Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-30549602-20161229221946/@comment-28829111-20170106220334

I keep my FL small so I can help each of them. Like Cosmos, I ship out most of my energy to non-TTers when I gather extra sets as well as gift the individual pieces to the sets often. I recently encountered a time when I ran out of energy. I was running the Merchant and had none of the stored up TT energy left. So I was reacquainted with that pain of wanting to play and not being able to - or sacrificing my talisman. Before I could TT I had the painful choice of buying energy or waiting. So I am very sensitive to that for others' games...especially Kindle players but all non-TTers, in general. I've long suspected the reason Mytona does not stop TT is that they do understand the symbiosis that occurs. TTers do spend a lot of time helping (by their own choice) and are rewarded with the energy supply *usually* being there for them. Players who cannot TT should be helped by those who can do so.

And back to Minki...your gift of an access key does help a TT player but also shows your willingness to engage and does serve as an additional TY...whether the gift or gifts come from a TT player or not. Players all realize that everyone is a beginner at some time and beginners are still collecting and combining. They don't have a lot of duplicate pieces. But one thing I learned was that even if I had only one piece from a set that I could gift it. I was fortunate to have good friends (mostly from here) who could help me later when I reached the point of needing that item back again. I discovered that when I sent an item it often came back to me within a few days from charging maps. I don't know if this is still true but I do think the game seems to "learn" from the plays we make. It does seem to gift us from Visting pieces that others have on their WLs (maybe so we will gift it away to help another?), return gifts to us we sent out days prior, and hoard the Disguise pieces from everyone (haha! I had to add that one!). I had such a difficult time winning the mountain piece (or was it the tree?) from the Model Town set. Stu, a friend here on Wikia, would send it every time I had to WL it. I felt guilty asking repeatedly but I just could not win the darn thing. Then one day I did win the piece from a Visit. The same day another friend had WLed it. I agonized over parting with it but in the end Stu set the example. So I gifted it away. Soon thereafter it seemed it was not longer "hiding" from me and I did win it on occasion. I am no programmer. I have no idea if it is all just "randomization" but it sure does seem that "to have a friend (a CI) you have to be (to gift) one first". So my advice is to try gifting away a piece you really might not want to and see if it returns to you. If not, you can always wish list it and one of your friends will surely help you out.