Stuck on trying for a 6+ Lake on Savanna Level 2, RNG seems to be screwing me. Game Balance issue?

[Gandheezy]

I've played through Level 2 of the Savanna now 6 times. Each time, i get to ~1400, use all 10 tiles, and only get 4-5 lakes before I entirely run out of room and have to just restart the level because there's no further way to get points. I feel like the RNG is kind of screwing me here, I'm just not getting lakes soon enough to physically put them down. Any tips? Or is this a game balance issue.

[barbazek]

Try to create 24 length river before. You can combine few streams or expand one by add new river cards to end of stream.
Edit. I don't remember now if it is necessery to reach next milestone. But you can create more then 1 river (both at least 24). I assume, 1 river 24+ length should be enough.

Exchange animal cards to manage 3 different kind bonus in every habitat.

[oldladygreybun]

Originally posted by Gandheezy:

I've played through Level 2 of the Savanna now 6 times. Each time, i get to ~1400, use all 10 tiles, and only get 4-5 lakes before I entirely run out of room and have to just restart the level because there's no further way to get points. I feel like the RNG is kind of screwing me here, I'm just not getting lakes soon enough to physically put them down. Any tips? Or is this a game balance issue.

Definitely not a game balance issue. Like barbazek says, prioritise your river. The lakes are not the main driver to get past mid-game, although the 6-lake is necessary for a good score (Gold and above). So - get your river to first 12 length, and prioritise getting it to 24, and good habitat placement so you get as much as possible out of your river adjacency scores. I.e. no sharp bends in the river, and keep it surrounded on all sides by habitat (keep river away from your map edges).

[oldladygreybun]

If you post a screenshot here of one of your 'best efforts', you could maybe get some useful pointers from the community on any fairly obvious improvements, at least.

And I wonder if you're aware that there is a guide in the Guide's section on the game forum here. Which contains, among other things, scoring tables for the various biomes (so far for the 3 EA biomes), which can be useful in helping you think through priorities and tradeoffs in how you use your cells.

Best wishes !

[oldladygreybun]

And re. barbazek's comment: " I assume, 1 river 24+ length should be enough."

Yes, definitely, 1 river of at least 24 cells length is enough.
One 24-river, as soon as you can, and then, usually into the second half of the game, you'll get (one by one) enough lakes to put your 6-lake together.
[EDIT: And when I say 'as soon as you can', keep in mind that for the 'dry' habitat (bush and mountain) you have to place the habitat down first, before you place down your river. So: plan out where you want your river to go, put down the 'dry' habitat you need along it, and then put your river length down.]

If you place all your river and lakes properly, so that you get full adjacency points for surrounding habitat, and you get 3-unique animals in all your habitats, then you should be fine to reach all 3 achievement levels in the Savanna Medium maps.

[Gandheezy]

Thanks for the help! Had to do another retry but I got 6+ lakes in my hand before I even got my last tile. Definitely needed the advice to prioritize the river and keep extending the same one rather than to make new little ones, I didn't even know you could do that. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3487568196

[oldladygreybun]

Originally posted by Gandheezy:

Definitely needed the advice to prioritize the river and keep extending the same one rather than to make new little ones, I didn't even know you could do that.

oh dear, no wonder you were struggling !

[Gandheezy]

Originally posted by oldladygreybun:

perhaps you have no need for the 'step-by-step' I made, then?
so I can remove it?
or do you want a little bit of time to look at it first?

oh yeah all good, I did reference it ! you can take it down, thanks

[oldladygreybun]

removed
happy it helped you along a bit :-)

[Kamigami]

You'll always end up with a bunch of excess rivers too; don't forget that these can be traded for lakes.

[oldladygreybun]

kamaigami has a valid point, although that's more for the end-game, really, and not a major point in the first half of the game, trying to move ahead to get those card drops. But earlyish planning for a few 'holes' they could fit into in the end-game, is worthwhile to give an extra bump to your final score (especially in the Medium map size).

But first to get your river and habitats and 3-unique priorities

[mbutton15]

Originally posted by Kamigami:

You'll always end up with a bunch of excess rivers too; don't forget that these can be traded for lakes.

Never seen a mechanism for trading for lakes.
Or is simply a case of building a 1 tile river?

[oldladygreybun]

Originally posted by mbutton15:

Never seen a mechanism for trading for lakes.

Really?! You just haven't noticed is - it's been there the whole time :-)

[oldladygreybun]

In the card swap pop-up window, EDIT: I My current savegame doesn't have a swap (the Weekly Challenge), so I can't doublecheck exactly what it looks like, but it's there!

Go take a look ;-)

[mbutton15]

Originally posted by oldladygreybun:

In the card swap pop-up window, the bottom of the lefthand side tabs, this shows swaps btw rivers and ponds.
Go take a look ;-)

Wow!!
Never noticed those tabs on the left!!

Mm, Maybe now I can push on to 4500 in Continental Large. Last time I had around 30 of the lowlands only biome at the end and had already maxed out their wonders. And was less than 100 points from the 3900 milestone.