Naturalists
This faction has been chosen as 1 of the official fan-made factions, Geologists.
Ability: When choosing the Naturalists, do the same things as Shapeshifters but the chosen color is considered as your Starting terrain. After all players have placed their starting Structures, take a Marker ("Survey Marker") of an unchosen color from the box and place it inside the Shapeshifter ring on your Transformation cycle (The Terrain types with a Survey Marker is "Surveyed"). You must build a Dwelling according to the order of the Terrain types on your Transformation cycle. You can only build a Dwelling in a reachable terrain space of an Unsurveyed terrain type that is directly adjacent to a Surveyed terrain type (buildable terrain space). When you build a Dwelling by paying its cost without transforming in a buildable terrain space, you place another Survey Marker on the corresponding Terrain type on your Transformation cycle (This will shift the buildable Terrain type one by one). You cannot use Spades to transform terrain. Instead, for each Spade you get, remove 1 Survey Marker on the right or left edge of the contiguous Survey Markers, or place 1 Survey Marker in an Unsurveyed terrain space adjacent to a Surveyed terrain on your Transformation cycle. When all terrain types are Surveyed, immediately remove all Survey Markers from your Terrain Circle. If you have no Survey Marker on your Transformation cycle, you can only build a Dwelling in your Starting terrain. In this state, if you build a Dwelling in a Starting terrain, place a Survey Marker inside the Shapeshifter ring. If you get a Spade when you have no Survey Markers on your Transformation cycle, you may place a Survey Marker on the Starting terrain inside the Shapeshifter ring.
Stronghold: Immediately and only once, remove all Survey Markers on your Terrain Circle. Then you may move the Shapeshifter ring to any terrain type on your Transformation cycle (including Home or Starting terrain of another Faction in play).
Example 1: You choose Naturalists and Mountains (gray) as your Starting terrain. Next you place the Shapeshifter ring over the Mountains terrain type on your Transformation cycle. After placing your starting Dwellings on Mountains spaces, you place a Survey Marker inside the Shapeshifter ring. Now your buildable terrain types are Wasteland (red) and Forest (green) because they are Unsurveyed terrain types directly adjacent to the Surveyed terrain type.
Example 2: You build a Dwelling in a Forest terrain space by paying its costs without a Spade. So you place another Survey Marker in the Forest terrain type on your Transformation cycle. Now your buildable terrain types are Wasteland (red) and Lakes (blue).
Example 3: After several turns, 6 Survey Markers are placed on your Transformation cycle. Now your buildable terrain type is only Plains (brown).
Example 4: You build a Dwelling in a Plains terrain and place the 7th Survey Marker in the Plains terrain type on your Transformation cycle. Now all terrain types have been surveyed, you must immediately remove all of the Survey Markers from your Transformation cycle.
Example 5: After removing, you have no Survey Marker on your Transformation cycle. So your current buildable terrain type is only Mountains (gray). If you build a Dwelling in a Mountains space, your Transformation cycle will be in the same state as the image in Example 1.
Example 6: You have 4 Survey Markers in Lakes (blue), Forest (green), Mountains (gray) and Wasteland (red) on your Transformation cycle. If you get 1 Spade at this time, you have the 5 following options:
Placing a Survey Marker in the Swamp (black).
Placing a Survey Marker in the Desert (yellow).
Removing the Survey Marker from the Lakes (blue).
Removing the Survey Marker from the Wasteland (red).
Wasting the Spade to do nothing.
In other words, you may use a Spade to lengthen or shorten an end of the queue of Survey Markers.