darkSpyro

My daughter started playing this since both of my kids have loved the first three skylanders games on consoles. Meant we had lots of skylanders to link and that helped out a ton.

Level 26 now, have a minimum of 6 of each element and at least one swapper for each. Giants for everything but water, snagged gnarly on sale, same with Barkley. Have picked up duff ruggles beatrees Hyde whiteclaw Brock General tree Rex fan capybara soft paw and chieftess. Most bought on sale. All 8 elements unlocked, only fire and magic have upgraded sanctuary from timed quests.

Tried to register an activate account, they're apparently not making new accounts anymore. When I try to go through Facebook it errors out and even then it says it's logged in as my wife even if I've logged fb recently on this iPad. So any tips on what I can do other than get kudos from aura 3-5 a day?

I have the normal complement of fields plus one radiant and am constantly running low on energy even when only loading up 2 or 3 sanctuaries at a time. May try to save gems so one day when old Mac is avail and on sale?

Have done a number of searches for strategy and newbie and other keywords here, minimal net info.

Currently just hoarding gems slogging along gathering gold for more SL by spin, though at 5M per that takes a while. At least I have Hallows Hex and Mystic Star strike to console me.

Could use a tip or two, wish I could get the whole kudos train running but that may have sailed. Haven't updated Ipad recently specifically because of concerns about losing my game.

I couldn't make an activate account. But I went to activision site n registered as now they have linked all old activate accounts to the activision accounts.

I was able to sign in to activate using my activision info once they merged. Try that. I was then able to add friends , etc, I only got onto activate in September.

I'm not sure if it's on all of them, but iOS devices have an app called Game Center. You can add friends on that and they'll appear on your Lost Islands friend list.

For level 26 you are doing much better than I did when i was level 26 . I too only harvest from Aura . Its slow but steady .


Lets see tips ?

1. You want to buy a Cape Girl for that once in a blue moon gem < and its nice to take care of those sheeps and trolls in one second .>

2. Avril and Batterson will help give you more Kudos from Aura . Buy only Sheep topiaries with your kudos . free energy every 4 hours . High XP <sheep tops gives you the biggest bang for your kudo,s > With just Batterson I can buy a sheep topiary once a week .

3. Start buying production houses . In my opinion spending gems on a <125 gem> discount legendary and buying a hall of legends for <200 wishstones> is your biggest bang for your buck . The main thing i noticed about my production houses is my extra gems and greater energy yield .

4. If you get spare swoppers keep them doing mount cloudbreak adventures . When you go to bed put all your swoppers on mount cloudbreak adventures .

5. Buy Gorm and Tuck . They double gold and xp for your swopforce .

6. Buy Gigantus . He gives bonus gold for giants . <not as good as Gorm and Tuck >

7. Load your sanctuaries with Skylanders that give a bonus to gold . If you only want gold , just put one skylander in there . If you want gems or wishstones put all three skylanders in the sanctuary .

8. Try and visit your kingdom multiple times a day and plant crop that aligns with the element of the day .

9. Buy some Shrines . <thats crop energy bonus , wishstones and gold >

10 If you want more energy buy radiant fields . If you want more gold and xp buy an airship

I should have bought some radiant fields last time they were on sale, I've been mostly saving them for companions and strategically chosen giants and swaps. Picked up gigantis 33% off yesterday, my stash is down to 860 gems. I have an option for swap house I might snag today cheap. Cape girl I'll grab whenever I see her discounted.

Shrines I have 2 fire 2 magic one life and one water. I get gold and occasional wish stones from them, other than putting them near do generating items anything else I need to do with them?

Crops I either do 7 hour crops or align with element of the day if it's one of the top 3 longer ones, I can't check reliably enough to benefit from 30 min crops.

Will buy gorm and tuck if I see them on sale, thinking about quigley if I see him in sale.

Will seek out avril and batterson as I'm able they aren't cheap either.

Just dropped third outpost and first theater.

Managed to get an activate account established through activision, so now I'm Kiltedfool on the web.

For sanctuaries I generally use 25% bonus first, preferably level capped, then I fill in behind with bonus grabbers and level 10 as much as possible. Having gotten gigantus the giants will be in sanctuaries more often.

Do airships go on sale? When does Mac come available and does he go on sale? Have 3 toy link towers, they seem to be a decent invest if I have enough real figurines, fire and magic were a bonanza, now the goal for 6 life SL has been sitting at the bottom of the scroll for weeks.

I'd steer clear of Avril and Batterson if I were you. Since I am me, they are the only 2 companions I still haven't bought and probably never will. Kudos are a waste of time (though topiaries (pretty much all you can buy with kudos) ARE great) and visiting is dangerous (in terms of introducing bugs to your game) and I would not recommend it.

I will disagree with Midas on this one, but only through stating my personal experience:

You don't need to visit to get Kudos, though you get a lot more per day by visiting. You will only get Kudos passively from active gifters, while you can collect Kudos from any friends when visiting.

The only issue I have ever had is the game crashing without saving, and me losing (generally minor) progress since the last save. The solution here is to open settings and make a cloud save before visiting. It only takes a few seconds.

That said, visiting 100 friends takes a long time, but topiaries are not extremely expensive and very worth it in the early/mid game, and Admiral Thumpback is only available for Kudos generally (around 2000-4000 depending on sales).

Quote:

I'd steer clear of Avril and Batterson

You need Avril and Batterson if you dont have any friends . Visiting and harvesting Aura,s kingdom is 100 percent safe .

If you make an activate account and start having friends then yes you can skip on Batterson and Avril . Dont harvest your friends kingdom just collect from gifts .

I never visit as even without the bugs with it, it's very time consuming. I have thousands of kudos just from gifting and, to be honest, I haven't dealt much with sending or receiving gifts in months. I have Admiral Thumpback and maxed out topiaries (plus those that I won in a quest a few weeks back). I haven't seen anything else worth having kudos for.

I have mixed feelings about visiting. Roughly a year ago, I bought Batterson when he first came out, went visiting for the first time with him, and my cloud save became corrupted. Was unable to play for about 3 weeks, then my game was fixed and I was able to pick up where I left off.

I've been gun-shy ever since, so have not resumed visiting.

However, I did a *lot* of successful visiting before this happened! I used to visit most of my friends every night. While other family members watched tv that I wasn't very interested in, I'd sit with them and half watch/half visit.

My 'rule' was to return home to my island each time I found a gem, in case it crashed. Crashing always simply meant loosing whatever kudos (or earlier gold/energy) that had been collected since I'd last returned home. Often there were certain friends who would crash. Knowing this, if I visited a lot of friends without collecting gems, I would sometimes even purposefully go to one of these friends to trigger a crash and try my luck again to get gems. It was that harmless.

I would get roughly 1 gem for every 6 friends I visited. If you max out at 101 friends, that's roughly 17 gems a night. Early on in the game, that's *huge*. And since then they've added Hyde to visiting, so I would expect that number to be even higher.

When I had my issues, there were many corrupted game issues around that time - but that was a year ago, and I have no reason to believe those issues weren't fixed long ago.

Everyone I've heard recently online with issues, has them due to a bug encountered after updating to ios8. No relation to visiting.

I can't be bothered visiting now, because it isn't worth the time to me. But I think visiting can be very beneficial.

Obviously I can't guarantee it to be safe, but if I didn't have Admiral Thumpback or was desperate for gems, I'd absolutely be doing it.

You don't need Avril or Batterson to get sufficient kudos so long as you have friends that gift. I would not waste the gems on them as long as there are other worthwhile things to spend gems on.

Looks like I may be limited to 20 friends anyway if I'm reading recent threads correctly. I'm scared of ios8, haven't updated to it on either ipad. I'll have to think about visiting and corrupting issues. Saving to cloud beforehand makes sense.

Started sending requests to a few of the folks in the last page or two of the pinned thread above, amazing how clunky that search interface is. Gifting shouldn't be a problem, hell a lot of my time to play is in the "kids tucked in, waiting to hear if they've gone to sleep" window sitting in the master bedroom.

Might grab that swap house on sale. Grumpy that 50% off dark skylanders doesn't help me at all since I have them.

Will slog through kudos to load up on topiaries then start saving for the admiral.

Will aim for gorm and tuck, cape girl, and quigley, the order determined based on which one is on sale first.

My family plays together on one device. We don't visit--don't have kudos--kingdom is set up with a 7-year-old user so that isn't an option. We don't have admiral thumpback a or any of the kudos companions--like I said not even an option. We can always change the age in my settings--but that isn't a priority.

That being said:

Spinning for Skylanders isn't your best bang for your buck while you're still so potion poor that you can't load up all your sanctuaries at once.
To get more characters: We traded for codes instead of spending gold on spins--try that code trading thread and get a couple, it will be rather addicting! In fact, I'll give you three to get started.
would Bash, FlameSlinger, sonic boom, ChopChop or Zoo Lou help you? If not, shoot me a PM and I'll see what I can do. We did eventually have enough gold to spin for skylanders and we have them all, now--but we don't have a bunch of codes that are ours to do with as we will)

We got cape girl early because it freed up skylanders sooner for adventures. We weren't in a very large hurry to get many companions but the ones we did get were great!

We left Quigley till last because frankly it wasn't "too onerous" to click everything to get XP--plus he only works once every 2 hours or so. that 300 gems is better spent on Cape girl. And I may be wrong, but she doesn't really seem to go on sale...So for the most part, I do say hoard your gems
Beatrees is great to have, as is Arbo for making crops ripen faster and for the small gem price MaBoo is fun--we let the kids click him, Hyde and the chieftess.
Definitely get Ol' Mac if he returns because double potions was how we finally got the gold flowing easily enough to spin

once you hit level 27 Ramses allows your skylanders to advance beyond level 10 and the money is a bit better on those missions. But this is the time when I started looking to cull some of my small-population houses and just save up for bigger ones and even to cut stuff like the post offices and banks down because the XP isn't worth the space they're s'itting on. If you get a mission where you need them, they are easily rebuilt.

also, spend the gems to increase your inventory. You can put buildings in there and pull them out when you need to--don't have enough mabu to staff a farmer's market AND a theater but need the farmer's market for a timed mission? put the theater in the inventory, finish the mission and you don't have to wait the 16 or so hours to rebuild the theater.

That's my 2 cents

So I've gotten a few friends linked, that's helpful. I'll continue to add friends as I'm able, the gifting thing takes no time to speak of. BUGmom05 very generously gave me a code for a SL almost as a welcome. Also very cool to have a variety of longtime players and players roughly my level in my friends list.

I'll dip a toe into the Skylanders trading pool here in a bit, I'm very new to the forum and don't want to just jump in yelling gimme gimme, just not my temperament. I put my current roster in my profile but haven't gone into the trading threads yet.

Beyond that I'm not sure exactly which Skylanders I'm mostly after at this point. I'm more focused on which ones will give me most impact than aiming for completion. Balancing which elements I'm weak on 25% bonuses, which places I'd prefer a second swap so I can send swap on adventure without losing a sugarbat gem, do I try to trade for Thumpback or save kudos from new friends for Admiral, which ones to finish the life toy link tower or any other unpurchased towers, etc etc.

Arbo is on sale 33% off right now but it'll be a slog to earn 278 gems by the 12th.

Ramble ramble.

But at least now I have an avatar.

I can't believe no one has said this, but your strategy should focus on character houses: alter ego houses, giant houses, mini houses, and (as Dark, Pfeonix said) Hall of Legends (although I disagree that you should spend gems on the Skylanders for them). They're not available all the time, but each one you get you free gold, free elixer, and FREE GEMS!

Let your other strategy points (getting gold for skylanders, getting energy to run sanctuaries/sanctums) center on houses. You should focus on getting the alter ego each month, because, if they get a house (not all do), it will only cost you 350 gems when it's finally for sale.

The only companions you need to worry about are Hyde, Capybara King, Cape Girl (I know some of the folks here don't think she's worth it, but I disagree), and Diggs (he's the best, but is 2,000 gems and rarely available).

This is a patient strategy, but it's worth it. I've followed it faithfully and my gem income is close to 100 gems a day. I started playing in May, and have only spent real money to buy Diggs (and this is not necessary).

Thanks for that direct, breaking into that realm now, have a swap house and a hall of legends. Of course all my legendaries are in sanctuaries at the moment, but I have two elements that I have two swappers in, so I can have one on an adventure or in a house constantly while the other one is available to cover bats.

Just bought the hall of legends, bringing wishstones down to 97, will be able to get 200+ by the time November rolls around. My kids demand we spin for new alter egos on first day of the month (at least the first two months we could do it), so I should be able to generate stones enough to snag halls and still get the alter ego.

I have Hyde and the King, and am torn between saving gems for things like Mac or Diggs if they ever show. But saving gems is the main reflex.

I would stay away from swap houses, bird houses, dark houses, cadet houses, scout houses and dragon houses. They cost a lot of gems and don't generate a lot of gold or gems. Those are late-game items.

Also, I would not put non-bonused skylanders in sanctuaries. They are very nearly unprofitable (it costs almost as much to grow the crops needed to put them in the sanctuaries as you're likely to earn from them.

Focus on companions that will increase your gold or gems first, then on companions that will increase your kingdom xp generation (you'll need those at the higher levels where the amount of experience needed to level up is enormous).

Most of all, have fun!

Do Alt-houses ever go on sale (less than 350 gems)? I have only started paying attention to them recently, and it seems people are happy just to have them available for purchase.

With Black Friday just around the corner, I have been trying to save my gems in case there are some good sales. Should I have been buying those Alt-houses instead?

I'm not sure but I always buy them when they go on sale. Alt houses are a good investment.

for sale at 350 is all I've ever seen them at. never on offer under that, though

For the moment guess I'll grind a bit, hit L27 so now have headroom in my hero leveling. Have some friends, will look to add more. Have a goodly number of skylanders linked but the majority are normals with no bonus, so will have to come up with a short list of targets to trade for. Otherwise the list becomes "All of the above!" and makes a left turn towards ridiculous.

Any of the veterans here giving advice that are also on my friends list that are bored enough to tour my islands can see a disorganized mess.

Have been sending swaps to cloudbreak at bedtime regularly now.

Developments:
From the Codes thread I went to Youtube and logged a few links, then found another Youtube video with more links, my roster's deeper now than it was. Activated a few swaps I had bought with gems, got refunded and got Arbo 33% off and Cape Girl. I like Cape Girl better than I thought I would, instant troll clearing is more convenient than I thought.

So now just leveling, put my list of codes I have avail in my profile, my wish list in the trading thread. Gathering some friends so I can pile kudos for the Admiral then bulk up on sheep.

I enjoy reading this forum, great resource to bounce ideas off of. Not sure if we'll go to Trap Team, kids haven't said anything they're consumed by Minecraft.

Quote: Kfool

Not sure if we'll go to Trap Team, kids haven't said anything they're consumed by Minecraft.

Sounds like my house! Talk used to be centered around Skylanders, but now the figures are just toys gathering dust and all conversations revolve around various Minecraft events and strategies.

mine too

My husband and youngest son are MC_crazy. but my oldest kid wants only PvZ_2

they finished the Swap Force objective (without getting all stars) and we can't convince them to play it anymore. They got a little excited about seeing some trap masters in the stores, but they know that lhigh priced toys aren't for "just because" and aren't asking for it

Well this kind of puts a damper on things.

Tapped some kingdom xp at the office before heading for the car. When I stopped and got out Aura was asking how old I was. My Activate login was still active but my game is gone.

So where from here? Haven't done any visiting and have not gone to iOS 8.

Given that both you and BugMom are having this problem all of a sudden, I'm now afraid to open my game.

Quote: Kfool

Well this kind of puts a damper on things.

Tapped some kingdom xp at the office before heading for the car. When I stopped and got out Aura was asking how old I was. My Activate login was still active but my game is gone.

So where from here? Haven't done any visiting and have not gone to iOS 8.

Something similar happened to me - was back to level 1 and signed out from Activate. Actually this (signed out from Activate) was a reason why game resets and Aura started asking my age etc. Found solution to this on Activision's site - just continue tutorial and when it finish - go to settings and login to your Activate account. You will get your game save back. Here is the story on their site.

I did what that suggests. Problem was the login banner was still there so now I have to contact customer support.

Rom713, its not the same problem

well, we have our islands back...
//forum.darkspyro.net/spyro/vi...&page=1#5332248

with only a small amount of loss--the sanctuary and mission load-up from 2 hours ago is gone. but gems, links, skylanders all there

It helps that the email address we use as the default to the iPad mini is one we still have access to, and we know the password and it's also the one we used to create the activision account

Quote: midas73

Given that both you and BugMom are having this problem all of a sudden, I'm now afraid to open my game.

Did you? How'd it go?

Have you updated yet?

I opened this morning and all was normal, thankfully. I have not yet updated to ios 8 and am still inclined to hold off on that.

I have a question for long term players.

I added a new skylander I purchased for my daughter and have been upgrading it. I does not show missions for that skylander like the 1st ones I added when I started playing the game. Examples: Visit this location, collect # sheep or Trolls, put into sanctum. etc.

Does this feature go away after so many skylanders or if you obtain a high level of experience?

All characters should start giving missions at Level 5.

The only time I've not received missions is when I used to have the character, but then lost it. (Small corruption issue). The second time around, the system knows you have already completed the goals.

Sometimes, however, the scroll does not appear when it should. To trigger it, simply use the character. If you use the character to clear a sheep mob, for example, they almost always then appear next to the cleared mob. For me, if a mission is waiting, that will trigger the scroll to appear. Sending the character on a 2 minute mission usually triggers it too.

If the scroll still doesn't appear, you can try a bit of everything to try to trigger the missions themselves. Even if the scroll hasn't appeared, if the system thinks you should have the mission, it will display the little popup at the bottom of the screen when part of it is completed. Click on that popup, and it will trigger the mission to appear.

Oh - one more thing - even if you know the mission (for example, when you put the character in a balloon, you see goals), do not complete the entire mission unless you see it in your list of goals. To get it in the list, as I said above, simply click on the popup when it appears. But if you complete it without it ever appearing in your list of quests, you will not get the bonus for completing it.

Those missions happen at about level 6 or 7.

Missions are given at level 5. Typically, all you have to do is open your list of Skylanders, click on the Skylander you are looking for and click on the find/summon button. That should either take you to where they are or summon them to the summoning stone. The scroll should be above their head. There has been a time or two that it hasn't worked, but the only time I can remember, for sure, was an alt a couple months back, but they fixed it.

Thank you all for the replies.