… researchers Samuel J. Lymbery, Bruce L. Webber and Raphael K. Didham use Age of Empires 2 to study how human shaping of the environment affects the balance of power between the indigenous Australian “meat ant”, or Iridomyrmex purpureus, and the Argentine ant, or Linepithema humile, who are one of the world’s more invasive ant species.

The paper takes inspiration from Lanchester’s Laws, which I’m going to crudely summarise in the hope that no passing maths professor throws chalk at my head. Devised by M. Osipov and Frederick Lanchester before the First World War, these Laws set out to distil the likely tactical advantages and bodycount represented by new military technology down to a set of equations. Lanchester’s Linear Law describes scenarios from the ambiguously defined ancient world, whereby soldiers with handheld weapons like spears can only fight one other soldier at once.

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