Part 2: Antic

Chapter 2 - Antic





Five save games, huh. Shouldn't really need more than two, but whatever.



So last time, we killed the red queen. Now we're a breeder, who's pretty damn worthless.

Speaking of worthless, let's check out trails.





The second option lets us see various areas. This shows the proximity of the black nest.





And this one shows trails that black ants travel, usually between the nest and food. This lets ants get food without you constantly recruiting and releasing them, though the latter is usually better for collecting food at once.





History lets us view a chart of various statistics, though we have too little data to work with. Eventually though with more data we can do some time series analysis as to how much murder we'll be able to commit.





Status gives you more meaningless statistics. Meh.



Fourth option is Save/Main Menu, and sixth is options for mouse and gameplay speed.



Now the third option is what we want, as Behavior and Caste are two of the most important menus available to us.



Behavior affects what our workers do. It's automatic based on needs, but you can set it to manual to adjust things.



Foraging is definitely the most important of the bunch, as more food leads to more ants. Nursing is also important, I guess, as somebody's got to take care of the eggs. Digging's not too important, though as your nest grows you'll need more space, so having a few diggers is nice.

Overall, each option is necessary, but generally you want Forage > Nurse > Dig. Unless I'm wrong or something.





Caste affects what ants are born as. Workers are mainly responsible for the above behaviors, Soldiers like to fight, and Breeders fuck and spread our lovable family outward.



You always want a majority of ants to be workers, especially early on. If you have red ants nearby, go soldiers. Otherwise, start cranking out breeders so that you can expand.





Though the queen is dead, there's still a few stragglers hanging around. Let's take care of that.



But first, there's a spider who's hanging around our next, probably eating our poor sisters.



We must remedy this.





DEATH TO THE WICKED



There's nothing like feasting on the remains of your foes.





I end up murdering three more spiders on the course of this run. Our colony eats fine.



In the meantime, let us admire the destructive nature of ants. There's not a prettier sight than dismembered red ants.





I tell my comrades to take their food.





Then I dick around before eventually deciding to intentionally starve my ant to death, because yellow breeders are useless.



It sure takes its sweet time dying, though.





Eventually, your ant freaks the fuck out at the moment of death. It's pretty unsettling, actually. Imagine you're about to drown Sonic, and right when the count hits 0, you lose control and he moves around on his own in random directions for a few seconds before dying.



Don't see any reason not to be a worker, even if I don't actually need to do any work.



There's an option in the house menu that gives you a rough idea of how many ants are in an area. While we're doing well so far, the red ants already have a strong presence in the northeast. We need to spread and increase our numbers if we hope to fend off the invaders.



Also, we can flick a kitty off the fence, because we're assholes.



Eventually, we're down to the last ant.





It hides on a pebble, so none of the other ants are willing to kill him. I end up dying as a result.



Spiders and red ants aren't the only hazard, of course. There's that blithering manchild stomping around his yard, trying to squash us with his narrow feet.



He sometimes even mows his yard! Perhaps a bit too often, really, but then his life has no meaning, so what else is he supposed to do? Talk to people? Please.



Fortunately, the lawnmower also killed the final red ant, so we own this territory now.



Better yet, we have enough ants for the breeders to fly off and colonize other areas.



We've now spread out, and at this point we can choose to relocate to any area we have a presence in.

Note that the yellow ant doesn't have to be a breeder to do this, so there's never a reason to spawn as a breeder.



So now we're in a brand new colony, and have to gather more food.



Except the idiot queen chose to make her nest as far the fuck away from the food as she possibly could.





I end up digging a couple of new holes to try to get us closer to the food, but no luck.



Might as well make most of them workers in the meantime.



The trek is long, and the yellow ant gets hungry every couple trips.



Two years later, more ants are finally born, and I can recruit and release to feed that fat fuck of a queen.



So, who's ready for a nice "Fuck You"?



Look at the colony we're in, and look at the ones we're not in. Yes, our mere presence has significantly stunted the growth of this colony. Colonies literally grow faster when you're not in them. Thus the optimal strategy is to never leave your starting area until the game expands you enough to get you to mix with the red ants. Only then will we actually be necessary again.

So next time, I wait for the game to decide to let me fight red ants again. Yellow Ant is a fighter, not a lover.