Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-26394913-20150515030942/@comment-1577342-20150730213743

I made a special effort to get the 4-element rares to make it easy to convert one or more islands to coin production. I just breed the normal with the rare and repopulate the island.

There is one more way to get gems that I haven't seen mentioned. Breed up to maximum population, level, and happiness on Etherial Island. Once you have bought the items that make your etherials happy, there isn't much more to do with the shards that get produced. Tap on the shard count and then scroll all the way to the right of the buy menu that pops up. You can exchange 30k shards for a gem.

If you stop paying to shorten every process, then the gem total can add up pretty quickly. You should never spend gems on anything that doesn't pay back. Don't light your own torches with gems; use the friend codes to build a list of friends to help. The best things to spend gems on are upgrades for your structures. You pay once and get the benefit forever. Bonus Breeding and Nursery structures really help collecting rares or boxing in Wubboxes. Hotels let you keep rares and harder to breed-up parent monsters handy for the same tasks. The Warehouse and Unity Trees let you keep everyone happy while pursuing whatever strategy for advancement you like.

At the end of the day, the name of the game is patience. Get yourself used to slow and steady progress by waiting out breeding and hatching when you aren't focused on breeding limited-availability rares. You will have then saved enough gems to either buy a rare egg you want/need, or to push through a few more breeding cycles before time runs out.

If all else fails, hope for a lucky scratcher. Never pay a gem for another try. That will always cost you more than you get in return. I can personally attest to the fact that the biggest prize, 1000 gems, is real. I hit that one about 8-9 weeks in. I had just bought my last island and used the gems to get Unity Trees and bonus Breeding & Nursing structures. I also enhanced all of my Breeding/Nursing facilities. I could have saved a great deal of the gems, but I decided to invest in the basic infrastructure that lets me do whatever I want/need as quickly as possible. It seriously paid off.

Best of luck! Check back to let us know your progress. I can't wait to see the wonderful islands you build!

Cheers! Caltain