Ant Hill Dungeon

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Ant Hill Dungeon
Ant Hill Dungeon.png
Vital statistics
Required By (8) A Wild Dream, Ant Chitin, Ant Crown, Ant Meat, Ant Queen's Wings, Ant Wing, Curious Needle, Small Heart Container
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Ant Hill Dungeons are Dungeons found sometimes when raiding ordinary Ant Hills. They are filled with tough creatures, treasure, and a boss at the end.

You cannot hearth home while inside a Dungeon, even if you get KOed, so if you do, your only choice is to wait until you get up, and then sprint for the exit.

All dungeon enemies cannot Execute, but they can repeatedly KO you and kill you via a Concussion and have no armor.

How to Find

Occasionally when you raid Ant Hills, they may reveal themselves to be more than they first appeared. - Jorb

There is a small chance (around 2%) for an anthill you raid to begin smoking, and after raiding it will emerge from the ground becoming an Ant Hill Dungeon.

If an anthill does not smoke, it is marked as a non-dungeon, and will never smoke, regardless of how many times you begin the raid.

If you stop raiding while the hill is smoking, it won't smoke next time you try to raid it, meaning if you stop mid-raid you ruin the chance of getting a dungeon.

Ant Hill Dungeons are full of Large Ants with varying degrees of strength, Ant-related loot, Forageable Plants, Small Heart Containers, and rarely Seeds of Trees or Bushes. The Ant Hill Dungeon is a sight to behold as the player is swept into a wholly unique, albeit small, world.

These are the third Dungeon that has been introduced to the game.


Getting Through the Ant Hill

The Hill is compiled like a maze, with a variety of rooms and halls, which can split into as many as four ways.

There are generally 6 types of rooms within the dungeon, which can be large open rooms or short confined hallways:

Entrance: The entrance to the dungeon can never spawn enemies, so if you enter and there are enemies waiting for you, someone has already been there and lead them to the entrance.

Eliminate: These rooms have all except the door you entered from locked. To unlock them, you need to wipe out all enemies that spawned in the room, at which point none more can spawn, and all doors will be unlocked.

Charge: These rooms have a static, unbreakable stone totem with a glowing orange gauge in the middle and will spawn ants infinitely until the room is completed. The gauge charges as you kill ants, and once it reaches the top, the room will complete, and all doors will unlock, and all ants will stop spawning.

Key Room: These rooms spawn enemies infinitely until the room is completed. The room is not completed like others, though, as instead there is a small chance for an enemy to drop a key once killed, which can be used to unlock one door. Keys only work in the room they're found in, but will work on any door inside said room, being consumed when used. These key rooms will always have a static chance to drop a key when you kill an enemy until all the doors are unlocked.

Treasure Room: These rooms contain more chests than normal, sometimes with chests being the only thing inside them, but they can also spawn some enemies or a Special Stand with a Special Key.

Boss Room: This large room contains the best chests and loot, many enemies, and the dungeon boss. It requires the Special Key to enter, as it is locked with a Locked Special Stand.

The Boss

The Ant Queen is capable of dealing damage and speed similar to a boar. However, she has high health of 900 or more, and is guarded by many of her subjects, especially Royal Guard ants.

Unfortunately for her, she is extremely slow, also similar to a boar, and can be easily outrun on Run speed. If you have at least 2 people, you can allow one person to get the attention of her minions and allow the other to fight her. She can be kited without issue, and has no armor, so all it takes is a good few cleaves to take her down.

The Escape

Once the boss is defeated, anyone who dealt damage to her gains the Sundering the Hill event that increases the speed of raiding anthills permanently for that character, and a Small Heart Container will spawn near the center of the boss room.

Afterwards, the entire dungeon will begin shaking violently. Not to worry, an exit will open up in the boss room. Make sure you carry the queen's corpse out.

After all hearthlings have exited, the dungeon will continue to visibly shake for a few minutes, then collapse into the ground, never to be seen again.

The Spoils

Within the dungeon you can find high quality forageables and tree seeds, which can help to jumpstart your treeplanting and gardening industry.

There is additionally a small chance you can find a lower tier Gemstone.

You can also find high quality ants, which can be used for Ant Paste or studied.

The queen herself will give around 20 Ant Chitin, 50 Ant Meat, 15 entrails, and her signature Ant Crown and Ant Queen's Wings, both of which have high gild chances. The wings in particular can actually be worn in the backpack slot, the only other equipment to do so other than of course backpacks being the Hussar's Wings.

Strategies and Tips

Before entering the hill by Right-clicking on it, the player must be aware that the difficulty level inside is random.


The Ants inside are fairly weak compared to the inhabitants of the Bat Cave Dungeons and Beaver Lodge Dungeons, thus making them easier to fight. Most wounds you receive from them can be healed with Yarrow.

It is suggested to enter an Ant Hill Dungeon with a Horse that is Leashed. Upon entering the dungeon, you will be able to have your hearthling Right-click on the Horse, and choose from the flower-menu the option ``Giddyup!`` to mount it. There will be times where the player's Horse may become stuck within narrow confines of a dungeon, but this should be easily solved with some careful maneuvering. Some Combat Moves that will be efficient in such dungeons are Side Swipe and Storm of Swords, though keep in mind that these two require IP (Initiative Points). Moves that do not require IP and are helpful in an Ant Hill Dungeon are Quick Barrage and Full Circle.

The player may encounter rooms within a dungeon that produce an infinite amount of enemies. It would be prudent to avoid staying longer than necessary in such rooms.

You may also find a Special Key on a stand that will only fit with a Special Stand, found in the final rooms - if you lose this key, it will respawn on the stand after 3 RL days.

Chests contain a random assortment of loot including Gems, Curious Needles, Ant Meat, Wild Dreams, foragebles, and Seeds.

Ants

Below are images of the various types of enemies you will find inside an Ant Hill Dungeon.

Doors

Ordinary unlocked doors will unlock after you defeat all ants in a room.

Chests

These are the various ant-themed containers found within an Ant Hill Dungeon that contain loot for the player to collect.

Notes

  • You can bring a Horse that is on a Leash inside a Dungeon.

Game Development

  • Smoked Hedgedog (2021-01-24) >"Rooms in Ant Hills where the ants drop keys to unlock doors will cease spawning new ants once all doors have been unlocked."
  • Smoked Hedgedog (2021-01-24) >"The Ant Hill dungeon keys, opening the door to the Ant Queen by being placed in a receptacle, now have distinct graphics"
  • Christmas Antwolf (2018-12-14) >"Added Ant Hill Dungeons. Occasionally when you raid Anthills, they may reveal themselves to be more than they first appeared. Key dropping rooms will continue to spawn enemies indefinitely. The ants are otherwise fairly weak."