Posted by Archon Basic on 2/23/2003 3:20:00 PM on Game FAQs

http://s2.cgi.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.asp?board=12178&topic=6672578 (topic deleted)

 

Most current authorized version is always posted here:

http://www.animalxing.com/well.php

 

Version 2.00
Written by ArchonBasic
Originally Written on 2-03-2003
Updated on 2-14-2003

Table of Contents
0) Introduction
1) The Two Types of Acres
1.1) Special Acre List
1.2) Normal Acre List
2) The Point System
2.1) Normal Acre Scoring
2.2) Special Acre Scoring
3) The Perfect Town Walkthrough Part 1
3.1) Basic Wishing Well Messages
3.2) How To Count Trees
3.3) Other Wishing Well Messages
4) The Perfect Town Walkthrough Part 2
5) Golden Axe The Cheap and Easy Way
6) Additional Info
7) Copyright Information

0) Introduction

This walkthrough is designed to help anyone who has had trouble getting a perfect town rating from the wishing well. Some people don't have any problem getting a perfect rating but many others get a message from the wishing well like: "Yes...yes. Things feel as they should. This is certainly a satisfactory level of prosperity...but with a little more effort, things could be even better" and don't have a clue what they need to do in order to get a perfect rating. Using the new information in my walkthrough I was able to take three very different towns to a perfect rating in about 30 minutes each and I'm very confidant anyone that uses my guide will also be able to get a perfect town rating quickly. You need to earn a perfect town rating from the wishing well and maintain it for 15 days to get the golden axe. Unlike a normal axe the golden axe will never break.

1) The Two Types of Acres

I think what has been confusing people is the fact that there are two types of acres that are treated differently, but the well doesn't bother to tell you that. I'm going to refer to the 1st type as normal acres and the second type as special acres. There are 10 special acres and 20 normal acres.

1.1) The Following Are Special Acres:

• The Lake
• The Well
• Your House Acre (B3)
• The Train Station (A3)
• The Museum
• All 5 Beach Acres, one of which will also have the Tailor(acres F1-F5)
  
  

1.2) The Following Are Normal Acres:

• The Police Station
• Tom Nook's Store
• The Dump
• The Post Office
• And the 16 remaining acres, none of which will have a building in them (besides the animal's houses, of course)
  
  

Basically if the well has a problem with a normal acre it comes right out and says it: the well tells you which acre has a problem and what you need to do in order to fix it. The well never tells you to fix a special acre because to an extent they are optional, but special acres play a vital role in getting a perfect town.

2) The Point System

The wishing well uses a scoring system to determine whether you have a perfect town or not and the scoring works differently for normal and special acres.

2.1) Normal Acre Scoring

• If you have 9, 10 or 11 trees in a normal acre you get 0 points
• If you have 12, 13 or 14 trees in a normal acre you get 1 point
• If you have 15 or 16 trees in a normal acre you get 0 points

 

So if you have 14 trees in a normal acre you'll earn 1 point from that acre, but if you plant one more tree to bring your total up to 15 you will earn 0 points from that acre. The only way to get points from a normal acre is to have 12, 13 or 14 trees in it.

2.2) Special Acre Scoring

 

• If you have 9, 10 or 11 trees in a special acre you get 1 point
• If you have 12, 13 or 14 trees in a special acre you get 2 points
• If you have 15, 16 or 17 trees in a special acre you get 1 point
• If you have 18 or more trees in a special acre you get 0 points

As you can see, special acres give you most of your points. You need 14 points to get a perfect town rating. Now that you know how the scoring system works you can probably get a perfect rating on your own, but the rest of my walkthrough will make things much easier.

 

3) The Perfect Town Walkthrough Part 1

First of all, if you have any trash lying around either put it in the dump or give it to Tom Nook. If you have trash in an acre that's giving you a point, then the trash will nullify that point. Leaving clothes, furniture or anything else on the ground won't hurt your rating but trash will. If you haven't pulled your weeds for a few days then do so now. If as few as three weeds are in an acre it can cost you points so it's very difficult to get a perfect rating when weeds are a problem in your town. You'll also need to pull your weeds about once a day to maintain your perfect town rating. It's a good idea to pick fruit for tree planting now. Fill your inventory with fruit and leave some extras at the well; you have a lot of tree planting to do. Here's a list of the wishing well's messages and what you need to do if you get them.

3.1) Basic Wishing Well Messages

• If the well says "Trees are a thing of beauty, but too many of them can spread sadness, not joy...they block out the sun and make a chore of finding paths. Go to (acre number) to see what is amiss," then you need to go to the acre specified and bring your tree total down to 16. While you're there you should go ahead and bring the total down to 14 so that you earn a point from that acre. (If you don't know which acre a tree is in then see the instructions in section 3.2 below)
• If the well says "In areas where there is very little green a feeling of despair overshadows all else. Go to (acre number) to see what is amiss," then you need to bring the total number of trees in the acre specified up to 9.
• If the well says "When there are too many weeds...and areas in need of care and attention...a town feels very unsettled. Go to (insert acre here) to see what is amiss," then you need to go to the acre specified and pull as many weeds as you can find.
  
  

3.2) How to Count Trees

Most of the time it's easy to tell which acre a tree is in but it can be tough when a tree is bordering two acres. A tree trunk has four different sides: front, back, left and right. If you can shake the tree on any two sides then that tree is in the same acre as you are. So if you can shake the tree from the front and the left side it's in the same acre as you are. If you can shake the tree from the right side and the left side then it's in the same acre you are. Any two sides will work but it has to be at least two, otherwise the tree is in a different acre. If you're still having trouble, then cross over into the other acre the tree is bordering and try shaking it on two different sides and it should become clear which acre the tree is in.

3.3) More Wishing Well Messages

Once all of your normal acres have between 9 and 16 trees and your weeds aren't a problem you'll get one of the following messages:

• If the well says "It appears that things fare well, by and large. If you were to search out areas where there are too many, or not enough, trees... then things would be faring even better." then you have between 0 and 5 of the 14 points required for a perfect rating.
• If the well says "Yes...yes. Things feel as they should. This is certainly a satisfactory level of prosperity... but with just a little more effort, things could be even better." then you have between 6 and 13 of the 14 points required for a perfect rating.
• If the well says "Everything is perfect! (your town) is a very liveable place." then you have 14 or more points.

 

4) The Perfect Town Walkthrough Part 2

Now it's all a matter of getting 14 points. I'd recommend first going through all of the special beach acres (F1-F5) and raising the total number of trees in each acre to 9 or 12 if you can. Check with the well again and if you still don't have a perfect rating try raising the tree total in the museum, train station (A3) and your house acre (B3) to 9 or 12. If you still need more points after that, then ignore the lake and well acres (it's hard to grow trees in those two acres) and either go through the special acres again and bring the tree totals up to 12 in acres you didn't before, or go through the normal acres and raise the tree totals to 12. If you see an acre with 15 or 16 trees, then bring the total down to 14. Depending on how close you already are, you might have a lot of work ahead of you or you might just need to fix a few acres. Once you do get a perfect rating you might want to get a few more points since some of the trees you just planted will probably die. You have to maintain the perfect rating for 15 days straight in order to get the golden axe and you should pull your weeds once a day and check with the wishing well regularly until the 15 days are up. It's also a good idea to refrain from chopping down trees or planting new ones until you get the golden axe. That's about it. As stated earlier, I took three very different towns from getting instructions from the well to a perfect rating in about 30 minutes each and I'm sure anyone who follows the instructions in my walkthrough will be able to do the same with their own town.

5) Golden Axe The Cheap And Easy Way

Before anybody gets too excited let me say that this trick will only work if you already have a perfect town rating. If you don't mind time traveling and you don't want to wait 15 days for the golden axe you can use this handy method that was submitted by grunge rocker to get it in about five minutes.

**You must already have a perfect town rating for this to work**

Grunge Rocker's Time Traveling Method
First check with the wishing well and make sure you have a perfect town rating, and then save and quit. Set the clock backwards about a month and after that load your game. Once you've entered your village reset the game without saving. Now set the clock back to the present time and start your game as usual. After Mr. Resetti chews you out for resetting go talk to the wishing well to get your new golden axe.

 

6) Additional Info

The additional info section wraps up a few loose ends and covers several things that do and do not affect your town. The rest of my walkthrough covers everything you need to know in order to get a perfect town rating so you can ignore this part if you wish.

I mentioned that weeds can affect your point totals earlier but I can go into more depth here. How weeds affect your rating:

If you have 5 or more weeds, any number of trees, and no flowers in a normal acre you will get the "When there are too many weeds..." message from the well.
If you have 3 or 4 weeds, 9, 10, 11, 15 or 16 trees and no flowers in a normal acre you get -1 point.
If you have 3 or 4 weeds, 12, 13 or 14 trees and no flowers in a normal acre you get 0 points.
If you have 0-8 trees in a special acre, weeds will have no effect on that acre.
If you have 5 or more weeds, 9-17 trees and no flowers in a special acre you will get the "When there are too many weeds..." message from the well.
If you have 3 or 4 weeds, 9-17 trees and no flowers in a special acre you will get 0 points.
2 or less weeds will have no effect on any acre, but watch out for additional weeds that might be hiding behind trees or buildings.
It's much easier to pull your weeds than it is to memorize all of this.

Flowers don't give you any points but they can cancel out weeds. Every flower that you have planted in a given acre will cancel out one weed in the same acre. So if you have 7 weeds in an acre and 5 flowers in the same acre you will, in effect, only have 2 weeds in that acre.

The second a tree sprouts it counts toward your tree total and it will continue to count toward your total even if it dies, up until the time it disappears or you dig it up.

I literally planted trees in every square of the well acre and I could only get a total of 5 trees in that acre. I only planted about 10 trees in the lake acre but they all died so it's either really hard or impossible to get 9 trees in the lake acre. The reason why you can't grow as many trees in these two acres as the others is because special events and holidays are held at the lake and wishing well and too many trees would get in the way.

Trees that grow for a day or two and then stop growing don't count against you. The well treats them exactly the same as a fully grown tree.

Trees that are touching diagonally don't affect your rating. In fact the second town I tested had a whopping 76 diagonally touching trees, and that town still needed exactly 14 points to get a perfect rating just like the first town which didn't have any diagonally touching trees.

Trees that are next to a building, fence or another tree don't affect your town rating either.

7) Copyright Information

This walkthrough is protected by copyright. Anyone is free to use this guide on their website or repost it on the internet as long as they meet the following conditions:

1) You do not alter this guide.
2) You do NOT make any profit from this guide.
3) You give full credit for this guide to ArchonBasic/Archon_basic.