Managing multiple towns...

[romancement]

Hello! For those of you who play multiple towns, any tips on managing all of them at once? How do you track what you're doing and not lose any dream villagers along the way? I love having two towns and am considering a third one, and I'm so fascinated by how some forum members have FIVE!!

Tell me more about this I'd love to hear your adventures running that many towns. Do they all have different themes or villagers, etc etc?

 

[toadsworthy]

I now have 3 towns... luckily one is almost complete and one is just started.... so I can slack off with them! but if I have a busy time or forget to bring my one town when I'm out of town. but as long as you remember the last day you were in the town you can TT back then and catch it up to speed to the current time!

 

[TraceyJ]

I have four towns going at the moment. Two are pretty well established but not complete and the other two are fairly new. I just spend about ten mins or so in my established towns to see if any moves are being planned and do a few things. Most of my playing time though is spent in my new towns to further develop them.

 

[stitchmaker]

I have 4 real towns but my main town comes first. If that town has an event than I stop a mover in the other towns before the event and mark that date down. One town is decorated inside and outside so it's stuck on May 19, 2015 forever. I picked the perfect day to stop because Mr. Badge Guy appears. When I have some spare time I drop by to play on that date, earn some badges and talk to the villagers.


One friend has a calendar to keep track. She plays one town for a month to work on landscaping and than moves on to the other town. All of her towns have the date a mover was stopped so she can go back to that date.

I play 3 hours or more each night so have enough time to play 3 towns.

 

[HopeForHyrule]

I'm currently bouncing between five towns (three of mine, two for my hubby) and it really isn't too difficult. Once you work out two or three "bestie" villagers you can check with to get the rumor talk and find out if someone is moving out or not...I haven't really been working on any of the towns, beyond getting perma-villagers and making sure no one moves.

 

[Dorian]

I have five towns: Mayor Dorian of Corvidae, Mayor Goldie of Big Bear Village, Mayor Drocell of Misfit, Mayor Olive of Cocoplum and Mayor Hazel of Shika. I wrote a thread about this about a week or so ago on how managing them was a lot easier then I had feared. I don't have a set schedule, but somehow everything just seems to work out fine. Sometimes I go on all towns in a day just to check in, sometimes I spend all my time on one. Now I do time travel regularly, so I will usually do a couple of days or a week at a time each session. That way I can always figure out who is moving and stop them. That way I know I have a few rel world days worry-free. I think that if I didn't tt, it would be more difficult.

Not all my towns have a theme, but Shika is all deer, perfect apples, holly bushes, red and black roses.
Big Bear Village is all big bears and cubs. Goldie is the Mayor and Locks is her little brother who dresses exclusively as a teddy bear. Stitches is his stuffed teddy bear come to life.
Misfit is based on The Island of Misfit Toys from Rudolph. It has villagers like Coco and Pietro, ones who people are not entirely sold on or feel creeped out about, but whom I LOVE!
Corvidae and Cocoplum are just filled with long time friends and all my towns are always works in progress. I like to swap villagers around so they can experience all my towns. Like the majority of my bears in Big Bear Village came from my other towns. So everyone always talks about all my other mayors and towns, which I love.

- - - Post Merge - - -

Sorry, that was super long!

 

[romancement]

I love ALL of these comments please keep them coming. I love love love multiple town ideas, the dreaming is the fun part but building is hard.

Thistle was my first town, and I kind of played it randomly and naturally for a long time until I got ambitious. Now it's a bit of a wreck, or rather a work in progress. I've taken all my trees, bushes and pwps down while I figure things out. Eventually it's going to be a little zen forest themed town, with a little coven of mice in the dark woods, a warren of rabbits by the small town, and one cranky old wolf by the cliffs. My mayor is going to be the little town doctor with a major apothecary theme. I am NOT VERY FAR u_u

Gamine is the town I'm currently working on, and it's going to be very tomboy-ish charm! Lots of straw hats and overalls and fishing and red brick paths. I love number sets, so this town will have four caffeine addicted rabbits that love the roost too much, three roly poly bears that man the fruit orchard, two snooty cats that assist in the art gallery, and a peppy little mouse who runs the bakery. I'm stuck here because I've been trying to put Pudge's plot down for a long time, and he is not going anywhere near to where I want.

Other town ideas I'd love to have:

1.) A little shepherding town - 8 fluffy sheep (Baabara, Eunice, Muffy, Timbra, Vesta, Wendy, Willow, and Curlos), a cute little sheepdog (Daisy, though Shep is well-suited), and one sly wolf (Whitney, she's mah fav)

2.) All blue villagers, I just like that color

 

[GalacticGhost]

.

 

[romancement]

Ahhh Pudge finally moved into a decent spot. Not the one I wanted, but I have too much to do to spend all night resetting.

SuperStar: I love both the names of your town! I didn't realize that it's safe to TT back so far, and now that I do I feel much better about accidentally losing a villager.

 

[Spooky.]

I have three and while it's pretty difficult (especially because I have 2 3DS systems and two FCs), it's still fun to be able to have different villagers, to work with different maps, and make different towns. Each one has a different feel so you can play whichever you're in the mood for.

I usually play my newest town when I get in bed before I go to sleep, unless I'm doing a trade or something. I just keep the clock set back about 6 or so hours so it's daytime in-game and I don't miss anything.

My middle town I've been playing a lot, just because I finally finished getting 10 cats and it's now ready to be landscaped and made pretty. I'm stumped on what I want to do with my house though, so I'm always looking up ideas.

My main and first town, I often put on hiatus (waiting for a villager to move out and saying no so I don't lose anyone), but lately I've been focusing on it more. I considered resetting that town, honestly, but I decided that I'm going to overhaul it instead, and I chopped down trees, dug up bushes, moved flowers, erased my paths, etc. I'm also selling off a bunch of items for a bit of a fresh start.


Other than playing my new town almost strictly before bed, I'm generally pretty lax about the other two. If I don't have my first town on hiatus, I'll play whichever one I'm not feeling into for a bit to check and make sure no one moves, then spend more time on the second that I'm more interested in. (If that makes sense?) I don't really stress about it too much, since you can always plan to put a town on hiatus if you're frustrated or too busy to work on several. It's a shame villagers move out if you don't play, but at least there is a way to prevent it.

 

[Karla]

Sometimes I think I need my head examined for having more than one town I accepted long ago that I will lose some of my dream villagers because there are days that I just can't play both games. But it is so worth it I love what I've managed to do with both towns and making sure that each town has a different main fruit has been very profitable. I learned my lesson the hard way with all the bamboo trees, I went a little crazy and was digging up way too many bamboo every other day. The bells are helpful but it's a lot of work and kinda messy.
I noticed right away when I started my second town that the T&T carried different items that were never sold in my main town. Which was really cool cause I was able to buy items and complete collections I hadn't been able to before. You can complete some badges for traveling to other towns, hosting and pulling weeds in your second town. It's hard to get the weed badge when you have the beautiful town ordnance in place, so a second town really helps with that. Also while you have the beautiful town ordnance off in your second town it's a great time to make some gold flowers. You have to do a lot of watering to do so your flowers won't die, but it's totally worth it. Occasionally I have set the time of year different so I can catch rare fish and bugs to complete my collection. Which is nice when the winter drags on to be able to go to another town with fresh grass and more sunny days.
The only time I really don't like keeping up with two towns is when I go on vacation or just leave town for a bit, which I do a lot. It's so hard to find the time to keep up and I don't like having to take two 3DS's with me. One of them always ends up being ignored. Well, I have rambled on long enough. Good luck with your towns, you'll find there are way more pros then cons

 

[HHoney]

Hi Romancement!

I've been managing multiple towns for almost a year now. At the moment I have three active towns I am building into perfect dream towns, one cycling town, and one town that I plan to rebuild into another concept town. I think I have five right now. I've almost lost count!

Most important advice - WRITE IT DOWN. Sorry about the all caps, but it is that important.
Write down the name of the town, the villagers, your characters - and most importantly - the last date you played.

When you lose track because you have more than one town and you forget to play and you're worried a dreamie is going to move out is the worst feeling ever! I never want that to happen to anyone.

Honestly, multiple towns makes Animal Crossing super fun for me! I absolutely love it. I love the planning, thinking about perfect villagers, what perfect PWPs belong in each town.

I am working hard on one town - getting close to posting the Dream Address. So excited!
I could tell you all about my towns if you'd like. I love talking about my towns.

 

[Spooky.]

I see a lot of people saying 'remember the last day you played' so that you don't lose anyone, which requires you to time travel backwards. Traveling backwards any amount still counts as traveling one day forward. So I'm pretty sure there is still a risk in losing a villager. Plus, once a villager goes in boxes there is nothing you can do about it. If you TT backwards, they'll be gone.


It's simpler to just say 'no' when any villager asks to move, then stop playing. It may take a couple days to get a ping, but if you know you're going to take a break it's very simple. Nobody will move out and you don't have to time travel. I 100% swear by this method, I've left a town for over two months and nobody at all left. The only way to mess this up would be to re-load your game after denying a move-out request before you take a break. It's best to say 'don't move,' save your game, and leave it totally alone until you're ready to play again.

 

[romancement]

These are all good tips! Namstar, I'll keep that in mind, you're right that one day could be enough to get someone in boxes if you're unlucky.

 

[Quill]

I love this thread! I love reading what other people are doing with their towns

I have my main, Solstice, which is (going to be) a fall-themed town with lots of natural colours and PWPs, with a creepy witch who lives in the middle of a forest maze, all of that good stuff. My second town is Chenille, a winter time fairytale town.

I just reset for Chenille at the beginning of winter because I really wanted to set up a winter town quickly but it's completely fallen by the wayside as I lost a few dreamies in Solstice and decided to do the 16-villager cycle to get them back. Right now Chenille is 100% neglected and I only pick it up a couple times a week to make sure no one moves or transfer stuff around, that sort of thing. Once I get Solstice back to a proper state I'll be able to go back and work on the second town, but with spring coming up I doubt I'll have the motivation to do it. I don't know how people have multiple towns and have them all looking nice!

 

[MillySoSilly]

I currently have 3 copies and 2 3DS's. One town is my main town and my second town is one I've had but neglected over the years. I recently got a 3rd copy and plan on using that copy to get my dreamies. So far, I've been playing on my second town a lot lately because in my main town I'm just waiting for someone to ping me to move out. I'm currently cycling villagers out of my main town. I'm not really doing anything else in that town besides cycling so it's easy for me to play my second copy without worrying who's going to move out in my main town.

I guess that whole managing two towns is pretty easy to me and I like it. I honestly can't wait until my 3rd copy is more that a cycle town. All I really look out for is who is moving out and when. I usually mark it on my phone calendar as a reminder, if I forget. Other than that, I flip-flop between both my towns and check on everything. Another thing I like is that I can visit between towns. Like right now, I'm trying to get my Balloon Badge so I go to my second town and just wait for the balloon to show up or if I see it on my second town villagers while I'm running around doing errands. It's pretty beneficial to me.

 

[HungryForCereal]

i have two towns currently but im only playing on my main town. what i do to is to play my main town as usual but keep the day in my second town frozen. meaning id turn back the time to 10am once the clocks hits 10pm in my second town.

 

[katysu]

I see a lot of people saying 'remember the last day you played' so that you don't lose anyone, which requires you to time travel backwards. Traveling backwards any amount still counts as traveling one day forward. So I'm pretty sure there is still a risk in losing a villager. Plus, once a villager goes in boxes there is nothing you can do about it. If you TT backwards, they'll be gone.


It's simpler to just say 'no' when any villager asks to move, then stop playing. It may take a couple days to get a ping, but if you know you're going to take a break it's very simple. Nobody will move out and you don't have to time travel. I 100% swear by this method, I've left a town for over two months and nobody at all left. The only way to mess this up would be to re-load your game after denying a move-out request before you take a break. It's best to say 'don't move,' save your game, and leave it totally alone until you're ready to play again.

You can do it the way you suggest - find a mover, say no and then go back when you can play again - the main advantage is you stay in 'real time' (well the time you have the game set & time moves forward as in real time).

But you can do it by freezing time - make a written note of when you last play, when you play again, load the game AFTER that last save - it is not TT backwards as far as the game is concerned. There are no consequences (inc turnips do not spoil).

I manage multiple towns by freezing time in them, have never lost a villager and turnips do not spoil (unless you go back over a past save). I use the system clock to do this as I want to keep game & 3ds times in sync but it isn't necessary to do this.
Alternatively you can change the time with Isabelle at the front screen, leaving your system time in whatever time you want it to be.