I know theres been a few posts about this, but I downloaded this game a few days before the Mining Event started, so may be missing a 'tactic'. Completed the event but only got the Packer automated. Theres no chance, that I can see, to automate the others. Last few levels only 1 or 2 were High enough to automate, and then only 1 could actually be purchased due to bean shortage. Do people just focus on levelling up one building/character? I need almost 30 cards to level up and automate the dynamite card, with 4000+ beans needed to pay for the upgrade itself. No more missions left to complete (apart from her an additional 1.5k beans) Have I missed a way to get beans? Or is it mathematically impossible to automate at high levels?

A ton of it is luck of the draw combined with the managers scaling up quickly and unpredictably. It does that in the main game as well - PLUS rotating through too many businesses to possibly keep upgraded AND sometimes changing to you have to have one of the rare secondary managers at a certain level instead so your level 5 manager doesn't even matter anymore you have to get some other card you've only seen one of before to level 3. I will leave it up to you whether you want to view that as a horrible effort balancing from the developer or an incredibly overt attempt to get you to spend $50 trying to keep up - personally, I am assuming it is somewhere in between. Someone posted a list in this forum of which managers need what levels at the different levels of the event, so that can be useful to an extent and at least let's you know how bad you will regret moving to the next town. But the fact that they had to crowd source that list rather than it being provided by the dev (preferably in-game) is telling in itself. Anytime the player is afraid (okay maybe not "afraid" but a better word isn't coming to mind right now...) to progress because it might set them backwards instead, that is poor design. Especially if it happens consistently. In that regard, it's not too different from Adventure Communist where sometimes spending science is the most obvious and fastest path forward but anyone who has played enough of their events has gotten hit with a moment where they spend that science and the next quest that comes up is a "spend X science" or "upgrade X cards" quest. (Happens in the main game too, but not *as* bad imo since that isn't a timed competition.) But here they've taken that problem and elevated it to a whole new level. Currently I am 9/10 (or whatever 1 left is) on level 5 of this event. I haven't had my trading Post automated since stage 3. I only had the train automated about 1/3 of stage 4 and none of 5. Dynamite hasn't been automated since stage 1, I think. Currently, I have the hospital and general store automated, and that is it. So with no train or trading post I am trying to figure out how to buy 1200 of the sheriff (or whatever that's named), since getting a couple thousand beans (forgot how many, but enough that ranking up the shops is negligible) and a few dozen cards is not going to be an option unless I am just waiting for free chests every 4 hours until the end of the event. I wouldn't even be as far as I am, but I had a fair amount of time yesterday sick in bed so I decided to see how far I got. I obviously have no chance of getting anywhere on the leaderboards since my prospector cards are hiding somewhere, but I figured finishing the levels would at leasoget me those rewards... Not sure it's worth spending hours today tapping the trading post and train station until I can buy 1200 sherrifs

Thanks for the lengthy reply. I too had a lot of time when it started. Even made it to first on the diamonds leaderboard, but that was around stage 3-5. I assumed levelling up would only bring greater additions to the event, but now wishing I'd stayed at lower levels. Theres no point with the remaining 3 days of the event for me, sadly. Cant progress or improve anything. Back to the main game, which I agree, feels more balanced

I finished the event about a day ago with no money spent to beat the challenge. There is strategy to beating it, but you must only upgrade one business at a time and continue as needed... and don't spend beans. Have 13000+saved up. I literally only upgraded the managers that I was actually going to be able to use