1. Privacy settings; I don't want strangers who are gaming to have ANY access to my facebook profile. This slows down game progress as many achievements or unlockables are based on the number of "neighbours" you have. CityVille's third most annoying behaviour is to constantly suggest that you invite friends to play CityVille, which pushes people in the direction of opening up their profile. Privacy matters and a game isn't worth a compromise in my books, so read the details understand and set your privacy settings.
2. Spam; I don't believe in spamming anyone and this includes my "facebook wall". If I suddenly post a bazillion annoying CityVille updates, it isn't their job to block the application and adjust their settings; first of all because its presumptuous for me to make someone else take an action like that and secondly because many facebook users simply don't know how. CityVille's second most annoying behaviour is to constantly suggest that you announce your achievements and other details on your wall. there is a way to customize this so that only specific people see this. Certainly this takes effort, but it is a good choice since most of these communications only make sense to others who are actually playing CityVille. (clicking the small red X in most dialogues, rather than the large green "share" buttons is generally the way to avoid being spammy.
3. Financial considerations; I play for fun, I don't "pay" for fun. There are many opportunities in the game to buy things. CityVille has 2 currencies you can buy. "City Dollars" are earned during play and can be purchased for $USD. Energy is earned over time and can also be purchased for real dollars. If you are impatient, then you are just the kind of customer these folks are after. You will constantly be faced with repeated suggestions to buy now (what could be yours for free if you waited.) The game is designed to get you playing and then give you an opportunity to "pay". Some people will find the option of trading real dollars for imaginary dollars very tempting. I suggest you decide before you play.
4. Managing game resources; The game has several resources that are in short supply or which you must earn. In its most basic form, you farm for goods to supply stores, collect from stores to get coins and spend coins on improvements to your city.
4a.Reputation is earned by helping your "neighbours" do work on their cities. As you "level up" you earn "Experience, & coins". You can visit neighbours once every 12 hours, and can earn 5 reputation each time.
4b. Experience is earned through almost every action you take in the game and as you "level up" with experience it unlocks items in the game. Experience is slowly accumulated and can also be gained by turning in "collections" of objects you will receive during gameplay while collecting rent. The collections require no extra effort so it is "free".
4c. Coins are earned in the game by collecting rent, collecting from your businesses, and selling goods.
Here is my absolute best tip for gaining coins. Coins earned when collecting from businesses and residences are multiplied by the judicious use of decorations. This multiplier has a dramatic effect on the coins earned every time you "click to collect". While a shoe store might normally supply 570 coins when you collect, with numerous decorations, I have one collecting 1036 each time. Since each collection takes 1 energy, I've effectively doubled my energy efficiency.
Initially I started off with businesses along a road with decorations in the cracks. This required lots of energy to keep collecting from the businesses. Now I've flipped my strategy to surrounding businesses with a moat of decorations. Since the decorations are only purchased once this gives me a low ongoing cost for the business (the 130 goods etc.) Businesses must be connected (I recommend sidewalks) to residences and roads to be used.
4d. CityVille Dollars are earned as you "level up" with experience and can be purchased with real money. Many of the civic buildings can be completed or "staffed" using CityVille Dollars, which is gracious of Zynga because they've provided options for folks like me who don't want Facebook strangers for "neighbours" in CityVille.
4e. Goods or Supplies are obtained most commonly by farming or purchasing via train or ship. Supplies are needed to re-supply your stores (which can't earn money without them). When farming be aware of the return. (110 for corn vs 15 for strawberries with varying purchase prices. Also be aware of the expiry of crops. If corn is ready in 1 day, it expires after 2 days. If you plan to be a casual gamer, strawberries which never expire are a safe and ineffective crop. Corn at 1 day and Wheat at about 2 days are better options for folks who plan to play a couple times a week. Purchasing via the train is expensive. 300 goods for $1200 coins will get your stores going again, but you want to make sure that you're making $4 coins per good or else you're losing on the transaction. (see my tip above for using decorations to multiply what stores collect).
4f. Population is capped but can be increased with the purchase of community buildings. Community buildings require money and energy to build and then either staff (your friends staff them) or special items to finish. Here is my best community building tip. You can duplicate buildings. So if you have lots of friends, by all means get a medical clinic with its many positions, but if you have special items or City Dollars, opt for several museums since the benefit of each building is cumulative. +300 population per museum.
4g. Land is purchased using coins and is quite expensive at $20,000 for a 12x12 square patch. My best tips for land use are as follows;
1. recognize that civic buildings and storage buildings do not require road connection and can be placed in the corner or edge of your map out of the way.
2. Don't use roads, use sidewalks. You only need 1 road square and can do everything else with sidewalks. It is a 3:1 ratio for land use with that tip.
3. Roads don't need to loop, its a network.
4. Moving buildings is free and much cheaper than demolishing and rebuilding.
There you have it. My best tips for winning at Zynga's CityVille game on Facebook.
UPDATE: (on shipping) You may want to skip shipping and stick with farming or the train. Shipping is essentially farming from your shore (costly farming). Read on to see if anything I say changes your mind.
- Like farming, the boats cost $100, the same cost as a plot of land.
- Like farming, collecting your supplies consumes 1 energy.
- Like farming, where you pay to plant your crops, in shipping, you pay to send your ships each time.
- Unlike farming, you have to pay for $60,000 in expansions to unlock shipping.
- Unlike farming, you need a pier, which costs $5000. Now the pier gives you about 450 in storage, very similar to what the $1200 "sticks" storage would have cost you.
So $65,000 coins later you can "ship". But the return on that shipping isn't as good as corn 1:1.57 or wheat 1:1.83. Sidney shipping returns at 1:1.24
What if you needed goods fast? You could send 16 ships to SanFrancisco supply that would net you 300 goods at a cost of $394, but it would cost you also 16 energy. Given the restricted supply of energy in the game it would be a wiser choice to send the train to Charlieville. Now it isn't a good return on investment when you are counting coins to goods, but it costs zero energy and nets you 300 goods in 5 minutes with 2 clicks. The trains cost 3 times more coin than SanFrancisco Supply, but what does that energy cost.
Hope that update helps you out!
Cheers,
Greg
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