Overall the boosts weren't useful either because you had to save them for future Rival tasks. Use two speed boosts to get 3, but need 3 to get 4. So you had to get through those finish x tasks first before you could make use of the boosts to get past the next Rival quest.
Towns move along at a pretty reasonable pace until you hit the Baker, then wait/wait/wait. From 200-250 bad, from 250-300 overnight. Shouldn't try to time the game to anyone's real clock, no standard bedtime for everyone. Base each town on a specific time to finish. 1st town 4 hrs, 2nd town 8, 3rd 12hrs for a total or 3 towns per day. It works on the same mechanics as QI, at each time marker, you've either finished or the banquet crashed and failed. No limit on exceeding 3 if packages or boosts are purchased. Rival should pull from the other tasks as well and not be tied only to the mini-game. Level an Allie, take a sector, do battles, collect from the AD, sell to the AD. When a player is able to work the whole town, then they get the skips, royal writs, and 1/2 time town completions.