Tips on “Farmville” (A Facebook Game Application)

Everything on your farm takes up 1 or more units of area. Crops are planted in a 3x3 area (for convenience's sake, I'll call one crop plot an acre). You can buy extra land as the game progresses, so the total size of your farm is not set in stone. What is set in stone, however, is that you will not have an even number of acres; there will always be two units in width and length that cannot be planted with a crop.

All animals but horses and cows take up 1 unit; cows and horses take up a 2x1 space.

All trees take up 1 unit of space.

It takes 15 cents to plow. In order to calculate profit margins on crops, I have subtracted the cost of the seed and the cost of the plowing from the sale price, then have divided by the number of hours it takes to mature.

Crops are generally the most profitable thing you can grow on your farm. While there are some trees which will yield better than crops, especially early in the game, they all require that you plant nine trees in a 3x3 crop area in order to achieve that level of profitability. The problem with that is that when you have that many trees that close together, you can't see the fruit on most of them, so it's hard to know when to harvest. It's easier (and requires less clicking) to harvest a crop on that acre.

However, as I noted above, you will always have a small area around your farm where you cannot plant a crop. I use this area for trees and livestock, so that every bit of space on my farm is turning a profit.

Trees grow to the top and left of your viewing area. It is therefore best to plant your trees to the top and left of your farm. If you plant them at the bottom or to the right, they will obscure some of your crops if you plant right up against them.

Trees are more profitable than animals, but animals are shorter and do not obscure the fruits of the trees, therefore, in my wasted space, I plant one row of trees and then have a row of animals in front of them. This is much easier and more functional than two rows of trees.

It's wise to have some trees and animals in addition to your crops, because neither trees nor animals go to waste. If you leave your crop in the field too long, though, it will go to waste and you will have no profit. If you were poor to begin with, you can run completely out of money, having nothing with which to re-plow and start over again. Trees and animals, although they are not nearly as profitable as crops, are like a savings account; if your crop ever fails, you can always harvest your trees and animals and get enough capital back together to start over.

Because your crops can go to waste in the field, it's important that you time your harvests correctly. For instance, don't plant a 4-hour crop right before you go to bed for the night; it will be wasted by the time you get up. Likewise, if you are going on vacation, don't plant a crop at all until you get back.

If you will be an infrequent visitor to your farm, go with a tree or animal which needs to be harvested infrequently and will not go to waste. Nothing is worse on a profit margin than waste.

The following list shows you the most profitable crops for a particular length of time. Depending on your game level, some of these crops may not be currently available to you, so use whatever you can at the moment for maximum profit.

All of the crops' profits are calculated by subtracting the cost of seed and plowing from the sale value, and then that's divided by the number of hours it takes to mature. That lets us know how much money we're making on a crop per hour.

Example: It's better to make 2.5 cents profit on a strawberry acre every hour than 65 cents profit on one wheat crop every three days, because the strawberries will net 180 cents in three days, versus only 65 cents in three days on the wheat.

The only reason why you would want to plant the wheat versus the strawberries is if you are going away for a long weekend and won't be able to harvest for three days. At which point, a 50 cent harvest is better than no harvest at all.

2 hours - 5.5 cents/hr raspberries
4 hours - 6.5 blueberries; 2.5 strawberries
6 hours - 3.3 aloe vera
8 hours - 7.25 tomatoes; 2.875 pumpkins
12 hours - 6.25 carrots; 3 rice
16 hours - 6.75 coffee
1 day - 6.875 sunflowers; 3.208 peppers; 1.375 soybeans
2 days - 4.5 yellow bell peppers; 2.75 pineapples; 1.375 squash; 1 eggplant
3 days - 2.986 corn; 2.708 potatoes; 1.625 cotton; 0.903 wheat
4 days - 2.27 watermelons; 1.24 artichokes

I have not obtained complete access to all of the crops yet, so I will amend this list as I level up and find ever-more profitable crops (for the curious, I am currently at Level 25).

The following is a list of trees based on profitability. Trees which are in bold are unique trees--you cannot purchase them yourself; someone has to gift them to you.

Cherry - matures every 2 days/averages 9 cents per day
Apple - 3 days/9.33 cents
Orange - 4 days/10 cents
Plum - 3 days/10 cents
Fig - 3 days/11 cents
Peach 4 days/11.75 cents
Avocado - 3 days/12.33 cents
Lemon - 3 days/13.66
Apricot - 4 days/14 cents
Lime - 5 days/15 cents
Grapefruit - 3 days/16.66 cents
Passion fruit - 5 days/18.6 cents
Banana - 3 days/18.6
Date - 3 days/23 cents

The following is a list of animals based on profitability. Animals which are in bold are unique animals--you cannot purchase them yourself; someone has to gift them to you.

Cow - 1 day to mature/averages 6 cents per day
Chicken - 1 day/8 cents
Sheep - 3 days/9.33 cents
Rabbit - 4 days/15 cents
Pig - 2 days/15 cents
Duck - 2 days/22.5 cents
Goat - 2 days/27 cents
Horse ?

Animals and trees have an expensive upfront purchase price. If you decide to get rid of them, however (sell them), they will only sell for the price of one harvest; you will not get your initial investment back. So don't buy a lot of something that you then have to turn around and get rid of (unless you want experience-see next tip).

Turn cash into experience. You will get experience points for every tree you plant or animal that you place. But if you sell the tree or animal, the experience points are not taken away. So you can plant a lot of trees, then turn around and sell them and plant some more. The best thing to use in this case is a cherry tree; at 45 cents per experience point gained, it's the cheapest of all the animals and trees to get experience with.

Crops seem to go to waste in proportion to their growing time. So a crop of raspberries (2 hours to maturity) will go to waste faster than watermelons (4 days to maturity). From what I have seen, a 2-hour crop will go to waste about 2 hours after it has matured (4 hours from plant time). This may or may not infer that everything goes to waste at double its maturity rate (e.g. if it matures in one day, it will go to waste one day after maturity--two full days from when you planted it).

In the beginning, when I had a small farm, I planted my entire farm at once. But now that I have expanded twice, I find that harvesting, plowing and planting the entire thing in one go is tedious. Instead, I plant half of it with one crop and half with another (or plant the same crop, but halfway through the first planting's growing time), and get them maturing at varying times. This does not increase my profits, but does make playing the game more fun and less tedious.

For those wondering about the tractor, harvester and seeder, they will plow, harvest and plant (respectively) four acres with one click. They use 1 unit of gas per acre. Your gas tank holds 150 units. All three machines run on the same tank of gas, so if you only want to use machines to farm, you should have a 50-acre plot.

A lot of people have asked about the gold things that spring up when you plow. As far as I can tell, those are coins that you're plowing up. I haven't yet determined how much they are worth. I have seen them appear when using both the hoe and the tractor.