Tug of War

This mission is an auto-battling game mode against an AI opponent.

## **Settings**

In this mission, 2 gene-thief ant colonies must fight each other in an arena.

After a certain amount of time, eggs are automatically spawned for free on available brood tiles. The inbetween time starts at 25 seconds and increases by 1 second after each spawn.

Acquired food is automatically placed in food storage. You gain food every 30 seconds until storage is full. Food income is calculated based on the following formula.

*Food income* = 35 + 0.01 \* *combat score*

It is calculated a bit differently when your colony is taking control of the halfway point.

*Food income (bonus)* = (35 + 0.01 \* *combat score*) \* 1.1 + 2

Your ants are automatically put in the first pheromone group every 30 seconds and move toward the enemy nest. If you move your ants to other pheromone groups, they return to the queen. You can still prevent your ants from attacking.

You have 37 level 3 food storage tiles at the start of the mission. They can be deleted for food. You can only build brood tiles and highway tiles.

You have access to black ant soldiers, wood ant soldiers, rapid-fire wood ant shooters, leafcutter ant mediae, taunt leafcutter ant majors, slave-maker ant soldiers, trap-jaw ant soldiers, army ant mediae and army ant majors. You don't have access to workers.

## **Enemy colony**

The enemy colony has access to the same units and uses the same mechanics as your colony.

Food income is calculated based on the following formula. The value of *multiplier* is 0.8/ 0.95/ 1/ 1.2/ 1.5 on each respective difficulty.

*Food income* = (35 + 0.01 \* *combat score*) \* *multiplier*

It is calculated a bit differently when the enemy colony is taking control of the halfway point.

*Food income (bonus)* = (35 + 0.01 \* *combat score*) \* *multiplier* \* 1.1 + 2

The enemy colony randomly chooses a unit composition and the correponding nest design to build each game.

* *Choice 1*: Wood ant soldiers, wood ant shooters

* *Choice 2*: Army ant mediae, army ant majors

* *Choice 3*: Black ant soldiers, wood ant soldiers, wood ant shooters, trap-jaw ant soldiers

* *Choice 4*: Black ant soldiers, wood ant soldiers, leafcutter ant majors

* *Choice 5*: Black ant soldiers, wood ant shooters, leafcutter ant mediae

* *Choice 6*: Black ant soldiers, leafcutter ant mediae, leafcutter ant majors, trap-jaw ant soldiers, army ant majors

* *Choice 7 (uncommon nest design)*: Black ant soldiers, leafcutter ant majors, army ant majors

* *Choice 8 (uncommon nest design)*: Black ant soldiers, trap-jaw ant soldiers, army ant majors

* *Choice 9*: Wood ant shooters, leafcutter ant majors, trap-jaw ant soldiers, army ant mediae

* *Choice 10*: Wood ant shooters, trap-jaw ant soldiers, army ant mediae

## **Trivia**

* **Empires of the Undergrowth** was planned as a tug-of-war mobile game.  This wasn't well received among kickstarters, which helped turn it into a real-time-strategy PC game.

* The enemy colony never uses slave-maker ant soldiers on any combination.

## **Minimaps**

SurfaceUnderground - playerUnderground - yellow *(common)*Underground - yellow *(uncommon)*

## **References**

1. ↑ https://steamcommunity.com/app/463530/discussions/0/3764482197525901135/#c3764482382514642758
2. ↑ https://steamcommunity.com/app/463530/discussions/0/3764482197525901135/#c3764482382514642758
3. ↑ https://slugdisco.com/ant-battle-swarming-algorithms/
4. ↑ https://slugdisco.com/the-move-to-unreal-4/