Territory Expander

Ant Colony Wars: run out of your land, loop back, and claim whatever you enclosed

Single player
strategy
arcade

▶ Play Territory Expander Loads here in the page. No download, no account.

Prefer it full screen? Open Territory Expander on its own.

About Territory Expander

Four ant colonies share one map of roughly fifteen hundred cells, and the first to own half of it wins. You steer your queen; the other three are run by the computer. The rule that governs everything is simple: while you are inside your own territory you are safe, and the moment you step outside it you start dragging a trail behind you. Close that trail back into your own land and every cell you enclosed becomes yours.

Touch any trail — including your own — or run into the edge of the map and your colony is finished. The rivals live under the same rule, which is what makes cutting across somebody else's trail the strongest move in the game. It kills them, and their entire trail converts to your colour on the spot.

The asymmetry is the point. Rivals come back a few seconds after dying; you do not. One life against three respawning opponents, with a clock running and a best time to beat.

What is different about this version

The rival colonies are not simply chasing you. Each one runs a trail-length budget — it will push out a set distance and then head home, pathing back with a route that treats every live trail as a wall — and it separately rolls to either grab neutral ground or deliberately target somebody's territory. When it does target territory, it picks yours about seven times out of ten, so your border is where the traffic is. On the hardest setting the rivals move at exactly your speed, never faster, so a chase can never be won by acceleration alone; on the easiest they are slower and will occasionally kill themselves on their own trail. The one-life rule is the other deliberate imbalance: they respawn in a few seconds, you do not respawn at all.

How to play Territory Expander

Steer your queen. Inside your own territory nothing can hurt you.
Leaving your territory starts a trail, and the trail is lethal to touch.
Return to any cell of your own land to close the loop and claim what you enclosed.
Touching a trail — yours included — or hitting the map edge ends your run.
Cross a rival's trail to kill them; their trail becomes your territory.
Own half the map to win. The clock records how long it took.

Controls

Desktop	Arrow keys or WASD to steer. You turn instantly, so inputs at speed need to be deliberate.
Phone or tablet	Swipe in the direction you want the queen to turn.
Players	One player. Any other characters on screen are run by the game.

Strategy

Every excursion is a bet. The cells you enclose are paid for with time spent outside your own land, and your trail is the only thing on the map that can kill you. Wide, shallow rectangles hugging your existing border are the efficient shape — a short run out, a turn, and straight home. Long exploratory loops look far more productive and are how most runs end, because the longer the trail, the more of it there is to cross and the further the walk home when a rival appears.

Cutting a rival is worth more than any amount of careful claiming. You take their whole trail as land and remove a competitor for several seconds, and you can do it without spending a trail of your own if the interception starts from inside your territory. The opening they give you is structural: each pushes out to a set trail length before turning home, so the moment one commits to a long run it has a long exposed line and a fixed destination. Meet it between the two.

Guard the shape of your border rather than its size. Rivals aiming at territory pick a random cell inside it, so a large colony simply receives more visitors, and a ragged outline with pockets gives a raiding queen more to touch on the way in. Half the map is a lot of ground; expect the last quarter to be fought over rather than claimed quietly.

Mistakes that cost you the game

Spiralling inward to claim a big area. Your own trail kills you, and a tightening spiral eventually meets it.
Chasing a rival out into open ground. On the harder settings they match your speed exactly, so you will not catch one that is running straight.
Claiming only in one direction. A colony stretched along one axis has a long border to defend and nothing behind it.
Treating a rival's death as a win. They are back in a few seconds; your one life is not replaced.

Tips

Keep your excursions short and rectangular. Two quick loops claim more than one ambitious one that never gets home.
Intercept from inside your own land where possible — you can sit on the boundary indefinitely without a trail.
Watch which rival is furthest from home. That is the one with the longest trail and the most to lose.