With TerraScape's limited tech tree, choosing the right Decks for the map and your overall plan is crucial. While each offers a viable path to a functioning town, some are much easier to use than others. On top of that, you'll find that synergies between Decks are just as important as the individual cards themselves.
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PostsWe've ranked the Decks based on their overall usefulness and ease. Bear in mind that a Deck might be more valuable given the terrain and resources of your current Terra, so think of this as more of a general guideline than a hard-and-fast power ranking.
12 Workmanship
The Workmanship comes at the end of the industrial track of the tech tree, which requires very specific biomes and setups to work properly. You'll need to have clearly-delineated building zones; forests for your woodworkers and mountains for masons and smelters.
Carpenters, Builders' Guilds, and Smiths can all enhance your existing Forest Settlements and Miners' Enclaves, but these all have a tendency to grow, choking out your agriculture and settlements. That can be dangerous, since the Distillery that you can get by combining Workmanship with Foodstuffs is one of the key draws of this Deck.
11 Knowledge
Knowledge has some powerful buildings that synergize well with one another, especially in dense urban areas. However, its place at the very end of the tech tree means that your build requires heavy specializtion if you want to unlock Knowledge.
If you're going to aim for Knowledge, a heavily-settled build with Community and Culture is a good strategy. Just be sure to leave spaces between City Districts for Schools, Libraries, and other buildings as you work your way up the tech tree!
10 Mining
Mining can be useful if there are a lot of mountains on your map, but the specific layouts of its Merged Buildings can make it hard to use properly. Once you get it going, a Mining Enclave generates lots of Stone, which you can use to expand further, creating a snowball effect as long as there is land to build on.
The real advantage of Mining, though, is that it's the most reliable way of getting Clear Blocker and Place Mountain cards. As much as Mining structures tend to dominate the map in their area, it's hard to deny the terraforming applications of this Deck.
9 Community
Community is best thought of as a stepping-stone on the way to bigger and better things. It's a useful deck for supporting other selections; the Tavern, for example, does well with the Brewery from Foodstuffs, while later buildings like the Bath House fit nicely into the urban areas that you'll be building for Culture or Knowledge.
Community doesn't really shine on its own, though, so it's important to have a decent score engine to keep your town growing while you level it up.
8 Forestry
Without Forestry, large wooded areas on your map won't be of much use. It's still important to consider whether you want to take this Deck and exploit the woodlands, or just leave them alone and eventually chop them down.
Forestry offers a high score potentialearly on and is fairly self-sufficient, and it makes Hunter's Cabins much more useful. However, Forest Settlements and Royal Forests both cause more woods to grow, which can cause your map to become overgrown with trees if you aren't careful.
7 Fishing
The Fishing Deck is almost completely self-sufficient, but its usefulness is entirely dependent on the amount of water on the map. If there is a lot of coastline and plenty of sea to sail, Fishing is a must; otherwise, it's worthless.
Fishing has a simple strategy that revolves around creating Fish Farms and Outposts covering as much water as humanly possible, then filling in any remaining coastline with Trade buildings, particularly Lighthouses and Harbors. If you can pull it off, a Fishing economy can carry much of your town's other industries.
6 Foodstuff
While you won't take Foodstuff in every game, especially if you're going for Knowledge on a different track, it's a hard Deck to pass up. It synergizes with its prerequisite, Basic Food, better than any other Deck in the game, turning your fields into a sprawling agricultural empire.
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PostsBreweries, Wind Mills, Butchers, and Bakers all benefit from having vast swathes of farms nearby, so use Manor Farms, Farmsteads, and Ox Mills to terraform as much grassland as possible. Intersperse them with Granaries and Beekeepers when available, and you can't go far wrong.
5 Basic Food
In most games, Basic Food is likely to be your first Deck. It starts off very weak, with low-scoring Gather Huts and extremely situational Hunter Cabins, but once you unlock Wheat Fields you have the most important card in the game.
Wheat Fields are a key component for building Farmsteads and Manor Farms, both of which are some of the most versatile Merged Buildings and allow for easy terraforming.
4 Settlement
Not only is Settlement the key Deck for the entire game, since it builds the Cottages and Houses in which your people live, but it also provides pretty good scoring opportunities throughout each run. Cottages and Houses are part of critical Merged Buildings, both for terraforming and for developing your hand.
Longhouses, comprised of four Cottages, give you a free Remove Resource card, which should be stockpiled for later. Houses, on the other hand, expand Urban terrain and create City Districts and Manor Houses, both of which offer big scoring opportunities when combined with later buildings.
3 Trade
Trade is one of the easiest Decks to use, since many of its buildings can score off of raw resources. Strategically placed around the map, Haulers and Storehouses can get points from undeveloped or otherwise-useless areas, or they can serve as the cornerstone of a Trade District in a growing urban center.
Trade is best when you have lots of coastline for Harbors and Lighthouses, but that isn't a requirement. You can take it after Fishing or Textiles.
