Empires of the Undergrowth News

Last bits of balance and fixes! Just a very short test to make sure nothing we’ve added or fixed causes any major issues - and then this should be the last one before we set it on the main branch. Hang tight just a little longer if you’ve been waiting for the beta to finish!

This beta now includes Mac, Linux and Win32 builds if anyone would like to test for them! For those familiar with how to activate a beta password the word is christmasants. For more detailed instructions see this post on the forum.

Thanks to ant27rex for the screenshot used in the header and cover of this post!
[h2]
Balance - Baby Sitting
[/h2]

• Reduced number of funnel web spiders on hard and insane difficulties
  
• Provided slightly more time between computer actions on insane difficulty
  
• Dead creatures provide more food on hard and insane difficulties
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Just Isn’t Cricket achievement will now correctly complete instead of completing a different one
  
• Slave makers now correctly drop resources when they see an enemy
  
• Fixed an issue where an invisible enemy could be present in replays of formicarium challenge 3
  
• Fixed an issue where you would autocomplete Rapid Growth and NOPE after beating 1.2 insane
  
• Achievements will now only give their failed or succeeded announcement if you do not already have them
  
• Fixed an issue where tunnelling enemies (Extremis and Surrounded) could get stuck digging nothing or standing still if they tunnelled out and could not see an enemy
  

We're entering the final stages of beta testing for the 0.21 update now - and for the first time in the game this update introduces achievements! The first batch (formicarium tier 1) are present here - more will follow suit later down the line. We’ve also done some fairly extensive balancing.

This is an optional beta - if you’d like to join the beta whilst it’s still running, follow the instructions in the box near the top of this previous post. If you're already on the beta branch you won't need to do this; the game should update by itself. Thanks so much to everyone who has helped us test this large update; we’re nearly there now! NOTE: The beta will only run on Windows. Once we've finished the beta period Mac and Linux will get the full finished update!

Thanks to whoamijr for the screenshot used for the header and cover of this post!


[h2]Headline Features[/h2]

• Achievements are now active on Steam for the first tier of the formicarium. Note you will currently only be able to get these in the beta
  
• Some level balance changes, more details below

[h2]Balance Changes[/h2]
[h3]Aggrandise[/h3]

• Raised the cost of trap jaw ant build to 90 (up from 60)
  
• Added black ants to the player’s build options to give a mid-way unit now trap jaw cost has been increased so much

[h3]3.2 Front Line[/h3]

• On higher difficulties less patrolling creatures appear
  
• On higher difficulties more level 2 and 3 army ants will appear

[h3]Formicarium Challenge 3[/h3]

• Reduced the number of resource refills the enemy colony receives across various difficulties (now 0/1/2/4 down from 0/1/5/10)
  
• Reduced reload quantity to 1800 (down from 2000)
  
• Resource reloads will now appear gradually (10 per second) rather than instantly
  
• Reduced size of cricket drops on harder difficulties

[h2]General[/h2]

• A couple of achievement times adjusted for balance reasons
  
• Creatures set to attack player when damaged now only attack the first player that attacked them and do not switch

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Food reservation now affects leaves and harvestable creatures, so you will not harvest from these unless there is space available for ants to reserve a slot to place them
  
• Minor change to a web on 1.2 allowing the spider to see other ants that are on top of its nest
  
• Fixed another resource pickup issue that could cause an ant to get stuck trying to pick up a resource
  
• Funnel web spider can no longer be introduced after its death has been announced in 1.2
  
• Fixed an issue where leaves could be dropped in a way that made them inaccessible around nest entrances
  
• Fixed an issue with recent changes to mole crickets that made them spawn on the same spot (and could crash)
  
• Fixed an issue that could occur with harvesters when harvesting was turned off (they could walk back and forth to the thing they were previously harvesting for a time)
  
• Fixed some bugs with achievements in 1.2
  
• Resources dropped from deleting tiles now correctly display food values and appear on the minimap
  
• Fixed an issue where ubers were still invading with invasions turned off (again!)
  
• Moved some food in the old demo levels to be in caverns
  
• Fix added for water rising on low frame rates that could cause it to overshoot (sometimes enough to kill ants coming out of their nest)
  
• Fixed an issue where an ant could briefly be given a job as it was heading to the surface, causing its AI to break and not move when it reached the surface
  
• Potential fix for ants locking out harvesting of plant from a long distance away
  
• Minor adjustments in food size in critters to help flickering
  
• Fixed a bug with plant disembarking
  
• Leaf sizes are now more sensible in 3.1
  
• Fixed a rare crash that could occur in pathfinding
  
• Fixed an issue where an ant targeted by a funnel web that was killed could not be targeted by another until ants stopped entering the nest

Some help for leafcutters in freeplay with regenerating leaves now being a thing (in freeplay only - campaign level leaves do not grow back). This is an optional beta - if you’d like to join the beta whilst it’s still running, follow the instructions in the box near the top of this previous post. If you're already on the beta branch you won't need to do this; the game should update by itself. NOTE: The beta will only run on Windows. Once we've finished the beta period Mac and Linux will get the full finished update!

• Leaves will now regenerate in freeplay five minutes after some have been harvested (saplings regenerate 100, red rusty plant 200 and green plant 300)
  
• Food reduction in freeplay now kicks in at 200% difficulty (up from 50%) and drops to a minimum at 960% difficulty (up from 150%).
  
• Creatures in freeplay will more rapidly get to scale level 5 between difficulty values of 100 and 200% but will then only increase 1 level per 20% after that point (up from 10%)
  
• Physical creature size now increases slower and caps totally at triple size (in practice it should never reach this value)
  
• Chance of uber spawning now increases the longer one has not spawned. At max at 45 mins after last spawn. This will cause more ubers to spawn at lower difficulties or if one has not spawned in a while
  

• Minims should now appear on both sides of carried leaves by level 3 majors and mediae
  
• Creatures should no longer get stuck in pickup state (appearing static picking up food)
  
• Some tweaks to creature movement
  
• Possible fix for issues where creatures can end up inside ramps
  
• Corrected an error that could cause creatures to get stuck at the entrance to ramps
  
• Fixed an issue (again) with the scientists hand not squashing ants
  
• Can no longer see water in tunnels during cinematics in 2.1 and 2.2
  
• A patrol route behind the players nest has been reactivated in 3.2
  
• Tweaked some patrols in 3.2
  
• Phorid flies will now display little health bars to make them more visible
  
• Fixed an issue where a creature could get stuck trying to harvest a resource if combat started and ended briefly during it heading to the resource
  
• Fixed an issue where workers could survive their tiles being deleted if they have the “evasive” skill
  
• Fixed a crash caused by placing markers in banned areas using the minimap
  
• After purchasing a queen ability, all queen cool-downs need to recharge (prevents switching queen abilities during formicarium challenge exploit)
  
• An ant may only remove one phorid fly every three minutes to prevent clearing a patch by a single level 3 ant
  
• The huge whip spider will now walk normally again in 3.2
  
• Food visually can only be 40% its default size so small food items are more visible and scales slower at the upper end of values
  
• Fixed an issue where loaded eggs could be tiny if saved in their frozen state
  
• Update to how markers work fixing an exploit where you could use two markers to completely empty a trail
  
• Updates to markers to pull ants from more old marker locations and changed these locations priorities. It should feel smoother and is more forgiving to army repositioning
  
• Ladybirds now immune to many crowd control effects to prevent them being affected whilst eating an aphid
  
• Camera now correctly exits victory animation after continuing freeplay post victory
  
• Music restarts when continuing freeplay post victory
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur on maps that have tiles removed such as the second lab formicarium
  
• Got rid of some buried harvestable beetles in 3.1
  
• Fixed a crash with swarm point in underground only maps
  
• “Attack when favourable” creatures (such as mantis and jumping spider) now takes nearby allies into account when deciding to attack or not
  
• Optimisations added to path following
  
• Improvements to ant crowd movement - particularly in combat
  
• Fixed an issue where leafcutters were not making digging noises
  
• Fixed a rare crash in path finding
  
• Fixed an issue where building and upgrading was no longer making noise
  
• Mole crickets now take room size into account when selecting a room to spawn in
  
• Fixed issues with funnel web movement
  

A bug fixing update for the optional beta, dealing mainly with the fallout from reintroducing the story campaign back into it. We’re homing in on having this update ready for the main branch but if you’d like to join the beta whilst it’s still running, follow the instructions in the box near the top of this previous post. NOTE: The beta will only run on Windows. Once we've finished the beta period Mac and Linux will get the full finished update!

[h2]Fixes & Optimisations[/h2]

• Fixed issues caused by creatures jumping up ledges
  
• Fixed creatures stuck near ramp tops
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause infinite spawning of wood ants from fish landmark (and other issues in infestation landmark)
  
• Fixed a crash related to creatures disappearing whilst climbing
  
• Hidden some development boxes from ramps in 3.2
  
• Minims will now appear on leaves carried by level 3 majors and mediae to represent their 100% chance of defending from phorid flies
  
• Fixed underground marker path arrows being wrong way round when placing marker on surface
  
• Improvements to collision detection with difficult shapes
  
• Adjusted ramp collisions
  
• Adjusted some plants and collision settings in 3.1 to help with creatures getting stuck
  
• Difficulty applied due to getting close to completing an objective in freeplay is now removed once the objective is complete
  
• Improved leafcutter repel phorid fly animation
  
• Fixed some issues where loaded ants from old games could be moved to the top of a tunnel and get stuck
  
• Food stuck under lab formicarium is now correctly on the surface
  
• Fixed an issue where beach tiger beetle larvae would not attack in 2.x challenge modes
  
• Fixed an issue where mole crickets were spawning in 1.2 far too quickly with the challenge on
  
• Added some fixes for creatures dropping food, will now do a check to see if the dropped tile is accessible and can successfully drop off cliff without becoming inaccessible
  
• Some fixes added to phorid fly spawners making spawn failures less likely
  
• Removed excessive resource scans for creatures
  
• Fixed an issue where creatures could get stuck trying to pick up a food item
  
• Fixed an issue on 3.2 where army ants would ignore other enemies until attacked
  
• Fixed an issue where Formicarium Challenge 2 could be won with spiders still alive in rare circumstances
  
• Creatures should no longer get stuck on one another if they reload at same location or jump to same location
  

As mentioned, we're not far from fixing the issues and bringing this update to the main branch. We likely have a round of balance changes to go before we reach that point, so we'll be taking into account all of your feedback before we set about doing this.

Thanks to everyone who has been particularly helpful during this beta period (you know who you are!) and thank you to everyone who's given us clues about where glitches might be hiding - you've made the process much smoother.

Welcome to 2020! We've been running an optional beta on Steam since late December which mainly introduces a reworked freeplay mode, and more recently adds the challenge mode for the third tier formicarium levels. Since that time we've been working through the veritable mountain of issues and other feedback with it, and we're now in the home stretch for bringing this out of beta and to the main branch for everyone to play. There's still time to join the beta if you haven't already - see the instructions near the top of this link if you'd like to join in. NOTE: The beta will only run on Windows. Once we've finished the beta period Mac and Linux will get the full finished update.

Leafcutters on the march from Limey21

We'll start this newsletter by talking about the changes to freeplay mode, then have a look at the mechanics of phorid flies in the campaign challenge mode. We'll also talk about the first of the new extra missions to come along with the update - Aggrandise. Lastly, we'll go over what has taken us many months to get to this point - the laborious changes to the movement and path finding code.

Freeplay Mode Changes

[h2]Leafcutters in Freeplay[/h2]

The update to freeplay will include leafcutters as their own independent colony type. When you play as leafcutters many of the landmarks that appear on the surface will be patches of leaves, since the sole source of food for them is their fungus gardens fuelled by leaf cuttings. This puts them at somewhat of a disadvantage at the start of a freeplay run, since they cannot attain food from underground and must quickly venture to the surface to collect foliage. To help with this, we have extended the exclusion zone around active nest entrances which should help leafcutter colonies get a foothold. Later in the run, the majors should more than make up for the humble beginnings!

Leafcutters doing their thing in Towhead
[h2]New Freeplay Map - Embankment[/h2]

To thematically celebrate bringing leafcutters to freeplay, we are also introducing a new rainforest-themed map! Embankment is set in the Ecuadorian jungle, like the third tier story missions, along the banks of a trickling forest stream which splits the map in two lengthways. You can of course play with any of the other species on this level, but I personally find it particularly satisfying to make a freeplay setup that only spawns wood and rainforest creatures, disable everything but the rainforest enemies, and immerse myself in jungle ambience.

Click the thumbnails to see the full Embankment screenshots

[h2]Scaled Enemies[/h2]

A big change to the way freeplay works is that now as difficulty increases, you will get enemies that are scaled up in both size and strength, rather than just more enemies inhabiting the world. In this way we can increase the challenge without having a lot of creatures running around reducing performance. By mousing over the "menu" icon in the top right of the screen, you can see the current difficulty setting and will notice enemies getting quite significantly larger as it goes up.

Some big boys here from Ainz Ooal Gown - note he was playing a Creative game here (another new freeplay option), so their size is unlikely to be reached in a normal game!

[h2]Rebalanced Uber Creatures[/h2]

Up until this point uber creatures have always simultaneously been the most interesting and frustrating thing about a freeplay run. They represent an immediate existential threat to your colony and only the foolhardy would underestimate their presence after it is announced. However, even for well-run colonies, an uber creature currently spells almost certain death unless you are very advanced into the game. Furthermore some colonies like Formica fusca can do very little against them. Whilst we certainly want players to feel that squirm of panic when ubers are around, we don't want them to spell a definite end to proceedings.

In the current way of doing things, ubers spawn and immediately go about deciding if they're going to attack the player or just mill around for a while. With the new update, there will be a grace period of eight minutes during which the uber will definitely not attack the nest - this gives players ample time to get home if they feel they need to or start to swarm the uber before it becomes invasive. Furthermore, they will no longer ignore the "Nest invasions" setting in freeplay so if you've turned invasions off, they will never threaten your queen.

Pro tip - holding down an appropriate creature's spawn button for 10 seconds in the Battle Arena will spawn its uber version!

On top of this, each uber in the game has been tweaked and changed to give it specific strengths and weaknesses. They've all had health and strength reduced somewhat - they are all still very strong creatures that need measured resistance, but they should feel much fairer now. This isn't a blanket change to all ubers and each one has been tweaked individually, in both stats and abilities - we will detail these in the patch notes when the time comes. A lot of uber effects are based on AOE (area of effect) and a game-wide change to the way AOE works will affect just about every uber creature (there is now pronounced falloff of AOE damage from the epicentre of an attack to its edge - this incidentally also affects wood ant mortars).

[h2]Victory Conditions[/h2]

When you set up your freeplay game, in the advanced options there will be a section that allows you to choose from several different ways to officially "win" your freeplay game, and to set a threshold for that goal. There are several of these, detailed below:

• Biomass - raise your colony to reach a specific size, with more expensive tiles contributing more points
  
• Domination - defeat enemies to earn points towards your goal
  
• Survival - survive for an amount of time
  
• Score - reach a set score by defeating enemies, building tiles and harvesting resources
  
• Hunter - kill a set number of uber creatures
  
• Besieged - survive a set number of attack waves
  

Advanced freeplay settings, showing optional victory conditions

As you approach your goal you will notice difficulty increasing sharply, so be prepared for the onslaught! After you attain your goal you will be given your score - you can then either quit to the menu or continue playing, having achieved what was set. Well done you.

[h2]Exporting / Importing Freeplay Setup[/h2]

You will be able to alter freeplay settings to your heart's content, save them as a preset, and easily export them to share with other players. Exporting works by creating a string you can copy to your clipboard, and importing works by reading such a string. Share on your medium of choice - in fact we'll be making a dedicated forum thread for your favourite setups when the update is released.

Sharing a string for a freeplay setup called Island Nation

3.x Challenge Mode - Phorid Flies

Along with the freeplay update, we will be completing the third tier formicarium levels by introducing the challenge mode to them. Phorid flies are tiny, inconspicuous-looking insects that could easily be mistaken for fruit flies but are far deadlier. They lay their eggs between the armoured carapaces of insects, in particular your ants, leading to a time where they will be less effective followed by inevitable death.

A tiny phorid fly, very close to the camera, prepares to lay eggs on leafcutter ants

All ants have a chance of fighting off the flies when they are attacked, but level 3 mediae and majors have a 100% chance to fight them off (there's an incentive to get upgrading!). A successful defence will cause the fly to leave. They appear on the minimap as a distinctive fly icon - so try to keep clear of these areas unless you have no other choice.

Extra Level - Aggrandise

We've long spoken about including extra levels apart from the main campaign, and with the coming update we're introducing the first of these - Aggrandise. It has a simple aim - kill the giant whip spider.

Your objective: kill that guy

There are no tricks here, no enemies hidden in caverns or surprise nest invasions. Simply start in the middle of the map, expand cautiously and use your knowledge of the game to decide which enemies to take down next for food. Once you have the forces, it's time to take on the big guy.

The overview

In this level you command a Formica ereptor colony with access to wood ant mortars and, for the first time, trap jaw ants! These ants have a powerful bite and can use their fast-moving jaws to propel themselves out of combat, healing in the process. This makes them deadly close range units with impressive survivability for their size.

Control trap jaw ants in Aggrandise!

The primary focus of the coming update may be a rework of freeplay, but it is not the most fundamental change that will come along with it. For the past several months a majority of the work we've been doing has been completely gutting and re-writing the movement and path finding system that creatures use to navigate the map. Although this results in very few visible changes, it has been a monumental undertaking when considering the size of our small team - we've been replacing built-in Unreal Engine 4 functions with bespoke ones which are more fit for our purposes. We had used the default functions all over the project, and such a basal change to things is obviously going to have lots of issues. We're nearly there in working through these now.

The primary motivation for all this work is optimisation - removing unnecessary calculations which reduce the frame rate and restrict the number of creatures that can exist in the world. We've previously announced that the focal species of the next formicarium tier will be fire ants, and we want there to be a lot of them - swarming over enemies and overwhelming them. As well as making current content smoother for everyone, the groundwork put into this now will improve everything for the future.



We've been delighted to see EotU get some great coverage recently, and lots of people have been getting lots out of the beta despite the issues it has had! Scottish streamer CnRNaggarock is a long-time player of Empires of the Undergrowth, and as far as I'm aware is the only person with a documented win of the Hungry Spider Halloween / full moon level with video evidence. We always get a kick out of watching his streams. Give him a follow on Twitter, subscribe to him on Twitch, and support his content!

Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/cnrnaggarock
Twitter - https://twitter.com/CNaggarock



So after writing a particularly long newsletter, I finally come to my favourite part - looking through a few of the fantastic screenshots you lovely people take of our game on a regular basis, making it look much better than it has any right to be. If you'd like to contribute simply upload your screenshots to Steam - F12 by default takes a snap. To get some interesting angles press F9 in-game to get to photo mode. If you hold down shift whilst you do this, the camera will be freed up for some really nice photographic potential. You can also email your snaps to me at [email protected].

At first glance this shot from ant27rex looks like a crab nestling down in hay for the night, until you realise it’s a whole bunch of whip spiders

A cheeky jumping spider waits for leaf cutters to emerge in another shot from Limey21

A pleasingly purple Formica ereptor queen from whoamijr