Edit 2020 Feb 09: Per the Game Updates, Update 0.0.111-3 (Fix) 9.02.20 - Farmer Life Targets changed. I completed FL3 the same day this patch applied, while still 750k requirment. Completion time 5 days, 2h. For reference, FL2 completed ~11days. # Traditional Approach Farmer Life Challenges can be amongst the slowest Challenges you'll face. The wiki lists and recommends Farmer Life 1 after Time Loop 1. The unlock requirement of 150 combined gathering levels isn't too steep. The bonuses, Dungeon 7 - Gather Speed, and Gathering Base Exp 100% aid in building Plaza, when Gathering resources are scarcer than Mana Cap. The wiki also indicates this challenge may take 5-6 days. Farmer Life 2 Challenge is recommnded immediatly upon unlocking Baby Demons (Fandom wiki, Steam, chat). Presuming one has maxed the Plaza Perk shop's Spirit Refill (page 1), allocating 300 demons to gather, and bumping Spirit tends to make sense. Again, 6-7 days is forecast for completion. Farmer Life 3 appears as a weird fit. Discounting FL1, where we're building up the plaza in the first place, FL2 has an immediate benefit on where to place demons that we might have otherwise had allocated to Gathering (Demon Reproduction 2, for Baby Demons). Additionally, approaching Learning to Walk Again (LTWA) most the initial challenges become wrapped up: First Step 5/5, Inferno 3/3, Demon Master 2/2, No Conjuring 3/3, Blade Storm 5/5, In Spiritus 2/2, Time Loop 3/3. Even Air Elemental 3/3. Lastly, there's a huge jump in crafting, between Superior +2 (25e12 log) and Master (2.5e24) and little gains in Plaza push, or Demon Markets. The Fandom wiki recommends attempting FL3 once gathering speed has been reduced to 1/tick gathering for 100 demons. While this does trivialize the Challenge down to 8 hours, attaining 1/tick gathering places FL3 *after* LTWA1, 2 and 3. # Farmer Life 3 Challenge Recommended After LTWA1/Synergy The previous two Farmer Life challenges list at 5-7 days. Can FL3 be completed in the same timeframe (ie less than a week) and be placed at a more useful recommended location? Owing to the spreadsheet, yes, after about LTWA 1, Farmer Life 3 reduces to under a week. Do the benefits of FL3 completion grant bonuses that would be immediately useful for when in the game it's attempted? Crafting stops after Superior +2 completion, and Demon Markets are slow attainment. Gathering Base Exp +100% rises your gatheirng overall, which the Gathering Gem +2% immediatly aids in more Demon Markets. Baby Demons can either be through higher Mana Cap, Conjuring & Conjuring Class, or Demon Markets. Momentarily looking at the unlocks for Machinist: Battle Mage 250, Conjurer 225, and Beastmaster 150; Conj presents the more difficult of the three, and if one had been running Conj as primary already, for more demons (BD in turn), and getting to 225, Battle Mage is trivial, leaving Beastmaster. Beastmaster is usually recommended about Adventure Zone 18 for any noticiable improvement. If one has stopped working on Conj class as primary, that leaves Mana Cap and Gathering for more Baby Demons. # Does Farmer Life 3 Allow for Secondary Attainment, Similar to FL2? Farmer Life 2 freed up Demons to put into Demon Repo 2, bumping Spirit, and creating Baby Demons. In turn, Baby Demons are needed for working on Synergy (all three). Slimes, in both Alchemy, and Slime Lab start to come online around LTWA1. There's noticable improvement in Slime Bonuses, and Slime Levels. Depending on the level of walls faced in the Adventure Zones after T2, revisiting SZ3 and/or SZ6 may prove useful. Slimes dropped from these zones provide bonuses to Resouces in Slime Adventure. It's worth farming SZ6 for Slimes with Gathering Speed. But why stop after only getting one slime? After sending a high Gathering Speed slime to the Museum, a better one will still prove useful. The slimes that won't give an improvement to Gathering Speed (and FL3 directly) can be sent out to Slime Adventure. Often, all three bonuses translate to a resource bump. Slime Exp gear (from Kane) can greatly aid in this area. # Counter Argument Spending a week in a challenge reduces the amount of Essence for that same timeframe. If we're trying to unlock Machinist via Conj first, we're playing catch up with Battlemage and Beastmaster. No longer having Conj as primary, we've slowed down Stage push, and that only leaves Mediation and Demonic Essence as inputs for Essence. If diverting from pushing Essence, better to do so during a time that we're not contributing to it anyway. Synergy - Sin Energy page 1, second to last unlock, "Essence". We're waiting on Baby Demons to flow through Synergy, to the very last stage prior to LTWA2. This easily takes two weeks in main. Gathering Gems allows for higher Demon Markets, which allows for more Baby Demons. As a reply to the lost Essence counter arguement, what about the lost Baby Demons? With which be can re-allocate to Synergy's Essence boost? References: [Fandom Wizard (And Minion) Idle Wik - Challenges - Farmer Life](https://wami.fandom.com/wiki/Farmer_Life) [Steam Community - All Encompassing Guide to Wizard and Minion Idle (Stage 330) Baby Demons](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1720085051) [Prior Kongregate discussion posting on Farmer Life](https://www.kongregate.com/forums/1028047-wizard-and-minion-idle/topics/1786275-farmer-life-challenge?page=1#posts-12976542)

"It's worth farming SZ6 for Slimes with Gathering Speed." Well that's a useful bit of info. I'd seen the wiki suggest having a slime/waifu with that bonus but I didn't know that it was location-specific. I thought it was completely random what bonuses they got, and I'd just been sitting at my highest adventure zone and watching my waifus bonuses for that to show up. I'm not sure if I've ever seen so much as a single one come with that bonus. Though I'm probably still a long ways off from a point in the game where I'm supposed to be looking at Farmer Life 3 anyway. (Even with the goal to complete it reduced now.) I'm nowhere near seeing it run gathering at max speed with 100 demons on each. Right now it's more like... once per 11 seconds, I think. (Well, that's without being specifically geared for gathering. Putting on the set from SZ4/5/6 I end up at... Maybe something closer to 6 seconds.) For extra context, I'm looking at this with just over 1M alchemy mixes giving a 22.61% bonus, no bonus from waifus, and... Does that cover everything that will help with this? Oh, and the "spirit refill (demons)" bonus in perks (page 1) is maxed. (Although having that perk maxed is a pretty recent development for me. It was still only something like 1/4 or 1/3 done when I did FL2. I might have had all of the SZ4/5/6 gear maxed already when I did FL2 though, and the wiki only advises SZ4 and maybe also SZ5 stuff there. Hmmm... the wiki also mentions dungeon and DE shop having gathering speed bonuses... I don't know where they might have been at when I did FL2 but my dungeon bonus is currently showing 188% and in the DE shop it's currently 150%.) "I completed FL3 the same day this patch applied, while still 750k requirment. Completion time 5 days, 2h. For reference, FL2 completed ~11days." 11 days for FL2? Curious. I guess I was overprepared or something when I did that one? (I did not do it right away after unlocking baby demons. It was some time later and I'd already created all the babies through normal play by then.) My completion time for the most recent run on that challenge is showing as 2 days and 10 hours. (My backup before starting FL2 was made on 12/27/19 and that's actually the most recent challenge I've done. I've been sitting here with 2/3 Farmer Life, 0/6 Real Estate, 0/6 OPM, 0/6 No Reincarnation, and something locked that needs stage 415 (my best so far is 371) since then. (All other challenges finished at some point before that date.)) I don't think FL1 was anywhere near as long for me as the wiki's claimed time for it either. Weird. ... Looking at my backups of saves made before starting each challenge, on 9/30/19 I had a flurry of activity where all in the same day I started/completed NC1, IS2, IC2, TL1, and FS4 all before starting FL1. The last time I did any challenges before that date was on 5/16/19 and the next thing after FL1 is that I started TL2 on 10/2/19. So something like 2 days for FL1, maybe less. Oh, 9:18 PM was when I backed up the save before starting FL1 on 9/30 and 11:31 AM was when I backed up the save before starting TL2 on 10/2. So somewhere around a day and a half, then. "Momentarily looking at the unlocks for Machinist: Battle Mage 250, Conjurer 225, and Beastmaster 150" Oh, hey! I've actually got 2/3 of those conditions covered already. I'm only at 25 Beastmaster right now, though. (I'm currently at 251 Battle Mage, 148 Druid, 236 Conjurer, 244 Demonist, 25 Beastmaster, and 1 Animist. (Hmmm... Huh, few levels short of having 2/3 of the conditions for the next one after that as well. Though the other 1/3 in that case is the Animist class which I haven't touched at all yet.))