Is this supposed to feel like a constant struggle?

I never have enough sc to buy remedies or even diagnose al of them so i cant treat them. Right now i have an ear mite problem running rampant and i cant do anything about it because i cant afford to diagnose and treat all of them. Also, I have never had enough amusement items for my pack to stay happy. Am i doing something wrong or is it supposed to be a constant struggle where you have to make sacrifices to feel more in depth?

You need to put sick wolves into the separate cave if you can't cure them the same day. Contagious illnesses can only spread to wolves in the same cave. And until you can diagnose them, just keep them in the guarantee cave.

You get amusement items by rescouting and fairly easily from explore too. Don't eat red rotting food, salvage them for bones.

Is there a way to get sc faster than the 2 and 3 i pick up in explore?

You can sell things to the raccoon for a max of about 200sc a day! I often sell all my low use foods there for some easy sc :)

I usually sell my eggs, meat chunks and large branches/rocks to the Raccoon. 

+ Daily Snake quest gives some good SC as well.

Thanks, looks like i'll just have to suck it up lol

Hey there! A lot of the success of my own pack is determined through the use of this Explore Encounter Guide. Through this guide I'm always able to pick the right answer for whatever my pack needs that day - be it food, amusement items, or herbs.

Through choosing the right answers during explore encounters with the help of the above guide, I managed to stockpile enough herbs to have my herbalist create one of each medicine. These went straight into my buried items so that my wolves have cures for any illness right away. I then just continue to bury every single herb I find so that I have an excess of them to be able to craft any medicine at any time to replace those that get used.

Since beavers can commonly be found through the explore encounters by selecting "chase", I keep a pile of beaver carcasses in my buried items at all times. Right now, I have about 18 beaver carcasses - I never sell them and encounter several a day and use several a day. Beavers are so common and so easy to get that eating them solely allows me to sell my "good" carcasses instead of use them, which nets me around 100 SC a day. When the beavers rot, they can be scavenged for bones.

I have found that the most successful place to explore for resources is the prairie. The prairie dog encounter is very common and allows you to get an acorn if you select "dig". Then, you can offer these acorns to the equally common encounters of blue jays for amusement items or to the prairie chicken for carcasses to sell.

I sell anything that the raccoon wares salesman will offer me 1 SC per use for or more - this usually means eggs and meat chunks. Everything else gets put up on the trading center.

I also highly recommend doing your snake quest every day! This is very profitable and gets around 120 SC per day.

If you'd like, I have an excess of herbs and could make you some cures today for free just so you can get back on your feet again. Please just let me know and I can have my herbalist begin to make some ear mite treatments for your pack!

That is very generous of you, but someone gifted me some so I have all my wolves treated now. Well except for my lead wolf, but I'm crafting that remedy now. 

I had pretty much figured out which choices get you certain items, but I never thought to use it the way you do. I had been going for more cave items, buuuuut I guess I don't really need to. I already have two caves so I really don't need three. 

I will definitely try doing things your way. Thanks for the advice!

Other good ways of making SC:  get healing salves from the Drink encounter, and lucky feet from a bunch of different Explore encounters, and sell them on the TC.

And yeah, definitely don't let illness spread - check out the guide to see which ones are contagious, which ones are caused by what (e.g. eating old food - don't do it!) and which ones need to be treated urgently vs not really.