Strategy for Counting Sheep?

[Seyrr]

I've seen people say that Counting Sheep is a great one to spam for Leujaoam AP, and that a decent trio can consistently get 5/5 sheep. I'm looking to get Leujaoam points along with my two friends, and I was amused by the idea behind Counting Sheep long before I got to try it, so I'd love to do this one.

My question is, what exactly should we be doing? I have some vague notions of the elements of a winning strategy, as follows:

Mining: if you get either gold ore or (copper and silver ore) go trade them in at that point.

Harvesting: Harvest two food items and you're probably set.

Gambling: Do it if you have the money; roll again if total is under 500.

Sheep-grab: Open the two rooms with shepherds in them first.

That's about what I have. Can anyone correct my misconceptions or add on to what I have here? Thanks!

[Suiram]

The rooms that have shepherds is random it seems. Not really worth it to go back to the Miner NPC unless you have a gold ore or your pickaxe breaks. However, if you got a silver ore and your axe breaks, then hit the gambler on your way back to mining. Everyone grab a sickle at the start, and harvest during down-time (while your shepherd is doing his wall-bombing thing, if you have a gold coin but your PT member has the shepherd, etc.) If the shepherd asks for a food/drink you don't have, ask someone else, chances are they got one. It's good to remember which harvested items correspond to which food/drink, though I can't recall at the moment how it is myself. Also, be sure to communicate frequently so you know which sheep your buddies have already hit or are presently heading to.

[aurik]

If you get a bronze, give it to the gambler the next time you're close. It seems to be cumulative between all people, and they're quite common to dig. You can get 2-3 free gambles and usually a free sheep this way.

I did 20k AP in the zone and almost always we got 5/5. Maybe 10% of the time we only got 4/5.

[Septimus]

From my experience you can only hold one of each type of ore, so if you dig up a gold you are not going to get another one. Everyone should try to get one of each type of food, I remember on at least one run (I did 20k there) that one of the Shepherds asked for the same item twice. (The time I distinctly remember it was two Pamama au Laits in a row on the same wall.)

[Seyrr]

Just wanted to report on our runs we did last night.

The first one was a bit rough. We ended up 3/5, I think mostly due to poor communication. I was often confused about who was where doing what. We learned that a really good way to do things is to identify each room with a number, so you could very quickly say "going to 3 for sheep" "3 needs au lait" "i got au lait for 3" and keep everyone aware of what was going on. Our luck with getting gold was particularly bad; we had a big rush of it towards the end. I think with better communication, we could have gone 4/5.

The other three runs went 5/5. We were a bit luckier on acquiring gold (though one of our trio has still never won against the gambler; one time he rolled up to 1000 exactly, the cheating bastard.) I came as NIN and used the nighttime speed bonus to hit the far caverns first, so my slower friends could go for the closer ones.

Whoever mentioned that the shepherd arrangement is random is spot on. We thought he was always in rooms 1 and 3 (we numbered them from right to left, since that's the order we usually opened with), but frequently found an empty room 1. We still go in that order, since if it's random you might as well choose the ones you reach fastest.

Also, we verified that the bronze tally is cumulative across all players, though it might have been better if our unlucky player wasn't the one who kept turning in the 5th bronze. >.>;;

We've got it down pretty well now, so Leujaoam points won't be a problem at all. :D Thanks to all of you for your help!