CityVille Guide
So you want to win CityVille, or maybe just pass up your friends? Here are a few simple tips to help get you the results you want!
Scroll to the end for charts (you know you love charts!!)
This information subject to change at any time. CityVille is a brand new game and is still being tweaked to find the best balance. If you see discrepancies, you can make a note in the comments below. Hope you enjoy my guide!
Order of Operations
There are many limiting factors in this game (energy, goods, money, etc.) so you want to choose the best things to focus on if you are trying to level up quickly. Keep an eye on your XP bar. If you're about to level up, try to use up all your energy first as you will get a partial refill. You may want to hold off on accepting neighbor help if you're really close.
1. Supply your franchises! - Franchises pay out the best ratio of coins/ good. Franchise your neighbor's cities as MUCH as you can! (see charts below to pick the best business based on your stats)
If you need goods first:
a. Send the 5 minute Charlie Train (does not use energy and brings back lots of goods!)
b. Let your neighbors tend your ships and crops.
c. Shipping is better than Farming!!!
2. Activate the neighbors
Accept their help and follow them around. Try to get your bonus meter up all the way! 5 bonuses for the first stage, and 4 for to fill the bar for each next stage (there are 10 stages, so click on 51 bonus items).
3. Harvest your soon to expire ships/ crops until your storage is full
4. Collect from your best paying buildings (or the ones you need collectibles from)
5. Don't forget your community buildings! They usually give you an energy or 2 too!
6. Use remaining energy on highest payout to lowest payout buildings and to refill your goods.
Center of the action
Put your crops in the middle of your game if you are in short goods supply so your neighbors will help you get goods faster and harvest them without using your energy.
Shipping is far more profitable than farming, so work on expanding your shipping business! You can fit as many as 8 boats/ pier.
Decorations = Profit!
Make a profitable square surrounded with decorations. Get that bonus up as high as possible! You can use the 'move' tool to put ready buildings in there to harvest.
Surround your best buildings with decorations to increase your profits.
Good decorations to use are those that give more bouses than the space they take up. Bronze statue, pink flowers, arboretum, and the plaza are good examples. Put the large decorations as far away from the center as possible so you have space to fill in more little decorations.
You can create another ring around your initial profit square with some decorations. I did this because it is VERY time consuming to move each building into the center to collect the max bonus. This also lets me collect the money and xp faster, thus increasing my bonus bar.
Franchises add bonus too, but are very large (5x5) and can block things behind them. Consider putting trees and goods storage behind franchises if you want to use them for bonuses. You get +2%/ floor.
If you're willing to spend money on your online entertainment, for just $10 you can get 75 city cash which you can use to buy the fun bonus boosting decorations like the tennis court, bridge pond, bandstand, etc. These 3 will increase your bonus square by a whopping 128%!
Connecting to Roads
You do NOT need to connect community buildings or franchise headquarters to roads. I recommend putting the community buildings far from the active parts of your city so you have space.
You can connect buildings to roads using Sidewalks!!!! Do this to fit more decorations around your businesses and houses.
Franchise!
Zynga games are social games! CityVille allows you to franchise on other people's cities and have them put their businesses on yours! Ask your friends to put out a plot for your businesses and be sure you supply them as often as possible.
You get the most coins/ good from supplying 5 star businesses. Use your best businesses in your franchises and ask your neighbors to do the same on yours. There is a limit to how many plots you can put out (20) and you can remove your neighbor's lower businesses if you want.
Try to max out your franchises with businesses from neighbors who will supply often. You get coins, goods and energy every time they supply!
Your coin bonus will decrease over time, so be sure to check often and supply all your franchises!
Neighbors
If you need goods: Tend your neighbor's crops and put your crops in the middle of your city for your neighbors to tend.
If you need coins: Tend their housing, water their crops, speed up the boats, tend businesses (slow), or cut down trees.
2 neighbors tended the same boat/crop!
- When a neighbor harvests your goods and an empty ship/ plot is left behind, you can refill that spot with a 1 hour good (like Shanghai shipping or Eggplants). When you accept help from the next neighbor, the spot will be ready to collect again!
- You might build a strategy around this were you leave a ship or crop ready for a little while and let your neighbors all tend that spot over and over while you just refill it.
Time limits
You can send gifts to all your friends a few times per day. I'm not sure the limit, but try every 6 hours or so and you can gift and get the most gifts possible!
You can visit your neighbors and tend things on their cities every 12 hours. Visit them often to boost your reputation and get goods or coins. You will only get the bonus popup screen once/ day.
Crops and shipped goods expire, so come back in time and collect them before they die. You neighbors can also save them for you, and post more goods on your wall, so if they do go bad, you can wait until someone takes care of them for you.
Reference Charts!!
I loooove making charts and choosing what I buy/ tend most often to get the most profits. Make sure you have a variety of buildings so you can complete all the collections you need to/ that give you the trade in bonus you want.
Housing - Choose your houses based on how often you play, your space requirements, how much money you have, etc.! Lower level players (under 25) may opt for the Terraced Brownstone. Higher levels will find success with Colonial Chalet and Skyscraper Condos!
TIP: The higher your population, the faster you large businesses will become ready, thus the incentive to buy high priced housing.
I don't focus on housing for income, but it's nice as you don't need to supply them with goods. Perhaps put them in the center of your city so your neighbors can collect rent for you!
*Click chart to see larger*
Businesses - For low level players, Video Games makes a great 2nd or 3rd franchise! Cosmetics store is also nice for low levels (4.8)
Like with everything else, you want variety so you get the collectibles, but remember to focus on franchising and mainly collecting from the highest paying businesses!
If you've unlocked them franchise these: Jewelry Store, Sushi bar, Handbags, and Wedding shop! If you haven't, you might want to wait (yes, they're that good).
*Click chart to see larger*
More coming soon!
Like this? Please feel free to share!!! You can also offer tips below and I'll add them if I think they will be extremely helpful to everyone.
