UPDATE: When you’re done reading this article, check out the second FarmVille tips and tricks article.
12 days ago, I happened to look over someone’s shoulder when they had FarmVille open. Before then, I had brushed it off as another lame community game I didn’t have time for. It was at that time that I actually saw the game being played and decided to give it a shot. Over the last 12 days, I’ve been so successful at the game that I felt I just had to share some of what helped me rocket past many of my Facebook friends in the game. Grab a notepad or fire up the printer, because I have some great tips and tricks to help you do as well as I am in FarmVille. Just to prove my point, here’s a screen shot of my farm from just minutes ago. Not bad for 12 days.
Get some friends
Yeah yeah. You have a lot of friends. But are they playing FarmVille? Some things (like acquiring more land) require certain amounts of friends. Make sure you engage some of your friends to be your FarmVille neighbors. If, like me, you don’t want to spam people who hate all the online games, just watch your friends feed for those participating and add them. You can also go to the My Neighbors tab in the game to see all your friends who are playing and invite them to be your neighbor.
Be a helpful neighbor
While you may be competing with your friends to some extent, you can also help them out and help yourself in the process. Visit the My Neighbors tab often and watch for it to say someone could use some help. Click the link and help your neighbor. Then visit the My Neighbors tab again after each time to see if another neighbor needs help. Often you can help several in a row. Not only can you earn ribbons (see below), but you can also rack up some quick coins and XP (experience points). This is a great way to grow quickly in the beginning levels. It’s also a nice way to get those last five XP and level up while waiting for your crops to grow.
Earn some ribbons
Remember all those ribbons you earned as a kid for athletic events and science fairs? It’s time to strive for those colorful marks of achievement once again. FarmVille gives you ribbons for everything from farming a certain number of trees to taking in enough stray animals. When you earn a ribbon, you get coins, XP, and even gifts. This is another way to help yourself level up.
Celebrate achievements of friends
Every achievement comes with the opportunity to brag about it as a Facebook update. Sometimes, you can click a friend’s FarmVille update to celebrate with them. When you do, you get coins just for being a pal!
Visit daily
Even when you don’t have time to play or you know your crops won’t be ready yet, drop in the game for a second. Frequent visits earn random amounts of coins for logging into the game and who doesn’t want some free coins?
Choose your crops wisely
Different crops yield different amounts of coins, and typically, the further you advance in the game, the better the crops. However, you shouldn’t just plant the newest crop in your arsenal every time. Take a look at your schedule and your ability to time your growth around your schedule (see below). For example, on a holiday weekend with more free time to play, it’s better to plant blueberries 24 times in a 4 day period (4 hour growth x 96 coins and 1 XP) rather than watermelon once (4 day growth x 348 coins and 2 XP). At that rate, planting 10 squares of watermelon would get you 3,480 coins and 30 XP (20 for planting and 10 for plowing once) and planting 10 squares of blueberries would get you 23,040 coins and 480 XP (240 for planting and 240 for plowing). Of course, the blueberry planting will be a lot more work, but just look at the rewards for all that hard work. 23,040 coins and 480 XP is far better than 3,480 coins and 30 XP any day.
Time your crop growth
Where do I get all the free time to play? The truth is that I don’t really play all that much. I plan my copy growth around my free time. For example, I’ll have time to plant before bed and again right before work. For that reason, it’s ideal to plant something with 8 hours growth time tonight, so I’ll plant tomatoes for 173 coins per square. In the morning, I’ll plant rice because I won’t have time to play until tomorrow night and rice grows in 12 hours. And don’t forget the in between times. While I’m writing this, my Raspberries are growing. With a 2 hour growth time, I’m getting a whole crop growth extra before my tomatoes. This planning becomes easier as you progress in the game and have more crops available, but it can be started pretty early and has been pivotal in my farm’s growth.
Don’t let them wither!
Crops wither in the same period of time that they take to grow, so once your 4 hour strawberries are ready for harvest, they will begin to wither and will be useless in 4 more hours. This shouldn’t be a big problem if you time your crops as mentioned above, but it’s important to remember any time you plant something.
Give gifts to friends
In FarmVille, you can buy stuff for yourself, but you can also give out up to 20 gifts every day. So every day, I make sure to shower my FarmVille neighbors with nice things. The more you give, the more you get. Most of my trees and animals came as gifts and much of that was in response to gifts I had given. I also make sure to give to the top 20 neighbors. I do this not only because they can give better gifts back, but also because they’re more likely to be neighbors that are still actively playing.
Is easier really better
I’ve seen you eyeballing those tractors. They’ll making your plowing, harvesting, and planting four times faster, which is also four times easier, but is it better? One thing seldom realized until it’s too late is that those tools require fuel and that fuel requires money. No, not the fairly abundant coins, but the dollar bill money. The dollar bills take a lot longer to earn, and if you use a harvester or tractor, you’ll blow through dollar bills quickly.
We can’t have nice things
Oh you CAN have nice things in FarmVille. The game is full of neat stuff to buy. There’s two reasons I don’t buy much of it, though. First, it takes up precious crop space. The more space I have to plow and grow, the faster I can earn coins and XP to level up. Second, they eat up your money. I like to build my farm up first and I’ll throw in some fun stuff later when I have more space and coins than I can manage.
Won’t you be my neighbor
You know you could us at least one more neighbor and you already know I give gifts and help clear weeds and scare away crows.. So why not add me. Just visit my profile on Facebook and add me. Then use the instructions above to add me as a FarmVille neighbor. I am no longer playing FarmVille after having reached the maximum level.
So how about the rest of you… Any hot tips or lessons you’ve learned to help you get ahead? Share them below and don’t forget to share this article on Facebook.
Updates:
It’s now been about a month of playing and I’ve made it to level 30. I’d probably be a couple more levels further if it weren’t for just being busy at home and at work. In any case, I wanted to celebrate (and thank everyone for making this article pretty popular) by adding a few photos and a few more tips:
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Trap your farmer
This tip came from my buddy, Lowell, and has really helped to drop my farming time. When you harvest, plow, or plant seeds, your little farmer guy (or girl) will try to do each one by hand if you don’t have the equipment and fuel to do them four at a time. In this case, you want to trap your farmer in a fenced off area. He (or she) will be unable to move and the farming will happen without your farmer, much faster. Your farmer will be free again the moment you leave the page.
Layer trees, animals, and buildings
Have you gotten a bunch of trees close together and then found that you couldn’t see one behind another? If you have two rows of trees next to each other, put taller ones in the back. You’ll often still be unable to see when they’re ready to harvest, but at least you can see them to get to them with the mouse. Run your mouse cursor over trees slowly. When it changes to the harvest icon, that tree is ready.
The same goes for animals and buildings. Put the bigger buildings behind other stuff so they don’t obscure your other items. With animals, put them in rows with the bigger ones in the back. Recently, FarmVille allowed animals to roam around freely if you choose, but it creates a big mess. If you line them up neatly like I have mine above, they’re a lot easier to manage.
Seize unique opportunities
Have you seen the hot air balloon? There’s one in my images above. How about the very recently added spooky dead tree for Halloween? FarmVille marks special occasions by giving us these little treats. Generally, they’re cheap to buy and sell for little or no coins, but they’re also not available for long. When you see one, snatch it up because you may not get another chance.
There are also certain things that you can obtain only by watching your friend feed. So far, we’ve seen stray black sheep, ugly ducklings, and brown cows. If you see one in your friend feed, click on it to try and give it a home, but hurry up because they go fast. The ugly ducklings turn into swans! This is also where it helps to have lots of FarmVill neighbors. I have a ton after this article was first posted and because of it, I was given over 50 elephants in the 2 days they were available to gift. I’m now getting about 50 gifts a day. What I can’t use I sell.
Buy XP (and dollars)
You can’t really buy XP or dollar bills, but you can buy your way to them. For XP, buy large ticket items to get just enough XP to level up. If you need just 78 more XP to get to the next level but just finished all your plowing, you can just buy a tool shed to gain 80 XP and level up. If you do this before you plant, you can open up a new seeds option to plant for more money. It’s a little thing, but every little bit helps you move up faster.
As for the dollar bills, you get those when you level up. The technique above helps you level up faster and earn more of these scarce dollar bills. Hold on to them tightly and don’t waste them on junk at the start like I did. You’ll want to save up 25 to purchase the second level fuel refill. On a large farm, that should be enough to harvest, plow, and seed about half your farm.
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