User:Bassmech20608

Hi there, I am a 46 year-old disabled Navy veteran and long-time fan of The Simpsons (since when it was on the Tracy Ulman show). I started playing The Simpsons Tapped Out on April 6th 2014 and reached Level 40 (the Level Cap at the time) in just over a month. I will detail how I did so and other tips and tricks in my blog. I have been playing video games since the late 70's (my first arcade games were Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, and Space Castle, my first home console was the Atari 2600 V.C.S. {Video Computer System} and I have owned or played on every console since) and love figuring out things that even the official Strategy Guides miss.

I will try to add to my strategy blog on a regular basis, and update my stats too, especially as I get closer to 1000% bonus (I finally got to 1000 percent and went over by a bit, there is no cap at 999 or 1,000 percent bonus! :-). I've not been able to blog as often as I'd like due to my frequent migraines, but I will post as I am able. I'm also going to add a list of quick tips to my wall here, separate from my blog. I will add to it as I go, and many of them may seem obvious to you, but I put them here for those who are new to the game and/or who have not come across these tips yet and they aren't obvious to everyone.

Current Stats
(As of 14 December 2014)


 * Characters = 112
 * Costumes = 46 : All-American Apu, Homer Barbarian, Goblin Bart (Level 55), Kamp Bart, Shadow Knight, Devil Flanders, Puritan Flanders, Gorgeous Grampa, Barbarian Homer (Level 123), Cool Homer, Mayan Homer, Ninja Homer, Santa Homer, Tuxedo Krusty, Archer Lisa (Level 75), Cool Lisa, Sacagawea Lisa, Marge the Witch, Mayan Marge, Wizard Marge (Level 39), Ice Princess Martin, Fit Milhouse, Moog, Count Burns, Ebenezer Burns, U.B.O., Bare-Chested Willie, McBain, and 18 Stonecutter Costumes.
 * Squidport Expansion Boardwalk Sections = 130
 * Springfield Land Expansion = 15x14 Land + 15x2 Ocean Plots
 * Krustyland Expansion Development = Completed
 * Krustyland Land Expansion = Completed
 * Springfield Bonus Percentage = 1328.01%
 * Jet Engine Bikes = 440
 * Krustyland Bonus Percentage = 86.00%
 * Itchy Balloons = 40
 * Size of House Farm = 83 Plots, 288 Blue Houses, 432 White Houses, and 40 Brown Houses (760 Total)
 * 20 Kwik-E-Marts and 15 Gulp 'N' Blows
 * Daily Revenue = Cash.png 3.6-6.6 Million (depending on how often I play that day)
 * Maximum Donuts from visiting Neighbors = 8
 * Maximum Free Donuts in a Day = 63
 * Maximum Cash on hand = 484 Million!!! :-D

Tips & Tricks

 * The best thing about this game is that you can play it at your own pace, and layout your Springfield how ever you want. If you are going to play frequently and you don't already have a good stylus (preferably one of those new ones with the metal mesh hybrid tips, they glide better than the classic rubber tip), GET ONE,... NOW! Your fingertips will thank you as you won't develop nasty bruises and calluses from all the tapping, especially if you have a lot of Houses and other things to tap on frequently throughout the day.


 * (An oldie but a goodie) Tap on Homer Simpson to pull up his jobs menu, then tap on him 10 times fast to unlock a hidden bonus: 10 FREE Donuts and the Jebidiah Springfield Statue


 * Edit: After the Treehouse of Horror XXV Event update on 8 October 2014 the Store layout changed, the settings are now accessed via the more common "Gear" shaped Icon in the upper right corner of the store pop-up. The rest of this tip is the same. Tap on the Build Menu, then tap on the Gear Icon (used to be an "i" Icon) next to projector icon (which brings up the 4 cut-scenes from the game) in the upper right to bring up the Options Menu. Here you can set to get a Confirmation before spending Donuts, have Notifications sent (mostly Homer saying "Better them than me!") when something is ready in the game, change the in-game Language, and get more info on the game. I HIGHLY recommend setting the Push Notifications and Confirm Donut Spend to ON, and check the settings periodically, especially after Content Updates.


 * Building a House Farm (briefly: building multiple color houses in groups of 3 or more, ideally at least a dozen or more) is not just about getting more Cash and Experience for yourself, it's also about being a good neighbor. Start with a dozen or more Brown Houses, especially if you're still a low level (but even if you're high level) and place them at or near the center of your Springfield (where the game loads up) so that visiting neighbors will have something to tap on, even if you're actively playing or just left for a few hours. Once you can build the Purple House, build a few to a few dozen for you to get extra money and XP every 3 hours, and for your neighbors to tap once you've been gone for 3 hours or more. As you unlock the other color houses, especially the Blue House and White House, build at least a dozen each, more if you are often gone from the game for 8 hours or more.


 * You don't need to build huge suburbs of hundreds of Houses if you don't want to "Power Level", even a few dozen total extra houses will give you enough Money so that you're not always waiting to get enough to buy the new Buildings or Decorations as you level up and unlock them, and extra XP to level up a bit faster and earn free Donuts from Bonus Levels once you hit the current Level Cap, not to mention make your neighbors happy by giving them plenty to tap on, regardless of when they visit. Basically, if you often come back to the game to find (almost) every ready building with a Handshake icon and none or very few with the usual icons, then you need to build a few more Houses (and/or some Kwik-E-Marts, Gulp 'N' Blows, and/or Krusty Burgers if you have the money) for your neighbors to tap on while you're gone. Buildings with long collection times can be placed on the edge of the map, but short term buildings (like the Brown House, Kwik-E-Mart, Krusty Burger, and others with collection times less than one hour) are best placed near the middle where visitors can find them easily.


 * You can remove neighbors (especially the ones who have clearly stopped playing) by going to the Friends Menu, then tap on the Friends Icon again (the one with Milhouse and Bart that you used to get to the screen with your neighbors) to bring up a pop-up menu. Scroll down till you find the Username of the neighbor in question and tap on their Icon to bring up another pop-up that lists how long since they last played (in hours, days, or weeks) and it gives you the option to Unfriend them and free up room to add active players.


 * You can change the order that idle characters appear in the Character Stack (or Deck) in the upper left corner. It has the Characters in order from the first acquired ( Homer Simpson and Lisa Simpson ) to the most recently acquired. If you place a Character into Inventory and then take them back out, they move to the bottom of the Stack, even if you acquired them early in the game (Homer and Lisa are the exception, as the Simpson House is the only building that can't be stored in Inventory, so you can't store Homer or Lisa).


 * Once you unlock the Squidport Expansion, it's worth it to keep making Boardwalk Sections, even after you have enough to place all the buildings in the Squidport Quest Chain. Why? Because there are plenty of Decorations, and even a few Buildings (most notably Banana Dictatorship and Johnny Fiestas from the Easter 2014 Event ) that can be placed on the Boardwalk, freeing up Land space.


 * When you get the Krustyland Shuttle You can place it wherever you want, but to make it easier to find, especially for neighbors who are visiting, it's best to place it in one of two spots. 1) Near the Squidport Entrance, or 2) At the Geographic center of town. #2 has it's merits, especially if you spend a lot of time going back and forth (especially if you're putting characters on short 30 & 60 Minute jobs in Krustyland to get more Krustyland Tickets while developing and expanding) and it makes it easier for visiting neighbors to go to your Krustyland, but has the downside that you have to keep moving it as you buy up Land Expansions in your Springfield and the Geographic Center keeps moving. I initially went with #1, and kept my Shuttle there for a long time, and it's easy enough to scroll left till you hit the waterfront and then look for the Krustyland Shuttle, but once my town got bigger it was too much scrolling and I then moved it to location #2. If you decide to place it near the center of town, it does not have to be dead center, as long as you can see it when the game first loads up.


 * Start your Krustyland Expansion as soon as possible, because one of the Attractions is Sideshow You, which is a fun Balloon popping game you can play every 8 hours and there is a small chance to win 5 Donuts each time.


 * Once you reach the current Level Cap your XP goes towards Bonus Levels until the next Level comes out. There is a chance to win up to 3 Donuts by selecting one of 3 Boxes, but you can try again if you don't get 3 on the first or second try for 50,00 Cash each additional try, so make sure to always have at least 100,000 Cash on hand, especially when getting close to another Bonus Level.


 * During the Clash of Clones 2014 Event, it's a good idea to keep a Cheaters 20s on hand, to use as a kind of "attack detector". After checking for Castles and Houses under attack or Wrecked, and Defending those with blue shields and/or repairing/rebuilding those in ruins with a check mark, tap on the shield and Cheaters 20's icon in the upper right corner. You will either get a pop-up telling you that it's all clear, that you got them all and there are no buildings under attack or Wrecked, or you'll get text at the top edge instructing you to tap anywhere to use a Cheaters 20s (to clear remaining buildings under attack or wrecked), in which case you can tap the icon again and search for the buildings you missed (or tap anywhere else to use the Cheaters 20s and instantly clear all the buildings under attack, but I think that's a waste of a valuable resource). It's also best to use the few Cheaters 20's that you do get only on Castles in random towns selected via the crossed weapons icon, (also in the upper right corner) to get the maximum return of 140 Elixir and 50 Gold. They will likely retaliate, but you still get some Elixir and Gold out if it, just not as much as successfully defending.


 * It's tempting to use a lot of Nerds to get the wait time down to the minimum and increase the odds of winning, but there is no guarantee that the person won't return to the game in time to defend, especially when it's a random town with no username (which is why attacking a random stranger and winning pays out so much more, since you don't know who it is or how soon they will likely be back) and all the extra Nerds you sent will be wasted. If the town shows signs of being infrequently visited (usually already a number of buildings already under attack or destroyed, and many of the characters either idle or on long-term jobs), and the wait time is still low (14 hours or less for a House, 16 hours or less for a Castle) I do sometimes use a few extra Nerds to up my odds, and I only do this with random towns, not my neighbors. As we all get further into the Clash of Clones 2014 Event more of us will have our Defenses up so high that it will make more and more sense to just send one Nerd per Castle or House, which means we all come out ahead since we can all attack more targets, and we all get more Elixir and Gold from successfully defending.


 * I came up with this trick during the Easter 2014 Event, but it's useful for the Treehouse of Horror XXV Event or anytime you need to find characters hidden behind or between buildings. Simply go into the "Move Mode" (tap on the 4-Way Arrow) and then hide all the layers but the characters layer (tap the icons in the lower right corner till only the one for the characters has an "open" eye) and then you can see through the buildings and decorations, but the characters (including Bunnies, Rigellians, etc.) will still be solid and very easy to find.  You will have to exit the Move mode to be able to tap/zap/squish the character or thing you were looking for, but finding them will be much easier.  If looking for a specific character, the Census at the Town Hall will take you right to them.