Terra Nil Walkthrough – All Regions

Terra Nil is a world-building sim-style game in which you bring life back to a series of desolate wastelands. The twist here is that while you use technology to reintroduce natural biomes back to the land, and then follow it with animal life, you then need to remove all of your structures to complete each region. If you’re looking for a bit of a steer to get to the bottom of this puzzle, we can provide a full Terra Nil walkthrough of all four regions.

Below is our full Temperate Region walkthrough. For later regions check out:

• Region 2: Terra Nil Tropical Region walkthrough
• Region 3: Terra Nil Polar Region walkthrough
• Region 4: Terra Nil Continental Region walkthrough

Terra Nil Walkthrough – Temperate Region

The first region you’ll need to tackle is the Temperate Region. You’ll first need to restore enough plant life and clean water for the project to take hold, before introducing three biomes (fynbos, wetlands, and forests). Next, you’ll need to reintroduce at least three different animal types (out of a possible six), before removing all of your terraforming structures.

Related: Best Tips and Tricks for Beginners in Terra Nil

If you want to fully complete all of the game goals, you’ll want to introduce all six animal types as well as meet seven optional climate conditions. But this does not have to be done to progress, so you can meet these marks on later playthroughs. Each region has a second, more difficult map that will be introduced after you complete the game for the first time, so you can always complete these additional goals then.

How to Restoring Water and Greenery

Before you begin, we suggest you read the region information below in full. Raised ground and trees are requirements for particular types of biomes and animals, so making yourself aware of their locations and what you want to do with them from the beginning is important. Another point of note is later you will be burning areas of greenery to ash to make way for forests. The only things that stop a controlled burn are water, wasteland, and stone, so keep that in mind when making new riverbeds.

Turbines are your source of power in the Temperate Region, and they can only be built on rock, so place them wisely. They have a good coverage area, so try not to place them too close to the edge of the map if you don’t need to. Once you’ve placed a single Turbine, consider if you need to add a riverbed to the area. You’ll want to do so now if required, as an Excavator will damage the land it is placed on. This is frustrating if you’ve just turned it into greenery and end up having to change it back! Just be sure that any Excavator used digs a trench that reaches your main waterway. This will be important when recycling later.

Water means Calcifiers, which means more Turbines

Now place three to four Toxin Scrubbers at your first Turbine’s outer power reach limits, then place Irrigators as efficiently as possible to turn the detoxified land to greenery. The most important thing to note here is that using Irrigators earns you income. This is why it is best to place and use one Turbine at a time. If you place them well, you can recoup most of your spend when you use the Irrigators. You’ll see a green number displaying how much income you’ll receive as you move your Irrigator into different positions, so use this as a placement guide. A red number means you’ll actually lose money.

Related: Which Approach is best in Terra Nil?

Good placement of a Water Pump should also pay for itself, as it will create a thin layer of greenery next to the water which again earns income. Try to only place them once you’ve put any new riverbeds in place. Also, once you have water you can use the Calcifier to make more rocks, which allows you to place Turbines in areas you couldn’t previously.  

Finally, don’t be scared off by the requirement to cover 100 percent of greenery. This percentage doesn’t mean the whole map. Rather, it is showing you what percentage of greenery required you have completed so far. In reality, you need to cover about 70 percent of the map.

How to Create the Three Temperate Region Biomes

A tree surrounded by greenery should create around a third of the Fynbos you need when you place a Beehive on it, so make sure your greenery surrounds a tree before placing the hive. Placing Beehives will also generate income, which may be a relief at this point! You should be able to generate around 100 average per tree. If you’ve done a good job with your greenery, you should be able to hit 100 percent Fynbos with three beehives.

Wetland is created by placing Hydroponiums on your Irrigators. Note this also creates income, so you should be swimming in money after creating enough Fynbos and Wetland to meet your targets. Don’t worry about covering Irrigators as their work is done. Cover as many as you need, remembering that water will stop the burn in the next process as you try to create forests.

Creating Forest can be the tricky part. You’ll need to target a tree with Fynbos to start the burn, which is why you’ve ideally already hit your Fynbos target on three trees. That means you can use the fourth to start a controlled burn with a Solar Amplifier, avoiding you having to recreate Fynbos again after the burn. If your burn goes well, it should only take two or three Arboretums to hit your target. In the image above, one we-placed Arboretum is easily creating half of the Forest required. Again, note that a well-placed Arboretum will earn you income, rather than losing you money.

How to Return Animals to the Temperate Region

Once you’ve placed your Animal Observatory (the position isn’t important), you can start to work on your animals. The following six animals can be introduced, of which you need three to progress:

• Deer: The easiest by far, needing just 20+ greenery tiles in the scan range to spawn them.
• Beaver: Often easy, needing 20+ river tiles and 20+ forest tiles in the scan. Note the greenery needs to be attached directly to the water.
• Frog: Another that is easy to plan for, needing 10+ wetland tiles and 5+ fynbos tiles.
• Timber Wolf: Requires greenery where you’ve found deer, plus 15+ forest tiles. This is easy to retrofit, adding more greenery near to a forest as required.
• Geese: Tricky, as requires a stretch of water that has a radius of four. Again, this can be retrofitted using excavators but will be a lot easier on some mas than others.
• Bears: You’ll need to plan for this one. You need a beehive, 20+ forest tiles, and 20+ hill tiles. If you’ve managed to create a forest on a hill, it will be a breeze as you can add a beehive to any tree in the new forest.

How to Recycle the Temperate Region

This is where your good river planning earlier bears fruit. With all your animal requirements met, all that’s left is to tear down all the machines. We prefer to place our Airship centrally, but it isn’t necessary. The important thing is that it is on the main watercourse so that the Recycling Drone you place next to it has maximum reach across the map along your rivers.  

Related: All animals in Terra Nil and how to attract them

The amount of money you finish with isn’t important, so don’t worry about using Recycling Silos as required to bring distant machines closer to the river. Especially as all the recycling will also give you more cash. Just make sure the place you put them is itself close enough to the river, as a Recycling Silo can’t be recycled by another Recycling Silo, only a Loading Dock.

You can hover a Loading Dock over a location, see its range, then make sure to place any Silos accordingly. If you need to place Pound Locks to get upstream onto hills, note that they also need to be recycled afterward which can be a pain. It may be easier to create some more rivers via Excavator instead, as they have the benefit of cutting through the landscape. And that should be your first region of Terra Nil completed. It's time to move on to the fresh challenge of the Tropical Region.

Looking for more on Terra Nil? Check out How to unlock the Minecraft Rocks! achievement in Terra Nil here at Pro Game Guides!