“Empires of the Undergrowth” by Slug Disco Studios is an interesting strategy game that has you take on the roles of a queen ant and her many responsibilities for keeping her colony thriving and expanding.
Keeping a colony organized, like anything, will keep things very efficient for everyone involved, in this case, an army of six-legged daughters.
Making sure food storage areas are secure, somewhat close to food supplies and easy to find are vital strategies to keeping your ant colony growing.
A good tip for starting the ant colony is locating and securing all food sites in the immediate area. Then dig them out and make them your permanent storage area for food. Food is everything.
Food is your main resource in this game, and it will be used when building nurseries for your workers and soldiers. Ironically enough, you need food to build food storage tiles.
Be careful, however. There is a limited amount of food on a map and once it is gone, it is gone. There are also enemies that patrol the map and some of them are inside the food sites. You’ll need soldiers to clear out these areas.
Soldiers are the security force that protect your colony and, when necessary, wage war upon those who would seek to harm the colony, which includes basically everything under the sun.
Players can control soldiers by sending out pheromones to coordinate actions. Something neat that has been added to the game by Slug Disco is an easy-to-use grouping mechanic to form soldiers and workers into battalions to fight off enemy bugs or dig new tunnels quickly.
An ant colony is nothing without its queen. Protecting the queen is, by far, the most important task, even if that means having to sacrifice every one of her children to protect her. Digging tunnels that go directly to the queen should be kept to a minimum, and always having soldiers nearby is not a bad idea either.
If you want to experience the game before it comes out, search “Empires of the Undergrowth” demo. It is free and will give you a good look at the game before it comes out on Steam.