Tips
Upgrade your Pay Booth as quickly as you can.
As space is at a real premium over here, upgrade your fence and gate to improve your happiness rating and keep your production costs down.
Upgrade fields, orchards and alpaca pens: the increase in production is well worth the investment, particularly so with the alpacas.
Upgrade mills and Candy Factory as the game progresses - the speed increase is worth the investment.
Upgrade costs and returns are shown in this link from Jess_D, many thanks for that Jess x
Remember to upgrade your Candy Caravan early in the game. This will reduce building time as well as providing extra workers and it doesn't eat up any extra space or reduce your happiness.
Follow the sidebar tasks: For the most part they provide a useful development strategy, and offer some useful rewards as well.
No money to buy new space or not enough workers for new building? Demolish one you no longer need. E.g. swap out a field for an orchard.
Sell/donate candies and other goods as you go so you can afford seeds from the outset.
Whilst Sugar Ornaments give the most progress points & vouchers, they rely heavily on the sugar mill which isn't fast enough to keep the candy factory busy at all times. You can bypass this bottleneck by making fruit puddings whilst your candy factory is waiting for sugar. These require Alpaca feed which also uses the sugar mill for feed so I would suggest upgrading your alpacas to the max to get as much as you can from each bag of feed. In the event that you are unable to produce either of these, go for the simple Fruity Delights.
Buy special seeds and use greenhouse humus to add 25%. You can only get greenhouse humus through the Special Press production machine. For the best returns, use the special humus on the most expensive seeds.
The boat has 4 different levels for fruit. It will show the highest amount you have available. You can (and should) adjust this to a lower setting. You can grow the minimum amount necessary to get the boat out in 30 minutes.
Set meaningful goals according to your level. If you don't have the resources available to upgrade your Candy Palace to Castle level, sell products rather than donate once you reach the Candy Mansion stage. This will give you more vouchers (approx 10%) for seeds.
As space is at a real premium over here, upgrade your fence and gate to improve your happiness rating and keep your production costs down.
Upgrade fields, orchards and alpaca pens: the increase in production is well worth the investment, particularly so with the alpacas.
Upgrade mills and Candy Factory as the game progresses - the speed increase is worth the investment.
Upgrade costs and returns are shown in this link from Jess_D, many thanks for that Jess x
Remember to upgrade your Candy Caravan early in the game. This will reduce building time as well as providing extra workers and it doesn't eat up any extra space or reduce your happiness.
Follow the sidebar tasks: For the most part they provide a useful development strategy, and offer some useful rewards as well.
No money to buy new space or not enough workers for new building? Demolish one you no longer need. E.g. swap out a field for an orchard.
Sell/donate candies and other goods as you go so you can afford seeds from the outset.
Whilst Sugar Ornaments give the most progress points & vouchers, they rely heavily on the sugar mill which isn't fast enough to keep the candy factory busy at all times. You can bypass this bottleneck by making fruit puddings whilst your candy factory is waiting for sugar. These require Alpaca feed which also uses the sugar mill for feed so I would suggest upgrading your alpacas to the max to get as much as you can from each bag of feed. In the event that you are unable to produce either of these, go for the simple Fruity Delights.
Buy special seeds and use greenhouse humus to add 25%. You can only get greenhouse humus through the Special Press production machine. For the best returns, use the special humus on the most expensive seeds.
The boat has 4 different levels for fruit. It will show the highest amount you have available. You can (and should) adjust this to a lower setting. You can grow the minimum amount necessary to get the boat out in 30 minutes.
Set meaningful goals according to your level. If you don't have the resources available to upgrade your Candy Palace to Castle level, sell products rather than donate once you reach the Candy Mansion stage. This will give you more vouchers (approx 10%) for seeds.
Hidden Decos
Many thanks to Runswivscissors for doing most of the running on this one so I didn't have to! If you find it useful, do pop over to her farm and sprinkle some loveliness on it. Also, Jiesta and hardup - many thanks!
6,8,9 & 10 : Gumball Machine 2x2, 5 happiness
3 & 7 : Cotton Candy Machine 4x4, 24 happiness
23 : Funny Flyer 4x6, 50 happiness
15 : Carousel 5x5, 60 happiness
6,8,9 & 10 : Gumball Machine 2x2, 5 happiness
3 & 7 : Cotton Candy Machine 4x4, 24 happiness
23 : Funny Flyer 4x6, 50 happiness
15 : Carousel 5x5, 60 happiness
Production Values
You get about 10% fewer vouchers for donating to the Candy Palace as opposed to selling direct but the rewards seem very good.
It's difficult to produce meaningful and accurate metrics for event farms because the production costs use one currency (in this case candy dollars) and the value of the product is measured in another currency (in this case vouchers). In order to proceed I have assumed that we are all positively swimming in candy dollars, and therefore they have no value at all. I have also used the first level of all buildings to give a fair comparative baseline. Larino will probably produce spreadsheets for each level of building @ a later date and I will include her link here. Here's where the vouchers are at (based on direct sales). It's apparent that the sensible amongst you should be making as many candies as you can to increase the value of your raw materials, and having done that: You should be donating to the Candy Palace.