Farmville 2: Power Leveling

Bad Pun Alert!

Plowing Through Levels in FV2

I recently had an odd situation occur in Farmville 2; I hit Level 15, and suddenly ran out of quests. I (correctly) assumed quests were given to player based on certain levels i.e. I'd finished levels that the level designers at Zynga had assumed would take me until at least Level 16 to complete. So with no quests to occupy me in Level 15, I wanted to level up as quickly as possible. In the end, it took me about 36 hours to get to Level 17. Here are some tips to turbocharge your leveling:

• Play at Zynga.com. I cannot emphasize enough how much more efficient it is if you play the game through the Zynga portal.  You can get literally dozens of neighbors in the space of a few hours who can supply you with XP when you visit their farm, or provide you with quest items when you request them. Again, Zynga.com is a godsend when it comes to accelerating the leveling process.

• Crafting. Every step of the crafting process rewards you with some amount of XP. Cumulatively, each step in creating an item gives you a few XP; put them all together and you can get 20 to 30+ XP per item.

• Plant items with quick grow times and higher XP rewards. For example, Radishes, which thankfully unlocked at Level 15, have a grow time of 2 Minutes and reward 3 XP per plant. 

• Fertilize as much as possible. For every prize winning plant you grow, you are rewarded XP equal to the number of pounds (lbs) of the vegetable or fruit. In other words a 12 lbs. Pumpkin will give you 12 XP.

• Prized animals reward higher XP than animals that produce resources, like eggs, milk, or cheese. I usually keep a half dozen Prized livestock stored away in my inventory, and break them out into the barnyard when I need my livestock to produce just XP, not resources.

I am sure there are other strategies other players use to level up quickly, so I'd love to hear any other tips you have. Happy leveling!

Farmville 2 - Pecan-apalooza!

Strategies for "Bake Sale" and "No Horsing Around" Quests.

Hint: It Involves A Lot Of Pecans

Around Level 14, you will encounter the aforementioned quests in Farmville 2. Like most quests in FV2, they aren't difficult, but rather time-consuming, if you are not prepared. Both quests revolve around Pecans, which unlock at Level 13, so you in all likelihood, you might not have planted any Pecan Trees yet, which will put you behind the curve when it comes to completing these quests. In a nutshell (ha!), you'll need to craft/make 5 Pecan Muffins for the "Ho No Horsing Around" quest, and sell 10 Pecan Muffins for the "Bake Sale" quest. Luckily, this means the effort you put into 1 quest will apply to the other quest, which makes things a bit easier.  If you do the Crafting math, that means you'll need 50 Pecans to complete the pecan portion of both quests. The logistics of getting 50 Pecans are as follows:

1 Pecan Tree Harvest  =      2.5 Pecans Nuts (on average)

Pecan Tree Harvest Time =  12 Hours

Therefore, 1 Pecan Tree will = 5 Pecan Nuts per Day. 

So, it will take 10 days to get enough Pecan Nuts from 1 tree to complete the crafting for these quests. Or 5 days with 2 Pecan trees. And so on...So plant ahead, and save some time.

 

Farmville 2

No Horsing Around Quest

I Gotta See A Man About A Horse

The "No Horsing Around" quest in Farmville 2, which probably appears somewhere around level 13 or 14 (but your mileage may vary), contains yet another minor mystery concerning the acquisition of saddles to complete the quest. The quest text merely says "Gather 3 Saddles..." and unhelpfully has a "help" button marked "Go To Farm", which brings back to staring cluelessly at your farm. Are they hidden? Do I make them? What's the deal?

The answer, like most things in FV2, is that in order to get said said saddles, you have to buy them. Actually, you have to buy a horse which drops saddles. On occasion. When the mood strikes said horse, it appears. Go to the "General Store", and buy yourself a baby Black Arabian Horse. If you have the Farm Bucks, and want to save yourself the in-game money, or bottles, you can also buy an adult Black Gypsy Horse for 54 Farm Bucks, or an adult Black Arabian for 30 FB. Either way, they're not cheap. 

Even if you go the cheapskate route like I did, and buy a baby Arabian, the numbers still aren't great. Here's the cold hard numbers on a Baby Arabian Horse:

Cost:                                 22,000

Bottles Required:                6

Feed Required:                  12

Time Between Feedings:    24 hours

Drops:                               2 Horseshoes

                                         3  Saddles (sometimes)

Thus, it could take several feedings to acquire the Saddles i.e. days. You could buy multiple horses, but with Level 15 land unlock looming, which requires, among other things, 125,000 coins, this is not the time to be spend multiples of 22,000 coins to get 2 or 3 horses  to get 3 saddles. So settle in, cowboys and cowgirls. This quest might take some time.

FarmVille 2

"Spicing It Up" Quest Hints

aka Cheese Please!

OK, so I've playing Farmville 2. Well, that is to say, a lot of Farmville 2. It's a lot of fun, and the annoyance of having to co-opt FB friends to be farm "neighbors" is gone with the advent of the game on Zynga.com. Anyways....I am currently at around Level 13, and just got the 'Spicing It Up" quest series. Nothing on the surface of the quest seemed all that difficult: Master Habanero Peppers, Harvest some Wells, and make 5 Spicy Quesos sauces. Making Quesos proved more difficult than I thought - it requires 4 Cheese Wheels (which come from cows and some goats), and 10 Habanero Peppers. Simple enough on paper, right?

"Please don't cut the cheese!"

Wrong! Despite having 3 cows and 1 cheese-producing goat, I was getting no cheese after feeding them. After about a day, the goat gave up 2 cheese out of perhaps 5-7 feedings. I was regularly making milk, and fertilizer, but cheese drops were like winning the lactose lottery. In other words, very seldom. Turns out cheese is a rare drop, meaning it doesn't happen with every feeding. This is the type of thing I'd expect from a hardcore RPG like World of Warcraft, not a casual Facebook game like Farmville 2. Plus, there's no visual indication, or text, to let you know cheese is not going to be dropped 100% of the time after each feeding. It's a relatively hardcore game mechanic, coupled with really poor user feedback. So be forewarned in the future.

Also, I'd recommend going with the Sanaanen Goats, rather than the Loghorn Cows, for cheese production; Cows require 4 hours between feedings, Goats require 15 minutes.