Calm ClearingAh! A new area with new mice! The Calm Clearing is a welcome change to those who grow tired of catching the same mice over and over and over. There are some varied mice in the Calm Clearing that are very interesting, and you’ll find that this area and the Great Gnarled Tree (Master level) are the two areas where you get the most bang for your buck. Now, some of the more experienced players reading this will cry out, “Not so! The Forbidden Groove is much better! As is the Catacombs! You get more gold there!” Yes, of course, but for now, the Whisker Woods is the best, and you’re not going to be going to Bristle Woods anytime soon.
There are 14 new mice here, all which are fairly interesting. With the exception of the Moosker Mouse and the Wiggler Mouse, all the mice here offer very nice gold and point rewards, especially the Eagle Owl Mouse and the Cyclops Mouse. The latter also holds the map piece to the Great Gnarled Tree, which is your next stop in the Whisker Woods.
To use any trap less than the Swiss Army trap will result in a net loss of gold because of the mice that steal from you. And make no mistake, even with good traps, these mice will still steal from you. You just have to get used to it.
The best setup would be to use Swiss cheese along with a powerful physical trap and the explosive base. Using Brie cheese will drive your attraction up very high and will enable you to level up more quickly.
Next Steps
Wow, you’re getting bored? It gets better. Journeyman don’t see the same attrition rate at the previous, but it can get boring, especially if you get all your map pieces very early on in the level. Just stick it out and keep plucking away. This level is very straightforward, and very simple and non-complex. You’ll need to save your brain cells and energy, though, for Master as it will begin to test your patience.
In the Calm Clearing, the Treant Mouse will also drop splintered wood, which is necessary in a few recipes for crafting, not the least of which is a new base – the Dehydration Base. You need 213 units of salt, 4 splintered pieces of wood, and a set of Dehydration Blueprints (which you should have already purchased in the General Store in the harbor). This base is not critical for your future endeavors, but some people prefer it because of its luck and attraction bonus compared to the Explosive Base.
Journeyman Tips
- Use Brie cheese to level up faster.
- Don’t get cocky. There are plenty of mice just waiting to steal your cheese in the Master level.
- Craft the Dehydration Base, which will give you your first base with luck.
- Hoard gold. You’ll make a lot of it in this level, but you’ll need it in the next level to buy additional traps.
- Experiement with various charms that you obtained from the Mountain.
Master
Now the fun begins. There is a lot to do at the Master level, and you’ll find that you’re leveling-up will start to slow down now. Be prepared for frustration in certain areas, but this is the part of the game where you truly start to feel like you know what you’re doing. Because there are multiple realms and locations now that you’ll start getting access to, I’m going to change the scope of this FAQ and talk specifically about the locations and what to do there. There is no “right” or “wrong” path to take at this level honestly. This FAQ was originally written linearly and not by location, so please bear with me. :)
Great Gnarled Tree (GGT)
This map piece, as previously stated, was provided by a Cyclops mouse in the Calm Clearing. At the GGT, you’ll encounter the same mice as the CC, but with a few notable exceptions. Making their grand appearance now are the Centaur Mice, which are incredibly hard to catch with your current trap setup. They offer a ton of points, but relatively low gold. They look really cool, however.With the setup of Force Field/Dehydration Base/Swiss cheese, you’ll find that per 100 catches, you’ll catch more Eagle Owl mice than any other mice, even that darn Sylvan mouse. This is a welcome event, and makes the GGT one of the best places to generate cash. Eagle Owl mice will give you 5500 points and roughly 2250 gold per catch. That’s a lot of scratch! It’s always nice to see your hunter’s log full of Eagle Owl mice. Just personally, they are my favorite mice in the game to catch.
You’ll need to be looking for the Fairy Mouse here as well, as she (he?) will drop the map piece to the Lagoon. You will go there once you level up to Grandmaster.
You also have access to the Venus Mouse Trap in the GGT trapsmith. At 299,650 gold, the VMT is not cheap. However, it is essential that you have this trap, especially for crafting purposes for future traps. If you have the extra gold, go ahead and buy it. Using it with the Dehydration Base for your best possible setup in the GGT, even slightly better than the Force Field. Why? Because most of these mice are more susceptible to tactical traps than physical traps, making the VMT more powerful than the FF.Refer to my guide on Tactical Traps for a complete analysis of your choices for early tactical traps.
You’ll also notice that some mice are dropping Gnarled Cheese Potions. You can use these potions to turn Brie or Super Brie+ cheese into gnarled cheese, which has two purposes: attracting the curious chemist and hunting in the lagoon.
The Curious Chemist is a fairly weak mouse, on par with the bionic and granite mice. However, they are only attracted to gnarled cheese, but if you catch one, they drop the Wicked Gnarly Cheese Curd Potion. This potion transforms Brie and/or Super Brie into, you guessed it, Wicked Gnarly Cheese (WGC). WGC is, at this time, only used for one thing: catching a silth mouse in the Lagoon. You can’t do this at this time. Hell, you can’t even do it (well) at Grandmaster. My advice: the goal is to catch every mouse in the game, right? Well, to do that, you’re going to have to use gnarled cheese in the GGT so you can get the Curious Chemist. Go ahead and craft some gnarled cheese and hunt with it, trying to attract the Curious Chemist. Keep using your same setup as before. Don’t burn through all your gnarled though; you’ll need it in the Lagoon. You’re going to need to come back here anyway much later in the game, so once you catch a few CC mice, switch back to swiss or brie and keep catching the “regular” mice.
This is the end of the FAQ for the Master-level Whisker Woods. Below continues on with the Lagoon, which is a Grandmaster level. If you haven't checked out the other section for Masters, you’ll want to do that now by heading over to the Burroughs and get caught up on hunting in the Lab, Digby, and the Mousoleum.
Lagoon (Grandmaster)
If you haven't paid attention and didn't buy the Venus Mouse Trap, now would be a good time to do that. Hopefully you paid attention enough in the Burroughs section to obtain 20 radioactive sludges as well at the previvous level. If you’ve ignored me up to this point, back-track to the Burroughs section and read how to do that. When you’re finished, catch up with the rest of us at the next paragraph. Everyone here? Good.
Go to your crafting tab in your inventory. Click on your hunter’s hammer. Then select the VMT. Then click the link to smash it (it may ask to confirm). Go ahead, smash it to dust, and you have the Husk. Go back to your crafting page. In the box, select the husk. In the next one, select 20 sludges. Click craft. Now you have the Mutated Venus Mouse Trap, the best tactical weapon until you can create the Ambush!
(Note: It is worth noting that you might be able to do this at the Master level; I'm not sure where the relative point breaks are for the various levels anymore since they've been modified so heavily since I played this section. The MVMT might be available before Grandmaster, just depends when you meet the point requirement.)
To be successful in the Lagoon, you need to use gnarled cheese. Remember all those potions you collected from the GGT? Here is where you use them. Very similar to the radioactive potions you’ve previously used. Be sure to always use gnarled (or wicked gnarled) in the Lagoon.The objective here is simple: catch a hydra mouse and hope he has the blueprints for the Ship (more on this later). The idea is simple. Catching him is NOT. The “best” way to catch him is to use the Digby DrillBot which can be purchased in Digby for around 450,000. Not cheap at all. Or, you can use the Force Field (assuming the use of Dehydration Base due to the luck). Here are the catch rates for the Hydra.
DDB: 20%
FF: 18%
MVMT: 17%
None of these traps will give you a big edge. However, the MVMT is more successful against all the Lagoon mice collectively than the other two traps, so I actually used that setup instead. The choice is obviously yours though, as at some point, you’re going to need the Digby Drillbot, for no other reason than to smash it and craft something else.
A lot of people have problems catching the Hydra. Just keep at it. You may even catch one and find out you didn’t get any loot from him. That sucks, but you have to keep going. You could buy the blueprints in the catacombs, but this is extremely expensive, and you’ll be wasting a lot of money doing this.
This the end of the Grandmaster section for Whisker Woods. Time to either check out Furoma or Bristle Woods! The section below is about the Silth, a mouse you don't want to tackle yet!
Catching a Silth
The Silth is a mouse that is not easily caught with Grandmaster traps, hence why I sent you away. Now, go away! Come back when you're all grown up and have a hydro trap!
Ah, there you are! My oh my, you've grown! And look at your Hydro Trap! Ready to catch a silth? Equip your Wicked Gnarled Cheese (remember those potions you got from the Curious Chemist?) and have at it! You'll want to use your luckiest base, which is probably the Aqua Base at this point. Good luck!
