So…here we are again looking at a “grind-fest” for the next 7 weeks. There are a variety of ways to look at it…and yes, my initial reaction is “WTF????” (Why the Face?) EA??? And then, as I look at all of the stuff you can earn, and knowing that after succumbing to Safi’s version of “Casual KEM Farming,” I find myself not being nearly as stressed. The fact is…when you play on “House Money,” you don’t freak out if you “lose.” And KEM farming is definitely “house money.”
Yes. I have argued that the investment of time just isn’t worth the grind to do KEM farming super proficiently. And the fact is, I am still on the fence over a couple of the issues one faces when trying to become a “SUPER FARMER.” But, as you will see…if you want to get more than enough Bonuts to get the stuff you want, over the course of even 7 weeks…EA has made it pretty easy, because THEY have set the grind…but, WE get to set the “how much of a grind.”
Let’s take a look at maximizing your time…and answering the question, “How do I have a life and get it all????”
Let’s start with a couple of things that should be obvious. First of all, EA isn’t stupid. They may be lazy when it comes to fixing code…and repeating themselves…but they aren’t stupid. They kind of “allow” KEM farming, because it keeps players playing. But, they have also wised up, that the heart and soul of the revenue stream comes from the “have to have it all!!” folks who have long ago thrown common sense and money management out the window. The latest trend in big events, is the “Gotta Pay to Play” concept…where they trot out a Premium character/building combo that you can ONLY get if you spend real money.
The price point is now $9.99…but they are throwing in bonus donuts as well (which cost them nothing to do), so at least you feel there is some value to the thing you just bought with real money, that sits on their server in a virtual state, until they turn the server off. And let’s face it…this whole game is like having a giant collection of Beanie Babies, in a huge box that you have earned over time, that might or might not be there. Kind of like having “Schrödinger’s Cat” for a pet. It only really exists when you are observing it. But, I digress…
The fact is…we have all agreed that whether it is treasure or time, we are earning what we have in our games. For me, the final decision to KEM farm came about from feeling that EA was starting to “phone it in,” and that to get what you want, had become an endless cycle of 4-hour grinding.
So how do you turn that on it’s head? Simple. Realize that KEM farming is based on a 4-hour cycle…just like the REST of the game (for the most part). And that ironically, most of our lives are based on 4 hour cycles of some sort. The question becomes, how much time do you really need every 4 hours to DO IT ALL..and in this case…that includes KEM Farming, doing the basics of the update…and doing what is needed to Farm Donuts out of the Rail Yard (yes…they add up).
Instead of just telling you how…I am going to give you visual proof of exactly how long it takes me to “do it all,” in regards to bending the system to my whims…while still having fun.
This video may feel long-ish…but remember, you can scroll through the boring bits, and get to the end easily. But, you may miss some of my one-liners or gripes if you do.
Here is what I am going to accomplish during this MAXI-GRIND. But, I want you to pay attention to how much of this is dedicated to the Event…and how much is dedicated to earning “free” donuts.
1. Springfield Jobs 4-hour cycle
2. KEM Farming Cycle
3. Rewards/Rail Yard Cycles (multi-tasked)
4. Character Tasks Cleared and Renewed for 4-hour Grind
OK… so…what did we learn??
Grinding takes time. But, you have options.
The fact is…I could have chosen to JUST do the cycle for the update…that would have taken LESS THAN A MINUTE. That rules out the “I don’t have time in the day to log on 5 times.” Yes. Yes you do.
If I wasn’t KEM farming, I may not have done the rest of the Grind Routine…but to keep parity in my farming (not losing the game currency I need to buy KEMs, while collecting enough XP to make it worth it, and keep up the cycle), I really DO need to at least do the Character Send/Harvest every 4 hours. THAT is how I came up with the 36 KEMs to plant/harvest. It is the number that doesn’t cost me any game cash, because it equals the return on the character cycle during the same 4-hour time period.
But…even THAT really only adds up to a little more than 3 minutes of time…every 4 hours.
The REST? My choice.
But, it DOES take time. And that cycle did not allow time to collect from neighbors…do any designing, or do much in the way of crafting. Which all take time.
HINTS FOR THIS EVENT…
1. Let the Justice Agents come to you. While you are doing the cycle…they will tend to gather at the Museum…just like other updates. They are valuable…but not as valuable as doing the 4-hour Job Cycle.
2. Do the “Neighbor” part of the game…only when you have a ton of time (binge watching Netflix?). The payouts are barely worth it…and it takes way more time. However…your chances of being rewarded with a mask are better there. At least that is my experience.
3. Don’t sweat the crafting % upgrading. It will not be that big of a deal…and you can do it when you have a chance. Build up your coffers…and then buy a bunch of buildings a the same time.
4. Chillax!!! None of this is real… Remember Schrödinger’s Cat? This is really Schrödinger’s game. It only exists when we give it attention. Nothing bad happens if you lay off for a while.
5. KEM farming is a complete trade-off of time. But, it does make you feel good that EA isn’t getting rich off of you, while they ignore our requests for shorter events. I’ll keep KEM farming until they get it…
BONUS VIDEO IF YOU ARE HAVING PROBLEMS PLACING THE GONDOLA…
Now…as to those who feel inclined to post, “I get a ton of donuts every day…and it only takes 5 minutes,” save yourself the time. It’s BS. There is no way to complete a 4-hour cycle of donuts, event currency, etc. without doing something else than JUST the KEM farming. House farming takes time. Collecting and placing items takes time. To build up your Bonus % takes a TON of time. So…it is not for everyone. Period. That said…I like free donuts…and I have the time.
Have a great weekend! We’ll see you on Addicts Live tomorrow…
Do you lose the jewels to buy the items in the quest when the next chapter/episode starts…
My husband and I are both play and we each have our own accounts,they are kindle fire tablets and linked to one Amazon account so I purchased the 9.99 special for him then went to purchase it for me and said I already owned it so I couldn’t buy it. I called Amazon they said it was a game problem. Any help on how to fix this so I can get one too?
A tip for getting garbage for the Railroad Yard faster is to play the spy and the black hole mini game. They are 20 seconds each and you get around 400 garbage.
I don’t get the option to choose a box when I’ve levelled up (so I don’t get to even try to get 3 donuts). It just automatically gives me 1 donut… is that something wrong with my game or is there something I can do to fix it? Thanks for any advice!
When you reach the max level then you get the boxes. Before that it’s 1/ level
Thank you, Alissa!!!
I applaud you for posting your routine and opening yourself to hearing from a bunch of us backseat drivers.
I agree with many of the suggestions posted. Perhaps you can find a better space for the KEMs so that you don’t need to waste timing manually shifting so many of them. And more of a square area for them will allow you to select/sell more at once.
I used to be a Rail Yard addict. But maybe I got burnout because I gave it a rest and I don’t mind that much. The 5 donuts is nice, but often not worth the hassle if you’re getting a bunch of KEM donuts.
You mention you do 36 KEM because that “feels like the magic number”. You may know that math will show the actual magic number. There’s at least one KEM farming calculator online. A big part depends on the player’s specific multiplier percentage they’re at. And the calculator I’m thinking of also helps you decide your bonus box strategy.
I guess it may be seen as “advanced” (at least to many of this site’s readers), but many players don’t complete certain quests so that they can send nearly all their characters to the same location (with ideally premium payouts). Every four hours I do one tap and collect from about 200 characters. If I’m in a rush I re-do the event tasks, collect and re-send those 200 or so characters, collect money from some batches, and call it a day (or a 4 hours).
Why not just skim through the entire town and collecting money and tasks at the same time? Not sure why you did cash and then characters later.
I’ll answer your last question first… I was timing the segments individually, so I could make the point that you had the choice. I often skip the longest aspect (scanning through my whole town) and just clear my character tasks, using the finder and pretty much hitting the middle of the screen. This clears the characters. and a few of the rents/menus etc. without actually having to scan and scroll my whole town.
The rest are good point…and I am working on a boxed area for my KEMs.
As far as the math…I have used the calculators…and done the math…and 36 is my current optimal placement, for parity with collection numbers and my XP multiplier. It usually gives me some cushion, in regards to the guessing game (50K a pop) penalty for guessing where the 3 Donuts hide.
Hope that explains my methods…and the purposes of the video.
There are other idiosyncratic things I do on a daily basis for fun (keeping certain characters performing the same tasks that aren’t 4-hour tasks) that can add time to this. But, I didn’t cover them, because they are my personal quirks and choices.
Thank you so much.
I have searched this site but cannot find the answer to my question.
My Springfield is asking me for “Free Land Tokens” when I want to purchase available land. In the video the available land appears to be asking for cash. What might I be missing?
My apologies if I missed the answer to this elsewhere on this site.
The last two rows that were most recently added and are not included on this Price of Land post here, can not be purchased for cash and are only available for purchase via free land tokens.
Just watched the video, thanks for posting it. One suggestion I have is that if you’re going to farm 36 KEMs, arrange them in a 6×6 square; with the selection tool, you’ll need only one move to choose all of them to sell.
For me, I’ll just farm 24 KEMs at one time; unless I need donuts in which case I’ll farm 54 KEMs (the most I can choose with one use of the selection tool), or in those rare situations when I need a lot of donuts and have lots of game money available, 108.
Something I haven’t seen mentioned is the IRS tap radius – that could make a HUGE difference in the time it takes to clear one’s buildings and characters during KEM farming.
Please point me to a post about house farming, I see it mentioned in different posts but I can’t figure out the system. I KEM farm 42 at a time and that’s all good, but I have never seen a post on house farming. Thanks for all you do
We never did one
House farming is simple. Buy, place, collect income. What type of houses (or Krusty Burger, etc) you buy depends on the cost, return and how often you visit.
When I was house farming, I considered several things…
How big a house footprint do I want to commit to? (Land costs money). How often do I want to collect on them? How much can I afford to spend on them?
I ended up buying white houses since they had a small footprint and an 8 hour return time. I couldn’t afford as many at first, but I kept adding whenever I could. I ended up with 60 of them eventually and that was a nice cash return twice a day. You’ll have to decide what works best for you. 😁
So you keep them rather than selling like with KEM farming? That is what my question was about, if there was a strategy to buy then sell or to keep them. Also the price gets so high on houses, as you purchase more ,way more than the Kwicky Mart. Thanks for comment.
KEM farming is about acquiring XP which is given after complete a KEM, which is only once. So you sell your KEMs and buy new ones.
House farming is about game cash. You buy them and collect the cash each period.
Capise?
Yup, house farming is different, it’s like an investment…you buy them to keep and they give you an income every day. You can use that money to buy and sell Kwik E Marts (KEMs) which will help you level up much quicker and give you donuts.
Yes it’s all perfectly clear. Thanks so much.
Dear Patruc,
is there an ideal order to start the different railyard jobs? First dump, next metal, plastic or glass?
How often do you do KEM farming a day? If done too often per day, I can’t afford 36 anymore.
How do you think compare bloodmobiles to the railyard? They take away the money that one needs for KEM farming, right?
After clearing the justice officers, the game shows a pop up that (roughly translated in English) says that now all justice officers and criminals are cleared – check back later again. But I saw on two occasions that after this pop up was shown, there were still crooks in my town. So the pop up is only reliable regarding the officers but not the crooks. Did you encouter or hear about this issue?
Thanks for your kind help in advance. 🙂
Sorry for the typo in your name 🙁
I hope you find the time to answer these, did I ask too many questions?
Five minutes every four hours isn’t BS, so long as you’ve put in the grinding earlier.
I’m a bonus hound. I’ve been working on my bonus percentage for about a year, and I’m up to 1883.36%, plus the hidden Heights bonus. I keep the collider going nonstop.
What does that mean in terms of grinding?
My KEM farm only has 32 KEMs. That earns me 18 – 21 donuts every 4 hours. Five minutes max.
I don’t put anyone on a four hour task unless it’s for an event. I prefer 12 hour tasks because I only have to clear them twice a day. I get 6 – 12 donuts each time I do that. That does take longer, but again, only twice a day. Or once a day if I don’t get around to clearing the characters that aren’t in an event.
I never do the railroad. Grinding to get 5 donuts a day is not worth it to me, when I get 3 donuts for every four or five houses, and 12 donuts for every three Bloodmobiles. Plus those characters could be doing jobs that earn experience.
I always go for the 3 donuts, because money isn’t a thing anymore. My leprechauns drop $100 each time, so you can imagine how much everything else is netting. I don’t really work at clearing everything because I don’t have to. I topped $100 million this week without trying. I bought $40 million in Bloodmobiles to get some of the premium items and because why not?
I don’t set a timer because now I’m earning plenty without sweating it. It’s really made the game a lot more pleasurable when I’m not stressing whether I’m going to get everything. I will or I won’t, and there are always plenty of donuts if I want to use them.
Totally worth the time I spent getting to this point.
Sure…but many people have other interests and lives…and can’t imagine spending that much time on a mobile game.
No judgement…but there is just more to life.
I play the game during the 🤬🤬🤬🤬 commercial breaks while watching the telly. This is more useful. And yes I do the other usual things, like coffee and the restroom.
I partially blame you for my TSTO addiction, because of all yoursenible, funny, well written posting 🙇♂️🙇♂️
Once you get to certain level, it really doesn’t take that much time to increase your bonus. A few months effort of building bonus versus buying premium items can save you a lot time later on.
The time you take to collect your income at level 300 take way more time that level 2000. At level 300 your at getting 4 times the value of your house/character. At level 2000, your are getting 21 times. So it takes you 1/5 the time to collect the same amount of income. Once you get to high enough level you no longer “collect” as a direct action by a side action: you collect as a byproduct as you move along to your other goals.
For another example: on my test game I have 1000 brown house farm. I can watch TV and collect income without much thought. Thus I can “grind” without grinding. So while I am watching a game or TV program, my fingers can move around in circles collecting income.
For doubters: try this as a test. It takes 24 donuts to guarantee earning at least 1% bonus. Try to earn an extra 24 donuts a day and spend those on 6 donuts mystery boxes.
LOL! That’s the point. I *don’t* spend much time. I check in when I get up in the morning, at lunch, and at bedtime. If I’m stuck in a waiting room or a long line, or if I’m way behind on an event, I might check in again, but that’s not every day. Three times a day usually, four times occasionally. Only two of those visits are going to be clearing and sending everybody on tasks, and to be honest, if I don’t feel like it, I just do the event characters.
Certainly I don’t have the time to check in every hour or two to grind at the railroad – I don’t know how you all do it!
I don’t have to spend much time because I use the time I do spend to make the game easier for myself.
As a friendly bonus hound, can you please tell me how much the maximum amount of SH bonus is? & kudos on the great game you built.👍
Considering ALL buildings (islands included) the bonus is 153%, i.i.r.c.
Wow! Thanks for the demo. I have been playing for years, and have been spending so much money.