Before the SIMS there was unremitting war in : SIM ANT !!

Yes, a million eons before the evolution of the Sims as we now know them, before even the development of the Sim City series, the hack mind brought forth an incredible – and deceptively simple – game: Sim Ant.

It was a War Game, me brothers, make no mistake. Red ants vs. Black ants, and you in the role of the Yellow ant, the key directing consciousness, the main point of interaction with the strange, sometimes comic, often horrible world of the cute – and vicious – little Formicidae.

Remember, World War II consumed 60 million humans, raged for roughly a decade, and altered the shape of our societies.

But the ANT WARS have seen the butchery of untold Trillions, been fought with no break for more than 100 million years, and altered the ecosystem of the entire planet!

Anyway, the game Sim Ant started as a probe of “artificial intelligence” or at least of how complex patterns can emerge from simple instructions and simple interactions. You learn as you play.

The game has many scientific accuracies, and it also happens to have various parallels with Axis & Allies! Consider:

Ants are wired to make war and expand their domains. Here is a dictionary definition:
<<ant :=“” any=“” of=“” a=“” family=“” (formicidae)=“” colonial=“” hymenopterous=“” insects=“” with=“” complex=“” social=“” organization=“” and=“” various=“” castes=“” performing=“” special=“” duties.=“”>>

The game Sim Ant gives you the opportunity to:

• select different units – worker, warrior, queen – that have different energy requirements (= ipc cost), offensive and defensive ratings, etc.
• your queen (=industrial center) churns out eggs (ipcs) that mature into new ant forces to deploy
• you must establish and maintain supply lines
• your attacks and counterattacks succeed better when you get more troops into the battle at the right moment than your opponent
• you must defend your nest while you seek out the enemy army’s nest
• key to defeating the enemy is locating their royal chamber (capital) and defeating the queen
• you can periodically establish new queens (industrial centers) and leverage your local success into broader strategic gains
• scattered across the map you must avoid such hazards as ant lion pits (neutral countries) and spiders (rogue states)
  – you get to use savage weapons that range from crushing jaws to paralyzing acid sprays.

The ultimate winner in Sim Ant not only defeats the armies of his Formic rival – he gets to go interspecies and attempt to chase the humans out of the yard and out of their own house!

Anyway, it’s the bomb. First came out around 1991… anybody here ever play it?</ant>