FYI This will be a very long read, possibly longest in forum history. It was written over 2 days 1 week apart, so I apologize for any obvious gaps and unless otherwise stated, is based on navigating through all of tiki beaches every week.
I’ll just reiterate some ideas I’ve said in other posts and maybe quantify some numbers. There arent really any unique ideas, just a framework to how I play that has led me to mostly satisfied play. Who knows, my play may already be quite inferior to your own!
But first the Basics:
the most important thing is to be part of a team in a solid league. Specifically you want to be in a team that can get perk 6 in a reasonable amount of time. Mine gets perk 6 usually by mid late Sunday and no worse than monday morning. This usually means platinum league team or higher. If this is something that can’t be done, either because you don’t play often enough or you are fond of your own team but it is much “weaker” from an accumulated points perspective, then much of what I say may not apply.
Actually for the don’t play enough folks., It’s easier for you: just friends center, ads, 20 minute free coins all day, every day and you should pick up a 80k+ coins a day without playing a single game!
Now as far as specific teams. It’s nice to be a club champ, I’m a 4x one myself in a low ranked diamond team … but it’s not needed. What you really want to be is a middle of the pack player so 1) so you selfishly let the leaders drag you up and 2) dont have to worry about being kicked out if life hits. I would target a team where your NORMAL play puts you in the 12 to 18th place position.
Ideally a club that gets all 6 perks. This means 70k plus coins from the chests plus boosters every week plus the bonuses for streaks and wins, and these bonuses add up quite significantly especially during volcano card week.
That’s the foundation, now to strategy: for me this game revolves around 2 things: team and individual goals, so club points and red stars. I’m leaving aside the social aspect as that is independent of actual game play. Let’s talk red stars.
There are only 2 positions that really matter 60th (or mid 50s if you want a safety margin)
and the promotion position, so 5th+ for platinum and I think 10th plus for gold and lower. If you look at the leader boards to go from say 60th to 40th. You really don’t get much more but you’ll have to spend a lot more, so either to work to get promoted or you play to stay in your league or chill to move down a league. If you are chilling, there’s no reason to over use your boosters and the buy more coins card. Finishing all of tiki beaches using 2x red stars boosters should get you 900+ red stars or so and comfortably in the platinum red star league and the ancient chest reward. Which means if you are able to, don’t advance beyond tiki beaches. Which of course makes getting tributes for club points a lot easier. I stayed in monkey falls level one for 3 months accumulating resources. Resources for what? For my attack on red star diamond league. Note, winning new levels just isn’t a consideration for me like it is for other people. Winning levels only serve one purpose to open up levels for future moves up the red star leagues.
Ok. That’s my strategy for this game. The tactics which is probably more interesting to everyone. Hopefully they are helpful.
First, math: buy more with 1 card needed to win.
1st assuming you need 1 card to win and assuming any card comes out does not depend on what has already been played, A single use of buy more costs 6k and the probability of getting the card you need in the 5 cards is 56.6% so a near coin flip and the probability of getting the card you need within 2 buy mores is 81.2%. The only times I use a 6k buy more is if I get 6 red stars, 4 red stars and the final tribute or, 2 red stars plus final tribute and I didn’t realized my time ran out. And I’ll be honest I’ll pass on 4 red stars almost all of the time and even 6 red stars most of the time. For a discounted buy more of 5130 or 4845, 4 red stars is good enough for me to use at this point because I’m also picking up perk bonuses for play. I almost never use 2 buy mores for 15k, i will use 2 discounted buy mores totaling 12k+ for 6 red stars only. If I am looking to move up a red star league these rules go out the door and I liberally use 2 buy mores for 4 red stars. But I usually make this decision by Saturday morning and make the actual move Sunday evening and I also allocate anywhere from 400k to 800k coins Sunday to do it ( this is in a diamond red star league)
Now this is all done with a purpose. I need these red stars to stay or move up a league. If this week I don’t care about positioning. I’m not gonna use a single buy more for some random level. I know approximate what the cutoffs are for the 60th and the promotion bubble position so I divide those by 7 and by Tuesday evening I’ll know if this is a go down a league, stay in the league week or time to move up a league week and I’ll play out the rest of the week accordingly.
More math: buy more with a connector to win
A connector is a 2 cards with numbers sequential to each other. A 4 and 5 or king and ace for examples. The probability the next 5 cards has the winning card you need is 84.1% I didn’t calculate 2 buy mores because if I didn’t get it the 1st time, screw it I’m pissed. Ironically I almost never use 2 buy mores in this situation . Its psychological on my part. You can do better. Anyway its 97.5% in the real world.
Last math: buy more for low cost games.
Just win the game. Don’t spend more than I dunno 6-9k or something. Honestly i have no clue, I just win the game for these 1.5k or less cost games. Above that i treat like 3k cost games.
Basic Boosters:
I don’t use boosters normally except trap torches for the most part, because trap torches are the weed booster of the game, they are all over the place. I try to keep a minimum of 50 TTs, 30 bomb defusers and 15 wave breakers. Don’t care so much about the other two. When do i use them seriously? You guessed it, When I’m trying to move up a red star league.
Specials boosters: Wilds and Volcanos:
I rarely use volcanos. They will be used for a move to and up the Red Star Legend leagues.
Wilds: Don’t be so quick to use these haphazardly Wilds are incredibly valuable cards. You shouldnt waste them. I tend to save them to use Sunday evenings to win games. I know some people may use them to extend streaks. But that feels more like a vanity project. Winning a game gets you 2k to 3k coins and that’s going to be more than likely any streak extension.
Doublers:
Red stars: Use when you have large block of undisturbed time to play.
Streak: I use to get the 3rd star on a winning game and not to maximize points.
Club: This new card from the rescue mission. I’ve saved mine. I plan to use them if/when I join a team in the legend league.
GEMS:
Chests: wild hunt or coins?
I love opening a double diamond chest however, there’s much greater variance on the double diamond chest relative to all the other chests so the payouts on double diamonds can be insanely good, but they can also be disappointing. So go with the guarentee: the payouts for a combo of the regular diamond chest and ancient chest gives more coins and slightly more wilds, on average, for just an extra 100 gem cost. But if you’re looking purely for coins, then 4 gold chests for the same cost as a double diamond will get you the most bang for your buck, once again on average.
However if you’re willing to work for your gems. Then the free plays gets you the most coins. 30 free plays is about the same cost as 30 minutes of free play. Which is better? It depends on how fast you are. In general use the 30 minutes of free plays on 1 game that you play over and over for 30 minutes, saving yourself the delayed time of moving from game to game.
Lastly …or really firstly, I use my gems for the wave breakers before I use on the above.
Treasure Shrine:
Outside the first couple of weeks into the game, I have never paid for the shrine and since the update to the current 2 wild rigged shrine, that turned out to be good thing because i didn’t lose anything as I did not make it meaningful part of my game. So just collect the 5 congrats and be happy getting your 500 or 2000 coins.
QUESTS and Events
Daily:
When I stuck to Tiki beaches I won all the quests. Now I’ll be honest, I tend skip the play 15 games in zone xxxx or win 4 games in zone xxx. I also really dislike the win 33 face cards one.
Club:
No comment, you’re either a team player or not. Ok some quests are harder than others especially during certain times, think 3300 red stars on a Sunday.
Event quests:
Scavenger hunts… not so hard if you just play to collect rather than playing to win the game. For playing to win: Should be for red stars, tributes or gold stars only, … and you shouldn’t be doing it for gold stars…see below
Treasure match: use the treasure match game to enhance memory and increase pattern recognition and build coins and boosters.
Games:
If you can, avoid all games that have a series of cards on top of each other with only 1 card able to uncover the next. You know the games.
Tiki beach games that i like where you wont win a lot but still get a decent number of coins when you lose. 70, 112, 181, 132 and 133 for examples.
WORLDS: Tiki Beaches with golden tiki
This section is based on me systematically moving through zones and not via tributes or scavenger hunts.
A) monday to thursday B) friday to golden tiki C) late Sunday
I play through these zones grouped together but distinct from the other grouping unless I completed the prior grouping. (A) big barrier reef, aloha harbor, totem isles lantern bay, parrot point (B) volcano beach, tide pool lagoon, turtle cove [C] tiki island and GSN red boat. (The green boat absolutely sucks and i don’t play it)
So the idea is that while all games are easier with golden tiki than without, for me at least, some zones are barely playable without golden tiki (A) while other zones are manageable without golden tiki (B). If I don’t finish group A by Thursday, then I avoid the zones until I get golden tiki after reset. The purpose of group C is a Sunday night power move up the red star league for low cost easy wins.
Penguin rock. I don’t like penguin rock. So I play this only if I NEED it to move up a league or stay in the league. Penguin rock is firmly in group A and I play that after big reef barrier.
Tiki skies: when tiki beaches are too limiting
All of the zones in tiki skies are the same to me, except for floating falls. I hate floating falls except the games that have 2 totems, for those I just dislike them.
Tiki seas:
I’m only about 1/3 of my way into glowing grotto. I avoid the games that require wave breakers, otherwise I find the games easier to win than tiki skies but requiring more time and effort. I frequently miss out in the speed star here.
General advancement:
So like I said I waited 3 months before I advanced passed monkey falls 1. What did I do during this time? Build coins, build boosters and build red stars doublers and see how fast I could run through Tiki beaches cause I knew I was going to have to through whole worlds if I wanted get into and stay in a diamond red stars leagues.
Gold stars:
Advancement in games should only be done during chasing Poi, diamond chest, or special perk wood to gold chest days. In general all 3 pay about the same, though special perk wood to gold should have the best payout but is hard to time.
So what I do is I chase poi until until I get to about 12+ gold stars and then during wood to diamond chest days, I collect the remaining 36 to 38 gold stars for the diamond chest. You can chase Poi and collect as many wood chests as you want during chasing Poi days, but ideally you want to stop at 12 to 14 gold stars. That’s it. Don’t unlock any new levels outside those days.
General thoughts:
After read though all this you may find my method to be too much like work and not fun and that’s fine!! My play is purposeful and I derive much pleasure from this more focused approach than others might. What works for me isn’t for everyone, take any tips that are valid for your game and incorporate them and the key point is dont get annoyed on the individual games but focus on the larger picture and … have fun.