1.1 has been out for a while now, how's everyone liking it? Which is your favorite layout? How come? Which is the most challenging? Any suggestions you've found to make them easier? ======= Personally, I like the fishing layout best!! I like the fishing mini-game a lot, and there's a bunch of great stuff you can get earlier on in the game if you get a lot of treasure (like dinosaur eggs, diamonds, etc...). Your only investment is the higher quality rods, if you decide to get them, and that pays for itself really quickly! I'm having the most trouble with the mining layout. I had a bunch of big rocks and big stumps so I couldn't easily access half my farm for the first few seasons, and that meant I had to spend a lot of resources just upgrading my tools and clearing my map. I'm still struggling tbqh!!
I love the forest farm. Easier to control weeds, lots of forging, 8 hardwood stumps that renew each day. Since you can place buildings on the green areas you still have plenty of crop room. The west side is perfect for grazing animals. I put up some lamp posts and tucked one of my sheds halfway under a tree overhang. It's darn pretty.
Its a tie between fishing and combat for me. I really like the fishing layout in terms of the design because its just fun and gives me a chance to really reconsider how to setup my farm after being used to the mega default spread. But I do also like how the combat map looks and I really enjoy the thematicness of it being this dangerous place cause the farmer I have on there is based off one of my old D&D warrior characters so I like the idea of the extra difficulty starting off.
I haven't tried them all but I love the forest layout. I've always wanted to have a farm that felt like it was in the Secret Woods, so I was pretty happy to see we were being given that option. As mentioned above, the tree overhangs are a nice effect. In terms of usable space though I'd probably still pick the original - as it is now, my forest map is modded to remove all but one of the ponds. So I have the aesthetic of the forest map, but more of the functionality of the original.
I love the forset farm from layout to aesthetics. My mainly used skills are farming and foraging so a mining farm with a huge river like hilltop or the river farm consisting of nearly only river are nothing I want. The fighting farm seems nice but I don't want enemies to spawn at night. With the forest farm you can have foraging on level 3 in as many days
My lumberjack character has got more wood from the forest farm than a lady in a pornographic multi-man scene. I would say that I'm sorry, but I'm not, I'm Lil' Mini.
Aesthetically, Mining is my favorite. I always enjoy the looks of hill-tops and mountainous areas, and that river seals the deal for me. Space for farming may be reduced but there's still plenty of room to grow crops (not to mention the Greenhouse) and fit in a barn and coop. I only wish the quarry, which is the big selling point, was more useful (namely having it spawn way more ores than rocks). Although, in an ironic twist, the Foraging layout is my close second favorite BUT I find it to be the best of the layouts hands down. I love the aesthetic just as much as Hill-top (with Hill-top only slightly winning out because of that river, in addition to me being allergic to grass and such in real life ), there's plenty of space for farming, and you get 8 replenishing Hardwood stumps!
I've only played the Wilderness farm so far, but thought it was appropriate given the character I created (and the fact he'll be getting together with Abigail). It's a great layout, but you do have the night-time combat to deal with. Mostly there are only a couple of critters to deal with, but once you've been to a certain spot in the game, those annoying flying Serpents are added to the bug list, so I sometimes find myself finishing things I forgot to do in the daytime (usually involving a hoe or watering can) when one of them does a hit-job on me and as I play using an xbox controller, I have to try and quickly scroll through to my weapon before they bring my health down to zero. Having said all that, they haven't taken me down yet and sometimes I can get useful stuff from them, so I'd recommend it overall.
Foraging, you get a bunch of hardwood that's renewable, you can forage a fair amount of stuff (not to mention a ton of mixed seeds) plus some foraging that's not in season (mushrooms).
I've finished all but the bulletin board (still need a truffle - but it's winter) so it'll be a while before I can visit the house. To be honest, I think I'll probably leave things as they are. I'm kind of used to it now.
Fishing. In terms of space it isn't the best. Aesthetically I really liked it. Although I may be biased, being someone who lives in Massachusetts and whos every relative and neighbor owns at least one boat.
Forest, It's so pretty well designed. Tied in second place are Hill-Top and River, because for gameplay aesthetics they are very good. Last one is Wilderness for me, I like of the monsters but they look just like a downgraded version of the original map =(
I'm currently midway in a play of the mining one, and like it quite a bit. The lack of planting space is a good challenge, and the availability of metal ore much earlier in the mines, a good benefit. It's only fair to note that my wife's currently restarted with a forest (foraging) farm, and likes it a lot. I'd like to try Riverland, now that I enjoy fishing a lot, but may just go back to the original map, first--want to see how far I can expand and "prettify" my turf.
Not to tout my own horn but I actually threw together a video on this subject. Personally I believe the forest is the best for the perks and the ambiance. It just looks great and makes me feel cozy!
Good that are people making tutorials for the others It's only my opinion, but farm space is more valuable than it looks, the other maps have extra things that the original map doesn't have, but those bonuses really don't matter when you have settled a farm, so I would order them like this: Standard map, biggest farm layout, you can put tons of stuff, more space means that you can make more money too; Forest map, the renewable hardwood and seasonal lot is very, very good! Hardwood is used into many final buildings and it's the most durable fence, you also can chop down the trees for a quick foraging gain; Wilderness map, because like I said before, space, but the monsters lot isn't worthless, since they keep up with your fighting level you can get a lot of good things from the monsters, Wilderness Golem can drop diamonds and Prismatic shards, not to mention my loved Serpents and their Spicy Eel's , if I'm not wrong, Wilderness map have the same size of the Forest map; Last one is Riverland and Hill-Top, with Hill Top having the edge in giving you acess to copper at day 1, both very limited spaces that only fit well with your gameplay theme, but both maps are not need at all, but they are very pretty ^_^
I actually believe it doesn't matter, like you can play it for 5 in-game years or 50. I can see myself going for the wilderness layout and making a big arena just for fun in the late-game, while most my profit could come from the greenhouse and some shed's filled with endless fortune statues.
I would actually like the Wilderness map more if there were more monsters. I found it a bit disappointing since I expected a lot more fighting. At the spawn rate now, I barely encounter any, especially since they only spawn later at night. I'm usually busy doing other stuff away from the farm like mining so I don't spend a huge amount of time at my farm waiting for monsters to come. The few moments I'm actually there, there are either no monsters or only one or two.
