Hay Day Strategy and Money Making Guide

[dmofalterak]

You have a good attitude. For a long while I hesitated giving an honest critique to guides written by new players hoping that it would just die a slow death, but since lately some guides have been just downright wrong and new folks might make a costly mistake following them that I felt I just had to. But you have taken the critique for what it was meant so I feel you will probably be here for a while and be a helpful contributor. We need that.

I am glad your guide helped you also. My new people tips post was really just meant to be a place I could return to so I could use the links as needed. I was tickled when they decided to sticky it. You can certainly keep adding to yours as you level up and as you see how the game changes over time. I will read any additions and changes you make in the future.

You are right in that finding the information about profit per hour is difficult and anyone who plays as you do could find value in your information. What complicates things is that the value of each item is often not reflected in the price and the value changes with each level and even depending on what the boats are asking for. Sometimes I think every boat is asking for the same thing. Just this morning plain cheese pizza was needed in at least five of my neighbors boats. I sometimes wish we could see what was in the filled crates. I'd be willing to bet that more of my neighbors boats needed cheese pizza, but they didn't need to flag them for help. So while I can usually go through my help list and fill every single boat, this morning I could only help a few because I used up all my cheese pizza on the first two. Also for some people the time variable isn't important to them, for others price isn't. Right now I am concentrating on mastery and leveling up. I'd sell all my fruit at one coin each if it meant I could level up faster. Leveling fast is dangerous in the beginning, later on, it's all you think about.

Plus I think it was you who said not to make butter because it is only used in two things. That stuck with me as I never noticed that. But then I got caught with no butter for the lemon curd and a boat that was going to want lemon pie. I always forget the lemon items and the other things that are on the second page of the machine. I hate that. So maybe if you want to make a future guide or table even for yourself, you might want to group things differently than what each machine does or needs but by what product goes where. This would require research into the items you don't have so you could say something like eggs are used for these cakes but also four are needed for mayo and two for lemon curd not just you only need indigo for blue hats and sweaters. Also I couldn't figure out why I was having so much trouble keeping
Lettuce on hand till I was caught low while trying to make a green smoothie.

I am not saying you need to rush out and start working on this but I am trying to say that what is needed isn't what is obvious that everyone knows but looking at the material in a different way. Something that someone might not realize at first. I was blown away by the amount of XP lobster soups gave, but off the top of my head I can't tell you how many you get from tomato soup. Do I get more XP by making the goat cheese to make tomato soup or more by harvesting lobsters and then making soup. Or should I sell the ingredients if I need money? I know the guide book has XP but it is grouped by machine again and doesn't take into account the ingredients. Maybe grouping top XP items by number of XP would be useful. I don't know. Just brain storming here.

Anyway. Thanks again for your great attitude about this. It helps.

Thanks. I'm always looking to improve, and I really value a good critique. Too many people get offended or hesitate to give an honest opinion, so I really appreciate it.

Your new people tips are great. I've used the links again and again. I also read them all when I found them because they were universally helpful. I would recommend anyone who likes Hay Day to check them out.

Thanks very much for being willing to check out my ramblings in the future. That's an honor!

I totally agree with you about the values of items. They change so drastically at different levels that it can be really hard to figure out intrinsic values. Add to that the different goals and strategies of players and the task becomes almost impossible. One player might only want to do boats, another might focus only on leveling, and a third might be low level and strapped for coins.

I've noticed what you mentioned about boats as well. They definitely seem to come in patterns. I've seen times where it seemed like half of all the boats wanted 60 bread and other times where it was just pizza, carrot juice, syrup, or some other item. I think this was an intentional design decision by Super Cell to cycle the value of items and keep the game interesting. It works very well!

Your idea about what each product is used in (and the amounts) is great. I'm pretty sure I read one of your posts in the guide book thread which suggested a similar idea and I thought it was good then, too. What I ended up doing was reading over the entire guide book and looking for patterns of oft-repeated ingredients but that's not a perfect solution. I think I might start putting information together on it and might put it up as a guide (or an addition) at a later date. I do think it would be helpful and interesting.

I went back through the original post and highlighted the high xp items in blue for you. Although, it probably won't be very helpful until I can use all the production buildings so you can see what really are the best items to produce for xp at very high levels.

Thanks again for the wonderful feedback and ideas for new guides. Some really awesome stuff in there!

[meonhoc]

Because you are open to suggestions , here is my opinion on making good coins:

I made a spreadsheet at the beginning of the game to compare price per hour. I used info from guidebook, wikia and from the game itself. XP was not taken into account yet as coins were my ultimate goal back then. Wheating guide was not written back then.

Basically my spreadsheet looks like this (example on Bakery):
- Bread takes 3 wheat (ingredient cost is 9) and yields 2.4 coins per minute (if buy wheat) or 4.2 coins per minute (if plant wheat myself).
- Cookie used brown sugar (20 minutes). While it yields 1.73 coins per minute, it becomes 1.3 coins per minute if sugar production time is taken into account.
- Pizza, while appears to sell for more coins, does not yield as much coin as bread for the same amount of time unless time to make cheese is not taken into account.

I did not take into account that some ingredients can be produced simultaneously hence extra time can be shorter.
Production time of all crops is considered as 0 minute as I won't produce without having enough ingredient.

* table is copied/pasted from Google spreadsheet

From/Produced in	Product	Time	Default Price Unit	Max Price Unit	Ingredient Costs	Benef	Benef/ Time	Price/ Time	Extra Time	Price/ Total Time	Lvl
Bakery	Bread	5	6	21	9	12	2.4	4.2	0	0	2
Bakery	Corn Bread	30	20	72	50	22	0.73	2.4	0	0	7
Bakery	Cookie	60	29	104	74	30	0.5	1.73	20	1.3	10
Bakery	Raspberry Muffin	45	39	140	70	70	1.56	3.11	0	0	19
Bakery	Blackberry Muffin	45	63	226	106	120	2.67	5.02	0	0	26
Bakery	Pizza	15	53	190	171	19	1.27	12.67	60	2.53	33
Bakery	Spicy Pizza	15	63	226	207	19	1.27	15.07	60	3.01	37
Bakery	Potato Bread	45	79	284	222	62	1.38	6.31	70	2.47	39
Bakery	Frutti di Mare Pizza	15	112	403	383	20	1.33	26.87	60	5.37	45

This helps me answer question such as:
- For each machine, which one to produce for sale to make coins? -> I pick the one that has highest Price/time or Price/total time. Depend on how fast it sells or does it needed to produce other products, I eventually pick the 2nd or the 3rd one.

I also notice items which have negative benefit and remember not to buy ingredient for it. That's being said, I end up making those to master the machine and for my stock. I don't really care about losing some coins, knowing that loss will be even out with profit from selling bread .

Why I didn't publish it? I stop referring to this as soon as I don't bother about coins anymore. I only concentrate on keeping a fair amount of each item in my barn. I do realize this info is not relevant for all different play style, and it is also incomplete (does not take into account mastered machine, price calculation change with amount of items, complexity to deal with tree). My barn size grows, stockpiling strategy and wheatings tips makes my game experience better.

My next data collection is to get how much XP an item can get from boat (list completed ) and compare it with xp from truck orders -> decide whether to keep it for boat or to do truck.

That's being said, I have raw data and formula available if you need them to make your own analysis.
Also, 5xp when cutting trees is not correct for all tree. Some bush seems to offer only 4xp. Visitor price can be calculate with a formula.

About fishing with net or worm, I recommend this strategy: http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...-Nets-vs-Worms

Disclaimer: the table looks better in my spreadsheet , I blame forum for modifying text colour

[dmofalterak]

Because you are open to suggestions , here is my opinion on making good coins:

I made a spreadsheet at the beginning of the game to compare price per hour. I used info from guidebook, wikia and from the game itself. XP was not taken into account yet as coins were my ultimate goal back then. Wheating guide was not written back then.

Basically my spreadsheet looks like this (example on Bakery):
- Bread takes 3 wheat (ingredient cost is 9) and yields 2.4 coins per minute (if buy wheat) or 4.2 coins per minute (if plat wheat myself).
- Cookie used brown sugar (20 minutes). While it yields 1.73 coins per minute, it becomes 1.3 coins per minute if sugar production time is taken into account.
- Pizza, while appears to sell for more coins, does not yield as much coin as bread for the same amount of time unless time to make cheese are not taken into account.

I did not take into account that some ingredients can be produced simultaneously hence extra time can be shorter.
Production time of all crops is considered as 0 minute as I won't produce without having enough ingredient.

* table is copied/pasted from Google spreadsheet

From/Produced in	Product	Time	Default Price Unit	Max Price Unit	Ingredient Costs	Benef	Benef/ Time	Price/ Time	Extra Time	Price/ Total Time	Lvl
Bakery	Bread	5	6	21	9	12	2.4	4.2	0	0	2
Bakery	Corn Bread	30	20	72	50	22	0.73	2.4	0	0	7
Bakery	Cookie	60	29	104	74	30	0.5	1.73	20	1.3	10
Bakery	Raspberry Muffin	45	39	140	70	70	1.56	3.11	0	0	19
Bakery	Blackberry Muffin	45	63	226	106	120	2.67	5.02	0	0	26
Bakery	Pizza	15	53	190	171	19	1.27	12.67	60	2.53	33
Bakery	Spicy Pizza	15	63	226	207	19	1.27	15.07	60	3.01	37
Bakery	Potato Bread	45	79	284	222	62	1.38	6.31	70	2.47	39
Bakery	Frutti di Mare Pizza	15	112	403	383	20	1.33	26.87	60	5.37	45

That help me answer some question like:
- For each machine, which one to produce for sale to make coins? -> I pick the one that has highest Benef/time or Price /time. Depend on how fast it sells or does it need to produce other products, I eventually pick the 2nd or the 3rd one.

I also notice items which have negative benefit and remember not to buy ingredient for it. That's being said, I end up making those to master the machine and for my stock. I don't really care about losing some coins, knowing that loss will be even out with profit from selling bread .

Why I didn't publish it? I stop referring to this as soon as I don't bother about coins anymore. I only concentrate on keeping a fair amount of each item in my barn. I do realize this info is not relevant for all different play style, and it is also incomplete (does not take into account mastered machine, price calculation change with amount of items, complexity to deal with tree). My barn size grows, stockpiling strategy and wheatings tips makes my game experience better.

My next data collection is to get how much XP an item can get from boat (list completed ) and compare it with xp from truck orders -> decide whether to keep it for boat or to do truck.

That's being said, I have raw data and formula available if you need them to make your own analysis.
Also, 5xp when cutting trees is not correct for all tree. Some bush seems to offer only 4xp. Visitor price can be calculate with a formula.

About fishing with net or worm, I recommend this strategy: http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...-Nets-vs-Worms

Disclaimer: the table looks better in my spreadsheet , I blame forum for modifying text colour

Wow, that's awesome! This is just what I was looking for when I started out with the game. Do you have the rest of the spreadsheet anywhere? I'd also love to see what you came up with with boats compared to trucks. I've been wondering about that too for a while, but I never took the time to analyze the boats vs. truck orders (which seem to change based on your level).

Thanks for the info about trees. I knew you only get 4 xp for cutting down 'natural' trees but I'll have to update my post.

Do you have the calculation for visitors? I suspected it was on a formula like 3.6 default to max in rss, but I forget where I read it or what the formula is. Thanks.

I'd love to have a look at your raw data if you're willing to share it (here or in a PM). Thanks for being willing to help out!

Thanks also for the link to the fishing advice. This is awesome and will help out my fishing as well as being great information for this thread.

***

I know what you mean about coins becoming less valuable as you get higher levels. I'm already at the point where I have a surplus of coins and I'd rather keep a certain level of stock for all items and do wheating than try to make money specifically.

That's why I already started gathering information about experience for goods and crops with the exception of the ones I don't use anymore.

Just from unscientific tests it seemed to me that most boat orders aren't usually worth it compared to truck orders and that in turn truck orders are the better xp but not usually better profit than selling in the RSS. Of course, with a truck or boat event all that changes. One strategy would be to stockpile items for the events meaning the more barn space you can have the better, but I'm still at the point where I sell things off between events.

I'll still produce goods which might not be the highest profit so I can keep a good supply of all items in my barn, but if I can I like to buy the 'cheaper' item from other players and produce the 'more expensive' item myself. I guess it's only a small gain, but I'm still saving up for a the 500k worth of lobster upgrades.

Also, I've always wanted to do an analysis on all truck and boat orders with regards to profit/experience but I never figured out how to do this and the truck orders seem to change each level I gain. Do they stay the same once you get extremely high level? How did you go about analyzing the truck/boat orders? Sorry if I'm asking too many questions. Thanks.

[meonhoc]

Wow, that's awesome! This is just what I was looking for when I started out with the game. Do you have the rest of the spreadsheet anywhere? I'd also love to see what you came up with with boats compared to trucks. I've been wondering about that too for a while, but I never took the time to analyze the boats vs. truck orders (which seem to change based on your level).

Thanks for the info about trees. I knew you only get 4 xp for cutting down 'natural' trees but I'll have to check with the producing trees and possibly update that information as well when I find it.

Do you have the calculation for visitors? I suspected it was on a formula like 3.6 default to max in rss, but I forget where I read it or what the formula is. Thanks.

I'd love to have a look at your raw data if you're willing to share it (here or in a PM). Thanks for being willing to help out!

Let me 2 minutes I'm going to share that spreadsheet (and visitor formula).

Next time I cut down a tree I'll note down the XP.
Raw data can be found in post #2 in this thread, actually the format is TSV (tab separated value) http://forum.supercell.net/showthrea...-Database-site

I don't really compare every time I got a truck order, I keep in mind like this item (sushi, salad, soup...) must yield at least 300xp, other commons items (red berry cake, wheat, popcorn...) can yields 0xp (I'm glad I can use them). Sometimes when I have too much of one particular item I decide to do truck orders anyway to make space in barn.
note: read your edit, will come back to clarify.

Thanks also for the link to the fishing advice. This is awesome and will help out my fishing as well as being great information for this thread.

I try to keep the helpful info alive in signature . Also tagging thread helps a lot!

[dmofalterak]

Ha ha, this is great, thanks so much! I think I actually read this thread sometime a long while back, but I must have missed the spreadsheet somehow. Really good information. Thank you for sharing it.

I've been doing something similar with truck orders, but only compared to rss prices which is pure money so can't be compared to boat xp. This spreadsheet should really help me out for that. With the constant info on the boat xp I can make much better calculations on whether truck orders will be worth it or not.

Thanks for being willing to check out the trees/bushes cut down xp value. I plan to keep an eye out for that too so I can update it when I find the info.

I think I read your(?) thread where you found the value of Max price in RSS is 3.6 times default price. This really helped me out 'a lot' earlier in the game.

[meonhoc]

A copy of my spreadsheet (anyone with the link can edit). You can try the truck order calculator

Visitor Price = Order Price*1.4 then round down to nearest whole number.
Visitor pays double: multiply Visitor Price by 2.

Order price = price (coins) offered by river boat


How I decide to do a truck orders:
I'm having this one right now: 9 chili popcorn - 306 coins - 801 xp. (total 1107 points)
Go check the table, coins from boat is 63 coins per unit, 61 xp per unit -> 9 popcorns : 567 coins and 549 xp (total 1116 points)
Also check price at RSS: max price for 9 popcorns is 1101 coins 0 xp. (total 1101 points)

Conclusion: I want XP, I'll do that truck order because there is no way I can get that amount of XP elsewhere in the game for the same items.

When truck order consists of several items, I'll look at XP of the one I don't want to spare the most (most valuable for me, whether I'm low on stock or I can't buy or my next boat needs it), other items have less priority as it can be even out with coins.

* Oh, and while truck orders gives better XP sometimes, I don't know how to make that order appears on my board. When I end up with more items than I need in stock, I'll use them to fill boat as well. Less XP more often rather than high XP once in a life time (I live many lifes on my farm ).

Actually I found the formula for max price in some spreadsheet back in September 2012. Glad that does not change.

[dmofalterak]

Wow, this is really nice. Thanks so much for sharing your hard work. Also, thank you for the information on the visitors. It's great to have the formula for how they determine what to try to buy your things for.

That's really neat how you determine whether it's worth it or not to do a truck order. I agree with you about surplus items. If my barn is full of something I don't really mind filling orders with it, but if I need it for a boat or it's an item I don't have much of then I'm more careful about whether to use it in an order or not.

Really great info. Thanks again for sharing!

[nadler]

A copy of my spreadsheet (anyone with the link can edit). You can try the truck order calculator

Great resource, thank you so much!

[mnmacd]

so I am levl 20 33 fields. what do I need to plant to make money the quickest need to repair the dock 13k....

[dmofalterak]

so I am levl 20 33 fields. what do I need to plant to make money the quickest need to repair the dock 13k....

Well, it depends a lot on your play style. I'll try to answer as best as I can with how I do things.

When you're playing, I'd plant straight wheat on all 33 fields and sell it 10 for 1 gold in your RSS so you can keep doing wheat. You might need to open a few extra slots on your RSS with friends if you can't sell quickly enough.

The wheat itself won't make you money but every 5 mins or so (at your level and fields) you should get a rare item which can be worth 270 to 400 gold (keep all saws and axes, much more money if you use them on your own trees/bushes if you can!) and can be sold almost instantly (or kept for yourself). Basically, even though you'll be taking a loss by selling wheat for one gold, the huge profits from expansion materials (if sold) more than off set this.

That's only for your fields when you're playing. On breaks, make sure you maintain enough of all crops so you can keep all your machines running constantly. All the machines make small profit, but it adds up quickly if you can keep them all running.

At night, it's usually most profitable to plant your longest duration crop en masse to get the most profit that way (also applies if you can't play for a long period).

****

Apart from what to plant, basically, I'd try to keep all your machines running full time and sell things in your RSS at max (less boat/truck/little people orders if you want to make money). You should make a ton of money doing this. While wheating gives high profit and xp, it's always smart to have enough of all crops to keep all your machines running as much as possible.

If you have the land area, trees and bushes (with the axes and saws from wheating) will give extremely high profit in gold and xp. I like to only harvest fruit when I have enough axes/saws to cut the trees I'm harvesting, but you can do whatever you'd like.

I'd start with just a few trees and bushes. If you run out of fruit and still have axes/saws plant more. Keep doing this until you find a nice balance.

I hope some of this helps you!

Best Regards,

DmofAlterak

P.S.

Level 20 Notes:

I was just checking the wiki for what you can make at level 20. If I missed anything, you might have to change this.

Popcorn Machine (plain popcorn unless you have enough butter for the buttered popcorn).

Dairy (whatever you need).

Sugarmill (probably brown sugar for pancakes at your level, but definitely white sugar later on or if you need it for something and syrup as needed).

BBQ Probably pancakes (if you have enough brown sugar) or hamburgers. B&E is good money, but there's a lot of it. It's your choice if you want to make it for extra money.

Loom: Blue sweaters.

Fields at night: indigo.

Fields in day: wheat, or what you need to run machines.

Apple trees and Raspberry bushes (see above).

Bakery: bread when you can keep up with production, cookies when you can't.

Pie Oven: probably carrot pies when you can keep up with them, and possibly Apple Pies when you're gone/asleep.

****

Reading the weird chart:

If all you want to do is make money simply check all the items you can make on each machine/crop against each other. the #/hr is how much you'll make when you can constantly make that thing. I.e. when you're playing a lot or have lots of slots on the machine. The #/item is how much profit per item. If you can't keep up with production (not enough slots, time, it's night) then the item with the highest number here is probably the way to go.

Wheat says a low number, but with 33 fields you should get an expansion item every 2 harvests (4 minutes) approximately which is much higher profit than any other crop in the game. This is why, when you have the time, wheat is almost always the highest profit thing to grow. The two obvious exceptions are when you need other crops to keep your machines going, or if you're not going to be playing for the next hour/day in which case you can plant a longer duration crop. Also, if the wheat isn't selling, you're temporarily toast.

For example if you planted 33 indigo you would make 531 gold in pure profit for only planting once in 2 hours. If you planted 33 wheat 60 times in 2 hours you'd make 192 gold from the wheat (at 2 full hours of effort) but are likely to receive 30 rare items worth roughly 100 each = $3,000. My numbers could be a little off, but I've always found wheating to be worth it.