Ark Nova Advanced Zoo Maps: Choosing and Playing Them

Map A is generous and identical for everyone. Map 0 is the step after the first game. The other sides of the same eight boards hold the advanced maps 1 to 8, and each one is different. The rulebook recommends them once you know the game, and tournaments play on them. This lesson covers how to choose one and how to play it.

How advanced map setup works

The rulebook gives two methods:

• Draw two, keep one. Each player takes 2 random zoo maps and chooses one advanced map.
• Draft in reverse order. Lay out one more advanced map than there are players, and choose one each in reverse turn order, so the last player picks first.

The draft is the tournament method. The WBC 2024 event report describes heats where players chose from five designated maps in reverse turn order, and it notes that seat wins came out fairly even across the four seats.

What the maps do

Each advanced map has a special ability printed on it, plus its own layout of rock, water, placement bonuses, and spaces that need upgraded Build. The base game’s advanced maps are named Observation Tower, Outdoor Areas, Silver Lake, Commercial Harbor, Park Restaurant, Research Institute, Ice Cream Parlors, and Hollywood Hills.

In broad strokes, the abilities push you in different directions:

• Observation Tower pays appeal each time you fill a standard enclosure next to the tower.
• Outdoor Areas treats enclosures next to its outdoor areas as larger than they are, so big animals fit in smaller, cheaper enclosures.
• Park Restaurant pays money at breaks for buildings around the restaurant.
• Research Institute lets you play animals while one condition short, once it is connected to your zoo.
• Ice Cream Parlors rewards a kiosk-heavy map with extra break income.
• Hollywood Hills turns building on its marked spaces into sponsor cards, and then makes sponsors cheaper.
• Silver Lake has spaces that pay back much of what you spend building on them.
• Commercial Harbor gives a way to turn spare cards into value each turn once connected.

Choosing between two maps

When you choose, you already hold your 4 kept cards and can see the base projects. Ask three questions:

1. What does the ability reward? Money, appeal, cards, or flexibility.
2. What does my hand need? A hand of big animals wants a map that makes enclosures cheaper or bigger. A sponsor-heavy hand wants a map that rewards sponsors. A thin hand wants card flow.
3. How soon does the ability start paying? Abilities that need a connection or a set of buildings pay nothing until you build there. An ability you cannot switch on until the second break is worth less than it reads.

Also look past the ability. Rock and water placement decides which animals fit easily. Placement bonuses near the border decide how strong your first two builds are.

Playing your map

Build toward the ability early. If the ability pays at every break, every break before you switch it on is income lost. Make connecting to it part of your first-break plan from the openings lesson.

Let it change your animal choices. A map that discounts or enlarges enclosures makes big animals cheaper for you than for anyone else. Lean into those cards.

Read rival maps too. In a draft, a map you pass may go to the player after you. In play, a rival’s map tells you what they want from the display.

What results suggest

Map strength is debated, and it depends on player skill and the cards that come out. The WBC 2024 report gives one snapshot from four-player heats. In Heat 1, Outdoor Areas won 38% of its games and Hollywood Hills 15%. In Heat 2, Park Restaurant won 33% and Hollywood Hills 17%. With four players at a table, an average map wins about 25% of the time. That event also left Silver Lake and the expansion map Rescue Station out of the heats.

Samples that small swing a lot, so treat them as a hint, not a ranking. The broader point holds: maps are not equal, and tournaments shape their map pools around that.

Expansion maps

Capstone’s Zoo Map Pack 1 adds two more maps, Geographical Zoo and Rescue Station, and Zoo Map Pack 2 adds five layouts. Add them after the base maps feel familiar.