05 November 2015

Thanksgiving Farm Beauty Contest, the Fourth Beauty Contest

The Fourth Farm Beauty Contest, as I am certain most of us expected, is  a Thanksgiving Theme. The following are Theme Items: Adzuki Tree, Tree House, Tent (not yet available) , Flower Swing, Autumn Arch,Japanese garden,  Thanksgiving Turkey (not yet out), Mushroom Cluster, Thanksgiving Base, Maple Tree, Tea House, Birch Tree, Cornucopia, Hay, Ladder, Jasmine Bush, Shelter, Ranch Bell, Wooden barrel, Mountain of Flowers and Fruits and Hedgehog (not yet out)
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All the basic rules of previous contests  apply, which means that there will be a ceiling on the number of Votes you can obtain from any of the four Characters for one aspect of your Farm and that duplicate items will not increase the Characters' Votes in that particular category.

Theme items give the following from the Characters:  I have divided them according to type, with Trees, then Decorations.  All items in the Theme now either have been released in special sales or are connected to past missions.

It is important to know which Decorations and Items are theme-related.  You can access the list yourself by tapping on the Farm Beauty Contest icon in your menu and then tapping on the book icon.  You will see the following list but in a different order:

Adzuki Tree: 2 Votes from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Maple Tree: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Birch Tree: 2 Votes from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Jasmine Bush: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad

Tree House: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Flower Swing: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Autumn Arch: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Japanese Garden: 2 Votes from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Mushroom Cluster: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Tea House: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Cornucopia: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Hay: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Ladder: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Shelter: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Ranch Bell: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Wooden Barrel: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
Mountain of Flowers and Fruit: 1 Vote from Felicia, Darryl and Dad

New Items in shop:

Thanksgiving Base: 3 Votes from Felicia, Darryl and Dad

Items offered in special sale:

Colourful Tent: 2 Votes from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
  1 Charm Point, can be placed on base when base is completed

Thanksgiving Turkey: 2 Votes from Felicia, Darryl and Dad,
  1 Charm Point, can be placed on base when completed

Japanese Garden: 2 Votes from the three Characters
  18 Charm Points

Now available:

Hedgehog: 2 Votes from Felicia, Darryl and Dad
  1 Charm Point

Treehouse: 1 Vote from Felicia,, Darryl and Dad


At present,  you can purchase the following theme items in the ordinary Market.

In the Tree section:

Maple Tree: 500 Coins
Adzuki Tree: 6 RC
Jasmine Bush: 7 RC
Birch Tree: 7 RC

Remember that trees that you own but which are stored in the Tree Nursery will not count towards your Beauty Contest points.

In the Decorations section:

Hay: 3 RC
Ranch Bell: 820 Coins
Ladder: 1000 Coins
Wooden Barrel: 300 Coins
Thanksgiving Base; 3000 Coins

The Thanksgiving Base will be incomplete.  The new time-restricted Peach Boy Quest offers the first material required to complete it.

The second material for the Thanksgiving Base is a Knot.  To obtain this, you must complete the Daily Order that is highlughted in gold or yellow on your Order Board.  You therefore can obtain one Knot per day.

The third material is a Sunflower Vine.  This can be found randomly in the special Thanksgiving Cooking Gift Bags that you obtain when you eat at a Neighbour's Cooking Stand.  Double the usual amount can be eaten during this weekend.  Note, however, that there is a problem with the Kindle and many players, even those who updated their Kindles, will not be able to obtain ANY Sunflower Vines at present from the special bags.  Harvest Moon is one of these unfortunate farmers.  My advice therefore is to collect as many bags as possible but keep them unopened until we discover that this problem has been solved.

Note that the Mushrooms sold in the Decorations section of the Market are NOT the ones that are associated with the Thanksgiving Theme.

Some of the other existing Decorations in the Thanksgiving Theme can be found randomly in the various Mystron Mystery Shops at present.  It is possible, however, that they will be added to the ordinary Market during the Contest.


The Characters gave their Votes for the following:

First of all, the idea that every change will be worth 1 Point is misleading.  Felicia and
Darryl have a total of 80 potential Votes and Dad and Grandma have a total of 72  potential Votes, and these are divided between four different categories as follows:

Felicia:
Charm Points
Theme Items
Animals
Expansions

Dad:
High Level
Expansions
Machines
Theme Items

Darryl:
Charm Points
Theme Items
Large variety of Crops (used to be Trees)
Gallery Registration

Grandma:
High Level
Charm Points
Trees
Gallery Registration


Now, it is important to remember that 'theme-related Decorations only account for a quarter of the Votes given by Felicia, Darryl and Dad.  I believe that once you achieve the total that is the maximum those Characters can give to you for theme, you will not be able to earn any more Votes from them for THAT, irrespective of the number of Theme Decorations that you purchase and place. Bear this in mind when you are tempted to go mad in the upcoming sales.  I personally believe the total is 18 or 20 Votes, depending on the Character.  Dad only has 72 Votes to offer.  I therefore believe his Theme total might be two Votes lower...

Duplicate items count only towards total Charm Points and will not add to the Votes that you receive from any of the four Characters.

Although there is a 'ceiling' to the number of Votes you can earn from the three Characters for Theme, there is no limit to the possible Charm Point total.  How does this benefit you?  For the Characters who value Charm, once again, you can achieve only a total of 18 or 20 Votes each day for that aspect of your Farm from those Characters... once you achieve that, additional Charm points will not be considered by the Characters.  After that total is reached, additional Charm only benefits as far as your global rating is concerned.  It does not affect your Votes from Neighbours or at least it did not do so in the previous contests.  If anything changes in this respect, I will update this post.  If this Contest follows the rules of the previous ones, you will find that each Farmer has 3 Votes per day to give to Neighbours.

Of course, I would be thrilled if farmers who used my site would be willing to send their Votes to Harvest Moon or Rosewood Farms.  Winning the Contest may be hopeless but I would love to be able to obtain the special Decoration and the Avatar if possible.   I would like to thank every one who voted for me again.  As I wrote previously, I do not make any money with my site.  I do not have any adverts on it and do not promote anything other than the game itself.  I write the guide because I always find a good guide useful when playing a game and I believe other players feel the same, so if you wish to give me anything, please give your Votes! To do this, tap on the FINAL icon for 'My Neighbours' and then 'Visit' Harvest Moon or Rosewood.  Once at the farm, you can choose to Vote once for it or use all three Votes in quick succession.  That is how the Voting procedure works.


Now, how can you boost the Votes of the four Characters even if your Charm totals are low and you cannot afford to buy Theme Decorations with real Cash?

First of all, each of the four Characters bases his/her Votes on different aspects of your Farm as you can see from the list of farming aspects that each favours..  As shown in the list of Theme Decorations, there are three Characters who give Votes for the Theme. Votes are given by different Characters, however, for a wide variety of Crops, for Trees, for Animals and for Machines.  Gallery Registration will give you Votes with two Characters.  Expansions count as well...

So what I suggest to every Farmer is to make certain that you have registered as many items on your Farm as possible before the Contest begins and if you cannot complete this task prior to the start, keep registering your Items until they all have been added to the Gallery.  This cannot give you more than a total of 18 or 20 Votes daily but if you do qualify for the maximum number of Votes for Gallery from the two Characters that value this aspect of Farming, you will be in a good position.

Expansions give Votes as well so make certain that you have completed as many Farm expansions as possible on your original Farm. I do not think that the Island counts for this, because the Farm Beauty Contest is only for the original Seaside Farm.

It is not mere ownership of items that gives Votes but PLACEMENT of them on your Farm.  When the Contest begins, place a good balance of Animals and Machines on your Farm and plant a variety of Crops as well as making certain that you have as many different types of Trees as possible.  Again, each of these aspects of farming will not give more than a total of 18 or 20 of the Votes of the Character or Characters who value them.  As indicated, each Character has four different categories of farming upon which his or her Votes are based.

As previously discussed, Charm is valued by some of the Characters but piling Decorations on your Farm is pointless as there is a ceiling to the number of Votes given by the Characters for your Charm. I therefore would recommend that farmers who cannot place in the top 50 globally focus more on creating a balanced Farm with a good mixture of Crops, Trees, Animals and Machines than attempting to load your Farm with duplicate Decorations or indeed Decorations that are not cleanable once you have exhausted your normal stock of Theme Decorations and a certain number of Charm points.  The members of my Group on Facebook, Family Farm Seaside Freyashawk and I experimented with this during the last Contest to see how Votes would be affected.  It really did not require too many Decorations to achieve the maximum number of Votes from a Character who valued either Charm or Theme... beyond that, one was using space on the farm that would be better allocated to ANOTHER aspect of farming that would garner Votes from a Character.

Theme-related Decorations only add to 'Theme' Votes from a Character ONCE.  In the Halloween Contest,  I  confirmed this myself.  Harvest Moon had the Witch Legs and Running Mummy from last year.  In the current sale, therefore, only the purchase and placement of the Skeletn Rockstar Frontman added to the Characters' Vote total.  I think this is why the placement of an additional Pumpkin Fountain failed to add to the Vote total for Harvest Moon.

Now, this is how low level Farmers can benefit from full participation in the Contest. There is a list of Rewards given for achieving specific Vote totals.  Every couple hundred Votes or so, you will receive a specific Reward.  Most of them consist of Farm Aids, Coins and Purple Mystrons but there is a Decoration Reward and at the very top of the list, two Rewards that consist of RC, the final one being paired with a special Avatar.  Again, this was the case in previous Contests but if it is different for this one, I will update accordingly.

Your Votes from the four Characters DO make a difference, therefore, even if you cannot achieve huge totals of Votes or place globally.  You can achieve a number of the Rewards on the list if you maintain a balanced Farm.

NONE of this will count, however, if you do not take photos of your Farm.  The Votes of the four Characters are determined by your CURRENT PHOTO in the Contest.  In other words, give your Farm the greatest advantages in terms of Crops, Trees, Animals and Machines as well as Decorations, take your photograph and THEN AND ONLY THEN store items or do whatever is necessary for REAL work on your Farm.  A new time-restricted Mission should be released tomorrow if everything goes according to the regular schedule.  You may need to store items in order to produce products and so on... so start your day by registering for the Farm Beauty Contest by taking a photo after you have made your Farm as profitable, vote-wise as possible.  You then will be free to get on with the business of real farming.

I am not certain if there is any need to take a new photograph every day if nothing improves on your farm.  It is only if you purchase or obtain a new item that will count towards a Character's Vote total that you need to take a new photograph... at least that is my instinct.  Make certain, though, that you do not take your photographs unless everything is as balanced as possible.  There is no point in attaining a good score with Dad but lowering your score with a different Character, for example, by having too many Machines and not enough Animals on your Farm.

More Strategies
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Instead of having duplicate Crops, Animals, Machines and Decorations, try to make certain that you have as many different items as possible on your Farm.  Note that there are two Characters who award Votes for high levels.  If you are at a low level, you obviously cannot garner the same number of Votes as a player who is above Level 100, but do not stress about it.  Two Characters give Votes for Expansions as well but if you do not have all Expansions, try not to panic.  Simply play your game as usual and move forward as quickly as you can.

The Tree Nursery has given players a building in which to store Trees but for the purpose of the Contest, you should have a good variety of Trees ON YOUR FARM and not in storage.  Again, though, I doubt that duplicate Trees will add to your Votes so store those.

Whilte a time-restricted Quest is active and you are in involved in it, the state of your Farm may be in flux as you take out Machines or Animals needed for tasks... so always make certain that your Farm is at its best again before you enter a new photograph.

Winning the Contest
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For most of us, including both of my farms, the probability of winning any Farm Beauty Contest is as far as reaching the Moon.  What may be possible is achieving all the Rewards on the Reward Path if we do our best... for me, without the Votes of my Neighbours, I could not achieve even that, so I am very grateful for your support with this.

I thought it might be helpful to see how we can reach the end of the Reward path in concrete terms. You need a total of 6000 Votes to reach the last reward in the form of the Avatar and 3 RC.  If you divide the contest into 20 days, you would need 300 Votes per day to achieve this.  This may be impossible for many of us as well, so let's look at the Reward that most of us want most, which is the little Decoration.  For that, you will need a total of 4000 Votes.  Divided into 20 days that the Contest runs, that amounts to the need for 200 Votes per day.  That may be possible for most of us to achieve even without many Neighbour votes.

Gallery Registration
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Now available for all thanksgiving items:

Hedgehog: 4 Medals, 15 Green Mystrons
Colourful Tent: 2 Medals, 12 Green Mystrons
Thanksgiving Turkey: 3 Medals, 4 Power
Indian Hat: 2 Medals, 2 Power (Contest Reward)
Harvest Hat: 3 Medals, 50 Green Mystrons (Calendar Reward fr November)
Thanksgiving Base: 4 Medals, 15 Green Mystrons

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