2farmville: 2010

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Sunday, June 6, 2010

How To: Level up Fast In Farmville!

One of the best things about FarmVille is that it doesn’t matter if you’re very involved in it and log in all the time, or if you just feel like doing some occasional hoeing and seeding. It’s still a great way to spend some time and catch up with fellow farmers. Chances are though, once you start farming, you’ll have a hard time resisting the urge to check on your farm as often as possible.

The endless possibilities for rearranging and building on your farm make FarmVille a very engaging game to play. You can check out the new structures and decorations you’ll want to build on your farm, and then work your land until you have enough money to pay for them. Just remember to plan ahead and you’ll do just fine.

Success in FarmVille is really mostly the result of common sense. You need to be sure to always weight your options and spend your money wisely. That way you’ll be able to afford the things you really want later on. And remember to always be good to your neighbors. The benefits they give you are immeasurable. You can succeed in FarmVille without neighbors, but it’s infinitely harder to accomplish the things you want to quickly.

This guide is designed to be a good resource that can help you make wise decisions about how to spend your money and time in FarmVille. It’s always a good idea to check out the forums and stay up to date on any new changes or developments in the game because it’s still in Beta. I have no doubt that once you get your hands into that soil once or twice, you’ll be hooked on FarmVille for a long time.

( Lesson 30 ) Deciding to Expand and Weighing the Cost

Expanding before you're ready can make it hard to maintain a positive cash flow. You want to make sure you'll have at least 10,000 coins in the bank after you purchase your land expansion in order to be sure you're up to the task of managing a larger farm.

Once you decide you're ready to expand though, you'll need to be able to pay for the extra land. There are actually two ways you can do this, but neither of them is particularly cheap. If you have enough neighbors, you can pay in coins. If you don't have as many neighbors as is required for the plot of land you want to buy, you'll have to pay in FarmVille cash.

For example, the 14 X 14 Homestead can be bought for 10,000 coins as long as you have at least 8 neighbors to help you with construction. If you don't have that many neighbors, you can also buy the Homestead for $20 in FarmVille cash. Since the coins are so much easier to come by than the cash, you'll be wise to try and recruit those few extra neighbors so you can pay in coins.

You may think that $20 FarmVille cash isn't that much in the grand scheme of things. You'll need $20 more each time you want to expand though. So if you want to expand fast, you either have to have a lot of FarmVille dollars on hand or you'll have to seek out some new neighbors. Even the largest plot of land currently available only requires that you have 16 neighbors.

This isn't a particularly large number when you think about it, and it will save you a lot of money in the long run if you just go out and recruit some friends to help you. It really isn't as hard as it might seem to get people to be your neighbors either because they don't actually have to do anything to help you. All they have to do is open the application and set up their character. After that, they never have to come back to their farm again. Once your friends know this, they may be more inclined to help you out.

( Lesson 29 ) Expanding Your Territory

Once you've made the most of the plot of land you started with, you may want to spread your wings a bit and get some more space to work with. You can expand your farm incrementally from the 12 X 12 plot that you start with up until you have a 20 X 20 Plantation. You can't just jump to the 20 X 20 however. You have to buy the plots in order.

This means that your first step in expanding your farm will be establishing a Homestead. This is a 14 X 14 plot, which will give you a significant amount of added space to work with. You'll also have to have a Homestead before you can take the next expansion step and buy a 16 X 16 Family Farm. At this point, the 20 X 20 Plantation is the largest plot of land available, but at some point in the future you will be able to expand to a 22 X 22 Big Ole Plantation, and even a 24 X 24 Mighty Plantation.

The reasons for wanting to expand your farm are pretty straightforward. You'll eventually max out your earning capability on your original plot of land. If you want to keep moving up and building your business, you'll need more space to work with. There's really no downside to expanding as long as you're financially stable enough to handle the larger space.

( Lesson 28 ) Benefits of Neighbors

Of course, you won't be ready to expand your farm for a while, but there are other reasons it's good to have neighbors. One simple one is that going and looking at the ways other people set up their farms can help you get ideas about what you want to do with your own little plot of land. Since your neighbors will likely all be at different stages of game play, you can learn a lot just by looking at what they've done.

There are other, more practical reasons to want to have a lot of neighbors as well. When you're short on cash, it's great to have the option to go and help out on your neighbors' farms to earn some money fast. You can help out each of your neighbors once a day. For the first 20 neighbors you help in a day, you'll earn 20 coins and 5 experience points each. Once you get up over 20, you'll only be earning 5 coins and 1 experience point each, but that can still add up to a lot of cash if you make a habit out of it.

Having a lot of neighbors also means getting a lot of gifts. Sending gifts doesn't cost you anything, and it can be a great way to build up your collection of farm animals and trees early in the game. The more gifts you send to your neighbors, the more they'll be inclined to send to you (assuming they're good neighbors).

The more neighbors you have, then, the more gifts you'll get. This is really the best way to get ahead in the game fast. There are also quite a few items that you can only get if you receive it as a gift. About half of the available types of trees can only be acquired this way. Also several kinds of animals like horses, pigs, rabbits, goats, and ducks can only be gifted. They can’t be bought.

Plus it's just fun to be able to play this game with your friends. It can even prove to be a good way to connect with someone on your friend list that you don't actually talk to all that often. Breaking the ice by talking about your farms or helping each other out in the game is a great and easy way to rekindle an old friendship. You can even leave notes for your neighbors on their farms when you go to visit to let them know how great you think their farming is coming along.

( Lesson 26 ) Make it Personal

Sending an automated message is certainly the easiest way to invite all of your friends, but it's not necessarily the most effective. If you're really serious about recruiting as many neighbors as possible, you'll want to send a more personal message to the people you know. To do this, simply use the private message function on Facebook to send a personal invitation to each of your friends.

You can use the same message for everyone, but you'll be surprised how many more people respond to a message that you wrote yourself. Once your friends have set up their own farms, you can ask them to be your neighbor. There's no limit to the number of neighbors you can add, and really, there's no reason not to add as many as you can. They'll bring you quite a few benefits over time.

( Lesson 27 ) Forums

If you're not satisfied with the neighbor count you get off of your friend list, the next place you should go is to the FarmVille Forums. You can find these by clicking on the Forum link at the bottom of the page you're on when you're playing the game. Here you'll find quite a few great FarmVille resources. One of these is a forum called ADD ME for people who are looking for neighbors. This is an excellent place to go to find more neighbors and meet people who share your interest in the game.

Most of the people you'll find on these forums are FarmVille players like you who enjoy playing and want to build up their farm as much as possible. Because you have to add someone as a friend in order to make them your neighbor though, you should always be cautious. The best way to go about this is to only add one or two people you don't know at a time.

This is because some of the profiles you will come across this way are spam. If you only add a few at a time, you'll know which profile to remove from your friend list if you start receiving a bunch of meaningless messages in you inbox. If you've added a bunch of strangers at once, it can be next to impossible to figure out which one to get rid of.

FarmVille Forums aren't just good for helping your find new neighbors either. They're also a great place to go to find answers to any questions you have while playing the game. Or they can be a great place to just socialize with other players, as well as a good source of information about updates and changes to game play. Even if you use them only sparingly, these forums are a great resource to keep in mind when you have problems or questions about FarmVille.

( Lesson 25 ) Finding Neighbors

There's no limit on the number of neighbors you can add, so it's really up to you to determine how many you think you want to have. You certainly don't need to go out and actively recruit your friends to play the game. It's very likely some of the people on your friend list play already. You can find out who by going to the My Neighbors tab when you're on your farm. From there it's very easy to send a neighbor request to anyone you know who's already started working on their farm.

If you'd like to expand beyond this though, the game does provide an invitation function that allows you to send automated messages to anyone on your friend list asking them to play FarmVille with you and be your neighbor. This is a good place to start, and it's a good idea to invite everyone you know. You may very well be surprised who the most enthusiastic farmers turn out to be.

( Lesson 24 ) Neighbors

You can certainly work your own farm and earn enough to support yourself nicely. But if you want to be able to expand your farm, you'll need to have some neighbors. Expansion is made much easier and will cost you much less in terms of currency the more neighbors you have. Of course, since you're playing this game on a social networking site, the easiest thing to do is hit up your friends.

( Lesson 23 ) Sharing the Wealth

Each time you’re awarded a ribbon, you’ll be asked if you would like to “share the wealth.” This doesn’t mean that you’ll divide up your winnings among your friends or anything like that. In fact, it won’t cost you anything at all. It will, however, make it possible for your friends to get a bonus as a result of your success.

It’s always a good thing to do this because it costs you nothing and encourages your friends to return the favor. You do have to publish your accomplishment on Facebook though for your friends to be able to get the bonus. While it may not be a good idea to publish notification every time you advance to a new level, it is definitely worth doing it when you get a ribbon.

Conversely, you’ll have to be sure and pay attention to the notifications your friends post so that you don’t miss out on any bonuses yourself. You do actually have a time limit for collecting these bonuses too, so make sure you scan your news feed for the appropriate notifications every time you log in to Facebook. Check out the Resource Lists at the end of this guide for the full listings of ribbons.

( Lesson 22 ) Ribbons

Another way to get some coin bonuses is to earn one of the many ribbons available. There are actually 14 categories of ribbons, and each category has 4 levels. You’ll start out by earning the Yellow ribbon in a particular category. As you advance in that category, you’ll progress to the White, Red, and finally Blue ribbons.

As your performance and farming accomplishments increase, the higher ribbons you earn will result in bigger and bigger payouts. These accomplishments span the spectrum of farm activity, so you’ll likely earn some ribbons without even meaning to.

It’s a good idea to pay attention to your ribbons though and what you need to do to earn more of them. Each time you get a ribbon, you get awarded a substantial sum of cash, as well as a hefty chunk of experience points. By clicking on the ribbon icon in the bottom right hand corner of your screen, you can bring up a list of the available ribbons and what you personally have to do to earn the next one. The game keeps track of your progress in each individual area, so all you have to do is check back from time to time to see which ones you’re close to achieving and what you need to do to get there.

The required tasks may be as simple as “harvest fruit from 8 unique trees,” or “harvest 10 unique crops.” While neither of these tasks is particularly hard to accomplish, it can play a role in determining what seeds you plant and what trees you buy. Similarly, making progress towards earning ribbons can guide your decisions on how many of which type of animal to keep and how many buildings to put up. There’s a ribbon for each of these, and so if you know what you have to do to get the ribbon, you’ll come out ahead every time.

( Lesson 21 ) Surveys

Paying cash for FarmVille dollars isn't the only way to get them though. At the bottom of the Add Farm Coins and Cash page, you'll see multiple options for surveys and other offers that pay out FarmVille cash. Some of them cost a small amount of money, but many of them are free. This is really the best option for getting extra FarmVille cash. It's easy and you don't have to invest any real money to keep playing the game.

There are a couple of drawbacks to the surveys of course, but these are relatively easy to deal with. Any survey you fill out will cause you to start getting a bunch of promotional emails. This is certainly a nuisance, but you can minimize it by simply setting up a new email account and using that one for all your surveys. That way you can keep the unwanted emails from cluttering up the inbox you actually use.

There can also be a delay in the FarmVille cash being posted to your account. Sometimes you'll get it right away, but usually it'll take at least a day to show up. There's not much you can do about this, but if you plan ahead it really shouldn't be a problem. Just start filling out those surveys early and you'll have plenty of cash when you're ready to spend it.

( Lesson 20 ) Adding Coins and Cash

There is another option for increasing your available coins and FarmVille cash. You can click on the Add Farm Coins and Cash tab if you want to supplement your income a bit. In this section, you can purchase coins or cash with a credit card or paypal account. You can get a lot for a little here, and you have several options as far as how much you want to spend.

If you're going to go this route though, you're better off just going for the largest package. It costs $40, but you get the most for your money this way. Better to just get all you'll need at once rather than going back often for small purchases. You'll wind up spending more in the long run if you buy small amounts of coins or cash multiple times.

It's really never worth it to buy coins this way because they're so easy to earn in the game, but if you want to buy anything substantial with FarmVille cash, you'll have to supplement your natural income. If you want a quick and easy way to instantly add FarmVille cash, this is probably the easiest way to go.

( Lesson 19 ) FarmVille Cash

FarmVille cash is much tougher to come by than coins are. You get 1 FarmVille dollar for every new level you reach, but it takes quite a while to earn any substantial amount of cash this way. FarmVille cash isn't vital to your ability to play the game the way that coins are, but there are some items in the market that you can't get without it.

Some of the cash-only items in the market are relatively cheap and you'll have enough FarmVille cash at the lower levels to afford these. If you spend your cash in small amounts this way though, you'll never be able to accumulate enough to buy the bigger items that are available later on. It's best to save your FarmVille cash until you're sure you know what you want to spend it on.

( Lesson 18 ) Cash & Coins

Cash

As you start to play FarmVille, you'll have a relatively easy time accumulating coins. The FarmVille dollars are a bit harder to come by though. There's no equivalency either – you can't convert your coins to cash. You can use coins to buy most of the items in the market, but there are some items that you'll need cash to get.

Coins

You earn coins every time you harvest crops, fruit from trees, or goods from farm animals. You'll need some of these coins to re-plow and re-plant your fields, but after each harvest you should have some left over. You can just let your coins accumulate in your account, or you can spend them on a variety of discretionary items in the market.

There are some other ways you'll get a bonus in the form of coins. You'll occasionally get a message when you log in that you won a random number of coins in the daily raffle. These messages are pretty arbitrary, as are the amounts you win, so you can't count on them for consistent income. They're certainly a nice bonus though.

You'll also earn a small bonus every time you help out one of your neighbors with their farm. If one of your neighbors hasn't been able to get to their farm for a while, you'll receive a message that they could use your help. Accepting this message will take you to their farm where they'll ask for your help with chores like pulling weeds, raking leaves, or chasing crows away.

You can also go and visit your neighbor's farms on your own to see if they need any help when you're short on cash, but you can only help out each neighbor once a day. After that, you can visit all you want, but there won’t be any more chores for you to do.

This is just one of the reasons it's good to have a lot of neighbors. The more neighbors you have, the more farms you can visit, and the more chores you can do for coins and experience. After all, the more access you have to coins, the more you'll be able to do on your own farm. Once you run out of money, you just have to wait for your crops to be ready to harvest, or you'll have to find a different way of refilling your coin stores.

( Lesson 17 ) Save or Spend

One of the great things about FarmVille is that it's always up to you how you spend your money and use your land. All of the items that you can buy will give you some benefit in the form of experience points, so you have to decide which ones will help you the most. You can also just pick the items you like best. After all, it's your farm and you're the one who'll be spending the most quality time there.

Figuring out what you want to buy can be tricky though. It'll take you a while to build up a big reservoir of coins and farm cash if you spend all of your extra money after each harvest. It's a good idea to examine all of the items you'll be able to buy and then figure out how much you'll have to save up to be able to purchase those items. Otherwise, you'll be stuck with buying a lot of the cheap items and you won't ever be able to afford the larger buildings and decorations.

( Lesson 16 ) Vehicles

Once you reach level 12 you can buy some farm vehicles to help you with the workload on your farm. Your options include a red tractor, a pink tractor, a harvester, and a seeder. These can greatly improve the efficiency of your farm, but this does come with a price. The vehicles themselves are not excessively expensive, but you'll only be able to use them as long as you have fuel for them.

This means that you can wait for the fuel to fill up on its own, or you can buy fuel refills for your vehicles. And these can add up fast. The fuel refills can also only be purchased with FarmVille cash, not coins, so you'll need to consider if this is the way you want to spend this valuable currency.

It's up to you to decide whether or not you want to invest in some farm vehicles. Tractors will allow to you harvest at 4 times the speed since they can plow 4 plots of land at a time. You can certainly get the benefits of speedier harvesting and seeding, but you'll also be paying out a lot for the convenience. It's best to wait to buy these until you have a big enough farm and income to support them. You can also sell these if you decide you don't want to keep paying for their fuel, but you won't get nearly as much as you paid for them either.

( Lesson 15 ) Buildings

It can take a while, but eventually you'll be ready to start building on your farm. You can choose from 30 different structures, and they do get pricey. But they deliver a ton of experience, so they're a good way to keep leveling up fast once you reach the higher levels of the game. These structures can be as simple as a tool shed or well, or as substantial as a manor house.

Either way, though, they add a nice touch to your farm. You want to be careful and choose the buildings that offer the most experience benefit relative to price because you will be spending so much money on them. You can also sell off your buildings later on if you don't need them or if you need money fast. They also sell for substantially less than you bought them for, but that's still a lot of cash in most cases.

( Lesson 14 ) Decorations

There are literally dozens of items you can buy to add your own personal touch to your farm. These can be anything from outhouses, to whitewash fences, to bicycles. These items vary considerably in price and the options available to you will increase as you level up. You'll gain some measure of experience points by purchasing any of them, and they do also have some resale value.

Just as with the trees and animals, you won't get nearly what you paid for a decorative item when you sell it, but it's a good option to have when you're strapped for cash. Mostly though, these items are fun to collect and place to give your farm some character. You can move them any time you want too, which gives you endless possibilities for farm layouts and looks.

( Lesson 13 ) Trees

Trees work essentially the same way animals do (although they can't wander away). They cost a lot and each individual harvest of fruit doesn't sell for very much. But over time, they do pay for themselves because they start growing a new crop every time you harvest the old one. Plus, they're just a nice addition to your farm.

There are many different kinds of trees you can buy or receive as gifts, and each of them has a different type of fruit and different characteristics. They take different lengths of time to mature, but you won't lose the fruit if you don't harvest it in a certain amount of time. Depending on your preference, you can leave the fruit there to look pretty until you really need some cash, or you can sell it as soon as it's ready and wait for more to grow.

You can also sell trees just as you can farm animals. They don't fetch a great price, but it's still a good option to have if you suddenly find yourself short on cash. Once you plant a tree, you don't have to leave it in that spot forever. This is another nice feature because it means that as your farm grows, you can adapt.

If you find that you need the spot a tree is in for something else, you can simply relocate it. This not only saves you from having to sell a tree if it's in the way of changes you want to make to your farm, but it also means that you don't have to spend a ton of time deliberating about where to put each tree you buy. Just put it where you think is best at the moment. You can always change it later.

( Lesson 12 ) Animals

The first animal you'll be able to buy is a chicken, followed a few levels later by a cow, and then finally a sheep. You may be able to acquire some animals before you're able to buy them though because you will always be able to receive them as gifts. You can ask your friends to give you some animals, or they may just do it all on their own. There are some animals too, like horses for instance, that you can only receive as gifts.

Animals are different from crops in several ways. First of all, they cost a lot and their products sell for very little. For example, a cow will cost you 400 coins, but each time you milk it, you'll only get 6 coins from the milk you sell. Of course, you don't have to buy a new cow every time you milk one. They'll take day or so to be ready for you to milk again, and you'll get another 6 coins out of the deal.

It can take a while to make a profit off of your animals, but eventually you will. It's also just fun to have them around, and you can do more than just milk them. They like to go for walks and are very happy when they get attention from you. You can also sell them if you're really strapped for cash. You won't get what you paid for them, but you'll get enough to help you out in a pinch. And if you acquired them as a gift to begin with, then selling them just gets you some free money.

You also gain experience from buying animals and from selling the milk, eggs, or wool they produce. This is another good reason to invest in some animals if you want to level up fast. You do have to be careful to pen them though. Otherwise they'll wander off and you'll take a loss on your investment. Once in a while, a stray animal will wander onto your farm, and you'll be able to help them find a new home.

( Lesson 11 ) Building Up

Once you start to get a handle on your planting and harvesting cycles, you can begin exploring all of the other options FarmVille has to offer. As you advance in levels and build up your coin stash, you'll be able to buy more and more items for decorating and enhancing the value of your farm. Some of these are worthwhile investments, although many are just fun to play with.

That's what makes this game so great, really. It allows you to play at your own pace and turn your farm into exactly what you want it to be. You can add structures, fences, animals, trees, vehicles, and many other types of decorations to your farm to give it your own personal touch. That way, when you're friends come to visit, they'll be able to see what a magnificent farmer you are.

( Lesson 10 ) Rate of Rot

This is especially important to keep in mind when you're planting crops that mature quickly. The window for harvesting any crop is the same as the length of time it takes that crop to grow. This means that pumpkins, since they take 8 hours to mature, will start to rot 8 hours after they're ready for harvest. You'll have to make sure you get back to your farm within 16 hours of planting your pumpkins then, in order to keep from losing them.

If you think you're not going to be able to check on your farm for a while, you may want to consider planting crops like artichokes. These will take 4 days to mature, but you'll have an additional 4 days to harvest them. This is a good way to keep your farm active if you're going to be away for a while. It's also a good thing to keep in mind so that you know what kind of window you have to get back to your farm before you first crop will start to wither.

( Lesson 9 ) Keeping Track

As your farm gets bigger and you plant more and more different kinds of crops, you may start to lose track of what is planted where and when it will be ready for harvest. This is easy to do, but you can help yourself by following a few simple guidelines for planting and organization.

First, it's a good idea to plant in blocks. This means that you'll have a symmetrical section for each type of crop. It's much easier to keep track of crops in various stages of growth if they're grouped together and not winding all over the place and around each other. For example, you may want to plant a 3 by 3 section of eggplants, adjacent to a 3 by 3 section of soybeans, and continue on like that.

It's also a good idea not to plant the same type of crop at two different times. That's because it's very easy to forget about one of them and not go back to harvest until the later one is ready. By then you may have already lost your first crop. Planting all pumpkins at one time, and then all squash the next will make it much easier for you to remember what needs to be harvested when.

( Lesson 8 ) Putting it All Together

So how do you decide what to do first as you start to work on your farm? Well, your first priority needs to be getting some cash in the bank. I'd recommend plowing an area that's 4 plots by 4 plots and planting strawberries on the entire area first, assuming you’ll be able to check back on your farm in about 4 hours. You should have just enough coins to complete this task. You also won't have to wait too long before you can harvest your crop and start again.

Strawberries don't give you the best return on your investment, but they do give you enough so that you'll be way ahead by the time you harvest them. At this point, you'll be able to branch out into some other types of crops. Soybeans are the best one to opt for next though. Until you can advance and unlock some more crops, these will give you the best return on your investment. They also only take a day to mature, so you'll be able to replant quickly and build up your experience points fast.

This same basic theory will apply as you advance through the game and unlock more types of crops. While taking the characteristics and benefits of each crop into consideration is important, it's also very important to be realistic about how often you'll be able to check back on your farm. You can make the best planting decisions possible, but if you don't get back to harvest your plants in time, all that careful planting will go to waste.

( Lesson 7 ) Dollar Per Hour

Not only can you asses a potential crop's value by how much of a return it brings on the initial investment, but you can also evaluate its earning potential per hour. For example, strawberries take 4 hours to mature and sell for 35 coins per plot of land. Eggplants, on the other hand, take 48 hours to mature and sell for 88 coins per plot of land.

This gives the strawberries a coin per hour rate of 8.75, as opposed to the eggplant's 1.83. What all of this really means is that your decision about what crops to plant will have to take into account how often you want to check back on your farm, how quickly you want to level up, and how quickly you want to be able to build up your cash stores.

( Lesson 6 ) Investment Return

Another factor to consider when you're deciding what to plant will be the relationship between the cost of the seeds and the price you get for your goods when you harvest them. In this context, soybeans are the best of the crops you have available to you at the start of the game. They cost only 15 coins to plant per plot of land, but you can sell your harvest for 63 coins per plot of land.

This is a return of more than 4 times your initial investment, as opposed to the three and a half times return that strawberries provide. Of course, the soybeans take longer to grow than the strawberries do. Because there are so many factors that go can influence your decision about what to plant, you can see that this isn't exactly a straightforward decision.

( Lesson 5 ) Experience

Another factor that will contribute to your planting decision is that different crops yield different benefits in terms of experience. Crops that take at least a day to grow will grant you 2 experience points for each patch of land you plant them on. Most crops take at least this long to grow to maturity, but there are some, like strawberries, that only take a few hours. These will only get you one experience point per plot of land planted. The faster you accumulate experience points, the faster you'll move up to the next level.

That doesn't mean you want to only plant the crops that give you 2 experience points though. If you're going to be able to check back on your strawberries and plant more as soon as the old ones are ready to be harvested, you can actually get more experience points in a day with these types of crops. It all depends on how well you stay on top of your planting and harvesting cycles.

( Lesson 3 ) What to Plant

The only crop options available to you at first will be strawberries, eggplant, wheat, and soybeans. Each of these crops has several different characteristics, and so different benefits. Which crop you decide to plant will have a lot to do with how often you're going to be checking on your farm, as well as how quickly you want to advance in the game. You can find a complete breakdown of each crop and its attributes at the end of this guide, but here are a few general tips to help you evaluate your options as you begin playing.

( Lesson 4 ) Harvesting Time

One of the many factors to take into account when deciding what to plant is how long you will have to wait to harvest it. Strawberries, for example, will be ready to harvest 4 hours after you plant them. If you don't get back to harvest them within 8 hours though, they'll wilt and you won't be able to make any money off of them.

You want to make sure you're not going to be planting a bunch of crops that will wilt before you can harvest them. For instance, eggplants take 2 days to grow, so you may want to consider planting these instead of strawberries if you're not going to be checking on your farm for a while. That way, you get the best use out of your land and you get a bigger payoff at the end of the growing cycle. Crops that take longer to grow also generally sell for more coins at harvest time.

( Lesson 2 ) How Big to Get

Of course, the more land you have to plant on, the more money you'll make by harvesting your crops. This doesn't mean you can keep expanding your farm indefinitely though. Plowing and planting aren't free. You'll just be wasting time and money if you plow a bunch of fields and then can't afford to buy any seeds to plant in them. Therefore, you want to expand a little bit at a time so that you're able to fully take advantage of all of your available acreage.

The best way to maximize your growth and planning potential at first is to clear 10 more patches of land. Once you harvest the crops that were ready and waiting for you, you'll have just enough money to clear that land and plant on it. This way, you'll have more land to grow crops on, and you'll be able to plant on all of it right away.

You can, of course, clear more land right away. If you do that though, you won't have enough money left to plant any crops and a lot of the land will just sit empty. You also won't be able to plant on as may clear parcels of land as you would have if you didn't clear so many to begin with. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, if you want to get a big farm going fast, you have to take it slow.

(Lesson 1) Getting Started

When you first set foot on your farm, it will consist of six plowed patches. Two of these will have crops that are fully grown and ready to harvest, two will have crops that are half grown, and the last two will be all ready for you to plant on them. You'll also have 200 coins and 5 dollars worth of FarmVille cash in the bank.

The first thing to do is start harvesting the crops that are ready for market. When you do this, you earn coins that you can put towards plowing more land an planting more seeds. You can add as many plowed patches to your farm as you want, as long as you have the money to plow them. You can also choose which seeds to plant, but there are several things you should take into account when you make these decisions.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Sunday, June 6, 2010

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