DoW: War of the Ants

[Beelzebuddy]

First, a little backstory:
Our story begins in a forest. Neither the date nor the location matter. This forest undoubtably has a name, but that doesn't matter either, since no one in our story speaks.

Our story begins with an ant. An ant scout, to be precise, wandering through the edge of the forest. It does not go unnoticed. A single forest spirit pauses in its work as it spies the ant from a distance. While ants themselves are not unusual (as the forest has its own small black ant colony), this ant is different. It is a Strange Ant, an Outsider. It and the brood it represents could upset the forest ecosystem that the spirits work so hard to hold at equilbirium.

Spirits do not have anything we might recognize as language, but some tenets can be said to be universal. One example, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia," has nothing at all to do with our story. Another does. For every ant you see, there are a hundred more you don't.

The spirit vanishes silently, its task forgotten. It has smaller things to worry about.

War has begun.

The overarching theme of this mod is the representation of a struggle between the insect inhabitants of a forest (guided by omnipresent forest spirits) and an invading ant colony. I should hope that's enough to pique your interest. As those of you who have heard of/tried my HW2 mods, you'll know I have a penchant for unusual unit behviors and control schemes. This is no exception, as my ulterior motive for this mod is to implement some nifty stuff for each side.

Nifty stuff: Ants - Individual ant units will not be selectable. Instead, the player will be given a number of different pheromones to direct ant behaviors. Examples include "Attack!", "Return to base", and "Move here." Ants are well suited to be an extremely swarm-heavy race, so a few units who do not follow orders or who get picked off easily do not matter much.
Insects - Insects will be fewer, much more powerful, and much more expensive. They are meant to be the micro race, but micro-ers will be given an additional challenge: insect morale only degrades over time, and when an insect squad is broken, it will make a beeline [heh] to garrison in the nearest safe haven. Once there it will regenerate health and morale while hunting, mating, or doing whatever it is insects are doing before you turn on the light and they all scatter.

I am creating this thread partially to gauge interest in the idea and partially to get my foot in the door before all the modelers get too caught up in the necron mod or whatever. This mod would require a rather extensive amount of modeling, and unfortunately I lack the time and the skills to model (plus I'm not nearly pretty enough), however I'd wager I am somewhat adept at scripting, so I can handle the code side of things.

At any rate, tell me what you all think. Would this be something you'd like to see? Would you be willing to work on this? Would you just happen to have created an ant army already and were just waiting for someone to come along and use it?

[DarthVaygr]

That's.....very interesting. You say use pheremones to control ant behavior? Can you be more specific on how you think this should be applied? Sort of like tyranids where you have neural control links to the hive mind? It is such a shame that our skills overlap, I am also nifty with .lua hehe.

[Beelzebuddy]

I'm planning to represent pheromones as tiny, invulnerable units. The player could build them at the hive chamber and deep-strike them wherever needed. Some (such as "Go Here") may even be selectable and movable.

When an ant gets within a certain radius of the pheromone, it affects their actions. An "Attack" pheromone for instance, would cause all ants affected by it to voraciously assault anything they see. Piss off a couple ants in real life and you'll see what I mean. I'll probably end up giving the pheromone units a useless aura to make it easy to tell how the player's ants are controlled.

So, a very straightforward attack might be conducted by creating a "Go Here" pheromone over one's base with a destination near/on the enemy. Then, when your ants approach their destination, drop an "Attack" pheromone to make 'em go nuts.

It should be noted that all of this is accomplishable using HW2 modding, but ants are a hell of a lot cooler way of doing it. Lord only knows what we can make DoW do. Well, the devs know too, I guess.

[StenFLASH]

That's a very interesting and cool idea Apollyon470. I was hoping creative mods like this would start to pop-up. All the race mods are cool, and i'm looking forward to them a lot, but completely different mods like this would be a great addition to DoW's mods. It would go a long way to show DoW mods can have a completely different play style and game world.

As for how this mod would go, insects are one of the hardest things to animate! All those legs! Whoever creates and animates the models is going to have a lot of work to do.

[SvK]

I'm reminded of Total Age of DoomCraft and Conquer: Romero Alert. It had a similarly abstract way of commanding units. Instead of selecting units or giving them orders, you'd drag a path on the ground. Units near the start of that path would move along it, attacking as they went.

[Deltus]

why all these silly mods coming out?

[DarthVaygr]

Umm, because we want them to. Anyway, Just take a look at the defiler's leg movements, and it should be easy from there.

[Beelzebuddy]

Deltus, what about this mod strikes you as being silly?

[Bongo]

I actually think that this mod would be really awsome! It would be a nice change of pace from the constent serious/military mods for games out there. I can definetly see this going places. If you do decide to go through with it, Id be happy to map for it.

[TheBladeRoden]

It's like Pikmin meets SimAnt meets Dawn of War

[whats_true]

Hmmm...ants hu. that would be cool. but like the rest said, thats gona be brutal doin the detail. i wonder what that enemy of the ants would be...Raid....?




Hail the monkey :bow: :mdance:

[Dalveldrin]

Do the Forest Spirits have any allies?....






SQUIRRELS! For instance?

[Ennui]

Ignore Deltus.

It's not a silly idea, just weird. I, for one, plan to keep an eye out. If you can get this off the ground it could be a great creative mod, sort of like how Natural Selection is - it's the most popular 3rd party mod for Half-Life, and it was very innovative and different from everything else.

[MechaTemplar]

If you can get it to work the pheremone idea seems sweet.

[King Raa]

this is not a silly idea - ffs - someone is making a strategy game thats going to have pixel units and such like, is that silly? is the game about taking animals and mixing them up (IC) silly? (well maybe) but whatever the case - please could any newbies that are feeling a bit annoyed at being well... newbies, NOT say discouraging bull **** like "omfg don't do that your idea sucks!" - cos thats just bull...

anyway full support to you mate - w/e ur doing to hw2, stop, and start this, ur one of the few to actually say "here's me idea, i'm gonna work on it, go go go" so hopefully people will join you in the cause.

so... pheremones, will they only effect ants in a certain radius? will they be built at base? how will resources work? how will the maps go?
what extra stuff will you give the ants - like flying ants, soldier ants, colony ants, the base could be a queen ant, but you'd need at least 3 different units to give 'em some strategy - maybe the insects could have like loads of diverse but insanely expensive units - like stag beetles, dragon flys, etc... oh - one thing - please put a praying mantus in :D

[Beelzebuddy]

I thought I'd post a bit more info to whet peoples' appetites.

I'm hoping to keep both sides pseudo-realistic in approach. By that I mean ants are ants, there's no need for ninja teleporting ants or ants that shoot laser beams out their eyes. However, restricting the ant side to a single species of ant would not provide enough units for their side (as ant species have at most 3 classes of ant). Thus the "pseudo-realism" - include nifty ants from all species, but make them somewhat realistic. Fire ants, slaver ants, army ants, etc, but all real ants.

Here's the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant) on ants. Of note is the fact that some ant colonies herd caterpillars. So it looks like the ant side even has a vehicle or two, though what purpose they might serve is uncertain atm.

Re: ant models, a simplistic approach would be preferable. The fewer polys one can use, the more ants one can have without affecting performance. As I've stated before, I know very little about modeling, but ants appear to be fairly geometrical (3 ovoids, ~10 extensions). Plus, every leg looks just like every other. Animations also are repetitious (every leg moves like every other), and have the additional benefit of not being anthropomorphic - it takes a lot more error for it to look "wrong" to us than modelling humans would.

Insects:

http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mh/kodamas.jpg
Inspiration for the forest spirits. Although the Kodama are represented as relatively neutral in Mononoke Hime, perhaps they are simply concerned with the smaller aspects of balance - the teeny, antlike problems that arise.

The insect have a great deal more freedom than ants. There will be several varieties of beetles, certainly, same with spiders, as well as single species like ant lions and praying mantises.

Squirrels (and other large animals) really don't merit a place for three reasons: A) their existence is not threatened by the ants. They can't even get a decent meal off of them. B) their size would make the scale all wacky. If you incorporate a squirrel, the ants would look like, well, ants. C) their prodigious size would also make the battle very one sided. While army ants can threaten anything with millions of soldiers, you won't have nearly that many, if only due to performance issues.

Resources: I see no reason to change the way resources are used. Ants after all need territory to search for food, and the forest inhabitants need territory to call on the insects living there.

[Sgt.Swampy]

Squirrels (and other large animals) really don't merit a place for three reasons: A) their existence is not threatened by the ants. They can't even get a decent meal off of them. B) their size would make the scale all wacky. If you incorporate a squirrel, the ants would look like, well, ants. C) their prodigious size would also make the battle very one sided. While army ants can threaten anything with millions of soldiers, you won't have nearly that many, if only due to performance issues.


And t seems a squirrel mod is quite possibly gunna go ahead :D

Dude this sounds like a cool idea...its definately gunna take a lot of work.

have you any ides on how to make this order pheromones actually make the ants/insects do what you want?

[XXCCLL]

this would be a really cool idea... but i'd like to see 100's of ants... mmm..... (although i know it's prolly not possible).

It reminds me of a story I’ve heard... My dad, when he was young, found two ant colonies coexisting next to each other (Red and Black), now being the bad guy he was, he placed a fairly large piece food close to the black ants, and as Ants are liable to do, they started calling back to the colony for reinforcements to carry their new found prize back to their nest, however dad had other ideas, he picked up the food (with black ants attached) and dropped it down close to the Red colony.

Of course, the red ants found this tasty piece of food, and *removed* the black ants still on it. Then they proceeded to carry it back to their colony. Unfortunately, God (or dad) struck again, this time moving the piece of food to somewhere between the two colonies. As you can imagine, both colonies sent swarms of ants out to claim the prize they thought of as theirs. They each found the piece of food, and each other. Then Antageddon broke out, as the two armies of ants fought for control of the food, it was vicious fighting with talons and mandibles, biting and scratching each other to the death. When the colonies received word of the battle raging on, they each sent hundreds more, trying to overcome each other with sheer force of numbers, and on the battlefield of food, there was carnage. There were no heroes, no generals directing orders, only death, as each successive wave of ants from both colonies clashed and fought. By the end of the day, hundreds, thousands, millions of ants had fought and died for their queen, and each colony was exhausted, but unwilling to give up, it was no longer about the food, but about territory, about defending their colony from these foreign invaders. Now all this time, dad had been watching this and realised he had just caused genocide (at least on a small scale).

mm… it’d be nice to recreate such a battle :-). Ant vs Ant

[King Raa]

your dads a cool guy...
woo ant mod!

[Rufe0]

Hi

I have an idea for the pheromone control. Why not use the drop in command that the orbital relay building uses now. You would click on the hive then press move, attack etc them press on the ground. Instead of a unit or building "dropping in" it should be like a coloured cloud like smoke or a pheromone. Depending on the command the radius of effect should differ e.g. attack should have a very large radius while build something should be much smaller. Scout ants should just mill around randomly without being told to do so. When they find something they should automatically release a small drop in marker for the other ants. There should be say 100 ants in total out and about a further 200 in the hive. 80 scout 20 soldiers. When a order is given the same 100 should mill around randomly while a small force 20-100 depending on the order should dispatch from the hive, then when completed should return to the hive. As your queen gets more food from the scouts she should automatically build units that stay in the hive ready for orders. All you should really do is set the ratio of units the queen makes in the hive. The only building there should be really is building tunnels? Maybe or roads of sort which just makes everything faster. Possibly look out posts and supply stashes but other than that no buildings are needed. Maybe male or king/prince ants should do the building. They should have to be promoted from being a normal ant. They should also be the biggest ants with quite a punch but you should have to sacrifice a squad or 10 ants to make one. Also if you make one and but it into your hive unit production should double in speed. Or they could be like force commanders.

Are the spirits going to be a playable race? I don’t think they should. All the spirits should do is influence other animals. They should give you your orders. Also with there influence they call in a sparrow and squirrel attack. This should be a hail of bird droppings from above on a small area and a hail of squirrel nuts from above. There is no need to ever see the birds or squirrels. Also what about a stampede of some creature. These should be special powers that the spirits give you when your about to lose or in the last few levels or something.

[Rufe0]

Was bored so searched google for ants. There are over 10 000 known types of ants. Ants are a type of wasp. I found a good type of ant to be the evil enemy ant

The Slave-Maker Ant (Polyergus Rufescens) raids the nests of other ants and steals their pupae. When these new ants hatch, they work as slaves within the colony.
http://ant.edb.miyakyo-u.ac.jp/E/Taxo/F80801.html
http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~herbers/johnson%20ResPolyergus.htm


And found a few sites which should aid in modelling… http://www.infowest.com/life/antbody.htm
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/TOOLS/ANTKEY/antid2.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/insects/label/ant/label.shtml
http://flrec.ifas.ufl.edu/entomo/ants/ant_anatomy.htm
http://www.antnest.co.uk/External.html

[Rufe0]

I thought more deeply on the subject last night. Ants only have a sort life span of around 40 days. So I thought we could use the moral bar on units as there life span. They have 600points and by default lose 1 every second. This means if they do nothing they will live 10mins. If they take 10 steps they should lose a further 1point, if they are damaged they should lose 20-100 depending on how hard. If they complete a task they should lose 10points. This means ants will be dieing within 8-10mins if u are careful. Every 9 mins the hive should completely rebuild all units from scratch. This may seem strange but it is realistic. You shouldn't see a massive jump from having no units to having 100 it should take place gradually over the 9 mins.

In the hive you should be able to set the ratio of units to be produced in the next cycle or next 9 mins. More advanced ants should only become available when your population reaches a certain point or when you have a certain amount of resources. The hive should then build the units automatically. You will need to balance out soldier ants with scouts/workers because if the hive isn’t fed the queen will die, and that’s you dead.

The hive takes and uses all resources automatically upgrading and expanding to accommodate the new hatchlings. If they don’t or you don’t find enough of a strong resource like mud and wood then the new units built in the hive will mostly die out from overheating and overcrowding. The 2 resources should be food and building materials i.e. wood, mud, leafs etc. The workers should find food by default and some building materials but not enough, you should have to find it like finding a slag deposits now.

When the hive upgrades it should become 30sec faster on building the next cycle. Also adding a further 50 unit slots. Adding a male or force commanding ant to the hive should increase production speed by 1min.

The main aim of the game play should be to keep your hive alive, well and expanded for the final cycle it will ever make. It should be all or nothing. 1 cycle you make 100% soldiers and hope you kill the enemy because if you don’t there will be no workers and your hive will die.

[Ramrod]

apollyon, you are a creative genius.

deltus, you are an old-fashioned dolt.

this has to be the most interestingly misleading mod ideas. at first, it sounds too simple and mindless, but having thought about it, the myriad of tactics one could pull off, controlling a swarm of ants: the perfect army.

apollyon, i don't know if you've thought about this, but do you reckon you will allow users of your mod to use your "go here!" pheromones to set up paths with waypoints?

also, have you given any thought to whether one will use base-building or the like?

this and the tau mod are vying for my number 1 favorite DoW mod.

*adds mod to "keep-an-eye-on" list*

[Sgt.Swampy]

what happens if your HQ is destroyed...surely this would in theory house the queen...with no mummy-ant...you have no more ants

[King Raa]

i thought with most insect colonies when the queen dies another steps forward to take position - u cud effectively make it so ants get only one base but can make base again quickly in event of base loss.. or maybe summat like that

[Ragnarokx]

Wow, this sounds quite cool.
Message me if you need a coder, to create all kinds of files (no scar) or icons, i can do them, too :)

[Jaeger Pike]

The pheromones idea, dunno if its been said, why dont you use the Command Aura code the Force Commander uses. Well not the code per se but use that as a basis.

Just throwing my two cents in.

[Glacialis]

I'm scouring the manual and I'm missing it -- how the heck do you put units /back/ into the Chapel once you've got the orbital relay? Can do it with the Relay, but not the Chapel. Right click to move them back in, right?

[Ragnarokx]

Yeah, right click. The cursor should change. Imho the chapel cant hold units.