General Strategies

## ICS Terminology

### Phrases

* Heolx's luck: Getting lucky on The Bridge Too Far on insane, or with the enemy colonies in Cold Blood on insane. Variants include: - Heolx Luck. - He's Heolx Lucky.
* Sol's luck: Getting lucky on Cold Blood on insane, usually with the early game enemies and colonies. Variants include: - Sol Luck. - He's Sol Lucky.
* Attack Switching: A method involving switching attack on and off to surround enemies. Variants include: - Attack switch a couple times. - Use attack switching.

### Names

* *Dave: Any worker who's kiting abilities are so developed they are comparable to an ant god. Said god is called Dave.* *Variants include:* - Dave is on my side today. - Just get five Daves to kite the enemy.
* *Sol's Rush: the 3.2 - Front Line on easy six minute grinding strategy.* *Variants include:* - Sol's Rush. - You'd better use Sol's Rush.
* *Conga Line: A line of ants with attack off meant to kite enemies much more easily than Daves.* *Variants include:* - I use a conga line to save them at my nest. - Conga lines are easier to use than Daves.
* *Ninja Move: A specific movement of pheromone markers in 4.1 meant to wait out enemies guarding aphids.* *Variants include:* - Ninja moves are important for speedruns.

## Formicarium Builds

* Physical build type 1 – Intermediate *Black ants:* meat wall and self-repair. *Mortars:* corrosive and crippling. *Taunt majors:* shockproof and sharp. *Vigorous:* surefooted and last stand. Physical build type 2 – Offensive *Black ants:* dangerous and self-preservation. *Mortars:* corrosive and crippling. *Taunt majors:* shockproof and sharp. *Vigorous:* surefooted and last stand.
* Physical build type 3 – Defensive *Black ants:* meat wall and self-repair. *Mortars:* corrosive and crippling. *Taunt majors:* shockproof and defensive. *Vigorous:* surefooted and last stand.
* Venom build type 1 – Specialists *Black ants* meat wall and self-repair. *Rapid fire:* corrosive and weakening. *Stun majors:* durable and resilient. *Pervasive:* evasive and last laugh (you could take either pervasive if you want to reduce food costs or vigorous with surefooted and last stand if you want to maximize damage).
* Venom build type 2 – Generalists *Black ants* meat wall and self-repair. *Rapid fire:* corrosive and weakening. *Stun majors:* shockproof and sharp. *Pervasive:* surefooted and last laugh (you could take either pervasive if you want to reduce food costs or vigorous with surefooted and last stand if you want to maximize damage).
* Anti-titan *Black ants:* meat wall and self-repair. *Rapid fire:* corrosive and crippling. *Taunt majors:* shockproof and sharp. *Pervasive:* surefooted and last laugh.
* Anti-ant *Black ants:* meat wall and self-repair. *Mortars:* corrosive and weakening. *Stun majors:* durable and resilient. *Vigorous:* evasive and last stand.

## Nest Design

Nest chambers have several optimal shapes of varying sizes. A typical nest chamber is compact as possible, allowing for the maximum number of upgrades. The ones listed below are the most effective that are commonly used:

* Hexagonal chamber of seven.
* Diamond chamber of fourteen with two speed tiles at the ends.
* Hexagonal chamber of nineteen.
* Hexagonal chamber of thirty-seven.

The above nest chambers can also be extended where necessary by adding tiles in a methodical manner which allows for further upgrades. In some cases the addition of speed tiles may be necessary.

* In all instances where the map has a surface, food storage should be placed to the left or right of the nest entrance.
* Refuse chambers should be fairly centralized.
* Heating chambers should be at the nest entrance so ants leaving and entering the nest are warmed.
* Brood tiles should be placed methodically alongside an appropriate tunnel system with tactically placed bottlenecks.
* The queen should be as deep in the nest as reasonable. Too far from the nest entrance and your workers will take a long time to move eggs around. Too close and you run a higher risk of her being assassinated.

## Taunt Vs. Stun

By Solstitium(Sol)

We’re all generally aware of the pros and cons of taunt and stun majors. For example, taunt majors are generalists and work best against titans and mid-sized creatures, and stun majors are specialists and work best against ants and small creatures. However, I became curious of another possibility – do they perform differently in battles of varying sizes? The answer is yes. In a 1v1, a stun major will always beat a taunt major. That’s a fact which rankles me every time I see it happen. But add in more ants and the story changes. I started by spamming groups of fifty. While the front line of taunt majors we’re almost always stunned, they still managed to pull through with an astonishing number of survivors. After considerable testing I came up with this:

* *Number of ants exceeds 25?* Taunt majors win.
* *Number of ants between 18-25?.* Outcome varies.
* *Number of ants less than 15?* Stun majors win.

Adding in leafcutter media to the taunt vs stun battle had a significant impact on the results. Using the ratio of costs (8 majors: 15 media) I found that the number of taunt majors required to win a battle had decreased.

* *Number of majors exceeds 12?* Taunt majors win.
* *Number of majors 9 to 11?* Outcome varies.
* *Number of majors less than eight?* Stun majors win.

Note that all testing was done with all ants at level three, and that when testing with 10 ants (or any number that made it difficult for the ratio of majors to media to get an integer for the latter unit) I rounded to the nearest whole number.

## Transferable Skills

* A well-known and highly effective tactic is ‘encirclement’. The player toggles attack off and has some of their ants rush past the enemy. Once a suitable portion of their army has gone past the enemy the player toggles attack back on. This minimizes the number of ants that circle around the back looking for an entry point, consequently maximizing damage.
* Some enemies have army-crippling attacks that need to be forced to avoid economic catastrophe. A good example is the adult spiny devil cricket. These have a highly damaging AOE attacks well-known for wiping out large forces. The secret to dealing with these kinds of enemies is to use a few ants to fight it, forcing the cricket to use it’s special attack before sending in the main force.
* Players are often right to think that fighting other colonies is a simple affair of pitting the two large armies against each other. In practice, staging huge assaults is often immensely costly as both sides will have to replenish a great many units, and the victor is the one who can run their opponent out of food first. This concept of war revolves because it is usually the might of the armies that matter. However, what matters almost as much is how you lead up to this conflict. Your foundational successes lie in attacking the enemy’s harvesting lines, in disrupting their movements, and in striking them where they are weak without initiating a major conflict. Doing so reduces the rate at which the enemy can gather food, forces them to maneuver away from it and puts a constant drain on their food storage as they struggle to replenish what has been lost. The best way to do this is to use small groups of powerful units such as slavemakers, trap-jaws and fire ants, and use the ‘attack’ toggle to your advantage.