HomeNewsAge of Empires 2: Definitive Edition
Scientists use Age of Empires 2 to investigate how ants wage warThese bugs are definitely features
These bugs are definitely features
How AoE2 is helping scienceWatch on YouTube
How AoE2 is helping science
Under certain circumstances, the researchers note, the ants used in the lab battles refused to fight each other. This reflects the paper’s own premise that “the human-mediated movement of ant species outside of their native ranges means that species with no evolutionary history of contact may be brought into conflict”. If these creatures are at war, that’s partly because they’ve been thrust into each other’s company. Indeed, I’m not sure the concept of “war” has much currency in the ant world.
It’s all kind of intriguing, in a very grim way. I’d like to circle back to this and think about it properly. In case you’re wondering, the use of invertebrates (other than decapods and cephalopods) in research does not require animal ethics approval under Western Australian law, according to the paper’s own Ethics Statement.
