New Year's Feast

It’s almost time for Lunar New Year, and the fire ant queen is making her famous New Year's Eve hotpot for her family and friends. Help them find the correct spices in time for dinner, whilst making liberal use of festive firecrackers to clear enemies and shorten your path.

## **Objectives**

* Gather all ingredients before New Year's Eve.

* Gather 50 Szechuan peppercorns.

* Gather 25 fennel seeds.

* Gather 15 chilli flakes.

* Gather 10 star anises.

* Gather 1 cinamon stick.

* Kill the Nian beast.

## **Settings**

In this mission, a fire ant colony must gather all ingredients for the hotpot in time and defeat the Nian beast. The queen is located next to a hotpot.

The mission starts during the day. New Year's Eve is on the 3rd night.

Magnolia saplings grow sparsely across the map. Milkweed seeds frequently land on the map and disappear 90 seconds afterward.

Piles of ingredients are distributed randomly among 5 areas. They are yellow X symbols on the minimaps. They can still be gathered when food storage is full and are placed directly in the hotpot. Your colony receives the corresponding buff after you have completely gathered an ingredient. The final buff you receive only lasts for 25% of the intended duration. Guests aren't affected before they are successfully rescued.

* *Szechuan peppercorns*: Ants take no damage for 120 seconds.

* *Fennel seeds*: Ants move faster for 120 seconds.

* *Chilli flakes*: Ants inflict more damage for 120 seconds.

* *Star anises*: You can spawn ants without requiring food for 200 seconds.

* *Cinamon stick*: Gathered food is double in value for 180 seconds.

You only have access to fire ant workers. You start with 3 extra worker tiles. The queen chamber only has 6 tiles.

You gain access to mortar wood ant shooters, taunt leafcutter ant majors, trap-jaw ant soldiers, army ant majors and big-headed ant supersoldiers by rescuing the respective guests. You can build some brood tiles for free after each succesful rescue.

Guests are distributed randomly among 5 areas. They will move toward the hotpot when you are close to them and attack anything on the way. They stay around and protect the queen for the rest of the mission. They can't gather resources.

You can only play this mission by clicking on the lantern in the main menu, which appears from January 8th to February 28th.

## **Firecrackers**

Ants will automatically carry nearby firecrackers. They can't attack or gather food when they are carrying firecrackers.

If you disable firecracker gathering, you can prevent your ants from further gathering firecrackers. It doesn't make your ants drop the firecrackers they are carrying.

Carried firecrackers are automatically lit when the carrying ants encounter enemies and explode 5 seconds afterward. If you disable attacking, firecrackers don't work.

Firecrackers can knock any nearby creatures in the air. Each firecracker deals 2500 damage to the Nian beast and 200 damage to other enemies. Firecrackers don't damage your ants. An indestructible wall can be turned into diggable soil with 1/ 1/ 1/ 2/ 2 firecracker.

After the Nian beast has appeared, a secret underground cavern is excavated next to your queen. It generates up to 15 super-firecrackers 5 seconds after each time it is depleted. Each super-firecracker deals 5000 damage to the Nian beast and 400 damage to other enemies.

Firecrackers can only be found underground. They are purple dots on the minimaps.

## **Notable enemies**

Enemies from different territories are hostile to each other. The Nian beast, the Uber beach wolf spider and the Uber velvet worm are on one side and are hostile to everything else.

Green rove beetles, blue rove beetles, devil's coach horse beetles, mole crickets, beach wolf spiders, checkered beetles, small whip spiders, small velvet worms, bombardier beetles, false bombardier beetles, narrow-mouthed toads and dwarf salamanders inhabit in your nest.

There is an Uber beach wolf spider and an Uber mole cricket to the southeast of your queen only on impossible.

The puzzle to the northwest of your queen has 4 paths. One leads to guests while the others are infested with tiny sand bear wolf spiders.

Roaming enemies in the central area don't invade your nest.

Woodworms gather in crevices on the surface. Larval rove beetles and harvestmen roam the forest floor all day.

Jumping spiders, magnolia green jumpers, leaf-mimic praying mantises, red velvet ants and checkered beetles only appear on the surface during the day.

Velvet worms, bombardier beetles, false bombardier beetles and dwarf salamanders only appear on the surface at night.

An Uber velvet worm circles around the western hill.

Enemies don't appear on the long pathway to the east of your nest. You can use firecrackers against the nearby woodworms to launch your ants onto the southern ridge and skip half of the journey.

Green rove beetles gather on the eastern hills when you approach and disappear when you move away. They only appear on the single hill which you have set foot upon first.

Beach tiger beetles, six-spotted tiger beetles and larval dune tiger beetles only appear in the southwestern basin.

Some destructible barriers are placed to the northwest of your nest. Each can be destroyed with a single firecracker. Pine wood tree frogs come from the other side of the stream when you approach. They move away permanently when all barriers are destroyed.

The Nian beast is a cosplaying juvenile eastern newt, which has a lot of health. After you have gathered all ingredients, it appears on the northern hill and invades your nest.

## **Trivia**

* This is the only mission narrated entirely in Chinese. It is also the only mission in the game that has mid-game cutscene.

* During the middle cutscene, an army ant major climb to the top of the eastern hill to look for the source of the tremor. This event always happens even if you haven't rescued any army ants.

* Adult green rove beetles on the twin hills can be knocked back.

* Full house is a poker hand with three of a kind and a pair. The respective achievement involves unlocking 3 tank units and 2 melee/ ranged units.

## **Community screenshots**

Lantern (by Antbzk64)Hotpot and firecracker (by NapoleonBonaparteThe1st)New Year decoration (by Orion)Nian beast (by Antbzk64)

## **References**

1. ↑ Tested by Antbzk64#9884 on ICS Dicord (15/9/2023).
2. ↑ Confirmed by Liam on Discord (16/1/2023).
3. ↑ Tested by Antbzk64#9884 on Discord (25/1/2023).
4. ↑ Confirmed by Liam on Discord (16/1/2023).