Cooperative
The cooperative is a group of Goodgame Big Farm players where you can chat, work on shared projects and research benefits for the whole group. Membership gives you access to collections, cooperative projects, research and the communal tree, through which the cooperative gradually raises its level and its place in the rankings.
An active cooperative pays off for anyone who plays regularly - the research and the communal tree give you benefits you can't get on your own, but you only get any use out of them in a cooperative where people really do contribute to the collections and sign up for the research. In an inactive or empty cooperative, membership on its own gets you nothing.
The cooperative brings together chat, collections and projects
The cooperative is a group of players who chat together and complete shared tasks. Besides the chat, the cooperative offers collections, cooperative projects and research, which unlock permanent benefits for every member. The cooperative overview shows me the basic information about my cooperative as well as any applications waiting to be handled, and the rankings let me compare the cooperative with the others.
There are two ways to join a cooperative, either straight away if the cooperative has open membership turned on, or by sending an application that the cooperative's leadership decides on. A cooperative can also mark itself in the rankings as looking for new members, just as a player can show that they're looking for a cooperative.
The leader hands out roles and controls the settings
The highest rank in the cooperative belongs to the leader, who has every permission, can appoint deputies with limited powers, accept or reject membership applications, change the cooperative's name and description or kick someone out. Deputies only get part of those powers, ordinary members have access to the chat, the collections and the projects, but they can't change the cooperative's organizational settings.
The membership has a limited capacity, which can be raised with gold from the cooperative account. Dollars and gold can also be donated to the cooperative account directly, and that can then be used for things like shortening ongoing research.
Collections start projects and projects earn reputation points
Collections are the first step towards a cooperative project. Every member who gathers the full required amount of a given item can hand it in to the collection - it can only be handed in as the whole required amount at once, not in parts. Once the collection is complete, the leader or a deputy can start the cooperative project, and from that moment a time limit runs in which the members have to finish the given task together.
For a successfully finished project the cooperative earns reputation points, which raise its level. When a cooperative keeps completing projects, the difficulty level of the next projects goes up as well - the tasks get harder, but the reward grows along with them. If a project isn't finished within the time limit, it falls through and the cooperative loses the work it put in.
Cooperative research unlocks benefits for every member
Cooperative research unlocks effects that every member benefits from once it's finished. Before the leader or a deputy can start it, enough members have to sign up for the researcher role first. A cooperative can only handle one research at a time, and until it's over, no other one can be started. Ongoing research can also be paid for with gold from the cooperative account, which shortens the time it has left.
The communal tree rewards regular watering
The communal tree is a reward tied to the cooperative's level that the members water together so they can harvest it as soon as possible. The more members join in on the watering, the bigger the final reward. You can also water anyone else's tree in the cooperative by visiting their farm, or water every member's tree at once for a small fee in gold without going around the farms.
