Greetings, fellow ants! 🐜

We’ve deployed a new patch with several enhancements, fixes, and balance adjustments for Empire of the Ants. Here’s what’s new:

• Added support for monitors with different aspect ratios (e.g. Steam Deck, widescreen
  monitors)
  
• Added a field-of-view slider in the Video Options
  
• Added a monitor selection option in the Video Options
  
• Improved the “Vertical sync” option to work with high refresh rate monitors
  
• Increased maximum frame rate to 144 FPS

• Fix for rare hang when commanding Hornets
  
• Fix for ‘Space bar’ indicator to restart a mission not working
  
• Fixed a fatal error when starting the game on a PC that has DLSS Frame Generation
  (i.e. Nvidia RTX 40 series card)
  
• Fix for missing sounds in missions

• The “protective Barrier” upgrade provides 15% HP in shield instead of 20%
  
• Slightly increased Nest gunners Tier 1 damage to Hornets
  
• Slightly decreased Nest gunners Tier 3 damage to Hornets

• Nerfed the Dor Beetles (blue beetles):
  
  • They will take more damage than they used to (compared to Rose Chafers they
    now take 70% of the damage instead of 50% - they have the same amount of
    HP)
    
  • Reduced by 20% the damage they deal across the board
• Increased damage inflicted by Hornets to ant/termite legions
  
• Decreased damage inflicted by Hornets to creeps (Firebugs/Ladybygs/Spiders/etc.)

• Increased aphid healing range from 300 (which was a bug) to 1500
  
• Decreased max shield value provided by snail from 40% to 30%,
  
• Decreased the time it takes to fill up Snail's shield from 20sec to 15sec

• Powers start with their cooldown at 0% charged instead of 100% charged
  
  • It however keeps the previous charges as they were
    
  • So if you had a T1 Rage charge at 53% cooldown, and built the T2 Rage you
    will have one charge at 53% and the second charge at 0%
• Increased all but 2 power prices from 20/30/40 to 20/40/60.
  
  • Burrow and Gnat Spies remain unchanged.
    
  • Decreased build time for all powers from 20sec to 5sec
    
  • The “Shielding spores” power has been changed as follows:
    
    • Each charge now gives 15% HP instead of 30% HP in shield
      
    • Shield cap used to be 90% for all tiers, now it depends on the Shield power
      tier:
      
      • Tier 1 caps at 15% HP
        
      • Tier 2 caps at 30% HP
        
      • Tier 3 caps at 45% HP
    • To be noted, they still stack with Snail and the protective Barrier up to 90%
      HP, maximum.

Thank you for your feedback, we’ll keep you updated for future updates!

Now available on PC and consoles, Empire of the Ants immerses you in massive insect battles. In this article, learn more about the numerous agents populating the game and the artificial intelligence that brings them to life.


As you develop your army in Empire of the Ants, you can accumulate up to 4,200 Units under your command. Adding to this are your various opponents and the neutral insects that populate the world, making the strategy game capable of accommodating up to 20,000 units in a single game!

"It was important to have a large number of characters," says Quentin Daveau, Game Engineer at Tower Five. "Firstly, for authenticity's sake, because insects are extremely numerous in real life. But also to offer players an impressive aspect, with swarming masses charging at each other. When a legion of gunners positions themselves on a mountain and it becomes entirely green, it's really something."


A major challenge for the Tower Five studio was displaying these thousands of insects without compromising performance. The developers found several tricks to achieve a result that is both spectacular and smooth.

"We decided not to use the usual method of skeletal animation, which involves creating a skeleton that dynamically moves the surface around it," explains Quentin. "We opted for the older method of vertex animation, which is similar to frame-by-frame animation. It was more work, but the result is less demanding on the machine."

The team also used other techniques to optimize the performance of Empire of the Ants, such as limiting the number of calculations for the agents. For example, an insect tasked with producing a resource will not think again until it has finished its task. Avoiding continuous updates to the AI reduces the load on the processor.


The second challenge for the designers of Empire of the Ants was making the artificial intelligence credible, especially in its movements. "What’s unique in our game is that you can walk vertically or upside down," Quentin recalls. "The classic navigation mesh method wasn't very suitable for this, so we had to innovate again. Nothing is pre-calculated: the units test the terrain around them on the fly, as if they were moving blindly."

Of course, Tower Five also worked hard on the AI's decision-making to achieve a satisfactory result. "It was quite difficult to balance; the AI must be convincing and provide resistance, without overwhelming us," says Quentin. To achieve this, the studio gave the player the same tools as the computer: it doesn't have more resources or stronger units. It doesn't see the entire map but only around itself and has a reaction time quite close to that of a human.

This allows for games that are just complex enough without feeling arbitrarily outpaced by the AI. But for fans of tough situations, rest assured - as Quentin tells us, "You can set the AI to its highest difficulty level in private game mode and find some optional missions in the campaign that will challenge players."


🐜 Play Empire of the Ants now

https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/app/2287330/Empire_of_the_Ants/

📬 Stay connected!

Official Empire of the Ants Reddit - Official Empire of the Ants Twitter - Tower Five Studio - Official Empire of the Ants Discord[discord.gg]