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Terrascapeis a very chill puzzle game, but there’s a lot to get the hang of at first. If you’re a new player, you might feel like you aren’t doing as well as you could be. While that’s perfectly okay, since the game is meant for you to relax and take your time, it’s understandable if you want to do your best right from the start.
Getting started with Terrascape is much easier if you have a plan in mind, or at the very least a general idea of what you want to do with your current Terra. Use these tips to build your perfect settlement!
Use The Overlays
The map in Terrascape is pretty, but you may take a break to admire it whenever you want. While you’re building, it’s a great idea touse the overlaysavailable on thelower-left corner of the screen.These can give you at-a-glance information that’s vital for easily choosing your next tile placement.
The most useful overlay by far is theResources Overlay, which uses easy-to-see icons to highlight the locations of every Resource on the map. We recommend having it turned on at all times. TheFree Space Overlay(which can be easily toggled on and off with the spacebar) is also very useful, as itblocks out all unbuildable tiles in red, letting you see where you may and can’t build.
Leave Space For Key Buildings
When you unlock your first few Merged Buildings like Longhouses and Farmsteads, it can be tempting to cover the map with them, interlocking them wherever they’ll fit. However, it’s much better toleave gaps here and there.That way, you can place smaller buildings likeWellsorTavernsin between them, getting more points than you would otherwise.
This planning becomes more complex as you unlock more buildings, and a true Terrascape master can plan for their sixth deck while they’re still on their second or third!
Food Is The Easiest Track To Work With
You only get six decks in the course of a game, meaning you’ll have to leave several unused. For your first few forays into Kingdom Mode, if you aren’t sure which decks to go with,the top row is always a safe choice.
Basic Food, Foodstuffs, and Textiles all havefairly simple Merged Buildings to create. They also work well both with one another and with Settlement cards. You can choose to continue along the track into Trade and eventually Knowledge, or divert into Community; either way, there’sstill plenty of combo potential to be had.When in doubt, go with food.
Smaller Buildings Can Sometimes Provide More Points Than Large Ones
Most buildings score points based onwhat’s around them at the time they are placed on the map.you’re able to see how much the local environment will impact a building’s score by hovering over its card. In many cases - usually with buildings that score off of Merged Buildings like City Districts or Vineyards - you can get points both from the Merged Building and from its component parts.
This is important becausethe score for several small buildings can often exceed the total you’d get from constructing near a Merged Building.In the example above, a Bath House is placed next to a City District and three Houses. It scores 30 points from the City District, but 15 points each from the Houses; if a fourth House had been placed to merge the group into another City District, the Bath House would only get 30 points from them instead of 45.
Looking for opportunities to placed buildingsbefore completing construction of a Merged Buildingcan earn a few extra points here and there, which will greatly increase your score in the long run!
Draft Terraforming Cards
Each time you have the opportunity to draw new cards, you’ll be offered a selection of terraforming cards alongside the standard picks from your chosen Decks. Cards likeRaise and Lower LandorPlace Resourcescan make it much easier to create the landscape that you want, so attempt to have a few on-hand at all times.
As you play games and level up, you’ll unlock more slots for terraforming cards, ultimately making future runs slightly easier.
By the same token,DemolitionandGrand Demolitioncan make room for a more efficient building, or let you completely re-zone an established area. You also have the opportunity to getrare buildingslike Monasteries and Boat Builders in the rightmost draft slots, which can’t be found anywhere else.
Save Glowing Cards For Perfect Placement
Glowing cards have two major advantages over their standard versions; first, theirscoring radius is larger, allowing them to get points from more surrounding features. Second, theyignore copies of the same building within their radiusthat would otherwise incur a point penalty. Combined, these traits mean that glowing cards can easily rack up hundreds of points with just a little planning.
If you have one of these treasures in your hand,decide where you’re going to put it, then go about setting the area up to maximize your score when you finally construct the building. It will be worth the effort!
Use Merged Buildings To Terraform
The most important thing to consider when merging buildings ishow doing so will affect the surrounding landscape.Many Merged Buildingschange the terrain type in a radius around them, which can affect how subsequent buildings will score.
Using this to your advantage is key on more advanced maps. TheManor Farm, for example, creates large swathes of grassland that are perfect for food production, while theOx Millcan be crammed into a small area but clear out nearby Blockers like mountains.
While you’re changing the world to suit your needs, there’s one last thing to remember…
Clear Existing Resources Before Spawning New Ones
Merged Buildings like theMining EnclaveandForest Settlementspawn large quantities of their related resources (Stone and Forests, respectively). However,resources can’t spawn on a tile where another resource already exists.That means to get the most out of these sometimes hard-to-build towns, it behooves you toclear away other nearby resources first.
you may get aRemove Resourcecard sometimes when drafting, and you also get one for freeeach time you construct a Longhouse.Use them to group similar resources together and to clear pesky deer and other game animals away from farms and settled areas.
