Best Timberborn Maps: Types, Sizes and Layout
Your beaver city building journey starts with finding the best Timberborn maps. If you've not been caught up with the latest early access trend, Timberborn is a lumberpunk city builder, where you control a colony of beavers trying to survive increasingly severe droughts. Depending on your preference, there are various regions on offer to test your ecosystem engineering skills. These are all of the Timberborn maps, including those best for beginners, where our Timberborn power guide also may come in handy.
Timberborn Maps: Plains (256 x 256)
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The plains is the recommended map for first time players. A large, flat, and relatively simple map that offers the easiest start available in Timberborn, it has a single river that flows into a large lake. The starting location is well stocked with resources and comes with plenty of arable land and a relatively narrow, shallow river. This gives you an early boon to agriculture and a few dams along the river can ensure a reliable water supply, even in longer droughts. Smart beavers will even dam the river leading out of the lake giving you a permanent body of water to build around.
Timberborn Maps: Canyon (128 x 128)
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A medium size map that offers slightly more of a challenge, the Canyon features a single river flowing through the bottom of a steep valley. The initial starting area offers a fairly large amount of arable land, but the steep canyon sides mean that this map will require a lot of vertical building. A strategic dam at the first waterfall can give you a large reservoir, keeping your water supply well stocked and opening plenty of options for terraforming with dynamite or canals.
Timberborn Maps: Diorama (50 x 50)
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The smallest map in Timberborn offers a challenge of a different kind - limited space. While you start with easy access to every resource, including steel, the small map size means that each square is vital. You’ll need careful planning and plenty of vertical building to make use of every inch. The key to this tiny map is using levees to create a large reservoir around the base of the waterfall.
Timberborn Maps: Lakes (258 x 258)
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A large map that shows off everything Timberborn has to offer. A river snakes through and splits to form multiple lakes across the map, while the starting area has plenty of arable land and is close to a small lake, but you’ll need to start multiple districts and expand in order to reach the larger bodies of water. Each lake can be dammed and the variations in terrain in this map present plenty of opportunities for terraforming.
Timberborn Maps: Meander (128 x 128)
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A medium map that best suits the steel-hungry Iron Teeth faction and players who like to expand. The starting location has easy access to steel meaning you can make use of Iron Teeth’s unique buildings. Thanks to the large river meandering through the map, there is plenty of arable land with nearby steel deposits, enabling multiple completely self-sufficient beaver cities. The terrain variation also gives plenty of areas to build some impressive structures.
Timberborn Maps: Mountain Range (196 x 196)
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A slightly-bigger-than-medium map that presents a real challenge for more experienced beavers. With a small river cutting through a large mountain range, this map offers very little initial arable land. This means that you will be limited on space until you can start some serious terraforming. You will also need to travel a fair distance before you can even begin to start collecting any steel. Some well placed levees around the starting area waterfalls can give you two sizeable reservoirs to farm around, but creative building will be needed to make the most of the space on offer.
Timberborn Maps: Terraces (256 x 256)
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A large map with a series of plateaus and a single, snaking river that flows through the lower parts of the map. A slightly easier version of the mountain range map, with a similar level of verticality but way more arable land available. The plateaus do give the perfect opportunity for some seriously impressive builds - picture mega dams connecting plateaus.
Timberborn Maps: Thousand Islands (256 x 256)
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A large archipelago that offers one of the most interesting challenges in Timberborn - this map is essentially a large sea with several barely connected islands and features the most water of any map. The Thousand Islands map also features the most impressive drought transformation in the game. The amount of water means that, at least during the wet season, you’ll have plenty of arable land, however, you’ll need to get creative with platforms and bridges if you want to claim more islands and expand. The key here is to dam around the deeper sections of water and build your structures on the water with platforms to save space.
Timberborn Maps: Waterfalls (128 x 128)
Click to enlargeA relatively easy, medium size map that offers an interesting mix of terrain with a large impressive waterfall. The starting area has a large amount of flat, arable land giving you plenty of space to grow food. While the map has limited terraforming chances, the two large waterfalls would make the perfect backdrop for some impressive builds which is perfect for those who want to play a map slightly more interesting than the Plains.
Each map in Timberborn is unique, with different sizes and layouts there are plenty of options for players of varying skill levels. If you are just starting out, stick to the Plains and Waterfalls - these maps should give you a good feel for the game and help you get the basics down. If you are looking for something more challenging then give Canyon or Terraces a try. For something unique, try Thousand Islands or Diorama. If you just want to see everything that Timberborn has to offer in one playthrough, then Lakes is your best bet and if you are really looking to flex your beaver skills then give Mountain Range a go.