This should be obvious but There are some things to go over that players tend to miss (as evidenced by the reviews.) Firstly, it is possible to have all the animals from all the expansions available to you in the main game and in the expansions.


To do this, click the check box under the picture of the map that says "enable all build options" This will allow you access to all of the available animals in all the available expansions. without it, a random assortment of animals spanning throughout the expansions are selected instead (with a majority of the animals coming from whatever version of the game you are currently playing.)

As for the other options, they're more or less there if you wanna just have fun with your park. The "No Financial Worries" one will disable you being unable to purchase things you can't afford yet. I'm not really sure what immortality does but I would assume it makes your animals unable to die.

You can also modify your starting money at the top of the screen as well if you want. once you've picked a map and the options you want, start up the game.

So here we are at the map. I picked Antarctica but you can pick whatever you want. Now for the sake of this tutorial, I'm going to build a Penguin enclosure.

Before we get there first let's go over some basic hotkeys and controls:
ctrl+Z = Undo last action (this includes placing animals btw, and it will give back the money you spent on them as well)
ctrl+Y = Redo last action you undid.
< and > = rotate object you are going to place.
Scroll wheel (Hold and move mouse)= Pan camera
Scroll wheel (roll up or down) = zoom in or Zoom out
There are probably other hotkeys but I don't know what they are and the above are probably the ones you'll be using the most and are therefore the most important.

Now for the 9 construction buttons:

Terraforming

This allows you to shape the land It's not nearly as polished as other games' terrain modifier options but it works and you'll end up using it a lot. The primary issue is the level terrain option doesn't work like it does with other games and will often make your terrain higher or lower than you intended. Also, the camera can't be panned directly overhead, so keep this in mind when doing mountains.

Terrain Brush

You're going to be using this a lot as well, especially because if you plan on doing a zoo with animals from different climates, you're going to have to meet each one of their needs. Lions are going to want Savannah grass while Tyrannosaurs are going to want hard ground for example.

Plants and Trees



This is especially important to herbivores, though some carnivores like trees too. There are numerous types of trees and plants. Thankfully, you can identify what ones are meant for what purpose. For example, some trees will say (forage) or (rubbing). This should make it easier to identify what you need.

Another important note: Trees and plants are like animals, they're not happy if certain terrain conditions for them aren't met. It takes much longer for a plant to die than an animal but eventually the plant will get smaller and smaller until it dies.

Thankfully, you don't have to compromise an entire enclosure's terrain just to make your trees and plants happy. If the primary terrain your animals like is different from the trees or plants you're placing, just put a small splotch of your tree or plant's preferred terrain under them. This should make them happy without upsetting your animals. You also need a Gardener to water them in harsher climates so keep this in mind.

With water plants it's a bit different. Water plants have a desired level of water they would like to be in. River and pond plants like reeds or whatever will prefer shallow water, while plants like seaweed will prefer deeper water.

Trees and plants are also important to visitors as well. They like to see lots of natural beauty, so be sure to please them.

Due to the otherwise broken mechanics of the despensers, you may not need many trees to support your animals. (more on the dispensers later)


Fences and Gates
This is another button you'll go to frequently as your Zoo progresses. This is for placing fencing to separate the animals from your visitors and avoid catastrophic accidents obviously. As for gates, there's a few of them, there's the Vehicle gate which is mainly meant for the Jeep and Train rides, then there's the Personnel gate which is meant for your workers like doctors and zoo keepers and finally there's a gate for visitors which is best used for petting zoos (unless you're a total sadist and would prefer they walked in on a hungry t-rex anyway...)

Animals
This is what it's all about: The animals. use this button to place your animals. There are actually a few animals such as small fish and rats that don't require zoo keepers to be looked after. While they can still be killed by other animals, they won't die of starvation, making them ideal starting animals. Best of all, they're cheap. (just watch out for the flying ones, they like to get into carnivores' enclosures and become a chicken dinner)


Enclosure Extras
Don't confuse these with decorations as these are way more important. This is where you get the dispensers I mentioned above and it's also where you get equipment for training your animals and toys to make your animals happy. (more on this in the actual enclosure tutorial)

Zoo Personnel
This menu contains the Employees for your zoo. While some are designated towards making visitors, happy, others are desinated toward helping your animals and plants. The most important of these is obviously the zookeeper with the doctor coming in close behind( more on this later)

Vistor Stuff
These are things that vistors will want or need. Things such as food stands and restrooms can be found in this menu. This is also where you'll find the park entrance which you'll need in order to open it (some maps already have it placed, others don't) This is also where you'll find the various vehicle rides and their cooresponding tracks. We won't be going over Visitors in this tutorial so you don't need to worry about this button as much. Just keep the above in mind when dealing with them.

Decorations
These don't have any impact on your animals and are primarily used to make your visitors happy.

This next section will detail everything you need to get an enclosure up and running for your animals.

First thing you'll need to do is pick a fence in the fence and gate menu. For this tutorial I'll be using Penguins so I won't be needing a very secure fence so a brick wall will work.










Simply start placing and make a square. It's a good idea to give animals lots of room to move. My enclosure in the image above might be a little TOO big considering Penguins are so small but hopefully you get the general idea.









For the sake of this tutorial, I'm going to place penguins down right away. You can choose their gender in the little display in the bottom right corner there. So I'm going to place a male and female As you can see, the Penguins are less than happy with their accomodations. Let's fix that, shall we?










Penguins are social animals and like to be in groups. As you can see here I have four penguins now. If you read the information in the bottom right corner window there, you can see what the penguin is upset about. As you can see the currently selected Penguin doesn't have enough friends near it and is unhappy. It's also hungry and needs fish. Word of advice: Always be aware that animals will be hungry and thirsty the second you place them down, so have a food and water source ready for them (an exception to the water rule are dragons from the Fantasy expansion, which instead eat minerals instead of drinking water for some strange reason)









My Penguins need fish so we're going to have to give them a fish food dispenser item from the enclosure extras menu. Upon placing them though we have another problem: We don't have any fish ready! These poor penguins are gonna starve if we don't do something about it.











Go to the Zoo Personnel menu and build a Fish Farm.












Once built select it and click the button with the gears on it. In the menu that pops up, select the picture of the fish. This will bring up a little menu (shown above) To start producing fish, press the button shaped like a play button on a DVD/Blueray player. To increase or decrease the amount of fish produced per month, use the up and down arrow buttons on the menu. Personally, I prefer 1000 kg a month because it's plenty but you don't have to do this.

Next we'll need a zoo keeper. Now there are two ways to do this. The first way is to place the zoo keeper's building inside the enclosure. This may be the better idea in a large open enclosure, but in a more cluttered enclosure it's best to place it just ouside of the enclosure. For the sake of this tutorial I'll put it outside the enclosure.










First off, we'll need a way for our keeper to get in and out of the enclosure. Go to the gate and fence menu and select the personnel gate. You'll need a straight large section of fence to place the door, so keep this in mind.









Next go to the personnel menu and place the Keeper's building. Note that by default all personnel have a very small work radius. While this can be moved it's better just to mod it. Thankfully, there's another guide on here that can show you how to expand the radius. I'll link it in the last section.










Now our penguins still seem to be unhappy. While they're not going to die if they don't have their way with this necessarily, it's a good idea to please them regardless. Here they want to swim. While they seem rather stupid since there's a body of water right next to them,










We can see in the encyclopedia that they're shore dwellers. (To access the encyclopedia, click the book icon to the left of the minimap.) While we can pick them up and put them in the water ourselves, a better solution would be to bring the shore to them.









To do this we'll need water pumps, which can be found in the Enclosure extras menu. These are how you make lakes for enclosures that don't have them. However, you can also use them to expand and/or raise existing bodies of water. Three High pumps should be enough to bring the shore to our penguins.










Uh oh! a Blizzard is blowing in. And as you can see at the bottom right corner, my Penguin doesn't like it. Likewise, animals in the rain don't like that either.








To remedy this, you can build them a shelter. Shelters can be found in the Enclosure Extras menu. For the sake of this tutorial, I'm going to use the small ice cave shelter item. After this is placed, if the Penguins are close enough, they'll go inside. Keep in mind that larger animals need larger shelters.


And that's all there is too it. Hopefully this guide helps get things started for you. If you need any other questions answered, leave a comment and I'll see if I can answer it for you.

As I'm sure you found out if you came to this tutorial for help, the game has some issues and isn't perfect. These modifcations should make things more enjoyable for you:

Higher range for items and staff: http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=881910370

Ultimate Edition Mission English patch: http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=289336948
(for some reason the mission is is german regardless of region)

All maps and missions in the main game executible: http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=289333605