Game:

Empires of the Undergrowth (2017)

Duration: 39:18

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11

Moving into the Ecuadorian rainforest, we will start to play as leafcutter ants. As leafcutters, we won't be gathering food by fighting and killing things, instead we will be gathering leaves and turning it into fungus. You gather leaves on the surface and place them in leaf storage tiles. Minim workers will take a chunk of leaf and bring it over to any ant tile and fungus will grow on it, providing you with food you need. Once the fungus is used up, a minim worker will have to collect the waste and move them refuse chambers to allow it to decompose. Onto the level, in 3.1, The Harvest, we're a new leafcutter colony who needs to grow to survive. However, to the north, there is another leafcutter colony who wants to claim the leaves in the area as well. It's a race against time to see who can collect the most leaves. On insane, you will need to collect 14,000 leaves before the enemy colony does. With challenge mode, another insect lays waiting, waiting for an opportunity to lay its eggs in your wandering ants.
This is a newer video to show off the strategy for the campaign rebalance for the public beta that is occurring and for the future update. If you notice anything different, this is an older version of the beta.

Tips:
- Phorid flies will lay in wait on plants you need to harvest. You can get rid of them using level 3 media or majors, however, for insane, it's not worth getting rid of them. Ignore them as much as possible.
- If you need to get some last-ditch food, send your army to collect from fly infested plants. Note: Do this as a last resort if you really need that last bit of leaf to out harvest the enemy.
- Start off with building only workers for the entire first day. You should have some 50-60 workers and another 14-19 nest workers.
- As soon as night hits, start building media. These, along with the workers, will be your main source of gatherers. Build some 50+ during the entire game.
- After a while, such as when you reach the halfway point towards your goal of 14,000 leaves, start to make majors. Get some 19 or more OR, make the 19 and upgrade them, totally up to you!
- Whenever you get the chance, try to attack the enemy trails to slow down their gathering. After the retreat, gather as much food as you can from their original harvesting spot and retreat. They will return with a larger force, so better to gather there for a bit and then fall back to harvest elsewhere.
- If you ever feel like you're going to lose and there's no way to catch up, you can always invade the enemy nest and kill their queen. It isn't easy, but you can kill their queen and win the level that way too.

(Rebalance):
- The leafcutter levels were not at all effected by the rebalance. The addition of titan climbing made some fights against larger creatures such as the adult velvet worm, spiny devil, and mantis a little easier.

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