Empires of the Undergrowth News

We’ve updated the currently-running optional beta. As well as fixes and changes to the freeplay AI, this one also includes some rather extensive balance changes that will affect the campaign levels as well. We’re particularly looking forward to feedback on these.

This will currently only affect you if you're participating in the optional beta. If you’re not participating in the beta and would like to, please see the details in this link. Note that the beta is only available to Windows Steam owners.

[h2]Freeplay and AI changes[/h2]

• Easy AI Player added
  
  • Will not attack another colony for at least the first 20 minutes
    
  • Far less likely to attack another colony
    
  • Attacks on enemy colonies are shorter
    
  • Will wait longer between attacks
    
  • Makes decisions less often
    
• Medium AI Player added
  
  • Can regroup during an attack if it is going poorly (briefly pause an attack)
    
  • Can come to the aid of an ally if they have more than 10 enemies in their nest and are not currently attacking
    
• Raiding defeated colonies added
  
  • Players may now remain inside enemy colonies once they are defeated
    
  • Defeated players colony is dismantled at a rate of 1 tile per half second, dropping resources to the ground
    
  • These resources can be carried off by an opposing colony
    
• Players can now see into nests where allied ants are located
  

[h2]Balance Changes[/h2]

• Lower difficulties of cheats starting base size and resources reduced slightly
  
• 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
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue preventing movement avoidance code working properly
  
• Fixed an issue where enemy colonies would continue building after their queen had been killed
  

We’ve updated the currently-running optional beta - this will only affect you if you're participating in said currently-running optional beta, detailed in this post.

[h2]New Features[/h2]

• Freeplay teams implemented - AI colonies in freeplay can now be assigned a team (including allied with the player)
  
• If the player places a marker on an enemy colony, AI allies will join the attack if it deems it sensible
  
• Allied players ping the minimap when they themselves are attacking an enemy colony to let the player know
  
• AI allies will join in each other's attacks on enemy colonies
  
• Conquest victory condition now takes into account allies
  
• Counterpart colony will now be available to play in freeplay once you beat extra level “The Other Foot” (you will need to beat it again if you already have done so; difficulty doesn’t matter)
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Royal Guard are now immune to stun, confuse, pickup and execute
  
• Royal Guard health increased to 200 (up from 120)
  
• AI colonies now build more rooms and should have a more sensible distribution of ants in their marker groups
  
• Formica ereptor AI colonies can now build from the entire pool of ants available to them (even those unlocked by editing the save files)
  
• Formica ereptor AI colonies will now build up to 4 species in freeplay
  
• Infestation landmark is now defaulted to off
  
• AI now turns off harvesting and turns on attacking when going into combat with a colony and turns both on when leaving combat with a colony
  
• AI cheats now have bigger pre-built bases at lower difficulties
  
• AI cheats now have smaller pre-built bases and higher difficulties
  
• AI cheats now have more starting resources at lower difficulties
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where switching from evasive worker upgrade would leave the camouflage on
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause the 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 previously 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 an AI colony ants could be carrying eggs on the surface
  
• If no AI player exists and Conquest is selected a Formica fusca colony is added in freeplay
  
• Fixed an issue where leafcutters were climbing empty plant leaves
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause AI colonies to attack player 0 even if no colony exists in the game with that ID (AI ants will no longer attack inactive nests)
  
• Fixed the revenge mechanic for AI colonies; they will now be more likely to attack a player that has killed some of their ants recently
  
• 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 a crash that would occur when loading a level with pre-set leaves
  

An update to the currently running beta has been released - this will only affect you if you're participating in the currently-running optional beta, detailed in this post.

Here are the notes for this beta release:

• Fixed an issue where formicarium colony’s territory and jelly were set to zero and tunnel exit closed. (If you saved a formicarium in this state we advise restoring it from a backup, detailed here)
  
• Fixed an issue where Tug of War map would display formicarium rewards at the end
  
• Enemy ants should no longer provide vision in freeplay with Fog of War active
  
• Fixed an issue where freeplay enemy colonies unit selection was the opposite of what was chosen
  
• Fixed the game icon
  

An optional beta is available to all Steam owners of the game running a 64 bit Windows system. The idea with these occasional builds is to give people access to new things that need wider testing, with the understanding that there are likely to be crashes and balance issues. We would appreciate feedback if you can provide it - post on our Steam forums, or our official forums.

The beta code is summertimeants. If you’re unfamiliar with how to activate a Steam beta, here’s how to do it:

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.
   

IMPORTANT: If you participate in the optional beta, you do so with the understanding that crashes are likely and there are incomplete features since it is a test build. In this beta, freeplay saving is disable due to AI colonies not having the code to properly save their thought processes yet. Due to the unpredictable nature of beta tests, we strongly recommend you back up your formicarium saves before you play:

You will find your saves on Windows in:

C:/Users/YOUR USER NAME/AppData/Local/EotU/Saved/SaveGames

Note that AppData is usually hidden; you can either un-hide the folder in the files settings or just type it into the bar. If you make a copy of this folder and save it somewhere else, you can restore your saves by replacing this folder with the backed up one.



[h2]New Extra Level - Tug Of War[/h2]

• An auto-battler game mode in which you pit your chosen build against an AI opponent
  
• The enemy has a number of different builds to choose from; to beat it you’ll need to be smarter and faster!
  
• Instead of gathering resources you are given food periodically based on how well you’re doing
  
• Push back the enemy and kill their queen to claim victory
  

[h2]Freeplay AI Colonies[/h2]

• AI enemy colonies can now be added to a new freeplay game in the setup menu
  
• In this first implementation their AI is basic so they don’t have a difficulty setting (it is greyed out; this will be expanded on later) but you can give yourself a challenge by having them cheat to varying degrees
  
• A new victory condition - Conquest - can be set in Advanced Options. To achieve it, all enemy queens must be killed
  

• 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)
  
• Underground enemy icons are now scaled based on how many points they provide. This should make it easier to gauge threats before attacking
  
• Allied creatures now show health when camouflaged
  
• Ramp collision improvements
  
• Reduced point value of army ant media
  
• Marker calculations have been improved (should be more responsive)
  

It's a regular query, but we imagine not many of you here on Steam know the answer. We are often asked how big our team size is, and that's a very valid question - it affects many things about a game's development cycle. In our case, the answer is three - three developers on a very ambitious project that is laden with pitfalls.

Despite the extra difficulties in being very small, really neat things can come from tiny teams - we'd like to think that Empires of the Undergrowth, for all its small-team shortcomings (our big updates take a long time, but you're all super understanding!) is a quality game worthy of your time investment. There are many other indie devs that operate solo or in tiny teams, and some of the best works of this generation of gaming have come from that.

The Yogscast agree with us. We've been selected to be a part of their Tiny Teams games festival, which is running from 8PM BST tonight (9th August) until the 15th. It'll be highlighting and celebrating the very small teams (a core team of 1-3) who produce amazing things with limited resources.

As well as this Steam event, the Yogscast will be running tie-in Twitch streams to go along with the festival. Empires of the Undergrowth will feature.

Join the Yogscast stream at https://www.twitch.tv/yogscast. We'll see you in Twitch chat!

Also for you guys who don't visit the forum very often - here's a very early work-in-progress of fire ants building bridges with their own bodies.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]