Finishing the Community Center in the 1st Year

chelane

Newcomer
After several tries, I've determined that it's basically impossible to do unless you get both the red cabbage and the truffle from the caravan.
 

Odin

Moderator
Staff member
You're correct that you need to rely on the traveling merchant for a red cabbage (which is why you can now guarantee a red cabbage during year 1 when starting a save on 1.5). But I believe it's possible to get pigs before winter on year 1 if you're really focused!
 

Sigrah

Farmer
After several tries, I've determined that it's basically impossible to do unless you get both the red cabbage and the truffle from the caravan.
You can get a pig in time to get a truffle during Fall year 1. You just have to watch your spending and make getting a Deluxe Barn and Pig a top priority.
 

Elenna101

Farmer
Yeah, truffle from a pig in fall year 1 is definitely doable. Try doing some early fishing to get money for seeds/upgrades, it's definitely a "need money to make money" situation. Also, once you get the preserve jar recipe, make several of those to double your profits. Blueberries and melons are probably the best crops you'll have access to in summer, blueberries are slightly better money sold raw, but if you have preserve jars you'll probably be better off doing some melons as you get more extra profit from processing one melon than you do from processing one blueberry. Cranberries and pumpkin are similarly good in fall (although you probably won't have time to harvest many of those before you have to get a pig).
Also you can delay buying coop upgrades and save that money for the barn - just don't forget that you'll have to raise your rabbits' happiness to get a foot, unless you want to hope for a rabbit's foot drop from the serpents in Skull Caverns.
 

Zamiel

Sodbuster
Finishing CC in year 1 is trivial now in v1.5 with semi-common Red Cabbage drops from farming SC. If you've tried several times and failed, then check out my guide: https://github.com/Zamiell/stardew-valley/blob/master/Min-Max_Guide.md

Using this route you can get 99% completion of the game in around Summer/Fall of year 2. (You have to wait for some of the recipes to appear on the TV in Winter, as well as some of the special orders to appear, since you are gated on them.)
 
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Zamiel

Sodbuster
You're correct that you need to rely on the traveling merchant for a red cabbage
This is not true.
Red Cabbage seeds are somewhat common to get in SC now in v1.5. I got about 5 of them in 20 runs or so. (From treasure chests and actual drops from monsters. It's not documented on the wiki yet.)
The "Guarantee Red Cabbage" checkbox that Ape added for Traveling Cart is completely superfluous, its like he forgot that he added new drop tables for them.
 

Odin

Moderator
Staff member
This is not true.
Red Cabbage seeds are somewhat common to get in SC now in v1.5. I got about 5 of them in 20 runs or so. (From treasure chests and actual drops from monsters. It's not documented on the wiki yet.)
The "Guarantee Red Cabbage" checkbox that Ape added for Traveling Cart is completely superfluous, its like he forgot that he added new drop tables for them.
While that's a nice alternate method, I think it's fair to say that relying on a drop from the skull caverns is a bit more difficult. For speedrunners, it's likely not superfluous at all. Plus, I'd imagine that checkbox may also come into effect when using the remixed bundles.
 

chelane

Newcomer
You can get a pig in time to get a truffle during Fall year 1. You just have to watch your spending and make getting a Deluxe Barn and Pig a top priority.
The reason this is not workable is because in summer you also have to buy the fall trees and upgrade the axe up to steel, in order to get the fiddlehead fern. The final upgrade on the barn is 25K and the pig is 16K, and you need money for the fall seeds.

In the "need to spend to make money", I build the basic coop, get 4 chickens and make 4 mayo / day. This latest game, I got the coop in the last week of Spring, the barn in the 1st week of summer and the big barn in the 2nd week of summer.
 
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Odin

Moderator
Staff member
For what category specifically? It is very expensive in a speedrun to check the traveling cart over and over and over.
For completing the Community Center!

More time than making skull cavern runs? I guess I figure you have to visit the secret woods at least a few times (potentially less now with mahogany seeds) and you could time those with traveling cart days. But I'm certainly not someone that does speed runs myself.
 

Elenna101

Farmer
The reason this is not workable is because in summer you also have to buy the fall trees and upgrade the axe up to steel, in order to get the fiddlehead fern. The final upgrade on the barn is 25K and the pig is 16K, and you need money for the fall seeds.

In the "need to spend to make money", I build the basic coop, get 4 chickens and make 4 mayo / day. This latest game, I got the coop in the last week of Spring, the barn in the 1st week of summer and the big barn in the 2nd week of summer.
It's definitely doable, I've done it several times myself. Animals are honestly not a great way to make money compared to crops. In my current playthrough, I planted maybe 20ish strawberry seeds in spring, and used the money from those plus some other crops and fishing to buy 64 blueberry plants and 64 melon seeds (plus another 64 melons later in summer, to replace them). Maybe 3/4 of the melons got put into preserve jars, I sold the blueberries immediately for quick cash. Then in fall I did 128 pumpkins and pickled almost all of them. This was plenty of money for everything I needed for the community center.

Okay, technically I didn't need a truffle on this run, because of the remixed bundles. But I got the deluxe coop built in early fall, and the vault done in late fall, and I ended winter with 90k gold. If I'd spent the coop upgrade money on barns instead (one day of fishing easily makes up the 4k difference in coop vs barn prices) and then spent the vault money on coop upgrades, and spent part of that 90k on the vault, I could definitely have gotten the barn in time and still done everything else.

(There's nothing particularly special about the numbers of plants, just trying to give you an idea of scale. I just did 128 spots because that's how much space I had where I could use quality sprinklers (which I got in late spring) on the beach farm, minus a few spots for scarecrows.)

P.S. if you get the bat cave instead of mushrooms, there's a chance you'll get a free pomegranate and you won't need to buy that tree. Don't count on it, though. I bought a pomegranate tree but not an apple tree in my last playthrough - again, though, that's maybe 1-2 more days of fishing, and there were definitely a few days I messed around doing random stuff.

For completing the Community Center!

More time than making skull cavern runs? I guess I figure you have to visit the secret woods at least a few times (potentially less now with mahogany seeds) and you could time those with traveling cart days. But I'm certainly not someone that does speed runs myself.
If you're talking about real-time based speedruns, those just go to year 2 and buy the red cabbage seed from Pierre's. If you just sleep a lot of days, it's a lot faster real time than either the cart or skull caverns. Plus, spending more in-game time lets speedrunners do a smaller number of sprinklers (i.e. less time mining) and still get enough cash for everything. Also they only make one trip to the secret woods, you only need 10 hardwood for the CC and that can be gotten on the same trip as the woodskip and fern.
The current CC speedrun route does check the cart a couple times for the pufferfish, but the chance of red cabbage being sold in just a couple checks is pretty low. Pufferfish has a really high chance of showing up in the cart for some reason.

I don't do speedruns either, for the record, I just watch TheHaboo on twitch a lot :grin:
 

Sigrah

Farmer
It's definitely doable, I've done it several times myself. Animals are honestly not a great way to make money compared to crops. In my current playthrough, I planted maybe 20ish strawberry seeds in spring, and used the money from those plus some other crops and fishing to buy 64 blueberry plants and 64 melon seeds (plus another 64 melons later in summer, to replace them). Maybe 3/4 of the melons got put into preserve jars, I sold the blueberries immediately for quick cash. Then in fall I did 128 pumpkins and pickled almost all of them. This was plenty of money for everything I needed for the community center.
Same here, only with a different strategy. The first two weeks of spring, I run 40 crops and, when available, 30 spring seeds. During the same two weeks, I also do fishing most days, at the lake on sunny days, and the river on rainy days for catfish and shads. By the time of the egg festival, I’ll have enough cash to buy 100 to 120 strawberry seeds, and upgrade the watering can to copper.

durng the second two weeks of spring, it’s water crops, then more fishing along with some foraging and clearing space for summer crops. On good luck days, I do more mine progression and go for the 40’s so I can get iron for my watering can, and copper for other tools as well.

On the 25th when the second and final strawberry crops come in, most of my farming is done, and I focus on upgrading my watering can to steel (unless I upgraded it earlier on a rainy day) along with other tools as money and resources allow.

In all, I aim to have $23,000 cash and an steel watering can by the start of summer 1. That amount of cash is enough to buy 198 blueberry seeds, and the rest for crops I’ll need for the community center and / or villager gifts. If I can afford more blueberries, I will. From there, it’s fishing, mining, and aiming for a gold watering can and the other tools to steel, along with a stable. I don’t even bother much with artisan goods until mid fall, and I don’t typically buy a coop and barn until mid summer. I’ll stockpile the eggs and milk for later artisan production and cooking, but it’s not a priority for me till later.
 

chelane

Newcomer
I'm not sure how you all do all that activity in the first 2 weeks. I constantly struggle with insufficient energy. (I'm playing on my desktop with my keyboard btw)
 

Elenna101

Farmer
I'm not sure how you all do all that activity in the first 2 weeks. I constantly struggle with insufficient energy. (I'm playing on my desktop with my keyboard btw)
Partly fishing, I save the chubs and algae to eat and sell the more valuable fish. Also I save those initial 15 parsnips to eat in the mines, and unlike Sigrah I don't plant much until the egg festival (for less watering), and I eat horseradish and leeks instead of selling them.

EDIT: since Sigrah said they fish most days in the first two weeks I assume they just eat those fish.

Also, thinking about it some more, I believe I understated my spring crops above - I think I planted 36 strawberries, plus in the last two weeks of spring I had 36ish other crops planted (mostly potato and kale). IIRC I got down to iron levels in the mines before the 13th, and then got to gold levels on a couple rainy days when I didn't have to spend energy watering.

And in summer/fall in addition to the blueberries, melons, and pumpkins which were my main money, I planted maybe 150ish crops of varying kinds for variety and for gifts/quests. Kinda regretted doing that many in summer since at first watering used up more than a full energy bar and I had to spend a day or two fishing just for fish to eat. But the 20 hops were particularly good for money once I got kegs (late summer) and I saved most of the quality hops for eating, they're pretty good energy.

EDIT: changed the crop numbers in the paragraph above
 
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Sigrah

Farmer
EDIT: since Sigrah said they fish most days in the first two weeks I assume they just eat those fish.
Not quite. I will eat that gross, disgusting algae as needed, but I also make time to go after spring onions daily, and will also utilize field snacks as I get the tree seeds while chopping down trees to build some chests. If I’m ever out of both, then I’ll eat the cheapest fish I’m fishing up, usually carp because I always fish in the mountain lake on non-rainy days since it’s the most profitable in terms of money and Exp. And I avoid eating any of the foragables that go into spring seeds, and same with my crops unless I’m completely out of options. Lastly, there’s the occasional lucky scrounging of trash cans. I don’t go out of the way to search them all, I just hit any I might come across as I’m traveling from point A to B.
 
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Squigglyruth

Planter
I'm not sure how you all do all that activity in the first 2 weeks. I constantly struggle with insufficient energy. (I'm playing on my desktop with my keyboard btw)
If you fish a lot, eating chub or smallmouth bass is an efficient way to get a lot done early on.
It is definitely possible to get the CC completed in mid-fall without buying a truffle from the traveling cart. I have done this a number of times. I normally do it by fishing for money at the start, then buying large amounts of strawberries, the profits of which will fund the animal buildings, fruit trees and vault.
 

Ithiltuilinn

Farmhand
I’m on mobile so I don’t have 1.5 yet but I just finished the community center on Thursday the fourth of winter year one. So it’s definitely possible. I wasn’t able to get pigs until fall so I was cutting it kind of close and I’m not gonna lie I was worried that my rabbit was going to take too long to drop a lucky rabbits foot but it worked out. I did it on the Forest farm and did the fruit bats cave which is how I was able to get some of the fruit items I needed for bundles and I only ended up needing to buy 1 pomegranate tree. I checked the traveling cart every week and that’s how I got the red cabbage and the maki roll and then the only other thing that was really difficult was the gold star bundles which I just had to plant as many of each of those crops as I could and hope I got the quality i needed. I did use a star drop ID treat cheat where I named myself the ID number for star drop so that I wouldn’t have to worry about energy levels but I earned all of my money for upgrades and what not through fishing and mining. I am about to start a new run where I do the community center in one year without the help of the star drop ID cheat just to see how much harder it is to do with regular energy because I’ve never actually played that way. Honestly I usually don’t even do the community center I usually go to joja route or I just play without doing the community center at all because I’m lazy 😂 I also looked up a really cool guide online for all of the community center items that you need listed by season which was a really good way to keep track because my ADHD brain makes simple organizational skills super hard 😂


update: so I started a new game where I’m trying to do the community center in one year and last time I did it with the help of a star drop ID cheat so I didn’t have to worry about energy levels but this time I’m doing it without that and so far it’s been about 16 in game days and my soul is filled with hatred because I literally can’t do anything because I have no energy and I can’t get enough food in my stupid players body and I’m just filled with rage 😂
p.s. It probably doesn’t help that my monthly doom has come 🤣
 
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