Town Visitors

Town visitors are non-player characters (NPCs) who automatically visit the player's town in order to purchase services in service buildings.

They arrive by either the EGGspress train (which comes every 6 hours) or the personal train (which can be sent to neighbors' towns by the player).

They are unlocked at experience level 34.

Visitors
10 different characters come to visit towns:

Multiple iterations of a visitor can be in a given town at one time.

The visitors are assigned random names by the game. These names change every time the visitors come to the town. However, visitors picked up from a neighbor's town with the Personal Train retain their names from the previous town.

The number of visitors who can go into the player's town is determined by the level of the Town Hall, which can be upgraded to a maximum of 42 by using Stone Blocks, Hammers & Paint Buckets.

Sending visitors to service buildings
To serve a visitor, players need to send them to one of the buildings they wish to go to. There are two ways to do so:
 * tap on the visitor then send them to one of the buildings.
 * tap on the Town Hall, select the Idle tab, tap on the desired visitor, and on See Visitor, and then tap on the building the player wishes to send the visitor.

Serving visitors
Once a visitor is sent to a building, players can give the visitor the items they have requested, or ask for help from other players or reject them by using the toggle icon. A rejected visitor is sent back to the train station (the latter can only be done once the player has reached reputation level 3).

If the visitor had been served by another player (after you had placed a help sign on the visitor), a thank-you envelope appears on the visitor in the building and a green arrow shows up on the items left by the helper, but the visitor is not automatically served. The town owner has to return to place the donated items onto the visitor before the serving timer begins the count down. Be sure to send the thank-you message to the helper before you place the items onto the visitor.

Alternatively, a visitor can be served or rejected by going through the Town Hall under the Waiting Tab.

If players do not have some of the items, the visitor can wait in the building forever.

Visitors cannot be served until the player has all of the items they want in stock, or by spending diamonds as a substitute for the missing items.

Visitors who have been fully served and who wish to see a sanctuary animal that the player has acquired will visit the animal sanctuary. Visitors brought by the Eggspress train who have been fully served at all their requested buildings (and who have finished any visit to the animal sanctuary) or who have been sent away while not at a building will walk to the train station and thereafter may be picked up neighbors using their Personal Trains if the neighbors do so before the Eggspress train arrives. Visitors brought in by Personal Train and visitors who are refused service while in a building will walk back to the train station to go home. Visitors not bound for home who are walking toward the train station may be picked up by Personal Train before completing the walk; the Eggspress Train only picks up visitors who have finished walking to the Train Station.

Waiting time
Once a visitor has been served, service time begins. The time it takes to serve each visitor varies depending on the service building. During this time, it is not possible to send the visitor away without using diamonds.

To speed up the service time, players can upgrade the service building, and then upgrade the service time (see Service Buildings for details). The minimum length of the service time is dependent on the service building level. There is a town booster that can shorten the service time that can be activated.

Alternatively, players can complete the service instantly by using diamonds.

Rewards
After the service time is complete, the visitor will be standing outside the building, and waiting to give the player rewards.

There are three ways to receive these rewards:
 * 1) tap on the visitor,
 * 2) tap on the building where he/she had been served,
 * 3) or go to the Town Hall, select the Ready tab, tap on the visitor you wish to release, and select Collect Reward

Rewards are a combination of coins, experience points, and reputation points. The amounts of rewards can be raised by upgrading the buildings (see Service Buildings for details).

Rewards in the form of supply items collected from Town Visitors will be placed into your barn – even if it is full. This will cause your barn to hold more than its capacity. This feature allows you to never miss out on earning the supply items.

Gifts
If a visitor has visited all of the service buildings they wanted to go to, and been served in all of them, they will present the player with a gift. The gift can be any kind of supply item.

Visitors with a paw print next to the list of buildings they wish to visit will want to see a certain sanctuary animal at the end of their visit. If players serve them fully and have the specified animal in their sanctuary, the visitor goes watch the animal for a short while, makes a comment (shown briefly in a bubble over his head), then leaves an extra gift next to the book stand. The gift can be coins, a voucher or a supply item.

They will then go back to the train station.

Only visitors brought to the town on the Eggspress Train may be interested in seeing the sanctuary. Visitors rejected without being fully served will go directly to the Train Station without presenting a final gift.

Keeping track of visitors


Players can keep track of visitors by tapping on the Town Hall. This tells them where each visitor is, what their status is, what building they have already visited, how many and which visitors standing on the platform are ready to go home (having already visited 2 towns) or ready to be picked up by the Personal Train of a neighbor.

During certain Events, visitors who count towards the event have their name displayed in purple.

Keeping track of orders
The order board located next to the farm train station sums up orders from visitors who are waiting in buildings.

If players had requested help with serving visitor(s), those items will show up on the order board but marked with a green arrow even though no helpers have donated the items yet. This serves as a reminder that the visitor(s) have not been served yet.

Picking up visitors from neighboring towns


At reputation level 4 players can repair the personal train to pick up visitors from neighboring towns if the visitors have been fully served at all their requested buildings (and who have finished any visit to the animal sanctuary) or who have been sent away while not at a building.

Visitors picked up from other towns only ask to visit one service building. Picking up a visitor from a neighbor's town rewards this neighbor with one reputation point. When these visitors have been served, they will present the gift and ready to go home and cannot be picked up by a neighbor.

The Personal Train can be upgraded to pick up a maximum of 10 visitors from a neighbor and also upgraded to shorten the maintenance time to an (unboosted) minimum of 1.5 hours.

Strategy tips

 * If your main goal is to get gifts, send away visitors who want to go to three different buildings and prioritize two-building visitors or, even better, visitors from neighboring towns (brought in by the Personal train) as they only visit one building. At the Town Hall, under the Idle tab, you have the option of serving only the ones you wish to serve and at the bottom, you can tap on Send All Away to reject the rest. At higher experience and reputation levels, some visitors may want orders of items in quantities that require in total more than one tool to make, and may be considered not worthwhile.
 * Sending visitors to a building through the Town Hall has the advantage of not releasing visitors who are already served and waiting at the front of the building. This is useful to know when the player is preparing for a Town Visitor derby task and not ready to release certain served visitors. Note that those served no longer occupy a space in the building and more visitors can be placed into the building. However, if they are not released, they still occupy a space in town and could limit how many visitors the next Eggspress Train or Personal Train can bring into town.
 * If the player is doing a Specific Visitor derby task and need to release only certain visitors, it is best done through Town Hall. Go to the Ready tab, select the desired visitor and tap on Collect Reward. If you tap on See Visitor, you will be sent to the building and it would be difficult to release ONLY the visitor you want to release.
 * For town at reputation level below 3, you aren't allowed to send visitors away. If you can't make the items they request yet try buying them from other players' farms or requesting them from your neighbors.

Did you know?
The Grand Master is a reference to Mister Miyagi from the movie The Karate Kid. In the movie, there is a famous scene where Mr. Miyagi explains that a man who can catch a fly with chopsticks can accomplish anything. The reference can be seen in Hay Day when the Grand Master stops walking, sees a fly and quickly catches it with his chopsticks.