Introversion

I've think that we've all had a few games lost because of an ant tnest placed near our spawn. If you don't get the right power up, there's simply nothing you can do, and it can be frustrating as ants disrupt your supply lines, both by sending your guys running and by killing them. My suggestion is that ant nests should be temporary, like squads. After a few seconds (30? a bit more?) the ant nests should simply explode on their own.
What do you think?

That's one way to deal with them.

Explosive powerups, I've noticed, don't seem to come whenever they're needed. Your best bet to deal with an ant problem is to save the first explosive you have and hold it for most of the game.

It doesn't help any that Darwinians don't throw grenades when they should. I've tried several tactics others have suggested here to no avail, DWs will not throw grenades at the anthills.

If there is going to be a lifespan, I suggest a minute rather than 30 seconds. In the game space of Multiwinia, even a minute feels like a long time.

How many armours does it take to wipe an ant infection ? (I mean using the kamikaze armour technique)

Gun turrets will destroy ant nests quite effectively. You just need to have one close enough, and then aim/fire it at the nest manually.

Yeah, there's a lot of ways to deal with ants, it's just that if your opponent happens to get one from a crate in the first 30 seconds, and places it, you don't have anything to throw at the nest. I think ants nests should disappear after a minute or so.

A timer on the ants may be nice. Frankly i find it enjoyable to plop one down in between me and my opponent in assault and watch his armor's blow up as they come into contact with the ants. This does make it quite unfair however, maybe the 'queen' ant has a timer in which she implodes when xx souls collected or xx time is up.

Meh. Ants are fun, don't bother changing them

Donat wrote:Meh. Ants are fun, don't bother changing them

I tend to agree.

bert_the_turtle wrote:

Donat wrote:Meh. Ants are fun, don't bother changing them

I tend to agree.

I actually kind of like them too, and I love all the crazy game-breaking "power-ups", like futurewinians. However, the difference is that futurewinians can be shot at, but if you don't have the right power-up, you are pretty much helpless against ant nests. Even soul destroyers are not as much of a problem, because they are mobile and so present a danger to everyone, rather than crippling one single player.

I don't like the timer idea much. Doesn't really sound like it'd fix much, your starting spawns would have been cleaned after a minute... It would only make it easier for your enemies to capture them after they have been cleaned.
Maybe ants could be made a little less powerful. (Lower ant frequency, easier to destroy nests)
I love them as they are, though.

bert_the_turtle wrote:

Donat wrote:Meh. Ants are fun, don't bother changing them

I tend to agree.

Bert, can you and others tell us how you deal with an ant nest in the first part of the game, then?

Making a squadron to hold them off while other Darwinians throw grenades doesn't work- as Darwinians don't throw grenades when they should.

Do you just form a squadron to shoot ants and leave them in place?

What happens if you don't have enough Darwinians to collect nearby crates because of ants?

Kuth wrote:squadron

I think you mean Formation? Squads are something else entirely. [/pedant]

We are strongly considering nerfing the ants nests. Right now they spawn ants indefinately and require quite a lot of explosives to destroy, which means they often remain for the whole game, and Darwinians are terrible at dealing with them.

We've made an experimental change whereby ants nests take damage when they are "empty" of ants, ie all ants are outside or dead. Ants nests left on their own gradually accumulate darwinians and souls and grow their population. Ants nests that are attacked directly suffer heavy population losses and eventually run short of ants, then they start "dying off". So you can focus your Darwinians on an ant infestation and destroy it if you wish to. This makes the ants nests more like the Egg powerup - it can be a big problem if allowed to grow and spread, but it can be dealt with if done quickly.

Thoughts?

I think a limiter on the number of ants and the alloted time and spread that they can grow would help. I would hate to see the ants nests just reduced to nothingness.

I like the idea of being able to kill off all the ants, the nests themselves taking up responsibility for drawing souls. Decay due to lack of ants sounds like a fit. The ants would quickly be killed by the mass of darwinians and then slowly die as you push past them, any die near the nest it gets fed and grows again.

I quite like the idea that there is a limited number of ants per hive and that the population can grow or be killed off (perhaps leaving the empty nest standing as a reminder). I'd suggest having a bar beneath each nest so you have an idea of how big the current population of each hive is. That way you can make a choice to either bombard it with an airstrike or wear it down with Mutiwinians.

Do ants nests still have the 3 ants per returned soul ratio that they had in Darwinia? I would nerf that depending on current ant population, so small nests quickly rebuild their numbers, but large nests do not spiral out of control (to the point where there are so many ants they're almost unasailable.

It would also be good of Darwinians were more likely to target the ants nest than the ants, when in range of the nest. The issue is that the DGs seem absolutely terrified of the ants and the nest and just won't throw grenades - I would have thought they would have worked out that they really need to kill the hive... people have reported sticking mixes of formations and loose DGs around hives and them simply refusing to throw any grenades. Do DGs ever throw grenades at ants? If they did that might partially get them to throw grenades at the hive.

I'm somewhat against Ants nests being timed for eg a minute, because at that stage it might be simpler just to completely ignore them and their hive whenever they're spawned, which is too big a nerf. I am however very pro nerf ants nests, and possibly nerf spore generator fear. What is it that spore generators do that terrify DGs so damn much!

Back on topic though;
1) Nerf ants nests. Timed might work, actively being able to actually attack them is even better.
2) Go go team evil!