# Have you flattened your island before?



## Nicole. (Aug 13, 2020)

I am very close to flattening my island and also understand the time and amount of bells it will cost me to do it. Right now, I'm very bored of walking around the same island and I'm hoping it will give me something to do. I have a lot of inspiration from other dream islands that I've seen so I'm not stuck for ideas in any way. I have sufficient funds in my ABD for demolishing and reinstalling bridges/inclines where desired after terraforming, so I guess there's nothing stopping me. 

I'd mainly like to know other people's experiences with flattening their islands and any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated. Are there any of you out there that are doing it right now?


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## InstantNoodles (Aug 13, 2020)

Nope though I have terraformed heavily because my island had a very weird diagonal 2nd level and anything that's diagonal is difficult to decorate!


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## dizzy bone (Aug 13, 2020)

I just worked off what I had bit by bit rather than flattening it because I wanted some aspects of my old map intact... although now I don’t really care about that at all . I think if I ever do redo my island sometime in the future I will flatten everything. I would not want any area of my new island to look the same as my island right now so flattening the island would help with that.


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## JellyBeans (Aug 13, 2020)

i never fully flattened it because I thought i'd find it too overwhelming, but I did flatten sections of it just so I could have a clean canvas. same as dizzy bone, I think if I ever decided to redo my island but for whatever reason didn't want to reset I'd probably flatten it all so I don't choose the easy option and leave areas intact


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## Pintuition (Aug 13, 2020)

Like the others said, I think taking the flattening in stages is probably the easiest (and even most cost effective) course. I tried to approach my island in sections so I didn't have to tear down everything at once. It was helpful not only to keep my sanity, but to keep the rest of the island accessible as you make changes.

It might also not be a bad idea to look at your island map and use the grids to create a plan for reconstruction! I know I certainly spent a lot of time trying to fit it together. It's almost like puzzle pieces, if you tackle a few small sections again, your island will be looking great in no time!


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## Lavulin98 (Aug 13, 2020)

I didn't flatten my island fully, but I did take out almost all the hills out of my island and only let some little hills in the northern part, simply bc I don't like hills. haha I wanted flat land. lol


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## Luxsama (Aug 13, 2020)

Yup! I flattened my entire island as soon as I got terraforming. My island felt very small and stuffy since the top half was basically all cliffs.


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## ForgottenT (Aug 13, 2020)

Multiple times.


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## Sharksheep (Aug 13, 2020)

Mostly flatten it but I did it in sections. Although I did raise and lower this one section like a hundred times because I couldn't make up my mind


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## Pikabun (Aug 13, 2020)

I did more than half but then end up planning where the terraforming should be so if you plan to have some mountain part maybe you could keep some area.


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## Arckaniel (Aug 13, 2020)

I did, well kinda, I didn't remove every cliff but I removed a lot of it, what I did that is more drastic however is the long river I had, I completely removed it and reshaped it...


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## Hobowire (Aug 13, 2020)

Most of my island is flat because the ledge takes up 1 tile space going up 2 tiers.  So... Not entirely. 

Fish still spawn with 2 tile wide space.

All about min maxing!


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## Stella-Io (Aug 13, 2020)

I kinda did flatten my entire island but I'm going section by section. I only kept ramps if I needed them until I could destroy them, and the elevated lands I did keep are still going to be elevated lands. I closed up all my water sources too so I had NO RIVERS. I removed the one bridge I had (that didn't even go across a river, it went to a small island in the middle of a big pond).

As for tips, def go section by section it will be alot less overwhelming. Put EVERYTHING on the beach. Your house, villager houses, shops, as much as you can cause I don't think everything can actually fit on the beach all at once (I have 2 south facing rivers).
I literally drew a rough version of my town map on grid paper, drawing out the beach rocks, beaches, river outlets, permanent stuff like that. I have an album on my phone of screenshots of island inspo I wanted to use for my island. I drew rough area of where I wanted each thing to be. Because I didn't do all the math and go literal square by square, I had to be lenient with where I put stuff. I made one area bigger than I thought it would be, which causes me to shrink other areas to compensate.
ALWAYS have a ladder on you, esp of you want to demolish everything first. You will also need so, very, many shovels if you're redoing the landscaping as well. So many.


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## Snowifer (Aug 13, 2020)

I didn't flatten my island, but I know 2 people who did. One of them has rebuilt their island, while the other is still building. 
I think that doing your island in sections is the best way to do it


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## Holla (Aug 13, 2020)

No I had planned to keep terraforming to minimum so it was easier to leave my island as is and modify the existing land. I mostly changed the size/shape of one of my cliffs and made one part of my river lower to add more land to work with on the other side.


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## TheSillyPuppy (Aug 13, 2020)

I didn't flatten my island because I didn't need to. Miraculously, I was able to move all 12 houses, each in one go, in different sections of the ground level of my island. However, this involves quite a bit of upfront planning -- it took me a couple of tries to find an optimal order for moving everyone's house.


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## justalittlemad (Aug 13, 2020)

I've completely flattened my island and removed all water sources numerous times to play with the layout and design.


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## Jhine7 (Aug 13, 2020)

I nearly did in the very beginning, it was definitely worth it to get everything going where I wanted it to.


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## Nicole. (Aug 13, 2020)

Luxsama said:


> Yup! I flattened my entire island as soon as I got terraforming. My island felt very small and stuffy since the top half was basically all cliffs.



I agree that excessive cliffs does create an overcrowded feel, which is actually the type of feel I'm thinking of going for. How long did it take you to flatten the whole island? And how did you go about flattening it, e.g did you move everything onto your beach, shovel over the rivers?


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## SirSean (Aug 13, 2020)

You people have a lot more patience than I do lol. I just flattened the upper part of my island and it felt like it took ages to do.


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## Nicole. (Aug 13, 2020)

Stella-Io said:


> I kinda did flatten my entire island but I'm going section by section. I only kept ramps if I needed them until I could destroy them, and the elevated lands I did keep are still going to be elevated lands. I closed up all my water sources too so I had NO RIVERS. I removed the one bridge I had (that didn't even go across a river, it went to a small island in the middle of a big pond).
> 
> As for tips, def go section by section it will be alot less overwhelming. Put EVERYTHING on the beach. Your house, villager houses, shops, as much as you can cause I don't think everything can actually fit on the beach all at once (I have 2 south facing rivers).
> I literally drew a rough version of my town map on grid paper, drawing out the beach rocks, beaches, river outlets, permanent stuff like that. I have an album on my phone of screenshots of island inspo I wanted to use for my island. I drew rough area of where I wanted each thing to be. Because I didn't do all the math and go literal square by square, I had to be lenient with where I put stuff. I made one area bigger than I thought it would be, which causes me to shrink other areas to compensate.
> ALWAYS have a ladder on you, esp of you want to demolish everything first. You will also need so, very, many shovels if you're redoing the landscaping as well. So many.



Thanks for the tips, very helpful! I already have screenshots of maps I've liked all looking very similar, so I'll probably base the terraforming off of those, but definitely won't be doing the square by square measurements, I'll just let my creativity lead the way. I'll defo make sure to have plenty of shovels on hand lol!


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## Feraligator (Aug 13, 2020)

I don't think I'd have the patience lol, the two times I've redone my island I sort of just worked around my cliffs. I've made them a lot smaller and more inland now as to not have any wasted 1 tile of space, but I've never flattened my island. I also never moved anyone's houses to the beach, I move them to their new location straight away. If there's a house in the way then I move that one first.


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## LambdaDelta (Aug 13, 2020)

it was the very first thing I did after unlocking and buying all the terraforming options


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## Luxsama (Aug 13, 2020)

Nicole. said:


> I agree that excessive cliffs does create an overcrowded feel, which is actually the type of feel I'm thinking of going for. How long did it take you to flatten the whole island? And how did you go about flattening it, e.g did you move everything onto your beach, shovel over the rivers?



Took me two days to flatten my island (including removing the rivers), I did it as soon as I got it so I didnt have to move everything onto the beach. I just knew right when I started the game that I was going to move everything so the houses were already out of the way to begin with.

There was no planning that went into it I just knew I wanted it flat and figured out the rest section by section


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## Khaelis (Aug 13, 2020)

Yes, and I'm likely going to do it for a second time.


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## SheepMareep (Aug 13, 2020)

I fully flattened my island multiple times, but because I never had a clear image of what I wanted anything I made did not look right and I ended up resetting 

It makes your island feel HUGE to remove all cliffs and water ways, which can be super overwhelming without a plan or general idea of what to do. Its also very very time consuming even with TT between destroying everything, moving everything, continuing to move things while also building up areas, etc. If you typically only have time to play for an hour or two a day, be ready for this to be a week long process or longer depending on how much you need to move and destroy.

Make sure to go in with some kind of a plan if you aren't good at improvising


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## Cosmic-chan (Aug 13, 2020)

No. I'm not good with working with a blank slate plus to be quite honest i'm rather lazy.


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## Larsi (Aug 13, 2020)

SirSean said:


> You people have a lot more patience than I do lol. I just flattened the upper part of my island and it felt like it took ages to do.



It not only felt like that.. it just take ages to do haha.

OT: That's why I didn't flatten my island. Removed 2 mountains and that took so long. I was glad when it was done  But I also liked the cliffs in the back of the island so no need to flatten them too.


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## SirSean (Aug 13, 2020)

Larsi said:


> It not only felt like that.. it just take ages to do haha.
> 
> OT: That's why I didn't flatten my island. Removed 2 mountains and that took so long. I was glad when it was done  But I also liked the cliffs in the back of the island so no need to flatten them too.



Lol fair enough. Good job for having the persistence I don't have


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## Cottonball (Aug 13, 2020)

Thats the very first thing I did once i unlocked terraforming.


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## cocoacat (Aug 13, 2020)

Nooo... seems daunting. I wanted a natural looking island, and I was afraid that terraforming too much would make it seems unnatural. But now, I'm not liking how certain things ended up (especially my house location)... I could see changing up smaller chunks at a time, but the whole island seems like too much.


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## NyattaSama (Aug 13, 2020)

I flatten my entire island and started from both the entrance and the back. I found it easier to control the edges of the island this way.


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## Peach_Jam (Aug 13, 2020)

I flattened mine when I first started decorating because I wasn't getting anywhere. I decided to remove the few cliffs I had built, flowers, trees etc and start fresh. This helped me a lot and now I'm happier with how my island is turning out c:


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## ~Kilza~ (Aug 13, 2020)

I haven't flattened my island at all, nor have I felt the need to. I've just wanted to stick with the original layout of my island, so I haven't done too much terraforming tbh. Plus, if I did flatten it, I'd probably fail to actually do anything with it, lol


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## wanderlust// (Aug 13, 2020)

If flattening means what I think it means, then no. And btw, what I think it means is removing all the cliffs and trees, possibly filling in all the water too. Building up from literally nothing would be impossible for me. I already have a hard enough time lol.


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## Rosch (Aug 13, 2020)

Not completely, but around 80%. The 20% are original cliffs that I trimmed and shaped. As much as I'd like to terraform my whole again, the reality of torture holds me back from doing it again.


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## mayortiffany (Aug 13, 2020)

I've never flattened my island. Call me sentimental, but I'd like my map to be at least somewhat representative of the original map I got. I've done a bit of terraforming, but not so much that my map would be unrecognizable.


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## CrestFallen (Aug 13, 2020)

I flattened a majority of my island recently and I’d say the biggest issue besides time (1 day per house takes entirely too long unless you’re time traveling) was destroying everything I’d built before. The actual act of getting rid of all my islands and cliffs was pretty okay once I got into the grove of it

Word of advice: Stock up on fruit if you intend on moving a bunch of trees!


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## Nicole. (Aug 14, 2020)

SheepMareep said:


> I fully flattened my island multiple times, but because I never had a clear image of what I wanted anything I made did not look right and I ended up resetting
> 
> It makes your island feel HUGE to remove all cliffs and water ways, which can be super overwhelming without a plan or general idea of what to do. Its also very very time consuming even with TT between destroying everything, moving everything, continuing to move things while also building up areas, etc. If you typically only have time to play for an hour or two a day, be ready for this to be a week long process or longer depending on how much you need to move and destroy.
> 
> Make sure to go in with some kind of a plan if you aren't good at improvising



Yeah, I think I would feel lost if I removed everything without having a plan, but having said that I quite like the idea of gradually building areas and connecting them on a straight blank canvas which I would do if I ever restarted the game or get a new Switch. For now, I'm gonna dedicate time towards specific areas like others have suggested, particularly areas I'm not too fond of like my orchard.

	Post automatically merged: Aug 14, 2020



wanderlust// said:


> If flattening means what I think it means, then no. And btw, what I think it means is removing all the cliffs and trees, possibly filling in all the water too. Building up from literally nothing would be impossible for me. I already have a hard enough time lol.



Yep, it's exactly that lol! See I'm the opposite, I get more ideas with working from an empty canvas than I would do with decorated areas; they just seem to block my way.


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## Coco63 (Aug 14, 2020)

Yep! My bf and I worked together to flatten the island. We had no idea what we wanted to do with it but felt that flattening it was the best way so we could just work from the ground up.
it definitely took awhile. We took turns and used both of our characters so it could go quicker. One of us would terraform while the other chopped trees or dig up flowers to get stuff out of the way. We’ve never used the clean up feature so I don’t know if that would’ve been faster...
I wish I did have a plan though because I feel like I ended up rebuilding a lot of cliff that I broke down. But it’s okay. It worked out in the end.

We have plans to tear down the entire island and flatten everything again once we’re finished decorating this island.
It just takes patience and persistence. I think having a partner to do it with makes it bearable.


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## helloxcutiee (Aug 14, 2020)

I flattened my island completely a couple months back and moved all buildings to the beach because I wanted to have a nice blank canvas to work with.


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## Halloqueen (Aug 14, 2020)

Nah. I've never been one to really go all-in on making a crazy beautiful town in these games. Never bothered with custom paths in New Leaf, and even with the various path types given to the player in New Horizons, I use them for certain little things, but not anything elaborate like streets.

My plan from the beginning was to have all of the residents living on the back, elevated half of the island, while all of the businesses were up front. Rather than flatten my island, I had initially wanted to terraform it so that everyone would be living on the third, highest level. That "everyone on the highest level" plan didn't end up happening, I kind of just threw all of the resident houses back there as soon as possible, before unlocking terraforming. So, everyone's houses are either on the second or third levels. It would cost too much now to move them all around to address that now, and even if I did, I don't think I really have a specific way to go about it to make it all look good. I more or less just kept the island layout as it was, and have only done very small and insignificant terraforming to make certain things possible.


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## Duckling (Aug 14, 2020)

I did flatten mine, as I wanted to work a theme and lore into my previously rather “bland” island


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## rawstberry (Aug 14, 2020)

i never did because i don't have patience for it. i prefer to work in sections and either flatten or build cliffs as i go because otherwise i'd probably end up feeling too overwhelmed.


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## Clock (Aug 14, 2020)

Not really, I'm too lazy to flatten my island to be honest.


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## BluebearL (Aug 14, 2020)

I have certainly considered it! But I ended up deciding that I could create an island that I loved without going to that effort and so far I have, it’s a working progress. I do terraform but flattening my island simply isn’t needed for what I am going for. I think it is a really good option though, a blank slate is incredibly tempting. If you have the bells to do it as you say I’d say go for it. I don’t really have any tips for you aside from take it as slowly as you want, there’s no rush.


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## Underneath The Stars (Aug 14, 2020)

nope not the whole island. i don’t have the patience for that, but i know it would be better to work on something like that. i did mine in sections but never got rid of the whole thing, i worked with what i have little by little.


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## skarmoury (Aug 14, 2020)

Like others, I flattened it in sections! Half of my island is still in its glorious pre-terraforming state because I dont't know what to do with it, but the other half has already seen better terraforming days lol.


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## niconii (Aug 15, 2020)

Nope! But I have to admit that I have thought about it but the dedication to rebuild everything, plus the amount of bells needed to move all the buildings and stuff makes my head ache just by thinking about it. That, and I don’t really think I have enough imagination to actually rebuild and turn it into something better than the current layout I have at the moment.


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## caramelpopcorn (Aug 15, 2020)

Yes and it was a waste of time.......


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## neoqueenserenity (Aug 15, 2020)

I am considering it, but know I likely won't do it. I'm terraforming other areas like around villager houses currently and I'll go from there.


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## _Rainy_ (Aug 15, 2020)

It’s tempting, but I don’t think I would want to creat something from nothing. I need them there as a template so I don’t get overwhelmed.


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## Katzenjammer (Aug 15, 2020)

Yes, I have, though it was sort of at the beginning before I had much, so I didn't lose any flowers or fruit trees. I just kept fruit to re-plant and put a few of each type of flower in one corner of the map while I worked, however I am now going to re-do it again and it's pretty bare, but I haven't messed with the terraforming just yet as I have a BIIIIG project and a lot of work ahead of me. I have to say it's quite overwhelming and very daunting but hopefully it will be worth it when it's finished!


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## ZekkoXCX (Aug 15, 2020)

Before I have flattened mine by sections and not the whole island , but at this exact moment it's starting to get tempting the idea to just throw everything to the trash and flatten my island 

The only reason I'm not doing it is because I have too many flowers and it makes me go lazy


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## Skunk (Aug 15, 2020)

Yes, in fact it is currently flat as well! big fan of just flattening everything and starting on a nice plain canvas ;]


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## faerie (Aug 15, 2020)

I flattened fully bc I wanted a clean canvas.


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## Hilbunny (Aug 15, 2020)

I flatten, terraform, and redecorate in sections. One section can take me an entire day...

the whole island at once would be so overwhelming!!!


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## dragonair (Aug 15, 2020)

I've flattened both of my towns when I got super tired of them. I was so frustrated with my first town because I was trying to build on what was already there and I just hated how it looked. I still hated how my island turned out after & I kind of wish I just re-flattened everything but I decided to restart. Once I got terraforming in my new town I immediately flattened everything because I knew I preferred designing that way. It does take quite a bit but it's nice to have something that you can focus on while zoning out for a while~ * v *


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## Insanidee (Aug 15, 2020)

I don’t know how ? Help pls


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## Ace Marvel (Aug 15, 2020)

No I did not, I made it so it was close to its original shape with some modifications. I don't think I have the patience to do that, so I just work around what I already have.


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## *The Oakboro Mayor* (Aug 15, 2020)

Nope! Never did. I think its mainly because I want my old map to still be at least a little intact, and I never really did any heavy terraforming that I was comfortable with. I was never really confident with the idea of terraforming my whole island, so I never thought about flattening it before! It would probably be easier to navigate, but I don't think I would ever flatten my island. I think it would be a really cool thing to see though, so if you end up doing it I would totally love to see some photos!!


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## Theoneandonlymegan (Aug 15, 2020)

I lose motivation really easily so either I would not finish or I would finish and it would just stay empty for weeks


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## Soot Sprite (Aug 16, 2020)

Yup! It was a huge pain but luckily I figured I would be terraforming a lot so I originally put all of the villager houses and shops on the lowest floor to begin with. I don’t even want to think about how many bells I wasted moving buildings and ramps around.


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## awesomeelle2001 (Aug 16, 2020)

I'm currently in the process of doing it now. It's exciting to plan out everything I want but be prepared that if you do lose motivation to keep going, it's gonna hinder your planning experience (or at least it does with me). I want to go on and enjoy events but hate the awkward look of my island right now so don't go on. Best of luck though! It's very rewarding getting to plan out things how you want.


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## Nicole. (Aug 16, 2020)

Soot Sprite said:


> Yup! It was a huge pain but luckily I figured I would be terraforming a lot so I originally put all of the villager houses and shops on the lowest floor to begin with. I don’t even want to think about how many bells I wasted moving buildings and ramps around.



This is what worries me! I have nothing else to spend my bells on though 

	Post automatically merged: Aug 16, 2020



awesomeelle2001 said:


> I'm currently in the process of doing it now. It's exciting to plan out everything I want but be prepared that if you do lose motivation to keep going, it's gonna hinder your planning experience (or at least it does with me). I want to go on and enjoy events but hate the awkward look of my island right now so don't go on. Best of luck though! It's very rewarding getting to plan out things how you want.



That's cool! Are you flattening the entire island or going by sections? Have you had to move any resident homes yet? There's a lot of things I want to shift about on my island, including a lot of the ramps and buildings, and adding more layers and dimension where places are mostly flat and boring.


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## fluttershy300 (Aug 16, 2020)

Yes, all my houses are on the beach and my shops, campsite, and museum are in the back of my island. I destroyed all the cliffs and rivers so I can have a clean canvas.


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## Koi Fishe (Aug 18, 2020)

Yes and I kind of regret it ;-; I wish I just worked with what was already there and I find it hard to make everything seem natural. Honestly might reset!


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## MiniPocketWorld (Aug 18, 2020)

I'd suggest not filling in all your rivers fully. But that is just me. I like to have rugged rivers and I tend to make them too artificial looking. I don't regret flattening and building up though.


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## John Wick (Aug 18, 2020)

I keep thinking about doing it but I know if I did, that would be the end for me.

I hate my island and don't even know what I want anymore.


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## Gracelia (Aug 18, 2020)

I've flattened it twice now. On the third time of re-building and so far, I've been quite content with the outcome!


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## not_sure (Aug 18, 2020)

I "flattened" it... and then built it back up to more resemble a natural island. It's been a pretty big undertaking.

Unfortunately because of the way the camera works I had to make the back of the island the tallest but I think I did a decent job making it look natural and tropical while maintaining the ability to quickly get around. I don't time travel, so I still have a few houses on the beach and ramps to remove and bridges to build. I planned out the terraforming, inclines and bridges with a sketch. it's taken over a week and a lot of time, but I only have about a week left and most of the difficult work is done. Definitely worth the effort.


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## sleepydreepy (Aug 18, 2020)

I've flattened the majority of my island because I too was bored and "stuck" with my original layout that wasn't very well planned out. But I haven't flattened my _entire_ island.


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## Nicole. (Aug 23, 2020)

ZekkoXCX said:


> Before I have flattened mine by sections and not the whole island , but at this exact moment it's starting to get tempting the idea to just throw everything to the trash and flatten my island
> 
> The only reason I'm not doing it is because I have too many flowers and it makes me go lazy



I feel you, flowers are a pain especially when having to shovel them up. Plus, I don't know where to put them all for the time being. A lot of them are having to be thrown away.

	Post automatically merged: Aug 23, 2020



Hilbunny said:


> I flatten, terraform, and redecorate in sections. One section can take me an entire day...
> 
> the whole island at once would be so overwhelming!!!



I flattened one section of my island the other day, and I agree it took me near enough the whole day to do. I think its just gonna be something that I'll pick at here and there everyday until it gets done.


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## Underneath The Stars (Aug 23, 2020)

Gracelia said:


> I've flattened it twice now. On the third time of re-building and so far, I've been quite content with the outcome!



TWICE oh god that's hard work and dedication


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## Nicole. (Aug 23, 2020)

MiniPocketWorld said:


> I'd suggest not filling in all your rivers fully. But that is just me. I like to have rugged rivers and I tend to make them too artificial looking. I don't regret flattening and building up though.



I made this mistake too early on in the game. My rivers now look too boxy and far from natural looking, so I'm in the process right now of redesigning all of my rivers. Before, I patched over my river mouths, which I now regret because as I said it doesn't look very natural. I think I did it because I didn't really like having both river mouths placed in the south, its something I didn't think about when playing from the beginning as I was too excited to just play. With that said, if I were to ever reset I'd look for a different map entirely.


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## WalceDony (Aug 23, 2020)

I've already decorated parts of my cliffs; if I flatten my island I know for a fact I will regret it at some point.
I think I'd be patient enough to do it but I have no idea what I would do with the flattened land


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## nammie (Aug 23, 2020)

No, I just... "flatten" one section at a time, but never my whole island at once, I have way too many hybrids lying around for me to bother flattening everything haha.

I have a general idea of what i want certain areas of my island to look like and I just slowly develop those sections and then find ways to connect areas together.

And I think starting from scratch is sometimes even harder than having something to work off (i.e. existing cliffs and rivers).... it's def more tedious, since I hate terraforming (please nintendo add a box telling me where I'm aiming)


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## pinkfawn (Aug 23, 2020)

Yeah, I flattened mine back in April and it took about a week to get everything terraformed and I used the island designer website. Make sure you have a plan when you flatten it though, my friend flattened hers without mapping out what she wanted and said she regretted it since it was hard to fill in the space. If you don't want to commit to flattening it all though, I'd do segments at a time.


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## Hanif1807 (Aug 23, 2020)

Yeah, but not entirely


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## Lynnatchii (Aug 23, 2020)

I never fully flattened my island, but I have flattened some bits of my island


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## Shellzilla_515 (Aug 23, 2020)

No, but I did try flooding a third of my island once back in April. It took way longer than I expected to achieve the result before reverting back to the normal layout. Many of my villagers were in the way sitting by the river and fishing. Some probably used the rescue services to get to the plaza surrounded by water.



Spoiler: Images of my flooded island + map



Just ignore Sterling who is snoozing on a toilet out in the open.



















There were some patches of land because there was furniture in the way, buildings, flowers, trees, paths I didn't want to destroy, and that I want to retain the default layout of the island when I wanted to go back.


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## MiniPocketWorld (Aug 23, 2020)

Nicole. said:


> I made this mistake too early on in the game. My rivers now look too boxy and far from natural looking, so I'm in the process right now of redesigning all of my rivers. Before, I patched over my river mouths, which I now regret because as I said it doesn't look very natural. I think I did it because I didn't really like having both river mouths placed in the south, its something I didn't think about when playing from the beginning as I was too excited to just play. With that said, if I were to ever reset I'd look for a different map entirely.


Yes it took forever for me to redo my rivers to where I would be ok with them. When I reset in the future, because it will happen eventually for me, I am going to pay closer attention to how my rivers are and only do small edits to them if at all. But my current island feels more like an experiment to me and getting use to AC in general since it is my very first AC game.


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## DJStarstryker (Aug 23, 2020)

No. I feel like this would hurt my creativity more than help it. Working from an established base and modifying it works best for me. A blank slate feels too intimidating. 

Another downside of the flattening thing is how expensive it is with the multiple moves. If you have to move everything to the beach, build stuff, then move it again... That is 2 moves for each building minimum. I had a few buildings I had to move multiple times, but most buildings only had to be moved once.


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## Lotusblossom (Aug 23, 2020)

i need to do this but have been utterly avoiding having to empty my pockets and dig up all the flowers and then i time traveled like a mad man and then had to take a serious serious break.. until i get amiibos... until i get amiibos


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## moonlights (Aug 24, 2020)

no I'd rather just work around what I have and add or remove cliffs as I see fit


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## sunnibunniva (Aug 24, 2020)

I considered it for a bit, but I think I'm just gonna put all my buildings and plants on the cliffs to start the first level from scratch, since that's gonna be a more urban area n needs more exact planning with stuff out of the way. It seems scary to me to flatten everything since I know I want a fairly large cliff area (kinda considering moving the cliffs quite close to the rivers that separate the "tutorial section") and I don't trust myself to make a nice cliff from scratch


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## porkpie28 (Aug 26, 2020)

nope I have not done any work to my island, I am too scared too


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## visibleghost (Aug 26, 2020)

i worked with my map and original cliffs a lot. i definitely did terraform a lot but i kept my cliffs at the back of the island and i did keep some parts of my river relatively intact.

i am however planning on removing everything in the lower parts of my island so i can have a blank slate to start working with when designing those parts, but that's just to make it easier for me.


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## Che5hire Cat (Aug 26, 2020)

I did it once and it was the biggest challenge ever I did to myself. It was around a time where I started to get bothered by too many things, I was just not satisfied with how the island looked anymore. Therefore, I decided to start over completely new, wasted a good amount of bells and time into terraforming and get rid off a lot. I'm still working on certain spots that need some fine details, otherwise I'm glad that I did it, since I got now so many new ideas and inspirations, it helped for sure.


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## Pyoopi (Aug 26, 2020)

Sounds like a real nightmare if I did that. My brain does not work like that when it deals with building things. I need primitive shapes to work with than a vast flat land of nothing.


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