The JollyScot's recipe for a mostly herbivore dominated park; for challenges or for campaigns.

Hello everyone. With the Claire's Sanctuary update on the horizon, I thought I may make a blog discussing what exhibits and dinosaurs I usually have in my parks. I use this mainly as a standard pattern for both effeciency for challenges and certain campaign maps such as Tacano and Pena. With that, lets dive in.

Exhibit 1, Cretaceous Herbivore exhibit

This is usually one of the centre pieces of the park and a great way to save on space for other exhibits. The trick to this exhibit is to use the Stress Inhibitor genes on certain dinosaurs to get their stress limits to 0% This means that now matter the population of the enclosure, they will be satisfied as long as their social needs are met; some dinosaurs like the Pachycephalosaurs will fight each other to death if there is too many of them. Its a bit of a cheat but its a good way of making that dream safari. In challenges you will have to wait a while before you can acess higher inhibitor genes for certain dinosaurs. So for this enclosure, I usually do these amounts of dinosaurs depending on the size:

• 10 to 15 Archaeornithomimus
• 3 Corythosaurus; I usually pick the Jungle, Taiga and Woodland skins, as I'm not a fan of the Rainforest and Vibrant.
• 5 to 7 Dracorex
• 5 to 20 Dryosaurus
• 5 to 10 Edmontosaurus
• 5 to 10 Gallimimus
• 5 Homalocephale, which has quickly become one of my favourite dinosaurs.
• 4 or 5 Iguanodon
• 5 to 10 Maiasaura
• 6 to 10 Muttaburrasaurus
• 5 Olorotitan
• 5 Ouranosaurus
• 4 Pachycephalosaurus
• 5 Parasaurolophus
• 3 or 4 Pentaceratops
• 10 to 20 Struthiomimus
• 5 to 10 Stygimoloch
• 5 Tsintaosaurus

Other additions depending on the size of the enclosure and forest coverage include:

• 5 to 8 Stegosaurus
• 3 to 7 Apatosaurus
• 3 or 4 Mamenchisaurus

Future additions to this exhibit may include Ouranosaurus, but we'll see.

Exhibit 2 Sauropod forest

This exhibit is usually one of the largest in my parks and one to balance out carefully. Fitting all the current sauropods can be a challenge in terms of space and forest coverage, but luckily the recent updates where the dinosaurs can notice their surroundings has made this far more easier. One of the keys of this exhibit is to take the dinosaur with the lowest population statistics, in this case Dreadnoughtus and base it around that. So in this exhbit there's usually:

• 3 or 4 Apatosaurus
• 2 to 4 Brachiosaurus
• 3 or 4 Diplodocus
• 2 or 3 Dreadnoughtus: optional
• 3 Mamenchisaurus
• 2 to 3 Nigersaurus, which I found more preferable over Dreadnoughtus. While not as popular, their model quality is better and they're far more interesting.

Alternatively the Dreadnoughtus can instead be substituted with a small carnivore, to act as a sort of Dryosaurus-sized dinosaur to give the undergrowth some life. I usually go for Dilophosaurus, Herrerasaurus, Proceratosaurus or Troodon as their population limits are more tolerant than the raptors and also I honestly prefer them to raptors. Proceratosaurus is my favourite when it comes to this exhibit. While you can also go for Dryosaurus, I find the carnivores add more star power and are in general more interesting.

Exhbit 3: Ceratopsian plains.

These next few exhibits usually share the same Hammond Creation Lab, though additional ones can be constructed if there's enough space and for some of the more picky stegosaurs. The Ceratopsians are one of my favourite dinosaur groups and its always fun to mix them up. In this exhibit are:

• 3  Sinoceratops
• 3 Styracosaurus
• 3 Torosaurus
• 3 Triceratops

This leaves one more population slot free for an additional Ceratopsian of your choice. Alternatively you can also do 2 of each dinosaur mentuoned above and add 3 Chasmosaurus instead. However with the added population gene increase and the new ceratopsian, most of my exhibits now look like this:

• 3 Chasmosaurus if there is enough population. Purely optional.
• 4 Nasutoceratops
• 3 or 4 Sinoceratops
• 3 Styracosaurus
• 3 Torosaurus
• 3 or 4 Triceratops

Exhbit 4: Chinese Stegosaurs/ Stegosaur community

This straightfowards paddock focuses on the Ziliujing Formation. Usually its simply 5 of each stegosaur:

• 5 Chungkingosaurus
• 5 Gigantspinosaurus
• 5 Huayangosaurus

However if you want to put the Stegos with the Cretaceous safari, an alternative is including Kentrosaurus with them. As the population limit is 16, with Gigantspino's having the least tolerance, the line-up would now look like this:

• 3 or 4 Chungkingosaurus
• 4 Gigantspinosaurus
• 3 or 4 Kentrosaurus
• 4 or 5 Huayangosaurus

Exhbit 5 Stegosaurus and Kentrosaurus exhbit

If there's enough space, you can alternatively have this Stegosaur enclosure also:

• 5 to 8 Stegosaurus
• 3 to 7 Kentrosaurus

Exhibit 6 Ankylosaur community

This exhbit is usually quite small as these dinosaurs don't require much space. This is usually a good crowd drawer, as ankylosaurs are one of the most popular herbivores after sauropods. I usually have at least:

• 2 Ankylosaurus
• 2 Crichtonsaurus
• 2 Nodosaurus

This leaves free one population slot free to put in an ankylosaur of your choice. Alternatively you can do two of each ankylosaurid for greater diversity.

• 2 Ankylosaurus
• 2 Crichtonsaurus
• 2 Euoplocephalus

Alternatively you can also boost up the population gene and get this arrangement.

• 2 Ankylosaurus
• 2 or 3 Crichtonsaurus
• 2 or 3 Euoplocephalus
• 2 Nodosaurus
• 2 Polacanthus

Exhibit 7. Early Cretaceous nodosaurs

This even smaller exhbit is sometimes included when I have enough free space. Like the Ankylosaur exhibit, its usually got a good sized audience so it can be worthwhile if you want to bump up your dino rating. In here are:

• 2 or 3 Polacanthus
• 1 or 2 Sauropelta

These can vary though if you edit their population and social needs, which I usually do for the Polacanthus as they are one of my favourites. Another alternative is 2 of each nodosaurid, using population increase genes on the Sauropelta to increase their tolerances. This leaves you free to do 2 of each nodosaurid:

• 2 Nodosaurus
• 2 Polacanthus
• 2 Sauropelta

Other exhibits.

With any free space available there should be plenty of room for carnivore exhbits. These are entirely up to you, but some of my favourites are:

• Metriacanthosaurus; one of the best and calmest carnivores, meaning they are great for challenge mode or Pena in campaign especially when storms are common.
• Acrocanthosaurus
• Ceratosaurus, the first large carnivore available and honestly the best. Its cheap to produce in comparision to other dinosaurs, doesn't need as large of an exhibit as some of the others and is relatively popular, with ratings usually exceeding 100.
• Suchomimus, as it is one of the best looking therapods.
• Herrerasaurus. The best carnivore in the game, being the calmest and it doesn't take up a lot of room, while still having high popularity ratings. If you're struggling on Isla Pena in Campaign or Challenge, I say this is one of the dinosaurs you should definitely try out.
• Majungasaurus. This dinosaur is also popular, calm and doesn't stress easily, but it needs a lot of space and is an expensive investment when fully decked out with genes.
• Any other predator aside from raptors which you think you'll be able to easily contain. Bigger predators are less troublesome and easier to tranq with the ACU than the smaller and more picky raptors.

So what is your thoughts? And what sort of parks do you like making?