Cold blood not possible (30+ attempts)

[The Real GOW]

So I've been playing on hard after failing to beat it on extreme and the issue is always the same, i think it's night 3? or 4? the endless amount of frogs just overwhelm me, i have 3 sets of 40 ants with all of them being level 3 and the frogs just bunch up in a certain area and kill all of my ants that i've had to split into stopping different frogs causing me to fail during that night, i cannot attack during the day since i'm getting bummed by black and yellow ants so i don't really have anyway to win it.

[The Real GOW]

Originally posted by AntBZK:

The little black ants are so weak they can be beaten with 19 level 1 soldiers (on impossible). Beat them early so they don't bother you. You can ignore the big headed ants.
You need a massive number of workers to resawn ants. Optimal worker:soldier ratio is around 1:3.
The amphibians are strong in choke points, the healing stacks each time they eat. Just destroy your nest by the end and spread your ants out with multiple markers to hit them before they reach your workers.

The main issue is i cannot leave to attack the frog since black sneaks into my nest and attacks my queen and the choke points? trust me i try but you gotta surround them or they'll not get the maximum damage off

[DarknessBrightness]

I can confirm cold blood is possible.

[The Real GOW]

Originally posted by DarknessBrightness:

I can confirm cold blood is possible.

It is possible, i had to cheese the game which i hate doing but what else can you do

[Vinyl Scratch]

What constitutes as cheese in this case?

The best method for cold blood is to immediately swipe the aphids directly south of you, then go for the further south ones (not the ones on the islands) shortly after. Guard your Aphids with a group of fire ends, while workers harvest them, and have your main group of Fire Ants go about the northernside food sources (the pine cone in the north west, and the caterpillars to the north east. Don't dig out all of the underground food right away, because then you'll have to actually deal with more amphibians during night time. Wait until they naturally dig to you during Night 3 to go for the underground food.

Build up ~25-30 upgraded fire ants, and then bulldoze the Black Ant nest. As in, actually go into their nest and kill the queen and then loot the food from it. The huge food boost from doing that should set you up to fight the Frog+end game amphibians.

You can play the entire game never interacting with the brown ants to the west. If you never meet them in combat, they'll never attack you/steal your aphids. Though they're also a great source of food if you kill them after you kill the black ants (either way, just completely avoid conflict with them until you actually plan to raid their nest, so they never make their soldiers)

[kuraiken]

Originally posted by The Real GOW:

So I've been playing on hard after failing to beat it on extreme and the issue is always the same, i think it's night 3? or 4? the endless amount of frogs just overwhelm me, i have 3 sets of 40 ants with all of them being level 3 and the frogs just bunch up in a certain area and kill all of my ants that i've had to split into stopping different frogs causing me to fail during that night, i cannot attack during the day since i'm getting bummed by black and yellow ants so i don't really have anyway to win it.

3 sets of 40 Tier 3 ants, or 3 sets of 40 Tier 3 tiles for a total of 3x80 ants?

I'm asking, because 3 sets of only 40 ants each sounds like a relatively small amount. I did hard today, challenge mode, and I ended up with close to 500 Tier 3 ants.

There's 4 things you can do to get resources:
- Steal aphids, farm them, protect them with a group of soldiers
- Snatch resources from the wild. The cone in the nothwest, and regrowing stuff on plants in the northeast and southeast.
- Tunnel through the underground. There's a couple okay caves in the north but the long, long way to the south leads to massive resources.
- Take down opposing ant colonies eary, plunder all their chambers for massive resources.

I usually rotate between them.
Snatch some aphids right away while they're unguarded (I prefer to snatch them from the bigheads, even though this provokes them, because it keeps them weaker) then use a group of 9-19 ants to take some additional chambers in the underworld for space & resources.

Then, with around 30-40 ants, I'll usually go for the 3 aphid sites located past the water. I bring enough to take down the wasps and spiders (challenge) that pop up when you build a bridge, get the aphids, then split: one force defends (and farms) my aphids, helped by around 20 worker, 10-20 worker underground to help with my nest (so it can work smoothly) and then I'll rotate through targets of opportunity of the 4 listed above.

Is either enemy colony currently not at a remanining aphid location? Snatch them. Do I have anything above ground I can snatch? Do so. If I don't see an opportunity and need to expand, I go underground and tunnel to larvae to boost my army. And when my army is strong enough, I take down & plunder the ant colonies.

Overall, cold blood is one of my favorite maps. You get to gradually build up your forces until you swarm the entire map.
Once you feel like you're done, and you have some food stored, just take down the bullfrog and retreat underground to guard against the enemies.

Optionally, instead of guarding only underground, you could also guard just the queen and use your other groups to guard the nest from above. There are entrance caves around your nest (a bit of shimmering light) that lead inside, and the enemies actually spawn on the map and walk into your cave. So you can also just block them from entering at all instead of waiting for them to arrive so you can take them at once, before they gather up, outside - instead of down in the tunnels.

[DarknessBrightness]

Originally posted by The Real GOW:

Originally posted by DarknessBrightness:

I can confirm cold blood is possible.

It is possible, i had to cheese the game which i hate doing but what else can you do

What do you mean cheese? The level is perfectly doable normally.

[The Real GOW]

Originally posted by DarknessBrightness:

Originally posted by The Real GOW:

It is possible, i had to cheese the game which i hate doing but what else can you do

What do you mean cheese? The level is perfectly doable normally.

As in spam resetting until RGN favours you

[DarknessBrightness]

You shoudn't need to reset constantly.

[The Real GOW]

Originally posted by DarknessBrightness:

You shoudn't need to reset constantly.

You need good RNG to snatch the early north west aphids cus the spider or beetle will kill your early workers if not

[Vinyl Scratch]

I just completely ignore both of the Western ants' aphids until I'm ready to run them over.

Stealing the 2 spots from the black ants is enough, as well as the Pine cone+North east caterpillars+underground food (not in the south section underground) is enough to get yourself ~18 level 3 fire ants (which is 36 ants total because of their level 3 tile effect) during day 2. That's all you need to kill the black ants, and the huge food supply from doing that will allow you to kill the Brown ants. Again, just don't ever make contact with the brown ants and they'll ignore you/never get their soldier unit.

This video shows how easy it is to just destroy the Black Ants, he does it right at the start of day 2 with only 23 ants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCKPh8536R8

[DarknessBrightness]

Originally posted by The Real GOW:

Originally posted by DarknessBrightness:

You shoudn't need to reset constantly.

You need good RNG to snatch the early north west aphids cus the spider or beetle will kill your early workers if not

No like, you don't need to grab the north west aphids, and even if you did, you have plenty of time for attempts if the first group of workers fail.

[The Real GOW]

Originally posted by DarknessBrightness:

Originally posted by The Real GOW:

You need good RNG to snatch the early north west aphids cus the spider or beetle will kill your early workers if not

No like, you don't need to grab the north west aphids, and even if you did, you have plenty of time for attempts if the first group of workers fail.

but you gotta do it before the leaf ants see you or they will come for you early

[RadioFreeZerg]

if you steal both NW (first) and S aphids you will manage to defend vs W Ants.
Take the cone, farm NE of nest for food, then take out Black Ants.
Also if you kill the Bullfrog (at least 100-200 ants + lots of food) before the frog swarm then this event is completly skipped. You got attacked by amphibians and that's the end of lvl.
Works on extreme.