User blog:PeteSolo/Food Glorious Food…

Or if you prefer: One person’s take on quick progression to Scooterville
First I would like to say that this is only my opinion and that you will have seen most, if not all, of this before on the wiki from other contributors.

Levelling at the beginning of the game is not an onerous task and I would suggest taking the starting levels as slowly as you can and make sure you hit as many of the Gameplay challenges as you want.

Food is the key resource for a long while in my game and I don’t attempt to grow my own. I built as many Coffee Shops as I could, with only one Rock Candy Store (a legacy of the Candy Land challenge). With no initial cost for those Coffee Shops they were immediately profitable and, just as importantly, producing XP. Rock Candy Stores are profitable and produce more XP, but the duration of the short recipe means spending a lot of time in the game to reap those rewards. If you have a lot of spare time then by all means go for the Rock Candy Stores.

Theme stores can be very good. Have a look at the wiki once the store recipes are up and decide for yourself whether to add some, or indeed, replace some of your Coffee Shops with them. I added nine each of Toy Shops, Archaeology Shops and Halloween Stores and kicked out some of the Coffee Shops. I will continue to add theme stores if they are better than the stores I have.

The next building phase for me came at level 32 and the fabulous Village Bistro. I decided not to build any Salad Shops (available at level 28), knowing that the bistros were only a short sprint away. Village Bistros are great stores and will stay with my village for a very long time. They give a shockingly high amount of XP and return a nice profit. Nine of those grew in my village.

Chaining adds profit to everything of course, but with the first higher profit stores now in my village it has become a bit of an obsession and I added some Shrubs to try to help get the full 10% bonus every time.

Level 38 sees the next step in my village’s development, which is the Apple Store. Apple Stores don’t give the XP hit of the Village Bistros but it is decent enough and they produce more coins. Some would say that I should stick to the Village Bistros, but economics is starting rear it’s ugly head as I seem to need more coins now, what with expansions and catching up with Magic Rock upgrades. I&apos;ll continue to build these until level 46 is well within sight.

That’s it for my food based stores. I’m now looking forward to level 46 and the advent of the ever popular Scooter Store – only another 89m XP to go then…

Idealised store earnings:

 
 * Based on a median price for buying food of 840 per 1000 units of food.No one can get these returns at that food price as there is no allowance for late collections or recipe selection, but it does give a usable comparison in my opinion. Just remember that, even though Rock Candy Stores look great in the above table, the short recipe time is 3 minutes, who has that level of commitment?

I&apos;ll try to build a better store comparison that includes 1 longer recipe per day, that may give a more realistic picture.

P.S. Please be gentle with me, this is my first blog.