Empires of the Undergrowth News

• Hunter and Domination game modes in freeplay no longer disable colony attacks
  
• Simplified some interaction in the freeplay menus that were causing issues to do with creature checkboxes and the creatures type dropdown
  
• Fixed a typo in the Discord tooltip
  
• Fixed an issue preventing uber mole crickets spawning in freeplay
  
• Fixed an issue where status effects were not being dealt with correctly in priority order (for example a creature could flee when stunned)
  
• Fixed an issue where turning food gathering off whilst an ant was gathering caused it to walk back and forth to the food it was going to gather
  
• Fixed some UI interaction issues with the freeplay setup menu especially when opening a saved setup
  

1. Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"
   
2. Choose the "Betas" tab
   
3. In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter summertimeants
4. After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "openbeta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
   
5. Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.
   

• Fixed an issue where food buried underground but not part of a cavern would not be labeled as buried and not seen as an outline
  
• Randomised caverns for leafcutters now produce smaller leaves as so not poke through the surface and are randomly rotated
  
• Placing a marker on an enemy nest exit whilst your ants are in a different enemy nest will now cause your ants to leave the nest they are in
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed you to get a refund for a tile upgrade if canceled the same frame it was completed (was easier on low FPS computers)
  
• Fixed a couple of painting issues on the surface to do with tunnel exits when they are not tunneled out
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur in formicarium challenge 3 when the hand moved
  
• Player not selecting a unit option in freeplay will no longer refer to wood ants
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur on low end hardware
  
• Tunnel door now correctly stops ants walking through on The Other Foot
  
• Freeplay maps without a map option now grey out the option in the basic setup
  
• Fixed an issue for Russian language in the main menu text
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause creatures to freeze in an animation until the player looks at them
  
• Fixed a couple of spellings on the freeplay scoreboard
  
• Fixed an issue where creatures could get stuck in the tunnel exit at a low frame rate
  
• Fixed an issue that could rarely cause a creature to get stuck in the air when picked up by a praying mantis
  
• Fixed an issue where the praying mantis could on rare occasions freeze doing nothing
  
• Fixed some visual underground tile bugs
  
• Fixed some UI issues with freeplay setup
  
• Fixed an issue with pathing at the northern end of Basin
  
• Destructible barriers can no longer be knocked back or affected by other effects
  

• Barrier between nests in Basin is no longer destructible if you are not allied with the colony on the other side
  
• Barriers that are destructible in Basin now appear as pieces of wood rather than stone
  
• The Hungry Spider level’s uber beach wolf spider can now take more than 6 damage per hit (should be easier to kill with a bite build now)
  
• Added in notifications explaining how to combat phorid flies in 3.1 and 3.2
  
• The player is now given a warning that they could lose their rewards if they try and restart a level when rewards are waiting for them in the formicarium
  
• Quitting or restarting Extremis now gives the player the reward points they had earned up to that point
  
• Some creatures now cannot be knocked back or forced to flee
  
• Some more improvement to funnel web performance in freeplay
  
• Smoothed some of the landscape at the edge of 2.2 and prevented some tiles poking through the sea bed
  
• Forum link changed to discord and patch notes link updated
  
• Mole cricket (and uber mole cricket) added to the Battle Arena
  
• Couple of icon updates for ant species in Battle Arena
  
• Slave maker ants added to Battle Arena
  
• Uber mole cricket can now be unlocked for freeplay by completing Excavators (should be retroactive)
  
• Dropped creatures will now try and drop where they are held rather than the centre of the holding creature
  

If you're afraid of everything creepy-crawly you might want to look away, as the ant colony management game Empires of the Undergrowth has a big update out.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/11/face-off-against-other-ant-colonies-in-the-big-empires-of-the-undergrowth-update

• AI Colonies are available in freeplay (NOTE: activating these will currently disable freeplay saving)
  
  • They have Easy and Normal difficulty and can cheat (if you set them to) to create a greater challenge
    
  • Up to 3 AI colonies can be added, and can be enemies or allies
    The new freeplay setup screen, showing the AI options
• New freeplay map: Basin
  • Designed for 2v2 but can be played in any configuration
    
  • Map option adds in destructible barriers to open up new access routes on the map
    Basin in all its lush green glory
• New option: randomised caverns allow for a different underground setup every game!
  
• Freeplay game type selection allows quick and easy setups
  
  • Victory conditions, creatures and other options are automatically setup when selecting the game type
    
  • All other options can still be found in the tabs
    

• Excavators is now available to all in the extra levels section… wait.. did that exclamation mark just move??
  [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
  
• Tug Of War will be available at the end of November, an auto-battler against an AI
  

• Finishing The Other Foot extra level will unlock the Counterpart Colony for use in freeplay
  
• More ramps have been added to Towhead to make it easier at the early stages
  
• Rework of pheromone trails. Ants will now leave the nest immediately and some will turn around on their way to form the trail
  [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
  

• Fixed an issue where a loaded harvestman’s leg could cause the game to crash
  
• Can no longer place markers for nest group underground via minimap
  
• Blocked side routes for the huge whip spider on Aggrandise (preventing your ants pathing through its chamber unintended)
  
• Fixed an issue where switching from evasive worker upgrade would leave the camouflage on
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause first wave to have no creatures in Extremis
  
• Fixed an issue where creatures spawned on lab formicarium 2 after returning from a mission could be stuck slightly in the ground. The friendly spiders will now immediately attack; F in comments for spiderbro :(
  
• Fixed a bug where reloading a freeplay game that has no manual save would cause the map to load in its default setup without workers or queen tiles
  
• Fixed an issue where leafcutters were climbing empty plant leaves
  
• Fixed an issue where the whip spider (and other large enemies) could potentially skip the line-of-sight check if switching targets while an enemy is actually visible (stops whip spider attacking ants above it on the ridge)
  
• Minor improvement to target acquisition efficiency for abilities
  
• Fixed an issue where only 20 refuse was removed when cancelling a build or upgrade job rather than the full amount that was created
  
• Check added to prevent save files read-only crash and appropriate error message given to player
  
• Fixed an issue where resource numbers could appear to float upwards when food drops close to and behind the camera
  
• Fixed an issue on 3.2 where army ant scouts would not move (this may fix other issues as well)
  
• When an ally uses a queen ability it now correctly says an ally used the queen ability instead of enemy
  
• Fixed an issue where the wrong music would play when playing more after 2.1
  
• Fixed a crash that would occur on The Other Foot when creatures got close to bridge edges (after the formicariums are connected)
  

• Reduced point value of army ant media
  
• Leafcutter ant media buffed
  
  • Attack damage increased to 4.5 / 6 / 7 (up from 3 / 4.5 / 6)
    
  • Health increased to 100 / 115 / 130 (up from 90 / 105 / 120)
    
  • Speed increased to 310 / 320 / 330 (up from 300 / 300 / 300)
    
  • Piercing increased to 0.2 / 0.3 / 0.4 (up from 0.2 / 0.2 / 0.2)
    
• Wood ant melee buffed
  
  • Threat generation increased to 0.2 / 0.25 / 0.3 (up from 0.1 / 0.1 / 0.15)
    
  • Damage increased to 0.6 / 1.2 / 1.8 (up from 0.5 / 1 / 1.5)
    
  • Armour increased 0.2 / 0.4 / 0.6 (up from 0 / 0 / 0)
    
  • Distance values altered so they will get slightly closer to enemies before attacking (should allow other melee units the ability to get closer to the fight)
    
• Health regeneration on many melee units buffed
  
  • Leafcutter major, army ant major and slave maker ants health regen increased to 0.1 / 0.15 / 0.2 (up from 0.1 / 0.1 / 0.1)
    
  • Black ant, wood ant melee and leafcutter media health regeneration increased to 0.1 / 0.2 / 0.3 (up from 0.1 / 0.1 / 0.1)
    
• Rapid fire wood ants will now get in and out of attack mode much more quickly
  
• Reduced mortar arc height
  

• Underground enemy "!" icons are now scaled based on how many points they provide. This should make it easier to gauge threats before attacking
  
• Ramp collision improvements
  
• Marker calculations have been improved (should be more responsive)
  
• Royal Guard are now immune to stun, confuse, pickup and execute
  
• Royal Guard health increased to 200 (up from 120)
  
• Infestation landmark is now defaulted to off
  
• Dropdown boxes in freeplay setup now display tooltips for each individual option when hovered over
  
• Freeplay now has an option to disable colonies entering one another (this turns on by default if playing Domination or Hunter game modes)
  
• Can now select which ubers you wish to spawn in freeplay
  

• Optimisations for creature movement
  
• Changes to how certain checks are done on the behaviour tree to improve performance
  
• Minor performance improvements on funnel web landmark (still needs more work)
  
• Improved honeydew resource performance
  
• When an egg hatches, the open egg and particle effect will only occur if the player is viewing that tile grid at the time (as will the hatch sound)
  

• Reloading in freeplay now selects the correct loading screen for the map
  
• Root aphid clusters now spawn closer to the central point of interest in freeplay to prevent them spawning over cliff edges
  
• Fixed an issue where being at the south end of Excavators map would map the world bright
  
• Autosaves are now deleted when a game is deleted fixing an error that could try to load the wrong save into a freeplay level
  
• Killing an uber with a damage over time (DOT) effect will now count the kill towards victory objective Hunter
  
• Uber mole cricket now has 3000 food up from 30