darkSpyro

I am new to this as my 6 yr old son has begged me to download this app on my phone. As it happens I have quite taken a liking to it myself! I am just extremely confused about how it all works! I have just seen posts about maximising bonuses by where you place things. I have played many games similar to this format but never known that where you place things can help get more bonuses. I would be grateful if you could set up a sticky for newbies on tips of how to get the most out of this game. Luckily my son has 37 skylanders so we have been able to import them all quickly into the game. Yet because we are only on level 13 as yet, I am finding it a long hard slog to level up! Any tips and tricks would be well appreciated. Am I better not bothering with the sanctuaries (which just take forever for 5000 energy?) until I unlock the other islands? I find I am spending all my gold on planting for energy to fill the two sanctuaries I have at the moment. I am also using a lot of energy to send out on adventures to level my skylanders up..is this necessary? I would be grateful of any advice on how to level up quicker if that is possible (which has been my experience in the past games I have played when in early levels) and also which is more important gold or energy? Sanctuaries or adventures etc? Thanks in advance. xxlilgabxx- activate ID

Hmm is this forum still active too?

While energy and gold at that level are challenges, gems are what you really want to get. Gems will allow you to get companions that will make energy production and gold returns from many things you do much higher. Leveling up you skylanders will give you a gem each time, sanctuaries will only do so if you have the companion that allows you to put more the one skylander in the sanctuary. I did not have as many skylanders when I was at level 13, but I would focus on leveling them up and collecting gems so that you can increase your production with companions. Take advantage of sales when they are offered for companions and hope that you get some good stuff from the wishing well with wish stones.

If you use the search button and put in words such as strategy you may find some more useful advice. I was a few months behind many on this forum but found that there was a great deal of excellent advice on here that helped feel much less lost. You may want to look back at many of the older posts as many of the people here are level 40 or higher with all skylanders, etc. They were not always that way and provided many great discussions of how to proceed.

While you are saving your gems for companions use the decorations you win from the well to surround your buildings. These boost the return from your buildings and help you level up faster. You will see their percentage boost when you move thm into place. Do not buy the decorations for gems! You will win much more than you will ever need from the well.

Purchasing shrines at half price or better still winning them from the well helps boost gold production from balloons and sanctuaries when it is element of the day.

Edited to add get as many friends as possible. There is a sticky thread at the top. Add your IDs and invite people from the last post up as there is a limit of 100 and most people are full. If you do not have Activate accounts click on the Activate symbol at the top right.

Friends send each other gifts each day which can include gems and wish stones.

I wanna give advice me me me

Dont worry about leveling up it is inevitable . If you want to help it along go check out your decorations menu and see what gives you the best bonus for your buck and what takes up the least space <prefrably one> . Buy those and surround your structures with them .

Some structures have low XP but recycle within minutes . Some take 12 hours but give high XP . How much time do you spend on lost islands . Once a day or every hour ? Try to match your gaming time with the right kind of building .

If you are prepared to waste good premium gems you can buy some lovely buildings with good XP output and gold .

Companion Prince Quigley can really give you a kingdom level boost if you buy him . he automatically collects XP for you . Also there is a new tree companion that gives bonuses to your decorations.

Sanctuaries give you the best gold for energy and time spent . 5000 energy gives you plus minus 20 000 gold depending on your skylanders level . Companion Ruggles gives you 3 skylanders per sanctuary and you get bonuses like gems , wishstones , kingdom XP if you have more than one. Swopforce and Giant toys and alter egos have a 25 percent gold bonus . They should be first choice for the Sanctuaries.

Your biggest cash cows are Tree Rex , Gnarly Tree rex and sidekick Barkly when combined with Tree Rex Fan companion. Keep an eye out on special days when certain skylander types give 100 percent gold bonuses .

Depending on how much time you play on Lost Islands daily should dictate what crops you grow . You can get more energy from Sheep Tropiaries that also give great xp bonuses btw . If you spend the green gems on Radient Energy fields you can grow more crops .

Your most valuable resources in order of importance are Green Gems , Wish Stones ,Kudos , gold and energy . Be very very stingy with your green gems .

My favorite things to buy are Elemental Shrines , Companions that give you gems , Radiant fields , Sheep Tropiaries and skylanders

My little brother has not spent one gem so far on anything unless it was a discount and it had the potential to make him gems . In 4 months he has saved 955 gems because he wants to buy a Companion Tessa . Sooner or later everything goes on discount and thats when you buy what you want .

Hope that helps friend.

I know it seems slow going, at first, to get leveled up, but I wouldn't focus on leveling so quickly. Trust me, if you get aggravated on leveling slowly, now, wait until you get the 35-45 range. The best thing to do, now, is get your gem & gold production up. Spend gems on companions that will give you more gems (i.e. Hyde, Capybara King, and possibly even Cape Girl). Southpaw is also an option since he is supposed to double bats, which can be a great gem resource if you have Swap Force characters (although it's been questionable how well he works). Quigley was one of the first (if not the first) companions I bought, but mostly because he was cheap and the gem producing companions weren't around, yet. He does make it easier to collect XP. I'd probably go insane if I didn't have him. But you can only collect with him every 2 hours. After that, find ways to earn more gold. Are the fans still around? Those were cheap ways of getting gold bonuses. I was thinking they took them out of the store, but I could be wrong. There were fans for Tree Rex (which worked for both Tree Rexes and Barkley), Spyro (which worked for all Spyro variants), Zap, and Hot Dog (which worked for both versions of Hot Dog). After that, then the Hip brothers (Gorm & Tuk), which doubles the gold from Swap Force characters (and, I believe, their hero xp). If you get enough and find one on sale, giant/alter ego houses are great, too. They cost gems, but they don't cost any energy to use and can produce gems randomly. It's best to start with Tree Rex or Thumpback's house, if you have all 3 versions (both have a variant and a giant sidekick that work, giving you 3 options). Hall of Legends are nice, too, as long as they stick with the wish stone currency for them (they went to gems briefly, then were accidentally set back to wish stones, but never fixed).

For wish stones, however, you want to save around 200 stones a month. That should be about enough to get the next month's alter ego. The only time it might be worth it to just throw them in the well is when they put the alter egos in as top prizes. So far, it seems that there are only 12 alter egos (one for each month). Once you get them all, wish stones practically become worthless (although the well will give you a random grand prize which could be something valuable, even a high-price companion, if you don't have them already) except for buying Hall of Legends. So once you get to the point where you have 200+ a month, then start saving the extras for those. Kudos are OK. They introduced them several months ago, but haven't done much with them since. Most of us are done with them as we have 100 friends and bought everything up, so you'll see some complaining, but for beginners, getting your 100 friends is a great resource for gems and wish stones, and the kudos do give you some great prizes (like Admiral Thumpback).

For sanctuaries, however, I don't think they are as worth it, in the beginning. You'll get more gold the higher your Skylander level, so as they get up in the 12-15 range, it might start getting worth it, but only if you have enough energy coming in. Your adventures are the best source of gold, especially if you have Swap Force characters and open up Mt. Cloudbreak. You can also set your adventures based on how long you go between play times. The same goes for crops. You do get a 10% bonus for using Skylanders with the element of the day and on crops with element of the day (even more if once you get shrines, as they add 10% bonus for each one), but with crops, it's best to use what timing is best. Planting water, life and air crops give you very short times, so they aren't used as highly (even if it is that element of the day).

If I think of anything else, I'll add it, here.

There's LOTS of advice to be had. I'll try and keep mine simple.

SHRINES. The most powerful item in the game. They boost crops, they boost gold. They stack (multiple shrines of the same element give multiple bonuses).

CAPYBARA KING. Hands down the best value gem companion you'll ever buy. And so cheap!

KUDOS. There is absolutely no point saving kudos. Spend them immediately on anything that will help you. Vacation bungalows, dozens of sheep topiaries. You'll very quickly get to the point where there's nothing left to spend them on, so the quicker you get them working for you, the better.

GEMS. Never spend gems on skylanders, even when they're half price. You'll eventually get to a point where EVERY SKYLANDER can be bought for 5 million gold each per spin, and you'll be wondering what the hell to do with the tens of millions of gold you're accumulating. Leave hard to get gems for shrines and companions.

Good luck on your journey.

I know there is a spreadsheet somewhere that gives you the best houses and community buildings to buy for the price/kingdom points. Does someone remember where it is?

I can confirm that the number one fans are available at 25 gems this weekend.

How do shrines boost crops?

Ten percent for each shrine you have when it is element of the day. If you have 3 fire shrines on a fire day you get 30 per cent more energy and gold from fire crops and Skylanders.

Excuse the edits I have spent the last week in bed and am still not well. Note to self do not post when sick.

https://docs.google.com/spread...c&usp=drive_web

OMG! Wow! So much info and advice I don't know where to begin lol! Thank you all for your comments and help. I had wondered why I had hundreds of decorations on an island made into a lovely garden...which wasn't producing any of the xp bonus I thought it should! I shall now go and rearrange all my islands so they are around buildings etc. I stupidly have been spending all my wish stones on the well each day too! Just one more question I need answering is why are some of my friends on similar levels yet have all islands unlocked? I only have 4 unlocked and my next is £500,00 is that right or is it due to me uploading my skylanders too quick? Thanks again this has all been very useful and I will now be spending the next few hours trying all of this out.

The cost of the islands has nothing to do with how many Skylanders you have (or at least it didn't when I was buying them). The price is set based on how many islands you already have. Just because your friends are on similar levels, doesn't mean they have finished all the same quests - it's possible they spent their money on islands while you spent yours on houses, etc. As you say, there's a lot of good advice in this thread. You'll soon find your own rhythm to the game and it will all come naturally.

Yeah. The game isn't really about unlocking the islands. I was way up there (probably upper 30s) before I bought my last island. They just weren't a priority, to me. Gaining Skylanders, earning gold, gems, etc. was my primary goal. The islands do nothing for you but give you more space to build. I was also not concerned with leveling fast, so the only thing I was building for was to accomplish the goals of building the community buildings. I would then only spend enough gold to buy the mabu houses to get enough mabu to build. I went a long time before needing that last island to have the space, and even then could have probably just sold a bunch of my less efficient houses (I didn't bother getting rid of anything until recently and even now have a bunch I could probably get rid of in lieu of some more efficient houses). So don't worry about rushing to get the islands. I believe my wife did that and because of that and her being an occasional player, she never could get anywhere. Even when I tried helped getting her game back on track. She had just spent too much on the islands.

Quote:

CAPYBARA KING. Hands down the best value gem companion you'll ever buy. And so cheap!

Actually I think if you have between 6 - 8 swoppers of each element and you keep them at ready alert , Softpaw outshines the King . It really hurts if you give into your gold fever and miss those Sugarbats .


Sheep Topiaries give you the biggest bang for your kudo buck . Free energy every few hours , 10 percent decoration bonus only one square big .

Radiant Energy fields goes beyond your field limit and give 50% extra energy .