Empires of the Undergrowth

Expected more from what I was advertised.

I am a little unpatient when it comes to these type of games and like to see improvement after 2-4 completed missions. And hate repetitive

I had to play something in a background so I dont get bored. This game is good if you dont engage yourself in a story and just play like its something to fill time good choice. But in terms of being engaging it's content of 30 hours than you most likely get super repetitive

Refunded, there is a game breaking bug that does not allow you to play "Error: Cannot save game setup", could not find a fix for this.

it is a different kind of strat game. it is very fun and can make for some very long epic games

This game reminds me of simant ALOT. Honestly its successor. There is RTS mechanics yeah, but the simulation is ACTUALLY there. Food gathering, pheromone markers, types of ants, above and underground of land and nests, etc. Even a campaign that really tests you. Skirmish, free play, etc. I played Empire of the Ants thinking that was going to be SIMAnts successor, nah not even close. That game is just a rock paper scissors style rts that lacks depth that just looks pretty and is about ants lol, not really any real simulation besides groups of bugs fighting and the pretty world around you that you cant even interact with. Def recommend this game if you need that itch scratched if it relates to an ant colony sim game.

A very unique take on RTS genre - namely the underground vs above ground levels and where in the former, you need to decide which areas to excavate. There are some frictions such as figuring out how ants are grouped - basically, you need to keep their tiles separated. Some of the UI needs love and the underground lighting is not the best.

It's so refreshing to play a game where each mission is truly unique and new mechanics are introduced at the perfect pace. I wasn't expecting the overarching story to be so funny and engaging but after 27 hours I finally completed the game and somehow feel like it ended too soon! Thankfully there is a skirmish and a New Game + mode so still lots of content to keep you busy.

This game is just perfect. I loved ants as a kid and was so happy while i was waiting for the installing to load. The graphics are amazing, the mechanics are amazing, everything is the best. I actually have more than 1,000 hours on this game. It's incredible! Good work creators.

Amazing game that helped me squash my League addiction. I feel like I learned a bit from this game too! Really great game and looking forward to anything the dev does moving forward.

Fun game, bordering on amazing game. The lab setting feels like a different game from the rest of the story mode, both are fun though, just joined together against god's will.

good game a little bit of a challenge but otherwise pretty fun

this game was cool as hell, the details are nice, the gameplay is balanced and fun. Take my bank account empires of the undergrowth, i really like the ant species that they picked to be in this game and i really recommend this game. The experience was even better as am an ant/insect lover.

Fucking love this game.
It's a ton of fun and the missions are for the most part, all really fun and the main story and characters are also really fun. Although the survival missions feel a bit too long, to a point where during the final day you can just kinda afk and wait it out for a while

To start off, this game was the best simulation game I had ever played, the attention to details of the environment and ants are amazing! I actually ant keep as a hobby and after playing this game for a while I love how majority of the details and behaviors of the ants are exactly similar to some of the ants I keep. Amazing graphics too with my RTX 3060! They definitely should add multiplayer to this game as it would be fun to experience this with other players. 10/10!

I love both ants and RTS, so you can say this game had my interest from the very beginning.

The core mechanics are fun, the variety in units and enemies is there, and the presentation is charming, going for this false documentary angle. On its basis, this game has everything needed to be a unique and fun experience.

However, the Story Mode is a huge underperformer. At least for me, a good campaign mode is a must in any RTS game. It shouldn’t be all generic skirmishes; you must put some well-designed missions for a strategy game to have real substance and not be just an overambitious tech demo. And the story missions are either bland or annoying. At least at the point I’m in, everything is timed: survive for a defined period of time; collect these many resources before the time’s out. People who may want to rush the enemy can’t because either way you have to wait for the timer, and people who may want to take their time can’t either because the game is always rushing you just enough with timed assaults for it to be hardly achievable. The worst thing about the story missions is that you have to play each mission TWICE to get all rewards, and playing back-to-back the same “wait for 40 minutes” stage is NO fun at all. It’s just padding to make the Story Mode feel longer, which is not, by the way; it’s really short if you don’t count the repeated levels.

On a smaller note, between the story missions, you visit the “Formicarium” where you can make your own little colony, like an ant-themed Dungeon Keeper’s “Pet Dungeon”. Loved the idea; it was really refreshing to see the ants working and getting food from the overworld without peril. You can also use the resources you gained from the story missions to upgrade your colony, unlocking new ant types and improving their abilities. All this sounds wonderful, and I thought just that the first time I saw it. There’s always a but, though: the upgrades you buy ONLY work inside the Formicarium (at least until New Game+), which makes them kind of pointless. Yes, you have to defend the Formicarium in horde missions to unlock further levels and ants, but I never had any problem when doing it, even without upgrades. And the worst thing about the Formicarium is that the game makes you start over multiple times as you advance in the Story Mode, so it’s pointless to try and make it look cool because it will be taken from you sooner than later. Instead of making the player adapt their layout as they advance, the game just erases your progress and forces you to start again.

I don’t know. The charm is there, and the first couple of missions were fun enough. But the egregious padding, the restrictive way the game wants to be played, and the overall rushed feeling of a lot of the content outside the base mechanics leave me with a very sour taste from the experience.

Love the game. It's sim ant but way better. The stages are challenging and fun the narration is great, I never felt so sympathetic towards what I considered garden pests. Animations, pathfinding, resource management are excellent. One of the best RTS and dungeon games I've played.

Can the male scientist sounds even more erotic?! The way how he says "Twenty....rufa ants" really makes my colony...raise....

Also:
THE LARVAÉÉ MUST BE PROTECTED!

One of the best games I've played in years. Wildly entertaining. No pun intended, but ran into 0 bugs during the beta. The narrator is one of the best pieces of the game.

Got this game cause I noticed an old acquaintance of mine who was into similar RTS like me had almost 1000 hours in it.
First it didnt look like much.
But then, advancing throug the campaign, I now absolutely see it.
We got
- a fast paced hunt for limited resources
- ever more challenging missions
- pick your fights, weighing invested resources(ants) against the plunder (anything that moves or grows)
- a fight over resource nodes, supply lines, 'cattle'
- entertaining narration and "story" bits
and much more

currently 17 hours in and completely hooked

I love this game, finished partially on extreme dif. I need multiplayer, devs. We all need multiplayer!

This game slaps, hard. After the full release, a lot of the little nitpicks I had disappeared. 100% recommended, at full price.

This game is awesome, it's super detailed, high quality and it feels really nice to play. IF you've ever played Spore or Age of Empires you will love this game. It's a more magnified version of those games haha where you play as ants. It's super fun and extremely difficult at some levels haha. Try this game out! I'm so glad I got it.

The game got me genuinely interested in ants and now I'm watching hours of youtube videos about them. Ant biology lends itself surprisingly well to RTS tactics. A lot of work went into the realism and balance of the game, its a real homage to nature. The story mode was also a wild ride, and the ending threw me for a loop. The soundtrack is like they asked the composers to make an album inspired by "The ants go marching one by one" and I love it. Shoutout to Mandalore's unhinged Direct Horse for pointing out this great game!

Another time I wish there was a neutral review. I played this non-stop and it was so much fun, until I've basically tried every faction, every map, seen every creature, and it fell flat. The problem is its lack of replayability because of lack of depth in game play. I know the game is meant to be scientific precise, but it really needs some more creativity. A great game with great potential, but not recommended at this stage. Wait for updates and/or dlcs

i really recomend this game 10/10. Also my favorite ant is weaver ants can you put it in the game please, even tho i know that is very difficult, can you still do it please in some future update? Thank also game is incredible.

Highly recommended. Many hours of entertainment. Well worth the money. One of the few games that I have bought that has got better with time. Pretty nice the developers are still updating and expanding the game.

Short Version: The worldbuilding and environment is nice and it's some leaned back fun. Strategical depth is missing for a RTS game in the 30euro league though, so get in on sale.

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I very much enjoy the idea of commanding ants and building the fate of a colony in a world of bugs and plants. The scenario and world building is nice - the gameplay as such is ok only: It lacks depth for a RTS and Base building is very rudimentary.

EDIT: A hint for people playing on mac: Its eats a lot of resources on the mac version, cause in the standard setting vsync is not active. Even though its supposed to be limited to 60FPS max it seems to generate a lot more FPS and thereffore neets a lot of resources. Activate vsync in the vido settings and it will run smooth like a cat..
Many Thanks @hexnet for the troubleshooting

I love this game so much. The gameplay is solid, the environments are stunning, voice acting and animations are great, and the music MY GOD THE MUSIC. Please, by the game, it's worth the money

took me a few hours to realize it's Real Time Strategy.

you don't need to realize its an RTS to complete it. the difficulty scales well with your aggression, so pacing generally is up to your control. most levels can be beaten multiple ways.

its a very fun game about ants. leafworker ant > gunner. ant theme is very good. very well done, complete affordable game and was an instant-buy for me.

Laid back RTS, with straightforward gameplay.

This is one of those games that only an indie company could make.  I didn't know I needed an RTS with ants in my life, but here I am.  If this was any large company the idea would have gotten squashed in committee by the efforts of some marketing gigolo referencing the falling sales of ant farms in domestic markets; and suggest they make an RTS based on tiktok influencer pranks.

Anyways, the gameplay is simple, with players more or less tasked with making 2 types of decisions: where to gather resources, and what unit composition to go with.  This simplicity in choice however remains fun through the story and challenge modes due to  the variety offered between scenarios.  On one level, you are playing as leafcutter ants and having to scavenge leave sources and beating back army ants; on another level you may play as termites seeking to outlast your sister colonies as you all are besieged by Matabelee ants with their specialized medic units. 

Music and sound effects are good; the voice acting, in this ANT GAME, is amazing!  The narrator will hype you up over the horrific Cthulian powers of toads and spiders, and manage to sneak "natural wonders" facts in about them as well.  Good stuff. Oh, the main ANTagonist in the storyline does a great job as well.

Replayability is medium.  Story is short, but can be re-played through with different difficulties, modifiers, and active challenges.  The extra scenarios and levels are fun too!

Pick it up if you like RTS games and the natural world!

Watching ants at work is truly fascinating. And this title could've been the best game in my steam library but it fell short. Why? The game RESETS your current play when you ALT-TAB through windows with dual display.. I mean come on.. REALLY?! WHY?! So many countless hours wasted doing the same missions OVER and OVER and OVER. WTF?! FIX THIS PROBLEM!

Other than that.. 10/10, would grind again.

Game has a lot of bugs but in a good way.

I love the game... shame that the main story came to an end

I bought it thinking it was a little expensive in offer and I have to say that if I would have known how the game is made I would have bought the game without offer lol... It's crazy good and funny!

Definitely recommend. Fun building & RTS combat, good looking units, clear gameplay, easy to understand. Good voice acting, doesn't overdo it on the lore ideas, lets you get straight to the fun parts.

The talent system isn't super deep so far, but I thought building colonies and beefing up ants was easy fun.

Honestly this is one of the more fun RTS games I've ever played.
I cannot imagine getting this hyped playing some other games.
Its a hidden gem of a game so to say.

I love my ants.

The only issues I had:
Sometimes ants are not responsive
Not enough control groups

Possible improvements:
Coop
Workshop/map editor

The soundtrack slaps so hard on this that I would still play it so I can hear more of that trombone even if the gameplay itself sucked. Good thing the gameplay is as good as the music! I would have been willing to pay full price for this, and so it's currently a huge steal at only $15 in the current sale.

Edit: I just beat the campaign and all I can say is LOL 10/10 best ending for a game in a while. Whoever story-boarded this campaign needs a raise!

This game takes it self only as seriously as ants do.... In other words it is TIME TO RULE THE WORLD AND DEFEAT EVERYTHING IN OUR PATH....!

It is fun!

This Delivered to me a modern day experience of what I played when I was a kid with SimAnt, it's a lovely RTS that has great challenges for those who like to play with difficulty and with ease.

Similar Games: Dungeon Keeper, Starcraft, War For the Overworld, Dungeons.

You get to form your colony with a fictional ant species that *adopts* other species to their ranks with a silly but educational story through the campaign missions. A lot of care went into this game and you can see it.

The smol and tiny perspective: The world is shown to you from the colony's perspective amassing scale for what these little insects experience in their day-to-day lives. The game has some seriously large scale bosses that only an empowered colony could conquer with a bullfrog, and a pseudoscorpion along with their highly organized cousins like the army ants. If anything the game gives a bit of insight into these magnificent bugs and their challenges. In the ant kingdom, just like the zerg in starcraft, numbers conquer all.

These little critters have been my favorite since i was a kid, and was happy to experience them again with a challenge much later.

This game is very fun and interesting to play and the only thing that would make it better would be a coop mode.

Addictive! Actually not easy at all, educational, great graphics and anatomically defensible insects. It's got humor, an interesting combat style, a good story. It handles very smoothly: rather than direct attacks, you can easily send your ants where you want them to go and they'll sort themselves out. I used to own Empire of the Ants a long time ago, which was unplayable due to bugs (pun intended) and this game is all that game tried to be and more. Finally a good RTS featuring ants.

for once we are the bugs , great game

I love this game I played this game back in 2020 before the full version and have been following it update by update if you love strategy and masses of body slamming into enemy's this is the game for you

Whatever brought you here, to look at an RTS about ants? That's enough to know you'll love it. Give it a try :)

I mean... look at my hours played XD

Bought in Early Access, followed all the way through. A great little company doing what they loved, with much feedback and community engagement. Bravo

just not a lot of game here, the variety is annoying, its like every faction gets 2 units, there's no real flexibility, the scale of the game doesn't match the general vibe. idk. underwhelming. worth max 5 dollars. which is whtas annoying. feels like a really good idea with very poor finalization/execution.

A very pleasant surprise:

The premise is pretty simple. Acquire food resources, spend the resources on spawning more ants or upgrading existing ants. Use those ants to acquire more resources.

The first two missions are pretty basic. I really thought to myself: "man, is this it? What a waste of money". But as you progress through the stages, the game introduces more complexity, very different types of colonies each having their own unique way of acquiring resources, and with different win conditions. The fire ant missions were my favorite.

If you like RTS games with a focus on the campaign/story with more of a focus on resource management and base building rather than micromanagement, then you'll like this game. I personally loved games like They Are Billions, Northgard and I'd place this game up there.

Kudos to the developers. Thank you for making an amazing game.
This game slowly introduces

It's like starcraft with a few levels, but not 'territory expansion' like a 'strategy' game.
I was hoping for infinite empire, I got deranged scientists wasting my time.

if you are reading this this means you either are thinking about buying the game or already have it for those who are looking to buy it heres some stuff you need to know
the games story is perfect and just not what you would expect its good i recomend doing story first then freeplay i think it helped me alot with learning on how to make better nest layout and such

story was pretty good aswell as many options in custom games. been wanting this game for years one of the first things i bought when i finally made the switch from console to Pc overall great and well made games

this game is awesome kinda like a city builder but you build up your colony and attack the other ants and other aniamals the ants fight everything and you get to learn somethings about others

its fun and interesting like age of empires it has diverse species and play styles that come with them. i've played a lot of it but it sadly doesnt have multiplayer it would be much better with multiplayer. if the devs see this plz add multiplayer it would make it so much more fun