CityVille is comparatively newest game from Zynga, the makers of the very popular FarmVille and FrontierVille games on Facebook. In CityVille, you move out of the quiet countryside settings of those two games to construct your own successful city from its simple beginnings into a metro city. The game features a lot of challenging dynamics which is fun, but can also be confusing. So here’s a CityVille Beginner’s Guide, featuring CityVille cheats, strategies, tips and tricks to get up and running quickly.
CityVille Beginner's Guide
Your tiny little habitat will become a booming metropolis quickly in CityVille.
CityVille Basics
If you’ve played any games recently on Facebook, especially any of the city building themed games, then the basics of CityVille will already be familiar. You’ll try to level up by accumulating XP, earn coins, utilize cash and manage your energy.
Energy
Energy is one of the more precious resources in the game. FrontierVille players are already familiar with the concept, but old-school FarmVille players may not have seen it before. Basically, you use up energy on each of the tasks you perform in the game. Energy recharges automatically over time (Very slowly), and there are several different ways to speed it up. All you need to know as a beginner, however, is that you’ll want to maximize your energy use early in the game.
Experience(XP)
XP, which stants for Experience Points, is earned by completing all the various tasks, quests and activities in the game. As you earn more and more XP, you’ll advance in levels. Besides looking cool, you’ll unlock access to many new buildings and decorations in the game as you reach the higher levels.
Coins and Cash
Coins and cash are familiar concepts. for those who are not familiar, Coins are the lifeblood of your city. You’ll spend them to build just about everything. You can also spend coins on goods for your businesses. You earn coins by operating businesses in your city, which consume goods. Cash is the paid currency in CityVille. You start out with some free cash and earn a little bit as you level up. But for the most part, cash must be purchased from Zynga. Cash unlocks certain special exclusive items in the game and also can be used to accelerate the building of some items, particularly community buildings.
Houses
All of your city dwellers need a place to live, and there are a lot of housing choices in the game. You earn rent from all the houses, so they are an important source of coins, especially early on in the game. Each type of house holds a different number of people and larger houses cost more to build. You’re also limited by a population cap, which is the maximum number of residents you can have in your city. To raise that cap, you must construct community buildings.
Community Buildings
Community Buildings is a new and confusing concept in CityVille. In order to grow your population cap, you’ll need to build community buildings. In addition to costing coins and energy to construct, community buildings need to be staffed by employees. You can either recruit your friends to join your staff for each building or pay cash to fill the positions. The first community building you’ll construct will be City Hall. After that, you’ll want to build a post office and police station and so on.
Businesses
Businesses are another core component of your city. They provide a place for your residents to spend money, earning coins for your city. The first business you’ll build in the game is a bakery, and you’ll be able to create several different businesses as you gain levels. A very important concept in CityVille is the use of goods. Businesses need to be supplied with goods, which you can produce at your farm and later on through trade with neighbors.
CityVille Businesses
People need to shop and businesses in CityVille are a big part of your growth.
Franchises
Another new concept in CityVille is franchises. Once you’ve build a Franchise Headquarters, you can place franchises of your businesses in your neighbor’s cities. You then supply your franchises with goods and collect coins from those businesses as well. Franchises require a little more management and require a solid supply of goods, but can be a very lucrative way to earn lots of coins in the game.
Farming
So finally when you thought that now you’ve moved to the big city you wouldn’t have to worry about farming anymore? Not so easy! Farming is a critical part of the game. Crops can be planted and tended to create goods, which supply your businesses and franchises in the game. The crops work very similarly to how they did in FarmVille and FrontierVille. Each type of crop produces a different amount of goods and has a different harvest time, ranging from 5 minutes to a day or two. Crops left untended will wither and die, resulting in a loss of the coins used to plant them.
CityVille Farm
Farming is still a big part of city life. An added complexity is storage. Because your goods aren’t consumed all at once, you’ll need to store them. You start out with a single barn, but will quickly want to create silos and other storage buildings to contain all the goods you produce at the farm.
CityVille Shipping
Shipping can be done two ways: by train or by, well, ship. You'll only have access to shipping via train until a later mission comes along that involves building a pier and whatnot. Luckily, the train station is raring to go as soon as you arrive. However, we don't recommend you jump into shipping until you're well into the swing of things
Quests
Your early experience with CityVille will be filled with several goals and quests that you receive. In addition to teaching you some of the core concepts of the game, the goals provide you with important early rewards that will help you grow quickly. In fact, you can pretty much stick to following goals through the first several levels of the game. In some cases, you might want to hold off on doing certain tasks (like building storage silos) until you get a goal that requires you to build them.
Friends and Neighbors
We will publish detailed and advanced tips and tricks from next Week onwards so keep watching this space