I have noticed that there are a lot of folks out there who play, but do not see the things which makes playing the game easier. Here are a few tips to help those along.
Speeding up the game
To make the game faster, block in your farmer. The trick is blocking them in where your farmer is standing when you first load the game. Your farmer is always standing in the same location (unless you upgrade, see next paragraph) when the game loads, this is where you must block them in. You only need four bales of hay to block them in; one in each direction.
A problem with this is that when you upgrade, the default standing location of your farmer will change so you'll need to block them in again in their new location.
It only takes a minute of your time, but you'll soon see that your productivity increases something like 75%. Of all the tips, this is the A number 1.
Building a stable
If you click on your stable, then select Look inside. You will see a list of supplies that you need. Underneath each item is a button which says (in caps as quoted) ASK FOR MORE. Click one of those buttons and type in the pop-up message box how many you need of each. Once you post it, it will be visible on your wall.
The problem is that if you cancel the message to double check you will lose that post for the day. Zynga (the company who owns Farmville) hasn't fully thought through that sometimes glitches happen and should allow you to still use those buttons if it was never posted.
Gifting the generous
Most of us have what we call deadbeats as neighbors, meaning that they accept all the gifts you so very kindly send, but they never send you one back. This makes for a pain when you're sending Free Gifts because you have to remember, as you check them off, which are the deadbeats and which are not.
One workaround is using what we call thank you gifts. When you go into your requests page you click on someone's gift to accept it and to the right is a button that says, Send [name] a Thank you gift. Click that and you bounce a gift right back to the generous neighbor that sent you a gift to begin with.
The drawback to this option is that it is the very same gift that they sent you. So for example, let's say that you need a horseshoe for your stable, but your neighbor is done. So when Neighbor sends you a horseshoe and you use the thank you gift to bounce it back, your neighbor will get a horseshoe that they didn't need. On the other hand, all gifts can be traded for coins, so they can at least get something out of it.
Got more tips?
Suggest them in the comments!
