Talk:Friends/@comment-24275929-20140124124715

A tip for new players: Gems are important. Don't wait, start collecting them immediately, it is entirely possible to collect a significant number without spending real money in a reasonable time frame. It might not seem important at first, but you will need gems eventually. A lot of them.

So, what do you need to do?

- Enter my game code for free gems (social -> redeem code): 10489308  

-  Find so called gem4gem friends for a daily gem exchange as soon as you can. They give you one gem and you give them one gem every day. You can give away 3 gems a day, or 6 with a dragonsai tree, without losing anything. Add them via gamecenter or facebook for iOS users, via facebook if you are an android user, at level 10. Be fair and reliable.

- At level 10, Build a colosseum and use it daily. Even if you don't have the current event's element yet, it can still be worth it. You get 5 gems if you win gold, and 2 if you win silver.

- When breeding, try to focus on gemstone dragons or their precursors (like smoke and obsidian for january). Do so with level 11 dragons if you can.

- Keep an eye on the dragonvale facebook page. If there are limited gem codes (offered by backflip), usually for seasonal events like christmas, you'll find them there very quickly. There are other ways, but facebook is a reliable and quick one.

- A dragonsai tree is a good investment. It doubles your friend exchange gem earning rate and is worth it on the long run.

- Winning the dragon track can earn you 1 gem, but it is very, very rare. Don't count on it.

Without gems, the game will soon be rather boring, slow paced and not really fun because you can't do many things. You will need to get a epic breeding island, which will double your breeding ability, the core element of this game. You'll also have to to upgrade your nursery because you need more capacity; even 4 slots aren't enough with two breeding sites at times when long incubation times block the nursery. You'll want to upgrade both your breeding sites so they become faster, netting more (epic!) dragons. Eventually you'll also want to upgrade your habitats to giant ones so they can hold more dragons because habitat slots are limited. Of course you can buy additional habitat slots too, which will also cost plenty of gems.