Re: Speed Up Tokens

If you want something to be upset about, try this:  When I first started with Cheetah tokens, you needed nine pieces to get one token.  Then it became ten pieces.  Then 11 pieces.  Then 12 pieces.  I'm now subject to 13 (yes THIRTEEN) cheetah pieces to make one Cheetah token.

I can only surmise that as you get more cheetah buildings, you need more pieces to make a token.  Or, perhaps, it's related to how many tokens you've earned (as I've heard of another person complaining that the turtle tokens were also increasing but they weren't adding more turtle buildings).  I'm not sure as I've been adding cheetah buildings and also making tokens for use.

And I too, originally complained that cheetah tokens were ridiculously challenging to attain (see one of my previous posts where I detailed the insane time required for the tasks at hand).

Another person pointed out an important detail that helped me a lot:  Store the long creation time items and create the short creation time items as needed.

While this helped, I still usually end up having crazy requirements as I near 160 points and must deploy one or more cheetah tokens to get to 160 points.  My biggest pain is creating stuff in the Farmer's Market (milk, flour, and watermelons have been in short supply and nearly impossible to find on the global trade market).

I haven't spent a penny on the game - but I've sent countless mind numbing hours playing it.

There are several threads showing how you can get cheetah epic building. It's not as hard as people make it out to be. If you plan ahead and have 350 or so storage it's easily doable within 12 hrs.....On my current epic job I've gotten 80 epic points in just under 3 hrs. 

My storage was 230 and I started with with over 100,000 in coins and 1500 in dollars.  I noticed something however, the longer I play in a single session the crazier my task requirements got, but then if I closed the game and reopened it the task requirements were more reasonable.  For example, 10 Ice cream sandwiches for 3 points became 4 Watermelons for 3 points.  Unfortunately I didn't notice this trend until after the first 10 to 11 hours.  

So far with 3 hours left I have 135 of 160 points.  All the tasks that remain require 4 to 6 hours of production time for 1 to 3 points, and I've already spent over 1000 Sim Bucks on buying down production times as the only viable means I could see to completing that task.  I estimated out given the tasks I have what I would need to complete.  To buy enough stuff to complete the 3 point tasks takes about 150 sim bucks.  To buy enough sim bucks will cost quite a bit.  

At this point I've sold all the special items for more coin, depleted my coins AND the bucks.  I sorta feel like the only options in front of me of are pony up $100 or fail and have absolutely nothing to show for it.  I could probably rebuild the coin etc in time, but the knowledge of how many bucks and resources I p***ed away is going to eat at me.

The only advice I have for someone still playing is to avoid long sessions.  Log off and back on again and it seems to make the objectives more within the realm of reason.  Inventory also seem to be affected but I was unable to consistently reproduce it   For example 1 task required 5 ladders and I had 1.  Upon closing and reopening the app I had 6 ladders and the quest was completeable.  Other times things like my shovels would disappear.  I was making sure not to use anything that required them, and I was producing them with a speed up token.  After collecting the 5th one I went to check the count  and it said 1.  I logged off and back on and magically I had 3.  Not as good as 5 but better than 1.  

So far as I can tell the problems only seem to occur when you've been playing for an extended period of time in a session.  What constitutes an "extended period of time" I can't say, but at least once every 30 to 60 minutes I'd recommend at least closing and reopening it.

10 Ice Cream sandwiches? Something is wrong. I've never had any epic project task require more that 5 of anything and I have about 30 epic buildings. you should NEVER do any task that is less than 3 points for it. 

You've spent 1000 sim bucks in one epic project? thats insane. I've spent zero and I'm now at 154 points on a project that I started 7 1/2 hrs ago.

I agree, the Farmers Market and Donut Shop takes a crazy amount of time to get what you need without speeding them up.  Any food items really.  Because they take the longest to build up, I generally use all other items for money making while I'm stocking up on food items.  Once food items are up to par, then I'll prepare any other items needed.

I did one cheetah last weekend without using any speedup tokens and took me about 6 or 7 hours.  Every once in a while I'll get one building that doesn't require me to jump through hoops to get it and seems to be evenly dispersed, so what I have in stock will due with purchasing some easy to find items.  Out of the 7 cheetah buildings I have now, that's only happened twice.  Usually it's jump through hoops to make it happen.

I'm starting to believe that what you get is based on what you have.  They intentionally try to make it difficult by giving things you don't have, so make what you don't have the easy to find items in the market.  That's only a theory though.  Next time I'm going to stock up a little differently and see how it goes.

@jrandomuser

With only 230 storage, No, I don't expect you would be able to make cheetah with that and hard pressed to make Llama.  Get your storage capacity up to 300+ and you can do it with proper preparation.

@mbrown2626

I can guarantee you've been asked for 10 of single item.  Happens to me all the time.  It happens when two different locations are both asking for the same thing.  I've had as much as 15 of the same item being asked for at the same time.  3 different buildings asking for 5 drills each.  That was a pain and required a cheetah token or two to be able to complete it in time.

Where it's not impossible, it makes it frustrating when you have 5 of so many other items but the game is stuck on one item across multiple locations.

@SomeSimGuy

when @jrandomuser said "For example, 10 Ice cream sandwiches for 3 points became 4 Watermelons for 3 points." I assumed they were talking about 1 task. Yes, I have been asked for over 10 of the same item between multiple tasks but never more that 5 for 1.

@mbrown2626

Yeah, I read it the same way you did at first, but after thinking about it for a bit and knowing it's impossible, I knew he must have been talking about being spread across 2 different tasks and not all from the same task.

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@SomeSimGuy wrote:

@jrandomuser

With only 230 storage, No, I don't expect you would be able to make cheetah with that and hard pressed to make Llama.  Get your storage capacity up to 300+ and you can do it with proper preparation.

@mbrown2626

I can guarantee you've been asked for 10 of single item.  Happens to me all the time.  It happens when two different locations are both asking for the same thing.  I've had as much as 15 of the same item being asked for at the same time.  3 different buildings asking for 5 drills each.  That was a pain and required a cheetah token or two to be able to complete it in time.

Where it's not impossible, it makes it frustrating when you have 5 of so many other items but the game is stuck on one item across multiple locations.

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I beg to differ with you regarding the amount of storage needed. I currently have 56 epic buildings: 17 turtle, 25 llama and 14 cheetah. My quickest llama was under 60 minutes, I have completed cheetahs is less than 6 hours and while some have taken me longer, the time usually included things like sleeping, eating and working. I did upgrade my storage to 250 before starting the epics from 180 however. The problem now is that it requires 22 of each item to gain 10 additional items of storage, not a great dollar (sim cash not money cash) spent for benefit received

I also do NOT necessarily plan ahead and stock up for each challenge. I have entered into a new one with as little as 180 items and have spent 100,000 simoleons to get to cheetah. When I plan ahead and have 240+ items, I have achieved cheetah with as little as 25,000 spent. And I have never started a challenge that I was unable to complete, at whatever level. We have silver and bronze by choice, right? Not because we couldnt make it to gold. I also never heard of the connection between what level you are on and how much storage you need. Im at level 61 currently so according to the above referenced formula, I should be at 400 items? Not going to happen...And stop thinking about how long it will take to produce X number of items. It could take a week to produce everything you need to complete the challenge, so that is where speed up items come into play. And you complete epic challenges to earn speed up items so you can complete your epic challenges so you can earn speed up ...and on and on and over and over

IMHO, you cannot achieve your goal by only producing items or only by buying them. It is a combination of the two methods which will get you to the promised land. There is not enough storage space available for you to stock up on everything you might need

Last, I am in total agreement with your statement regarding the game knowing what you have in inventory and using thas data to generate the tasks. It is more than a coincidence that even when looking to purchase on the Global Market, the things you want suddenly disappear. When light bulbs, suits and couches, donuts and shoes are nowhere to be found because you are looking for them, you know something is up. When you have 10 firepits and 10 yogurts in inventory and it asks you for 5 backpacks twice, you know this is smart software. But folks, this is what makes this game CHALLENGING!! If it was easy, it would be boring! I remind myself of this every day as I am cussing and swearing and threatening to throw my iPad against the wall. We all agree EA sucks, this game sucks at times and this is what drives us to play, it fuels the addiction. We dont play because we have to, there is no law (at least in the USA) that says we have to play this game. So ask yourself, why do you play?

For those of you who think the game is unfair, or dont like the Contest of Mayors or think the Epic Challenges are not worth it, go ahead and stop playing or at least stop playing those sections of the game. It will mean less competition for the rest of us...

Just saying...😇

PS None of the information or strategies shared above is original or created by me. It has been collected from many posts from this forum from those players who have achieved some success. Not all of their strategies worked, or worked for me. I have been playing since just after the game came out and have spent some time researching strategies and reading posts. I strongly encourage anyone who wants to get better to do the same. Especially informative is the FAQ administered by TroyParry74. His insights proved extremely valuable to me and the time he has spent sharing his knowledge is immense. He is by no means the only contributor, but his name seems to stick in my mind and it must be due to the information shared and my success derived from it. Also, none of my comments on this or any other post, are intended to embarrass, offend or insult any other person, living or dead, who is now playing or has played in the past, this game or any other game. My comments and my opinions are my own and not a reflection of EA or the Internet and if I have in fact offended anyone, then my advice is: GROW A PAIR!!

@bettysadog said, " I also never heard of the connection between what level you are on and how much storage you need."

Probably not.  I'm the only one who's said that.  It's only an opinion based on my own experience in the game.  It's more of a general rule of thumb.  Once you get to a level that is beyond the maximum storage it's all moot anyhow.  I'm only level 34 now, so I still have a long way to go, but having 340 makes it a whole lot easier to accomplish what I need to than when I had 190 storage at level 32.  It's taken me nearly 3 months to catch my storage up to where it needed to be to complete Epic Projects.

Everything in the game is all personal opinion.  If you find other ways of accomplishing what you need to do that is great.  Maybe your experiences and opinions will help others too.

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@EverestCity wrote:

Large storage capacity is certainly a help, I went to 500 as quickly as possible after it came out!

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How did you do it so quickly?  It's taken me a couple months to go from 190-340 (almost 350, still need 4 camera, 5 locks, 2 bars) although it's gone much faster with the contests going and people selling storage supplies more often.  The first week the contest was going I think I went up 5 times in one week, which was awesome! 🙂  It's slowed back down a bit since then and the contest isn't a new novelty anymore.

Wow, guys, your advises are amazing! May be now I'll have enough courage to try a cheetah epic project at last.

My city is of level 54 and I have 450-sized storage (I actually stopped upgrading the storage capacity because I wasn't sure there was a limit to it 🙂 With all that, I have only turtle and llama epics, since they seemed to be reasonable upgrades with not much strain: out of my storage inner pockets I usually can get the first 30-40 points for a project without any preparation. If I decide on a llama building, without much problem I can produce and trade my way to the 80-point mark. But imagining go 80 points higher with all this puny 1-3 point assignments was quite frightening 🙂 

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@Restville wrote:
I just wish I could use speed up tokens in my factories. I really hate waiting seven hours for chips (or hunting i the global trade depot).

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Yep, but we need some time for sleeping and doing things off-line 😉 Such types of tasks give you an excuse to leave your game for a while.

Btw, this time in the contest of mayors I will not use many tokens even for production, because I have tendency to finish early and then just look at the changing statistics of my success. This time I am going to use whole 4 days with all the extra hours -- my speed tokens are falling out of my pockets unused...

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pengamia wrote:

Btw, this time in the contest of mayors......

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I'm going to take a bye week this week and work on Epics.  I'm only going to work Silver since I have enough Cheetah for 1 a day right now, so I should be able to do 1 Epic per day and add 5 Epics.  In theory anyway since I won't have to use as many items, but will take longer to complete since I'll have to wait the full 24hrs.

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@Restville wrote:


And I want to know how some person ended up with 200 epic buildings when I don't even have 60, yet all my playtime has been epic challenges ... hahaha.

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I could easily do one a day if I'm not aiming for Cheetah.  I'm sure they're not all Cheetah buildings.  Not to mention, some players have been playing for over a year.