Just in time for the holidays! This major update introduces a brand new arcade mode - Remix. With it, you can play just about any level in the game with just about any combination of colony members (ants and termites)! Want to know how bullet ants fare at raking in The Harvest? Go for it! How about sending traitorous big-headed ants after their own kind in Cold Blood? The possibilities are practically endless. [previewyoutube=6tglFD103Ys;full][/previewyoutube] You can also build custom colonies in custom games, using the same system. Just choose custom from the species selection as you go through your game setup. Speaking of custom games - there are also 2 new custom game maps to play, set in the heat of the savannah. Grasslands is specifically designed for Matabele vs termite scuffles, but of course any colonies can be played. Drive Them Back (custom game version) takes the same layout as the campaign level - this has been long-requested, and if the reception is good we might do more custom game versions of campaign levels in the future. We have made some balance changes to creatures that will only affect custom games, since these generally have slightly different balance requirements to the campaign. All detailed below. The final headline feature of this update is the long-awaited tier 5 achievements pack! Weve added a whole bunch of new achievements, some easier and some more devious, for tier 5 and for tier 4 challenge modes. Achievements can now be attained in New Game Plus mode as well as the base story. Full (and extensive) patch notes are at the bottom of this news post. We hope you enjoy! As always, your support means everything to us. Thank you so much for playing Empires of the Undergrowth in our release year - well see you next year for even more!

Headline Features

• New game mode: Remix
  • Can play almost any level with almost any combination of ants or termites
  • Custom colonies will adopt the feeding habits of the selected queen
  • Accessed from the Arcade area of the main menu
  • Some combinations disallowed for technical reasons
• New custom game feature: Custom Colonies
  • Allows colonies to contain virtually any ant or termite in the game
  • Can be selected in colony setup
  • Workers will match the queen
• New custom game maps - Grasslands & Drive Them Back (custom game version)
  • If playing as termites, will spawn in mounds otherwise in regular nest entrances
  • Non-colony fodder termites will otherwise spawn from unoccupied mounds if Matabele ants are in play
• Tier 5 & Tier 4 Challenge Mode Achievements
  • 8 new achievement for tier 4 levels with challenge mode
  • 45 new achievements for tier 5 levels
  • Can now be achieved and earned in New Game Plus

Changes - Story & General

• 5.1 nighttime invasion changes:
  • On easy and normal, the sun spiders stun duration has been reduced to 2.5s (down from 5s) and damage reduced to 5 (down from 8)
  • On easy and normal, the sun spiders confuse duration has been reduced to 2s (down from 4s) and damage reduced to 4 (down from 7)
  • On easy and normal, the giant African centipedes venom pool damage per tick reduced to 4 (down from 8) and initial target damage reduced to 200 (down from 400)
  • On easy and normal, the giant African centipedes body slam area of effect reduced to 200 (down from 300), damage reduced to 30 (down from 40)
  • On easy to extreme, the emperor scorpions attack damage reduced to 20 / 20 / 35 / 40 / 45 (down from 45 on all difficulties)
  • On easy and normal, the emperor scorpions stun has been reduced to 1s (down from 2) and confuse reduced to 2.5s (down from 5)
• In 5.2, extra soldier tiles reduced on easier difficulties to 5 / 3 / 1 / 0 / 0 (down from 7 / 4 / 1 / 0 / 0)
• In 5.2, casualties required for victory increased on easier difficulties to 120 / 135 / 150 / 150 / 150 (up from 100 / 125 / 150 / 150 / 150)
• In 5.3 challenge mode:
  • The challenge scorpion now maintains its health between days but heals 10% life each day
  • The challenge scorpion no longer gets its abilities back when it respawns or moves underground (abilities that happen at 25%, 50% and 75% health)
  • The challenge scorpion will no longer attempt to walk away when it performs a ground thump
  • The challenge scorpion will only run away if engaged underground; if on the surface it will continue to fight so long as there are enemies to fight
  • The challenge scorpion now only escapes when termite sun damage is in progress
• In 4.1 New Game Plus, enemy colonies now receive more food storage at the start of the game and more workers (based on how high NGP is set). The little black ant colony also gets more starting resources
• Matabele anaesthetist revival time reduced to 7s (down from 10s)
• Increased range of fire ants Last Laugh ability to 300 (up from 200)
• Mounted creatures are thrown off when a large creature starts to move through a nest exit
• Changed final objective in 1.2 Subjugation to say raid instead of wave
• Added an extra harvesting slot on woodlice for faster food collection
• Stink ants can no longer climb smaller climbable creatures

Changes - Custom Games ONLY

• Black ant soldier hatch cost reduced to 3 (down from 5)
• Black ant soldiers take no more than 40 damage from a single attack
• Black ants now have armour (0/1/2, up from 0/0/0)
• Big-headed ant major soldiers have a new ability - adrenaline. This reduces damage taken by 60%, 20% increased movement speed and 80% increased attack speed for 20s (10m cooldown)
• Big-headed ant major cost increased to 35 (up from 25) and egg hatch cost increased to 4 (up from 2)
• Leafcutter media harvest quantities increased to 20 / 24 / 30 (up from 17 / 19 / 22)
• Leafcutter media health reduced to 80 / 95 / 110 (down from 100 / 115 / 130)
• Leafcutter media damage reduced to 4 / 5 / 6 (down from 4.5 / 6 / 7)
• Leafcutter media build cost reduced to 65 (down from 80)
• Leafcutter colonies will start with 200 fungus (up from 100)
• Termites lignocellulose landmarks will now spawn 3 new nodes every 3m and will not despawn when empty
• Limited lignocellulose nodes per landmark to 15
• Increased time between termite spawns on the lignocellulose landmark (now every 6-30s, up from 4-20s)
• If a lignocellulose landmark has no mulch, termites spawned to harvest from it will despawn
• Fire ant Vigorous ability damage reduction buff is now 15% (down from 25%) in custom games
• Large giant African mantis and large hermit crab will no longer invade nests
• Earwig nymph should no longer invade nests
• Earwig juvenile, earwig and alligatorback scorpion juvenile added as possible cavern creatures in custom games
• AI colony queen workers are only sent out for the first 10m and return faster for smaller amounts of food. If harvesters are dead queen workers can go out again
• Timid AI colonies are less likely to invade and will harass less frequently
• Reduced AI colony food dropoff build priority (except for leafcutters and termites)
• Increased chance that Matabele soldiers will be built in AI colonies
• AI wood ant colonies make more melee tiles
• AI ereptor colonies likely to make more balanced build choices, not always favouring larger ants
• AI colonies receive damage reduction to patrols (differs based on cheat settings). This tapers off over time
• AI little black ant, black ant and fire ant colonies will make more soldiers than they used to (unless they are docile)
• Dead fish landmark replaced with map-appropriate large food sources
• Large food source landmark will spawn opposing ants that are map-appropriate
• Added Aloe Version of aphid plants for savannah custom games

Other Changes

• Achievements can now be completed on New Game Plus!
• Hovering over achievement in the achievements menu will show the highest difficulty it was achieved on
• The Nian Beast and Festive Spider levels can now be accessed at the appropriate times of year
• Festive Spider now uses the same music as Hibernation
• Festive Spider now uses the updated rotten log textures
• It will now snow in the Festive Spider level!
• Extra levels The Culling, The Culling 2, Tug Of War (1, 2 and 3) and Cramped will now use custom game stats rather than story stats
• Environmental textures will now be more detailed due to an extra ambient occlusion pass allowing for deeper apparent recessing
• Tile hover window now displays a message when tiles have been locked out
• Graphical updates to Tug of War 3
• Game engine updated to Unreal Engine 4.27 - please keep an eye out for any weirdness here
• DLC menu added to the main menu in preparation for future content such as the Kickstarter reward (Myrmecia ereptor worker skin)
• Updated the Slug Disco logo on the main menu
• Many, many localisation updates

Fixes & Optimisations

• Fixed a bug where AI was sometimes unaware of underground invaders in freeplay
• Bullet ant attack damage increases from minor improvements should now work against targets that are not executed by their attack
• Fixed an issue that could cause Matabele ant medics to get stuck at the queen
• Fixed an issue in The Culling 2 where floating seeds were not falling in a small section of the map
• Fixed an issue that could cause resources to not count towards score in some levels
• Fixed an issue with Imprisoned where termites sometimes could not path to where the water would be
• Narrator in custom games should talk about termites more when they are fighting, rather than calling them ants
• Fixed an issue where termite kings would be removed in custom games if landmarks are set to random
• Fixed green lynx spiders being culled if they start climbing whilst in combat
• Fixed a missing subtitle related to earwigs
• Moved some unharvestable leaves in 3.2 to be reachable
• The Other Foot progress bar will now only display its tooltip when visible
• If the 5.3 challenge scorpion is killed on the surface its dialogue no longer plays on defeat (as it mentions being killed underground)
• Can no longer click to enter an enemy nest if it is unopened
• Down arrow will no longer show on enemy nests on hover if it is unopened
• Assassin bugs will now despawn after 10s like other creatures in 5.1 and 5.2
• Final objective in 1.2 Subjugation now marks as finished on victory
• Wave spawn should now continue after play more is pressed in custom games
• Prevented multiple versions of the hybrid fight sequence occurring
• Fixed a crash related to creature climbing
• Ants fighting titans when the titan dies are less likely to be automatically killed
• Pheromone markers in enemy nests now respond to the smoke visual option
• Prevented destructible barriers from being inspectable with the Inspect tool
• Fixed an issue where two voice lines were showing as the wrong scientist
• Fixes for UI scaling
• Minor optimisations to large creatures and queens
• Memory use reduction (more things should only load into memory as needed)
• Loading screen corrected for several extra levels