Help with Tropical Paradise?

[veressl94]

I've been playing on Giant's Trial and I can three-star just about anything but the Tropical Paradise. No matter what strategy I set out with, I just can't seem to get close to three stars - each time I do Tropical Paradise, I barely eke the two stars out. Are there any combos I should be on the look out for? Any particular leader-biome set-ups that cater to this era?

[skyknyt]

Start with Pirate Queen or Botanist.
Why?
Both have excellent mystery scaling, and their starting bonuses are good for our goals. If you go Botanist you definitely want your third biome to be forest. He can boost Orange Trees to truly absurd heights.

Giants:
Swamp, Ocean, (Frost or Rock)

The Apex biotica you're saving your rerolls for:
Rainforest: Harpy, Cacao
Ocean: Dolphin, Great White Shark, Reef Shark (esp if you started Pirate Queen)
Savannah: Secretary Bird

The forest exception:
Let me argue for having 30% of your planet be Forest instead of Savannah, and getting the Orange Tree apex biotica, which has great synergy with the rest of era.
If you start Swamp giant, you can even use invasive spot to get a Secretary bird for the bird bonuses in forest, since Ocean giant can create forest in the second era.

Earlier era drafts should focus on mystery, birds, fruit, and reef biotica. Your goal is to set up some ridiculous worldwide bonuses for the final era - synergies around fruit, mystery, predators, birds, and animal tags.

You want leaders with strong scaling around mystery - Pirate Queen, Botanist, Merchant. Mystery lets you get science and population without necessarily drafting for it, and birds and reef both typically grant mystery.

[Flotch]

I went and looked at my completed 3-star Tropical world to see what I used to finish it. I used Swamp, Savanna, and Rock giants, and started with Goddess for some reason. I guess that proves you can do things in entirely different ways in this game and still achieve success!

My world is about 50% jungle, 25% savanna and 25% desert. Jungle with a sage and botanist settled in it proved very powerful. Make sure to grab sage and botanist as leaders--if not at the start, then later on--their emblems and buildings boost food a lot. Cafe and Jam Maker are both absurdly good buildings for this challenge. My botanist's Jam Maker produces 2380 bonus food...

My main food production was from Guarana and Mango in the forest, as well as 2 White Rhino in savanna and another in rainforest with invasive spot. Jabuticaba was essential for meeting the other requirements, I had 5 of them with 3x fruit tag each due to having enough animals (birds) nearby. Despite the phrasing, it's 24 fruit/reef/bird TAGS you need, not biotica.

[skyknyt]

I did it again, starting Pirate Queen, and got a Sage. I overlooked Sage in my first post, thought his mystery bonus was 3 science, 4 food. He actually gets 5 food per mystery!
So, at the Sage City, I put a Surgeon Fish biotica, which generated 156 mystery after the pirate queen bonus and micro.

During the Tropical Paradise era, in a Sage city, this is what you get for 156 mystery:
156 * (8+5) = 2028 food
156 * 3 = 468 science

It's also worth noting that inventions and trade routes are worth +2 Population. Not food, flat bonus population. Any science and gold you generate will turn into extra population towards the star requirements.

[eharper256]

I just did this without a single Ocean (lol), just pure rainforest and savannah (well okay, 4 tiles of desert in there as well just for a pile of gems on to break up two Savannah), with a big Bird and Fruit focus. Secretary Bird was the MVP (bonus per bird), since I had 20 odd birbs in the world, so the two Secretaries generated around 1.5K food each with some micros added. One Harpy as well for the mystery dump on Sage.

Started Huntress, got Diplomat, Sage, and then also got a 4th city with Merchant (after 3 world expansions for room) simply because a 4th city is easier to get Population levels in, and that was a big contributor (also needed for Diplomat Level 4 anyways, and her Hotel helped alot then). Went via Neolithic Food Age and then Calm Era to keep the focus mostly food/pop based throughout.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/46824307719011106/539A29EA2A7C6441FFD69650D95F61F0FDE236E3/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

[Yoda]

I did it by taking Pirate Queen and focusing on mystery (the tropical clubs convert mystery to food in each city on top of leader bonus). World was about 50% rainforest, 30% ocean, and 20% desert. Miner was on desert Coast, Pirate Queen on jungle coast. Botanist was in the middle of the jungle.

I I had a bottle-nosed dolphin and Christmas tree coral generate most of my mystery for the Pirate Queen. A second dolphin and dysprosium provided most mystery for miner. Pirate Queen micro tags + planet spirit bonus are key here because they give huge boosts to mystery generation. In total, Pirate Queen had 535 mystery and miner had 321. Within miner's borders, I focused on minerals which led to high mystery yields from Christmas Tree Coral and Dysprosium. Seep community can help with Ocean biodiversity requirements.

You can also get a huge amount of food in the rainforest with the Tapirs (I had two). Otherwise, rainforest was filled with animals (boosting dolphins) and plants (boosting Tapirs).

[veressl94]

Thanks for the answers. Haven't attempted it again yet, but you've given me some great tips.

[veressl94]

I finally did it T_T And funnily enough I didn't even go for any specific set-up: I did it in the Daily. Botanist starter accompanied by the Goddess and the General. Swamp, Savanna, and Desert Giants; Scarlet Macaw, Index Fossil, and Dromedary Camel starter draft. Went Monument for the Goddess, Castle Age, and then Tropical Paradise.

Funnily enough, the MVP of the game ended up... the Taiga! I've been trying to experiment with having more than three biomes, a strategy I've become interested in due to the new Age of Discovery. Botanist went Rainforest/Desert (decided to try that with the Dromedary), Goddess went Desert/Savanna, and with drafting the General third I decided to plan for a Savanna/Taiga for him just to see if I can make it work (and also not wanting to share the Rainforest with the Botanist since they both like food and I didn't want to screw myself on biodiversity).

And what a great call because focusing on animals with the General paid off tremendously once I drafted the Strawberry which ended up bringing in about 1400 food by itself. Other MVPs were the Secretary Bird, the Cacao Tree, and the Guarana. Plus a ~3300 Jam Maker.

I'll chalk the win up to the fact that I'm getting savvier with the game with how and what tiles I upgrade, spending more time on thinking through the consequences on my drafting choices, and all the ideas and strats you've shared with me, so thanks again!

I ended up with a population of 307. I do think the Cataclysm update might've been a big help here with the new Giant shrines and the war system because basically all they fought for was population so I was able to convert 1-2 pop into more OR give mysteries out which gives extra food with the Tropical Paradise effect. But I did have four unused micro charges left and plenty of money to use the giant abilities before finishing the planet, so I think I would've got there eventually.

[thibaulthc]

I can't 3-star it because it doesn't account for the double and triple tags for Reef Birds and Fruits, is it a bug?

[Eunomiac]

I definitely found the Ocean Giant's "Create Anomaly" (double all tags in a patch) to be very useful in bumping up the numbers of tags you need; IIRC the rest is just a matter of focusing on Population.

[Space Lord]

I had less than 500 prosperity with 4 cities, and needed to fulfill the fruit, coral or bird requirement. Started spamming papaya and for some reason they all had 40 mystery on them. By the end I jumped to 960 prosperity. I believe pears also had 40 mystery. Could not figure out why.