I actually tried quite a few of these guides, but not many of them had much helpful information to give. They were either designed for people who’d gotten all the way to the upper levels already, or they were severely outdated because of additions made to the game since they were released. FarmVille is a relatively new game and is still in the Beta stage, so a lot of improvements have been made to it in a short time and many of the guides on the market have not been updated to account for these changes.

So I finally broke down and bought FarmVille Secrets. This guide has been released pretty recently, so it’s up to date on all of the latest advances in the game. I found it to be immensely helpful to me, and I was quickly raking in the coins and moving up in levels like you wouldn’t believe.

Do You Lost in FarmVille? In addition to the helpful tips, FarmVille Secrets also includes some handy charts and other resources that help you to compare items available in the Market and also helps you to plan out your spending and improvement strategies. I think you’ll be as pleasantly surprised as I was when you read this guide and put the tips in it to use on your farm. I started to see results overnight almost. It’s definitely a guide worth checking out if you’re having trouble getting the hang of FarmVille, or if you just want to give your game an extra boost. Either way, you’ll be happy you tried it.

And I was actually rather surprised. Building my own virtual farm was much more enjoyable than I’d imagined it would be. Part of that was because there really were a lot of options and a lot of decisions to make. The more I played the game, the more I realized that there probably could be a lot of helpful information in a guide because there were just too many ways you could play.

Is Buying a FarmVille Guide Worth It? I was doing alright on my own, but I was getting more and more curious about what I might be missing out on. After I reached level 13 and was having a hard time getting farther, I decided to give one of the guides a shot. I bought FarmVille Secrets, a relatively new guide and pretty up to date on the latest additions to the game. I really wasn’t expecting too much, but this guide just blew me away.

Is Buying a FarmVille Guide Worth It? In no time, I was the Cream of the Crop, a level 24 farmer with a Big Family Farm and tons of neighbors to visit. Using the tips in this guide helped me way more than I thought they would – even when I read them. There’s a lot more to this farming stuff than meets the eye. I’d recommend picking up a copy of FarmVille Secrets if you’re interested in getting the most out of your FarmVille experience.

After your dog is fully grown, your dog will be able to learn tricks! Once your dog has learned a trick, he cannot forget it! While learning a new trick, you need to feed your dog 1-7 dog treats.

You can get treats from your friends or buy them from the market for 5 Farmcash. You can only feed your dog 1 treat per day, per trick. Your dog can learn up to 4 tricks.

The first trick takes 1 dog treat. Trick *2 takes 3 treats. Trick *3 takes 3 treats. Trick *4 takes 7 treats.

Remember you can only feed your dog 1 treat a day when in a trick, so trick *4 takes 7 days to finish. Also trick *4 is that special trick that your dog breed does.

1 Treat = 1 Day

This tells you how many times out of how many times you need to feed your dog a treat, and how long before. The count down is the same as feeding. There are 2, 24 hour count downs.

Here is my guide to levelling up quickly, for those that have a life outside of the virtual world.  This guide does NOT require you to log in to Farmville every four hours, or set your alarm for 3am so you can harvest those berries, LOL! It is aimed at the student or worker who can only log in a few times a day. For the purpose of this guide I will start at level 5, but first let’s lay some ground rules:

Rule 1: Forget about aesthetics. This is not about having a pretty farm, it’s all about levelling up!

Rule 2: Use all of your land for crops if possible. Put your gifts (trees and animals) around the back edges of your farm (where you can’t fit plots), and fill the rest or your farm with your crops. You can make your farm pretty and spread out your trees and animals later, once you’ve reached a level you are happy with (see Rule 1).

Rule 3: Save your coins, and expand your farm as soon and as often as you are able to. Make sure have sufficient neighbours to meet the requirements. A bigger farm = more plots = faster levelling!

Rule 4: Try to achieve your ribbons when you get a chance, but without sacrificing too much crop space. There are numerous other threads about how to achieve your ribbons quickly, so I won’t waste time on that here.

Rule 5: Visit your neighbours once a day – at least 20 of them if possible. This will earn you extra XP (5 for the first 20 visits, and 1 for every one after). Edit: with the introduction of fertiliser neighbours take on added importance. When you fertilise a neighbours crop you get 1 XP (x 5) in addition to the XP for helping out on their farm. Also, when your neigbours visit you, every crop they fertilise earns you 1 XP at harvest time, so get as many of your neighbours as you can to visit your farm daily, and return the favour.

Rule 6: Farm vehicles don’t save you many clicks because they run out of fuel after 150 plots. Plus they take up valuable crop space, so don’t bother buying them. Go green – farm by hand!

Rule 7: Remember Rule 1, LOL!

O.K. Now that we understand the rules, let’s look at our daily plan:

Levels 5 – 11

Daily routine:

1. Plant pumpkins (8 hour crop) in the morning before school / work

2. Harvest the pumpkins and plant strawberries (4 hour crop) as soon as you get home

3. Harvest the strawberries and plant pumpkins again before you go to bed

4. Visit your neighbours and fertilise their crops – hopefully they will return the favour

5. Repeat daily

6. On weekends, if you are around your computer, plant strawberries instead of pumpkins as often as you can.

If you ever need to plant a 24 hour crop because you will be away from your computer for a long time, plant soybeans. Edit: While poinsettas are available, use them as your 24 hour crop instead of soybeans. Poinsettas are much better XP and it helps you work towards your flower ribbons.

Levels 12 – 16

Stick with the same plan as for levels 5-7. Don’t be tempted to move away from pumpkins and strawberries. Stick with them right through to level 16. Hopefully you will master those crops along the way and earn some bonus XP at harvesting time. To find out more about how mastery works. The only change from levels 5-7 is that if you ever need to plant a 24 hour crop you can now plant peppers (available at level 12).

Levels 17 – 19

Switch to blueberries instead of strawberries. Blueberries will become one of your favourite crops. Other than that, follow the plan for levels 12-16. Getting sick of those pumpkins yet?

Levels 20 – 31

Finally you can move away from those pesky pumpkins – surely you have enough to last until next Halloween now! Now you can move on to tomatoes – a fantastic and (I think) underrated crop.

Daily routine:

1. Plant tomatoes in the morning before school / work

2. Harvest the tomatoes and plant blueberries as soon as you get home

3. Harvest the blueberries and plant tomatoes before you go to bed

4. Visit your neighbours and fertilise their crops

5. Repeat daily

6. On weekends, if you are around your computer, plant blueberries instead of tomatoes as often as you can.

If you ever need to plant a 24 hour crop because you will be away from your computer for a long time, you should plant grapes now. Stick with these crops and you will master them after a few weeks. That bonus XP will come in handy as the XP needed to move up at each level becomes a lot higher.

Level 32 onwards

You can try out the peas for a 24 hour crop (much better than grapes), but for XP stick with your mastered tomatoes and blueberries and that same daily routine you started at level 20. If you get bored with tomatoes and blueberries you could upgrade to sugar cane and blackberries but the extra coin is not really worth the switch – especially because of the time it will take you to master these new crops. XP is the aim here, not coins!

Power Levelling *

Now, I have some tips for you. You can do some extra work to help level up if you have the time (and the inclination). Some people call this ‘cheating’ but since there are no rules about game play, I disagree. I prefer to call it ‘power levelling’. However you should let your own conscience guide you.

Tip 1 – the soybean delete method: This method has been well documented in other threads. This needs to be done straight after harvesting your crops, and it involves planting soybeans and deleting the plots straight away, and repeating that process. It costs you 30 coins per plot (15 to plow, 15 for the soybean seeds) and provides 3 XP (1 for plowing, 2 for sowing). So in essence is costs you 10 coins per 1 experience point, and involves a lot of clicking. Once you’re done, plant the crops in the above guide and you’re back on schedule.

Tip 2 – the hay bale drop and sell method: Just like the soybean delete method it involves a lot of clicks, and is simply a variation on the same theme. The hay bale drop and sell method involves buying yellow hay bales (for 100 coins each) from the market, and dropping them on your farm for 5 XP each. Then you sell them for 5 coins each. This equates to 19 coins per 1 experience point, so is almost double the cost of the soybean delete method. However dropping hay bales can be done wherever you have space on your farm (no need to use up valuable crop space). You could do it along the edge of your crops for example, and you can drop heaps from one single purchase at the market. The painful part is selling them – that is where all the clicks become annoying. If you have cash to burn though, I think it is easier and faster than the soybean delete method.

* power levelling costs you coins, but since you are not wasting them on buildings and decorations you will have plenty to spend on power levelling. However, remember to keep enough coins to expand your farms as often and as soon as you can. More plots = faster levelling!

I am not advocating power levelling. I am simply providing it as an option to those that want to level up as quickly as possible. It’s up to you wether you do it or not (and I really hope this thread doesn’t turn into a debate about the ethics of power levelling. ).

Finding and adding neighbors is one of the fastest ways to level up in Farmville. You need 50 friends to obtain the Local Celebrity blue ribbon which gives you 10,000 coin and 100xp. However, having plenty of Farmville neighbors has many other advantages as well. The more neighbors you have the more gifts you can receive, the more you will benefit by getting a bonus when they receive awards, and the more opportunities you will have to help your neighbors toward the Good Samartian ribbons. Plus, having friends in the game is just fun!

Unfortunately, adding people you don’t know in Facebook also exposes your personal information, your profile, and your status updates. It wouldn’t be very difficult for someone to pretend to play the game, get added as your friend, and steal all of your personal information and invade your privacy.

You should strongly consider following my 10 easy steps for protecting your Facebook profile before you add a single person you don’t know:

1. From your Facebook main page, click on the “Account” button in the upper right-hand side of the page and select “Edit Friends” in the dropdown box.
2. Select the “+Create” link on the bottom left-hand side of the page below Lists. If you don’t see the “+Create” link, click on the “All Connections” link on the upper left-hand side and you will see a link for “Create New List” in the upper-middle area. You should see a new window. Title your new list, “Farmville friends”, “Farmville neighbors” or whatever you want to call it. Select “Create List”.
3. After you have created your new list, click on the “Account” button again in the upper right-hand side of the page and select the dropdown for “Privacy Settings”.
4. Now you should see the Privacy Settings page. Select “Profile Information”.
5. Select the dropdown box for each option and select “Custom”.
6. Once you have selected “Custom” you should see a new window. At the bottom it should read, “Hide this from”. In the box in this window type the name of the list you created in Step 3 and select the list.
7. Repeat this process for every option on the page EXCEPT “Posts by Me” or your Farmville neighbors will not be able to see your updates when you share your awards, ribbons, lost animals, etc.
8. Once you have customized every option on the Profile Information page, click “Back to Privacy” on the upper left-hand side to return to the Privacy Settings page.
9. Now select the link for “Contact Information” and repeat steps 6-8 for every option on the Contact Information page.

Congratulations, you are finished! Very Important: Whenever you add a new friend for Farmville before you confirm them, select the “Add To List…” dropdown and select the name of your list (chosen in Step 3). You must put them on this list for this to work!

If you want to test and make sure it works, click on the “Preview My Profile…” link on the upper right-hand side of the Privacy Settings>Profile Information or Contact Information pages.

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Q: Can I rename my puppy?

A: No. If you really want to rename your puppy then you have to sell it and buy it again. There is no possible way to rename your puppy after you bought it.
This Farmville Guide is clearly not done, but we have to wait for our dogs to grow to learn more.

I Hope this helped!

Q: Will my puppy ever die if I forget to feed him?

A: No, your puppy will never die! If the puppy is a coin puppy, he will run away to the pound, you can then at any time buy him back for 3 Farmcash. If the puppy is a Farmcash puppy then he’ll still be right where you left him, just hungry.

Q: I am getting ‘Please Enter a Valid Name’ when naming my dog, help!

A: If you are getting ‘Please Enter a Valid Name’ when your trying to name your dog, that most likely means your name has an Inappropriate word it, such as ‘Lassie’ and ‘Boo Boo.

Q: Do I need to pay 5 Farmcash for a bag of kibble everyday I feed my puppy?

A: Most certainly not! A bag of Kibble can be sent to you buy your neighbors! As long as you have neighbors you can feed your dog 100% free!

Q: How often do I need to feed my dog?

A: You can feed your dog at the most every 24 hours for 14 days, but you need to feed your dog every 43 hours or, if he’s a coin dog, run away. If your dog is a Farmcash dog, then he will not run away and you have no fear!

Q: My Dog disappeared, what should I do?

A: If your dog disappeared, do not panic! All you need to do is walk around your farm and he’ll come running towards you. If your avatar is locked then unlock it. Look around your farm too, move around stuff and unlock other places around your farm, you could have locked him somewhere when you where walking around with him/her.

Q: Can I lock my avatar when I have a dog?

A: Yes you can lock your avatar when you have a dog! All you need to do is unlock your avatar when you buy your dog, then you can put your dog somewhere for it to stay, there are 2 ways in doing this:

1. Put your puppy in ‘Stay’ mode.
2. Lock your puppy in a spot too!

When you lock your puppy, it will NOT follow your or your friends avatar, it will stay where you put it. Although locking your avatar is helpful to your friends when fertilizing, it can be more fun for your friends and yourself if you keep you and your dog unlocked

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Farmville requires a lot of system resources in the form of RAM, and the more farms you load the higher the RAM count goes. Eventually your computer will run out of RAM and start paging* some of it to your hard drive in order to load in more stuff. This is when everything comes to a screeching halt and the next farm takes 5 minutes to ‘load’.

* paging means taking stuff that is stored in RAM (very fast) and writing it to the hard drive (very slow).

If you have a lot of neighbors you can speed things up considerably by keeping an eye on your RAM use. To do this I recommend Process Explorer for Windows users. Since I can’t link you to it, google ‘Process Explorer’ and click I’m feeling lucky.

Download it. Unzip it. Run procexp.exe. Click Options -> Replace Task Manager. Click Options -> Tray Icons -> Physical Memory History. Click Options -> Hide When Minimized (unless it’s checked already).

Now before you start farming you can do CTRL-ALT-DEL to load process explorer, minimize it, and have a little chart in your system tray telling you how much of your physical memory is being used.

As you load your neighbors’ farms you will see the bar creep up and up and up. It goes up anywhere from 10 to 50MB per farm depending on how many decorations crops and animals each neighbor has.

When it gets to about 100MB BELOW the maximum RAM on your computer, close your browser. In a few seconds your browser will be unloaded from memory and the bar will plummet back down to almost nothing.

The time it takes to close your browser and reload it in order to get back to where you were is much much much less than when you exceed your RAM totals and have to wait while it chugs away swapping memory back and forth with your hard drive.