Zoo Story strategy guide.

[celshark]

There is a basic strategy to this game and it revolves around managing your energy.

Managing your energy

It's crucial you make as many neighbors as you can in this game because you can replenish energy by visiting them. Early on its +1 energy and later its +2 energy per neighbor visited. As far as I have seen there is no limit to how much energy you can replenish this way, so put your storm ID everywhere and invite as many players as you can!

The Energy, Money, Food Chain

Energy is the key, you need it to collect your money and harvest your food. But as important as it is, sending your friends energy packs is a waste of a gift. Using the strategy above, you wouldnt need an energy pack ever again.

Anyway, you need money to purchase everything including food. And you need food to feed your animals and keep them earning you money. On a side note, Zoo Story doesn't have a system that keeps you earning money while you are out of the game, so it requires more "hands on" time than most other Story games.

Collecting your tours

You can't collect the tours (tips) people give you until your animal/crops/attraction pay out. So don't get confused, like I first did, when you can't collect them right away. When you see the coin stack icon show up on top of it, you will collect your "tips" too.

Gifting

Gifting is a very useful mechanic in this game. For the first time in a "Story" game, its not about what gift nets you the most profit. Different neighbors may require different materials depending on what buildings they may be working on.

Some advice:

Don't just send one gift to all your neighbors and call it a day. It's best to wait for your neighbor to send you a material request that way you can send them exactly what they need. If you can't do that, another thing would be to visit them and see if they have any buildings under construction and try sending them a material that goes into that building. Once again don't waste a gift by sending energy pks.

FIRST AID
1 concrete, 1 bricks, 1 tiles, 1 welcome mat, 1 roof shingles, 1 work gloves

GIFT SHOP
5 wooden boards, 5 welcome mats

RESTROOMS
3 concrete, 3 wiring, 3 bricks, 3 welcome mat

RECYCLE CENTER
5 work gloves, 5 welcome mats

The Strategy

First things first, visit community members, make neighbors and put your ID everywhere. The more neighbors the easier it is to manage your energy. Remember, you only get an energy boost the FIRST time you visit a given neighbor each day.

I mentioned that Zoo Story is more hands on than other Story games because you don't get any money unless you are collecting from your animals and attractions. If you don't have a lot of time to dedicate to the game, you will progress slowly because of that, but if you have time:

Put your animals and start growing carrots early on. It only takes 2 mins for carrots to be ready and your animals don't require that much food in the beginning. Also, you get an xp every time you harvest a carrot, so your level will grow faster.

If you run low on energy, visit a few neighbors to build it back up. You can put as many plots of land to grow as you like, but save around 10 or 12 for growing your carrots. The others you can use to stagger your crops so you don't have to harvest them all at the same time.

Let's say you have 40 plots of farm land:

Save 10 for making quick carrots.
Plant 10 Corn for 4 hrs
Plant 10 Lettuce for 8 hrs
Plant 10 Potato for 12 hrs

By saving slots for quick carrots, you can keep your xp moving allowing you to level faster and raise your max energy allotment. The idea is to not have to waste all your energy to harvest your crops, then you can't do much else. You can always visit more neighbors to refill your energy, but it all depends on your individual amount of patience. It can get tedious doing it over and over again. Also, keep in mind that your energy refills to max whenever you level up so that should be taken into consideration.

I noticed that at first it took me 5 mins to replenish 1 energy. Then that number dropped to 2 mins somewhere in the late teen levels. Finally at my current level (29) its at 3 mins per +1 energy. I think the time changes according to level OR team lava was adjusting the times still at this point.

As far as which animals yield the most profits according to the time they take to pay out, that's a lot of math I'm not interested in doing. I'm sure someone else could chime in with those numbers, but if you follow the formula, you will find it an easy trip to the upper levels.

Hope this is helpful to some.

[sissy8]

thanks for the info, i put it back on my poddie

[TheFluffySlipper]

Very well said. I agree that energy is the key! Another tip I have is to stagger your planting. I have two groups which mature at separate times. I get the same amount of food across a day, but the energy is more manageable in smaller lots. I harvest then feed, then tour - tour - tour then, back to collect from the animals and feed again, then back out to tour etc. I'm never really on for more than twenty minutes and I've leveled and expanded quite quickly compared to other stories. If I have more time in the day I plant lettuce ... less time I plant soya beans.

[Rachael98]

There is a basic strategy to this game and it revolves around managing your energy.

Managing your energy

It's crucial you make as many neighbors as you can in this game because you can replenish energy by visiting them. Early on its +1 energy and later its +2 energy per neighbor visited. As far as I have seen there is no limit to how much energy you can replenish this way, so put your storm ID everywhere and invite as many players as you can!

The Energy, Money, Food Chain

Energy is the key, you need it to collect your money and harvest your food. But as important as it is, sending your friends energy packs is a waste of a gift. Using the strategy above, you wouldnt need an energy pack ever again.

Anyway, you need money to purchase everything including food. And you need food to feed your animals and keep them earning you money. On a side note, Zoo Story doesn't have a system that keeps you earning money while you are out of the game, so it requires more "hands on" time than most other Story games.

Collecting your tours

You can't collect the tours (tips) people give you until your animal/crops/attraction pay out. So don't get confused, like I first did, when you can't collect them right away. When you see the coin stack icon show up on top of it, you will collect your "tips" too.

Gifting

Gifting is a very useful mechanic in this game. For the first time in a "Story" game, its not about what gift nets you the most profit. Different neighbors may require different materials depending on what buildings they may be working on.

Some advice:

Don't just send one gift to all your neighbors and call it a day. It's best to wait for your neighbor to send you a material request that way you can send them exactly what they need. If you can't do that, another thing would be to visit them and see if they have any buildings under construction and try sending them a material that goes into that building. Once again don't waste a gift by sending energy pks.

FIRST AID
1 concrete, 1 bricks, 1 tiles, 1 welcome mat, 1 roof shingles, 1 work gloves

GIFT SHOP
5 wooden boards, 5 welcome mats

RESTROOMS
3 concrete, 3 wiring, 3 bricks, 3 welcome mat

RECYCLE CENTER
5 work gloves, 5 welcome mats

The Strategy

First things first, visit community members, make neighbors and put your ID everywhere. The more neighbors the easier it is to manage your energy. Remember, you only get an energy boost the FIRST time you visit a given neighbor each day.

I mentioned that Zoo Story is more hands on than other Story games because you don't get any money unless you are collecting from your animals and attractions. If you don't have a lot of time to dedicate to the game, you will progress slowly because of that, but if you have time:

Put your animals and start growing carrots early on. It only takes 2 mins for carrots to be ready and your animals don't require that much food in the beginning. Also, you get an xp every time you harvest a carrot, so your level will grow faster.

If you run low on energy, visit a few neighbors to build it back up. You can put as many plots of land to grow as you like, but save around 10 or 12 for growing your carrots. The others you can use to stagger your crops so you don't have to harvest them all at the same time.

Let's say you have 40 plots of farm land:

Save 10 for making quick carrots.
Plant 10 Corn for 4 hrs
Plant 10 Lettuce for 8 hrs
Plant 10 Potato for 12 hrs

By saving slots for quick carrots, you can keep your xp moving allowing you to level faster and raise your max energy allotment. The idea is to not have to waste all your energy to harvest your crops, then you can't do much else. You can always visit more neighbors to refill your energy, but it all depends on your individual amount of patience. It can get tedious doing it over and over again. Also, keep in mind that your energy refills to max whenever you level up so that should be taken into consideration.

I noticed that at first it took me 5 mins to replenish 1 energy. Then that number dropped to 2 mins somewhere in the late teen levels. Finally at my current level (29) its at 3 mins per +1 energy. I think the time changes according to level OR team lava was adjusting the times still at this point.

As far as which animals yield the most profits according to the time they take to pay out, that's a lot of math I'm not interested in doing. I'm sure someone else could chime in with those numbers, but if you follow the formula, you will find it an easy trip to the upper levels.

Hope this is helpful to some.

Thanks, this is very useful. On the mathematical note, if someone gives me the information (time it takes, amount of food to feed and payout of each animal), plus (the time, money, food payout) for the food, then I will be very happy to sit down in the evening and do the calculations. If someone can do this, will they please PM or at least write it on my wall? Thanks.

[ahshan]

Great guide! This is gonna be very useful to the beginners.
But energy packs are not a waste of a gift. That's all I accept because I don't need that many buildings as I do not have gems to buy all the other animals.
I finished building my buildings in 2 days and I only have 10/13 animals. So the rest of the materials are a waste to me.
Energy pack is my backup energy resource. Sometimes at the end of the day, I've gone through my 150 neighbours, but I need a bit more to collect from my animals so I rely on the energy packs. And sometimes I don't have enough time or my WiFi is laggy so I just use an energy pack for quick harvesting.
Once you have enough buildings, the materials will become a waste and it will be better to have something you can use than materials that you do not need.

AND TeamLava is still changing things up so the time for +1 energy does not depend on the level, it's 3 minutes for everyone.

Also I noticed that the money from collecting animals decreased around 2 days ago.

[celshark]

You are right ash. Perhaps I shouldn't have said a complete waste, you make a valid argument. And if you do reach the limit where it doesn't benefit you to make any buildings, its ok to have the energy packs

[adamthefarmer]

Great guide! I'm sure this will help the beginners a lot!

[bletchingdon]

Thanks for the info!!!!!!!

[reokster]

your info is most helpful! those playing ZS should read this post. I did play ZS when it first came out....but the time required to play this particular story is just too much for someone with a job and house to take care of. Like you said, this story is VERY time consuming and require much more hands on time than any other story. For this reason, i have deleted this app months ago and haven't played since. I stumbled upon your post to see if there was anything new for this story. once again, great post! super informative.

[sehana]

Great guide celshark!