Perfect Town

After weeks of hard work, NewArbor has finally achieved Perfect town status! It is a very appropriate day to get it too, I might add, because today, my town tree finally grew big enough to sit on the brickwork and see the history of my town! To celebrate, I have decided to create a mini guide to achieving perfect town status.

Perfect Town Mini Guide

Getting a perfect town in New Leaf is a lot harder than in previous games. In the older games like City Folk, you needed a certain number of perfect "acres" -- a 16x16 patch of land -- in order to achieve perfect town status. Within those acres, you had to have a specific number of trees and flowers. 

In New Leaf, however, the acre system is gone. The entire town is now measured as one big unit, instead of having many tiny units. Flowers and trees throughout the town tally towards one number, instead of each acre's number. Also new to this game are the Public Works Project Requirements, and factoring in the number of residents in your town.

I'll lay out some quick things to keep in mind here:

• Flowers - In order to achieve a perfect town, you need to have tons of flowers. Most guides say around 75, but I have more towards 200.
• Trees - You should have over 110 trees in your town. I would suggest have more than that, even if you are tight on space. The best places to really pack in the trees are along the cliffs on your beaches (palm trees only) and along the fence separating you from the railroad. Remember to plant trees in a manner that they won't obstruct your view of important things like the river. Three spaces away is the most space-efficient. 

_______________

oooooooooooooo

oooooooooooooo

oooooooooooooo

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Key:

__ = riverbank

o = empty space

x = tree

• Public Works Projects - You should have over ten Public Works Projects. The amount  of points for each project varies, so over ten is the safest number. Some people have achieved perfect town status with only 8 though.
• Villagers - Ten villagers works best.
• Items, Trash, Etc. - You shouldn't have anything on the ground except for patterns. 

That pretty much sums up the basics. What can sometimes be even harder than getting a perfect town, however, is maintaining it. I would suggest having the Beautiful Town Ordinance in place. It makes upkeep so much easier because you don't have to hunt for weeds or water dead flowers everyday.

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Breeding Hybrids

I absolutely love hybrids! Most Animal Crossing players do. Breeding them can be tricky business for those new to Animal Crossing, so here is a basic guide.

Arranging the Flowers

There are many different placement patterns to breed hybrids. However, the one that I have found to work the best is what I call the "Checkerboard Pattern."

In the Checkerboard Pattern, flowers are arranged so that they form a "checkerboard," alternating flowers and empty spaces. In the diagram below, an "o" represents a flower, and an "x" represents and empty spot.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

oxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

oxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Some hybrids arranged in the Checkerboard Pattern.

One of the best things about this placement is that if you are breeding hybrids for more hybrids, it is easy to tell if a new one has grown because there will be an obvious disruption in the pattern.

Something to Note: Your animal villagers will plant flowers. With this pattern, they tend to plant them in the center of the checkerboard in the empty spaces and disrupt the pattern. These excess flowers will need to be removed to increase the chance of a hybrid spawning in that spot.

Combinations

Many different combinations of regular flowers will breed hybrids. Bidoof Crossing has an excellent chart illustrating the different combinations of hybrids. Click here to see their chart.

However, the most effective way of breeding hybrids is still to simply start with two of the hybrids that you are planning on breeding more of. You might want to try buying them on one of the online Animal Crossing forums, such as the Bell Tree Forums, or borrowing them from a friend until you can breed your own pair.

Watering and the Beautiful Town Ordinance

Watering is essential for breeding hybrids. You could describe it as the trigger that tells the game to spawn them. I would suggest only watering your hybrids and the flowers that you are using to breed hybrids to decrease your chance of spawning more normal flowers.

One common misconception is if you have the Beautiful Town Ordinance, you don't have to water your flowers at all. This isn't the case if you plan on breeding hybrids. Although you don't have to water the flowers to keep them alive, you should do so anyway. As stated above, watering acts like the trigger to spawn hybrids, and without it, the odds of spawning one are not in your favor.

I certainly know that watering flowers can be quite a chore if you have the normal watering can, but it is still essential. It will only take you 25 days to get a silver watering can if your buy flowers from Lief everyday.

Fertilizer

I haven't actually gotten a chance to test any fertilizer for myself, but have read a lot of positive things about it. People say that it greatly increases your chance of spawning rarer hybrids. I read that one person had carnations spawning on an almost daily basis using it. When I am able to get my hands on some and test it, I will update this with my findings.

To conclude...

The best way to arrange hybrids is in the Checkerboard Pattern. The best way to breed a specific hybrid is to get two of that type in order to breed more. Watering is essential, even with the Beautiful Town Ordinance. Fertilizer has had positive results from what I have read, but I will update with more conclusive evidence once I get a chance to test it for myself.

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Store Upgrade, Silver Watering Can and My Town Tour Part One

Store Upgrade and Silver Watering Can

My Nooklings' store finally upgrade to TIY! After a quick stop in the Nooklings' side of the store, I popped over to Leif's side to buy my flowers and sapling for the day and to see what changes were made. After purchasing my flowers, I was (finally) presented with my new silver watering can! (Which means I could have gotten it yesterday if they weren't closed for renovations! :( )

About 25 more days to go until I get the Golden Axe!

Me with my new silver watering can.

Using my new watering can.

The silver watering can make watering all of my hybrids much less tedious. I was done in about five minutes today!

Town Tour Part One

Today also starts part one of my Town Tour! Over the next couple of posts, I will be taking you on a tour of my town with pictures. 

To start off, here is a map of my town:

For part one of the tour, I will be showing you my hybrid gardens. 

Blue roses

My other hybrid roses.

My hybrid tulips.

Hybrid pansies

Red carnations

Hybrid lilies

Hybrid cosmos

Coming Soon: Part Two of My Town Tour

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A Recap

I became mayor of the town of NewArbor on the day that New Leaf was released. Since that was well over a month ago, I have some catching up to do. Instead of going day by day and writing what I did, I think it would be more fun to show you a few pictures from the past month.

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