A Bridge Too Far on Insane with Workers Only

WaffleGuy

Colony
Note: This post is still under construction and will undergo MASSIVE CHANGES, especially with the strategy in the next few days. Christmas Break will be spent working on it and it will almost definitely be completed, no matter how hard it seems.

ICS Invite Link:
https://discord.gg/u4JJzRUuNt

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the new most difficult challenge EVER attempted by the ICS. 4.2 on insane with WORKERS ONLY. This has to be possible, I know it, which is why effort is being taken to complete it once and for all. This will be not easy nor simple, instead VERY HARD. We will have to push knowledge and tactics to the limits to complete it. If we do, we will have achieved our goal. Even the founders will have been proved wrong and this will spur the creation of the ICS Champion role. Let's get into it.

Contributors

- Incan
- Medin
- Heolx

Timetable​

  • Incan
    • Writing The Strategy
    • Getting Past Night One

Progress​

Day One Table
Run Number​
Day One Workers Left​
Night One Workers Left​
Bunches Gathered
1421Dead6
2429Dead5
3423Dead6
4418Dead6
5407Dead7
6405Dead7
7406Dead8
83953938

Night One Table
Run NumberDay One Workers LeftBunches GatheredNight One Workers LeftAphids GatheredTree Frogs Subdued
1396839400
23979Abandoned00
33909Abandoned10
438110Abandoned00
538611Abandoned00
63921039212
73841138461
838711387121
938611Abandoned32
1038311Abandoned50

Day Two Table
Run Number​
Day One Workers Left​
Night One Workers Left​
Day Two Workers Left​
Night Two Workers Left​
Day Three Workers Left​
1-

Night Two Table
Run Number​
Day One Workers Left​
Night One Workers Left​
Day Two Workers Left​
Night Two Workers Left​
Day Three Workers Left​
1-

Day Three Table
Run Number​
Day One Workers Left​
Night One Workers Left​
Day Two Workers Left​
Night Two Workers Left​
Day Three Workers Left​
Night Three Workers Left​
1-

Night Three Table
Run Number​
Day One Workers Left​
Night One Workers Left​
Day Two Workers Left​
Night Two Workers Left​
Day Three Workers Left​
Night Three Workers Left​
Day Four Workers Left​
1-

Day Four Table
Run Number​
Day One Workers Left​
Night One Workers Left​
Day Two Workers Left​
Night Two Workers Left​
Day Three Workers Left​
Night Three Workers Left​
Day Four Workers Left​
Night Four Workers Left​
1-

Notes​

  • Gathering Aphids Will be Essential to Success.
  • Pitcher Plants Barely Give a Positive Output.
  • Find a Way to Bridge to Monomorium for Aphids.
  • Excavate Underground Chambers Speedily.
  • Collect From All Pinecones Possible.
  • Improve the Early Game as a Priority.
  • Dave.
  • Kill EVERYTHING You Can!

Strategy​

Day One - Preparing an Army for the Challenge​

  1. Excavate all surrounding food and create a group of seven ants. Then, create another group of six ants and nine food stores next to the entrance. Excavate to the woodworms and while looting and making sure most of your ants are hatched, kill both grubs and expand the group of six workers to twelve ants and use them to excavate the entrance, create a group of eight ants, upgrade food stores, and begin harvesting outside.
  2. Gather the pinecone with the 12 and 8 group and gather surrounding food with the 7 group. Use the queen to excavate and make ants. Build up the 7 group to 30 ants. Meanwhile, harvest the southern bits of food and send the 8 group to the northeast magnolia and the 12 group to the southeast magnola. Then, kill the frubs once you have enough eggs and loot the northwest tunnel. Finally, kill the eastern grubs as your workers return.
  3. Retrieve all ants back to defend from the magnolia jumping spiders inside the nest while two workers tunnel to the northeast chamber. Then, position your dave south and use group one to retrieve food from the northeast chamber. You can then keep making eggs and excavating until the next set of predators come into the nest. Fight the remaining attack force off with the help of dave. This will be hard, but as long as you have enough food it should work out.

Progress Check

  • 0 Aphids on the Milkweed Plant
  • 95 Ants, None Upgraded
  • 100 Reserve Food In Stock

Night One - Aphid Collecting and Dodging Tree Frogs

  1. Use all ants to gather the northern aphids. Then, retreat all ants with gather ON and attack OFF to the magnolia and and pinecone. The northeast pine food frogs should have passed by then. Meanwhile with ants at home gather extra food and start making workers again. Send your dave to the left of the eastern pinecone. When a tree frog comes, make dave trigger the mantidfly and watch as the mantidfly kills the frog. Repeat the process until it is dead.
  2. Meanwhile, excavate the grubs to the east and collect the food, refilling stocks and make tons more workers. Then, rush through all the western pine woods tree frogs with attack and gather off to get the southwest aphids. You will lose a ton of ants, so make sure nest workers are NOT making more eggs, instead they should be on aphids. This should be enough, with ants on aphids, for you to make 15 extra workers. Now, dave the frogs that return from the east.

Progress Check

  • 13 Aphids on the Milkweed Plant
  • 120 Ants, None Upgraded
  • 120 Reserve Food in Stock

Day Two - Aphids, Pinecones, and Pitcher Plants

  1. Receive the southern aphids, harvest the magnolia to the right, and hope no velvet ants spawn on the eastern area. You'll have to defend from the checkered beetle larvae inside the nest. Except that you don't, because once they attack the queen they lock on and don't attack anything else. Use this to kill all of them, or rush them with 15 workers. Meanwhile frog some velvet ants or false bombardiers. Collect the eastern pinecones with other workers.
  2. Harvest the two pinecones there while killing any enemies except velvet ants, where, if there are any, you will have to turn attack off. Then, retreat to the pitcher plants with 500 food in stock, waiting for the attack wave to begin. Once the timer starts, retreat ants to the nest except maybe your aphid gathering group, who should have attack off. You should survive this wave easily, as long as you have at least 180 ants and 500-600 food in stock.

Progress Check

  • 180 Ants, None Upgraded
  • 0 Reserve Food in Stock
  • 18 Aphids on the Milkweed Plant

Night Two - Unlocking Chambers and Killing Skimmer

  1. Excavate the bombardier beetles to the northeast and west. Make sure to bait out their attacks before striking with one group which will save a lot of food later on. Then, excavate the bombardier beetles to the left after killing the other oens. Once you're done with that, you can excavate the group of toads to the west for extra food until the skimmer lands. Remember to collect all the food and store it for the skimmer, which will cost a lot to dispose of.
  2. Strike at the skimmer from the top of the nest, making sure to ATTACK SWITCH as much as possible to conserve a lot of food when she does the dumb area damage attacks. This should be quick and should only cost about 300 food. The skimmer pays 200 as well as the fact that it has a load of other benefits such as more food from aphids and getting to the nuts faster. You can then excavate one more underground chamber, the three checkered beetles.

Progress Check

  • 220 Ants, None Upgraded
  • 250 Reserve Food in Stock
  • 18 Aphids on the Milkweed Plant

Day Three - Rushing the Nuts and Scraping the Wave

  1. When the water rises, rush the nuts to the south of your colony. Don't mind any enemies, you can just defeat them, turn attack off, then keep rushing. Gathering these things should be pretty quick, so afterwards you can kill more enemies including that toad then retreat into the nest to fight even more toads which spawn for some reason. Remember to keep one group outside to defend against bombardier beetles, this will be important later on.
  2. Gather all the food, then rush to the east and kill a couple of spiders stationed before the attack wave counter starts. All bombardier beetles should have died so now you can fight off an enemy chamber. Do this multiple times (three would be ideal) before the wave starts. Be sure you have at least 700 food in stock, then retreat all ants into the nest entrance to fight the wave. Hope that you win. If you do, you can progress.

Progress Check

  • 220 Ants, None Upgraded
  • 100 Reserve Food in Stock
  • 18 Aphids on the Milkweed Plant

Night Three - Defeating Last Underground Chambers

  1. Kill every underground chamber you can (except for the northern checkered beetles because that's not a positive food trade). First start by killing the flase bombardiers to the southeast. You can then kill the checkered beetles to the right, gather all the food, and be just 80 workers away from finishing the objective. Defend the aphids outside up to a certain point, you'll hit this point when mobs pile up on the surface, then you can abandon the aphids.
  2. You can harvest from the aphids but only in rare cases where there are NO mobs in the path. There's still no need to defend them. If you have nothing else to do however, you can kill the two pine wood tree frogs to the north but THAT'S IT. However, when night starts to finish, position your ants right next to the southern pinecone as soon as the counter till daytime hits 20 seconds. When the water rises, you can harvest the pinecone. Loot every last piece of food.

Progress Check

  • 260 Ants, None Upgraded
  • 200 Reserve Food in Stock
  • 18 Aphids on the Milkweed Plant

Day Four - Rushing out Workers and Winning the Game

  1. Defend the aphids at all costs while maintaining a positive food trade from the surrounding enemies. You want to get the most food value out of everything, so do that. You should maintain a steady income before the attack wave starts via the aphid plants, and make sure to kill any wandering predators for a positive food trade whenever possible. Also make sure you gather the pinecone to the north, as this is 300 extra food otherwise sitting there.
  2. When the thirty second mark before the wave hits, station all combat ants south of the nest where the milkweed is. Meanwhile, station all nest workers in some random place far away. Gather the carcasses to the east, rush a couple more workers, and finally, rush all combat groups and ants for that matter on top of the hill, even the nest workers, all with attack off. If you are able to clutch everything in time, you WILL win.

Progress Check

  • You have just completed the HARDEST challenge the ICS has EVER DONE at the time of writing this message. Congratulations. You have officially gained the Champion of ICS role.

Reference

 
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WaffleGuy

Colony
The first barrier between impossibility and victory has been broken. Day one has been surpassed! While I didn't get a chance to retrieve the group of eight aphids to the southwest, I have rearranged progression and figured out a new excavation strategy that makes things much easier and provides more food later on. Collecting from the magnolia will be snuck in somehow, the runs will be put into the table (which is now being split up), and a strategy for night one and day two will be arranged. The second major obstacle is day two. I have lots of room to improve, so don't be surprised if day two gets SMASHED to the ground.
 

WaffleGuy

Colony
While things were looking grim as I couldn't find a way to gather both sets of aphids on night one, I managed to figure out something that changes the gameplay of insane forever. The strategy is to simply get the southwest aphids BEFORE the northern aphids, unlike almost all the other insane runs out there. Due to the abscence of pine woods tree frogs for a short time on the southwest, this lets us gather the aphids unharmed. More importantly, the pine woods tree frogs in the northeast should have already ran to the middle plateau, letting us gather the northern aphids AND the pinecone UNTOUCHED by enemies. Think about that. This will be massive for workers only and the level in general, and will likely help out so much on day two. Moreso, Medin has been helping out a lot with a seemingly small strategy, collecting from the magnolia on day one. You use an extra group to do this, and it really does make a difference. That's 144 more EXTRA food, which is amazing for the first day, especially since we need all the scraps we can get. I am also looking into another strategy of his, daving frogs and steving newts. For example, did you know that amphibians are hostile to other enemies before day three and after night three? We could use this to kill off the day two and day four attack waves with ease. Day two has the most hope with the strategy, as night three might simply be too crowded, but it will help on night three to kill enemies wandering around our own nest.
 

WaffleGuy

Colony
So major things have been happening, and yet this is only the beginning. Most importantly, getting passed the first day has secured itself as a consistent completion. In other words, the first day wave will NO LONGER be a roadblock. However, a new problem has been presented as you might have read in the previous post. A new, much better plan has been created where we get the southwest aphids and THEN the northern aphids, but the current problem is we're short by just 15 ants. To respond to this, many new plans are being created and Meep has been helping out discussing plans to collect from the magnolia AND the woodworms AT THE SAME TIME. We may even be able to collect multiple batches of woodworms in which case, the 125 * 3 food would let us create more than 15 extra workers by the time night falls. However, the current problem to address is the fact that this may be impossible considering how many enemies roam around the eastern areas before the wave start. We'd either have to get them after the wave starts, somehow dave through them before the wave starts, or have workers reserved to get the food while the wave starts and after the enemies pass. I've also been searching for extra sources of food, such as collecting the northeastern magnolia early, but that might require too many workers. Collecting from the woodworms is already a costly process as it reduces our power against the FBBL larvae to the northwest. Instead, we may have to strike the eastern grubs first which actually might be a plus because we'd unlock the eastern grubs faster so we might be able to kill those sooner and recieve food from there, too. This is still a mess though and all of these ideas are still being created, but soon, expect us to have finally collected aphids from AT LEAST the southwest patch, and hopefully the northern patch.
 

WaffleGuy

Colony
So recently a number of problems that were previously nonexistent have presented themselves. These problems need to be addressed because they reduce the consistency of winning day one, which is something we better get out of the way now. First of all, we need more ants. My most recent runs that can win the first day wave get an ant count that hovers around 83, right before the wave. This is not enough, especially because magnolia jumping spider luck can lead to horrible outcomes if there aren't enough ants that happen to be at specific places where the spider jumps, plus the grubs and FBBL themselves are killed much better with even just a few more ants, not to mention night one and retrieving those aphids. To combat this, Meep's woodworm plan and other sources of food (maybe even the eastern pinecones?) are starting to be considered. If we can manage to kill the magnolia early, we basically win day one and night one. That's all that food. On day one. If this doesn't work though, then we will keep collecting from the magnolia but ALSO collect the five pieces of food just south from the nest. This is a small boost but every boost counts. However, for now, the current objective is to reach the eastern pinecones.
 

WaffleGuy

Colony
Unfortunately the mantidfly does its job too well for our workers and I am unable to successfully collect the eastern pinecones in any way. However, hope has presented itself elsewhere: it might be possible to gather the northeast pinecone on DAY ONE using just TWENTY ANTS. That's it. This could definitely change everything, as we use just eight more ants to get over 150 extra food. Not to mention in the next run I will gather the six pieces of food south of the queen for a small increase, but every bit is worth it. I am also reattempting the level on hard just to see how the night strategy goes and because I need a break. Tomorrow will likely have hope for night one.
 

WaffleGuy

Colony
So first run of the day, and things have been kicking off VERY WELL. We reached 90 ANTS by the end of day one, which is five more than the previous and we inch just a bit closer to getting those aphids. The amazing part is that this doesn't require perfect execution of the strategy, it just requires daving ONLY frubs, as grubs can be handled alone. It's only when the frubs tank for the high-damage low-health grubs where things start going bad. In a new piece of strategy, I am looking into using up ALL our food for night one instead of leaving some behind for respawns, which will hopefully make the final cut and allow us to get those aphids.
 

WaffleGuy

Colony
So it's fair to say that things are happening, just slowly. While the last few runs may have hovered around 397 ants, the most recent run got 390, an improvement of 140 food, somehow. Slowly it gets easier and easier with practice, and I'm still looking in to gathering that northeast pinecone. I said it was possible to gather it all before but it might actually not be because of the nuts surrounding it which I completely forgot about, which may make it worth less than the magnolia. I'll have to crunch some numbers and get back to y'all.
 

WaffleGuy

Colony
After completing a hard run, things have begun happening for the strategy after day two. For night two, things are looking grim for extra aphids. They might be necessary later on but that's future Incandescent's problem. Other than that though, there is a set of aphids on day three that we could, potentially, get. Moreso, I am looking into gathering aphids on night three since we literally have nothing else to do but collect from the milkweed with attack off, but there may be too many enemies for that. The day three strategy will be basically the same as in the hard run but with a few differences. We collect the nuts as usual, but instead of splitting our armies into two groups, we split them into four, as only 60 ants are needed to handle the toads. This means we will have 180 ants for everything else. We will use these 180 ants to gather the aphids then divert those to bombardier beetles. Once group one is done dealing with the toads we can then divert that and another group to lynx spiders. The strategy on day four will be the same though. Just gathering aphids and collecting the two pinecones.
 

WaffleGuy

Colony
Okay, time to get back to this challenge which I have not because parents. I'm rewriting the strategy for night two and day three ahead of time just to make sure I get this info in, and then I'll attempt the challenge again. I'm also going to fully switch to the pinecone rather than collect the magnolia due to the inconsistency of the magnolia, and I like no RNG, even if it could be better to gather the magnolia. And if I fail to complete the day two wave, I will also look into something called daving frogs and steving newts. After some tests using WeMod, I have determined that all insects, including mantidflies, will fight amphibians before day three. This can be used to hopefully attack false bombardier beetles and velvet ants and kill them using pine woods tree frogs who have been daved through the night. I will primarily use the eastern set of frogs for this, and it might work. I will also look into gathering the eastern pinecones early using mantidflying, a process where you get a mantidfly to attack a pine woods tree frog.
 
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WaffleGuy

Colony
Capture.PNG
A new record has just been made, succeeding the last record by nine ants, or 180 food, and it's all because of the northeast pinecone. The problem is that diverting more ants to gather the northeast pinecone is slower and doesn't allow us to collect the grubs and northeast nest food in time, we will have to be extremely fast to complete this.
 

WaffleGuy

Colony
Okay so slowly things are meeting the time we have to get the southwest aphids so we don't get overloaded by pine woods tree frogs. I looked into gathering the northwest food before killing the two frubs guarding it and this has been successful, except for the fact that we get short from 100 ants by five workers. This also lets us excavate the grubs faster though which is why it's better than the previous strategy, and resulted in the closest I've gotten to getting the southwest aphids. I was short by just 15 ants, which were on their way originally but the pine woods tree frogs came in to fast because I waited too long. In future runs though I will be attempting killing the frubs during the attack wave, specifically right after jumping spiders come in but before the rest of the attack wave enters.
 

WaffleGuy

Colony
With the rediscovery of mantdiflying, the most optimal night one has never been closer. Now above 85 ants can consisently be created by the start of night one thanks to the pinecone, and a swapping up of strategies might create a possible way to get above 90 ants consistently, most optimally 101 or 102 ants, but the average will probably be somewhere around 93 ants. Receiving the southwest aphids on night one has never been closer, I was EXACTLY five ants away, as as I had 88 ants, getting 95 ants will almost certainly mean the effort will not be forgotten, unless you screw up the attack wave or something. Other than that though, more recent use of a forgotten tactic invented by Heolx, combined with a new daving tactic invented by Medin might make collecting the eastern pinecones speedier than ever before. For instance, did you know that just one mantidfly can mantdifly two tree frogs before finally getting frogged? As for the two other frogs, those can be daved at the end of night and then released in order to frog members of attack wave, basically using the tree frogs to their full advantage. And if we could get a frog from the west side over to the east, it might be worth frogging that too.
 

WaffleGuy

Colony
Since the first time day one has been surpassed with 85 ants, thing have been improving. The attack wave is getting easier. My ant count is increasing. Plans are being developed and optimisation is being made constantly, even in runs which aren't directed toward it. The first time I abandoned the run because I couldn't get the southwest aphids is now beginning to fade away, as new records are being set constantly, to the point where it has been surpassed. I have managed to get all six aphids from the southwest and moved to the northeast, barely winning by just seven workers not being present to get the rest of the aphids. The challenge IS getting easier. Slowly but surely, we will get closer to winning day two.
 

WaffleGuy

Colony
Just today a new record has been set - all aphids on night one but one have been received. The one that was not collected was the southwest and I was barely short of workers. However, this marks a beginning of a path that overcomes the tree frogs on the northeast side of the map. We have successfully managed to gather all aphids, but tree frogs still stand in the way, delaying everything. Mantidflying kills two of them, but what if we could also take the other two out somehow? Dave. If we manage to dave them throughout the night, we can collect the northeast pinecone, and once our ants are home, the southern aphids AND the eastern pinecones AT THE SAME TIME. We go home, collect underground food, cull the day two wave and kill the skimmer. We may even have time to collect the western pinecone or even the LBA aphids, but that's all up to amphibians. But if we manage to get this strategy on day two right, we may very well be on the path of completion. 120 more ants at the end lowered down to 80, 40, and so on, until we get close and then finally, win.
 
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