ScarlettnMe
Larva
When you have no groups deployed outside of the nest, you end up with a big swarm of ants sort of milling about doing nothing. This is by far my biggest issue with the game, and I think it could be solved if the game gave the ants more to do.
There’s always stuff to do in an ant nest. Some ants look after the larvae. Others organize food stores. Some make sure no one is going hungry (walking around with full social stomachs, doling it out to hungry nestmate. Another group tends the queen. Brave souls and older ants might patrol outside for food. Many species seem to have wards where they tend to the wounded, and special procedures prepared to decontaminate themselves in an outbreak of an infectious disease. Give them more to do!
There’s always stuff to do in an ant nest. Some ants look after the larvae. Others organize food stores. Some make sure no one is going hungry. Another group tends the queen. Brave souls and older ants might patrol outside for food. Many species seem to have wards where they tend to the wounded, and special procedures prepared to decontaminate themselves in an outbreak of an infectious disease. Give them more to do! Here’s some of my ideas:
1) better nurseries. If a larva has not been tended to (in real ants this means feeding , checking for parasites and illnesses, and grooming it) it will die. If you’ve sent too many ants out of your nest, there won’t be any left to take care of the babies.
2) Dormant state. If a real ant has absolutely nothing to do, it will go into a sort of trancelike state where it just sort of stands there for hours on end until a task comes up. This would be cool to see, and it would make the game a little bit faster without a constantly swarming mass concentrated at one spot on the screen.
3) Tiny killers. I keep ants, and last year alone I lost seven queens to a combination of a parasitic worm inside one’s thorax, a mold outbreak in two of their test tubes, a swarm of parasitic mites on ones head, and some mysterious illness I was only aware of because of the large amount of disinfecting spit the rest of the ants were spreading about not long before they all died. Ants spend so much of their time cleaning themselves, their brood, and their queen because these types of incidence decimate colonies of all sizes! Having to think about sanitation would surely give them more to do. And maybe we’d get to see cool grooming animations…
What if we had to deal with consequences for spreading our workers too thin? Brood dying from neglect or mold breaking out in the food stores? That would be a wild bonus challenge for any level!
4) The option to let them choose. Instead of having a group automatically idle, you could toggle it to allow all of the ants to adopt a task of their choice, like some of the examples listed above. Alternatively, you could keep them waiting for further instructions in that place, like they do now.
5) Better nurseries cont.. Why not make the nursery tiles upgradable? What if an upgrade allowed one tile to hold more than one egg? Then we would get to see the cool rows and piles of eggs that real ants build, and it would be another strategy to help save space. Maybe an alternate upgrade to a nursery tile would make an egg hatch faster, or require less attending by the workers.
Shoot, I’d love to see some of this, any of this in game! (Devs, please read my word vomit. Your game is amazing and thank you for your service to ant-lovers everywhere!)
There’s always stuff to do in an ant nest. Some ants look after the larvae. Others organize food stores. Some make sure no one is going hungry (walking around with full social stomachs, doling it out to hungry nestmate. Another group tends the queen. Brave souls and older ants might patrol outside for food. Many species seem to have wards where they tend to the wounded, and special procedures prepared to decontaminate themselves in an outbreak of an infectious disease. Give them more to do!
There’s always stuff to do in an ant nest. Some ants look after the larvae. Others organize food stores. Some make sure no one is going hungry. Another group tends the queen. Brave souls and older ants might patrol outside for food. Many species seem to have wards where they tend to the wounded, and special procedures prepared to decontaminate themselves in an outbreak of an infectious disease. Give them more to do! Here’s some of my ideas:
1) better nurseries. If a larva has not been tended to (in real ants this means feeding , checking for parasites and illnesses, and grooming it) it will die. If you’ve sent too many ants out of your nest, there won’t be any left to take care of the babies.
2) Dormant state. If a real ant has absolutely nothing to do, it will go into a sort of trancelike state where it just sort of stands there for hours on end until a task comes up. This would be cool to see, and it would make the game a little bit faster without a constantly swarming mass concentrated at one spot on the screen.
3) Tiny killers. I keep ants, and last year alone I lost seven queens to a combination of a parasitic worm inside one’s thorax, a mold outbreak in two of their test tubes, a swarm of parasitic mites on ones head, and some mysterious illness I was only aware of because of the large amount of disinfecting spit the rest of the ants were spreading about not long before they all died. Ants spend so much of their time cleaning themselves, their brood, and their queen because these types of incidence decimate colonies of all sizes! Having to think about sanitation would surely give them more to do. And maybe we’d get to see cool grooming animations…
What if we had to deal with consequences for spreading our workers too thin? Brood dying from neglect or mold breaking out in the food stores? That would be a wild bonus challenge for any level!
4) The option to let them choose. Instead of having a group automatically idle, you could toggle it to allow all of the ants to adopt a task of their choice, like some of the examples listed above. Alternatively, you could keep them waiting for further instructions in that place, like they do now.
5) Better nurseries cont.. Why not make the nursery tiles upgradable? What if an upgrade allowed one tile to hold more than one egg? Then we would get to see the cool rows and piles of eggs that real ants build, and it would be another strategy to help save space. Maybe an alternate upgrade to a nursery tile would make an egg hatch faster, or require less attending by the workers.
Shoot, I’d love to see some of this, any of this in game! (Devs, please read my word vomit. Your game is amazing and thank you for your service to ant-lovers everywhere!)
