Building Routines with Successful Strategies

Stardew Valley is a game about routine. You select a specific map scenario and build a routine within it that satisfies your personal game preferences. Your success depends on the kind of routine you build. This guide will assist in building a successful routine as focused for a single player game.

This guide is not about basic function or explanations. It relies on your ability to use the wiki to answer any questions regarding basic game dynamics.

FIRST, utilize the assets available at stardewvalley.com and stardew.info/planner/. The first provides those small details like where to find someone on a given day (you can’t spend all day looking for someone) and what to bring to the Luau or Valley Fair. In addition, you can also determine product value, rewards, events, and where something is found. The second allows you to plan out how your farm will look like when fully developed. A link to this site is also available on the main page of the stardewvalleywiki.com. With the planner, you can work out not only where to put everything but also decide what to focus on and what kind of routine you want for the farm itself. For example, if you plan on plant fields and husbandry, you can work out how to get the most out of both, then determine what gets that first-thing-in-the-morning check. That would need to be as close to the house as possible. For me, if I have a barn, I do that first thing before the animals get to scatter much. So my maps that include barn animals have the barn within a short distance of the house.

SECOND, plan well. A lot depends on that map planning. In choosing a map, realize the map’s limitations. The default map can be shaped to any kind of focus. But the foraging map loses so much ground to grassy patches that it is impractical to use it for a field-intensive treatment, just as the fishing map is anti-field of any sort. The mining map can easily be transformed into stone and wood production with either animals or a couple small fields; not both.

Determine how you will move over your map to decide a layout. Know how you will play and make sure the most important tasks and things are closer to the house. For every map, I plan to move in a circle that allows me to check on everything once, beginning and ending at the house. This is the overall movement I’m comfortable with. You may have a different movement depending on your priorities or map purpose. Movement efficiency helps save time so keep like things together. Examples include: 1) If you plan on a lot of outdoor, non-greenhouse planting, keep the fields closer to the greenhouse so that seeds, fertilizers, and saved crops can be centralized. 2) Since I only intend to refill my mayo and cheese machines once a day, I put them inside barns/coops to eliminate time spent going to a shed. If you are planning on a massive animal farm, you may want to devote a shed for the mayo and cheese machines so you can make more than one exchange between finished product and raw material.

It may be necessary to play the first year in Stardew Valley a couple times before you pick up on your personal preferences on placement and movement.

THIRD, be ready to know what to do with every day. I developed cheat sheets (which I will include here) that I can quickly reference to remind me of birthdays, berry-picking seasons, what to plant, and what bundles I should be completing. Have a rainy day coming? See if you need to catch rainy-day fish or get more ore, or if you need more lightning rods or to upgrade the watering can. Check on any requests you’ve accepted. The only time I get a little lazy about my day-to-day is the winter time.

Now that you have prepared a bit for your foray into Stardew Valley, I will go over a few basic strategies then follow with each season for two years to help with the execution of your gameplay.

Choosing Joja or the Community Center Strategy

This game works best if you choose to restore the Community Center. You gain a lot of bonus items for completing the bundles like extra seeds, crab pots, and quality fertilizer for a fraction of the cost it would otherwise take to make yourself.

However, should you want to remain loyal to the corporate giant Joja, don’t just ignore the community center bundles. Some of the rewards for completing the bundles are worth getting, like the foraging seed bundles that give you 30 seeds instead of the 10 you would normally get by crafting. You can go to the wiki and see what rewards are available for each bundle and decide which ones you want to complete and still buy a Joja membership later without penalties. In fact, having tried the game by completely ignoring the community center and just getting a Joja membership, I would advise taking advantage of the bundle rewards you want before doing so .

Tree Farming Strategy

While it is tempting to just start clearing everything possible on the farm, refrain from getting too excited. Clear only what you need. Not only will you not overwork yourself trying the impossible, ](especially for the land-heavy default map) and therefore [/previewimgleave no energy left for higher priorities, but all those trees will continue dropping seeds for future generations.

Game dynamics requires space for a tree to reach maturity. If an adult tree is too close to a seed or sapling, the seed and sapling will not mature. However, when the adult tree has been removed, if the number of days for that seed to reach maturity has already passed, the seed will become a mature tree the next day. So instead of clearing an area of seeds, small trees, and a handful of full-grown trees, I get to harvest every tree as a full-grown tree with a little time. Where before I would run out of trees to harvest by second spring, I had a ready wood supply well through the second year by just clearing ground I needed and picking off a few mature trees.

Building Relationships Strategy

The goal is to get the purple stardrop star indicator for all non-marriable villagers because once reached the relationship status does not degrade. For raising the relationship status, you get some gifts and recipes from friendly villagers. Marriageable villagers do not max out unless you give them bouquets. You can give bouquets to everyone to max them out. (That’s right, I’m a player. Pun intended.)

Most villager relationships are not difficult to build. Your hardest villagers will be those that don’t cross your regular routine. For example, I have a hard time building relationships with Caroline, Marnie, Sebastian, Sam, and Shane. The housewives are often at their homes, Marnie at her ranch, Sebastian in his basement bedroom in the mountain, Sam in his room, and Shane at Joja. These are all locations not typically aligned with my routine.

For each day you do not talk to a villager, you lose 2 points. For an entire year, if you don’t talk to a villager, you lose 224 points total. Anytime you talk to a villager (and not just bother them when they are busy), you gain 20 points. This means you only need to talk to a villager for a total of 11 days to negate a year’s worth of not talking to that villager.

This doesn’t even include giving birthday gifts or completing quests for any villager; those actions result in a minimum of 150 points, though a well-executed birthday gift (they love it) is 640 points. It also doesn’t include some festival bonuses and heart event choices or the community center bundles specific to increasing relationship status with some villagers.

It sounds more complicated than it is. The solution to getting a heads up to as many villagers as possible outside of birthday gifts and quest objectives is to visit the saloon every Friday night. 16 of 34 villagers meet there every Friday night. Since half the population is in one spot once a week, I made Friday my social day—I greet everyone I can but especially hit up that saloon before 7pm. Otherwise, if I pass someone in my running around, I stop and say hi. Do that and keep up on birthdays and bulletin board requests and other quests, and you will have more than half the village on good terms.

This, of course, is the indifferent, get-popular method to relationships, and does not include efforts to single out a special someone.

tl;dr: Give everyone a birthday gift they love and you can ignore them all year and still be popular.

Husbandry Strategy

Despite an early quest to have a coop built, acquiring animals so early in the game in not fiscally sound nor energy efficient. Animals are expensive.

Let's take a look at that early quest. A chicken costs 800g with the coop costing 4000g in addition to 300 wood and 100 stone for a total of 4800g. An egg sells for 50g, a large egg for 95g. Including modifiers and a mix of regular and large eggs and turning as many eggs into mayo, you will need 26 eggs (26 days) to just break even. In contrast, a single cauliflower is 80g and grows to harvest in 12 days. It sells for a minimum of 175g. You just made a profit in 12 days, not 25+. (A good day of fishing is the only faster way to earn money this early in the game.)

In addition, staying up late past 6pm while having animals causes for a mood reduction and severely reduces any opportunity for mood bonuses. Mood bonuses determine if you get large products, duck feathers, or rabbit feet. So if you plan to be up late regularly getting to your preferred activities, don’t focus on getting those animals so quickly until you can buffer your activities to keep from staying up late all the time. Upgraded tools, sprinklers, and access to a horse or the minecarts can help you get to everything more quickly, and all these advantages don’t show up until much later in the year.

If you plan on focusing on animals for your gameplay, you will still need a way to earn that first 4800g. Using the first spring to plant crops will be your fastest way to get enough profit to invest in husbandry. Not even fishing or mining so early in the game can compete with those cauliflower.

Upgrading Equipment Strategy

While you can upgrade a tool at any time you have the raw material and the money, it makes sense to avoid some basic where-is-my-oh-it’s-at-the-blacksmith moments.

• Watering Can – utilize a rainy day for an upgrade or plan to finish watering everything by Day 27
  
• Hoe – avoid upgrading at the beginning and ending of seasons when you need it for planting/digging up those wiggly worms
  
• Axe – avoid upgrading at the beginning of season or when needing wood in the next two days
  
• Pickaxe – avoid upgrading at the beginning of the season or when have a quest for ore or require ore or rock for critical builds

Maximizing Greenhouse Strategy

Once the greenhouse has been restored, you have some flexibility on how you want to plant the greenhouse. In addition to planting crops in the 7x6 square, you can also plant up to 18 fruit trees. Reference the wiki for additional information on how to place those trees. You can also find an interior greenhouse planner at the online stardew valley planner.

The two major advantages of the greenhouse are being to plant those 18 fruit trees and being able to plant and harvest any crop without restrictions to seasons. It is especially valuable for growing super valuable multi-harvest crops like Ancient Fruit. In one game, I had all the multi-harvest crops in the greenhouse and I used the outdoor fields grow high-value single-harvest crops.

The Traveling Cart

Every Friday and Sunday, the Traveling Cart is in the forest. Most of what it offers is too expensive or unnecessary. But it does provide two uses: obtaining bundle-related objects that would normally be unavailable or currently unattainable, such as a coconut, eggs, or various fish; and the availability of Rare Seeds. Always get those Rare Seeds whenever possible (except for when playing with a modified profit margin). They can only be planted in the fall or in the greenhouse, but they are worth a minimum of 3000g a piece. Rare Seeds are only sold in the Spring and Summer.

Changing Profit Margin

With the multiplayer option, you can start a game with a different profit margin. This option is to rebalance the economic system with multiple players, but it can also be used to create a challenging single player game.

After the profit margin has been modified, buying and upgrading will be much more difficult. While the ratio of profit v cost remains the same for crops, other items like livestock, fruit trees, Traveling Cart items, store items, and blacksmith upgrades become much more difficult to obtain. For example, at 25% profit margin, Rare Seeds develop a negative profit margin to buy outright. You still need it for a Stardrop, so I get only a few Rare Seeds.

My Quick Play tables are based on an unmodified profit margin but can still be useful in getting reminders on what to do.

The first spring is an exercise of managed frustration. You don’t have the energy, access, or upgrades to get all the things you want to get done. Your birthday gifts are mostly what you pick up around the place instead of the optimal choice.

Each season has a money-making option, and for the first spring cauliflower is cash crop. The more cauliflower the better. But don't plant any until you can make a scarecrow or crows will eat your plants. There’s a reason you’ve been given free 15 parsnip seeds on the first day—you’ll need 13 of them to make Farming Level 1 so you can make that scarecrow. So until you can make a scarecrow, you will be stockpiling cauliflower seeds and sap (for fertilizer).

THE FIRST SIX DAYS

Because of the initial circumstances of a new game, the first six days differ from the rest of the game. You don’t have access to the mines or the spa, and you won’t have a fishing pole until day two or later. You don’t have a lot of money, resources, or access to crafting recipes. In addition, you don’t have the energy to run all day, either. So the focus for the first six days is to clear those opening quests, setup for your later goals, and cover as many level one skills you can get to.

DAY ONE - MONDAY

Clear a space for all spring planting and plant/water the parsnips seeds. This spot does not need to match what you have plan for your final farm map; it should be a place you can get some planting and watering done with little time wasted moving around. You can readjust your planting area later.
Get enough wood to make a chest and forage all areas, keeping one of each kind: leek, dandelion, daffodil, wild horseradish. These will be used in the community center bundle for a pack of 30 spring seeds. Keep extra daffodils for birthday gifts. Otherwise, clear weeds with the scythe and plant any mixed seeds. Run out of energy? Find some spring onions in the forest’s south side. Greet anyone you pass by—don’t be worried about getting everyone. Whoever you don’t get today can be reached on other days. Don’t forget the bulletin board.

DAY TWO – TUESDAY

Plant any mixed seeds, water everything, forage for items, check the bulletin board for quests, and get the fishing pole at the beach. Get a few fish and sell them. Sell everything you don’t need for the next week; I personally don’t like selling my wood or stone but have done so to get the extra little bit I need to get cauliflower seeds. You should be able to purchase 12 cauliflower seeds.

DAY THREE – WEDNESDAY

Plant any mixed seeds , water everything, forage for items, and fish. Check the bulletin board for quests. Sell everything except what is required for the next week, and clear what you didn’t get to.

DAY FOUR – THURSDAY

Plant any mixed seeds, water everything, forage for items, check the bulletin board for quests, and fish. Sell everything except what is required for the next week. You should now have 24 cauliflower seeds.

DAY FIVE – FRIDAY

Harvest those parsnips and sell them, keeping only one for any quests out there. Plant any mixed seeds, water everything, and forage for items. Take a moment to go to the now-open mines and spend some time roaming underground. You should now have 30 cauliflower seeds. Wind up the day and go to the saloon in the evening, around 6 pm. Finish greeting anyone you’ve missed. Don’t forget to check the traveling cart in the forest.

DAY SIX – SATURDAY

You should have just earned level one farming and are able to construct a scarecrow. Enough ground should be cleared and enough sap available to make fertilizer for all cauliflower. Total cauliflower seeds should be 32+. You are now ready to take off into what you have planned and ready for your farm.

THE REST OF THE SEASON

Now that you have access to the beach and the mines, you can now focus on your objectives for the rest of the season.

CROPS/FORAGING

With cauliflower being the biggest earner, you should focus as much on buying those seeds over others. The other critical seeds to buy would the strawberries, which are sold at the egg festival on Spring 13, and the green beans, which require time to grow before harvesting every 3 days. You can plant cauliflower up to Day 15. DO NOT FORGET TO MAKE BASIC FERTILIZER and put it down before you plant. Do not fertilize any spring seeds. Harvesting spring seeds is more dependent on a foraging skill than on a fertilizer modifier, so it is a waste of resources to give them fertilizer. Since mixed seeds also include the odd cauliflower, do plant them after Day 15. Save them up for next spring.

Cauliflower benefits from being planted in a minimum of 4x4 plots; they have an opportunity to become a giant cauliflower the day they reach maturity, and if they are planted in wider plots, they tend to have better luck. I like to plant 16 cauliflower at a time. If you intend to process most of the cauliflower as pickles don’t worry about the fertilizer since processing gold star produce is not as cost efficient as processing basic produce. As a rule of thumb, I fertilize a lot in the first year but do so much less come the second year as I process most of my produce.

You don’t have a preserves jar yet, but when it becomes available later in the year, you are going to want to pickle those cauliflower. A basic cauliflower sells for 175g. A jar of pickled cauliflower sells for 400g. This becomes especially important when the profit margin is only 25%.

On Day 13, you have the option to buy some strawberries. You only have enough time for two harvests before Spring is over and the plants die. I aim for 3 to 9 plants. It may seem lik you should plant more on the first spring, but you have limited energy and tools. Do save some strawberries to convert to seed with a Seed Maker so you can plant strawberries at the beginning of the season next year.

After Day 15, when cauliflower has been harvested, replace the empty patches with Parsnips and Kale (if desired). You want to at least get those 5 gold-modified Parsnips for the community center quality bundle if you can before the end of the season. The fertilizer will boost your chances for that, too.

For Days 15-18, salmonberries will be found across the countryside. Do spend some time gathering what you can; they sell for only a little money but are valuable for some gifts and to boost your energy, much like the spring onions. Keeping a stockpile of them can help you with your energy through the last of spring and through summer. Salmonberry wine (when you get a keg) is the cheapest wine you can make, ideal for any wine gifting you may want to do.

Finally, have everything you need watered finished by Spring 27. It is ideal to upgrade the watering can utilizing a rainy day, but I once had a Spring season where the only rainy day I got was Day 2. It is critical to upgrade your watering can before summer; there’s just too much watering in summer to risk having a season where the rain is way too little.

FISHING

Reference the Quick Play tables for Year One, Spring. This is not a comprehensive list even for all fishing efforts in Spring but a pared-down list based on fishing level and tackle. This is the range of fish reachable for low-level and poorly outfitted fishers. Totals for quests are only for those quests when a villager is requesting a fish for X reason, not the fishing requests where Willie wants you to pull so many X fish out of the water. It is not possible to fish for those kind of requests ahead of their posting.

MINING/UPGRADES

You will need to gain enough copper for at least one upgrade, and it should be the tool you will utilize the most in summer. For most gameplay styles, that tool will be the watering can, allowing you to water more with less energy for summer crops . See the Upgrading Equipment Strategy.

You should now start to get the hang of your gameplay, and your routine should begin to emerge. Again, I provide a couple tables in the Quick Play Table section that I reference in my gameplay. These tables give me an idea on what to accomplish, and just like the spring tables, are adaptable to circumstances depending on the kind of gameplay I want to have.

CROPS/FORAGING

Like Spring, Summer also has a cash crop. For raw sales, the blueberry edges out the melon because the plant produces so many blueberries in the season. However, the melon and hops are better for keg-processing. Prioritizing these three for planting while giving a small space for everything else is a way to get all the crops needed for bundles and requests while maximizing profitability. If you have already found an ancient seed, now would be the season to plant an ancient seed. It will take all season to grow but will live through the fall season. Utilize fertilizer for melons and use speed-gro for blueberries. Don’t forget the bonus starfruit seed from the museum rewards.

In placing your crops, be aware of two things: some crops can live into fall, and any fertilizer used can remain through the fall transition. Corn is a crop that is for both summer and fall so anywhere you plant it will still be there on Fall Day 1. Having crops transition into fall saves time in clearing ground and saves money by not having to re-fertilize for fall. The plan is to have all summer single-harvest crops picked and to lay down wheat in the last three days of the season, so that the wheat is ready to be harvested on Fall Day 1. This keeps clutter from showing up during the seasonal transition, keeps the ground tilled and fertilized, and maximizes the amount of crops grown in the season.

Just like with the spring seeds, make summer seeds before the end of the season so you have something to start with next year.

It is not practical to plant mixed seeds during summer since you don’t know if you are going to get a multi-harvest plant or a single-harvest plant.

In addition to the crops, focus on tapping trees for saps/resins and get a small flower plot up for specialized honey. Also get an apple and a pomegranate tree up so that you can complete bundles by end of Fall.

By midway through the season, you would need to start establishing preserves jars. Ideally, they would need to be in a shed to protect them from being taken out by a patch of expanding weeds, but a shed requires 15000g you probably don’t have at the moment. You can place them on some outdoor flooring or put them in a building of your choice. Once you have a few, start making cauliflower pickles and a few miscellaneous jellies. Save your melons and hops for when kegs become available in Fall.

FISHING

Summer is the best season for serious fishing. Discounting the legendary and mineshaft fish, the top five most valuable fish to sell are found in summer, three of them at the ocean. If you have taken up fishing for your gameplay, summertime is the time to look for the fishies.

Gain a few crab pots (either by crafting or by a bundle reward) and set them out. You can save what you catch, including the trash (because it can be recycled), or sell what you catch. However, save all the crab you can. They are a vital ingredient for Crab Cakes. When you get a kitchen and the recipe, Crab Cakes are going to be one of your favorite recipes—it gives you an entire day of Speed +1 and Defense +1. I always run out of crab.

Towards the end of the season, start saving cheaper fish for quality fertilizer crafting for Fall. These fish are Sunfish, Carp, and Bream, all freshwater. If you have crab pots, oysters, mussels, and periwinkles can also be used.

MINING/UPGRADES

Use rainy days to get rainy-day fish or to go spelunking for level 40 in the mines. You want to upgrade your pick before getting too serious in working through the levels past 40. You mostly need to get enough iron ore to upgrade your axe and watering can. Upgrading your axe will allow you to access the Secret Woods and get fiddlehead ferns. The watering can upgrade is possible with the same strategy when upgrading it to the copper.

MISCELLANEOUS

For acquiring enough energy to get your goals done, especially if you are focusing on crops, you will have access to the hot springs starting Day 4. The hot springs takes a little time to walk in and out of, but it is a way to refill your energy gauge without having to purchase dishes or eat foraged/fished items. I often water everything, spend about two hours of time to get up there and soak, then proceed sweeping for foraging items. I resort to eating only on days when I am too pressed for time to go up there.

Do set up some lightning rods to catch some batteries from those violent summer storms. You want the batteries to make sprinklers and lampposts; keep a few and sell the rest.

Do have a couple silos built and use your scythe to cut hay and fill them.

Fall is your money-making blockbuster season. You can’t go wrong whether fishing or farming. There are still plenty of high-valued fish to pull from the water and those rare seeds purchased in spring and summer are going to boost your funds enormously.

CROPS/FORAGING

Like the previous seasons, Fall also has its cash crops. At the top of the list is the sweet gem berry crop grown from the rare seeds bought from the Traveling Cart. The berry cannot be processed, only sold. Next, in raw sales the cranberry beats out pumpkin just like blueberry beats out melon. However, the profit margin is much tighter between the two, and the pumpkin is still a better choice for preserves. I tend to not juice pumpkins because of the longer processing time, and it only a small increase in value.

Getting a few sprinklers will help you in this season, especially for the blackberry season Days 8-11. You are unlikely to have iridium to make iridium sprinklers, but you may be able to get a couple gold bars before Day 8 to make a couple quality sprinklers.

HUSBANDRY

With my farming-husbandry-mining dynamic, I don’t start into husbandry until fall. If I’m feeling a little adventurous, I may already have some chickens by end of summer. Regardless of where my husbandry stands, I aim to have cows, goats, and ducks by the end of the season. It may be tempting to acquire a deluxe barn and get a couple pigs, but without at least half a season of adulthood, a pig cannot repay its financial impact before winter; the pig will also not be able to earn its keep during winter because it doesn’t go outside to dig up truffles. If you manage to get a pig at the beginning of the season, have at it. Otherwise, it would be wiser to wait until winter to acquire a pig or pigs at the end of the season so that its adulthood coincides with the arrival of spring.

Of course, don’t forget to make enough silos in addition to the ones created in summer, and harvest all the hay you can before the season ends.

FISHING

In fishing, aim for the Super Cucumber, the Catfish and Eel on rainy days, and Tiger Trout. Keep the eels for that awesome Spicy Eel dish perfect for taking along to the Skull Cavern; ideally sell the highest quality and keep the lowest quality for the recipes. Your fishing skill may be good enough that you only get gold-quality eels. Build a healthy supply, around 10, even if you only fish out gold-quality eels.

MINING/UPGRADES

With crops, foraging, and now animals on the roster of things to do, I find mining a difficult thing to get to in Fall. The rainy days I do get usually go to fishing if I can. I only go mining on those rainy days if I need a copper or iron upgrade now. Or I require ore for a craft item or a building like sprinklers, tappers, crab pots, or silos. If I do upgrade, it would be get all of my tools up to iron quality, with a possible gold-quality tool. My first gold-quality tool would be the watering can.

TOWN/QUESTS

Don’t forget to shine with your grange display during the Fair on Day 16. Reference the wiki for details on what to bring. You need 2000 star tokens to get that coveted Stardrop. Get the Stardrop. Winning the grange display will earn you 1000 star tokens. Grab an activity you can excel at (cough…fishing….cough) and earn enough tokens to get that Stardrop. While you are at the fair, don’t forget to gorge yourself stupid at the north end with free burgers. It does refill your energy.

MISCELLANEOUS

Towards the end of Fall and possibly into Winter, you may gain access to the Sewers. Get to Krobus as soon as he is available. He sells a Stardrop for 20k. Get the Stardrop.
In addition, save one of those Sweet Gem Berries for the statue in the Secret Woods. It will also give you a Stardrop.

Welcome to Winter, the only season where the weather doesn’t matter. Will you have sun? Will you have a snowstorm? Who cares? Doesn’t impact your fishing, your mining, or your winter seed crop.

CROPS/FORAGING

What’s that? There’s a crop? Yes, there is. You can plant winter seeds and harvest what you would normally forage for. That’s it. Until you get that greenhouse fixed, you have nothing else to plant or maintain.

Finally, keep some of your funds available at the end of the season to allow you to start spring on a good footing for your playing strategy. Because I don’t get enough fish for quality fertilizer, I often have a good chunk of money to I can buy the fertilizer to augment what I can make; I prefer to wait until Thursday and go to the Oasis to get the speed-gro, ideally the second-to-last Thursday of Winter (because Christmas fall on the last Thursday). Anything above 50k usually covers everything I buy in spring, though I won’t object to going as low as 30k.

HUSBANDRY

If you don’t have pigs yet and want in on some of that truffle goodness, invest in some pigs on Day 17 or 18. They will mature on Day 1 of Spring just in time to start finding you truffles.

FISHING

If you are wanting to catch those legendary fish and your fishing skill is sufficient, go ahead and get the Glacierfish in the forest. I use a Dish o’The Sea bonus and a trap bobber to catch legendary fish, and I can usually get one after a couple tries. Legendary fish can only be caught once per type. It is one of those details that I wish that we could catch a legendary fish once a year per type, since removing a top-tier fish allows someone else to take its ecological space.

MINING/UPGRADES

If there is one critical task for this first winter, it would be reach the Calico Desert and get into the Skull Cavern. You need iridium ore, and short of buying Omni Geodes from Sandy on Wednesdays, you will need to delve into those bottomless mines. You have to get well beyond Floor 10 before you start to see the Iridium ore nodes. Take plenty of food, bombs, and stone to construct stairs for the next floor. You can also use a warp totem to quickly evacuate the cavern if necessary. I have yet to break Floor 100 myself, but I saw one gamer make it to Floor 300.

Beyond accessing the Skull Cavern, upgrade all your tools to gold-quality. If you manage to score enough iridium, upgrade a tool (again, prioritize your most used tool—this is usually the watering can) to iridium-quality. Otherwise, save those iridium for sprinklers. See Year Two, Spring’s section on my notes for iridium sprinklers.

TOWN/QUESTS

Be aware that you will get a mail on Day 18 letting you know what villager you will be gifting. Slow down a bit on that notification. I once just shot right through it and didn’t see who I was assigned. Fortunately, there are universal loves and likes, so I made it work, but going through the Festival was interesting not knowing who was going to trigger the gift swap. I just prayed I didn’t get one of the harder villagers to gift, like Pierre, Alex, and Gus.

MISCELLANEOUS

You still have plenty to do. This is the season to build and organize everything you didn’t have time to do before. Missing a house upgrade? Get one now. Missing that barn or coop? Now would be the time. Have various chests and equipment scattered everywhere? Relocate them. Put down roads, lamps, relocate your current buildings, put up fences, go nuts. If you have animals, you still have to take care of them daily. Go fishing. If you haven’t reached the bottom of the mines yet, now is the time to do so. If you need some tools upgraded, now would be the season. And this would also be a good time to build any social ties you want with the villagers.

If possible, get the greenhouse restored. Then plant an apricot tree inside it. You will have a quest for an apricot in Spring, and getting a head start is nice.

Congratulations on getting to Year Two! And welcome to a Spring where you have the energy, the money, the upgrades, and the access to actually do what you want. Since I have no way of knowing what your gaming style is, I will continue to contribute my tables that have a generic production focus. They are updated a bit to show the new crops, better birthday gifts, and whatever might be left for the bundles. They are not conclusive due to the variable results from Year One, like if you were able to plant apple or pomegranate trees in time last year. I, myself, sometimes don’t make that planting, so I would still need apples and pomegranates to complete bundles.

CROPS/FORAGING

You finally have funds and energy as well as cleared space to forego continuous planting and to start planting in big sweeps. Buy your cauliflower and rhubarb seeds in bulk. I buy the seeds anywhere from 90-120 seeds at a time for each kind and plant them in 60+ blocks for each kind. For the cauliflower, this maximizes chances for giant crops. For the rhubarb, I can maximize money-making potential as they will be harvested in segments. As always, I get enough high quality fertilizer for at least 120 seeds before having to use basic fertilizer. I use Speed-Gro for continuous crops, like strawberries, coffee, and green beans.

If you have a map or non-farming focus in your gameplay, narrow your purchasing power to what you want to focus on. Maximize your time on the biggest earners: rhubarb, strawberries, and coffee. Let your greenhouse host a variety of crops with part dedicated to the multi-harvest crops and a blank area for one-harvest crops. This will allow you to get the diversity you need to complete recipes and shipping achievements.

This will likely be the first time you plant coffee. You have either had some coffee dropped in the mines or purchased from the Traveling Cart. Since those seeds are rare and expensive, you should only consider getting the one (or whatever other drops you get) and start this spring to build your coffee production with one plant. With the first harvest, plant what you harvest. Keep doing so until you get the number of coffee plants you want. Coffee is a spring and summer plant, so be aware where you put your plants so they don’t interfere with both spring and summer planting.

If you have your greenhouse fixed, don’t plant all your strawberries outside. Plant some inside the greenhouse. Strawberries are the most valuable crop in raw selling power right next to coffee. Rhubarb is not as valuable as itself but is a great choice for wine.

Stock up on rare seeds at the Traveling Cart every Friday and Sunday for that awesome Fall harvest money return.

Lastly, decide how many spring-only seeds you want on hand for your greenhouse. Be sure to purchase what you need to last until spring seeds are available again.

FISHING

For the fishing guide, I don’t list every kind of fish you can get anymore. I instead highlight what I’ve considered the most useful for one reason or another, such as gifts, recipes, and value.

Now don’t forget to continue your quest for those Legendary Fish. Your Spring Legendary Fish is up at the Lake, called the Legend. Again, I employ a trap bobber and a +3 fishing food dish to catch it; he will be hard to get. He is the hardest fish to catch of them all, so don’t be crestfallen at not getting him during the season even after using every rainy day for snagging. The wiki says that you can catch this fish at any time, but I don’t recall having any success even snagging it after 7pm. I’m not sure if the wiki is in error or some algorithm severely reduces your chances for an encounter. Also, if you haven’t already, start focusing your retained fish collection to those you want for recipes and gifts and consider opportunities to snag some high-value fish, like the ice pip and lava eel. Spring is not the best season for high-value fish, so if fishing is not your mainstay, spend more time trying to get iridium.

MINING/UPGRADES

You will want iridium. Iridium sprinklers is one of the best farming tools you can have. I prize them above the iridium-level watering can. For the same five iridium bars and 25k needed for that upgrade, I can make five iridium quality sprinklers and have 25k for seeds and fertilizer. Those sprinklers can collectively water 120 squares I don’t have to water myself versus a watering can that requires more time and energy to cover the same area. Next to the sprinklers, I prioritize upgrading the pick so that time in the Skull Cavern is not so tedious. Should funds become available, buy the omni geodes available on Wednesday at the Oasis. They sometimes result in iridium ore.

Do not be too concerned in getting all your tools upgraded to iridium status. I’m lazy about upgrading all my tools if the iridium proves too difficult to reach or purchase, prioritizing the iridium ore for the sprinklers instead. That’s because at the beginning of Year 3, I will get the handy Statue of Perfection from Grandpa’s evaluation.

MISCELLANEOUS

A small note on using a Seed Maker: Most crops are worth more than their seeds, and the Seed Maker is moody about how many seeds it will create.

Let’s take an example: melon. You want some melon seeds. They normally 80g at the store. The melon's selling price is 250g each. I put a regular, non-starred melon into a Seed Maker. In order to justify the sacrificed cost of 250g, I will need at least 3 seeds to be generated, the max amount possible. The Seed Maker’s average is only 2 seeds, and in this case I only get 2 seeds. That means that each seed cost me 125g to make. That’s more expensive than JojaMart. And sometimes, I don’t even get that. I’ll get some mixed seeds. Can you imagine my ire?

There are a few exceptions, of course, that could benefit from Seed Maker’s fickle whims and if the Maker decides to deviate doesn’t leave you with a gapping hole in your pocket. You mostly benefit in making your own flower seeds, especially the Sunflower, and some multi-harvest seeds. Because it does take time to make these seeds, it is best to begin anticipating seed amounts a season or so in advance. I compared seed cost, crop profit, the cost of seeds made, the value of processed product for each crop, and the sheer numbers of seeds and therefore saved crop for the seed making to determine what crop would most benefit from using the Seed Maker. I then narrowed the results to those where I really saved money. For example, I would save 5g making my own parsnip seed, but I save 55g to make my blueberry seeds. For the time I take to use the Seed Maker, I would make blueberry seeds.

The recommended crops to make your own seeds from are: Green Beans, Sunflower, Poppy, Blueberry, Hops, Corn, Fairy Rose, Cranberries, and Grapes. Otherwise, use the Seed Maker for those extra one or two seeds you need to finish planting a plot. I highly recommend that you do NOT make seeds from one-harvest wonders like rhubarb, starfruit, and pumpkin.

As your second summer begins, you enter the first season you actually reprise your strategies from last year. The second spring cannot match the first spring due to the irregularities of first spring’s first six days and then the restrictions to mines, spa, and desert. This summer should serve as an expansion on the things you worked on during the first summer.

Continue fleshing out your farm in the way you have planned. I spend time in building my flower garden with its beehives, expand my lightning rod field, and fill out my barns and coops. When planting my cash crops, I make sure my hops are accessible. Until I get a Junimo Hut, I need to be able to reach all the hops to water and harvest them. If I manage to get enough iridium, I will update a tool of my choice or build more sprinklers. Speaking of watering crops, if you need to get something done and need to fudge on watering everything, get a Rain Totem and gift yourself with a rainy day.

Remember that Summer is a fantastic fishing season. Your Legendary Fish will be the Crimsonfish. This would also be the ideal time to setup fish ponds. Fish ponds are relatively new to the game, but it would be advisable to have at least 2 ponds: one pond for sturgeon to have caviar and another pond for squid ink. Again, I’ve updated the fishing guide in the Quick Play Tables section to reflect the fish I am more interested in.

I don’t worry too much about tool upgrades and getting tons of iridium ore. The iridium mostly goes towards making more sprinklers, which frees up more of my time to cover other tasks, including a trip to the mines. Most of my time and energy will go to other non-mining tasks, and I have the Statue of Perfection to look forward for a steady iridium ore source.

The biggest thing you can do for this season would be to complete the Community Center bundles, thereby restoring the Community Center if that is what you have decided on for your game. This is especially possible if you had planted and harvested from the apple and pomegranate trees last fall, and if the Traveling Cart was kind enough to offer some difficult pieces to obtain during your gameplay, like rabbit’s foot, nautilus shell, or the pomegranate itself. Once the center is restored, you can purchase a Junimo Hut. When placed in key locations in your fields, you can plant crops like hops and grapes without needing spaces to work around them since the Junimos will harvest the crops for you.

In addition to getting the Junimo Hut, you can also now have the earliest opportunity to fulfill the conditions to reach Ginger Island.

Fall, Year 2 is the final farming season before Grandpa's spring visit. Your farm should be nearing completion on what you want to develop, and your routine should be settling down from irregularities. Don’t be too concerned that you don’t have everything done yet. Certain items like the Junimo Huts and high-ticket items like the Obelisks are still out of reach. (Never mind the Return Scepter or the Gold Clock items, which are very far outside what you could possibly have made up to now.)

If you are completing the community center and haven’t yet, this would be the season to finish it. You could have the center done already depending on if you managed to get a few apples and pomegranates from last Fall. But sometimes a game just doesn’t cut you a break, and you have to wait a whole year to get those items for the bundles. Most of the bundles should already be done; the Bulletin Board is what I seem to finish last every time I play: the red cabbage and tree fruits hold me up. Once the center is complete, I can buy Junimo Huts.

Now that I’m back the biggest money-making season, I intend to really haul in some moneys, automate harvesting with the Junimo Huts, and keep increasing my sprinkler collection. I’m going to finish off any outstanding achievements for shipping, cooking, and fishing. My upgrades will be finished, purchase the last of my animals, and start sneaking off for fishing and mining trips. (This is one of those moments when I wish the NPC significant other did more than get a daily kiss; it would be incredibly entertaining for that NPC to freak out over how much I’m ditching the farm and going fishing. It would be like Brad Paisley’s I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin’ Song).)

I am now saving product to turn into wine and preserves/pickles. I will be expanding my keg section so that means I need to keep enough of the harvest around to keep the kegs going at all times. Fortunately, the summer harvest of hops and coffee and starfruit till keep those kegs bubbling until I get my next harvest.

Winter is the same again here. Pull out your final building projects, your fostering of relationships, the long fishing trips, and the pursuit of the final missing items for the museum. Grab your Spicy Eel and piles of stone and go into Skull Cavern for ore and glory. And finally, give your farm its finishing touches before Grandpa’s return in spring.

For the more casual gamer, this is where you get off. Grandpa’s ghost evaluates your progress and decides just how well you did. Don’t worry; I’ve left you in great shape and investigating the small shrine to the far upper left of your farm will provide you the Statue of Perfection (and free iridium ore!).

Now for those who don’t think you are done, keep playing. This game is open-ended, and you get to decide when you have completed a farm scenario.

Due to the most recent expansion, I am currently reworking my Quick Table Year 3 section. Stay tuned for an update. I will also be adding to this guide once I have more details on Ginger Island and company.

Quick Play Tables

In playing this game, I developed my own tables to help me focus on the myriad of daily details. These tables serve as handy references that don’t require me to constantly access the wiki or having to recalculate what I need in a season based on how far I’ve progressed in creating my farm. The tables are focused on maximizing a farming-fishing-mining dynamic. They present a baseline for gameplay. If necessary, I can extrapolate shifts in that dynamic from those tables.

Each table is broken up into several sections. Starting at the top are the biggest earners for the season, followed by a generalized statement of the overall goal for the season. The Seasonal Hoarder are notes on what to keep on hand and includes estimated volumes for wine/preserve production as well as items needed for requests and gifts. The totals include both modified items (for gifts and requests) and non-modified items (for processing). Items with asterisks are those worth processing, so only keep a few with high modifiers. The rest should be un-starred. Items without asterisks are not intended for processing and so should be the highest quality you can save with fewer un-starred. The fish worth keeping are divided into two sections: those you should keep in whatever amounts you deem sufficient (they do not have numbers), and those you need only small amounts (which is about five specimans). The Farming section notes what to plant and in what quantities. For the single-harvest crops, I start with the total amounts I want to plant in the season because of the continuous planting I employ early in the game. Once I have enough money and skill, the total amounts are only for what I want to plant at a time. For the multi-harvest crops, I only note what I want to plant for the entire season. The Mining section indicates the number of ore needed for the season. The Community Center section indicates the items that can be submitted to the community center bundles. The Upgrades section indicates what to develop, from tools to buildings to major purchases. The Birthday section is a reminder of who has birthdays, what gift can be provided dependent on what is accessible, and where you are most likely to find the villager. The Highlights section contains brief reminders on things to keep in mind while working through the season.

[rxnable]

@BobtheJeff Sorry for the wait (rl work keeps me from playing much right now). I've reloading the quickplay tables, which should be up after Steam does it content check. Thanks for letting me know the tables were funky!

[BobtheJeff]

Hey dude - can we get the rest of the tables back? I started up a new save and want a little help (Yes I still need help after 100 hrs; don't judge). Thx in advance

[The Best Green Ghost]

this is the best thing it has helped so much - THANKS!!!!

[rxnable]

@V You're welcome.

[rxnable]

@BobtheJeff I'm flattered, thank you!

[v]

Incredibly helpful and thorough! Thank you!

[BobtheJeff]

"Some Help"? Dude, enjoy the take my points! This is the best article I've seen in months!

[rxnable]

@odeg Thank you! Glad I could be some help.

[jtdragon10]

The quick tables are so good this is an amazing guide

[rxnable]

@SubwayFootlong I think it took about 200-300 hours of dedicated gameplay. (Pay no attention to the number of hours I've played in-game. That's unrelated, I swear.)