2.1 rising tide on Insane is BRUTAL... but for all the wrong reasons (would appreciate dev opinion on this)

[Discerning Divinity]

so I have put a hell of a lot of time into trying to beat 2.1 insane challenge (its extremely difficult even without the challenge). There are lots of ways you can fail on this level but some of them I have found really irritating as it feels unfair. I wrote a post a while ago which mentioned a suggestion I made for some sort of priority target function, which would make ants far more efficient when dealing with those infuriating crabs. the issue here is that I know I could complete this challenge if well... the ants did what I wanted them to do haha. similarly to get ahead in this level your only chance is to send workers to dart in and grab food sources and bail all throughout the level the issues here though are that:

1. The ants are slow to react to pheromone markers
2. Most of the time only about half of the ants in the pheromone group go to the marker set
3. When ants are set to non-combat they will still fight an enemy which has attacked them instead of running to the pheromone marker.

With the combinations of the 3 factors above I always end up with half the ants i should have rushing a food source with a high chance of their timing being off and most likely half of that group get clustered up in a fight with one or two enemy ants ultimately severely reducing the income of food for the colony. Amplifying these issues is the fact that the enemies never move in the same patterns every attempt so their is no real way to create a strategy which revolves around precise timings and if you do place a marker and realise that the timing is going to be off way before your ants get there you cant get them to wait or fall back as they seem to ignore a second marker until they reach the first or they take way too long to change direction which with the addition of the beetle larvae this can end an attempt swiftly so ultimately i have failed many a time due to the inefficiency of the ants movement which I have very little control over.

Because of a lot of the randomisation of these factors I feel like one thing which would remove a lot of frustration is checkpoints in levels which you could reload at ( maybe this could be something which is enabled only after your first completion of the level) as this would mean that if you were to get particularly lucky with timings and pull off a really great night one then you could use that solid beginning for all future attempts.

as for the ants reactions I don't know if this is intentional as I know there is supposed to be a degree of realism in them but I feel that for these more difficult levels we need to have finer control of the ants to have a fair chance at success.

I apologise if this sounds complainy as I love when games are brutally difficult as overcoming the challenge is a great feeling but it needs to be brutal but fair in order for it not to become frustrating.

Congratulations to anybody reading who has completed the 2.1 insane challenge, and to everyone else have you tried it? what did you think about it?

EDIT: I would also like to point out a glitch I discovered where a few enemies which I had killed on top of the nest could not be harvested by the ants, this was a few of the medium spiders and one large crab (on the run I discovered this I failed with just one large spider and a few tiny spiders left to kill but I ran out of food... safe to say I was livid).

[Mursosishi]

I agree with most of this. While I do like thematically having your ants go back and forth between the queen and the marker mechanically this severely limits the effectiveness of your ants, as there is no way to be sure how strong your army will actually be once they get there (also I have noticed a common issue where early on when you only have a few critically important ranged units that I often end up with all 3 or all 5 ranged units hanging by the queen and not showing up until most of my melee are already dead causing a lot of extra attrition in the early game). Currently you are subject to the whims of luck on which ants actually show up to a marker and in which order (IE I have seen instances where most of the ranged units show up first and get creamed before the melee units even arrive, who then get destroyed themselves without enough ranged damage backing them up).

Perhaps we could have the I or the V group be a unique high priority group that is more detached from the queen (IE ants specifically in that pheromone group ALL bunch up together and stay bunched up together, not unlike the scouting or rapid response groups we see certain ants use in nature). This way you can have a little more control over your ants without tipping the whole balance cart over or having to implement a bunch of new systems.

[Discerning Divinity]

I like this If I am getting your meaning correctly. You are saying different behaviours for different pheromone groups? This would be cool, give a lot more room for strategies and would still feel keep the sense of realism as the ants would be reacting differently to different pheromones they detected. Now the questions would be what properties could each group have which would be reasonably implementable for instance when you say that one pheromone group should bunch up and stay together does this mean that they will not separate if some pick up food and some don't? will they wait for the others to get food before returning to the nest or just behave normally and leave the group if that individual picks up food or maybe that pheromone group should be a combat only group. If the devs do have an interest in these kind of ideas I would assume that it would take a lot of balance testing before getting put into the game take for example what I was saying about having ants focus on one crab at a time I think if I could do that alone 2.1 would go from the hardest level to the easiest.

[Discerning Divinity]

I actually just managed to beat it thanks to a trick I learned when watching a video from balanite https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIuphpj5hVg where you can disperse the spiders by putting brood tiles around the edges of the underground, gave me that tiny advantage I needed to win.

[HyperBlast]

Originally posted by Tesla VenomZ:

similarly to get ahead in this level your only chance is to send workers to dart in and grab food sources and bail all throughout the level the issues here though are that:

I'll be responding to this, because there is another strategy that works. There is another way to get ahead. I have beaten insane on 2.1 Rising Tide. Don't read anymore if you want to figure out the strategy on your own.


First, Use your Queen! Figure out how to exploit the Queen's massive health bar. The Queen's health makes her a great shield against rover beetles. Let your Queen take the damage from the rover beetles. You need to risk this.

Second, get those rover beetles! The ant colony needs underground food before night falls. So, be very aggressive, and dig to the weakest rover beetles, with only the two ants. Then, let the rover beetles march to your queen. Your queen will take most of the damage.

Third, make Formica Rufas early! Formica Rufas will be your damage dealers. The queen and the workers will take the damage from the rover beetles. But, your Formica Rufas should win this fight. The ant colony will suffer losses, but the sacrifice is not in vain.

The dead rover beetles will replenish the ant colony. But, now... the seeds are free from rover beetles, and that should be enough food to expand your ant colony. Rinse and repeat until nighttime.

When the hermit crabs arrive, the ant colony should be able to overwhelm the hermit crabs. And, if you do this right, on the first night, a meat wall of hermit crabs will feed the ant colony. Good luck. Hope you can beat it!

[Mursosishi]

Interesting, I always do almost the exact opposite. I ignore ALL underground threats and set up 20 or so workers first and send them to the high yield food on the bottom beach with combat turned OFF, unless you get VERY unlucky with beetle larva placement it should be fairly safe (you WILL lose an occasional ant or two to wandering enemy ants but it is insignificant). Once my first set of workers have cleared the seeds in their path right by the anthill I use THAT food to create a small group of 7 new workers that I use to carefully steal the guarded food to the north and south and once that is clear they start clearing the food below the first ramp on either side and I begin building ranged ants. I usually get my first set of ranged units around the time the first tide comes in, at which point I recall ALL my ants and begin clearing the underground, alternating beetles with crab waves once they start spawning, I also get a set of melee ants between the first and second waves of crabs.

Once the second day starts I start taking down the beach tiger beetles closest to my base and clearing the food they guard, and then begin clearing below the first ramp if I still have time before the tide comes in. Once the nighttime creatures spawn I usually try to grab a crab or two between waves spawning, at this point the only serious threats are the spiders if they get lucky/unlucky with target selection or accidentally training a bunch of stuff to my nest by not paying attention.

At this point I can usually just snowball to victory with little danger.

[Mursosishi]

Originally posted by Tesla VenomZ:

I like this If I am getting your meaning correctly. You are saying different behaviours for different pheromone groups? This would be cool, give a lot more room for strategies and would still feel keep the sense of realism as the ants would be reacting differently to different pheromones they detected. Now the questions would be what properties could each group have which would be reasonably implementable for instance when you say that one pheromone group should bunch up and stay together does this mean that they will not separate if some pick up food and some don't? will they wait for the others to get food before returning to the nest or just behave normally and leave the group if that individual picks up food or maybe that pheromone group should be a combat only group. If the devs do have an interest in these kind of ideas I would assume that it would take a lot of balance testing before getting put into the game take for example what I was saying about having ants focus on one crab at a time I think if I could do that alone 2.1 would go from the hardest level to the easiest.

The idea would be that the ants act exactly the same, complete with food and combat buttons like the rest, except in that one group the ants don't split between the queen and pheromone marker (the devs use this mechanic to simulate constant lines of ants going back and forth and that is cool thematically but when it so severely ties your hands tactically it becomes annoying).

[Raccoon]

I stay underground boi ;-;

[Discerning Divinity]

did you do the challenge Volk? I did end up beating it awhile ago like i said learning a new method for dealing with the spider swarm nudged me over that final hurdle of this brutal level. my strategy was like mursosishi's in that I left as much of the underground food sources as possible but i did this so that I could collect it just before night 3 my reasoning being that there is a lot more beatle larvae in day 3 so I would only get the easily accessible food on day the surface of day 3 and then spend the rest of that time underground collecting that food before going back out at night to fight crabs etc. for even more. that ended up working out for me because spending most of day 3 underground really minimised the food i was losing on replacing ants to beetle larvae.

[HyperBlast]

Originally posted by Tesla VenomZ:

did you do the challenge Volk?

There is more than one way to win. I just answered you that I have.

The first time I beat insane with the challenge was on Rising Tide. I don't mind replacing ants if I can get the food back. I lose ants, but more food will be coming into the nest then the food lost. My primary goal is to expand the nest quickly as possible and then at night time turn the hermit crabs into a buffet. In the day time I hunt the tiger beetles. For larve, it's better to keep part of the map under control, clear the areas near the nest, but dont bother clearing every place of larve on the map.

[Discerning Divinity]

you just said you beat it on insane no mention of challenge and of course there is more than one way to win hahaha whatever way your going to go about it though i highly recommended using a few brood tiles in the nest edges to disperse the spiders it made the difference for me.

[Discerning Divinity]

beaten the hardest version of all 4 levels now and eagerly waiting to bash my head against 3.1 and 3.2 lol

[Rayalot72]

Aye, Balanite's videos are always a help.

It would seem no priority targeting is planned. Your best bet atm is to just "get ahead," so that you still win even given the worst possible scenario. I'd try for as many as 20 spitters for the third wave of the first night.

You might be able to similarly solve the pheromone problem with just having more workers, or alternatively more combatants so that the delays upon fighting a handful of enemies aren't nearly as severe. Personally, I can't get anything done on the second or third days without first killing as many of the enemies in the areas I want to go to as possible.

There are also some tactics for mitigating randomness and inconsistency. You can spend your entire first day and night without going out to the dangerous areas of the beach. The starting food plus what's not guarded right outside of the nest to the east and south is enough to permit you to harvest food from the underground alone (up to four chambers if you're quick). Also, make sure you're getting that additional chamber the first night, right after you beat the first wave of crabs. While you seem to favor saving those chambers for later, I would advise against this, as having as strong an early-game as possible will roll over into the mid and late-game, allowing you to collect much more food during the day.