Strategies

Hi there! Do you feel left in the dust, as if other players seem to race through content at a pace that you can only dream of? Do you feel disheartened at the sheer number of event items that are needed to create alchemy cats? Do you ever wonder how it is that people level up their new cats really quickly? If so, then you've come to the right place! On this article, our editors share with you the methods (and, sometimes, the math) that they've discovered have allowed them to be more efficient than they once were.

This page is structured -- where applicable -- so that the problem is the first sub-header under each strategy name, and then the steps of the strategy that is used to overcome the problem is in its own sub-header. This will allow for those who want to read the problem to get all the details, yet those that just want to know the tactic can instead just skip ahead to that and take our word for it. Bear in mind that you may be using some, or maybe all, of these tactics already. Some of these may even seem to be obvious, or logical results of the underlying mechanics of the game.

Before we begin, however, I'd like to give a quick mini disclaimer:

## Disclaimer

Regarding Cheats, Hacks, Cracks, and Tools:

This article is intended to solely utilize the in-game systems in the manner that PocApp has given to us. We here at Castle Cats Wikia 'acknowledge' that there are a handful of *meta methods* and *cracked versions of the game* that exist, but we do not condone the sharing of these particular tactics on this site. If these are what you are looking for, might I suggest searching for a forum dedicated to game cheating, instead?

With that out of the way, let's jump into the meat and potatoes, shall we? We shall! Let's go!

## Level "Rushing"

### Problem

Low level cats can be a pain to level up. They don't contribute as much to the success chance of higher level quests, and it can sometimes feel like they take forever to become even remotely useful.

### Solution

It may sound counterintuitive, but the least involved strategy for leveling up your cats does require leveling and ranking up one of four cats that aren't necessarily easy to acquire. Purrcis, Kai, Kittysticks, and Anna (only one of which isn't linked to an event) all have a trait called Demonic Possession, which forces a quests' Great Success Chance to be 75%, no matter what it would have otherwise been. Functionally, this limits the use of the cats to situations where they would otherwise have lower than that success; which includes using multi-cat level 10 Quests to level up your lower level cats.

* Prioritize questing with one of the four until it's level 10, and rank it to 3 to unlock Demonic Possession.
	+ The order in which you do this doesn't exactly matter beyond personal preference, but bear in mind that the ability to 75% any quest can also be used to mitigate failure risk during its own levelling process, as well.
* Set the quest board to give level 10 quests and wait for it to reset.
* Choose a level 10 quest with three cat slots.
	+ Assign your Demonic Possession cat and two others to the quest.
* ???
* Profit.
	+ JK, just wait until the end of the quest and complete it, watching the ad, if available, if the quest fails.

This gives a nice chunk of XP to your lower level cats, for a minimum amount of effort. It is most useful when stepping away from the game for a time, but can also be used to level up your cats on a "backburner" while running other quests.

## Shaken, not Stirred

The daily cat cash bags can be piled up, and one can be farmed to reach the 100 coin count. Coins seem to be counted on pickup, not on drop.

* Shake a cat until it stops dropping coin bags.
	+ Do NOT pick any up until the bags stop dropping.
* Pick up a cat, and while holding it, use your other hand to pick up ONE bag.
* Move the cat away from the pile on the screen, and shake-and-pick the single bag that it drops.
* Once the coin count has been reached, drop the cat and pick up the remaining bags.
	+ You should now have between 14-50 extra coins.

### Concern

It is unknown if this is a glitch or unintended feature, so use at your own risk. If it is a glitch, then be aware that it may be patched out at any time, and may no longer be available.

## Old Tactics

This section lists older tactics that may or may not hold relevance to the users' play style. These include tactics that have, at one point, been useful and that have become severely diminished due to an update. Not to be confused with tactics that have been entirely removed due an update.

### Event Material Farming

#### The "Problem"

PocApp has recently rebalanced much of the standard quest event reward system, so this strategy drops from "useful" to "situational". It mostly applies to the passive game, and should be treated as if it's ignoring the battle mechanic entirely; specifically because it is.

Let's set up an impossibly perfect scenario to see the furthest end of the reward spectrum:
If we pretend that the three impossibilities of perfect timing1, getting 10 1-cat quests every reset2, and having a material reward on every quest card 3 can somehow exist, the gains would look like this:

*1 sending out a quest at the exact moment that the previous quest ended.*

*2 currently impossible, even with the best of luck, given the way that quests don't seem to duplicate in any given reset and the limited number of 1-cat quests in each level tier*

*3 this actually used to be the case, but was changed with the Purrismas 2017 event*

*4 technically, since we're only displaying a single hour here (instead of the least common multiple of 30 hours, which was used to calculate item rates to check for discrepancies).*

As you can see, given an impossibly perfect scenario for every level -- "all controllable variables being forcibly set to be equal" -- there is a steady base item rate as the levels increase (with the exception of level 10 quests, which end up being the lowest rate). Without adding the "3 extra materials per quest" boost to this scenario, the difference between event material gains from a level 4 quest (200 per hour after ad boost, assuming the boost count fits for the whole hour) and a level 9 quest (45 "per hour" after ad boost) is non-existent. With the boost, however, we start to see diminishing returns the higher in level that we go.

Admittedly, the acknowledged impossibility means that the *actual* number gained per hour is guaranteed to be lower -- however, that applies to all quests involved between level 3 and level 10. Interestingly, this also effectively makes the highest gaining quest levels, when boosts are considered, the level 1 and 2 quests; thanks to their short durations, these quests are the few that can consistently see a full 40 completions in an hour.

#### The Tactic

So, enough with the numbers, you're likely here to find out what the proposed solution is. If you were following along with the problem above, you've probably already figured out the tactic:

* Set the quest board to level 1-2 and keep the Ad Boost on as often as possible (as long as there are quests able to be run).
* Constantly run lower level quests (never going over level 3 quests) until you run out of ad boosts.
* Switch the minimum and maximum on the quest board to 4 (or level 6 on Friday through Sunday1).
* Run those quests constantly.
	+ Prioritize the quests that have the fewest cat slots, as long as you have the skills to do so. The main goal is quest quantity, not grouping.
* If the ad boost option returns, return to step 1.

*Optional Steps, to be Taken When Applicable*

If you know that you'll be away from the game for a longer duration, but have enough time to be present for the next quest board reset:

* Switch the Quest board to minimum and maximum to force the single quest level that matches closest to your duration of leave
* Start as many quests as you are able to.
	+ Again, prioritizing the quests with the fewest cat slots, as before.
* Switch it back to a lower level whenever you think you'll have time to continue playing more frequently.

*1 Because of the Purrismas 2017 materials rebalance, it technically doesn't matter which quest, from level 4-9, that you choose to run; the "4" and "6" are given as the lowest possible -- in both level and duration -- to give that days' ember chance, to help maximize the daily effort.*
*Note:This solution used to be much more limiting, because quest levels used to be determined by the cats in the fortress and only cats in the Fortress were able to run quests. This knocked off the viability of grinding level 4 quests unless you had many, many bulk level 4s to spare. That meant that people with only a dedicated quest-forcing cat used to have to rely on ad boosted level 1, 2, or 3 Quests, and pray that they could unassign the quest runners before the reset occurred.*