Terraforming Method Recos

[moon_child]

For those who have already started terraforming their islands, what do you suggest, stripping the town bare or working portion by portion? Did you entirely get rid of your rivers and made it from scratch or just edited little by little? Did you get rid of the cliffs and start with a flat island working your way up? I’m not planning a very complex project. I’m just curious what’s the best way to go about it.

 

[Khaelis]

I'm personally stripping my town bare, since it'll motivate me to finish. Though I'll likely do portions still. However, since acres are marked off on the map, you could work by an acre strip each time, or acre at a time if that's what you wanna do.

 

[Zura]

Didn't have to strip my island and kept my original river position. All I had to do was make room for the river to expand and tweak it to my liking

 

[WolfyWolf]

I went into my map picking with terraforming in mind, so I ended up doing sections (front, back, left and right essentially). This made it easy to have early building placements in easier to work around places (besides Crannys -_- fun flashback). I did have the impulse once or twice to just raze it to the ground because as a person I like clean slates. But I found my semi formed plans to all flow together beautifully so far.

 

[moon_child]

Thanks for your suggestions. My map is pretty complicated by default. I have one of those that have a lot of winding rivers and waterfalls and it will require a lot of functional inclines and bridges to connect it all seamlessly without having to pole vault my way into some sections. Because of this, I am thinking of stripping it down entirely to make it simpler but that’s gonna be A LOT of work for sure.

 

[matchaman]

For those who have already started terraforming their islands, what do you suggest, stripping the town bare or working portion by portion? Did you entirely get rid of your rivers and made it from scratch or just edited little by little? Did you get rid of the cliffs and start with a flat island working your way up? I’m not planning a very complex project. I’m just curious what’s the best way to go about it.

I did my bit by bit, in case I felt like it wasn't anything like how I thought it would be! The only thing I got rid of completely at the start were the rivers! c:

 

[J087]

I've deleted 2 islands in the first weekend because of their layout (and some bad choices). Reset the game about 70 times afterwards before I settled for a layout I wasn't looking to get but turned out to be great. Now that I can control the app to change my island I'm blacking out because there are too many options!!

So I'm putting my ideas on paper first and I'm taking inspiration from the "Island Layout" thread.
1. make a road to the private beach in the north.
2. move my cliff pond (which is an essential part if you want to catch all fish).
3. replace the rivers that lead to the sea.

No idea what happens next, but I'm looking into a raised forest plateau in the north for my museum and camping site. Perhaps with a lake that doesn't go anywhere. A housing area for my 10 islanders. A private housing area for my two houses. A main road that connects the airport to the plaza and shops. And a hybrid flower production sight, hehe.

 

[kkfenrir]

I started by getting rid of all my rivers, fruit trees and flowers, then terraforming the land until I had all the layers of land roughly planned out! (This took me around 10 hours. )

After that I began adding little by little each day; Working on rivers, waterfalls and ponds, relocating trees to mostly completed locations and revising my rough cliff work by adding more detail! Every day I've also been relocating a service or villager home to it's permanent resting place, as well as constructing either a bridge or incline if I've planned/semi-completed the spot for it in advance! Once every building is in it's place, the final process will be decorating with flowers, furniture, weeds, custom design pathing, etc!

I would say though, that tearing down everything from the start can be quite daunting, on the first day or two I really felt like I'd ruined my town and regretted my decision - but I stuck with it for the long term and I'm so happy I did, everything's finally coming together and looking more and more like the island I had in my head! (The Happy Island Designer github resource was also a godsend when it came to giving me a rough plan to go off in the beginning!)

 

[moon_child]

I started by getting rid of all my rivers, fruit trees and flowers, then terraforming the land until I had all the layers of land roughly planned out! (This took me around 10 hours. )

After that I began adding little by little each day; Working on rivers, waterfalls and ponds, relocating trees to mostly completed locations and revising my rough cliff work by adding more detail! Every day I've also been relocating a service or villager home to it's permanent resting place, as well as constructing either a bridge or incline if I've planned/semi-completed the spot for it in advance! Once every building is in it's place, the final process will be decorating with flowers, furniture, weeds, custom design pathing, etc!

I would say though, that tearing down everything from the start can be quite daunting, on the first day or two I really felt like I'd ruined my town and regretted my decision - but I stuck with it for the long term and I'm so happy I did, everything's finally coming together and looking more and more like the island I had in my head! (The Happy Island Designer github resource was also a godsend when it came to giving me a rough plan to go off in the beginning!)

Oh thank you for the link!

 

[Tako]

I wanted to preserve as much of the original look of my island as I can, so I'm working little by little. The rivers are barely touched, and when I do have to modify them, I make sure I'm only shifting them by no more than 3 tiles. The width of the river will stay the same.

Similarly, I want to keep the original placements of the trees as much as I can. The only places where I've stripped the trees completely, are areas for a flower field/nursery, and a bamboo forest.

 

[DinoTown]

I don't have terraforming yet (fingers crossed for 3 stars when I log on after I finish my latest research report work that I am definitely procrastinating on right now) but my plan is going to be to remove all the rivers first. After that, I'll sort the cliffs (which shouldn't be too hard, I just need to flatten one section of the third layer, extend another a bit and extend a section of second layer) before I start putting my rivers and ponds back in.

 

[ThomasNLD]

I work in sections, but its very difficult to keep adhering to that, since sections overlap and when you change a part that is adjacent to another section, its weird not to see it through. Its also difficult for me to not do to much, so to speak. I'm really worried by the almost minecraft look my island has now, I don't despise that game for nothing.... I think I underestimated how overwhrlming it can become, terraforming. I kinda hope I can get myself out of it without feeling I have to restart the whole thing.