100% Achievements Guide

Welcome to the 100% Achievements Guide, which provides video walkthroughs and tips for the hungry spider level achievements, story mode achievements, and seasonal level achievements.

Whether you're a new player diving into the achievement hunt or an old player looking for a walkthrough on one tricky achievement, I hope this guide provides what you are looking for.

If you have questions, feel free to ask in the comments. Thanks and enjoy!

Story Achievements Introduction

If you're only interested in achievements for the Hungry Spider, Christmas spider, or New Year's Feast, those chapters in this guide are located after the story achievements.

Control Tips:

1. Use number keys 1-5 for selecting pheromone markers.
   
2. To teleport the camera to where a pheromone marker is, double tap number keys 1-5.
   
3. Use key binds for toggle attack and toggle gather. I personally put attack on F and gather on G.

Start New Formicarium for Achievement Hunting?

• You can't get the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd formicarium experiment achievements with a T4 formicarium.
  
• Start a new formicarium and use level resources from achievement hunting to get these formicarium experiment achievements.

Logistics for Story Achievements:

• Each story level has 13 achievements.
  
• 7 of the 13 are PASSIVE achievements (winning, winning on medium, winning on hard, winning on extreme, winning on impossible, winning with challenge, winning with challenge on extreme).
  
• 6 are ACTIVE achievements which require you to do something specific during the level before winning.
  
• DONT WORRY about the 7 passive achievements per level, you'll get them automatically by focusing on the 6 active ones.

Additional Info:

• New Game Plus disables achievements for that save.
  
• Make sure to turn on achievement tracking in settings to get a notification about whether you meet or fail achievement requirements.
  
• If you win achievement at higher difficulty than required, you still get the achievement.
  
• There are a variety of ways to play this game and get these achievements. If you have feedback, please let me know so I make this guide better.

Tier 1

Even though the rotting log doesn't have any real danger, if you can get all the achievements here, you can get 100% for the entire game.

Black ants have a swarm play-style, benefiting from fighting in open caverns and chambers where they can completely surround enemies from all sides. Surrounding enemies maximizes damage output, and in turn, reduces the amount of losses you take.

1.1 A New Home

• Build an open chamber close to your nest chambers. Let enemies walk into it and then surround them.
  
• Use 2 pheromone groups to break enemy groups apart and surround.
  
• Quickly toggle attack on and off to surround enemies.
  
• Dig past enemies to get to woodlouse chamber for food boost (see 7:45 in "Picky Eater" video).

"Quantity, not Quality"

Beat "New Home" on medium difficulty without upgrading any soldiers.


Very easy. You can get this achievement with the achievement below. Just don't upgrade soldiers.

"Speedy Setup"

Beat "New Home" on hard difficulty within 17 minutes.


You can build extra workers to speed up gathering. See 7:45 in "Picky Eater" video on how to get early food boost. Consider digging out multiple enemy chambers at once.

"Stand Your Ground"

Beat "New Home" on extreme difficulty without letting any enemies within 3 tiles of the queen.


You can get this achievement in the same run as "Picky Eater." Just make you don't have challenge mode on.

"Picky Eater"

Beat "New Home" on impossible difficulty with the last 10 tunneled out creatures being woodlice.

DONT dig out the chamber in the middle with 10 woodlouse. Make sure you don't dig them out close to the end of the level by accident. There are two woodlouse chambers in the middle of the map– I'm talking about the one on the left (see 19:35 in video).

1. Make sure to dig out the top-right chamber of woodlouse (see 7:45 in video) to get an early food boost.
   
2. For impossible difficulty, when you fight chambers with adult devil's coach horse, make sure you have 150-250 food in store, and 300+ for the final enemy chamber.
   
3. By the end, I like to have a chamber of 19 level 3 soldiers and a chamber of 19 level 1 soldiers.

"First Innings"

Beat "New Home" before 10 mole crickets have attacked with the challenge active.


Just speedrun the level on easy difficulty with challenge mode on. Dig out many chambers at once.

"Just Isn't Cricket"

Beat "New Home" on impossible difficulty after 50 mole crickets have attacked with the challenge active.

DON'T dig out one small devil's coach horse larvae chamber, so you don't meet victory conditions and end the level. You need to keep the level going to kill enough mole crickets.

• Mole cricket waves follow the pattern of an attack increasing in size by 1, followed by 1 mole cricket, an attack increasing in size by 1, followed by 1 mole cricket.
  
• When you're digging out the last few enemy chambers, time it so you're not fighting them with a big mole cricket wave at once.

1.2 Subjugation

• Grow fast by spamming level 1 ants, and use a chokepoint near the queen to prevent slave-makers from taking too many eggs.
  
• Control the amount of eggs slave-makers take through nest design.

"Rapid Growth"

Beat "Subjugation" on medium difficulty within 16 minutes.


You can get this achievement with "NOPE" or "Get Your Own Eggs."

"NOPE"

Beat "Subjugation" on hard difficulty after eliminating 10 funnel web spiders in the first 6 minutes.

• By popular request, I made an achievement video for this one.
  
• Since the achievement is short, I suggest watching the first 6 minutes of the video to see what I build and what spiders I take out.
  
• Basically toggle soldier gather off and take out the closest funnel web spiders to you.

"Against the Odds"

Beat "Subjugation" on extreme difficulty after losing over 80% of the brood to a single wave of slave makers.

1. Get 19 level 3 soldiers and then get 19 workers.
   
2. Upgrade soldiers instead of building more so you can defend from raids while keeping the amount of eggs you have constant.
   
3. Design your nest like in video allowing egg-stealers easy access to larvae, while keeping your army away from your brood chambers to defend your queen from enemy soldiers.
   
4. Toggle worker attack off and toggle soldier attack off at end of raids to let eggs get stolen.

"Get Your Own Eggs"

Beat "Subjugation" on impossible difficulty after losing no more than 1 egg to the slave makers.

The one egg you're allowed to lose is the scripted, unpreventable one that happens in the beginning. So you're basically not allowed to lose any eggs.

1. Position egg chambers like in video so all egg stealers have to go through chokepoint through queen.
   
2. When you see raid timer, pull your army to top of map to spawn kill slave-makers.
   
3. As fighting begins, pull soldiers back to chokepoint (or build second soldier group) to kill egg stealers.
   
4. Toggle worker attack on.

"Enemy of My Enemy"

Beat "Subjugation" after getting a cricket to eliminate a funnel web spider with the challenge active.

• While I don't usually make videos for achievements that don't require extreme or impossible difficulty, I figured the best way to explain this achievement was through demonstration.
  
• Basically play on easy and build speed tiles on spider webs so that the mole crickets spawn close enough to to the spiders to target them.

"I Can Eat 50 Eggs"

Beat "Subjugation" on impossible difficulty after losing at least 50 larvae to the slave makers with the challenge active.

1. You want to allow the slave-makers to take about 10 eggs each raid, but in practice, they are going to end up taking more or less, so you have to adjust.
   
2. See video for brood chamber placement. Allow egg stealers easy access to chambers on right of map.
   
3. Defend against slave-maker soldiers at chokepoint above your queen. Toggle worker attack off.

Experiment 1

"Vanilla"

Beat "The First Experiment" without unlocking black ants.

DO NOT UNLOCK BLACK ANTS! I realize I did in the video, but that is because I already had the achievement and was re-recording. If you unlock them, you'll have to start a new save to get this achievement.

You can get all the achievements for The First Experiment in a single run by getting "Vanilla" on impossible difficulty. Assuming you are using the same formicarium that you used to get the achievements for 1.1 and 1.2, you should have a lot of food from this achievement hunting.

1. Max out your population in workers and upgrade all to level 3.
   
2. Use 19 workers and the 7 from your queen chamber to replenish eggs.
   
3. Give your workers Aggressive Brood for 200% more damage and Defensive for 20% more physical resistance.
   
4. Get your queen Royal Guard and Fierce Mother to confuse enemies so they don't kill your royal guard spawns.
   
5. You don't need much food in the bank, just enough to survive until the final wave, which your royal guard can help finish off.

Alternatively, you can get "Vanilla" on easy difficulty, and then build a regular army of soldiers and win on impossible difficulty.

Tier 2

The beach is a very hostile environment, possibly more dangerous than the next tier's rainforest, so achievements here will test your patience.

Wood ants thrive in more narrow areas. Workers are your backbone for gathering and tanking for ranged units, but melee wood ants have applications against hermit crabs and enemy ants. Choose RAPID FIRE for all achievements. Rapid fires are better for killing things and defending aphids.

2.1 Rising Tide

• DONT gather from the lower levels of the beach on day 1.
  
• Gather everything closest to you first and only go far out once your numbers are big enough (50+ workers).
  
• Toggle titan climbing off for ranged ants and you can toggle it on for workers/melee if your army is big. Just remember mounted ants can't tank for your ranged ants.

"Free Willis"

Beat "Rising Tide" on medium difficulty after returning the full unharvested sardine to the ocean.


Get this achievement in the same run as "The Way Is Shut" below. When the sardine spawns on day 2, gather food from the roaming ant side of the sardine's level. Keep your army at the ramp to guard the sardine from enemy ants for the rest of the day.

"The Way Is Shut"

Beat "Rising Tide" on hard difficulty without enemies entering your nest.

1. If your ants attack any wandering enemies (aside from the large hermit crabs), they will try to enter your nest.
   
2. Each night, gather your army at the nest entrance underground.
   
3. When you see the enemy wave spawn from the glowing spawner between rocks just to the northeast of the nest, pull your ants above ground, kill them and then retreat underground.
   
4. By the last night, position your entire army above ground to spawn kill the attack waves at their spawner. Make sure you have some level 3 rapid fires.

"It's My Beach Now"

Beat "Rising Tide" on extreme difficulty after eliminating two tiger beetles before the first night.

Small tiger beetles have very low health, so you don't need that many ants to kill them. Instead of wasting time building more ants that you don't need, spend that time waiting on the second highest level of the beach to assassinate small tiger beetles as they wander (see from 7:00 in video).

"Giant Bear"

Beat "Rising Tide" on impossible difficulty after eliminating the large sand bear wolf spider to the south of the nest.

1. Attack the giant bear (see 33:30 in video) at the beginning of the last day.
   
2. Use 7 worker ants as bait because the giant bear spider has the venom pool ability like in the hungry spider. This venom pool's splash damage can kill your entire army.
   
3. Try to surround the giant bear well with your rapid fires, because it's likely getting a second venom pool down before you kill it.
   
4. See 43:20 in video for how to use choke point to deal with final hermit crab wave.
   
5. If you have level 3 rapid fires, you should be fine. If not, see 44:30 in "Ambush the Ambushers" video below for how to deal with wolf spiders by spamming food tiles everywhere.

"Work With What You've Got"

Beat "Rising Tide" without building additional workers with the challenge active.


Get this by playing on easy.

"Ambush the Ambushers"

Beat "Rising Tide" on impossible difficulty after eliminating 50 beach tiger beetle larvae with the challenge active.

1. Use workers as tanks for this achievement, not melees.
   
2. On the start of the second day, run down to the second level of the beach, gather some food, and then take out 4 tiger beetle larvae (see 16:20 in video). Kill 12 more from highest beach ground.
   
3. Use 2 attack groups in different locations to clear almost all the tiger beetle larvae from the beach's highest ground for the final day.
   
4. Because your army is weaker than usual, to survive on impossible, spam TONS of food tiles all over the corners and underground of your nest (see 24:45 or 44:30 in video) to distract wolf spiders.
   
5. Use chokepoint to kill hermit crabs as fast as possible in final wave (see 43:20 in video).

2.2 Queen of the Hill

• Use a soldier group to defend each aphid farm and a third soldier group to clear your underground simultaneously.
  
• Rapid fires are far better at protecting aphids than mortars, leaving you better off with way more food. Spamming level 1 rapid fires is better than level 3 mortars.

"Separation of Duties"

Beat "Queen of the Hill" on medium difficulty after fending off two ladybirds within 30 seconds of each other from separate aphid clusters.


Don't try to get this achievement, you'll get it automatically.

"I Love Sashimi"

Beat "Queen of the Hill" on hard difficulty after harvesting and bringing home 100 food from a fish.


Send 15-20 workers with attack off to the fish on the first or second day.

"At Arm's Length"

Beat "Queen of the Hill" on extreme difficulty without building any melee wood ant brood tiles.


You can get this achievement in the same run as the achievement below. Spam tons of workers for tanking and replenishing eggs.

"Within Reach"

Beat "Queen of the Hill" on impossible difficulty without upgrading any ranged wood ant brood tiles.

1. By end of first day, have dominance over both aphid farms. Protect them for rest of level.
   
2. Build third group to clear underground. By end of level, it should all be cleared out.
   
3. The most consistent way to win ISN'T about exactly how many ants you have, but making sure you have at least 1k food in the bank at the beginning of the final day (see 38:40 in video).
   
4. Use 10-20 bait workers to distract black ant wave when both colonies attack at same time.

"Beach Cleanup"

Beat "Queen of the Hill" with the challenge active after eliminating all the tiger beetle larvae.


Just play on easy difficulty. Look out for respawns on final day.

"Meat's Back on the Menu"

Beat "Queen of the Hill" on impossible difficulty after eliminating 3 large hermit crabs with the challenge active.

1. Only protect one aphid farm due to tiger beetle larvae.
   
2. Kill large hermit crabs on second night (see from 21:25 in video) or third night using about 40 rapid fires and 13 melees, while keeping a second group on aphid farm. Once done, clear underground.
   
3. Survive final day (watch 38:40 in video). Most important thing is 1000+ food in bank.

Experiment 2

"No Entry"

Beat "The Second Experiment" without enemies entering your nest.

You can get all of the achievements for this level in one run. Assuming you got all of the achievements for tier 2 in the same formicarium, you should have a lot of food available.

• Select RAPID FIRE wood ants!
  
• Have 11 workers in nest group. Three groups of 19 black ants. Two groups of about 28 wood ants each. Upgrade all to level 3.
  
• Place and upgrade speed tiles in your nest pathway so ants can get out of the nest fast.
  
• Give workers nimble and efficient brood.
  
• Give black ants dangerous and self repair.
  
• Give wood ants high pressure and crippling.

Strategy

1. Use black ants and wood ants to repel initial waves.
   
2. When continuous flow begins, camp each ant spawning tube with a black ant group.
   
3. Use one rapid fire group to guard the top two nest holes, and the other to guard the bottom nest hole.
   
4. Have rapid fires in position to prevent tiger beetles and wolf spiders from entering nest holes when they are placed in.

Alternatively, you can get "No Entry" on easy and then play again for the impossible difficulty achievement.

Tier 3

Even though the rainforest is full of annoying critters, it is slower-paced and will test your economic strategy.

To develop a strong food processing system, have at least one brood chamber right next to leaf drop off chambers, with a refuse chamber nearby. Taunts are better in large groups (10+) since their ability spreads damage out across many ants, keeping more ants alive for longer and thereby dealing more damage. Stuns are better in small groups, in narrow tunnels, and against small/medium insects.

3.1 The Harvest

• To kill the enemy queen, build 40-50 workers, then build up to 20 majors.
  
• When you have 10+ majors, begin camping outside enemy colony's nest hole, depleting their food, and then kill their queen.
  
• To out-harvest enemy colony, build 30 workers, then spam media only. Build 1 major to deal with annoying threats near nest entrance holes.
  
• Gather leaves CLOSE by first, until you have enough media (50+), then target farther plants.
  
• If you're ahead in leaf count and have over 11,000 leaves, enemy colony will spawn major attack waves at you for free.

"Regicide"

Beat "The Harvest" on medium difficulty by eliminating the enemy queen.


You'll get this automatically due to later achievements.

"Boundary Dispute"

Beat "The Harvest" on hard difficulty before the enemy colony harvests 5000 leaves.


You can get this with the achievement below.

"Live and Let Live"

Beat "The Harvest" on extreme difficulty without digging out any underground enemies.

1. When you first dig open your nest entrance, briefly check to see if the enemy colony is sending their harvesting groups to the plants directly below their nest. If they are, you can restart for better RNG and a faster win.
   
2. See from 16:30 for how to attack once you have 10+ majors. Use workers to follow up behind attacking majors, gathering leaves from directly below enemy nest.
   
3. Choose STUN majors.

"Fast Food"

Beat "The Harvest" on impossible difficulty by gathering leaves within 43 minutes.

1. Watch the beginning because a great start is crucial. If the opposing colony is gathering from the leaves directly below of their nest, you can restart for better RNG (they have 2 harvesting groups and 4 possible initial gathering locations).
   
2. Gather leaves close to you as fast as possible. Build a massive army of media that can strip a whole plant down in one go. THEN go for the plants farther from you in the top right (watch video from 20:00 to end).

"Trypanophobia"

Beat "The Harvest" with no casualties from phorid flies with the challenge active.

Easily kill enemy queen on easy with challenge.

"Fly Swatting"

Beat "The Harvest" on impossible difficulty after clearing 4 plants of phorid flies with the challenge active.

1. If the enemy colony starts off by gathering from the plants directly below their nest, restart for RNG (they have 2 harvesting groups and 4 possible initial gathering locations).
   
2. Use 19 media and 10 majors to attack the enemy colony at their nest entrance, draining their food until they are crippled and can't leave their nest. At the same time, your workers should be gathering from the leaves below the enemy colony nest.
   
3. With free reign over the map, upgrade your media to level 3 while remaining under 11000 leaves collected at all costs so enemy colony doesn't spawn attack waves.
   
4. Clear 4 plants of phorid flies.
   
5. Once 4 phorid fly swarms are cleared, win the level by killing the enemy colony.
   
6. Choose TAUNT majors.

3.2 Front Line

• At the beginning of a day, if the army ants are about to spawn from the middle row, you can position two soldier groups to attack the middle and last row at the same time (see 17:36 in Workforce video).
  
• Killing messenger army ants can drop the bar a good amount, especially if the level has been running for a long time and a lot of them spawn (see 2:06:12 in Meticulous Harvest video).
  
• Taunts are better for killing army ants, stuns are better for dealing with the medium/small insects that spawn like crazy after a lot of time has passed.

"Quick March"

Beat "Front Line" on medium difficulty before the second night.


Get this with achievement below.

"Shoot the Messenger"

Beat "Front Line" on hard difficulty without any army ant scouts reporting back to their colony.


Get this with achievement below.

"Work Force"

Beat "Front Line" on extreme difficulty without building any major ant brood tiles.

Follow strategy in video. Spam media ants. Use two attack groups to bring army ant bar down fast (see 17:36 in video).

"Whip Lash"

Beat "Front Line" on impossible difficulty after defeating the huge whip spider before the third day.


Get with "Meticulous Harvest" achievement.

"Siting Ducks

Beat "Front Line" with the challenge active without building any level 3 ants.


You can get this with "Work Force." Or just do a quick speed run on easy difficulty with challenge.

"Meticulous Harvest"

Beat "Front Line" on impossible difficulty after harvesting all the available leaves with the challenge active.

|Place YouTube video here|

The challenge is the crazy swarms of insects that spawn at night. Later on, the amount of adult mantises that spawn during the day is also crazy, as they kill off all the army ants. Choose STUN majors to deal with the insects that spawn like medium bush crickets.

Strategy:

1. Ignore phorid flies. Your ants will die anyway to all the enemies in this level. Your sole objective is to strip all the plants bare.
   
2. Watch my first 40 minutes to see what I build and what plants I hit.
   
3. After the first 40 minutes, follow this routine: push army ants back and gather leaves simultaneously during the day. Gather at end of day before insects spawn. At night, gather carefully or remain underground to avoid food loss.
   
4. Build a group of 7 level three majors to defend pheromone trails from insects and provide backup where necessary.
   
5. After you've built the number of ants you need (45 media, 19 level 3 majors) keep 1000+ food in bank at MINIMUM. 2000 is even better. After you've gathered all leaves, delete media tiles for food if needed. You need 1k to finish army ants off.
   
6. Toggle attack off to get your army into position to fight army ants, as there will be a lot of insects running around that you don't want to fight. Kill messengers to bring bar down (see 2:06:10 in video).

Experiment 3

"Fool's Checkmate"

Beat "Possibly the Final Experiment" after placing only a single marker down and not moving ants between groups.

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You can get all of the achievements for this level in one run. Assuming you got all of the achievements for tier 3 in the same formicarium, you should have a lot of food available.

1. Select TAUNT leaf cutters!
   
2. Have 26 workers in nest group. Approximately 43 black ants, 50 wood ants, and 29 leaf cutters, all level 3.
   
3. Place and upgrade speed tiles in your nest pathway.
   
4. Give workers nimble and efficient brood.
   
5. Give black ants dangerous and self repair.
   
6. Give wood ants high pressure and crippling.
   
7. Give leaf cutter ants shockproof and resilient.
   
8. Give queen royal guard and fierce mother.

Strategy

• Have all soldier ants in pheromone group and place it on enemy nest when the formicarium are connected. Then don't touch anything.
  
• When you enter the enemy nest, when you get close to the enemy queen, toggle attack off. This allows your ants to surround her completely. Get as many of your ants into their nest before you toggle attack on (toggle attack on if the enemy queen abilities activate).

Alternatively, you can get "Fool's Checkmate" on easy and then play again for the impossible difficulty achievement.

Tier 4

The swamp is fast-paced, requiring quick micro to deal with rival colonies and enemy RNG.

Fire ants take the swarm play style of black ants to the extreme. Their attack pattern is a strong venom damage sting followed by two weak physical damage bites before another sting. They benefit tremendously from open spaces where they can surround enemies, allowing as many ants as possible to deliver their initial sting at once. Mounted fire ants sting continuously with no weak physical damage bites in between stings, dealing high damage. Choose VIGOROUS for all 4.1 and 4.2 achievements. Their damage, defense, and speed boost after hatching is insanely good.

Never use worker ants to build bridges as they are too small. Instead you can use them to cross the bridges once they are built to gather aphids/food.

4.1 Cold Blood

• Use micro to avoid enemies and collect as many aphids as you can.
  
• Build a small worker group to harvest from aphid plant and two solider groups.
  
• Take down the enemy colonies for a massive food boost and build lots of nest workers to easily defend against the final amphibian wave.
  
• The daytime music in this level slaps so take a second to listen to it.

"Grab the Bull by the Horns"

Beat "Cold Blood" on medium difficulty with both enemy colonies still alive.


You can get this in the same run as the "Toad in the Hole" achievement below.

• Have two fully upgraded soldier groups (24 tiles each, or 48 ants each at level 3). Use one to defend aphid plant while the other chips away at bull frog hp.

"Toad in the Hole"

Beat "Cold Blood" on hard difficulty after tunnelling out all underground food by the second night.


Make sure to dig out all the food patches underground, not just the enemies, to get this achievement.

"Toad-al Annihilation"

Beat "Cold Blood" on extreme difficulty after defeating both of the enemy colonies.


Get with the achievement below.

"Raise the Alarm"

Beat "Cold Blood" on impossible difficulty after alerting both enemy colonies to your presence within the first 5 minutes.

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1. Build 7 soldiers immediately using the queen tank method demonstrated in the video. You need them to steal aphids and engage both colonies in the first five minutes.
   
2. Station your 7 soldiers near the big headed ant nest to defend against their super majors (see 6:40 in video).
   
3. Build second soldier group to gather remaining aphids and harvest from food sources like caterpillars and pinecone.
   
4. Clear underground at night to reach underground seed patches (by third night should be clear).

In the beginning, using your first 7 soldiers to immediately kill the little black ant queen is also an option, but I found this was more inconsistent.

4.1 Challenge Mode 1

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4.1 Challenge Mode 2

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4.2 A Bridge Too Far

• Follow the beginning strategy from the videos to get 40 soldiers quickly.
  
• Gather aphids/food from areas that the water level gives you access to and clear underground.
  
• Build 80-130 soldiers.
  
• Use all remaining food for spamming workers, which is the most cost effective way to reach population objective.

"Collector"

Beat "A Bridge Too Far" on medium difficulty after collecting all the aphids.


Get in the same run as "Disposable Bridges."

"Entomophobia"

Beat "A Bridge Too Far" on hard difficulty without collecting any additional aphids.

Toggle all your pheromone groups' aphid collection off at the very beginning to prevent accidental aphid pickups. Go for caterpillars, pine cones, and clear the underground quickly. Get 80-100 soldiers and kill the little black ants on the first night you're able to. Than spam workers to meet the objective.

"Disposable Bridges"

Beat "A Bridge Too Far" on extreme difficulty after fully constructing and sacrificing 14 bridges to the rising water.

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• Have as many bridges built at the end of every day and night when the water rises.
  
• As shown in the video, have two soldier groups by the first night and use them to grab aphids from two different plants and build two bridges. Get three soldier groups of 40 ants each as soon as possible.
  
• Have a worker group on your aphid plant to get food for respawns.
  
• During the day, using a soldier group to clear out enemy spawns is useful so you can focus building bridges at the end of the day rather than defending.

"Multitasking"

In "A Bridge Too Far" on impossible difficulty, collect all food on the North-West island, and defeat the little black ant colony on the same day.

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• Instead of going for aphids on the first day, keep clearing underground and getting food from above ground to build soldiers.
  
• On the first night you can attack the little black ants, take your worker group off your aphid plant, as the dragonfly will land there.
  
• DONT kill the little black ants on the first night you have the opportunity to. Wait until you can bridge to the pinecone on the northwest, which will take just over 120 soldier ants to do efficiently. Use a worker group to help gather food from there and take down the little black ants. On this night, have you could use a small extra soldier group to defend your ant trail from amphibians as you kill the little black ants.

4.2 Challenge Mode 1

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4.2 Challenge Mode 2

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Experiment 4

Pervasive fire ants are effective for saving food for this formicarium challenge, so you may have to grind less if you choose them. Vigorous are stronger, but cost food to hatch. Both are pretty good overall.

"Clever Little Ants"

Beat "The Final Experiment" without a single ant being hit by the Dragantula's charge attack.

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Just play on easy. As long as you have a lot of level 3 ants with royal jelly upgrades, your build shouldn't matter honestly, as the tarantula doesn't have much hp on easy. You don't really need to spend on leaf cutters or anything expensive. Either fire ants or black ants, in combination with wood ants, will do the job. Take him down before he uses his charge attack.

The tarantula has high venom resistance which increases significantly as the difficulty level goes up. Wood ants with abilities that boost venom damage taken will help counteract this venom resistance, which is useful if you have a lot of fire ants. Again if you're playing on easy, unless you have really low resources, all these tactics probably won't matter.

Beating Impossible Without Grinding Tons of Food?

Rather than spending on leaf cutters and all that expensive stuff, you can win impossible with the cheapest ant available: pervasive fire ants (vigorous also works). Just spam them, ideally in two separate groups. You'll need 30-40 wood ants too, as their abilities can boost the fire ants' venom damage. Upgrade all soldiers to level 3. You're also going to need a couple small groups of upgraded workers to help bait the whip mantis into fighting each other. Finally, you'll need 1.5k to 2.5k food in the bank, which can get It done with some trial and error against the tarantula's charge attack.

Important Upgrades:
Workers: Efficient brood and defensive
Wood ants: Corrosive and weakening
Fire ants: Evasive and last stand

Don't use nimble for workers or you will have trouble with the whip mantis, which won't follow them easily. Check video to see the worker micro for taking the whip mantis out. Distract him near your nest hole while allowing the other titan to deal damage. Alternate which fire ant group distracts him to maximize pervasive free hatching.

Remember to toggle titan climbing off for ranged ants at all times. It should also be off for all your ants before fighting the first titan. Only toggle it on once the first titan's shell breaks.

Either mortar or rapid fire wood ants work. This build is weakest against the tarantula due to his high venom resistance, but your wood ants' abilities help counteract that.

Tier 5

No achievements for this tier have been added yet, but if you are looking for strategies for playing as matabeles, this video might be helpful:

Experiment 5

No Achievements Yet

Hungry Spider Level

How To Play This Level?

Click on the spider web that appears on the main menu screen between October 25 and November 9, as well as on full moons. If you don't want to wait, you need to manually adjust your computer's system clock to last year's halloween (Oct 31).

"Appetite Sated"

Eliminate all of the uber creatures in the "Hungry Spider" level.

Ability Overview

Bite: Good against tiny baby wolf spiders, ants, and healing hermit crabs. Leveling up your bite ability will increase your maximum health as a bonus, making it important. For this reason, you'd rather put spare points into bite over devour.

Venom Pool: Primary damage dealing ability. It is your second-best ability, and it should take second priority, behind crippling venom, when putting in upgrade points. As you level it up, it does more damage and its size becomes larger.

Crippling Venom: The best ability. No matter what strategy you are going for, whether it be bite focused or venom pool focused, getting this to a high level is a must. Fighting ubers means taking their health apart, retreating to heal, and then returning to take more of their health. You have to be able to outrun the ubers in order to do this.

Even though it may not seem good at low levels, crippling venom is so powerful at level 13 that it slows down the uber wolf spider to the speed of a wood louse. As a huge bonus, enemies take x% more venom pool damage when they are affected by crippling venom (x% of venom pool weakness increases as you upgrade the skill). Additionally, as you upgrade crippling venom, its range of effect increases.

Devour: For this strategy, you only have to get this ability up to level 4. Healing is important but you're never going to run out of food (so always go into battle with full health, don't try to conserve food).

Note: When you level up, your spider model becomes bigger and your max health increases a bit, regardless if you put points into bite.

Tips and Mechanics

Tip #1: I recommend using WASD for movement rather than using the mouse to click around.

Tip #2: Your wolf spider does an idle animation periodically like actual idle AI wolf spiders in the game. This can make it seem like your abilities are less responsive or slower, due to the idle animation starting to play, and getting cancelled every time you move or use an ability. When this happens, it's best to just retreat for 5 seconds and let the wolf spider do its thing.

Tip #3: Spam crippling venom to keep enemies slowed! The moment your crippling venom ability cool down is over, hit them with it again. Being faster than enemy = control over the level.

Mechanic #1: To escape (outrun) a fast enemy, it will immediately stop chasing you if you get a dirt tile (like a corner of a dirt wall) between you and the enemy. However, the best way to escape is just to hit them with a crippling venom (this may mean they get a hit on you), which allows you to outrun them.

Order of Enemies

1. Enemies at spawn, including mole cricket to the north
   
2. Black ant colony
   
3. Wood ant colony
   
4. All devils coach horse beetles and larvae, excluding uber
   
5. All hermit crabs, excluding uber
   
6. Some small tiger beetles to get to level 23
   
7. Uber hermit crab
   
8. All tiger beetles, excluding uber
   
9. Uber devils coach horse
   
10. Uber tiger beetle
    
11. Wolf spiders
    
12. Uber wolf spider

This strategy works well because you can kill all enemies from range. There is much less risk to getting stunned by devils coach horses and tiger beetles or poisoned by wolf spiders. Imo it's more consistent than a high level bite strategy.

The max level is 36, and your skill distribution should look like: bite level 7, venom pool level 12, crippling venom level 13, and devour level 4. After killing your initial enemies in the spawn area, get your bite and devour to level 4, and from there focus on venom pool and crippling venom. Toward the end game, you sometimes will only have the option to level either bite or devour, since they will be falling behind in terms of levels, so put those points into bite for more health.

Don't underestimate the uber wolf spider! Make sure that you are very accurate in venom placement. Don't get into her range at all, or she will one shot you with her venom bite ability! Be patient and wear her down. Good luck!

Christmas Spider Level

How To Play This Level?

Click on the present that appears on the main menu screen between December 2 and January 30. If you don't want to wait, you need to manually adjust your computer's system clock to last year's Christmas (Dec 25).

"Grinch Repelled"

Beat the "Festive Spider" level.


Get with achievement below.

"Some Naughty Some Nice"

Beat the "Festive Spider" level with at least half the gifts remaining under the tree.


Get with achievement below.

"The Perfect Christmas"

Beat the "Festive Spider" level with all gifts remaining under the tree.

I'll make a new video and update this section soon!

In the meantime, here's an old video beating the Christmas spider level. I made it before achievements were released and I apologize for the lower graphic quality, but the strategy is still the same.

Unlike the hungry spider level, bite and devour are incredibly important. This level is more like a tower defense game, rather than doing the damage yourself (don't waste points on venom pool).

Crippling venom is still great to slow enemies, especially the uber mantis and wolf spider but focus on devour especially, along with bite, so you can spam out towers.

Mortar wood ant towers (for range) and taunt major towers are especially good. Rapid fire wood ants and whip spider towers are also decent. Rapid fires at level 3 can slow enemies, but the problem with them is their low range.

Funnel web spider towers are great early on and can actually net you infinite food if your devour is high enough level (when they die, you eat their remains for more than you bought them for).

Also, eat the cookie that infinitely re-spawns below the Christmas tree for extra food to build towers. Make sure you don't accidentally eat any presents.

New Year's Feast Level

How To Play This Level?

Click on the lantern that appears on the main menu screen between January 8 and February 8. If you don't want to wait, you need to manually adjust your computer's system clock to last year's Chinese New Year (Jan 29).

"Don't Tickle It's Bottom"

Beat "New Year's Feast" on medium difficulty after rescuing the guests to the west of the nest without engaging the velvet worm.


Get with "Full House."

"Rocket Jump"

Beat "New Year's Feast" on hard difficulty after cutting the long journey in half with a firecracker.


Get with "Spring Cleaning."

"Spring Cleaning

Beat "New Year's Feast" on extreme difficulty after eliminating all underground enemies.

|Place YouTube video here|

1. Use firecrackers to clear weak underground chambers and unlock soldiers from maze in top left of underground.
   
2. Harvest caterpillars to build up army (see 10:20 in video).
   
3. See 17:25 in video to see how to get "Rocket Jump." Use woodworms at spawner in tiger beetle area to trigger firecrackers, blasting ants onto the hill to gather the spices on it.
   
4. Clear underground fully and collect spices.
   
5. Make sure underground enemies are cleared and do another round of caterpillar harvesting before collecting final pieces of spice.
   
6. Have a constant stream of ants to distract the Nian Beast and don't let him underground. Continuously hit him with firecrackers to bring his health down (see 48:55 in video).

"Full House"

Beat "New Year's Feast" on impossible difficulty, receive all guests and keep them alive until the end of the level.

|Place YouTube video here|

1. See the first 2 minutes in video to see how to get "Don't Tickle It's Bottom." Ideally, this first ant you unlock is either big-headed, leaf cutter, or army ant. You can restart for better RNG if not.
   
2. Clear weak enemy chambers with firecrackers and rescue guests in underground maze.
   
3. Harvest caterpillars to build up army (see 8:05 in video).
   
4. Send a group of workers on the long journey (see 11:30 in video).
   
5. Rescue ants on one hill (see 15:30 in video) by making the rove beetles spawn on the other hill.
   
6. Take out all tiger beetle larvae and then rescue ants in tiger beetle area (see 17:50 in video).
   
7. Gather spices from island by breaking barriers, ideally when you have damage boost from spice.
   
8. Finish clearing underground to reach last spices and ant guests. DO NOT use firecrackers against velvet worm chambers (see 27:18 in video). There is major glitch where blowing them up causes guests to die.
   
9. Avoid uber mole cricket. Use a spice bonus like free hatching, invulnerability, or extra damage to take out uber wolf spider (see 35:00 in video).
   
10. Harvest caterpillars before taking on Nian Beast, which you need to keep out of your nest. Kill him with the big firecrackers that spawn near your queen.

Make sure to escort guests (especially the wood ants) back to nest so they don't get taken out by jumping spiders and random wandering enemies.

Remember to not take out the adult velvet worms (see 27:18) with firecrackers, as there is a glitch related to their spray attack where blowing them up causes guests around your queen to die.

Extra Levels on Impossible [Insane]

This guide originally included walkthroughs of extra levels on impossible [insane] difficulty. If you'd like to view the old insane difficulty extra level videos, here's the YouTube playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYNw2v6jnT4eXYH7VOLosxSKtP8bsrg8N

[Buffy]

Yes, in May when I have time along with 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, and updating Christmas Spider section

[TheBigThickOne]

Are you still going to add the new years feast to the list?

[gcnk5678]

never mind i finished work force after i got an unlucky scout spawn and now i have to another run specifically for shoot the messenger. but where is the video lol

[gcnk5678]

how do you do work force and where's the video?

[Buffy]

it's not auto-target, I'm aiming it with my mouse

[dipinpreet]

buffy how does your hungry spider crippling venom auto target enemies, for me i gotta aim at them with my mouse

[ItsMoon_Shadow]

I wished this had at least some bullet tips for the christmas spider level. I'm diving into it for the first time, and had kinda hoped I could get some insight before starting. I hate stressing while playing games, I play games to ESCAPE stress, so trying to navigate this blind is a little nerve-wracking.

[eradicatetoast]

also, 24 mediae army ants and 20 of the rest is good on THE OTHER FOOT. another guide taught me

[eradicatetoast]

devour best ability, not criple venom. i healed up from 25% to full fighting uber hermit. lvl 15

[Buffy]

good luck and just click on the spider web in the main menu background to play it!