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When playerscomplete the first set of mapsinTerra Nil, a second set of maps unlocks, one for each climate. The new map in the tropical zone is the Archipelago, and it can be a tough map to get started on, thanks to the lack of land.
One advantage players get is the Undersea Dredger, which makes its return from the Flooded City map. However,Terra Nilplayers will need to be very careful about where they build their Dredgers and where they plant their biomes if they want to complete this map without running into problems.
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Stage 1: Expanding the Land
Just like the Desolate Island map, both clean ocean and greenery tiles count towards completing the first stage. The map starts out with a few small islands covered in rocks, several two-elevation pillars rising out of the water, and not nearly enough land tiles for all the biomes players need to set up. The tier 1 buildings arethe Turbine, Undersea Dredger, Toxin Scrubber, Irrigator, Mineralizer, Excavator, and Water Pump, and the climate buildings are the Cloud Seeder and Combustor.
The first thing players should do on this map is boost the humidity. All the tropical biomes that care about humidity want it as high as possible, and that includes greenery. Boosting humidity is easier when there’s more water around the Cloud Seeder, and polluted ocean tiles work just fine for this purpose.
After that, players can build Dredgers just about anywhere and start surrounding the rock tiles with wasteland for Turbine-powered Toxin Scrubbers to reclaim. Just be certain to use Irrigators frequently since dredging is an expensive process. There aren’t any Monorail Nodes available during this stage, but there also aren’t any sunken buildings to get in the way or Recycling Drones that need to navigate around.
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Stage 2: Filling In the Gaps
As stage 2 begins, players should boost the temperature at least high enough to trigger the thunderstorms. This will clean up the map and give players enough leaves to not worry about construction costs. The new buildings for this stage are the Hydroponium, Littarium, Salinator, Shadecloth Pillar, Monorail Node, Coral Lab, and Research Center.
The trickiest part of this stage is building up the tropical forest biome, but that’s what all the lonely pillars are for. By filling all the spaces between them with dirt, players can set Shadecloth Pillars on each one to generate the needed forest. There’s no way for players to build land above sea level, so it’s a good idea to use the Shadecloth Pillars first andavoid filling in the needed gaps with other biomes.
Stage 3: Reaching the Corners
The tier 3 buildings are the Airship, Recycling Silo, Animal Observatory, Recycling Drone, and Loading Dock.
It’s at this point that players should make good use of the Excavator and Water Pump from the tier 1 list. Rivers aren’t important during the early stages, but sincethe Recycling Drone is limited to water tiles on this map, it’s essential that it have a way to reach all the buildings in every corner of the map. A river is also required to find the manta ray.
One thing that helps is that the Recycling Drone can navigate through mangrove tiles, even though it can’t navigate wetland tiles. Mangroves grow easily on this map, so adding a few new mangrove biomes during stage 3will make the cleanup job much simpler. Something else to note is that while Recycling Silos won’t recycle Monorail Nodes, the Loading Dock will.
Terra Nilis available now on Android, iOS, and PC.
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