Summary
Empires of the Undergrowthis a unique action RTS game from Slug Disco and Hooded Horse. Playerstake control of an ant colonyand seek to survive in several dangerous and competitive environments. While the game can be quite difficult to learn at first, it soon becomes a fascinating and rewarding experience - with no other game quite like it available on the market.
For newer players, it can be difficult to get to grips with theunique mechanics, but the core gameplay loop revolves around collecting and processing resources, hatching new workers or soldiers, and exploring various areas both under and above ground to seek out more food and resources. Many hostile predators such as large spiders, lizards, and millipedes threaten the safety of the colony, as will rival anthills with their own armies and queens.
1Collect Free Food First
Gain An Early Advantage Without Putting The Queen In Peril
The first thing players will need to do, regardless of whichever species they are playing as, is to find a source of food. In underground settings, these are indicated by the green deposits visible in dark areas, also represented as brown spaces on the mini-map.
Red exclamation marks (!) indicate a hostile presence, so it is wise to build pathways toward unguarded food deposits beforeattempting to take on enemies. Since it will not be possible to identify the enemies until they are encountered, it may even be more beneficial to scavenge food from the surface before breaking into every underground cavern.
2Access The Surface Early
The Rewards Of Exploration Often Outweigh The Risks (But Not Always)
While underground networks can be safer and easier to defend, they are considerably more limited in terms of resources when compared to the surface of most maps. To reach the surface, players will need to burrow their way to an access point, represented by an upward-pointing arrow on the mini-map.
The surface often contains an abundance of food, but also predators and rival ant colonies. As a result, it is best to have some stronger units guarding and accompanying any workers who venture here. Alternatively, smaller groups ofexpendable scouting partiescan be used to find resource deposits and enemy bases.
3Prioritize Food Storage
Few Commodities Are More Important For Colony Expansion
Having accessed the surface, the next problem players are likely to encounter is an excess of gathered food, preventing any more from being gathered. To solve this, simply construct more food storage tiles or brood tiles for different units.
Ensuring that the overall maximum food storage capacity is kept high is key to growing a large and successful colony. Equally, players will need to ensure they do not run out of food, or else no new ants will be able to hatch.
4Build Speed-Up Tiles Along Key Routes
Like many RTS games,Empires of the Undergrowthrequires players to act quickly to stay ahead of their opponents. One way of keeping a colonyfunctioning efficientlyis to build pathways by upgrading floor tiles to allow faster movement across them.
Particularly when used along key veins of the underground base, such as pathways to and from the surface, food storage, and brood tiles, it can massively increase the work rate of ants and lead to much faster growth and development for the colony.
5Don’t Overbuild Brood Tiles
It can be tempting, particularly after finding a few good food deposits, to construct a vast district of spawn tiles with the vision ofcreating a vast armyto conquer the entire map. However, it is important to keep things balanced, or else food will run short and cause tiles to stop spawning.
It is best to construct new tiles only when food is near its full capacity or when a new food source has been found. This will prevent overbuilding and stagnation of the colony. It is also good practice to build any soldier tiles close to the queen so that when they do spawn, they are in a close position to defend her.
6Learn Different Species' Benefits
Make The Most Of Unique Traits And Abilities
Players can choose from a range of diverse ant species inEmpires of the Undergrowth. From the ferocious Fire Ants to theindustrious Termites, each species has its own set of units and abilities, with the result being several widely varied playstyles.
Some species also have unique abilities such as the Matabele Ants' “Anesthetist” perk to tranquilize enemies, or the Leafcutter Ants' “Taunt” ability, which can help to distract larger predators and open up new strategic options for both movement and combat.
7Use Pheromone Groups
This Will Provide Greater Control And Enable Strategic Decisions To Be Made
When a new group of brood tiles is built, the game will automatically group these units and they will move as a group. Players can also drag groups of units into different pheromone sets. Each pheromone set then has a series of controls that affect all ants inside that group.
The main use of these pheromones is to place targets around the world to facilitate collection, exploration, and combat. Without using the pheromone groups, players will simply be stuck underground and won’t be able to expand into the full-fledged insect empirethat their queen deserves.
