History VideoGame / EmpiresOfTheUndergrowth

* ColorCodedArmies: Ants have designated color on their gasters to show which sides they are on. In story mode missions, your colony is red by default.

* CoversAlwaysLie: The first title art of the game consists of a leafcutter ant, a bull ant and a harvester ant. While leafcutter ants have made it into the game, there is currently no plan to implement bull ants and harvester ants yet. This is {{Averted|Trope}} with the second title art. It features an army ant, a leafcutter ant, and a trapjaw ant, which were all introduced in the same update. The third title art also averst this, featuring the playable fire ant and it's competitors the little black ant and the big headed ant, all of which appear in Mission 4.X.

** The Wood Ant missions (Mission 2.x) take place along a riverbank, which will flood as night falls, and recede as the sun rises. Surviving requires collecting the drowned insects along the shoreline by day, then bunkering down at night, with larger creatures coming out to enjoy the shoreline.

* Also Zigzagged during in the Hibernation extra mission - night time has fewer enemies present, but the map gradually freezes over, to the point that eventually, [[KillItWithIce your ants will freeze if out of the nest too long]]. Daytime has many other ants and critters about, but you won't freeze until the middle of winter in sunlight.

* WhamShot: Going hand in hand with the first WhamLine in Formicarium Challenge Four, the Male Scientist sets down a container housing one of the bosses of the challenge... and out comes [[spoiler:a misshappen fusion of hermit crab and scorpion, revealing the true power of the Royal Jelly and [[EvilutionaryBiologist offering a hint at the real motives of said scientist]]]].

* BagOfSpilling: Following the second formicarium challenge, the scientists move your colony over from the original formicarium to a new one, nullifying all of the food collected and spent. You get bonus royal jelly as compensation for your progress.

* ColossusClimb: Ants are planned to have the ability to swarm over larger enemies like they do in real life. The system is still in development.

* EasyCommunication: {{Averted}} You don't command ants like other RTS games, you can only suggest them to move to the pheromone marker direction. Ants that reach the marker but fail to find a job will return to the nest, forming a harvesting trail.

* Also Zigzagged during in the Hibernation extra mission - night time has fewer enemies present, but the map gradually freezes over, to the point that eventually, [[KillItWithIce your ants will freeze if out of the nest too long]]. Daytime has many other ants and critters about, but you won't freeze until the middle of winterin sunlight.

* CoversAlwaysLie: The first title art of the game consists of a leafcutter ant, a bull ant and a harvester ant. While leafcutter ants have made it into the game, there is currently no plan to implement bull ants and harvester ants yet. This is {{Averted|Trope}} with the second title art. It features an army ant, a leafcutter ant, and a trapjaw ant, which were all introduced in the same update.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: Each set of missions enforces this due to the different diets and gameplay styles of the ants in question. This also teaches the players new mechanics important to each part of the game.
** Black ant missions require you to establish a new colony under a rotting log, using very limited resources.
** Wood ant missions require you to defend yourself from local creatures running from the rising tide. You get access to the surface and the day/night cycles for the first time.
** Leafcutter ant missions require you to expand your territory and offenively compete with other colonies. Your only food source is the fungus cultivated from harvested leaves.
** Gene thief ants, who can be considered TheProtagonist of the game, must expand and adapt in the formicarium, surviving whatever the scientists throw at them.

* CoversAlwaysLie: The first title art of the game consists of a leafcutter ant, a bull ant and a harvester ant. While leafcutter ants have made it into the game, there is currently no plan to implement bull ants and exploding carpenter ants yet. This is {{Averted|Trope}} with the second title art. It features an army ant, a leafcutter ant, and a trapjaw ant, which were all introduced in the same update.

* AntlionMonster: True antlions aren't in the game. The developers have said that designing their signature traps is difficult using hexagon grid. The role goes to tiger beetle larvae instead, which show up in the challenge mode for the beach missions. Unlike most examples of this trope, they are fast, tanky, and only vulnerable when they leave their burrows to attack.

* NiceHat: Arachnophobia mode makes arachnids less menacing by giving them hats. It isn't really effective.

** {{Averted}}: Black ants and wood ants live in a European seaside forest. Leafcutter ants are confirmed to live in an Ecuadorian rainforest. Fire ants are confirmed to live in a North Carolinian (USA) swamp. Matabele ants are confirmed to live in a desert in Coast of Ivory.

* EscortMission: In side mission Babysitting, you have to survive together with another wood ant colony on the beach.

* TheHandIsGod: Invoked in the manner of the HumansAreCthulhu, with the MadScientist who studies the gene thief ant behavior in the wild. Only his hands are visible, and he acts as a JerkassGod to gene thief ants, frequently going on to make the life of their colony more difficult, purely for his own amusement. He even compares his hand to 'the hand of God' when he crushes ants with his finger.

** In mission 1.2, after the first funnelweb spider is killed, a slavemaker ant sneak into your nest to steal a larvae without failing. This is a {{ScriptedEvent}}.
** ZigZagged: In mision 3.X, the narrator only talks about rove beetles when you first encounter them in your nest, even though you have probably killed many of them on the surface.

** {{Zigzagged}}: In Frontline, during the day, swarm of army ants dominates the map, edging ever closer to your colony. At night, meanwhile, the ants go away but a huge number of dangerous creatures roam the surface. You only have a sliver of time during twilight to harvest safely.

** WorkerUnit: Gene-Thief ants, who mine out tiles, build new hexes, and move eggs to brood tiles.
** {{Mooks}}: Black Ants - generic warrior units that are the backbone of your forces. Wood ants act as a ranged example, since their signature feature is attacking from a distance.
** GiantMook: Leafcutter ants, who are specialized as tanks.
** ReplacementMooks: Fire Ants, who breed extremely fast and really rely on numbers to crush the enemy.
** MookMedic: Matabele Ants, which can heal other ants.

** Tiger beetles and wolf spiders have blistering speed, great damage and area of effect attacks to easily deal with the basic black ants.

** In Queen Of the Hill, you live far away from the tide on top of a hill with two colonies of aphids nearby, making the tide itself no problem. The two rival colonies are about to get washed away by the tide, they want to take your nest before that happens.

* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: The game never really specifies where the ant colonies are located. It's only known that black ants and wood ants live in a European seaside forest.
** {{Averted}}: Leafcutter ants are confirmed to live in an Ecuadorian rainforest. Fire ants are confirmed to live in a North Carolinian (USA) swamp. Matabele ants are confirmed to live in
* WorkerUnit: Only workers can build tiles and dig through the ground. They can also harvest from carcasses much faster than soldiers. The leafcutter ants even have a smaller worker unit called minim.
* YouRequireMoreVespeneGas: There are three resources in the game - food, territory, and royal jelly, as well as a sort of supply. The first one is used in every mission, while the latter three are reserved for the Formicarium.
** Food is the gold resource, being used to create and upgrade tiles, and also to spawn ants.
** Territory functions as a sort of power resource - it's needed in order to expand your nest, as you cannot dig out formicarium tiles unless you have spare territory.
** Royal Jelly, meanwhile, is most similar to lumber, being required to unlock new ants and upgrades in the genetics tree.
** Population is the supply resource, and can only be increased by completing formicarium challenges.

* AntAssault: The main premise of the game. It's about a new artificially-created species of ants known as ''Formica ereptor'' expanding their colony in the wild, [[AntWar waging war with other ant colonies]], and absorbing the traits of other ant species to adapt to many hardships provided to them by a duo of scientists observing their behavior.

* AntlionMonster: True antlions aren't in the game. The developers have said that designing their signature traps is difficult using hexagon grid. The role goes to tiger beetle larvae instead, which show up in the challenge mode for mission 2.X. Unlike most examples of this trope, they are fast, tanky, and only vulnerable when they leave their burrows to attack.

* CoversAlwaysLie: The first title art of the game consists of a leafcutter ant, a bull ant and an exploding carpenter ant. While leafcutter ants have made it into the game, there is currently no plan to implement bull ants and exploding carpenter ants yet. This is {{Averted|Trope}} with the second title art. It features an army ant, a leafcutter ant, and a trapjaw ant, which were all introduced in the same update.

** Mission 1.X have mole crickets burrowing into your nest from above.
** Mission 2.X have tiger beetle larvae spawning on the beach, cutting you from the resources.
** Mission 3.X have phorid flies swarming over the delicious plants, waiting to lay eggs inside your ants.

* InUniverseGameClock: Day/night cycles are available starting from mission 2.X. Creatures vary in different time of the day.

** SubvertedTrope: In mission 2.1, you have to fight a wolf spiders with a wave of her young in the final night. In side mission Aggrandise, a huge whip spider acts as the boss of the level.

** Fire ants can either be spawned for free after a certain amount of time has passed or be hatched with a stat buff that dissipates after a while.

* NiceDayDeadlyNight: {{zigZagged|Trope}}
** PlayedStraight in the second set of missions - during the day, the beaches are full of dead bugs to scavenge, and your only enemies are small parties of rival ants and Tiger Beetles, which can be avoided most of the time. At night, the lower ground floods, killing all creatures down there and removing a major source of food, while the more dangerous [[StoneWall hermit crabs]] and [[LightningBruiser wolf spider]] wander the map and occassionally invade your colony. {{Downplayed|Trope}} if the challenge mission is active, though, as the daytime will also have tiger beetle larvae hidden in the shoreline, which go to sleep at night.
** {{Inverted|Trope}} during mission 3.2, where during the day, marauding hordes of army ants dominate the map, edging ever closer to your colony. At night, meanwhile, the ants go away, leaving you with breathing room to harvest leaves and face less aggressive fauna.

* TideLevel: Mission 2.x require you to manage your colony while faced with rising and receding tide.
** Mission 2.1 has the tide gradually increase and decrease during the day and night. It recedes in the early hours of morning, allowing you to scavenge the beach for food, but it gradually rises at night, forcing you to fall back and bunker down at your colony.
** Mission 2.2 has you living far away from the tide atop a hill with two colonies of aphids nearby, making the tide itself no problem. The real issue is that two other colonies are about to get washed away by the tide, and they want to take your nest before that happens.
* UndergroundMonkey: Rove beetles in mission 3.X are distant cousins of the European devil's coach horse beetles. They have similar looks and abilities.

** {{Averted}}: Leafcutter ants are confirmed to live in an Ecuadorian rainforest. Fire ants are confirmed to live in a Carolina (USA) swamp.

* TideLevel: Mission 2.X require you to defend yourself from local creatures running from the rising tide.

Compare to much earlier ''VideoGame/EmpireOfTheAnts''.

* CoversAlwaysLie: The first title art of the game consists of a leafcutter ant, a bull ant and an exploding carpenter ant. While leafcutter ants have made it into the game, there is currently no plan to implement bull ants and exploding carpenter ants yet. This is {{Averted|Trope}} with the second title art, which features an army ant, a leafcutter ant, and a trapjaw ant, which were all introduced in the same update.

* AfterCombatRecovery: Due to the fast pace of the game, most players don't notice that all ants have the ability to recover really slowly, at 6 HP per minute.

* CoversAlwaysLie: The first title art of the game consists of a leafcutter ant, a bull ant and an exploding carpenter ant. While leafcutter ants have made it into the game, there is currently no plan to implement bull ants and exploding carpenter ants yet. This is {{Averted|Trope}} with the current cover, which features an army ant, a leafcutter ant, and a trapjaw ant - all three of which were introduced in the same update.

* 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.

* HighTechHexagons: An interesting example - while there is no 'technology' in this game, building brood chambers in Hexagons makes it easier to upgrade them. Completing two hexes centered around one tile will allow you to upgrade all ants within to level three, assuming they are of the same type.

* GoddamnedBats: Harvestmen drop only a small amount of food but take so much time to kill. They can constantly stun multiple ants at once, preventing you from doing any damage and even if you do, they will drop a leg as distraction and run away.