TIPS

Learn about how to make the most out of your village!
Being money and space efficient with happiness: Having a nice looking town is something I’m sure most of us want, but early on in the game, space and money issues make that difficult. There are the letters we can send as gifts, yes- but those take up 2x2 spaces, and grant only 200 happiness. For 400g, you can buy a section of fence. Its 2x1 spaces, and grants 200 happiness. This means, for the same amount of space as a letter, you can have 400 happiness. The corner fence pieces are 200g, 100 happiness, and take up 1x1 Sure, its not exactly the prettiest way to have a town, but it gets the job done, and you can have more room for factories and the like.

Note: My village usually looks like a strange game of tetris. xD

And clicking on links in the gift sharing thread is NOT to be underestimated. Those flowers are worth 275 happiness for a 1x1 square, not to mention its free. And free fencing is easily available as well!

Also, the 3 things under the ‘specials tab’ grant 1,000 happiness each, and only for 600g! Using them costs cash, but they are a HUGE boost to just have in your town. Don’t forget the welcome balloons either! Here is the link to receive them, if you didn’t get the email; here is the link those are worth a hefty 1,400 happiness. There are also links to receive flowers that take up only a 1x1 square, and grant 275 happiness. There are at least 15 possible links for these, as that’s how many I currently have. If someone could provide me with links to them, I would be most grateful.

Save your cash! No matter how tempting it may be to plant a bunch of watermelons early on for some easy gold, or use it to expand your land, don’t do it, unless you plan on buying more. The level 5 house upgrade at level 30 can currently only be bought with cash- 500 to be exact. It’s possible to get this through quests, and the daily bonuses, but you need to be frugal with it.

Do your math. Sure, sunflowers are a huge payoff when they finally bloom, but how much gold and exp is it really when you break it down? Not much. This is a mistake I see a lot of players making. Sunflowers are intended for when you’ll be at work/school/sleeping, or otherwise don’t have a lot of time to play the game. BiaA has an excellent guide, going up to the mid 20’s on gold per hour vs exp for hour here:Gold per hour guide Take a look at the factories, animals, and plants and decide what a good routine for your playstyle is. Do you spend a lot of time at your computer during the day? I do. So I grow tomatoes, a LOT of them. If you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, they are an excellent balance between gold and good exp. I have a similar strategy when it comes to my factories. I mostly have ones that have a short prep time, because those are usually the ones that provide the most gold. This game is designed to favor those that can spend a lot of time on it, but even if you can’t, don’t worry. You can still be efficient and level fast if you play your cards right, and take a good look at times. If you want to get REALLY fancy, you can switch out faster moving factories to use in the daytime, when you’re around more- then put slower ones out at night.

Make the most out of your inventory storage! Once you hit level 10, you get your inventory, which has 5 spaces to start off with, and slowly gains more slots as you level. The spaces are per type of item. So, lets say you have 10 letter ‘O’ decorations, and didn’t want to use them, but you don’t want to sell them either. You can store all 10 in your inventory, and they will take up only one spot. Currently, 3 of my spots are being used by factories.

Trees- There are a lot of mixed feelings about the game’s trees, and for pretty good reason. I’ll use the apple tree as a general example. It costs 500g to plant. And an apple is worth a measly 5g. So in other words, you’d have to harvest 100 apples for it to pay itself off on its own. The apple vinegar distillery bumps that up to a 20g profit, but in order to keep that running full time, you would need 10 trees. Thats a lot of room being taken up by trees, and the distillery isn’t all that amazingly profitable either. But there is a quest that requires to to make a certain amount of the stuff, so you have to build the factory anyway. But this is where your storage can come in handy. You can store factories in your inventory. So- let your apples stock up for a while, and then switch out one factory for it, and you can make your batches of vinegar when you’re around your computer, and have enough apples stored so it doesn’t have to sit idle. Personally after I finished that quest I got rid of the distillery, but thats up to you.

Plan ahead! Remember I sold my vinegar distillery? I’m still saving those apples. Take a look at the list of things below the main game screen. Level 26 gives you the ability to build an apple sauce factory. I’m still not sure of its time/profit, but since apples are pretty worthless anyway, I decided to just hang on to them. The honey is a little more tempting to sell, but I’m hanging on to those as well. And level 21 gives you access to a bullpen, even though there’s no factory that uses it until level 29. And the cocoa tree that’s available 2 levels before the chocolate factory. This is good for short term as well. When I harvest my sunflowers every morning, I sell some, but I also keep enough to keep my bees fed throughout the day, so I don’t have to grow sunflowers when I could be growing something more profitable. Same thing with growing corn for my popcorn factory and my bull. I set a field to grow, and I go do my yoga routine, it lines up perfectly, and I have plenty of corn.

Make the most of your factories As I said above, build your town according to your schedule. Want to only have to check in a few times a day? Pigpens and sausage factories are a great way to go, while things that have a low preptime like cows and the butter factories might not be the best idea. Take a look at all them and see what suits your style. Don’t forget, if you find yourself with more time than usual, switch out some slower factories and pop out some fast ones for a while!

Daily Bonus: Wait for it! The daily bonus is for logging in every day. The bonus gradually gets higher each day you wait to collect it, so if you want the best reward, wait for day 10!

Happiness


Avalible Happiness: Determens how much you have to use for building other factories/animals/trees

Wither time Bonus: Increases the amount of time it takes to wither your crops/animals/factories

Farm Usage: Happiness used for the amount of farmable plots you have, it shows current plots and max plots at your current level

Tree Usage: Happiness used by the amount of trees you have it also shows the quanity of trees you have on your land

Structure Usage: Happiness used by the total of factories and aninimals also shows the total of factories and animals(combined) you have on your land

Happy Harvest Bonus: The chance of getting an extra crop from your farmable plots by the number of characters you have on your land

==ჱܓჱܓჱܓ FAQ about Flowersჱܓჱܓჱܓ ==

I've seen this question quite a bit, so I wanted to give as thorough an answer as I could. Let me know if I've missed anything important

What are the flowers?

When players are talking about flowers, they usually mean Pink Tulips, Yellow Cosmos, Violet Tulips and Red Rose Flowerbeds. They are share rewards, so you can get them by clicking others' share links, or by as thank you gifts from those who click your link.

What quests give these flowers as prizes?

Pink Tulip: This place looks great, but not great enough/Village is More Beautiful than Ever (lvl 9): Buy 3 Happiness Items

Yellow Cosmos: Hot dang what a looker!/Blooming with Beauty (lvl 17): Buy a Tulip Flowerbed, Red Rose Flowerbed, and a Morning Glory Arbor.

Violet Tulip: Stone Cottage Quest (lvl 29 min): Not sure about this, let me know if you have more information

Red Rose Flowerbed: Fancy Steakhouse Quest (lvl 37)

Why do players want them?

The first three flowers are pretty awesome items. Each one can be sold for 2,600 gold - which is one of the best prizes if you're looking for money. But another great use is their happiness! Each flower takes up only a 1x1 space, and is worth 275 happiness! By comparison, roads and the wooden 1A fences given by other links are only 100 happiness per square. The Morning Glory Arbor required for the quest to get the Yellow Cosmos only gives 145/square, and the Tulip and Red Rose Flowerbeds give 245/square. If your town is small, or you want more factories or trees, these flowers allow for much greater overall happiness levels in less space.

The Red Rose Flowerbed gift is a bit different - it is 1 less happiness than the Red Rose Flowerbed in the shop (244.83 happiness/square), but still sells for 7,725.

So what should I do?

First of all, look out for these quests and don't skip them - they are very much worth it! Some of these quests require either friends and a lot of gold, or spending cash. The prize is definitely worth the effort, because some people are getting hundreds of flowers as thank you gifts, which can either pay back the cost, or enable you to make more money in the future by being space-efficient with happiness.

Secondly, click on any of these links you find, and remember to send a thank you gift to the person who posted it!

For those unfortunate like me, who have already completed the quests before finding out this information, if you are diligent enough about raking the forums for flowers, you can get quite a few. For those who have yet to complete the quest, it is much more helpful if you post your link in a specific flower thread or create your own thread and name it with the prize. Flower links get quickly buried in the larger post-everything threads, and oftentimes personal reward pages are ignored unless the title includes something about flowers. Make your prize stand out from all those people posting only bonus crops and fences so the rest of us can find it!!

Marketplace Tutorial
{C} What is the marketplace? {C}The marketplace is an in-game place where you can sell items to your friends and buy their items. Items are always grouped by 20s, and you can have only one set of each item for sale at a time.

 How do I put items in the marketplace? {C}Click the market link on the bottom toolbar. Choose the sale tab, and every item you have 20 or more will be available. Click "List for Sale" for the items you want for sale. You can post the notice to your wall for your friends to see, or share the link here on Gaia in one of the marketplace threads.

 How do I buy items from the marketplace? {C}There are two ways to buy from the marketplace. The first is the Buy tab in the market link in game: here you can buy any items your friends have for sale. The other way to buy items is by clicking links, whether put on Facebook by your friends, or listed here in the Gaian forums. NOTE: Clicking a link automatically buys the item; there is no verification screen where you can cancel!

 Why should I use the marketplace? {C}The benefit of the marketplace is that you can get items in bulk quickly, and make a greater profit than selling them from your storage.

The cost to someone buying the items is 130% of the price, but 10% disappears from the game as commission, so you make only 20% more than selling the items from storage. In this cabbage example, that isn't much, but later items make a much greater profit. For example, Sunflower makes a profit of 780 gold!

 What should I sell in the marketplace? Sell items that others need! Many people post early-game items such as Bread and Butter, but this is not a good idea! -Bread is a dead-end item, it is not used in another factory later in the game, so it's only purpose is to sell. {C}<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">-Butter is an item you can make early in the game, but you can't use until the Potato Chip Factory at level 32! Not many people are this high level right now, so chances are it might not sell. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">For a list of dead-end items, and what things/levels items are used for, see this spreadsheet<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">.

Dead-end Items A to Z: <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Almond Cookie, Apple Sauce, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Beef Jerky, Bread, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Cheese Cracker, Cherry Candy, Cherry Ice Cream, Chili Pepper, Chocolate Chip Cookie, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Fettuccine Alfredo, Fried Chicken, Fried Rice, Fur Gloves, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Herbal Medicine, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Ketchup, Kimchi, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Mayonnaise, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Onion Rings, Orange Juice <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Peanut Butter, Peanut Cookie, Perfume, Pickles, Popcorn, Potato Chips, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Risotto, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Sausage Pizza, Soap, Spaghetti, Strawberry Jam, Strawberry Milk, Steak, Sweater, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Tofu, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Vanilla Ice Cream, Vegetable Juice, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'LucidaGrande',LucidaGrande,Lucida,Verdana,arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;line-height:16px;text-align:left;">Wine