PART 1 - Earning Gold from Animals
ANIMALS earn GOLD in varying amounts, depending on:
- "base" amount of gold
- # of animals (base-gold x #-animals = total gold)
- whether the habitat has been upgraded once or twice (1 upgrade adds about the same gold as one animal)
- whether it has been toured/photo'd (this adds 20 gold to the total)
- collection frequency, base or theoretical
- collection frequency, actual or realistic
Also, although animal habitats are all the same size, the size is a factor when comparing gold-earning of animals to gold-earning of attractions. Animals are 6x6, using the size of the smallest items as "1" (like a street-lamp, for example). In my posts, when gold or XP values are quoted, they are always "gold/XP per hour per square for ONE animal". Animals always are 36 squares. Again, this is not important when comparing animals with each other but it does matter when comparing animals to attractions. More on this later.
Let's look at a couple of examples.
(1) BEARs... they are theoretically the highest gold earning animal in the game: Bears earn 14 gold in 5 minutes, for a value of 14/(5/60)/36=4.67 gold per hour per square. However, you would have to sit right by your game and immediately collect from it every 5 minutes to achieve this. Can you?
(2) SLOTHs... they are the highest ranked gold earning animal from a realistic viewpoint. Sloths earn 1,052 gold in 7 hours, for a value of 1052/7/36=4.17. To achieve this you only have to collect every 7 hours. However, most people sleep for a little longer than this, or might have to work or go to school all day without playing, so even collecting every 7 hours might be unrealistic.
What is "realistic" for collection frequency? That's up to you. People playing the game "a lot" can probably collect every hour or two during the day, and ZERO at night while sleeping. So let's take a look at a third example that looks at "average" collection frequency...
(3) PUMAs... Pumas are the highest earner among animals that you can collect from every hour. They earn 100 gold per 1 hour, for a value of 100/1/36=2.78. But you can't sustain collecting EVERY hour. If you collected every hour during the day for 16 hours and then got 8 hours of sleep, you would collect 1700 total because you collect at hour "zero" and then every hour including at the end of hour 16, for a total of 17 times. This yields a value of 1700/24/36=1.96, somewhat lower than the theoretical of 2.78. If your collection frequency during the day drops to every 2 hours during the day, then you would have 1.04, and if it was every 3 hours during the day it would be 0.69, and so on.
This is why your actual, average collection frequecy is so important. If you collect every 2 hours during the day and only sleep 8 hours, then you collect 9 times in a day, which on average is every 24/9=2.67 hours.
If you go back to BEARS and SLOTHS, and assume a realistic collection frequency of 3 hours, now instead of 4.67 and 4.17 respectively, we have 0.13 for bears and 3.25 for sloths. And if you only can collect 3 times day = an average of every 8 hours, now you have 0.05 for bears and 3.65 for sloths. When you include "actual/realistic" collection times into the calculation, sloths remain ranked at the top and bears drop almost to dead last.
With this in mind, I usually calculate the gold-earning rankings across four average collection frequencies: 3, 6, 9 and 12 hours. Then I average the four rankings to get one overall ranking.
SO, here is the list ranking all the animals for gold earning (except for a few for which I have no data). The ones costing gems are highlighted in purple. Note, some animals not in purple still cost gems indirectly, in that a parent costs gems or they are unlocked by a task/goal/collection that takes gems.
NO DATA
- Shamrock Turtle.... (locked by goal)
- Clouded Leopard.... = Jaguar + Snow Leopard; may cost gems?
- Lucky Bear........... = Shamrock Gorilla + Bear
- Red Panda........... = Red Fox + Panda
- Platypus.............. = Sea Otter + Flamingo
- Tree Kangaroo..... = Kangaroo + Capuchin Monkey
- Cheetah .............. = Gray Wolf + Snow Leopard
- Kirin..................... Far East Box
- Mandarin Duck...... Far East Box
- Racoon Dog.......... Far East Box
- Cerberus............... Monster Box
- Ghost.................... Monster Box
- Imp...................... Monster Box
- Werewolf.............. Monster Box
- Snow Fairies......... Winter Box
- Snowman............. Winter Box
- Snowshoe Hare..... Winter Box
- Yeti...................... Winter Box
PART 2 - Earning Gold from Attractions
The variables that effect attractions' gold-earning are:
- "base" amount of gold
- whether it has been toured/photo'd (this adds 20 gold to the total)
- collection frequency
- size
The new variable vs. animals is size. Attractions are either 2x2, 2x4, 4x4 or 6x6.
Size = 4 squares:
- Cotton Candy Stand
- Ice Cream Stand
- Hot Dog Stand
- Popcorn Stand
Size = 8 squares:
- Sandwich Stand
Size = 16 squares:
- Gift Shop
- Botanical Center
- Pizza Parlor
- Caf?
- Nursery
- First Aid
- Recycle Center
- Shamrock Diner (this is a guess)
- Face Paint Booth
Size = 36 squares:
- Dino Ride
- Octopus Carousel
- Ferris Wheel
- Carousel
You can then calculate the gold per hour per square across various "realistic" collection times and rank them as a group, or compare them to animals. The ranking of attractions is:
- Cotton Candy Stand
- Ice Cream Stand
- Dino Ride
- Gift Shop
- Sandwich Stand
- Hot Dog Stand
- Popcorn Stand
- Botanical Center
- Octopus Carousel
- Pizza Parlor
- Nursery
- Caf?
- First Aid
- Recycle Center
- Shamrock Diner
- Ferris Wheel
- Face Paint Booth
- Carousel
A lot of people, at first, include extra hot dog or popcorn stands in their zoo, because they theoretically earn the most gold, but you don't have to miss very many collections and very quickly the ice cream stands beat them. Cotton Candy stands are better but cost gems whereas ice cream stands are cheap at only 35 gold each... and you earn this back on your third collection.
Now, since 9 ice cream stands fit into the same space as 1 animal, we can compare them (or any attraction) vs. the animals to see which we should place into the limited space we have in our zoos. If you collect (on average) every 2 hours, then only sloths and jack rabbits beat ice cream if you have ONE animal. If you collect only twice a day or every 12 hours, then a few more animals (again, ONE animal) beat ice cream: Sloth, Gila Monster, Jack Rabbit, Jackalope, Cobra, Flying Monkey, Gharial, Wildebeest, Big Horned Sheep, Frilled Neck Lizard, Orangutan, Mountain Goat, Manx Sheep, and Honduran White Bat.
However if you have FOUR animals and a "middle" collection frequency, then you have a longer list of animals that beat the haul from ice cream. So, the comparison ranking between attractions and animals is very dependent on # of animals and collection time.
With this in mind, here is a list of animals that should "normally" beat ice cream stands, assuming 4 animals for the less expensive or lower breeding time animals, and 2 animals for the more expensive or long breeding time animals. I am including 33 because this is 3 "rows" or "columns" of 11 animals in your zoo.
- Sloth
- Jack Rabbit
- Gila Monster
- Cobra
- Flying Monkey
- Giant Anteater
- Jackalope
- Tasmanian Wolf
- Orangutan
- Manx Sheep
- Gray Wolf
- Arctic Fox
- Frilled Neck Lizard
- Mountain Goat
- Puffin
- Harpy Eagle
- Wildebeest
- Big Horned Sheep
- Harp Seal
- Albino Python
- Fennec Fox
- Gharial
- Puma
- Rhino
- Capuchin Monkey
- Leprechaun Panda
- Hyena
- Mammoth
- Horned Toad
- African Wild Dog
- Iguana
- Honduran White Bat
- Kangaroo
Using the above information, you could set up your zoo for absolute maximum gold earning... place the 33 animals listed above in a tight grouping on the top or right (so they don't hide anything behind them), and then fill the entire remaining space with literally hundreds of ice cream stands. When you tour high level zoos you will see some of them are set up like this, including mine. We're not crazy we're just trying to get gold faster! Personally I have four columns of animals (44) to make collecting a little easier, to have room for the animals in my nursery or lab, and/or I include some of the next few in the ranking which are:
- Caribou
- Scarlet Macaw
- Bald Eagle
- Tree Frog
- Polar Bear
- Walrus
- Persian Chinchilla
- Zebra
- Crowned Crane
- Wombat
- Giraffe
A zoo like this - - I'll use mine as the example - - will have 23x35+2x12=829 ice cream stands, yielding 13,264 in gold every time it is fully collected. Collecting an average of 4 times a day, to be conservative, yields 53,000 gold. Then from the 44 animals I get about 64,000 a day. So my zoo generates an income of about 120,000 gold per day. I tend to focus my breeding on the high earning animals that breed in the shortest amount of time, unless there's some other task that needs finishing. That way my zoo earns more gold faster so I can then fill in the expensive animals like the sloths, jack rabbits, etc.
With patience and persistence you will have no shortage of gold. At one time, while I was breeding the sloths that take 7 days each, I had over 1.5 million. I am not trying to brag, I am just trying to encourage you to use these strategies to get more gold because they really do work !!
PART 3 - Earning XP from Animals
Fewer variables affect how much XP that animals earn:
- "base" amount of XP
- whether it has been toured/photo'd (this adds 1 XP to the total)
- collection frequency (realistic or average, as usual)
- # of animals does not affect XP
Since XP generation is less critical - - does not hold you back as much as the lack of gold - - we don't need as much complexity in generating the list of the best animals for XP. But we still calculate XP per hour per square, and I have used an average collection frequency of about 3 to 4 times a day. Many of the top ranked animals earn 10 XP (the max) as you'd expect, but because of collection frequency, some that earn less end up ranked. Anyway, here is the list:
- Cobra
- Giant Anteater
- Frilled Neck Lizard
- Mountain Goat
- Harp Seal
- Rhino
- Lunar Dragon
- Panther
- Sloth
- ** Flying Frog
- Arctic Fox
- Hyena
- Leprechaun Panda
- Persian Chinchilla
- ** Red Shanked Duac
- ** Unicorn
- ** White-Tailed Deer
- ** Liger
- Gila Monster
- Flying Monkey
- Jackalope
- Gray Wolf
- Puffin
- Albino Python
- Gharial
- Horned Toad
- Iguana
- Scarlet Macaw
- Polar Bear
- ** Zebra
- ** Bottlenose Dolphin
- Buffalo
- Minotaur
- Clydesdale
- Owl
- Flamingo
- Dingo
- Jack Rabbit
- Impala
- Coati
- Vampire Bat
- Toucan
- Leopard Gecko
- Mandrill
Many of these animals are fortunately also high gold earners. This is another reason we don't need as much complexity in the calculations for which animals are the best XP earners. However, I have highlighted above with a double asterisk (**) those animals that are not as highly ranked for gold that do earn the most XP.
You can use your judgement on whether to place these animals into the limited space of your zoo. In my case, I didn't worry much about leveling up fast, because gold or waiting for the nursery/lab to finish, have pretty much always been my limiting factors. I eventually reached the max level of 30, then they updated to max=35 and added some animals, then they raised the max again to 40 but have added no animals for levels 36-40 (yet??).
PART 4 - Earning XP from Attractions - - "BONUS XP"
Attractions and now two of the new St. Patricks Day decorations, award bonus XP when purchased. This provides a way to "convert" gold into XP. You can buy multiple items and then either store them or sell them, and use the bonus XP to more quickly bump you up in levels.
If you do this you want the lowest "gold per XP" ratio, the values of which are included in the list below. The two new decorations now rank at the top of this list, replacing the former leader, the CAROUSEL:
- Shamrock Plant....... only 3.5 gold per bonus XP
- Pot of Gold ............. 6.0
- Carousel................ 8.1
- Recycle Center....... 8.8
- Botanical Center...... 16.0
- Ice Cream Stand..... 17.5
- First Aid.................. 18.1
- Cafe....................... 19.0
- Gift Shop................ 20.0
- Hot Dog Stand........ 35.0
- Popcorn Stand........ 35.0
- Sandwich Stand...... 55.0
- Pizza Parlor............. 0.2 gem
- Cotton Candy Stand. 0.5 gem
- Shamrock Diner....... 0.9 gem
- Dino Ride................ 3.3 gem
- Ferris Wheel............ 3.3 gem
- Octopus Carousel..... 3.8 gem
- Nursery................... 7.1 gem
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With these strategies I hope you gain more enjoyment from your zoo.
Feel free to add me as a neighbor if you'd like. Every now and then I delete any neighbors with "zero hearts" (zero social rating) so only add me if you plan on touring & gifting to your neighbors. Thanks !
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ENJOY,
Storm8 ID = rionkimchi
Strategies for Earning GOLD and XP
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