District Center

The District Center is the central building that defines a District and coordinates local workforce, migration settings, and default worker assignment for new buildings in Timberborn. It replaces older builder-flag style controls from earlier betas and is present from the game's start as the focal point for path-based district boundaries and worker management. A District Center itself costs no resources to construct and can be destroyed and rebuilt elsewhere, but relocation requires careful planning because existing buildings must remain path-connected to function and resources/workers may become mispositioned.

Selecting a District Center draws a path line along connected paths and rapid transit to indicate the District boundary. The drawn path is fluid and follows twists, turns, and stairs (stairs count as one tile). After 70 tiles the path line changes color from green to red; red means the path is long and walking time is high, which reduces efficiency because Workers spend more time in transit. Districts have no hard size limit as of Update 5, but long path distances still impact performance and previously shown in‑UI warnings were removed.

The District Center manages population and workers for its District. Editing a District Center’s name sets the District name. When multiple Districts exist, the District Center lets you open the Manage Settlement Migration interface to control automatic or manual migration of Beavers and Bots between Districts; District Centers set for migration are shown connected on the map. After Bots are unlocked, the District Center provides a control for the default worker type to assign to newly constructed buildings within that District. If Bots are selected as the default but Bot workers for a building type are not yet unlocked, newly built structures will use Beavers until the Bot type becomes available. Existing buildings retain their current worker assignment until changed manually.

The District Center is also the entity that employs builders used for construction tasks in its District. Builder employment levels are controlled via Builders’ Huts within the same District; building additional District Centers to increase builders creates management overhead and complicates population control. At the start of a game it is advantageous to set the District’s worker cap to four and the worker priority to low, then control the number of actual builders by pausing production buildings such as Lumberjack Flags.

Practical notes and interactions:

• Moving the starting District Center is possible and free, but the new location must be reachable from the original by workers and must connect to the existing path network for existing buildings to function.
• When relocating an established District Center mid-game pause the simulation to prevent unintended resource movement into the new District and to let you reconfigure import/population requirements safely.
• Long path distances (beyond ~70 tiles) increase walking time and reduce efficiency even though District size is unlimited; consider splitting work across multiple District Centers or optimizing paths with more direct routes or rapid transit.
• District Center controls include migration management and default worker type selection; these settings affect new buildings and overall population flow and should be reviewed whenever District boundaries change.