What’s important to you in a town layout?

I must have one long beach, not split into two. Only one pond, well two at a pinch. A private beach is nice. Not too many rocks. I like retail to be close to the dock. I prefer a south facing waterfall. I can probably live with everything else.
 
For me the ideal layout is so, so dependent on how I plan for the town to be. I like to come up with a theme for how the town will be decorated and landscaped, and I may have a few ideas already for areas I want to have or emphasize. So the town map and certain features have to gel with what I have in mind, and what would be perfect for one town may be not-so-good for another town.

For my town Citalune I wanted the top half to be fairytale-city themed, so that side of town had to have the town hall, train station (both fairytale), and Re-Tail fairly close together to help achieve that city-like feel in the top half. But I wanted the bottom half more natural, so the town tree had to be on that side. In one of my other towns, Lorien, I wanted the town hall directly centered above the town tree to create a unique area connecting them both, several ponds grouped together in one part of the map for the location of a bathhouse, and pears (so that they would be gold to match the October golden foliage). Having just one pond in a structured city-like town may be best, but in a forest-like town having many ponds may add a lot to the atmosphere. So you can see how I don't apply the same criteria to every town. :)

It's really interesting to see what people find essential or important for town layouts in general, though ^_^ I agree that rocks are important to comb through and see if there are any in truly awful places. I think another dealbreaker is if I cannot find a decisively good place to put the mayor's house, like maybe there's a perfect spot for it, but it's taken up by villager houses. :/ Often the fruit is fairly important to me, but I may shoot for different fruit depending on the town theme. There are certain river shapes that have a certain je ne sais quoi appeal, or vice-versa.
 
I'm not picky about maps because I don't really have a theme in mind when I start a new town.I look for these characteristics in a map:
-a fairly long,curvy river
-a 100% accessible beach
-town hall and Re-Tail on the same side of the river

Eh,that's about it.
 
With several towns I try for making them different, so even if I like a feature I won't necessarily pick it when setting up a new town (I'm not planning on getting any more).

The features I've got to really like over the years are vertical rivers - I like popping balloons and horizontal rivers can be a real pain if they are on a balloon route.

R-Tail close to the dock hasn't come up that often for me when resetting for a good map - so have often settled for R-Tail midway & in one town near to train station (which has turned out useful) - so long as its on a direct route from the dock & ramp its not so bad. I like that dock ramp to be a vertical one and close to the dock.

I like rivers that give me a narrowish strip of land up by the railway tracks - that strip so long as its wide enough to take a character's house is really useful - for a start villagers cannot plot in front or behind me.
As few rocks as possible.

That's the ideal, and most of my towns don't have these wanted features, I have rocks in the path ways or too many of them (one town has 9), or a horizontal river - but I work round it all and at least all the towns feel different (they all have different patterned paths which helps).
 
-South waterfall
-Peaches/Cherries/Apples
-Small private beach
-Cliff on the left
-Town hall infront of plaza
- Any town hall except for yellow
- Rivers that dont leave small slits of land at the top
 
Gosh I'm so picky lmao, no pears. I hate them.
I want the waterfall to be facing down, not sideways
A place for the campsite to be on the top half so I can plant cedars around it (as well as the RV campsite, I want it top half of map)
The plaza to be sort of central in the map
2 ponds max lol
The ramp going down to the beach where the dock is to be going down instead of sideways
Not always the same but when looking at the map i want to be able to immediately know where I'm gonna put my house (?? idek lmao)

Things like town hall and retail and rocks I don't really care about, I don't mind working around them
 
i like one big beach, that's my top requirement. it takes way too long to run across town to go to the other beach. no thanks

i also prefer to have one pond, a straight-ish river, and town hall, re-tail, and the plaza to be north of the river
 
Gosh I'm so picky lmao, no pears. I hate them.

I played myself because after DAYS of resetting to get the perfect town map, I only just NOW found the perfect map but the town fruit is pear
 
I prefer the town hall to be near either retail, like in the same row, or close to the plaza. Im also choosy with the colors of the train station and the town hall. As far as fruit, apples, pears, or peaches are what I look for. And I like lots of ponds.
 
Private area for my house near the beach. Was working perfectly until Ozzie decided to move in right next door and refuses to leave. Then Gabi and Keaton joined right near me as well. Thankfully none of them are my dreamies.

Also places like Town Hall, Re-Tail are north and are spread out without houses near them. Too bad two of my dreamies are right in front of the re-tail and I don't have their amiibo cards to rest them
 
I'm not extremely picky as long as there are less ponds (one or two). Re-tail and town hall aren't too spread out and the town plaza is mostly out of the way so I could have more space to build PWPs. I usually plan on what I'm gonna do and where I'm gonna build this and that once I got the layout I wanted.
 
I love my town hall & campground & plaza to line up in a row horizontallly.
I like only 2 or 3 lakes . I like them to have all different shapes aswell.
Oranges or Cherries is a MUST have as my town fruit.
No private beaches. I hate them!
Thats it for now so far!
 
Location, location, location! There has to be space for a villager center with the town hall and Retail pushed towards the top of the map.
 
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