History Characters / EmpiresOfTheUndergrowth

** Both are aggressive. Leafcutter antss are[XenophobicHerbivore territorial]] while the fire ants are predatory.

* MutuallyExclusiveMagic: At the beginning of a mission, you are allowed to choose between pervasive soldiers or vigorous soldiers.
* WeHaveReserves: While this is expected in any game involving ants, it's especially pronounced with fire ants - fire ants either spawn for free after a certain amount of time has passed or get a buff to their stats for a certain amount of time from their hatching, encouraging you to use them recklessly.

* BigGuyLittleGuy: The little guy to the leafcutter's big guy - fire ants have the smallest queen in the game (she's not much bigger than her workers) and ''the'' smallest controllable ants (their workers are '''''[[UpToEleven smaller than the leafcutter's uncontrollable minims]]'''''). Both, however, are aggressive ants who pack a punch.
* {{Foil}}: To the leafcutters.
** Both are aggressive species, but leafcutters are motivated by [[XenophobicHerbivore territorialism]] while the fire ants are motivated by predation.
** Both hold size records in game regarding their queens (leaf cutter ants have the largest queens, fire ants the smallest).
** The leafcutters' signature units are enormous soldiers that tower over enemies. Fire ants' signature ants are their warriors, who are able to climb over and grapple against larger enemies.
** The signature weapon of the leafcutter ant is its jaws. The signature weapon of the fire ant is its stinger.
** Leafcutter ants need to be managed carefully, as they are costly to replace. Fire ants are meant to be expendable, being spawned two per hex when fully upgraded and, with proper royal jelly upgrades, can be spawned ''for free''.

* AfterCombatRecovery: All ant units have the ability to recover really slowly, at 6 HP per minute, when not fighting enemies.

** Brood tiles also have different color to distinguish the respective units in one colony.

* CharacterCustomization: In story mode, you can use royal jelly to unlock additional abilities for your units and improve their stats. The customization is preserved when you bring your formicarium colony to freeplay mode.
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: In the formicarium, gene thief hexes are represented by the generic green and white other colonies use for their workers. Color wise, they are whatever color you chose at the start of the game.
* DivergentCharacterEvolution: Gene thief ants start with only workers. You have to use royal jelly to [[LegoGenetics unlock other species as your units]]. You can only pick one type of wood ants, leafcutter ants and fire ants per colony, and the choice is permanent. You can also unlock two additional abilities for each unit, allowing your colony to keep up with the formicarium challenges.
* GodzillaThreshold: You can use royal jelly to unlock two additional abilities for your queen, allowing your colony to survive in a pinch. These powerful abilities have really long cooldown and can only be activated when your queen is in danger.
* {{Leitmotif}}: A piano piece plays whenever you are in the formicarium. The combat music for the area is simply an alteration of said piano piece.

* WorkerUnit: Unlike all other ants, Gene Stealers do not have a warrior variety (excluding [[EliteMooks the royal guard]], which can only be accessed with a Royal Jelly purchase and [[MutuallyExclusiveMagic disables the ability to temporarily get endless free ants when the queen is in danger when it is active]]. Instead, they are the worker units for your colony in the campaign.

* ColorCodedForYouConvenience: Black ant hexes arecovered in pinkish white orbs of some sort. Their models, meanwhile, are a mix of black and your faction color.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Formicarium wood ant hexes are colored brown and appear to be made solely of torn up dirt. The ants themselves have abdomens that have alternating bands of black and your chosen color.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Leaf cutter ants have a slighly different hex color scheme than other ants, using different varieties of fungal spores to color their brood. Major have bands on their abdomens and a spot on their heads that corresponds to your chosen color.

* {{Irony}}: Despite being herbivores (Well, fungivores) and thus having no need to kill other creatures for food, leafcutter ants are among the most aggressive of the playable ants, as they tend to ferociously assault any creature that gets in the way of their harvests.

* PickyEater: Leafcutter Ants will ''only'' eat fungi cultivated from leaves - they are physically incapable of harvesting dead creatures for food.

!!Gene Thief Ants (''Formica ereptor'')
Gene thief ants are the protagonists of story mode and many side missions. They can absorb traits of other ant species to adapt to different challenges. You can bring your customized gene thief colony from story mode to freeplay mode.

* AnotherSideAnotherStory: The opposing gene thief colony in formicarium challenge 3 is playable in side mission The Other Foot. You have to constantly supply workers for the main colony's formicarium challenge, while surviving similar and even greater challenges that the scientist throws at you.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: In the formicarium, gene thief hexes are represented by the generic green and white other colonies use for their workers.

* ColorCodedForYouConvenience: Black ant hexes arecovered in pinkish white orbs of some sort.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Formicarium wood ant hexes are colored brown and appear to be made solely of torn up dirt.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Leaf cutter ants have a slighly different hex color scheme than other ants, using different varieties of fungal spores to color their brood. Major have a rainvow-speckled design that they retain in the formicarium.

** Leafcutter ants need to be managed carefully, as they are costly to replace. Fire ants are meant to be expendable, being spawned two per hex and, with proper upgrades, can be spawned ''for free''.

* TheCavalry: In mission 3.2, scouts will occasionally appear on emty lanes. After spotting your ants, they quickly run back to their swarm calling for reinforcement. Killing the scouts can prevent the reinforcement from arriving.

** Both are aggressive species, but leafcutters are mo

* TheBigGuy: Leafcutter majors are the largest among ant units, even bigger than other species' queen. They are preferably used to take hits from the enemies while the smaller units do the actual fighting beneath them. Their sheer size prevents them from being devoured by spiders and mantises.

* {{Jerkass}}: The male scientist can be particularly cruel to the ants, often for his own amusement. He let your colony fight multiple colonies at once, dropped large insects in the middle of battles, and even kill your ants himself.

* TheFaceless: Only the male scientist's hands are visible in the game.

!!Velvet Worms
Velvet worms can spit gooey substance that paralyze any creatures passing by. They were planned to appear in mission 3.X, but were delayed due to their complex movement and the dire change to the movement code. The narrator still announces their appearance in mission 3.1 when night falls.

* BladeBelowTheShoulder: They have huge pedipalps covered with large and sharp spines, which help impaling and immobilizing the any prey within their range.

!!Army Ants (Eciton Burcheii)

!!Fire Ants

!!Slavemaker Ants (Formica sanguinea)

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Gene thief ants are completely fictitious and exist only to let you use different ant species in the same colony. There is no species in the Formica genus that has the level of physical variation seen here.

* DivergentCharacterEvolution: Gene thief ants start with only weak workers. You have to use royal jelly to unlock other species as your units. You can only pick one type of wood ants and leafcutter ants per colony, and the choice is permanent. You can also unlock two additional abilities for each unit, allowing your colony to keep up with the formicarium challenges.

* LegoGenetics: They can absorb the traits of other ant species to adapt to different challenges.

* OriginalCharacter: They are completely fictitious and exist only to let you use different ant species in the same colony.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: The huge whip spider is currently the largest and most menacing creature in the game.

* ButtCannon: Wood ants can shoot [[AcidAttack stream of formic acid]] from their abdomen as defense. Mortar shooters have longer range but slower attacking speed than rapid-fire shooters.

Fire ants are set to be the fourth playable ant species in the game. They are famous for using their own bodies to build rafts and bridges. They are planned to have new grabbing and stinging animation, with venom type damage and the ability to spawn two ants from one tile at level 3.

Wood ants are playable in mission 2.X. They are famous for [[AcidAttack spraying acid]] from their abdomen as defense.

* MutuallyExclusiveMagic: At the beginning of a mission, you are allowed to choose between the powerful mortar shooters or the accurate rapid-fire shooters. Level 3 mortar shooters can do [[SplashDamage splash damage]] while level 3 rapid-fire shooters can [[StandardStatusEffect slow enemies down]].

* MutuallyExclusiveMagic: At the beginning of a mission, you are allowed to choose between the defensive [[DrawAggro taunt]] majors or the offensive [[StandardStatusEffect stun]] majors. Level 3 taunt major gain extra defense at low health while level 3 stun major can slow enemies down.

* {{Fartillery}}: The adults can release a foul-smelling gas from their abdomen that [[StandardStatusEffects confuses]] nearby enemies.

* StandardStatusEffects: The adults can release a foul-smelling gas that either or poisons the enemies (green variant) or scares the enemies away (blue variant).

* AnotherSideAnotherStory: The opposing colony in formicarium challenge 3 will be playable in a currently developed side mission.

* UpgradeVsPrototypeFight: The opposing gene thief colony in formicarium challenge 3 is your counterpart with slavemaker ants, trapjaw ants and army ants in their colony. Their queen also has additional abilities like your queen can. It's assumed that your colony is the prototype as the second colony has just arrived for the formicarium challenge 3 and you have to win to proceed through the story mode.

* BonusBoss: An Uber hermit crab can be found hidden under a log in the bottom left corner of the map. Killing it is not required to beat the level. It was left there as a joke during the level designing stream.

!!Venus Flytrap
They are confirmed to be enemies for the 4th set of missions.

* ParasiteZombie: Although infected ants don't lose health and can still follow order, they receive multiple debuffs, which drastically hinder their harvesting ability, and die after a certain amount of time.

* StandardStatusEffects: The adults have various attacking patterns to deal with different situations. When approached by too many enemies, they swipe their pedipalps outwardly, [[{{Knockback}} knocking enemies back]] and stunning them. When surrounded, they violently thrashing their spiny bodies around, causing all nearby enemies to bleed, damaging them over time.

* AnotherSideAnotherStory: The opposing colony in formicarium challenge 3 is playable in a currently developed side mission.

* AntlionMonster: Tiger beetle larvae burry themselves underground, waiting for a lone ant to walk by. Unlike antlion, they leaves their burrows while attacking, exposing their soft bodies. Therefore, they don't surface near large groups of ants.