Big Farm Homestead Fansite
Level 14 indirectly 'unlocks' the library. There is a Chapter Task from Tessa to reach level 14. When you collect this task, it starts a narrative that unlocks the ability to build the Library and start research. The 'Building the Library' task gives you the materials and further tutorial on the library.
Research requires books and ink sets, which will now start being offered in contracts.
At this point in the game, you don't have a lot of products, so what you have is in high demand. Tomato demand may be driving you nuts right now and tempting you to build a second Tomato grove. The nut grove is introduced at level 17. It takes 6 hours to make peanuts. Unless you have tons of fertilizer, I would strongly encourage you to upgrade your current tomato rather than building a second tomato. The game will give you a quest to build 2 tomatoes. I just built one and then trashed it. I can flex tomatoes in if I need more for my guild projects, because I have a fertilizer reserve. I find that at level 22 with my single tomato upgraded and 2 levels of library upgrades, I don't struggle with tomatoes.
The Library is an amazing building that allows you to research production and delivery bonuses for your farm. Each research takes coins, books, ink, and time to complete. There are almost 500 (496) things to research broken down into books under 2 major categories - production: increase the output of your buildings - and delivery: increase what you get for your products. Books are organized on shelves. Shelves are unlocked both by player level, and a minimum number of lower level researches. Each book will have 1, 2 or 5 levels of research that are more expensive as you progress.
Remember that components of this game are built around intentional overwhelm. I'm going to pull you back to picking your narrowed focus and some simple logic. I place research (books and ink sets) as the 3rd most important priority, after upgrading and expansion. Even as the lowest priority, you will still collect books and ink sets for research with your Easiest-to-get products.
I think it is better to prioritize production increases over delivery bonuses.
At level 14, there are 13 items in the game to sell for 6 different materials. 10% more corn will average 0.8% more of any material in the market, because you have more to sell. A 5% increase in bricks will get you 0.8% more bricks each contract. Glass only gives a 0.5% increase. Plus, more production helps with guild projects. As you research more books and the costs increase, it is easier to pick away at the 'cheap' upgrades in delivery.
For production, I like to get to my feeds, groves, and fertilizer improvements first. You will find you naturally get a good varitity of research because you need/want the cheaper books to meet the unlock thresholds. Ask yourself - do I need more manure - before you buy the book. Really active players or flexing in cows means you probably don't and can focus on other upgrades.
I like the coin bonus. I find if you get 15-20% improvement early on, you won't struggle with coins in the game IF you avoid the XP trap (Level 4) and don't touch XP bonuses. If you accelerate your growth with XP bonus (it doesn't help you in tournaments), you will probably struggle with having enough coins.
If you focus most of your Products through the Market because it gives the most materials, you don't need to do a lot of research on your Barges or Train (level 20). You will get a few books here and there to unlock book shelves, but you have effectively removed over half of the research needed on the delivery side.
The best upgrade in delivery is the 5th shelf after 40 researches are completed - the Market Offer Cooldown Reduction. 2 levels here allow you to process offers 3 times per hour, instead of twice per hour.
