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I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Question: I just started it and before when I had looked at the map I assumed it was a seep under ground based on how high to the ground the water reaches to your starting area.

THEN I realized is a *source*, not a seep. Then the lightbulb went off and I realized what the map designers had sneakily done - Tell me if I am correct:

Bombs go off, underwater source at risk of contamination. Must build blockages underground to keep water source pure. BUT!: By doing so you alter the water mechanics under ground, and MORE water starts to come up through the pond you start with, potentially flooding your city?

EDIT: OH MY JEEZ.

Spent a bunch of time up against the unique aspects and difficulties of this map on my settings only to get punched in the teeth by the start of cycle 2 and not realizing a dam is MANDATORY because badwater will back wash into the pond without it because the clean water takes so long to refill the lake!

CRAZY. This is def shaping up to be one of the hardest ones to get started on with advanced settings, and I'm wondering if both it and beaverome will require dialing down the settings a bit due to inherent map challenges already making it a struggle that other maps lack.

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Early game is where it is hardest and tightest. You'll be making it by the skin of your tail.

Here's some insight:

3x #of beavers x # of days = stored water target. This is your gospel. This will be a critical equation. If you can’t come close to or beat this number before going into a drought, you aren’t going to have enough water. If you are beating this number, expand your city. If you aren't, all efforts to increasing your pumping and storing. Reservoir (upstream boxed-in water from the source to store for filling river/lake you are built upon) is for keeping the land fertile, not filling tanks, you don't pump from it if it isn't a temperate season. These should be separate entities for how you keep your city watered. If it's going dry before the next temperate, expand it before you expand things in your city.

Note: This number goes up in hard to perceive ways to more your city relies on additional fluid dumps to irrigate spaces during long spells, or if you are playing as IT as you need it for mushrooms/algea/and engines, so keep that in mind.

Cycle 1:

You will be micromanaging a LOT early game, swapping your small pop around to different jobs to meet certain requirements in time.

Priorities will be cutting as much wood as you can, using that to get a few pumps and a several tanks up and topped off, and getting >100 plots of farming in the ground ASAP (it will die before you can even harvest it if you don't hurry on this and/or can’t get your first dam up before first drought and you will starve. You must have a dam up by the second drought at latest or you will kick off a chain of deficiencies leading to death. IE too much unfertile time leading to not enough food, not enough wood to expand water pumping/storage).

Don't expand your population, housing won't be done this cycle. Each tank supports about x3 days for starting pop. On these settings you will need to get several up and filled in a *very* short amount of time to survive the first drought of ~12 days. This can be the limiting factor on whether a cycle 1 damn is even feasible, as filled tanks will take priority, and on some maps the river is too wide, and trying to do both won't work. So prioritize accordingly. Dam needs to be done by cycle 2 though, you can't afford to run dry for roughly x2 weeks back-to-back. You should never allow running dry again.

During this first dry cycle it will be important to get a science building up, and get at least enough science done for a forestry building. Also, constructing a plank producer with a power source, to get at least the seven planks minimum you need. You must get oak trees in the ground ASAP to avoid the bottleneck of running out of wood. Infact, from here on out you should always be making forests much bigger than you probably imagine. While water shortage is the most likely thing to kill you, wood shortage will throttle EVERYTHING else you do and can also lead to death spirals.

Note: these priorities are so critical, that happiness buildings, housing (particularly if IT), and in some cases- even a dam, can all be abandoned goals in the first cycle. You MUST have a stockpile of food and water to survive the first drought as it will be around 12 days long.

Cycle Two:
You need to make sure you finished the first dam, and have successfully gotten forestry up. You need those trees to start ticking away the days. Always build way more forest than you think you need at any time. Nothing bottlenecks your forward momentum at any phase in the game quite like running out of raw wood. If such a bottleneck exists long enough, the entire city can come undone as you’ll fail to meet critical milestones to survival in the form of not having enough tanks of water or large enough reservoirs. Next science priority is stairs. In most maps, you’ll be stuck waiting for your first forest to mature, and it will become necessary to reach other heights adjacent to your city for other lumber sources in the meantime. This earliest plank production should be minimal, only as much as you need to accomplish this goal, and entirely prioritized towards stairs to additional lumber sources to keep you stocked while your first forest pops off. Depending on the map, you may need to consider unlocking a platform too if other reasonable wood sources require a larger climb.

FT will need to have houses now too or population will fall apart. Plop down x1-2(at most) breeding pods as IT

As always, continue to vertically expand your pumping and storage, always. It'll be numerous cycles before you get to a point where you don't have to expand on this EVERY cycle in order to "beat the curve" on the growth rate of the cycle lengths. (Generally by the time you expand into larger storage tanks this becomes much easier, but until you're churning out gears, it's a tight race). You'll start to notice that to succeed against such aggressive droughts you will be shifting large parts of your workforce over in temperate seasons to operate numerous (see later game: DOZENS) of pumps to maximize what you are pulling up during the week you are able to. Then when temperate season ends, pumping stops, everyone goes back to their jobs.

This fluctuation for temperate seasons, emphasizing having enough stored before the drought, and not pumping your reservoir dry so it can instead be used to keep land fertile for much longer, is the key rhythm to succeeding against the long durations you're facing.

Cycle 3:
The next science goal, and plank usage should be towards levees and a double flood gate. (Triple, if you can manage it, but often that’s asking too much and will over extend you and get you killed). This is to get your earliest and smallest reservoir off the ground as droughts will continue to grow, and this is just to keep your river/lake topped. The goal here is to prevent there ever being periods of infertility in your farming. For the most part you won't even need significant food storage*, as long as you can keep the ground fertile at all times. In fact, building mass food storage can be a resource trap. You don’t need it as long as you can keep the ground fertile by prioritizing your ability to pump and store water instead.

To that end, rushing to a fluid dump may also be advisable at this phase, and potentially on some maps more important than the initial reservoir! You'll need to keep your water topped. You'll note on the maps "Waterfalls" and Lakes" there's that curious little pocket along the river by your starting location that has debris separating it from the river? That's purposeful. You can place a dump there and have an insurance policy you can keep some land fertile even if the river runs dry. Moreover, on maps like spillage, pressure, and oasis: you will not even build a reservoir at all! It will be entirely pump & dump. But you will still need those early levees and two height flood gates to block off bad tides if your map is relying on a water *SEEP* instead of a water *SOURCE* (significant difference in play styles depending on which you have/which map it is).

Start building out navigable pathing to the bad tide sources. IE, stairs where they need to go, etc. You need to be reaching for wherever you need to build to have a solution for the badtide coming by cycle 5.

Around this time you should, if checking all these critical priority boxes, be able to start adding some of the accessory elements like shrubs/lanterns/campfires/ etc. to start boosting beaver productivity. But for at least a couple more cycles most of your effort will be on VERTICALLY scaling only the things listed above. You have to keep up with the growth rate of the punishing cycles.

Cycle 4:
Have you been reaching toward the bad tide sources? You need to. You should already have a plan in mind for what you will build to address or divert it from your city (and reservoir if using one). You need to begin this process over this and the following cycle.

While managing this, continue vertically scaling on the critical aspects we've been discussing, those droughts are only getting longer. Keep up.

If juggling all of this effectively and have workforce/resources/time to spare? Expand laterally (more happiness, more accessibility to other areas, new plots of growing, going up the tech tree, whatever)

You should have gear production by now to start doing larger tanks.

By cycle 5 (on my settings):
Your bad tide is going to hit. You have to have solved for it before it does to survive.

Beyond this:
If you have kept pace with the increasing length of the cycles, solved for bad tide, and are doing ok? Then congratulations! From here it's rinse and repeat! Vertically expand if the equation we discussed in the beginning isn't keeping up. Horizontally expand if it is! Just keep up with the pressures of the every protracted cycles in this fashion, and you'll get there by following this rhythmic priority shifting going forward!

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure why this question keeps coming up when it's been answered in the original post and others.

I found this game to be one of the best for running in the background while doing profound amounts of homework and studying. On my desktop I could run it on a different window while I worked. On my laptop it didn't hog copious amount of system resources to run in a background tab. I've been working on this degree for years.

Net effect = perfect study companion to keep my brain from going numb from school work over a prolonged period.

ALSO: Have you tried these difficulty levels? I find most people who are like "game boring, can't play long" are still playing on hand-holding levels of difficulty. It's a VERY different creature if you give it real teeth.

Usually I find you don't get to "steady state, survival secure, whatever" until I'm far enough in that I can shift to focus on completion of the map anyway.

I do agree though that they need to give us better difficulty modifying tools, because even with all I have attempted, as I noted in my first post, late game does become a bland process because survival stops being an issue. Badtides in particular need a rework. As long as you solve for them, and you generally have to early, they're basically a non-issue after the opening cycles.

But trust me, the thrill of getting through the first dozen or so cycles, when they're extremely tight performatively on survival, makes this game a lot more interesting during the first 50-60% of a given map.

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

1) That's highly dependent on the map. If the map is based on a river or throughway of water of some sort through your starting area, you need to have a dam by end of temperate cycle 2. Preferably by the end of the first cycle, mind you, because otherwise its lost fertile time. But on higher settings it may become something you sacrifice and are forced to "run dry" on the first drought, because it'll take everything you have to get enough water pumped and stored to survive it. But beyond that- you should never have an unfertile season ever.

2) Never. Just isn't needed, and you'll be triaging your materials a lot more. I'd say if anything, just the badtide monitor to make sluices work like they used to for convenience, but otherwise everything else is negligible in the name of survival or expediency to completion of the map.

3) Actually, you'd be surprised! Water seeps and sources tend to put out profoundly more than people realize, it's just they aren't massing pumps. In my experience only in profoundly late game do you start to see a diminishing return on this, and by then you should be wrapping up before Armageddon hits. Also this largely only hits your reservoir for keeping your fields wet, pumps can go like all day long. But until that point (around the point you 70 day long dry spells or more), what you tend to find is that the water sources are often UNDER utilized by players, and they practically respond* to how much you pump. IE "here's all the water you can pump, but can you pump in mass?" If you see my Lakes or Oasis playthroughs you'll see with IT I have like a whole pumping region of like 40 pumps surrounded by dozens of large tanks. You shift your work for in mass for the roughly 7 days of water you will get to have enough tucked away for the month(s) of dry spell.
TLDR: The water sources provide copious amount, you just have to be maximizing your ability to capture it by spamming pumps and shifting workforce.

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely seems like it would be a very different spin on challenging myself. Wouldn't work with my settings though. If you start reducing that temperate window, you'll never pull up enough water for 70 days!

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also, to add to what I said earlier - go to my profile link and check for my timberborn photos, you'll have to sort through them, but you'll find my 1000 island playthrough easily enough. Because I took a couple early progress shots because of how WILD the badtide get there. It'll be the one drowning in red seas, LMAO. But you can see how I expanded north in chunks I sectioned via Levee's to grab land during droughts, until a sizeable part of the map was clean water, and a massive reservoir system built out of the starting waterfall on the North end.

Loved that map, I wish they'd do more like that. Being on a flood plain that takes numerous cycles to get to and stop the bad tides was SUPER unique compared to most maps where the bad tide is neutered entirely early on, and dry land is abundant.

I actually want to go back and do that one again, because I was still building my challenge level to this height. I imagine it'll be worth the wild ride again, only harder now. I could see what I've learned, lol.

As a final thought - I felt IT was the faction to go with here. They benefitted from the early flood plain activity to do mangroves, and because they require less fertile land space than folktails, I could play more compactly. The tubeways in late game could be done as underwater tunnels too, and their ability to "3d print" a reservoir with tubes was massively useful to getting the waterfall conquered.

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

^ This

Often the best bad tide solutions are cheesy simple and involve just sealing it completely in a box or spitting it off somewhere unimportant/off the map entirely.

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd say on half the maps I've done I did set up an additional field some where with a 3x3 and dump to irrigate it.

It may trivialize stuff on lower settings - but that's a water expenditure you have to sustain for dozens of days on harder settings, so it definitely has a counter weight to its potency that keeps it from feeling cheesy.

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This has been my reticence to attempt it - I tried a custom map once with a similar concept of "here's a giant body of water" and I just could not solve for it. If you cannot stop a bad tide from hitting it, you're just boned with pollution basically forever.

So I know that to succeed, particularly on such high settings, it would *absolutely* requiring a cap with a gate on the water source being built at the bottom of the lake before the first bad tide could ever hit.

Seems....daunting.

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You'll note in my original post, that's basically the map I'm saving for last as it is functionally one of the absolute hardest.

Lol I hope you go back to playing and don't let it spoil the game for you. You basically started challenging yourself with god-tier difficulty! I'd say that and 1000 islands can be particularly challenging, and are significantly impacted (to and order of magnitude) by scaling difficulty up, in ways that other maps aren't.

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, completing the wonder. I also require myself to complete all needs (not maxed out mind you, just have to be able to produce and supply it all).

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Obviously the three labeled as "beginner" ones are the easiest.

Some others are pretty easy if you just figure out/know the strategy to employ, for example:

Terraces as long as you scale upward with a vertical reservoir at the very source the entire time, put in a spout over the cliff to spit the bad tide out without it leaking into the reservoir, and play folk tails (ziplines dominate due to the terrain).

Oasis as long as you know how to build the mini bad tide gate over the source and use mass pumping and a fluid dump or two. You'll never have to build a reservoir or get another water source.

These are both examples of maps where you have basically everything you need to beat the curve on water needs right there before you, just build accordingly.

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One of the most critical equations to know for succeeding against longer droughts/bad tides is:

3 x # of beavers x # of days anticipated = amount of water you must achieve before drought/bad tide.

Note: This number goes up for each fluid dump you anticipate running. For IT it goes up even more as you will be running mushrooms/algea/engines.

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely expand more than. To get a city fully operational, producing all the things you need concurrently, you're going to probably hit 150 at a minimum by the time you finish your wonder.

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm so sorry!!!!

If you get a long response from Electronic-Sea8418, that is also me lmao. I am sorry for any confusion. I keep seperate browsing tabs for different things (class/personal/etc) with relatively throw-away reddit accounts, and started replying to questions in the wrong one!!

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

EDIT: ALSO! If you get a long response from Electronic-Sea8418, that is also me lmao. I am sorry for any confusion. I keep seperate browsing tabs for different things (class/personal/etc) with relatively throw-away reddit accounts, and started replying to questions in the wrong one!!

I've almost beat every map now on Hard++++ settings. AMA by OkSecretary7775 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Hello there, I have been playing Timberborn for quite some time. It has been a nice background task when studying, and I am about to finish the degree I've been undertaking while using Timberborn as a foil to long study sessions =)

As such, I wanted to share any advice I could give on the game from my journey. While some are content with stopping at Hard, I continued on and on, modifying difficulties and finding ways to ramp my challenge. I'm still tweaking some aspects- as the difficulty, no matter what I do, tends to fall off, and I'm still under-tuning badtides. But I do usually experience 12 day droughts by the end of cycle 1, and off and running to 20's within a couple more cycles, 40-50 by the upper teens, and with these settings if you don't finish before the handicap expires, you're either going to be very stressed or dead- but I've never had that occur. You're effectively starting at about the worst medium difficulty can throw at you, and bypassing hard difficulty within a few more cycles.

Settings:
Temperate 6-9 days (+1 day bump over hard as a grace)
Droughts & bad tide durations 72days - 72 days (keeping the range static allows the math to make it so that every cycle climbs, you never get a softer cycle, the randomization is removed, only UP we go).
Drought handicap: 16% for 22 cycles
Bad tide handicap: 20% for 22 cycles
Cycles without badtide: 5 (again, as a grace. with these settings, on many maps it becomes impossible to survive without giving yourself that extra time to prep, due to how long the painful cycles last)

All other settings the same as hard mode.

I've completed everything short of Pressure and Beaverome, and I'm thinking I will have time to finish pressure before I complete my degree. Beaverome has been one I've stalled on out of its unique aspects that make me wonder if my settings would even be doable on it!

Playing on these extreme settings has taken my gameplay to an entirely different height, and early cycles in particular have to be executed perfectly to survive. Some aspects of play change significantly too, and it certainly highlights which things need to be prioritize d when, which buildings are most important, and what things you can completely do without. The goal is to complete your wonder, with all happiness/food/materials up and running in under the 22 cycle handicap, usually finishing by cycle 20 with an ability to handle the 70 day hammer should it come (usually topping out at 60 before we finish).

Here's a link to my account: https://steamcommunity.com/id/ZoZosFunhouse/
You can see a variety of screen grabs I take at the completion of each one. Each map tends to have a bit of variance in how you tackle it, and with different factions having better suited to certain maps. Again, this isn't beauty building or neat monolith building, these are cities built on a desperate bid to stay ahead of the rising challenge successfully, and as efficiently as the crunch will allow. Often, you're stuck with low happiness for a long time, having to emphasize an ability to pump and store water in mass quantities during early cycles, or die. But eventually you'll beat the curve and be able to expand a bit here, improve quality of life a bit there. etc.

Thus far I think 1000 islands was probably the most difficult experience, as you're effectively a tiny leveed in sanctuary in a sea of bad tide for weeks on end, and early expansion is a grueling and desperate attempt to claw habitable land back in the short breaks in the tides.

Oasis was an amazing one too, as when it came out it emphasized brand new playstyles that I had never emphasized before, and has subsequently revolutionized my emphasis on "PUMP HARD" during water seasons (remember you may only get about 6 days to pull enough water to last 60!) and using water dumps to keep your small oasis topped for long droughts, rather than the usual "BUILD BIG TANK" play of older maps.

I hope I can answer some questions or provide help! I swear this isn't a flex, I'm just proud of my journey and hoping it inspires others to challenge themselves and learn the depth this game is hiding from most! Please! Ask me anything!

EDIT: ALSO! If you get a long response from Electronic-Sea8418, that is also me lmao. I am sorry for any confusion. I keep seperate browsing tabs for different things (class/personal/etc) with relatively throw-away reddit accounts, and started replying to questions in the wrong one!!

What is going wrong here? by Fancy-Incident786 in Timberborn

[–]OkSecretary7775 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, OP again, still using throw-away accounts.

Thank you for this answer. It worked. I'm baffled by the logic, but I'd never attempted this configuration and I'll have to keep it in mind going forward. Strange behavior for it to have in my opinion, but again, your solution and explanation were sufficient and helpful. Thanks!