How To: The Ultimate Guide to FarmVille Success!

Over the past few months I've written up several helpful How-To guides to help you with various FarmVille related issues. It's about time I put them all in one place so they are easy to find, learn from and share! It has been a pleasure writing for you all and I do hope I have helped you find ways to meet your personal gaming goals!

I've been playing FarmVille since August, 2009. As of 10-26-2010, I'm at level 125, have completely mastered 75 crops, earned 36/38 blue ribbons and have mastery signs for 14 of the crafting goods. I didn't start out going for masteries and ribbons, in fact there really weren't as many accomplishments to earn back then nor were there tractors, farmhands, crop planes, etc. Over time I've found better ways to 'level up' and challenge myself with this game. I've developed strategies and resources to help me do so. I'm a teacher at heart (and in 'real life' according to the state of California) so I will share all my tips with you!

Because of the sheer volume of information I want to share with you, I will have to be very brief but I will try to link out to as many of my fully detailed articles as I can! 

Click the Blue Links for more information, tips and strategies!

Crops

1. Plant as many short term, unmastered crops at the highest level you can. This will ensure you get the most XP and coins per harvest possible allowing you to level up faster, unlock more crops, etc. 
   Be sure to plant crops that you can get back to right as they finish. (Use Zynga's email alerts)
2. Use a bushel (from the Farmer's Market) and a fertilize all bag (from free gifts or visiting neighbors) when you harvest for maximum mastery and XP. 
3. Calculate everything. Use charts such as this one to find out how many crops you will need to plant for mastery. Divide the number left to master by 2 if you use a bushel and make sure you divide by the number of plots your vehicle can work if you want to count smaller numbers. 
4. Join Co-Ops. They give you even more coins and XP. 

Animals

1. Collect calves. They are free and they give you the most coins/space/time in the game. 
2. Saddleback Pigs, level 35 and Belted Cows, 75 are more valuable but very expensive. If you use them for stuffing your Pig Pen and Dairy Farm and buy more of them with the coins you earn, you will level up very quickly. 
3. Don't keep worthless animals on your farm! Sell off all those extras and reclaim the space for crops and calves. I keep one of each animal, others might keep a pair, but any more than that which don't produce more than 80 coins/ day are just taking up space. (This tip is based on desire to level up, if you want a pretty farm feel free to keep more animals). 

Note: I didn't mention trees because they are relatively less useful, coin wise. I just collect as many as I can and put them in orchards for mastery. Also, consider keeping these for your ribbons. 

Ribbons

Take a look at your ribbons and think about what it will take to get the blue ribbon mastery. Things needing hay bales, fences and buildings are very easy to complete in a couple minutes. 

Crafting

1. Craft goods! As you level up recipes you get 50XP/ level and even more when you hit mastery star levels. See how close your recipes are to Mastery. 
2. Buy goods from those who buy from you! This is common courtesy, and although expensive can be traded in for fuel! I keep a list of the people who buy from me in a text document and check them off when I buy back. 
3. Buy your friend's lower level goods if you don't have enough money and don't need more fuel. They will appreciate the help leveling up those goods and getting the mastery signs!

Cash Out!

1. For holidays and events, Farmville often releases special baskets that you can use to collect a TON of one item and then trade those in for special rewards. These include: Holiday tree, Valentine's Box, Pot of Gold, Spring Eggs, Tuscan Wedding, Haiti Backpack, Candy Basket, etc. 
   Trade in those rewards then sell off the items for tons of coins! Remember that you can share one too. Consider locking or privately sharing that item with a low level neighbor so they can get some much needed coins to help them level up.
2. As you read in the Calf article, most items in the market give you 1XP/ 100 coins spent when  you buy them. Make it your goal to get as many coins as you can by harvesting crops and animals, then go to the market and buy things that will give you a return on your investment (ie. animals and trees that can be harvested). 
3. If you want to be really frugal with your money, you can get a better XP/coin rate from plain hay bales but it's a lot of clicking!

Hoarding

1. If you're going to keep a TON of something on your farm, keep plots and calves. 
2. Try to post a wishlist request and send gifts to as many friends as possible a few times each day. If you don't know what you want as a gift, try the holiday gift mentioned in Cash Out A. or the mystery gift.
3. If you hear rumors about new buildings coming to Farmville (perhaps on the podcast or another trusted fan site such as this) start collecting supplies so you can finish it quickly. The Special Delivery Package works wonders here, but is otherwise nearly useless so don't send it out all the time unless you are asked for it!

Visiting Neighbors

1. When tending your neighbor's farms the best action to take is fertilizing plots. The 1xp is worth more here than the coins you would get from animals or trees can be cashed in for. 
2. Share fuel, special delivery, slop, etc on your friends walls depending on their level in the game and level of activity. If they are a high level, very active player, they may only want slop. If they are a low level or don't sit on the feed all day send them everything, they need it!
3. You can add up to 300 neighbors. To see how many you have, click on ribbons and it's the number by the first one. You must be neighbors with a person to accept their posts on the feed. 

Guides

Please share these as often as they pertain to new releases and things you have on your mind! Remember you can find ALL the articles I've written easily by clicking on the 'Blog' tab, or using the search box in the top left corner. 

Stuffing and Breeding Guide - How to share tons of great animals and eggs, while earning coins and leveling up!

Nursery Breeding Guide - Those babies don't grow up into the same species!

Mystery Egg Chart  - Put the best chickens in your Coop to make neighbors happy. 

Crafting Mastery Charts for Goods - Get more mastery signs and buy smarter!

How to Ask your Inactive Friends to Remove Farmville - Save your truffles and gift requests for people that play!

Unblock wall posts - So people can post truffles to you! Unhide people and applications - Because you like them again or hid them on accident.

Special Delivery and Mystery Gift Comparison - Share this when asking people to stop sending you them. 

Co-Op Optimization Guide - Pick the one that gives you the most benefit!

How to make lists, how to Share posts privately and Lock them - Because no matter what you do, there are always more ways to help underachievers and slow down the over achievers. 

How to Remove Gamer's Unite - A hot topic indeed!

Resources

Gifting Links

FarmVille related Add-Ons

The Official FarmVille Blog, FarmVille Forum 

Zynga Lotto, Zynga Charity, FarmVille.com

How to Clear Your Browser and Flash Cache - A basic overview that should give you ideas for how to do it with other browsers/computers. 

Facebook Privacy Settings - Play smart! Protect yourself when adding strangers. Get rid of Spam

Support

Email Support

FrontierVille Post - I created and solely operate this fan site, so please check it out if you play! 

I've also written the FrontierVille Secrets Guide which is 100+ pages of extremely detailed charts, explanations, incredible tips and strategies. If you play FrontierVille seriously you wont want to miss this!!

And last but best:

Facebook!

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