Ant Wars

[erwtenpeller]

Ant Wars is a map concept i've had laying around for quite some time, wich, like elemental wars, isnt verry likely to ever get made but a fun feat to think about.

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Ant Wars is a multiplayer map largely based on footmen wars. It has the same setup and same premise as footies, but with a large emphasis on recource collection and management. It also has ants.

The spill of ant wars is your hive queen. This hive queen can create small buildings named "spawn sacks". There are diffrent kinds of spawn sacks, and these spawn sacks will periodically spawn units. The two main kinds of units that spawn sacks will be able to spawn are workers and soldiers. Workers collect recources and soldiers fight enemy soldiers.

Your queen needs Strongleaf to creatye spawn sacks. Strongleaf can be harvested by your worker units from plants and grass growing in the area.

Your workers can also collect the corpses of dead ants and bring them back to your queen. The more corpses you've fed your queen, the bigger she becomes and the more options, upgrades and abilities she unlocks.

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In addition to this basic gameplay there would be three diffrent queens you could choose from, African Termites, European Soldier Ants and South-American Fire Ants. These queens would all have a couple of diffrent "tech trees" you can choose to upgrade by feeding her. And ofcourse, a wide selection of units and upgrades.

Theres also going to be larger insects and animals that make the mistake of wandering into the battlefield. These can be killed for a hefty food bonus. There will also be a picknick-basket in the centre of the battlefield providing a steady stream of sweets for those who can hold it.

[Anopob]

Sounds cool, especially if the middle picnic bucket is guarded really well, but would this be a team game (like 3v3) or FFA (1v1v1)?

[Rising_Dusk]

Brought back from the depths, huh? The biggest problem about this map is that it's entirely driven by custom models, otherwise I think it's pretty cool.

[darkwulfv]

I'm not sure if I would consider termites to be ants.

Otherwise, this is a great idea. Compared to most footies where all the thought goes into how well you can direct your spam and rape with your hero, this has you focus on resource management (I like the idea of collecting dead bodies as a resource). What about food?

[Limb_Smasher]

This sounds really cool, so long as it has many aspects to it I'd definitely give it a go.
What about the ants with wings?
I mean I'm no expert, but I've seen the things with wings!

[Kino]

Brought back from the depths, huh? The biggest problem about this map is that it's entirely driven by custom models, otherwise I think it's pretty cool.

Amazingly, dark tinted Crypt fiends with extremely reduced scaling can pass disturbingly well as Ants.
Also Ive seen people make such maps before but no one so far has made a decent Ant War map.

If you need opinions on insects and ants you can pm me.

[Tide-Arc Ephemera]

Go go WC3 Sim Ant mods! But yeah, this idea sounds purdy cool. You should give the ants abilities which are puns on their names; e.g fire ants have some sort of burning ability. Up to you, though.

It'd be super special awesome to see this as a reality, though.

[Terrorblade]

Randomly appearing hazards, that would make things more interesting, you can't expect a human to NOT walk by and squish some ants, and rain, heavy rain is like flood for ants.

[Alevice]

if there are queens involved, i doubt this match is happening on the surface, so no human haphazards. maybe tunnels that collapse and stuff.

[Rising_Dusk]

The awesome-factor of being on the surface with grass bigger than your units far outweighs any concerns I have about erwt being "realistic" and keeping the queens underground. They could always live in elevated burrows or something, but really, the terrain would be more than half of the draw of this map.

[Alevice]

I still like the colony idea better, as long as the tunnels can collapse, and new tunnels were able to be made (thousands of destructibles shape the tunnels?), and that the sporadical invader (insects that prey on ants, infiltrated larvae eater caterpillars, giant anteaters tongues crushing everything on its path) hops in.

[Ammorth]

I would much prefer the out-door game vs the tunnel game.

[Szythe]

Why not do above and below ground? There was some AoS I saw a long time ago that allowed you to switch back and forth between a surface map and an underwater map, You could just make a burrow ability and design 2 terrains which fit in with each other.

[Belphegor666]

Tunnels with destructibles blocking everything looks blah...

If anything just go with a realistic feel to it.

Personally I would spice things up and make Zerg/Mutation Wars. There you could start as a parasite and unlock special genes by devouring other creatures or steal genes from your opponents remains. Hell I'll probably make something like that if Sc2 comes out...

[erwtenpeller]

Originally Posted by Anopob

Sounds cool, especially if the middle picnic bucket is guarded really well, but would this be a team game (like 3v3) or FFA (1v1v1)?

The guarding would be up to the players, there wont be any neutral forces guarding said basket.

The game is a 3v3v3v3 game, 4 teams of 3 players.

Originally Posted by Rising_Dusk

Brought back from the depths, huh? The biggest problem about this map is that it's entirely driven by custom models, otherwise I think it's pretty cool.

Yeah, i wouldnt do this without the custom models. Back when i was last tinkering with this idea i figured out how to do this stuff with minimal modelling effort though, and with tobs compression tools that shouldnt be a problem at all.
I'm basically bringing this back from the dead to see if i can finetune the idea, as i might be able to use it to fill some school assignments, and if i can use school to do these kinds of things i damn well will, its a lot more fun and fullfilling then doing fictional stuff.

Originally Posted by darkwulfv

I'm not sure if I would consider termites to be ants.

Its going to be a humorous cartoony game. They're close enough to "ants" to count as them, and they have interesting distinguishable traits.

What about food?

There wont be any. I'd prefer this without a unit cap at all but wc3 can only handle so much. Starcraft 2 might be a better engine for this idea.

Originally Posted by Limb_Smasher

What about the ants with wings?
I mean I'm no expert, but I've seen the things with wings!

Tricky becouse of balance issues but its definetly something that i'd do in an expantion or "next version" or whatever, but i'd like to start basic.

Originally Posted by Kinorhynkar

Amazingly, dark tinted Crypt fiends with extremely reduced scaling can pass disturbingly well as Ants.

That simply wont do.

Originally Posted by Tide-Arc Ephemera

You should give the ants abilities which are puns on their names; e.g fire ants have some sort of burning ability. Up to you, though.

Obviously. What'd ya thing about Antlions, eh? It'd have all kinds of funky stuff.

Originally Posted by Terrorblade

Randomly appearing hazards, that would make things more interesting, you can't expect a human to NOT walk by and squish some ants, and rain, heavy rain is like flood for ants.

It wont be humans, but large insects wreaking havoc. This is becouse those actually serve a perpouse too; a hefty food bonus.

Also, no tunnels becouse its eew.