# Do you have a strategy?



## jenikinz (Dec 10, 2017)

Do you have a strategy when playing?  If so, I would like to hear it, and maybe get some ideas.

Right now I am working on getting at least 2 of each type of animal in my camp by essence type, and 2 of each type by steel, cotton, and wood, and 1 of each for preserves and paper.  I am almost there. 

I have ended up unbalanced with supplies.  I am not sure if this is the best way to go, but I know right now I never have enough cotton, and I didn't have any cotton giving animals in my camp until the other day. I am working on getting another one in now (I just have to wait for the kiddie bed to be complete)

I am also working on upgrading all the tents for each essence type, because there are some animals I have maxed out and the hearts are being wasted every time I do them a favor.  

I wish I had paid more attention to these things at the beginning, rather than placing animals by preference, and wasting leaf tickets on some of the things I used them on.  I should have focused on storage space and crafting amenities rather than furniture just to get the specific animal I wanted in my camp.  That stuff could have come later.

So now I am focusing on getting things upgraded so I don't waste any more hearts and can max out the animals friendship.


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## shayx (Dec 10, 2017)

So here's my experience based on my 57 levels of play-time:

1. Prioritize animals that give the following items in this order: Wallpaper, Preservatives, Cotton, Wood, Steel. Currently, I have every item that is craftable, and I am constantly selling off steel, wood, and cotton.  In the beginning, I had a scatter-shot approach to having animals in my camp, and the result was me maxing out steel before everything else.  If you play often enough, hosting the animals that give the rarer items is worth it. Go here for a list of who gives what.  As you can see by this list, the wallpaper and preservatives are only given by a very few amount of people, and while they are requested less, they are still the crafting items I struggled to get enough of.

2. Max tents first.  It is the most important thing in the game if you want to continue to advance your animals.  Make sure you're not focusing on any one specific tent-type and leaving the other types behind.

3. Kick out the higher camp-dwellers.  If crafting materials are no longer a problem, make sure you only have low-level animals in you camp.  If you play often, they will advance quicker, and you raise the collective rating of your animals faster by making sure no one is left straggling behind.  It might seem tempting to go ahead and max out your level 18 animal by hosting it.  However, this strategy in the long run will slow your overall progress.  You can progress campers in your campground faster than if they were randomly located in one of the 4 spots.  Thus, you really want to focus your campground attention on the lower level animals.

4. Tickets should never ever ever EVER be used for anything that isn't permanent.  Extra slots?  Use tickets.  The KK Slider and Nook chairs?  Arguably sure, use the tickets.  But, speeding up a process or using them for the quarry is ridiculous.  This is how these micro-transaction games make the bulk of their money--impatient people speeding up timed processes.  I am very opinionated about this, so if anyone thinks otherwise, please respond so I can further elaborate why I stand behind this.

5. Have a comfortable, but not unlimited, respect for the "rare" bugs/fish.  I have had plenty of theories about what a tuna or football fish is used for, but so far at level 57, none of the campers have yet to request one of the rarer items (not including the items that sell for 1k, which get requested often enough).  I kept on hoarding these items until it became problematic (20 koi fish were taking up quite a bit of space), so I have a max of 10 slots dedicated to each rare fish/bug.  

There are several generic theories about these rarer items.  1) They are worthless except for selling, 2) They are used in the late-game, and 3) Their uses have not been incorporated yet.  Both the first and second theories would mean that you should not overload on these items, and as the third theory is simply speculative, you really should not hold these items out as the holy grail.  Sell a portion of them or store them for later use, but dear god, DO NOT LIST THEM IN YOUR MARKET BOX.

6. Clean your friends list.  You can have quite a few friends on your list that can help you with the quarry and with trading.  That being said, if a friend hasn't logged on in two weeks, that friend likely has no trading use (all items slots are empty) and s/he will not be helping you anytime with the quarry.  Prune your friendlist.  My current cut-off is two weeks, and it'll get shorter as I accumulate more friends. (That being said, does anyone know how many friends you can currently have?  I would like to know my limit so that I can better gauge when I should cut people off my list)

7. Make SURE you own the clothing or furniture that's listed in the market.  I am a 100%-er, meaning I want to have everything I can possibly have.  There are short-sleeve and long-sleeves versions of the same shirts and pants.  You think you already own that fiery shirt?  Check again to be sure you have the right type/cut of that shirt!

8. If you're suuuuper into the game like me, be the "go-to" guy for market items.  I currently have twelve market slots that are constantly being bought up.  The reason that my items are constantly being bought, as I would like to believe, is that I always have a set of three of every farmable item (the 3 fish from top-left, the 3 bugs from bottom-left, and the 3 fish from bottom-left).  You need ANYTHING farmable?--come to me.  I charge 150 per set of 3.  This is not the cheapest of prices that I see, but because I always have one set of everything non-fruit/non-seashell, I feel like people often default to me to get what they need.  For the last three slots, I fill those with my two "extra fruit," and then whatever other fruit I have in surplus.  When I say extra fruit, I'm referring to the fruit-type in the top left area (everyone has a copy of all fruit types in top right, but the fruit types in top left are random for each player.  I have apples and pears, and I always have apples and pears listed because those fruits might be more limited for other players and are often surplussed for me).


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## jenikinz (Dec 10, 2017)

shayx said:


> So here's my experience based on my 57 levels of play-time:
> 
> 1. Prioritize animals that give the following items in this order: Wallpaper, Preservatives, Cotton, Wood, Steel. Currently, I have every item that is craftable, and I am constantly selling off steel, wood, and cotton.  In the beginning, I had a scatter-shot approach to having animals in my camp, and the result was me maxing out steel before everything else.  If you play often enough, hosting the animals that give the rarer items is worth it. Go here for a list of who gives what.  As you can see by this list, the wallpaper and preservatives are only given by a very few amount of people, and while they are requested less, they are still the crafting items I struggled to get enough of.
> 
> ...



Thanks for all the information!  A lot of what you wrote I have put into practice, and still need to work on a few things though.  I can't undo what I did in the beginning, but I am fixing the mistakes I have made the best I can now.  

I have to craft more furniture to get those paper and preserves animals into my camp.  Right now I have one of each, and two each of the other types of materials with 2 of each "theme type" trying to balance it all out.  

I have made at least one of each theme type of tent and working on maxing them all out to level 3 now.

I have read multiple places that the max friends is 100, I am not even close to that yet.  My habit is to send quarry requests to each friend every night before I go to bed, and then when something I need is in the quarry (up until now it was candy canes, but I just finished the last piece (and the last of my timed and stretch goals) so I will work on the sparkly essences now) I can check it throughout the day and by the time one comes up I want more than enough friends have responded.

I try to always replenish my favor supplies and will fish and catch bugs etc and once I run out of space I put the bulk in my market boxes usually at 3 for 100 bells.  I have been selling off all super rare items for bells, and don't understand the people that put them in their boxes.  I should probably start keeping them just in case they will be needed later.

I did learn the hard way about crafting duplicates.  I usually will craft items from the animals "want list" and until it is crafted it still has the option to craft it and I ended up with two alpine sofas.  I really wish we could arrange the furniture list, and that there was some way of knowing which item you are currently crafting.    

I did make the mistake of using tickets to speed some things up at the beginning as well as craft items to get animals in my camp faster, and get through the timed and stretch goals.  I just started playing this game last week, can you tell I am impatient.  I do plan to slow it down though, because I don't want to burn out on it either.  I have been tempted to buy a ticket pack, but I have to remind myself of how many other games I have spend money on that I burned out on and no longer play   I do want to support the developers, I guess that is my excuse to buy, and I do like that this game really doesn't seem to be as much of a money grab as other games I have paid for (which is another reason I stopped playing them because the ONLY way to progress was to spend real money and I have a limit)

Now I have other things to work towards, your suggestion of prioritizing the animals with paper and preserves makes sense, and I plan to work on that next.


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## TykiButterfree (Dec 12, 2017)

My strategy is to try to have about 5 of each kind of item so I can do most villager requests easily. If I get low on something, I will try to find more or visit friends and check the market boxes. I expanded the inventory a bit and it works pretty well since I don't play that often.

My problem is never having any cotton. Most of the villagers I like just give steel. I don't mind using leaf tickets to go to the quarry or if I need materials since it is pretty easy to level up and that always gives more leaf tickets. I feel like it is pointless to use them to speed up crafting though. I just check the next day and everything I was crafting is usually done by then.


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## jenikinz (Dec 12, 2017)

TykiButterfree said:


> My strategy is to try to have about 5 of each kind of item so I can do most villager requests easily. If I get low on something, I will try to find more or visit friends and check the market boxes. I expanded the inventory a bit and it works pretty well since I don't play that often.
> 
> My problem is never having any cotton. Most of the villagers I like just give steel. I don't mind using leaf tickets to go to the quarry or if I need materials since it is pretty easy to level up and that always gives more leaf tickets. I feel like it is pointless to use them to speed up crafting though. I just check the next day and everything I was crafting is usually done by then.



I used up all my leaf tickets expanding my storage boxes, I used to keep at least 6-8 of each of the most requested items, but now I am keeping at least 10-12 since I have more storage.  When I have time, and all the requests have been fulfilled I go and replenish everything in storage for the next batch of requests.  It has been working out very well.


I had the same issue with cotton, that is why I made sure I had at least two of each animal that gives cotton, steel, and wood, and one of each for the preserves and paper.  I also started using the request tickets on animals that give cotton, and now I have plenty of cotton.  Once I can invite animals that give paper and preserves I plan to boot one steel and one wood giving animal since I seem to always have plenty of those items,  but the paper and preserves...those items are rarely given out and it seems when you need them you need a LOT of them.


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