Landscaping troublesome rocks...

[Parsnip]

Would anyone be willing to share some of their solutions to really annoyingly placed rocks in their town? I have like 4 rocks breaking up all the nice little straight paths between my buildings...so annoying! I would love to see how some people have managed to work around stuff like this!

 

[MorningStar]

I was lucky enough that most of my rocks are along the trainline or out of the way. However, my best friend wasn't so lucky, and most of his rocks are RIGHT in the way. He built paths all the way around them so it's like an island surrounded by path, which is pretty and also doesn't divert him from the path and onto grass if he bumps it while running. However, this doesn't work so well if you look for your Bell rock each day, unless you smudge off the path patterns every time you intend to hit a rock.

For me, the few rocks that are in the way, I surround with flowers for aesthetics. I pick up the flowers before I hit the rock to check for Bells/ore, but they're also the very last rocks I check.

 

[vel]

You can make the paths wider, put bushes around it, plant flowers around it, make a little zen garden, I don't know. I hate dealing with rocks.

 

[Griffon]

I have a rock that is DIRECTLY in front my train station and thus directly blocking where I would normally place my main path. So I just acted like it was supposed to be there XD . I think incorporating it into paths, or placing it in a symmetrical arrangement helps

 

[Becca617]

I have a couple of rocks that are in the way of my pathing and such. What you could do is you could move your pathing around the rock, act like it was supposed to be there like the post above mine, make a little bamboo type area around it, etc. What I usually do is if rocks are in my way, I either just plant flowers around them and come up with a different idea to do with the area with the rock in it. I really wish you could eliminate rocks or choose where they appear. ._.

 

[LunaLight]

There are like two rocks that interrupt my path. I've tried to just move my path another space up/down so it isn't in the middle of it, but it didn't work for one of them so I just have a rock in a space where a square of path should be... It's not as bad as it seems though, I've just gotten used to it.

So yeah, my advice is to try to put your path another space up/down or try moving the design angles of your path, but if it doesn't work or you don't like how it looks, see how it looks if the rock is in the middle of the path. It won't look as good as if it wasn't in your path, but there isn't much else you can do. ):

 

[Svive]

Learn to work around them is my best advice. My whole towns are paths and plazas and there isn't a lot of free space, so I just made it so that the rocks are in the limited amount of free space and curve my paths around them.
(but I also have 80% of my 10 villagers plotted in a straight up and down line so I have an advantage there)

 

[ashubii]

Everyone's advice is pretty much spot on. You just have to treat the rocks like a tree or bush or something. It's a pain, but I'm sure your landscaping will work out! The town I'm focused on right now has a rock right in front of the station next to a pond, both of which are really annoying to work with. It took me forever to figure out what to do, but eventually an idea came and I'm very pleased with it! I turned the area into a little nook hidden by trees next to the pond, and have my main path starting at the bulletin board and going down. My town is a forest, though, so it fits the theme.



- - - Post Merge - - -

I generally like to have something in front of my station as a focal point of sorts, which is why this was a struggle for me.

 

[Barbara]

I have a rock that is DIRECTLY in front my train station and thus directly blocking where I would normally place my main path. So I just acted like it was supposed to be there XDView attachment 176296. I think incorporating it into paths, or placing it in a symmetrical arrangement helps

I have that pond-rock train station too, and you've actually inspired me to make my path like that as well. I knew some people did that, but I'd placed my path to the right of the rock so it would be part of a greenery row. I had placed a topiary a bit lower, however, and it didn't really work well with pathing around it, and a 3-tile instead of 2 would perfectly fit a square topiary to put 'into' the path! Thanks for sharing your picture.

 

[Chicha]

Everyone's already given great advice. I wanted to add a few things.

I'm not gonna lie, rock placements either make or break a town for me. There will be some rocks that will always be in that place (town hall, train station, retail, event plaza). This guide goes into more detail in regard to those spots. After that, the other rocks are random.

For the random rocks, I found it really helpful to plant a tree two spaces in front of the rock to help hide it.

Here's my rock near the river close to my bridge:

And here's how it looks with the tree in front of it:

I did the same thing with my train station. Here's the rock:

And here's how it looks with a tree:

(Not gonna lie, sometimes I forget it's there.)

The most difficult one was town hall. I did the same thing:

And here's how it looks with the tree:

(You can tell it's still there but it helps.)

I have a few more rocks in random spots.
I put a water path surrounding the rock for these spots (sometimes I'll use a tree as well).

I hope that helped!