The very first decision you make in Town Star is a crucial one as the plot of land you choose will affect how you can and should develop your town. The game tries hard to and succeeds in being realistic and you should keep this in mind while studying the game. Things here should make sense logically. Knowing this alongside proper trial and error should have you progressing at a good pace if you want to discover things on your own, but if you want to breeze through things and find out right here right now how everything works, well, read on! 

Quick note: If you aren’t happy with your life decisions you can click the globe icon at the lower left side of your screen to return to the world map, click your town, then click the nuke button. You’ll be able to start over and choose a new plot of land to start in. No workers will be harmed in the process. 

There are 3 criteria to consider for location selection – the biome you’ll be building on, what surrounds that biome, and distance. We’ll go through each one.

A) Biome:

Each usable tile in the world map represents a 16 x 16 plot of land which can be one of three kinds of biomes: Forests, Plains, or Deserts. Each one offers you a different set of initial resources which make certain products more viable.

• Forests (Easy Start)
  • These biomes have a lot of ponds and a lot of trees. This gives you an advantage in getting industrial products quicker.
  • Considered an easy start because it offers you a variety of options for money early game.
  • Early money in forests comes from being able to sell your ponds for $5000 each and the abundance of trees provides a steady source of income in wood which should keep you afloat even if you make bad decisions early on. More money early allows you to experiment faster which will help you figure out how things work in less time. 
  • Demands more from you financially once you start expanding your town because clearing the trees cost a hefty sum.
• Plains (Average Start)
  • Have only 2 ponds, significantly fewer trees, but a field full of pastures.
  • This is advantageous if you’re looking to produce products which would require farm animals. 
• Deserts (Difficult Start)
  • Have no trees, no ponds, but you do get an oil seep.
  • The presence of the oil seep greatly raises your potential for oil production, but lacking a source of fresh water makes things difficult. You also have the option to sell the oil seep for a quick $25,000.

B) Surroundings:

What you can produce and how efficiently you can make them is also affected by what surrounds the plot of land you choose. These plots you can select on the world map but cannot build on. Currently the ground tiles on the map are colored based on particular effects to communicate that there is something there to consider and you’ll notice this with these surrounding tiles! Brown coastlines will indicate fresh water, and white will represent sandy salty ocean.

• Oceans (Salt Water)
  • You can’t grow things near a salty ocean. They do however speed up the production of brine.
  • Being surrounded by ocean plots essentially make you an island which means you’ll have to transport your products over water.
  • Being by water (even fresh water) automatically has you starting with a Trade Pier instead of a Trade Depot, those two are practically the same but being by water allows you to purchase a Freight Pier which will allow you to carry more products for the same amount of gas.

• Rivers (Fresh Water)
  • Just think of them as one huge pond at the edge of your map that provide fresh water to whatever sits next to them. 
• Mountains
  • They’re tall, and therefore they block wind and cast shade. This concepts will hold for buildings as well, but mountains are huge so they cast a 5 tile wide shade.
  • They give you the opportunity to build mines (to produce iron, steel), which you can’t do anywhere else.

• BoxCoin Mines
  • These aren’t the same mines you can build next to mountains, these mines can only be utilized if you own a Farmbot. No point sticking next to these plots unless you own one.
  • Here Farmbots will be able to mine BoxCoins, the premium in-game currency.
    • There are only 1000 complete Farmbot units and you have to collect all the necessary parts to build one by purchasing the parts in the marketplace, opting to buy one whole at a premium price, or winning the weekly competitions.
    • These are extremely rare and extremely valuable. You can also acquire parts by purchasing nodes and supporting the Gala blockchain.
  • When you’re in your town, nearby BoxCoin Mines show up as Forests. Though it makes more sense for them to show up as mountains they’re designed as they are since mountains can’t be pathed upon. The FarmBot has to be able to path to that world square to mine BoxCoin.

Bonus: Plots of land you can find but currently serve no purpose.

• Ice
  • All they have on them is a snowman.
  • No news yet on how being close to ice will affect your town.
• Bridges
  • They’re mainly aesthetic for now, they turn out similar to the bodies of water they’re on if you build your town next to one.

C. Distance:

• When I say distance I’m primarily referring to proximity from cities to which you sell your products. The farther the cities are from your town, the longer it takes to transport them and the more gas you will need to do so.
• The extremes is being in an island far far away as you can see in the picture above. Being on an isolated island the closest city was Los Angeles and it costs $20,500 and 5 gas to sell your products. Do note that you only start with $25,000 and 40 gas.
• Distance to other players also matters. This is because we are given the option to deliver products to our neighboring towns. This will be crucial for team play once this aspect of the game is incorporated. 

As I’m sure you now know Location Selection matters, and depending on which products you’ll be aiming for and what strategies you’re planning to utilize, you’ll have to find the best spot for your purposes. Your choice matters, and making the right one just might be the advantage you need to be the next Town Star.