There's not a lot of work one single ant can do, which is why they tend to show up in the hundreds. Just because each one is alive doesn't mean the survival instinct is for the individual, which for ants is just a single part of the greater whole of the colony. This means they work together like the organs of a body, or in the case of Microtopia the gears of a machine. Every ant has its job and will do it until it dies, by which point the queen will have laid more than enough eggs to cover the loss. It's not great for the ant, but it's not like anyone's ever asked the bladder's opinion of its job.
The Ants Came Marching One By One, Hurrah!
Microtopia is an automation game viewed from the top-down perspective, where the job is to lay down paths for mechanical ants to feed an ever-expanding array of machines with one purpose in mind- expand the colony. In real life ants follow pheromone trails left behind by the scouts but as the embodiment of the hive mind, you can just lay down the tracks any which way catches your fancy. Basic trails...
