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It almost goes without question that the closest thing to aliens that we would have on this planet would be insects. They way they move and look never fails to induce a reaction from humans whether it be wonder or disgust which makes them great fodder for things like science fiction. Diminutive in size, with a population that is literally uncountable and also every bit just as adaptable as humans, insects thrive almost everywhere on Earth. As a result, we humans share a lot of space with these strange creatures and a quick examination of your own backyard would be sufficient to prove that statement true. One of the most common insects that we encounter in every day life and indeed in your own backyards would be the lowly ant. Everybody has spent some time in their childhood life examining these creatures, sometimes even playing God with them by feeding them sugar cubes and following the resulting line back to their colonies or flooding their home with water (bwahahaha!!). Some kids even went as far as getting their own ant colonies to watch them work. In any case, the developer Microids has given us the chance to run our own colony without the annoying problem of escaping ants. Published under Strategy First, Empire of the Ants can essentially be described as an RTS with elements of sim-style micromanagement mixed in.

Although comparisons between Empire of the Ants and Maxis’ old SimAnt are inevitable, Empire of the Ants is more than just SimAnt in 3D. EotA is actually based on Bernard Werber’s book of the same name. In Werber’s book, ants are intelligent beings that have created a millennia-spanning civilization with a population of trillions and who have also developed their own unique “technology.” Of course this lends well to the RTS-style gameplay that EotA is designed around. In this game, you will guide the destiny of the Bel-o-kan Federation, an empire of russet ants with a history that spans five thousand years. Over the course of three campaigns (only one of which was available on the limited press version) you will learn how to manage anthill as well as wage warfare against other ant species and other insects.

Running an anthill can be a difficult affair if you don’t allocate your antpower (as opposed to manpower) in a prudent manner. Having too many workers means that although you may have the ability to harvest your resources (more about that later) faster and in larger quantities, you will be relatively defenceless when predators come to eat up your workers or when other enemy ants decide to mount an offensive against your anthill. If you have too many warriors, your food supply will dwindle as it is consumed faster than your workers can replenish them. In EotA you also have to allocate ants to do other tasks such as the maintenance of the anthill’s rooms or nursing the queen ant’s eggs. Failure to do so can mean disaster especially if the queen ant’s chamber falls into disrepair. If this occurs the queen won’t feel inclined to lay eggs and your ant colony will slowly die off as the population dwindles… Thus, like every other game with elements of micromanagement in them, being successful means being able to juggle priorities with an eye out for future opportunities or setbacks. Should you allocate more workers to gather food and materials? What about allocating some towards building an extra storeroom in anticipation of a population increase? These are the sorts of questions you will end up asking yourself as your colony grows. In order to have ants to allocate in the first place however, your queen has to lay the necessary eggs. Thus you don’t “build” units per se in the game, you “hatch” them. Through a small popup menu that enables you to control the ratio of different ants that are hatched from the eggs, you are able to indirectly adjust the population of the colony to suit your needs. Besides regular workers, you can also hatch specialized workers like nurse ants, carpenter ants, farmer ants, and honey-pot ants that are good for the tasks they are born for. I found that I didn’t really have to hatch too many of the specialist workers anyway however, since the regular workers seem to do their jobs adequately enough but efficiency does improve a little if you have a few of each handy.

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