff would be un-rendered/ un-loaded to save on memory
Im not sure if this has been mentioned but will we ever see nuptial flights in the game, where after set times a notification will pop up saying its mating season, to let you know to send out future queen ants in the hope of constructing new colonies if they successfully breed, which allows you...
im not sure if this is known but from my experience, i sent a small attack into the enemies base which they defended, but then for the first of the game they never left their nest, even though having a strong army and workers in their base