Strategies and Tips: Story Mode: Tier 2

## **Rising Tide**

### **Quantity or Quality**

* Go for quantity in this level. Lots of ants force the non area-damage wolf spiders and hermit crabs to put more effort to break past your lines. It may cost tons upon tons of food each wave, but in the end it'd be worth it.

### **Mortar or Rapid-fire**

Rapid fire is recommended for this level although mortar can also be used if you can get enough melee soon. Rapid fire can slow down fast moving enemies like wolf spiders to prevent them from coming towards the main force. Their accuracy can also help with wolf spiders. If you choose to use mortar, get at least some melee by night 2. By night 3, you should have more than 19 shooters and melee.

* Rapid fire might seem like the go-to shooter type for this level, but they deal little damage. Rapid-fire is useful for stopping enemies who are moving around, but enemies who move around too fast, like wolf spiders, will still be strong against this type.

### **Soldiers or Workers**

* Focus on building workers and mortar shooters always. Workers are extremely good tankers due to their sheer number, soaking up extra damage allowing your mortars to attack a lot more.

### **Fighting waves strategies**

* In the first night, stay inside and kill all enemies in your nest for food. Remember to send small groups of workers out to attract hermit crabs in between waves; this gives you a lot more food.

* At higher difficulties, build a few worker tiles in many corners of your nest on the second day. The spiders will run towards your extra brood chambers randomly before heading for the queen, this trick helps to split them up and lets your ants swarm over them.

* Keep one combatting group near your queen to prevent any accident. Don't let the spiders inject venom to your queen.

* Because the spiders cannot run past your frontline when they are on the surface, you can also camp the spawning point to the east of your nest at night. Keep a small second combating group to make sure no other wandering creature can sneak inside your nest from an accidental fight.

### **Food Collection**

* Turn off combatting when you bring your ants to harvest on the lower layers so that they don't get distracted by the wandering wood ants. The mortar shooters are your main damage dealers.

* Try getting the food from the lower layers first. This ensures that food from the lower layers can be used before it is washed up by the tide

* When the "Tide Rising" timer shows at the top-right of the screen, immediately place a phenomenon marker to a higher layer of the beach and turn off combat and food gathering. However, remember to turn food gathering back on after all your ants have reached a higher layer.

* If you need more food, bring some workers to the surface to lure hermit crabs to your nest before dawn. During the later days, the tiger beetles can be easily killed for food.

### **Challenge mode**

* Don't try to kill all the tiger beetle larvae as it's a waste of time and resources. If you need to get pass them, bring a large harvesting group to keep them from coming out. After all, they shouldn't be a problem if you have tons upon tons of workers.

## **Queen of the Hill**

### **Mortar or Rapid-fire**

* Rapid-fire can slow down enemy ants at level three, so they are only good for delaying the front line.

* Mortars at level three deal area damage, however, and against ants this makes them far better than rapid fire. Rapid fire is possible, it just requires a bit more effort.

### **Soldiers or Workers**

* Focus on building workers first and then shooters in the early game. The mortar shooters are your main damage dealers. Upgrade them to level 3 as soon as you can for area damage, making the waves a lot easier. At third day, consider building some melee to help the ranged units do their job without disturbance.

### **Food Collection**

* Turn off combatting when you bring your ants to harvest the honeydew so that they don't get distracted by the ladybugs. Use two groups while gathering honeydew, one with workers with attack off and other with ranged units with attack on. **REMEMBER TO TURN THE WORKERS' ATTACK BACK ON WHEN SURVIVING WAVES**!

* Excavate behind your nest entrance to reveal 2 tiger beetle corpses, which grant 150 food each.

* In the first night, stay inside and kill all enemies in your nest for food. Start excavating when the active enemies are about to be defeated.

* At later nights, gather your combatting group near one aphid farm and kill the nocturnal enemies for food. Due to the abundance of surface enemies, it isn't worth protecting both farms. Save a lot of food before dawn.

### **Fighting waves**

* Stay inside during the day. Gather your combatting groups near your entrance, which acts as a natural choke point. Make use of the in between time to get as much food from the surface as you can. **REMEMBER TO BRING THEM BACK WHEN YOU GET ATTACKED**!

### **Challenge mode**

* Don't try to kill all the tiger beetle larvae as it's a waste of time and resources. Keep those close to the ramps alive so that they can distract the enemy ants as they try to enter your nest, making your life even easier.

## **Formicarium Challenge 2**

Save at least 1000 food and upgrade most of your soldiers to level 3 before attempting the challenge.

### **Types of ants**

* It is possible to win this level with only workers by using suitable upgrades and using two groups.

* You can also win with workers and wood ants without black ants. Wood ants are the main damage dealers. Having black ants, however, will do some extra damage and help kill the enemy faster.

### **Quantity or Quality**

* You may not upgrade your black ants or workers, wood ants are the main attackers. Upgrade as many wood ants to level 3 as you can to get the special abilities.

* If you choose mortar quality is recommended whereas in case of rapid fire, quantity. You can get a few level 3 rapid fire to slow down the spiders. If you have lot of rapid-fire, they can kill their enemies without any extra melee support.

### **Mortar or Rapid-fire**

* It is completely your choice which one to choose for your formicarium.

* However, in different situations only one particular of them do good.

* **Mortar:** Mortar fires slowly but every hit deals high damage. When a large number of enemies are coming, only a few mortar guarded by a line of melee units is enough take them out in few seconds. In level 3, their area damage can destroy groups of enemies at once.

* **Rapid-fire:** Rapid-fire fires very fast and deal low damage per hit. If there are a lot of them, they do not need melee support at all due to their high attack speed. As they fire very frequently, they almost never miss their target, even if the target is a fast creature like spider.

* If you think damage is more important, take mortar and if you think accuracy is more important, take rapid-fire.

### **Strategies**

* You can camp either your own nest entrance or the enemy tubes and let your ants do their work.

* Move your ants near the queen when the third phase begins. Use 2 combatting groups to deal with the the enemy ants and spiders at the same time, with the one assigned to fight the spiders protecting your queen.