Ushi No Tane - Harvest Moon

It really isn't! Please don't give up the entire game just for that one reason. It'd be a shame to put away such a wonderful game.

There is no need to be precise~ Just do things as best you can. If you have trouble doing it all in one day there's always tomorrow.

Runeys take patience but trust me, once you've gotten your first area into prosperity, it gets much easier. And once you have them all in prosperity (which should only take a week or two once you have one area at prosperity) all you have to worry about is your grass factory. Plus all your crops grow much faster making you tons of money ^_^ *ka-ching*

Please just try following the steps in the guide. Once you've invested some time and care in your runey population it will clearly show with lots of positive outcome!

But sucking up Runeys takes so long. Why didn't they just make it so you could move them via that console in the clock tower? That would have been so much simpler and better.

Anyway, my homestead is already at perfect. I could just farm out the Runeys from there I suppose. I do love the game to bits, the writing is just so great and I love the crafting stuff.

But ugh, those Runeys.

I think the reason a lot of people have an issue with the runeys is that they take time. After watching my wife play RFF, I came to realize that the game could take many game years to complete and once I accepted that, the runey system didn't seem quite as intimidating. Even if you just spend a few game hours each day in the beginning balancing your runeys, you'll have the areas into prosperity in no time. And of course the fabulous Kupo's guide is a necessity.

This guide is extremely helpful

Thank you so much for the guide! I'm now working on making my areas prosperous... I have three done so far plus my grass factory, but I'm having trouble maintaining those four areas. Answers and advice from you runey vets would be wonderful!

1. What's the purpose of the water runeys in the grass factory? Before I made my grass factory I had 2 full stacks of water runeys. After a week of trying to keep up the factory, I'm down to 8 spares and have to spend a lot of time sucking up extra water runies out of my prosperous areas. Why do you need 60 water runies to keep the factory going? What would happen if I only had grass runies in an area?

2. What happens in the winter, when you can't grow crops? Does the whole system collapse, so you have to start over in the spring?

I think I can answer number 1. The purpose of the water runeys is to prevent wood or rock runeys from building and in the case of the wood runeys, eating your grass runeys. I think you can throw in a couple of rock runeys tho into the area to slow down the death of your water runeys. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

As far as two, from what I can tell all the areas build as normal(except for your fields not producing runeys the way they would if you had crops there).

Yeah like at the Lake Poli It's over-run with tree runeys so I threw about 8 rock runeys in there and the water runeys are coming back up and the tree runeys are steadily going down.

Glad you like the guide~

1. Basically, instead of eating other Runeys to raise their population, Grass runey population rises based on the amount of other runeys. Basically if there are a lot of grass runeys and not may other types, Grass runeys will go down. And there are lots of other runeys and not much grass, usually they'll steadily grow (except if there's tons of trees, then they'll just get eaten).
The Grass Factory works based on this principle. Although you'd get more grass runeys the next day if you put 60 water and 60 stone (trees just eat grass so it won't work using tree runeys), that's irrational because you'd have to suck up a lot to replenish it the next day. So instead, water is used. I've never actually tried it with just Stone runeys but my guess is that it'd work just fine. I'll test it when I can get on.
To maintain your grass factory, it's key that you do it every day. If you wait another day, Water will drop down to 30 and Grass only goes up by 2-3 (because there are less other runeys and more grass, so they won't increase as much). So you'll have to replenish twice as much, without actually getting many more grass runeys. I don't find it that hard to find water runeys; usually you only need about 16 a day. During my morning rounds of the village I suck up any big groups of runeys I see and release the other types. Usually by the end I have enough water runeys to replenish the area. And it only takes about an hour or two to take the grass runeys out of the factory once you get the hang of it.

2. I'm not in Winter. But as long as all your areas are in prosperity by then you'll have no problems at all. Remember that crop growth only affects Homestead population, and Homestead population can never decrease. So, all other areas will continue as normal. The only affected area is your Homestead, which will stop producing runeys. It might actually lose runeys in Winter (I doubt it) but if this happens you can always just suck up runeys from areas that are in prosperity, and use those to replenish your homestead



Other than the purpose of the water runeys you're completely right. Also, you bring up a good point - if you have extra stone runeys you can throw 5-10 of them in your Grass Factory (along with the 60 water) and it'll produce more grass because of the proportional thing that grass runeys rely on.



As for people having trouble maintaining your other areas, all I can suggest is taking other runeys out of Prosperity areas and feeding those into the areas that are in trouble. You don't need a ton, just enough to keep it going until you can push it into Prosperity. I've noticed that usually it's the Grass Runeys that I require the most (not just for refueling the prosperity areas but also getting other areas into prosperity, since I can't take Grass from my prosperity areas). So don't forget to use your Homestead too and steal some grass from there if needed.

This is so elaborately detailed. And you said that you weren't as knowledgable as the others when it came to RFF. XD

I'll use this when I start playing RFF again, but that could be a long time from now.

Yay thanks for the guide! Man it's SO helpful! I'm having a bit of trouble, but thankfully I don't have ANY places at extinct. After I get my homestead to prosperity I'm gonna do the grass factory ^^ Then I'll work on my other areas. <3 I love this game too much to be put down by the runeys.

Yay!
You saved me! :D

Thank you! <3

Can someone help me out here?

I need to know the effect that areas in danger (1-5 runeys total, red on the distribution map) have on crops. Do they shorten the crop growth time? If yes, is it the more than extinct areas?
I've never actually had an area go below neutral, and I don't play much any more (taking a break) so I need some help!

Danger is the same as normal.
Well, from my findings, anyway

This has been so amazingly helpful! I save so much time with this helpful guide!!!

Woah thanks. You always make such awesome guides.

You like...saved me.