# Timberborn **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 3, 2025, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161 "2025-06-03T10:53:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/1 "2025-06-03T10:53:09Z")
We have a bit of a discussion going in the [Video Games You’ve Played Recently](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546) thread. I’m going to flag those posts asking for a mod to move those posts over to here. I request not posting here until that’s done. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2025, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/2 "2025-05-11T18:59:02Z")
[Timberborn](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1062090/Timberborn/), the beaver-powered city builder and waterworks simulator, recently got a [major update](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1062090/view/579383283382486203) that adds ziplines, tunnels, hyperloop public transit, multi-layer buildings, and more. It was already the best 2.5d dam-building colony sim you could find, and I’m excited to go back and try the latest update. The dam-building is what I really enjoy about this game vs other generic city builders. The beavers can build dams, block-by-block, that completely alter the flow of water through the landscape. A dammed river will dynamically overflow into its adjacent valleys, creating fertile floodplains but also potentially flooding your settlements and forests. The water flow simulation adds a lot to the game as you try to route water around mountains and into valleys so that you can build your power turbines and riverside bath lodges without accidentally drowning your new settlement of baby beavers. There is also polluted water that isn’t potable but can still be used for power, or filtered into useful minerals/resources later on. The terrain manipulation is awesome, and is an integral part of the gameplay in a way that Cities: Skylines or SimCity never quite took advantage of. In Timberborn, water is life, is power, is a resource, a threat, all of it, and the entire town revolves around the seasonal and annual changes in water supply. [![](https://shared.fastly.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/1062090/ss_480ff44e833c92e27f4ad152b0bda1cb0af5e0b5.1920x1080.jpg?t=1746793926) ](https://shared.fastly.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/1062090/ss_480ff44e833c92e27f4ad152b0bda1cb0af5e0b5.1920x1080.jpg?t=1746793926) [![](https://shared.fastly.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/1062090/ss_cca7dabf0bcc4d9f509d6069ea51e4fdff54bdc6.1920x1080.jpg?t=1746793926) ](https://shared.fastly.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/1062090/ss_cca7dabf0bcc4d9f509d6069ea51e4fdff54bdc6.1920x1080.jpg?t=1746793926) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/3 "2025-05-21T15:25:56Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > [Timberborn](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1062090/Timberborn/), the beaver-powered city builder and waterworks simulator, recently got a [major update](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1062090/view/579383283382486203) that adds ziplines, tunnels, hyperloop public transit, multi-layer buildings, and more. It was already the best 2.5d dam-building colony sim you could find, and I’m excited to go back and try the latest update. I saw it on sale on Steam, and it looked like it might be the kind of game I like. Huh. It turns out it’s the kind of game that I freaking _love_. My first few villages fell apart. Then I started Village of the Dammed, and did pretty well until I hit a drought and forgot to adjust one particular set of sluices, and my reservoir drained away and everyone died of thirst. So I started a new village, Damalot, and got to the point where I had multiple reservoirs, robot beavers, and nightly beaver dance-offs. I’ve started a new village, Damsylvania, just to get back to the challenging parts. I don’t know how much longer I’ll play it–once the challenge is gone on a map its interest fades–but goddam does it do its particular job well. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/4 "2025-05-21T15:45:38Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I don’t know how much longer I’ll play it How many “dam” puns you have left will probably be the determining factor. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/5 "2025-05-21T15:54:22Z")
> [@ShadowFacts](#): > > How many “dam” puns you have left will probably be the determining factor. You get me. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/6 "2025-05-21T21:03:42Z")
I have almost bought it a few times, but keep getting scared off by Early Access. Does it appear to be incomplete still, or do you think it’ll just be a polish pass to reach full release? Not that I haven’t bought other Early Access games, of course. I just haven’t played them yet. (Enshrouded, Manor Lords, etc…) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2025, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/7 "2025-05-21T21:14:58Z")
I have gotten 30 hours of excellent gameplay out of it. It feels like a complete game, and like future updates will essentially be free DLC. I am very happy with the entertainment it has given me, and will continue to give me. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/8 "2025-06-02T23:42:13Z")
> [@Video Games You've Played Recently](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/569): > > Timberborn > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Village of the Dammed > [@Video Games You've Played Recently](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/915): > > Timberborn Just started it myself. Pretty nice so far. I didn’t know what I was doing at all at first, but my beavers managed to survive through several droughts and badtides despite having no functional storage/sluice system. Things are running very smoothly now, with a large 3-deep reservoir that’s enough to carry me through almost any crisis. Beaver happiness is about +40 and there’s still much to do. The water management is indeed nice. But I really crave some ONI-style (Oxygen Not Included) automation now so I don’t have to manually manage sluice heights. I’d really like to see analog gates and arithmetic functions supported by their power transmission system. I.e., sums, differences, thresholding, etc. using blocks that take in a power axle and output one at a different speed. Or maybe some other mechanical transmission like a lever (or even water?). I shouldn’t have to handhold my dams at this point. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/9 "2025-06-03T00:01:17Z")
I haven’t even built my first dam yet. Apparently I’m playing it wrong. After restarting I’m up to 71 beavers. So far I have been dealing with droughts and badtides with three large water pumps and three medium water tanks for water, and six medium warehouses full of food: three for carrots and three for berries. I have planted approaching 300 carrots maintained by three farms, plus four gathering posts at four different berry patches. I even tried putting a forester down just to fill in the berry patches completely, which does seem to work. I’ve mostly been toying around with science, well-being and decorations as I try and come up with a town layout I’m happy with. I am positively swimming in logs – my three large piles of logs have been maxed at 180 for several cycles now – but I’m forever short on planks. Basically every time I unlock a new item (particularly monuments that grant area of effect bonuses) I have an irresistible urge to redesign my entire town, lol. I just now in the last hour of play mined my very first metal. And the only reason is because I want to replace my medium water tanks with a large because the droughts are getting longer. But I guess the real solution is supposed to be to use dams to create reservoirs. I’ll get to that eventually… ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/10 "2025-06-03T00:09:01Z")
Yeah, I sorta started out that way, covering the droughts with food/water storage. So I survived. But, you know, beavers build dams. And so I built them. And later, not just dams, but entirely separate diversion systems to sluice away the badwater. Now I have plenty of clean water at all times, enough to cover 10 days of drought/badtide at least, and that’s still not counting food storage. The only trouble is that I want to keep an even water level near the city, while only doling out as much as possible from the main reservoir. And I only want to release enough water to supply the farms and such, and not so much to power the water wheels (i.e., I don’t want it to drain out the end). Therefore I have to manually adjust the water releases. But all of this could be automated with simple logic gates, a la ONI or Factorio. I’d love to see a mechanical or pneumatic take on the concept. Not looking for a full fledged computer system. Just enough to reduce the handholding. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/11 "2025-06-03T07:20:51Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > But I really crave some ONI-style (Oxygen Not Included) automation now so I don’t have to manually manage sluice heights. Can’t you set it in the menu? [![](https://timberborn.wiki.gg/images/thumb/f/ff/Sluice_Menu.jpg/320px-Sluice_Menu.jpg?430154) ](https://timberborn.wiki.gg/images/thumb/f/ff/Sluice_Menu.jpg/320px-Sluice_Menu.jpg?430154) (From [https://timberborn.wiki.gg/wiki/Sluice#Usage](https://timberborn.wiki.gg/wiki/Sluice#Usage)) Edit: Did you maybe only unlock the floodgates so far, and not yet the sluices? They are a separate, researchable block. > [@Video Games You've Played Recently](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-youve-played-recently/968546/919): > > The only trouble is that I want to keep an even water level near the city, while only doling out as much as possible from the main reservoir. And I only want to release enough water to supply the farms and such, and not so much to power the water wheels (i.e., I don’t want it to drain out the end). Therefore I have to manually adjust the water releases. Hmm, it’s been a while since I played, but I think I usually got around those situations with the aforementioned sluice controls plus diversion ponds that I manually create, of a set depth (or with walls of a set height), i.e. make my own optimal planting areas with digging, terrain blocks, and dynamite. With the new 3D features (which I haven’t tried yet) it should be even easier, hopefully? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/12 "2025-06-03T08:34:54Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Can’t you set it in the menu? Huh! Quite so. I had unlocked the sluice, but based on the description it looked pointless. It only came in a single-high variety and the description made it sound like it was only useful for letting water one way but not another. I can see now that they have the options from your screenshot _and_ that they’re infinitely stackable. Cool. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/13 "2025-06-03T17:53:32Z")
Am I understanding correctly that you have to build explosives before you can really do anything in terms of redirecting water? I get the impression you’re supposed to be able to start landscaping much earlier than I’m thinking, particularly on harder difficulties. It just seems like getting to explosives is a pretty significant undertaking, which seems daunting to me in the early days. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/14 "2025-06-03T17:56:57Z")
You can definitely start redirecting water in the early game by removing natural dirt blocks and adding your own, and then soon after that, adding floodgate and sluice blocks. You can also use pumps to manage water flow. With enough of them, you can suck up all the water in a smaller stream and move it elsewhere (it’s just less efficient than gravity-based flows, of course). What the explosives do is let you remove larger chunks of terrain and entirely redirect rivers… I can’t remember off the top of my head if there were other ways to do that in the early game, like if you can “dig” grass/rock tiles that aren’t of the “soft dirt” variety. The latest update adds even more options with tunnels and aqueducts, but I haven’t played it enough yet to know how that changes the overall strategy. The wiki has a category on the fluids system: [https://timberborn.wiki.gg/wiki/Category:Fluids#Water](https://timberborn.wiki.gg/wiki/Category:Fluids#Water) (and there are probably many YouTube videos on the topic too) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/15 "2025-06-03T17:57:10Z")
I started dams long before I got explosives. Basically, look at the natural contours of the land and find a natural basin that can be dammed to form a lake. Between that, floodgates, and sluices, you can do a tremendous amount of landscaping. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/16 "2025-06-03T17:57:29Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > You can definitely start redirecting water in the early game by removing natural dirt blocks Wait, what? How do you remove natural dirt blocks? ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/17 "2025-06-03T18:06:32Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Wait, what? How do you remove natural dirt blocks? Sorry, I don’t mean any generic brown terrain block, but specifically the “blockage” block across some streams: [https://timberborn.wiki.gg/wiki/Blockage](https://timberborn.wiki.gg/wiki/Blockage) It looks different from regular terrain, but can be removed with the “demolish” command. These special blocks only spawn near certain water channels where the game “wants” you to demolish them and redirect water. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/18 "2025-06-03T18:10:32Z")
Oh! Okay, that answers my question. I was specifically thinking of those blocks. (I’m still just playing the first map.) I set up a path to them and marked them for demolish, but I thought I had to get dynamite to actually do the demolishing so I unset it to leave it for later. I’ll set it back to demolish and let it run. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/19 "2025-06-03T20:14:28Z")
Watch out, though. Sometimes you can get your beavers stuck on the wrong side of a stream, or even in the middle of one. Helps to build platforms beside the blockage so they can get back when necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161/20 "2025-06-03T21:27:26Z")
You also have to build a road to the blockage or it might be considered out of range. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/timberborn/1019161.md?page=2)