How to have more space in your town

[Michelangelo]

Hello everyone! This is my first post on the Bell Tree! Yeah, I'm new, but I've played every Animal Crossing since the Gamecube era, and of course I have New Leaf. I loved how ACNL brought back the train station, police station, and, what was the wishing well in the Gamecube version, the event plaza. The town was huge, with 30 acres.

And believe it or not, New Leaf still uses acres, too. They are still the 16x16 squares of earth, but by finding this out, I had to use the side of town with the cliff wall; not the coastal cliff with the beach. The town has 5 acres across and 4 acres down, so that's 20 acres. However, the coastal acres are smaller because of the beach. So in a way, the town has 4x3 acres, or 12 FULL acres--by full I mean you can dig out the 16x16 square 12 times.

Does it seem like much? Maybe yes or maybe no. That depends on HOW MANY RIVER ACRES YOU HAVE. I've tried this a lot with different towns. Using the Dream Suite, I could see how other people's towns either looked cramped or had a lot of space. The town can have either 6 river acres--including both waterfalls--or up to 9!

There are already 4 full acres taken up for Re-Tail, the train station, the town hall, and the Event Plaza. With only six river acres--which my town has--you can have, at maximum, 3 FULL, EMPTY ACRES OF LAND. Well, not totally empty, since villagers can move in them. Empty in the sense of no rivers or points of interest. With 7 river acres=2 full empty acres, with 8 river acres=1 full empty acre. And with 9 river acres, there would be zero full empty acres.

This impacts space in your town. However, even if you decide to reset, or start the game for the first time, just because the town may have 6 river acres--which is what you want for maximum space--that doesn't mean it's great. Holding ponds will take up space, so make sure your new town layout barely has any. Every town needs at least one. AT LEAST ONE. Re-Tail will ALWAYS have a holding pond in its acre, and there are three different pond shapes for the Re-Tail acre, too. The train station has three different acres, and one train station acre has a pond--which I don't like. The town hall has three different acres, too, and one of its three acres has a pond, like in my town. The Event Plaza can't even fit a pond, but the shape of the cobblestone surrounding the tree can look different--there's also three different Event Plaza acres. It's really your preference having the holding pond in the train station or town hall acre. It's not an empty acre anyway, and you would want full empty acres to have no holding ponds.

The first map is my town. There are six river and three empty acres. The (before) empty acres contain my house, the cafe, and the acre between the train station and the horizontal river acre is empty too--not really because of my neighbors.

The last map is a dream-accessed town. There is only one full empty acre, which is left of the Event Plaza, in the corner. It looks a little cramped, because some parts of this town look narrow.

Sorry for this being long, but I thought this info might be helpful to new players, or anyone who feels they don't have enough land. Thanks for reading my first post! I hoped I was helpful!

 

[Lin]

Good read~ owo I doubt my town has a lot of acres but.... it's big enough for two small parks so I'm not complaining. <3

 

[Michelangelo]

Thanks. It's all a matter of preference. I'm super picky about my town map. This isn't even my first town!

 

[Garrett x50 cal]

I hate rivers ._.

I just wish there ACToolkit for New Leaf haha.

As for my current town layout the river is okay there is one part where it randoms jumps out which is annoying but it's okay.


Nice read by the way.

 

[oath2order]

I dunno if I would mess with ACToolkit if it was available :/

 

[Xanarcah]

I really enjoyed reading your post, it's good information to keep in mind. Thanks.

 

[DJStarstryker]

Tree and PWP placement can also make your town feel smaller too, depending on how things are set up. My town was starting to feel small. I've been chopping down trees for pathing and re-landscaping reasons, and my town suddenly feels like it has more space now that trees aren't in random clumpings.

 

[Zero7STARZ]

My town doesn't really feel small, but there are lots of areas where you can't build anything. Too many narrow paths, I guess. It's made it really hard to find good spots for PWPs.

 

[Stevey Queen]

I think I have the 6 acre river because my river is really small. Regardless, my town is still small and I only have 1 pond :c

 

[Lin]

Thanks. It's all a matter of preference. I'm super picky about my town map. This isn't even my first town!

I was really picky about my town map. xD I had a list of things I wouldn't accept, and the map I got had nothing I hated and everything I liked. So far only thing I'm not sure of is where I'd ever put a 4th character house...

 

[FraudulentDimetrodon]

Thanks so much for all the research. My town looks closer to the second one. It's really narrow, and I think I have three ponds? I didn't want to reset for a "perfect" town and I wanted to leave everything up to luck, so I guess I don't have the best of luck. I've been chopping down trees recently, and my town doesn't feel as small anymore, so I think once I do some landscaping, I have high hopes for my town. I have room for a giant forest and camping ground area, and I think two parks.

However, the main thing that's bugging me about not having a large town is the stupid grass deterioration. I played WW, so I was familiar with the AC world, and I didn't play CF, but I knew about the grass decay. I assumed that since there was such a blacklash, we wouldn't see the feature in this game. Turns out I was wrong! Because my town is so narrow, I have to take the same exact paths everywhere I go. Even though I don't run, I'm getting massive patches of grass wear in the entire southern half of my town, and the grass near my house is completely gone. I can't just try to avoid walking the same paths because there's literally only one path I can take. Flowers don't help either. Pretty much the only thing I can do is not play the game for about two weeks!

It's honestly not that bad putting in PWPs in a small town if you're creative and efficient, but that doesn't help when your grass is disappearing and it's because you don't have a choice. Not sure if it's completely relevant, but it's something to keep in mind in regards to town layouts!

 

[Michelangelo]

You're welcome everyone! I'm glad I can help! Oh and that grass wear feature you mentioned, SonatinaGena, it does kind of stink. When I first had City Folk, I noticed around my house that the grass looked different. I was like, what's happening? Then I learned that the grass will erode away, especially around the bridge and slopes. It was terrible in City Folk, and I really hoped it wouldn't be back in New Leaf, but it is. It's not as bad, and in my town, I placed paths around the land. I've had this town since June 30th, and now underneath most of my tiled paths, the grass is becoming lighter and faded. It'll turn to dirt soon, and you'll know, because once you walk on faded grass, it'll sound like grass and dirt at the same time when you walk on it.

 

[Kiwi]

It depends on how you use the space you have as well :3
My tactic is to place as many buildings as possible in the... narrow areas of my town in order to keep the wide open spaces of my map unused until I've figured out what to do with them (public work projects, orchards...)

There are maps with rivers that enter your town in the top left or top right corner, creating an awfully narrow strip of land. Most players I've met hate that, because it seems too narrow to place anything there etc....
But I absolutely love that.
I'm actually going for a map that has the river entering the town in the top left corner and leaving it in the top right corner... creating not one but two narrow strips of land! And then... I'm going to place so many things there xD Because with the right map and some planning, you can fit almost anything in there. I had a town where my house, some trees, the campsite, a villager's house AND a bridge where in that narrow area of the town. Plus there was still some space left to place a bench as well, but I didn't keep that town (regretting it though... Can't find a smiliar one now... but heh I'm super patient with this game so whatever)

Keep in mind that was only one of the two strips of land On the other side there was another narrow area with enough space for the house of my second player, the police station and another bridge plus some trees, too.

And that really saves so much space. It also created a little cozy neighborhood near my mayor's house when another villager decided to move right south of my house, leaving enough space for a path and bushes TT u TT <3

But what I wanted to say is: Try to place buildings in the narrow areas of your town (if you have those) before using the wide open spaces. I also recommend using the villager trick, so your villagers don't move in bad spots that just take up space for pwps. I'll try to create a neighborhood where most of the villagers live close to another o u o

I hope that wasn't too complicated... it's hard for me to explain what I mean sometimes xD

 

[Michelangelo]

I use the villager trick. I made those animals stay away from my house! I got a camper in town, and I'm so happy, because it was the new deer character, Fauna! I finally convinced her to stay in my town! I'll use the villager trick again so she will put her house in a good location. Will she move in the day after I told her to stay, though?

 

[Lin]

I use the villager trick. I made those animals stay away from my house! I got a camper in town, and I'm so happy, because it was the new deer character, Fauna! I finally convinced her to stay in my town! I'll use the villager trick again so she will put her house in a good location. Will she move in the day after I told her to stay, though?

From my experience, it's two days after.



Also would you say my map has very little space from the looks of it? Just curious how many acres my river actually takes up... I will be moving some of my villagers around though as I move them out and move new ones in with the trick.

 

[ForgottenT]

it feels like half my town is water, I hate it ;_;

 

[Lin]

it feels like half my town is water, I hate it ;_;

I wish we could build things on water. :3 Apart from bridges I mean.

 

[mooferz]

No wonder my town feels a little cramped. I have 4 ponds and an S shaped river, lol. I guess it's my fault for wanting a watery town. I still like my map, though. :B

 

[Datsu]

About the grass deteriorating problem, it would be amazing if they had implemented some kind of shoe hardness feature or something. Like, if you took your shoes off and ran around barefoot, it'd be cool if that didn't cause any grass wear or something.

 

[Michelangelo]

From my experience, it's two days after.

View attachment 8767

Also would you say my map has very little space from the looks of it? Just curious how many acres my river actually takes up... I will be moving some of my villagers around though as I move them out and move new ones in with the trick.

Remember that each town--regardless if the coastline is on the left or right side--will have 20 acres, 5 across, 4 down. Only 12 acres are "full acres", and that means there are 8 coastline, or beach acres; ONE COASTLINE ACRE WILL HAVE A RIVER ACRE/waterfall. So that's one river acre. Four more acres are devoted to Re-Tail, the town hall, the train station, and the Event Plaza. Eight coastline, including the one river acre+four points of interest acres=12 acres. At minimum, 6 river acres can be in a town, and one river acre is with one coastline acre. Let's just say that the coastline and river/waterfall acre combine. Add the remaining 5 river acres to the 12 we have, and that's 17. Add the maximum 3 full empty acres, and you get the full 20.

Your town has 7 river acres and 2 full empty acres. One full empty acre is next to Re-Tail, in the corner, but it has a pond. The acre below it, with the campsite, is another full empty acre. The train station acre will always be in the middle of the northern part of town. It's in between the Re-Tail acre and town hall acre in your map. Next to the town hall acre is the coastline acre. In total, it's 5 acres across. The Event Plaza is in the middle part of the third row acres (where your waterfall starts), in the third column acres. The train station is also in the third column acres.

I hope this helped. If you want to mark out each acre, go to the top left corner of your map, and dig a 16x16 square. You should be able to fit 12, for the 12 full acres.