How to sort out happiness and workers on your farm
I underrated happiness for a long time, until I worked out how many dollars every single production run was costing me on a farm full of unhappy workers. It is counted separately for each farm and it directly determines how much you pay to start production in your production and processing buildings, and at perfect happiness you pay nothing at all. I have written down how to get happiness sorted on a farm in practice, from picking the right houses through decorations to the moment when it pays to tear a house down.
What happiness does and why it matters
Worker happiness comes from the number of houses and decorations you have built on a given farm, and each farm keeps its own happiness level - nothing carries over from the Main farm to the Gourmet farm or the Flower farm. High happiness lowers your production costs, meaning the dollars you pay every time you start production in a production or processing building. If you manage to push happiness up to perfect, production costs disappear entirely.
That is why I deal with happiness on a new farm straight away, before I start any large-scale production on it - otherwise dozens of production rounds end up costing me a fortune in pointless fees.
Simple house or fancy house
I get workers by building and upgrading houses, and I find a bit of room for them in the farmhouse as well. But every new house also lowers happiness on the farm, so with each one you gain workforce and at the same time set yourself up for more expensive production.
Both types of house, simple and fancy, measure 5x5 and have ten levels, and both can be built from the start of the game, although you only reach the tenth level as a level 144 player. At level one, a simple house costs you 450 dollars and takes 15 minutes to build, while a fancy house at level one costs 250 gold and takes 20 minutes.
In terms of output versus the hit to happiness, the fancy house comes out better.
- A simple house at its maximum tenth level houses 55 workers but lowers happiness by 270, and it takes 3 days 8 hours to build for 42 000 000 dollars.
- A fancy house at maximum level houses 68 workers and lowers happiness by only 225, and it takes 2 days 14 hours to build for 57 000 gold.
So the fancy house gives me more workers for a smaller loss of happiness and a shorter build, you just pay in gold instead of dollars. Whenever I have gold to spare, I go for it. With houses I stick to one main rule - I only build and upgrade as many as I have workers I will actually use in production and processing buildings. Surplus unassigned workers only drag your happiness down without producing anything.
Which decorations give the most happiness per tile
Decorations work as a pure bonus - they raise happiness on the farm where they stand and they take no workers from you. A decoration's quality shows how rare it is - the harder it is to get in the game, the higher its quality, and the quality rating also factors in the ratio between its size and how much happiness it gives.
Because space on a farm is always limited, I mainly go by how much happiness a decoration brings per tile, not just by the total number. Of the decorations I have had the chance to compare, these come out best per tile.
- Pumpkin wheelbarrow (4x3, happiness 72) - the best ratio of the lot and a cheap seasonal decoration on top of that.
- Azure temple (6x6, happiness 171) - plenty of happiness at once, but it eats up a big chunk of the farm.
- Ancient statue (4x3, happiness 52) and Turtle doves (3x2, happiness 23) - a good ratio on a small footprint.
- Parrot tree (4x3, happiness 45) - a solid pick when I cannot afford the pricier pieces.
The Friendship symbol, the Jungle statue and Animal chess also give decent happiness per tile, but they are bought with friendship cents or obsidian dollars, so first you need to save up the right currency, not just some spare gold.
You can put a decoration back in your inventory at any time, but there it stops affecting happiness, and it also holds that a decoration built on one farm belongs to that farm alone - you cannot move it into your inventory or onto a tile on another farm.
Fence and gate as a happiness top-up
Besides houses and decorations, the fence and gate around the farm add to my happiness too, because workers feel safer behind them. From a certain player level both can be upgraded, and as soon as the upgrade becomes available to me I do it straight away - it is extra happiness that costs no tiles at all.
Public opinion poll
When I want to know what my workers currently need, I run a public opinion poll on the farm. It shows me up to date information and, once it has been evaluated, it grants me a research bonus to happiness. I treat it as a quick top-up to houses and decorations, not as a replacement for them.
When it makes sense to tear a house down
Demolishing a house mainly makes sense when you need to free up space for something more profitable, or when you have overdone the number of workers and your happiness is on the floor because of it. But you cannot tear a house down whenever you feel like it - the game only lets you do it when you have at least as many unassigned workers available on the farm as that house holds.
Before I demolish, I first pull the workers from that house out of the buildings they are assigned to, so that enough of them are free. Once it is torn down those workers disappear for good, but happiness on the farm goes back up, because the penalty for that house disappears too. I typically make this swap when moving from simple houses to fancy ones - I tear the simple house down and fill the freed-up space with a fancy one, which houses more people for a smaller loss of happiness.
Buildings and products mentioned in the text
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