Hey there Hoppereenos!!
Bouncings by with a breakdown of the Elf Cannon and it’s upgrades you can make once you have won 1700 Bells, awarded the Cannon Control Building, and placed it in your town.
The first time you place the Cannon, you will see it at it’s 1st Stage Image. It automatically comes at Level 1 with 3 shots @ 9 Bottled Elves per shot. The payout is set to 2 Bells per Elf Bottle shot.
Now as you progress, you get the Control Building. 
When tapped on, it will tell you the CURRENT Level of the Elf Cannon, Elf Bottles per Shot, Elf Bells per Elf Bottle, Cool Down time, and cost of Cogwheels to Upgrade it to the NEXT Level.
As you Upgrade, you will get more Shots, more Bells per Shot, Less Cool Down Time, and pay More Cogwheels for Next Level Upgrade. You will also see the Cannon change in appearance.
Level 10
Level 20
Now that you have a basic idea, let’s take a closer look of the actual breakdown of each Cannon Level so you know what to expect.
| CANNON LEVEL | Cogwheel Cost | Elves Per Shot | Bells Per Elf | Cool Down | Next Upgrade Bonus |
| 1 | None | 9 | 2 | 3hrs 45mins | Minus 15mins Cool Down |
| 2 | 20 | 9 | 2 | 3hrs 30mins | Add 1 Bell Per Elf |
| 3 | 35 | 9 | 3 | 3hrs 30mins | Add 1 Elf Per Shot |
| 4 | 60 | 10 | 3 | 3hrs 30mins | Minus 15mins Cool Down |
| 5 | 80 | 10 | 3 | 3hrs 15mins | Add 1 Bell Per Elf |
| 6 | 100 | 10 | 4 | 3hrs 15mins | Add 1 Elf Per Shot |
| 7 | 130 | 11 | 4 | 3hrs 15mins | Minus 15mins Cool Down |
| 8 | 160 | 11 | 4 | 3hrs 00mins | Add 1 Bell Per Elf |
| 9 | 200 | 11 | 5 | 3hrs 00mins | Minus 15mins Cool Down |
| 10 (New Canon) | 240 | 11 | 5 | 2hrs 45mins | Add 1 Elf Per Shot |
| 11 | 290 | 12 | 5 | 2hrs 45mins | Minus 15mins Cool Down |
| 12 | 340 | 12 | 5 | 2hrs 30mins | Add 1 Bell Per Elf |
| 13 | 400 | 12 | 6 | 2hrs 30mins | Add 1 Elf Per Shot |
| 14 | 460 | 13 | 6 | 2hrs 30mins | Minus 15mins Cool Down |
| 15 | 530 | 13 | 6 | 2hrs 15mins | Add 1 Bell Per Elf |
| 16 | 600 | 13 | 7 | 2hrs 15mins | Minus 15mins Cool Down |
| 17 | 680 | 13 | 7 | 2hrs 00mins | Add 1 Bell Per Elf |
| 18 | 760 | 13 | 8 | 2hrs 00mins | Add 1 Bell Per Elf |
| 19 | 850 | 13 | 9 | 2hrs 00mins | Add 1 Bell Per Elf |
| 20 (New Canon) | 940 | 13 | 10 | 2hrs 00mins | Upgrade for Bragging Rights Only, No Changes from here on |
| 21+ | 1050+ | 13 | 10 | 2hrs 00mins | * |
As you can see, different areas increase at differnt Levels. So one may give you more bells while another gives you more Elf Bottles to shoot. It stops upgrading at 20, so anything beyond that is wasting Cogwheels and more for just bragging rights (like the Castles).
Now, about those Cogwheels. Again, you NEED to have won the Cannon Control Building and placed it in your town. Once you do this, you will then start to see random amount of Cogwheels popping out of random Elves as you Tap or Zap to Bottle them. There is nothing set to this method.
In my game, when I got Cogwheels, it paid out 4 from each Elf they came from. Again, no set amount of Elves to trigger the Cogwheels. At times it seemed a lot, at other times not much.
There are also TWO other ways to get Cogwheels, the first is from playing for 5 days straight. In other words, visiting your town at least one time each 24 hour period over 5 days total. Not only will it help you collect Bells, but on the 5th day…you get to collect 50 Cogwheels. It will help out a LOT as you can see the amounts needed for the Levels.
Day 1: 5 Extra Bells
Day 2: 10 Extra Bells
Day 3: 50 Extra Bells
Day 4: 100 Extra Bells
Day 5: 50 Cogwheels
Do not worry if you do not have the Cannon Control Building yet, the Cogwheels will still sit in limbo until you place it, then the ones you win will be added right away.
Then of course there is the Donut buyout. If you are willing to part with a LOT of pink sprinklies, feel free to take advantage of the weekend sales to get the Cogwheels. I prefer collecting them myself. I tried the buyout…and…well…I miss those donuts terribly. 
1 Cogwheel, 2 Donuts
10 Cogwheels, 20 Donuts
50 Cogwheels, 100 Donuts
100 Cogwheels, 200 Donuts
There you have it. A few more ways to progress through the game. Leveling up the Cannon will help, just remember…the more you shoot out, the less you will have leftover. So there may come a point you just don’t have enough Elf Bottles to shoot. So use them wisely.
Where are you on the Cannon Levels? Are you liking this element of the game? How many Cogwheels have you collected? Buy any with Donuts? Let us know.
Bunny
It’s not the end of the world, but it seems rather ridiculous to have cannon upgrades WAY beyond what is achievable due to elf spawn rate.
Sure, you could point out that donuts could be spent, but I calculated at one point that it would take something like 10,000 donuts to level the cannon up to 20 (beyond what you could get through elf bottling). This was an off hand calculation, so don’t hold me to the number.
It would be one thing if this was some glorious premium item, but as best as I can tell it will become a paper weight at the end of the event, so it seems pretty ludicrous or greedy to dangle this in front of people.
Now, I am not complaining. Haven’t spent a single donut, and I am a day away from the final elf bell prize – and I don’t care where I end up with the cannon. So no big deal from that point. Just saying that it doesn’t seem very neighborly or smart of EA with regards to this one item.
Sandra, I have stuck to getting bells from neighboreeno’s cannon and elf caves since I realized you get double for that which was after the first week. Where the problem lies for me and I’m sure most people who have played but aren’t going to get the island is that I fired my cannon a lot early on. I have fired 2027 elves from my cannon but only have a little over 14,000 bells. I fired 3 volleys of my cannon 5x a day from day one, and probably 6x on some days. Because early in the game elves were plentiful. I had a 400+ elf surplus. Once I realized elves weren’t coming as often it was too late. So I fired my cannon a lot when I had fewer elves and and got fewer bells for each elf. So I was way ahead of everyone of my neighboreeno’s early on, but now they have all passed me because I can only fire my cannon 3x a day for the past week. It’s annoying because people who fired their cannon the most will be the ones who don’t complete the quest.
I don’t think that’s it… From the start, I’ve fired my cannon every time it was ready to be fired and, when I finally started having an elf shortage a couple of days ago, I’ve fired it everytime I had collected enough elves to fire all three shots. (I find I can still fire my cannon at least three times a day, I think.)
Maybe I just got enough of a head start at the beginning – I figured out the neighbor thing by the second day, I think, and I didn’t have a lot of connection problems at the beginning, when the elves were coming more frequently (which is probably why I didn’t hit a deficit until just a couple (or three?) days ago). I’m also on the game very frequently through the day and night (until bedtime), so I’ve been able to constantly clear my cave and cannon handshakes, earning 5 bells for each, each time. I realize that not everyone has had that luxury (or the patience to ONLY collect from neighbors’ caves and cannons), so maybe those are a couple of reasons some people are having a harder time than I did making it through all of the prizes.
The elves shortage is a bit not fun but I have spent no donuts and am only 2000 bells away from island. I get over 400 bells each day from tapping neighbors. But the cogs are in short supply I am level 13 cannon and took 2 days to get 149 cogs.
But I am enjoying the storyline and still love the game.
I’m confused by a lot of the comments I’m seeing here… It seems like a lot of people feel that, if they can’t tap their cannon (because they don’t have enough elves at the moment), the game isn’t worth playing anymore. Is being able to tap a cannon an extra time or two really that important? Is that really the main appeal of playing this game? Sure, it’s a little illogical the way EA set up that part of the event, but is that really such a big deal? I just don’t get it….
The issue is that if there aren’t enough elves supplied to be fired then the bells can’t be earned to win the gifts on part 2, I should achieve little helper Ralph today but if the amount of bells needed for the last 2 prizes are too high because of the shortage of elves it can’t be achieved, time will tell 🙂
If you’ve got a full complement of neighbors and you stick to just tapping their caves and cannons until you finish collecting bells from them each day and you keep clearing your own cave and bell of handshakes as often as possible and you shoot your cannon as often as you do have enough elves to take three full shots, then getting all of the prizes is quite do-able. Using this strategy, I’m several days ahead of schedule and will probably earn the island tonight. I did, finally, have to wait at one point yesterday to have enough elves to shoot three full loads, but I still got at least two good rounds of cannon shooting done for the day (maybe more?).
I guess the exception would be for folks who couldn’t get into the game for a several days, due to the server issues out their own personal time conflicts.
Ran out of elves like all the rest of you…. Just a scam so we use donuts to buy the prizes or what ? This is the most ridiculous thing They have ever done and NO ONE is happy about it……….
Unless you started playing really late (because of server issues or whatever), you shouldn’t need to spend donuts to get all the prizes, so you don’t need to worry. You can earn lots of donuts in other ways, and you should still be able to fire the cannon at least once or twice a day, as well.
I’m sorry Sandra, but you are not right about this repeated claim. I started from the beginning, and shot a ton from the start, collected from my neighbors, and ran out of elves in bottles several days ago and I will definitely not get to the final prize at the current rate of elves appearing in my town.
Did you stick to just tapping your neighbor’s caves and cannons while collecting bells from them?
I swear to you that I played exactly as I described and I made it to the island this evening. The only donuts I spent were two on the very first day of Phase 2 to speed up Homer’s initial 16-hour task, because I was impatient to check out their new phase before going to bed that night. Other than that, I’ve just made sure to ONLY collect neighbor bells from their caves and cannons (so I’d get the double payouts), to clear my own cave and cannon of handshakes through the day, complete all the bell-earning quests, and shoot my cannon only when I had enough elves to take full shots. If you’ve done all of those things exactly, then I can’t explain why you, too, aren’t several days ahead of the calendar (unless you were locked out of the game for several days or something).
Not having enough elves to fire really puts a damper on the amount of times I now log in and play, what’s the point of having canon upgrades when we don’t have the elves supplied to fufill it 🙁
I agree. I can’t tap enough elves to keep up with firing 36 elves every 2.5 hours. I’m down to 4 elves and little hope of collecting enough for when it’s ready to fire again. Tuning out …
I am at level 11 and my bottles have a huge surplus of ~400 elves, I am maybe firing canon 3 or 4 times a day, will hit final award based on calendar, I see no point in artificially hoarding and I don’t understand how folks are running out of elves on low levels….
AFTER, all the prizes are collected you can earn donuts by collecting bells, the most efficient way is firing elves, previous events allowed players to earn 40+ donuts. I used to earn enough to get a character. They’ve created down on the amount of free donuts.
My canon is at level 9 and I have 352 elves bottled and ready to shoot….I feel like I’m never going to get that number down!
What happens when you tap on the canon in your neighbor’s town?
I am level ten oom my cannon and have way more elves than I can shoot.
You’ll get double the pay out of bells & they’ll get 5 bells. More details are on this post:
http://tstoaddicts.com/2014/12/26/addicts-question-corner-phase-2-of-christmas/
As the number of elves fired increases, and the cooldown time decreases, you’ll soon find you don’t have enough elves to fire sometimes. Keep collecting elves!
Happy new year everyone! My question is this….will I have enough elves if I’m firing my canon every 2hrs and 45 mins?? Just asking…it doesn’t seem like I’m getting enough elves
Just stay as close to the Calendar as you can. 😉
http://tstoaddicts.com/2014/12/27/christmas-gift-calendar-part/
Thanks for all the tips! I started phase two a couple of days late due to my phone going kaput and now I’m hoarding my elves and just upgrading my cannon. I’m still a hundred cogwheels away for level 9 but want to make sure I have enough elves. Ever since I found this site my gameplay has gotten better and better. Keep up the good work everyone!
My elf bottler disappeared from my screen and my phase 2 tasks reverted back to the start. Yet I still have my 10,000 bells and awards and my cannon is level 9. Had to begin all the tasks all over again including cannon upgrades and still no elf bottler. Anyone else experience this?
Very odd. What, if any, troubleshooting have you tried? Restart device. Log out, restart, log back in? Uninstall/reinstall the app?
I’ve restarted the device several times. I’ve logged out then back in multiple times. I’ve logged in from another device. I experience the same results each time. I’m fortunate I did not lose elf bells, prizes or donuts. I can live without the elf bottler. On a positive note I’m receiving elf bells again for completing the tasks again.
Contact EA
I’m losing cogwheels. Went to bed with just under 50 last night and woke up to 20 this morninh. Anyone else having this issue?
Did you tap on the Control Building and upgrade your Cannon at all?
Ladies and gentle man that run this site u guys must either have the patience of a saint or know ppl in ea, i had the issue where i didnt recieve my donuts i set up 6 chats waited the time no one came on, i set 3 call backs, 1st one got no call back a day later got an email sayin the were going to close my case, 2nd call back they finally called me however it was 6hrs past time frame and i was at work, 3rd one i final talked to someone 9hrs past time frame, couldnt help me transfered me and was on hold for an hour before i gave up and hung up, i was refunded my money by google, i was just trying to find out if i could get the bonus donuts and costingtons that i planned on purchasing, im not even sure if i want to give them anymore, how do u deal with it?
I contact them during the day and during normal U.S. business hours. I ALWAYS wait for a phone call. I don’t care how long the time wait is, Calls seem to be the best over chat or email. If the person on the line can’t fix it, I tell them I will wait on hold until they find someone who can. When I get the “followup” email from EA, I immediately respond back if the issue is not fixed. If they close it, I open a new one. I also go in and attach screenshots, dialog shots, and attach a word doc explaining in detail my issue if I feel the rep still does not understand. That way when the higher level techs do go into my case…the info is all right there for them to visually look at and not just go off what some prior rep told them. I just don’t give up. I stay on them.
U really are very patient i am not so especially when it is me trying to give them money, i guess i will find something else to do with the money in my google acc
Well in a situation like this one, THOUSANDS were impacted. So the lines were flooded. Imagine a million people all calling you at once. So, it may take a lil time and patience on this one, but I would rather take that time and get it resolved instead of letting them keep my money. Lol.