Chapter 25: “Strategy”
Rare immediately had the engineers start digging a tunnel that connected the wolves’ den directly to the queen’s chamber. She was initially planning to just widen the route she had originally taken during the raid on the nest, but a direct route would be shorter.
There were ten engineers who could work, so for now she’d have them all take turns working on it. She would then have any other engineers who recovered start working on a new tunnel that connected to the old mountain cat base.
While the engineers got started, Rare wanted to look into Sugaru’s [Haplodiploidy] skill tree more. Considering the skill names and the type of ants that could be produced, the three current options, [Infantry], [Combat Engineer], and [Cavalry], couldn’t be the only ones. There should be ways to unlock more types, like say [Artillery].
“Actually, isn’t this part just like a strategy game…?”
Strategy games were fun in their own right, but only when the rules were made clear beforehand.
Right now, there were five [Infantry] and one [Cavalry] ready for action. They had been grouped together and sent out to patrol the cave’s surroundings. The six of them formed a squad; for the time being, there wouldn’t be different ranks of squads, they’d just be mixed like this.
She could use this group to determine an operational cost-benefit analysis of the ants based on the XP and resources they earned. Then she could come up with strategies and apply them within the boundaries of the game rules.
There just weren’t enough ants this time, so the squad was almost all infantry, but in the future it would be better if each squad had a more balanced makeup. This would include [Engineers] and, if they existed, [Artillery].
That said, as far as actual military activities went, as long as they didn’t pick a fight with one of the six countries, their enemies wouldn’t be organizations or militaries but private forces at best. In which case, for the most part, even if their side only had the weaker types of soldiers available, they should still be pretty much unbeatable.