Yes I play Farmville on Facebook. It started as a bet to see how fast I could level past my mom, and it has grown into an addiction. I thought I’d offer up a few things I’ve learned in the few weeks I’ve been playing. These aren’t really cheats or hacks, just some things you might not have tried before.
As I see it there are 2 major ways to play. Method one: Fun/Style If you aren’t really interested in what level you are or what size farm you have, and you just want to play the way you want and have a cool looking farm, stay the course. It’s just a game after all so you should have fun with it. Method Two: Competitive/Leveling If you want to level past your neighbors, have a huge farm, and don’t mind putting in some time to keep things going, this can be a fun ( if sometimes tedious ) way to play. Anyway, on to the tips…
First is the locked farmer trick. This has become widely known but I’ll repeat it anyway because it saves you time no matter how you play. When you load your farm see where your little farmer shows up. Make sure the square he/she is in is clear. Delete anything in that square if you need to. Now we want to trap that little guy/gal with either decorations you already have, or buy some hay bales to make a square around them. This will cut out the time it takes your farmer to walk to each task you have them perform. The time saved is substantial. Any action is stared immediately after you perform it without any walking time. Bonus!
Second is the quick XP trick. Have you had your farm going for some time now? Do you have some extra Farmville coins you aren’t sure what to do with? This tip is for you. For a limited time ( 11 more days ) this tip is better then ever. It started as the hay bale trick and will always work as such, but for the holiday season you can do the same thing with poinsettias for less coin. Here’s the trick. Plow and plant an area with poinsettias. Then use the delete tool to get rid of them. Lather rinse and repeat. Whhhh, what? I just paid for those? The poor things didn’t even have time to grow!?! Since you can’t master poinsettias, and they don’t net you much coin there is no point in letting them grow to maturity. You get 3 XP ( +1 for plowing ) per plot with a cost of 45 coin. ( +15 for plowing ) I’ll save you the math, this nets you 4 XP for 60 coin. ( and a little time ) AKA 15 coin/XP. This is by far and away the most cost effective way to gain XP right now. When the poinsettias are gone you can do something similar with hay bales. ( and it take a little less time, but isn’t quite as cheap ) Fill up some open space with hay bales from the market, delete, and repeat. Hay bales are 25 coin/XP. Not as good as poinsettias, but still not bad, since the normal coin/XP by buying things from the market is much higher. Mid thought update! I was just browsing the market and found that the Horse Topiary is 100 coin for 5 xp and it re-sells for 5 coin. After the math this makes it weigh in at 19 coin/XP. I suppose the Horse Topiary is the new hay bale. There might be more hidden deals in there, I didn’t go through the whole thing. If you find something better let me know. ( Wow this is getting long )
The third tip is be smart about what you grow. This can apply to either method of play unless you just really like certain crops. A quick google search can find you some charts of the best paying crops. Here’s a few of the highest paying ones to get you started: Grapes, Sugar Cane, Tomatoes, Sunflower, Green Tea, Ghost Chili, Coffee, Black Berries, Blueberries. ( Those are in order from the top down. )
Fourth, plant crops based on the time you have to devote to your farm. The trick here is that if you plant a 4 hour crop you DON’T have to be back at your farm in 4 hours. Yes you heard that right. Whatever the time to maturity is, you have that amount of time over again before it withers. So 4 is really just short of 8, 6 is 12 etc. You can use the handy calculator located here if you want to plan things out.
Finally ( since I’m running out of time before I have to go ) my best tip may be the hardest one to pull off. Get a LOT of neighbors. Invite all your friends and see if you can get them started playing. The more neighbors you have the more gifts you will get and the more opportunities you you will have to get free animals. All the animals on my farm came from neighbors. Also, and this is key spend the time to tend your neighbors farms every day. This is free XP and coins at the cost of a little time.
Ultimately if you want your farm to grow and prosper you need to do what real farmers do which is spend time working on it. Just don’t forget it’s a game, so have fun with it and happy farming.

Tags: facebook, farmville, game, howto, tips, tricks