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Empire of the Ants

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

This page is for the original 2000 game. For the upcoming reboot, see Empire of the Ants (2024).

Empire of the Ants
Empire of the Ants cover
Developers
Microïds
Publishers
Retail (France), digital Microïds
Retail (USA) Strategy First
Retail (Germany) Sierra
Engines
X3D
Release dates
Windows April 20, 2000
Reception
Metacritic 59
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres Strategy
Series Empire of the Ants
Empire of the Ants on HowLongToBeat
Empire of the Ants on IGDB
Empire of the Ants on MobyGames
Empire of the Ants on Wikipedia
Empire of the Ants
Empire of the Ants 2000
Empire of the Ants (2024) 2024

Empire of the Ants is a singleplayer and multiplayer bird's-eye view strategy game in the Empire of the Ants series.

The game received The Western Front expansion a few months after release. The base game and expansion would remain separate products only in French- and German-speaking markets, as the English release would debut as a combined release of the two in September 2000. All digital releases are based on this version.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions
GOG.com Support Page

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SafeDisc DRM[Note 1]
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Includes The Western Frontier. Pre-packaged with GOG.com's custom DirectX wrapper and IPXConfig.
Windows
ZOOM Platform
DRM-free
Includes The Western Frontier. Updated for compatibility with modern systems.
Windows
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).

Version differences

The Gold Edition includes the base game and the expansion pack. It is sold under that title only in French and German, while the English version debuted with this build.

Monetization

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
The Western Frontier Available as a separate product in the French and German versions only.
Windows

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest official patches can be found here for the regular releases and here for the French Gold Edition. Digital releases are already updated to the latest build.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\ini\[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Savegame\[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy

Video

External graphics settings
External graphics settings
In-game graphics settings
In-game graphics settings

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS
120+ FPS

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

In-game audio settings
In-game audio settings

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music, Sound effects
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
Retail and Zoom Platform only.
German
Retail only; download for digital releases.
Italian
Retail only.
Portuguese
Retail only.
Spanish
Retail only.

Network

External modem settings.
External modem settings.

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
LAN play
8 Versus
GOG.com version comes bundled with IPXWrapper.
Online play
Asynchronous multiplayer

Connection types


Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 7
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes Bink Video

System requirements

Windows
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 95, 98
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 233 MHz
System memory (RAM) 32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 200 MB
Video card (GPU) DirectX 7 compatible


Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[1] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[2]
  2. 2.0 2.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References