The strategies in this guide should help win the Tug of War scenario on any difficulty. Using the same basic strategy, I was able to win Tug of War in all four difficulties using these same basic strategies. I only have two screenshots right now, I might include more later. I hope that one day this scenario, as well as the freeplay mode, will have a multiplayer component. As Slug Disco have said in a previous announcement, this mode resembles how the original Empires of The Undergrowth was imagined as a mobile game, so I feel like a multiplayer possibility isn't too unrealistic. I'm not sure how my strategies would stack up against a human opponent, but they're relatively effective against the AI. Here are some ideas that are foundational to the scenario:

Flood: A line of ants that are compacted together and will probably form a front when engaged, thicker across than a trickle.
Front: When an army is engaged, usually with a front rank for melee and a rear rank for ranged wood ants.
Tank: An ant that can take a lot of damage and hold the enemy, usually wood ant melee, leafcutter media, and leafcutter major in my strategy.
Trickle: A long line of units, perhaps less than five across at any point.
Tugging: An oscillation between the two forces as they push each other back and forth, but aren't quite able to kill the enemy queen.
Unit: A single ant.

1. Securing the center is preferable, since we will both receive additional resources and the opponent will receive less. If we''re playing on insane we're probably not going to secure the center until the late game.
2. The player receive 100 food and their queens have the same starting position in each side of the map.
3. The main difference between difficulty levels is food income. The enemy player in hard and insane scenarios will receive more food per turn.
4. Ranged wood ants (range) have one of, if not the best damage per second outputs of any ant.
5. Range can not survive long in sustained melee against any other ant, so they must be supported by melee units.
6. A useful way to roughly estimate who is winning is to look at which nest has more fully developed larvae.

Early game strategy: You are not playing to win, you're playing not to lose

Every game begins similarly. The player starts off with 100 food with different food allowances each turn, a turn being the time interval for the player recieivng food. On Insane difficulty, your opponent will recieve a lot more food than you throughout the scenario, so you ought to play smart. There are several ant types you can play before you recieve your first batch of food. In ascending order of costs: army ant media (40 food), wood ant melee (50), wood ant ranged (60), leafcutter media ant (80), black ant (90), and trapjaw ant (90). The best ant to have in the beginning of the early game for the one-one-one or two-on-one combat is probably the trap jaw ant. Because of its unique ability to temporarily withdraw from combat and regain health, trap jaws can take down almost any other ant in the game in a solo combat. This also means that they'll likely live longer than most of your other melee ants

This doesn't mean they're perfect though. There temporary withdraw ability is actually a disadvantage against large groups of enemies. Trap jaws can withdraw right into another enemy ant or within range of enemy range. While great at duals, they're horrible at holding. Holding is how well a unit can hold its position. I'll be referring to units that are good at holding as tanks, because a major factor of what makes a unit good at holding is how much damage it can take before dying.

We'll need these trapjaws more in the mid and late game, but for right now place one trapjaw ant where your queen is. Most of the early game will be fought in trickles, as only a small group will leave the nest at a time, forming almost single lines of ants as we approach the midgame. If you're playing on insane, the AI will probably place 2 wood ants and begin spamming black ants and army ant media. I'm not sure if this is because of the AI having more resources or having a different strategy than the easy or normal AI, but the AI on Hard and Insane isn't going to make leafcutter or army ant majors. Instead, they'll focus on creating as large of an army as possible. Which means we have to counter their strategy with a mixture of tanks (ants that can take a lot of damage) and wood ants (their ranged attacks have probably the highest DPS of any ant in the game).

Next, we're going to alternate between placing tanks and wood ants. I prefer to place my tanks north of the queen and my wood ants south of the queen so we'll hit the enemy in a flood. A flood is when a bunch of ants move in a solid wave, all hitting the enemy at the same time. We want to flood the enemy with a trickle behind our own lines.

Place 2 range more than 2 spaces south of your queen. We want the space between the queen and the range so we can form a large trapjaw hexagon around the queen in the mid and late game. It'll probably take a few turns to acquire the resources for range. Once those wood ants are in play, place a leafcutter ant media to the north of your queen more than 2 spaces away. These units make great tanks for the price of 80 food.

There's going to be a lot of tugging in the early game, especially closer to your nest and the center as we approach the Midgame. There'll probably have a few nest invasions in the early game. Don't give up if they enter the nest. Their forces should not be strong enough to kill your queen before your next group of ants hatch.

Keep alternating between placing tanks and range. Once we're gaining 90 food a turn, we're in the mid game.

Congrats! You made it to the Mid game!

Much like the early game, our strategy is play not to die.

While we'll be able to receive decent units at every turn now, it's still an uphill struggle. The enemy player has probably secured the center for the majority of the game up to this point. They're also probably recieving something like fifty more food than us per turn, so we still have to play smart. The same basic tactic should be in play, tanks supported by range.

Even though we're recieving enough food to place a new trapjaw every turn, I think there's a better strategy. Start placing tanks in the narrow entryway of our colony, at least two blocks to the east of our queen. I'm fairly certain that these tiles will slow down intruders. Even if these tiles don't slow down intruders, it's still useful to have tanks right at the entrance of our colony to get to combat quicker. These entrance tanks aren't going to be leafcutter media though. These entrance tanks are going to be wood ant melee. While not as good as wood ant media, we'll be able to place two or more tiles of them after every turn from here on out.

Alternate between placing more wood ant melee, ranged, and leafcutter media. I like to do this by gauging how the front is holding. If we're being pushed back, place more tanks. If we're holding them, place more range. If we're advancing, try to upgrade range. Once we have at least 3 rows deep and 3 rows across of range, start upgrading them. We want to get as many of our range to level 3 as possible.

If we feel like we have the food, we can also start placing more trapjaws around the queen or leafcutter majors. Unsurprisingly, these beefy bois (yes, I know they're technically sterile females that don't eat beef) are probably the best tank in the game. I'll explain why in the next section. If we do place a leafcutter major, place it more than 2 tiles to the west of the queen.

Mid game keeps going until we're recieving 150 food per turn.

Wohoo!! You made it to the late game! If we're playing on casual or medium you might not even reach the end game, but if you're playing on insane we're going to be here for awhile. My winning game on insane took about an hour to beat.

Your strategy is still not dying, but now you're playing to push them back for the win.

During the mid game you may have already started placing leafcutter majors more than two tiles to the west of your queen. If you haven't yet, don't worry, now is the time to start! Leafcutter majors are probably the best tanks in the scenario. Not only can they take more damage than an army ant major (they'll also destroy an army ant major in a one-on-one), they also have the taunt ability. I'm partial to the stun ability, but taunt is useful in this scenario. While enemy ants attack your majors, your leafcutter media and wood ant melee can attack their forces. Additionally, a few leafcutter majors can taunt the enemy away from engaging in a melee with your range.

Once you have about 10 leafcutter majors, start investing in the rest of those trapjaw ants to form a big hexagon around the queen and upgrading your range. Every range that can be level 3 should be level 3 as soon as possible.

Much like in the midgame, we should place ants depending on how our front is engaging with the enemy. Are they pushing us back by killing our range with melee units? Invest in more tanks to hold the line. Are they pushing us back by killing our range with range? Place more range and upgrade them to level 3. Are they being pushed back? Place more trapjaws and upgrade them to level 3.

We can approximate if we're winning the scenario by how many tiles you have ready to go at any point. If you have eggs that can hatch but aren't hatching, that means that your units are living long enough to where if they die there will be an immediate reinforcment. I noticed that my leafcutter majors were doing such a good job of absorbing the enemy's damage that the rest of my tiles had fully developed larvae, ready to go. I don't like upgrading my tanks, I prefer to upgrade my range and trapjaws. My thinking is that it makes the most sense to upgrade the units we know our probably going to live the longest.

Once you've pushed the enemy back from the center, things are a lot easier. You'll be earning as much, if not a little more food per turn than the enemy now. Overwhelming them with level 1 leafcutter majors and level 3 range is a powerful strategy.

Our nest in the very late end game should look something like this. See how by placing our units more than two tiles away from the queen allowed us to make a large trapjaw hexagon?

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1619565522222320913/9278C4121501DE0DA444D516CEEDAE1D98EB9AD0/?imw=256&&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

I want to wrap up this Guide with some suggestions to improve the scenario, and by extension the rest of the game, before giving my penultimate remarks.

Unit Statistics

Part of what makes this mode difficult is learning which units are the most economical. For example, the player can purchase Army ants for only 40 food, but these are a TRASH unit. It takes more than two of them to take down a black ant. The only way to be able to approximate how much damage an ant can take, it's attack ability, if it has any special abilities, how much better it gets per upgrade, and how long it takes to pupate are only knowable through trial and error. Having an encyclopedia or in game manual that gives these kinds of number would be very useful.

More Scenario Options

Having a menu similair to the freeplay menu would be very useful here. Being able to choose starting food amounts, the modifier for turn increase in food, and choosing which ants are allowed would be grand. I'd even like to see a mode like Tug of War, but we can use most of the units in the game. Think something like the battle arena. Imagine deploying trapjaws along wolfspiders, or range behind beetles? Yeah, it's unrealistic, but what a fun way to get folks excited in arachnids and insects! Besides, the scenario is already unrealistic. If a queen can lay a dozen species/types of ants, why can't we throw some other little critters into the mix?

Multiplayer

This would be a fun mode to play against another human. One on one, your queen versus there's. But ponder two additional multiplayer possibilities. What if Slug Disco does make a mobile version of this scenario so people can play cross-platform? I think I could get my friends to invest in a game like that, where I don't think they'd buy the entire Empires of the Undergrowth, but they'd play this scenario with me.

Imagine this multiplayer possibility. Suppose two queens on either end of the map, each in a nest with an entrance right next to their ally's entrance. We'll number these queens counter clockwise from the top left nest, sot the northwestern and southwestern nests (queens 1 and 2) versus the southeastern and northeastern nests (queens 3 and 4). Queen 1's units will automatically try to kill queen 4 (and vice versa) while queen 2's units will automatically try to kill queen 3 (and vice versa). Imagine the strategy, particularly with the above paragraph if spiders and other creatures can be employed. Once an opposing queen is dead, the victorious queen's ants will automatically be re-routed to slay the surviving enemy colony. The surviving enemy colony recieves a massive temporary food bonus to try and even the playing field.

Conclusion

First and foremost, apologies for any spelling or grammar inconsistencies. This is my first guide and even though I've re-read it several times, there are probably still errors. This is one of my favorite games in my steam library even though it isn't complete yet. I wouldn't have made the guide if I didn't enjoy the game so much. Looking forward to the fire ants update. I'd like to hear your strategies if you have a different playing method than me for this scenario!


Below was the screen that popped up after the Insane win.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1619565522222326979/D0E04FFA0BBF702367464F5BEAE794810891C9AC/?imw=256&&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false