Helix Mountain

Helix Mountain is a 256x256 standard-difficulty map centered around a distinctive spiral-shaped river that winds around a central mountain formation. Originally created for the first official Timberborn city-building contest, the map proved so popular that it was reworked and permanently added to the game in April 2022. The map's description humorously notes that while beavers find the riverbed shape impractical, they acknowledge "hoomanity's limited water engineering skills." Helix Mountain features 12 Water Sources totaling 12.0 cubic meters per second and 5 Badwater Sources at a substantial 13.0 cubic meters per second, along with 4 Underground Ruins and 9,075 units of scrap.

The defining challenge of Helix Mountain is managing arable land, which the map description calls "at a premium." The spiral river occupies significant terrain, and the mountain slopes leave limited flat areas for farming and building. Players must relocate early buildings to non-irrigated areas to maximize the scarce arable land for forestry and crop production. However, the spiral shape of the river does provide a notable advantage: diverting Badwater further down the watercourse is relatively straightforward, as the winding path creates natural separation points where clean and contaminated flows can be split with strategically placed dams and levees.

The heavy Badwater presence (13.0 cubic meters per second, actually exceeding the clean water flow) makes contamination management a top priority on Helix Mountain. During Badtide events, the combined output of contaminated Water Sources and Badwater Sources turns the entire spiral river into a toxic channel. Players need robust diversion infrastructure built well before the first Badtide strikes. The forest resources include 444 mature birch, 756 mature pine, and 338 mature oak, along with 225 bushes, providing reasonable but not abundant starting materials. Helix Mountain is best suited for intermediate players who enjoy creative water engineering and are comfortable working with limited building space. Both factions can succeed here, though Iron Teeth's Badwater management tools give them a slight edge.