Ant Wars

[WindexGlow]

Ants Wars

Ants Wars​

Ants wars is a new strategy game, featuring large armies of ants that the player (you) easily manage and control.
There are many features of this game that are difficult to find in games, one of which is new features.

My game is based off of Ant Colony, but instead of several players working together in a single colony, each player controls their own colony.
The game will feature many things, the confirmed set of features are listed below, and noted with detail.

~-~-~ Frantic Game play For Up To 10 Players~-~-~​

------------Each player manages their own colony. Worker ants constantly run into other enemy ants, and find new food sources. Knowing where enemy workers are can prompt an attack on them, helping reduce his food income. At the same time, the enemy can attack your worker ants, requiring an alert player at almost every minute.

~-~-~Tunneling System~-~-~​

------------Create and manage your tunneling system with ease. Automatic tunnel diggers create rooms and tunnels at where you want them to be, very little manual work involved.. Simply select where you want your tunnel to start and end, and everything else is automatic.
------------Players completely control where, and how their ant hill is located and created. If you want your mound to start in a corner, build your first tunnel in the corner.

~-~-~Occasional Events~-~-~​

-----------These events can devastate your colony, or give you a massive advantage to other players. Wither it is a hailstorm, a brush fire, a small piece of a hamburger from above, or a light rainstorm that increases the growth of certain plants, all are unique and give players an advantage or disadvantage, depending on how well they managed their earlier resources.

~-~-~Innovative Strategies~-~-~​

-----------From digging an Ant Hill right into the middle of the enemy’s base for a surprise to completely sieging the enemy player by stopping all harvesters from getting out, a massive amount of tactics can be utilized to defeat your enemies.

~-~-~Confusing, Frantic Battles~-~-~​

-----------As battles progress in Ants Wars, units slowly branch into a confusing circle of small fights that constantly change sides. A single battle will often consist of many smaller, ant VS ant battles. The below picture shows this in action.

----------The picture on the left is 25 seconds into the battle. The picture on the right is the formation of the ants (top is blue, bottom is red) The battle will become more frantic faster once I figure out a small bug.

~-~-~Easily Control Huge Armies~-~-~​

----------Control massive, multiple armies of ants with ease with an easy to memorize command list. The game creates a unit group (chosen by player) and adds the unit’s the player wants to the spefic unit group.
An example of this, is noted below.
-group 6 selection
----------The above is a sample code that does the following:
Adds the current selected units to Group 6. The player can have up to 12 groups, each having their own units assigned.
Let’s break the code down a little more.
- < - - - -That symbol (-) shows the game you are about to make a command.
group < - - - - - - Group tells the game you are making a command that has to do with a group.
6 < - - - - - - This tells the game that the command is using only group 6, and no other group.
selected < - - - - - This tells the game that you want to add the currently selected units to Group 6.

Now, let’s use this unit group to attack a place.
-group 6 attack
Once again, let’s break the code down.
- < - - - -Tells the game you are about to make a command
Group < - - - - - - This tells the game you are about to make a command using a group
6 < - - - - This tells the game that the group you are using is that number.
Attack < - - - - - This tells the game you are making an order. Once you press enter and the game realizes that you want to use Group 6 to do an attack-move to a certain point, it will give you an option to choose where order all the units in your group to attack to.
You can’t actually see what units are in the groups, since the units are in variables, but let’s have alittle fun with these groups.
-group 1 circle 500 (This tells the game you want to add all the units in a 500-radius circle to Group 1, after typing this in you are given the choice of where the center of the radius circle will be.

-group 3 hold (This tells the game you want all units in group 3 to do a ‘Hold Position’ at a certain spot

-Group 3 all (This tells the game you want to add all the units to that group)

-Group 2 deselect selected (this tells the game you want to remove all units from Group 2 that are currently in your selection

-Group 12 deselect circle 900 (this tells the game you want to remove all units in a 900-radius circle from Group 12)

There are some minor restrictions, such as how large the circle can be, and what numbers you can use, but over-all it will allow new strategies and complex movements featuring a mass of units.

~-~-~Automated Gathering System~-~-~​

-------- Build a harvester ant, and you will never need to give it an order. It will go out of your tunnel, go to a food source, start harvesting that food source, return to your hole, and return to the harvester building. It will than repeat.
--------But what happens if you have no confirmed food sources/you want to find new food sources? The harvester ants will automatically start looking for new food sources (by wandering around by themselves) until they find a food source. Because of this, they will constantly run into enemy ants and enemy harvesters, but you can do the same with your warrior ants.

~-~-~Randomly Placed Food Sources~-~-~​

-------- Every game, food sources are placed randomly over the map. The types of food that they are also changes over time.
--------Special events can also increase the ‘growth’ of food sources and spefic food types. A drought will decrease grass, but will increase the number of nuts.

~-~-~Unique Food Types~-~-~​

--------A unique system of food types increases certain ants strengths. Some food types benefit them forever, but can only effect them if you have the food type when they are being born. While other food types benefit the ants only when you have the food type.

~-~-~Automated Feeding System~-~-~​

--------There are many food types, and each food type has it’s own spefic advantage. The feeding system is very unique, and somewhat complex and difficult to describe how it works. The best way to describe the factors
-What unit you are making
-What food types you currently have
-How much of that food type you currently have

Those are the main factors for when you make a new unit.
Let’s say you have 50 grass points, and 30 pine-nut points
Depending on what you have available gives it a bonus that will effect it for the rest of it’s life.
Now, it isn’t you standard ‘This ant costs 10 food points. Since you have 50 grass points and 30 pine-nut points, it will take 7 grass points and 3 pine nut points
It won’t be like that at, instead it will be like this.

A red ant accepts both Grass and pine nut points. It prefers grass over pine-nut and gives bonus depending no how much grass you have.
Grass also is used as a major food source for your red ants.
So because grass is a major source that is used in both the ants birth and life, it’s divided by a greater factor.
So out of 50 grass, the game actually splits into very small blocks depending on how many ants you currently have. Let’s say for every ant you have, the game divides that 50 grass into smaller blocks.


Your ants will eat their food source every often. Depending on how much of that food source you have, gives them a bonus that changes depending on how much food you have.
So you have 70 ants. And you have a total of 50 grass.
NumberOfUnits X .Food Source /3
In this case; 70 multiply .50 /3 = 11.66
11.66 is the total amount of grass that 70 ants eat in grand total.
Invidually, each ant ate .16 grass

So now your total grass is 38 (rounded, every 2 mean periods it removes extra food point)
Let’s do another meal time.
70 X .38 /3 = 8.8
So in total all your ants eat a grand total of 8.8 food points.
Invidually, each ant eats .12 grass

As you see, it slowly gets smaller. But as your food gets smaller, the changes become less and less noticeable.
When each ant gets an invidual piece of .8 grass points, it will become slower and easier to defeat. While on the opposite, having more food makes it faster and harder to kill.
Though if you have 3 ants and 300 grass points instead of each ant getting more than 50 grass each at each meal, it’s capped at .20 grass for each invidual ant.

When you choose to make a new unit, the food system applies something similar to that (actually taking a little more grass) and gives it a permanent bonus or defect depending on how much you have.

~-~-~Realistic Wait Before Food Effects Units~-~-~​

-------Let’s say you have a food shortage. This food shortage, while showing up on the scoreboard, doesn’t effect your units until 2 minutes.
So here is a timeline to help you.
-10:00 Food shortage happens
-10:01 Player’s worker ants find reliable food source and start bringing back food
-10:02 Player’s unit are now effected by food shortage, they are easier to defeat in battle.
-10:03 Player’s units are now effected by the new supply of food, they are returned to normal.

As you noticed, the food lags behind 2 minutes, making it a little more realistic.

~-~-~-Multiboard With Critical Information~-~-~​

--------There will be a multiboard with incredibly important information on it. Information that might be on it (not confirmed)
-Worker ants. How many you have, how many food sources you have confirmed, how many workers are currently going back to your base to drop off food or heading back to the food place, and how many have died.
-Food types, and how much of each type you have (and the average amount each unit currently gets)
-Unit types, and the availability of their food. It will also include the average kill/death score, the average life, and the average bonus (including permanate bonus)


Have any suggestions? Please state them.

Ants posing near rocks in the dry creek bed.

Rocks aren't a solid structure. They have gaps between the rocks, and the ants can use these to pass through the rocks. The picture is of an ant passing through one of the cracks.

All pictures are from a work in progress.

 

[Fatmankev]

Reply

Question 1: How should ants move across the outside environment?
I assume that they should move similarly to how they move below ground. However, I would need to see how your map actually works to really provide any useful input on this.
Question 2: Should there be any ranged ants?
Perhaps not ranged, but they should have special abilities; for instance, there is a type of Japanese ant that has an abdomen filled with sulfuric acid, and if it wants to it can explode, killing itself while damaging any nearby ants. The true kamikaze.
Question 3: Should there be any flying ants?
I would say yes, but not in large numbers. The drones are mostly a personal guard for the queen... maybe... but they are there, so I would put them in.
Question 4: Should there be a limit on worker ants?
Probably not, but then again I couldn't say for sure. You may want to think of implementing a "Call to Arms" style command, as worker ants are sometimes forced to fight against opposing ants to defend their anthill.
Question 5: Should ants have a collision?
No. In real life, ants crawl over one another to get to their foes, so I believe this would add some realism to the epic battle scene. It would also allow for more ants to battle each other at once.
Question 6: Can you list any random events that could happen (naturally)? If so, please state them.
Rain (chance to kill ants, chance to flood a tunnel, makes it risky for worker ants to stay out, which lowers food production for a period. It would be especially nice if it rained over most of the map but not in some regions. After the rain, grass should be especially plentiful or provide more of a bonus.)
Lawnmower (similar to rain, greater chance to kill ants, can destroy a food source, but actually moves across one part of the map from bottom to top, then next part from top to bottom, and so on until the lawnmower gets all the way across. It would also be neat if it wasn't completely random, and instead happened on a regular occasion, seeing as how many people mow there lawn once every two weeks on the weekend, or something like that.)
Animals (there should be plenty of different critters that you can encounter, from the helpless caterpillar to the indomitable bird. Weaker enemies would provide a worse food source than the stronger ones, but wouldn't take as many warriors to overtake, and vice-versa. If you wanted to be very creative, you could even allow the ants to utilize the extra parts for something other than food, such as using a bees stinger to add a fatal poison to certain warriors' attacks, or using a beetle's armored shell for a better defense. But I don't know how realistic you're trying to make this, so don't take that to heart.)
Question 7: Should there be a collapse if rooms are too large?
A chance for a collapse, yes. It should not be definite, though.
Question 8: Have any suggestions for this game? I will take and consider all.
Wormhole (not so much of a random occurence, but maybe there should be partially made, randomly-generated tunnles created by worms or the like at the beginning of every match? This would provide lucky civilizations to gain a significant advantage early on, or could even be a catalyst for quick and fearsome battles that neither player was expecting. It may be neat.)
Overall, it seems like a cool game concept. Let me help test it, please! If you have AIM, you can contact me at HungryHungryKev. Good luck!

 

[WindexGlow]

You had some really good points.

Wormhole (not so much of a random occurrence, but maybe there should be partially made, randomly-generated tunnels created by worms or the like at the beginning of every match? This would provide lucky civilizations to gain a significant advantage early on, or could even be a catalyst for quick and fearsome battles that neither player was expecting. It may be neat.)

I'll defentely add this. There might even be some beetles hibernating below the ground.

Lawnmower (similar to rain, greater chance to kill ants, can destroy a food source, but actually moves across one part of the map from bottom to top, then next part from top to bottom, and so on until the lawnmower gets all the way across. It would also be neat if it wasn't completely random, and instead happened on a regular occasion, seeing as how many people mow there lawn once every two weeks on the weekend, or something like that.)

I was thinking of having some human style of events, such as someone spraying ant-spray in a small area, causing ants to become damaged over time in the area.
Your idea(s) will be used, and will help me think of more ideas. Thanks. +rep
And I haven't started this yet, it will be a very long before the game's beta will be released.

Small update: Made a very small combat system (it makes unit move forward when they kill a unit, making the battle seem bigger, frantic, confusing) and..
It was pretty awsome.

 

[Fatmankev]

Small update: Made a very small combat system (it makes unit move forward when they kill a unit, making the battle seem bigger, frantic, confusing) and..
It was pretty awsome.

Lol, well put. If you need any more help on ideas or with simple but time-consuming processes, I seem to be much better at that than at finishing my own maps. I'll keep an eye on this to see if I can help any further.

 

[WindexGlow]

I take all suggestions and ideas greatly.
And I don't think there will alot of time consuming processes, besides the terrain (which unless you can make half of a 256x256 map look good, I will try it alone)

It's coming along alittle faster than I thought.
-Added custom rock model for soil (it's a tanish style, but looks very good and costs only 2 kb
-Added several custom plant imports, total size: 50kb
-Added snail import, total size: 30kb
-Added several movies, total size: 6gb
-added early combat system.
-added a small list for topic
EDIT: -added post to current topic

 

[majikseb]

Interesting. I always wanted to make a bug wars map. Maybe I can help with the units if you don't mind? I can't do skins or moddeling but the units themselves I can help with.

 

[WindexGlow]

Well I'm just trying to do the work on my own, sorry.
But if you have suggestions for the game, go ahead and tell me.
I am currently working on re-writing the first part of the post, but apperently my auto-feeding sytem is flawed. one of the queastions actually does the opposite of what it's supposed to do.

 

[elmstfreddie]

Question 1: How should ants move across the outside environment?
Like ants I don't get this question... Ants... Walk?
Question 2: Should there be any ranged ants?
No.
Question 3: Should there be any flying ants?
Yeah like in real life those ants with wings. I don't know where they come from or how, but I see ants with wings O_O
Yeah sure, but make them rare.
Question 4: Should there be a limit on worker ants?
Yes.
Question 5: Should ants have a collision?
No, because ants just walk over each other in real life.
Question 6: Can you list any random events that could happen (naturally)? If so, please state them.
Rain, snow, plant root growth, tunnel collapses, flood, animals that eat ants...
Question 7: Should there be a collapse if rooms are too large?
No, but there should be collapses from weather affects.
Question 8: Have any suggestions for this game? I will take and consider all.
Null and void?

 

[WindexGlow]

New post up.
If you have any suggestions, please give them.

 

[elmstfreddie]

Maybe humans can spray raid once in awhile

I am very eager to play this, if you need a tester, I'm always available (cept when I'm offline )
xfire: elmstfreddie
bnet (USWest): elmstfred(sotn)
or PM me

 

[WindexGlow]

This won't be ready for a long time.
Right now the biggest difficulty is simply: removing a desctructable when it dies (soil = destcructable, it can die but it's model will stay there forever)

Right now the current plan is to have an automated tunneling system, you pick one point and pick another, and it does everything else.
Though it would be amazing if I could get a leak-less jass script:
detects when a descrutable dies
dying descrutable is equal to soil
Remove descrutable from the game


Second difficulty: making the auto-gather system flawless and have no lag.

 

[WolSHaman]

This won't be ready for a long time.
Right now the biggest difficulty is simply: removing a desctructable when it dies (soil = destcructable, it can die but it's model will stay there forever)

Add slightly more hp to the destructible, and periodically check the HP of all destructibles. If the HP of the destructible you want removed is very low, then run the action of destructible-remove.

 

[elmstfreddie]

Well, actually, if you send me the model I could give it a <<SIMPLE>> death animation. Or if you want REALLY simple I could make it just disappear once it dies.

 

[WindexGlow]

There are several ten thousand descructables (Ya, I love having half of a 256x256 complety filled with doodads too) and a trigger checking their life, is pretty bad.

 

[Psiblade94122]

hmm i have a question, since this is a ant game, theres going to be really really really large armys, and youve confirmed that... now the question arises as to.... because warcraft 3 can only support so many units takeing orders and such, how are you going to get rid of that? what i mean is when there are alot of units, you tend to see a stop go pattern with the units (happens in alot of massing games.. especaly not very well made ones, not saying that yours is not well made.. course i cant critiqe your map till i play it, im talking about the people who just started mapping, and thats not you)

Personaly i like what youve done with the porpotions, but because of warcraft again, how to get rid of all that blood? i still look for the answer to this myself

the concept is great, its just how are you going to get past all the core codeing in warcraft 3 that prevents alot of things and makes the game look kinda ugly <talking about the tons of blood in SS)

 

[WindexGlow]

now the question arises as to.... because warcraft 3 can only support so many units takeing orders and such, how are you going to get rid of that?
what i mean is when there are alot of units, you tend to see a stop go pattern with the units (happens in alot of massing games.. especaly not very well made ones, not saying that yours is not well made.. course i cant critiqe your map till i play it, im talking about the people who just started mapping, and thats not you)

The amazing solution is simply to attach a dummy ant to the actual ant.
The dummy ant is an attachment, like you would put a Sword attachment on a unit if they pick up a certain sword (only in certain games where the map-maker knows how to do it, it's pretty easy)
I will be testing that out in alittle bit, and I believe it will look good due to
A: Ants are hard to see. You won't notice that dummy ant doesn't attack unless you look very close
B: Ants can be hard to see in their enviroment. Though with a dummy attached to every actual ant, the numbers will actually be twice as large.
C: Attachments don't cause command lag (hopefully)

EDIT: Small setback. Encourages getting a custom model though.
Attachments don't use custom model size, only the default size. So I need to get a massively small ant model. XD

Though this will put strain on how many units can appear on the screen at one time, especially underground. Because of this, when a unit goes underground, it will likely lose it's attachment. But it will re-gain it again when it goes outside.

Personaly i like what youve done with the porpotions, but because of warcraft again, how to get rid of all that blood? i still look for the answer to this myself

A unit dies
Set L = position of dying unit
Remove dying unit
Create 1 skeleton at L 
call removelocation(udg_L)

In theory that should work, and hopefully it does. It will remove the actual unit before it's particle (blood) can be created.
Instead of skeletons I might actually leave little ant bodies, that provide very little food. But a large battle could have a bit of food for your colony.

the concept is great, its just how are you going to get past all the core codeing in warcraft 3 that prevents alot of things and makes the game look kinda ugly <talking about the tons of blood in SS)

I am actually looking into the creative aspect of trojan horses, blackmail, and threats of assassination for getting past the limits of the wc3 engine and allow it to take over indonisia.
Seriously though, it's pretty easy. Blood is actually attached to the model, not the core of the game. There's a slight pause before the unit actually releases it's blood, and you can use that time to remove the unit, stopping it's release of blood.

Reply With Quote

No.
(If I didn't, sorry. I did click quick reply, and than I decided to go to advance)

 

[WindexGlow]

Bump. Terrain finished. Still need soil model (I have the actual model, it just needs a death animation)
And I still need a very small scale ant model. Around .15 scale of crypt fiend =[

 

[WindexGlow]

Bump. Any suggestions?

 

[waaaks!]

hey i played ant wars in a real game, and its fun, i dont know if this map is simmilar to what i played

 

[WindexGlow]

This game is based off the general idea, but instead of 2 teams, every single player is their own, seperate team.
Most feature will be automated, such as worker ants automaticly go and gather resources, or will go out and look for them.
You can also make your tunnel anywhere on the map, not a pre-placed spot. Tunneling is also automatic, but you choose where, and how long the tunnel is.
The farther away the tunnel is, and the longer it is increases the cost of it.