bd1495 said:
hello Everyone,
if been playing the game for around 16 hours now, first time around just on the first or second difficulty, but Hard and Insane I cannot do, even with only soldiers (with or without) upgrades I cant seem to get it.
(talking about the first mission) have not tried the other ones on hard/insane yet.
I would like to get a few tips ppl use in general.
I myself tried making a long tunnel so the big enemies take longer to reach the queen.
let me know what tactics u guys and girls use.
-Patrick
I play on hard difficulty and these are the strategies I used with great success for each mission.
1.1: Never make a single worker. By the time you are ready to fight the last group you should have about 60 soldiers. Don't get any upgrades. Put the soldiers tiles in front of the queen, dig the nest out in such a way that all enemies come through one tunnel that leads to the soldier chamber. Before you start the last group, make sure you have enough food in storage to reinforce your whole army at least once. In other words, if you have 50 ants, make sure you have at least 250 food since each costs 5 food to hatch. Don't start the fight until every tile has a larva on it ready. The good thing about this mission is you have complete control over battles. If you're playing challenge mode with the mole crickets, don't engage any group while they are burrowing in. Having to fight both at the same time will probably get you killed. Dig out the last group immediately after killing the mole crickets.
1.2: Don't get any upgrades. Build your tiles as far from the entrance as you can, preferably with narrow tunnels leading to them. Split your ants up into groups and hit multiple places at once for higher food income, or it may be difficult to keep a big enough army to defend yourself. If you want you can put speed tiles around the queen and near the entrance to further ensure they don't get away with your larvae.
2.1: Choose the rapid fire ants. Start the match by building small food chamber to store the dead body of the previous colony queen. Get whatever food is nearest you without trouble and then go outside. Build a bunch of workers first, with a few spitters. Gather any food you can from the second level without aggro-ing the enemy colony or any tiger beetles. Once you think you've gotten all you can, go back inside and start clearing out the underground. You should have about 6 spitters by now, and if you have enough workers to provide as meatshields you should be able to clear out the underground without dying. Don't bother going all the way down to the lowest level of the beach, it's not worth the trouble you'll face with the enemy colony at this point in time. When you are being attacked on the first night, try to time your tunnels to dig out the underground critters in between killing the crabs. Once night is over, don't clear out any more underground critters if there are any left. Go back outside. Continue to mass workers and spitters until you have a sizable force. Once you are big enough you can just camp the cave entrance that the crabs and spiders are coming out of at night.
2.2: Choose mortar ants. Start by immediately gathering the food near you, and building mostly workers with a couple of mortars. Gather as much food from the aphids as you can during the first day. Your objective on this map is to get a full hexagonal tile of level 3 upgraded mortar ants (19 of them). The AoE will destroy the enemy. Gather food from aphids the first day and as much as you can during the first night. If there are too many enemies do not split your army, keep everyone together and travel back and forth between aphids, or you can just defend one. Don't bother going onto the lower sands where the crabs and spiders are, it's too much trouble getting the food back into the nest from there with the little bit of ants you have. Stay outside during the night, killing any enemies that come to the aphids. Gather the food underground in between attacks from the ants during the day. Never clear the underground at night, you should be outside killing critters. Most people don't agree with this, but I find that the wood ant melee soldier (which nobody uses) does wonders on this map. They are extremely tanky vs other ants, and are worth getting. You need reliable tanks for the mortars, or they will miss every shot. Once you get 19 lvl 3 mortars get the rest as melee soldiers and upgrade them if you wish or just get more of them. When both colonies start attacking at the same time, pull your entire army back inside. Put all melee soldiers in one group and all mortars in another, and space their pheromone markers close enough for the mortars to be in range but far enough away for the two groups to be split. Make sure the tanks are in front, and camp the entrance underground. Also when your underground is completely cleared out, make sure you have enough food stored during the day assaults. With this strategy of camping the entrance, I lost about 6 melee soldiers for the entire last day. They are extremely tanky and before the enemy can kill them your mortars will destroy everything as they are coming in. They won't even get passed the melee soldiers.