What do you look for in a starting map?

[mayor-rain]

I know everyone might be planning their maps in their head, but I was wondering what made a truly good starting map? I'm planning more on winging it, so I'm wondering what I should look for.

 

[Fey]

I honestly wouldn’t know at this point. Something that looks great could be more inconvenient for me later on, while a bland map might leave more possibilities open.

If you don’t care too much about terraforming or a specific look though, I’d say just pick based on what feels right. In NL for example, the maps I chose just stood out to me as “the one” somehow.

 

[John Wick]

For me it's the river.
I don't want a three way split.

If all the maps are like that, I'll look for one that has two large sections of land, and I can eventually fill in the third river.

 

[TheRealWC]

Agree that I don’t want a giant river. I want to maximize as much useable land as possible without having to terraform. Also, having the plaza in a central location would be nice.

 

[Jhine7]

Now that we have the option to terraform, what I'm looking for is the river outlets to the ocean to both be at the bottom, and for Nook Services (assuming we can't relocate) to be off-center, bottom-half, preferably left-side of the map. This will go with my planned town design perfectly.

 

[meggiewes]

I would like a river outlet at the bottom and a river outlet at the side. I just think that combination looks nice.

 

[Iced_Holly]

Assuming we can't move river exists, I want them to be spread out. More specifically, I want one at the top of the map and one at the bottom and the third on either side, far enough from the other two.

 

[jim]

i always pay the most attention to the location of waterfalls and how rivers split the village (or in this case island).

 

[Noctis]

the river and the ponds. I had 3 ponds in my first town and that wasn't very cool. I want 1 pond if possible.

 

[John Wick]

Just a quick question on river mouths.

Say we don't want the third river, and we fill it in, can we fill in a river mouth do you think?

 

[Khaelis]

I don't think any of you want to read a five-thousand word essay showing how incredibly picky I can be with Animal Crossing maps, so I'll just give a general list I'm going to look for, specifically for New Horizons:

- Two river exits in a workable spot, in case they can't be removed and relocated.
- Resident Services is in a decent area if it can't be relocated.
- Permanent rocks aren't in obnoxious spots, if they can't be relocated. Basically, not too close to each other; evenly spaced out.
- Preferably Apple is the native fruit, but I can settle with Oranges or Pears.

 

[sunchild]

how the rivers split the land is the main thing i look for first. i like to have sizable chunks of land. also a central resident services/town hall area (assuming that we won't be able to move it)

 

[Stevey Queen]

I think I?m just gonna focus on each tier of the island to have plenty of space. Don?t need to worry about too much with terraforming available

 

[Khaelis]

I think I’m just gonna focus on each tier of the island to have plenty of space. Don’t need to worry about too much with terraforming available

You do need to factor in a few things, considering you'll be stuck with your current island for a certain amount of time. Namely, what I mentioned in my post above. Any of those could really mess you up.

I'm not saying you need to look for something perfect, just make sure you'll like it since you'll be stuck with it for a while and will need to eventually work around its issues when you unlock terraforming.

 

[LeAckerman]

I know that we can add more land to our town later on but at the beginning I'm just looking for a lot of land to work with. As for ponds, I'm hoping for 2 maximum and one stream for the river

 

[Stevey Queen]

You do need to factor in a few things, considering you'll be stuck with your current island for a certain amount of time. Namely, what I mentioned in my post above. Any of those could really mess you up.

I'm not saying you need to look for something perfect, just make sure you'll like it since you'll be stuck with it for a while and will need to eventually work around its issues when you unlock terraforming.

That’s true. I have an idea where I want the resident services plaza but honestly I’m not going to stress that much. And I hope rocks aren’t permanent. After all the feedback they’ve listened to us from us it would suck if rocks are still permanent.

 

[Khaelis]

That’s true. I have an idea where I want the resident services plaza but honestly I’m not going to stress that much. And I hope rocks aren’t permanent. After all the feedback they’ve listened to us from us it would suck if rocks are still permanent.

Would be nice if we could just move them. Especially if they're on higher tiers, it'd basically mean you can't raise or lower that section of the island if you can't relocate them. That will DEFINITELY hinder a fair bit of creative freedom.

 

[Garrett]

I look for good movement walking through, so no meandering rivers or narrow stretches of land for me.

 

[Winona]

Just a quick question on river mouths.

Say we don't want the third river, and we fill it in, can we fill in a river mouth do you think?

I don't think we can. Also I don't think we can remove/relocate the big rocks on the beach. Therefore, we should choose our starting maps wisely!

 

[Scrafty]

a river that doesn't take over the whole map is the main thing for me. i also want part of the higher tiers to be either on the west or east side of the map.