Worker satisfaction on your farm

Satisfaction is a number that every farm has of its own, and it tells me how cheaply I can get production running there. It climbs with decorations built directly on the farm and drops with every extra house, because a house hands me workers but costs me satisfaction. Higher satisfaction means lower production costs paid every time I start production, and with perfect satisfaction they drop to nothing at all.

Satisfaction is one of the few mechanics where a small investment in the right decoration saves me money on production for the rest of the game, so it is worth sorting out on each farm separately as soon as I can afford the first cheap pieces. Expensive big decorations I would only buy on farms where plenty of production is running and the savings on costs really show.

Satisfaction is counted separately for every farm

I do not handle worker satisfaction for the whole estate at once. Each farm has its own level, driven purely by how many houses and decorations stand on it. High satisfaction on one farm does nothing for me on another, so I plan decorations and houses for each farm separately.

In practice, satisfaction feeds straight into production costs. Every time I start production in a production or processing building I pay a certain amount of dollars, and the happier the workers on that farm are, the smaller that amount is. With perfect satisfaction I can save the lot.

Houses give workers but knock satisfaction down

I get workers by building and upgrading houses, and a few spots for them can be found in the farmhouse as well. Without workers I cannot get a single production or processing building running. I assign them by clicking on the building, as long as they are free. The thing is, workers only work on the farm where their house stands, so there is no lending them between farms.

The catch is that every extra house lowers satisfaction on that farm. A house can be torn down again, but only when I have at least as many unassigned workers available as the house holds. They vanish with the demolition, but satisfaction jumps up straight away. Before I get into any tearing down, I always free enough people from production first, otherwise the game will not let me start.

Decorations are the main tool for pushing satisfaction up

Decorations built on the farm raise satisfaction instead, and that pushes production costs down. It only works for decorations that really stand on the farm itself. The ones I keep in the inventory have no effect on satisfaction whatsoever, even though I still own them.

On top of that, a decoration always belongs only to the farm where I built it. If I tidy it away into the inventory, I can only place it back on that same farm and nowhere else. A decoration's quality shows how rare it is, so the harder it is to get in the game, the higher its quality, and the ratio between the decoration's size and how much satisfaction it gives plays a part too.

Which decorations give the most satisfaction per tile

Before I buy a decoration, I mainly look at how much satisfaction it gives compared to how many tiles it takes up on the farm, because that is what decides whether I can squeeze enough satisfaction into a limited space. The table compares decorations by satisfaction per tile.

The best ratio by far belongs to the Pumpkin wheelbarrow at the price of a single Gold, so if I spot it in the shop I grab it on the spot. Among the pricier pieces I go for the Azure temple and the Ancient statue, because even at a steep 30,000 Gold they hold the best satisfaction to space ratio of all the big decorations. The Friendship symbol and Animal chess can also be picked up for Friendship cents, so they do not eat into the Gold I would rather save for other things.

The Opinion poll research adds extra satisfaction on top

Besides houses and decorations, the research tree also holds an item called Opinion poll, which according to its in-game description finds out what the workers want and gives them a research bonus straight to satisfaction. The game works the exact size of the bonus out from the research level, so I always check it right there in the research tree before I decide how much more to sink into decorations.

Buildings and products mentioned in the text

Pumpkin wheelbarrowHappiness 72 · 4 × 3Azure templeHappiness 171 · 6 × 6Ancient idolHappiness 52 · 4 × 3Love birdsHappiness 23 · 3 × 2Parrot treeHappiness 45 · 4 × 3Symbol of friendshipHappiness 86 · 5 × 5Ancient stone plateHappiness 39 · 4 × 3Jungle idolHappiness 77 · 5 × 5