County Fair and State Fair How To

Many of us take this for granted, but I do come across players who think that getting 24000 County Fair points a week have to be cheating. It's not. Nor is getting 200000 State Fair points a sign of cheating. In general it means that they are good, hard working, efficient farmers.

1. Play on Zynga. I can't stress this enough. This is where you get the most friends who play, the easiest access to posted items and so on.

2. Have hundreds of active friends who play FV2. You need a lot of people to ask for water and fertilizer from.

3. Go to the General Store and Sort By XP. Now you know what crops and trees will give the most XP. Then look at how long time it takes to grow them. You want as long time as possibly, but if you play at the same time once a day you don't want 1d crops and trees. I use crops that are ready within 15-16 hours most of the time. Unless I know I will level up or have instant speed grow from the co-op, then I use 1d crops.
The simple recipe is that: Time + High XP = More Prized Goods = Higher Fair Points.

4. Use fields and groves. Make sure to raise their levels as soon as you can afford it. Higher level fields and groves produce more prized goods.

5. Always use heirloom trees. Store elder trees if you have enough pruning sheers, sell them if you need them.

6. Always fertilize. No fertilizer, no prized goods. Use the nurseries to create animals that produce more fertilizer, and keep a good stock of animals with short feeding times. Gold-Laced Cochin Chicken is a clear favorite here, a chance of 3 fertilizer every 5 minutes + more fertilizer if it's nursery raised.

7. Buy a shovel. You don't have to buy the expensive ones, a 2X Shovel is enough. Remember that you are teamed up with players who Zynga see as "equals". This means that if you can afford to expensive shovels you'll be teamed up with others who can too. In the long run this means that you'll have to be able to buy them, every week, to keep up. (This is also where you'll find the most cheaters.) On the other hand, if you can afford it then the 10X Shovel will provide the most fair points.

8. Be prepared for the 2X Double Time. Once you've reached the State Fair goal you get 2X Double Time for a limited time (max 48hours). During this time your fair points (after the use of a shovel), will double. 100 points x 2(Shovel) = 200 x 2(Double Time) = 400. Think this through. Instead of 100 points you get 400. Multiply this with how many points you get when you harvest your farm. This is the time when you normally make the most fair points. Make sure you use it to the max.
Tips! This is where I use the co-op goal super grow (when the farm is instantly ready for harvest). This means that I have to avoid clicking on the Market Stand once the co-op goal is reached, but it's worth it.
This is also a good time to level up if possible. Craft high XP items to level up with. (I find the Crafting Kiln the most efficient for this task.)

9. Get water by asking your (hundreds) of friends for help and clicking the post feed, also visit neighbour farms to click on sprinklers. Send water as free gifts and hope that your friends will do the same.

10. Use visiting neighbors to speed grow the crops for the fair. Place the fields close to the entrance (by the Market Stand) since most visitors usually stay in that area. Also put a couple of single heirloom tress there. If a neighbor click on a tree, transfer it to a grove, water, fertilize and then let the neighbor go to work. The whole grove will be speed grown.
Remember to always visit those who visit you to keep them coming back. Click on high XP crops of groves to get the prized crops from the first ones you visit.

11. Always use your Farm Hands to speed grow. You know where you will put them. Make sure it's on your highest XP 1d crops to get the most out of them.

12. If you can't play all day, then log on regularly to use water and feed animals to get fertilizer.


How about the Cheaters then? They are out there and they do get all the good stuff as a reward for being bad. It's not fair in any form or way. One thing that can easily be spotted are the ones who cheat to get Double Time for more than the 48 hour limit. It's also fair to assume that those who get more than 1 million points cheat in one way or the other, even though it's possible to do it the legal way. (How to get 1.5 million points without cheating.)

Zynga have put up a page where we can report the cheaters, and I suggest you use it. As always with Zynga, there seems to be little action, but, the more reports they get the more obvious it will be to them that this is a huge problem. (Not only in the state fair).

Reporting a suspicious player

Fertilizer Shed

We've finally gotten a way to store more fertilizer. The shed will cost favors, and can at this point be upgraded 5 times. At lvl 5 you should be able to store 150 fertilizer.* On the other hand, it takes longer to fill it.

At lvl 1 the shed holds 16 fertilizer, not much more than  before.

* You get to store 150 fertilizer (lvl 5) on your meter bar where you have 100 fertilizer before the shed. The fertilizer shed it self will not hold 150 fertilizer.  Disappointing to say the least.

Farmville 2 celebrates its 3rd Birthday today =)

I can't remember what we got the other years, but we got a Golden Palomino horse this year.

How to get 1.5 million points for the State Fair without cheating.

Since I blogged about State Fair ain't Fair I've wondered about one thing. How much would it cost to make 1.5 million state fair points the legal way? Now I have the answer. Roughly 3600€ (or $4000US) for one week.

This is how it could be done, theoretically, I don't have the actual money to try it out.

Put Heirloom Horse Mango in 30 level 5 groves. Place the groves so that they are easy to water, fertilize, speed grow and harvest. Start them up and wait until the next State Fair starts. Get a x10 shovel, that's 125 Farm Bucks (22.7€ or $25.2 a day). Make sure you have the x2 Double Time Bonus.

Speed grow the groves, harvest, water, fertilize and repeat until you have the 1.5 million points needed. You will need to harvest the groves about 60 times. Buy 100 pack Water, 100 pack Speed Grow and 150 pack Fertilizer to get the best prize. Check how long your x2 bonus last, that's how much time you have to do this. (The maximum time is 48h.)

If you have a Free Water Time Certificate you lower the cost by about 2200€ (or $2500).
If you have a Hungry Animal Time Certificate you can lower the fertilizer cost by about 475€ (or $528).
If you have both you lower the cost with about 2675€ (or $3028).
Leveling up will also lower the cost since it's free speed grow and will give points from other crops and animals too.

Now, remember, this is how much money Zynga loses per cheater and week. It's a lot of money considering how many cheaters there are, and Zynga does very little to stop them.

How to maximize your chances in the County/State Fair the legal way.

Breeding Barn Farmville 2

Pedigree Stars

The new horse Breeding Barn is here and I've decided to unlock it early.

This is how you do it.
Open the Breeding Barn, pick two horses to breed. Remember that a horse can only be bread once. A star with golden pieces will show what horses are best to breed. Pay 10 - 35 favors (depending on your account). Feed the horses you are breeding to speed up the breeding (3 times) and your new foal arrives together with some extra gifts. Congratulations on your new horse.
(Click on image to enlarge.)

Now it's time to find the bugs....

Bug #1: Invisible horses. After breeding some horses they will turn invisible, or they will turn invisible after feeding.
Bug #2:  A pile of galloping horses. When using the arrows to scroll between horses inside the Breeding Barn the horses will gallop to the side. Sometimes they pile up and obscure the horses behind them. Exiting the barn and reentering fixes it, but it's annoying.
Bug #3:  Frozen horses. Horses freeze and can't be moved or fed. The page has to be reloaded to unfreeze them, (sometimes more than once).  It happens often and reloading the game all the time is time consuming.
Bug #4:  The sign above the horses is now covering the horse, making it difficult to pick up the horse, often resulting in accidental super feeds instead.
Bug #5: Blue Ghost Horse. A blue silhouette of a horse sometimes appear in the Breeding Barn. The ghost horse does not represent a horse on the farm.
Bug #6?:  This one is odd. Breeding the same kind of horse can bring different results in pedigree. I've gotten a foal of lesser pedigree (p1 instead of p2) several time by now.

Feed to speed up

Pick a couple

Bonus Rewards

All Grown Up

You got Twins!

Neighbors

The Neighbors can visit your farm hand help out. The number of helps depend on their County Fair status, ranging from 5 to 10 help points. You can add 300 neighbors, + some that slip in though they shouldn't be able to. (I have 347.)

Visiting your neighbors is a way to get coin, XP, resources, finish quests and get visitors to your own farm.Still, the % of neighbors that will keep on visiting your farm is quite low. Having 347 neighbors I got about 50-60 visits a day, while on top in the County/State Fair. Once I fell behind in the Fair, the number dropped to 20-30. (The highest ranked get more visitors, it's a major reason to do well in the County/State Fair.)

You can't remove the neighbors you don't like, but inactive neighbors can be remove after a certain amount of time. You'll get the option to visit or remove when hovering the mouse pointer over their avatar. Note that they may come back if they start playing again.


Tips: When visiting your neighbors:

Heirloom Remu Tree Grove

The first 5-10 neighbors you visit will give Prized Crops that also gives you extra coin and XP. The higher XP the crop or Heirloom Tree has the more XP you get. Learn how to recognize the Heirloom Trees and Crops that will be the best for you. Heirloom Remu Trees gives the highest XP (1108XP + over 8000 coin) you can possibly get, and I think that Soybeans gives the highest coin (over 12000). You can compare that to the 250XP you get for the highest XP crop, Jerusalem Artichoke. Use 4-5 visiting power on the trees/crops and use the rest to get resources you need.

Clicking on sprinklers will give you 1 water per sprinkler, and your neighbor will get 1 water too. Clicking on wells, water towers, water troughs, might give you water, if you are lucky, and your neighbor will not get water. The polite thing to do is to click the sprinklers. Some neighbors even put a row of sprinklers outside of their crops so that you can click on them easily.

Some neighbors put up signs and/send messages with requests about what they want you to do on their farm. It's up to you to decide if you want to or not. Do you have things you want them to help you with or doesn't it matter?
My personal rule is that it has to be quick and easy. Don't put up a sign asking me to water your trees at the entrance of the farm, then leave the trees at the far back of the farm. I won't go there. The same goes for people asking me to feed a specific type of animal, but keep all animals mixed in great herds. Visiting neighbors takes time and I want to get in and out as quickly as possible.

Inbox

The inbox is the first thing you come to when starting the game. There you will find the gifts sent to you, help requests from friends and notifications about who have helped you by sending resources.
Once a day you can also send a "Mystery Box" to the feed. The gift you get when someone click the link is random and can by anything from coins to power packs.


Tips:
There are things you should leave in the inbox for later.

In the Gifts section you should save the water and fertilizer.

In the Help Request section you should leave the water, fertilizer and baby bottles.

Click on all other messages to remove them, there is an upper limit as to how many messages you can have in your inbox. I've read that the limit is 300, but I've had more than that in the inbox. Still it's worth removing the things you don't need since more messages will drop in and fill it up as time goes.

Later on in the game you can go back and get the resources you need by clicking the messages. You will need to empty the inbox within 24 hours or you rick losing the resources you've saved for later.

Reloading the game will also add messages to the inbox that don't show up while you are in game, (at least if you get a lot of messages like I do).

Special Delivery Box

Next to your Market Stand you'll find the Special Delivery Box. You can send gifts to 100 friends and the gifts are randomized.

Tips:
Go back to the Special Delivery Box later on in the game, and you might be able to send more gifts than the initial 100.
Don't harvest the Special Delivery Box until you're sure you have room for additional items, such as salt, sugar and water.
The Special Delivery Box can only hold a maximum of 15 gifts so you need to empty it when it reaches that number.

Free Gifts

Free Gifts are sent to all of your friends that play Farmville 2 and you find them in the top bar next to the play tab. A lot of people don't use this feature and it's a shame. If all my friends sent me water I'd get several hundred extra water per day. (Mind-boggling I know.)

Most people agree that water is the best gift, some think fertilizer is better. I've never come across anyone who think the other options are worth it.

Tips: The gifts will end up in the top part of your Inbox. Don't click on those links if you already have the maximum of water/fertilizer or you'll lose it. You still need to use it within a day so don't forget to go back and click the links.
("Accept and Send" does not mean that you send your friend water too, they'll get coins.)

Groves

Lvl 1 Matching Grove

Groves are bought with coins and favors and there is a limit to how many you can buy (45). The groves could earlier be bought with coins and then you had your friends help build them. Finding a neighbor farm with more groves than you can buy today, does not necessarily mean that they are cheating.

Groves use less water and give larger crops. Making matching groves, with one kind of tree, is even better. Heirloom groves produces most, and give large prized fruits for the State/County Fair.

Tips: Put a grove close to the entrance of your farm to optimize the odds of your neighbors clicking on them. Also put a couple of single trees by it. When you see that a neighbor will click on a single tree, you move it into a grove. Water, fertilize and then let the neighbor go to work. The neighbor will then speed grow the whole grove. This does work with water and fertilizer too of course, but speed grow is more valuable than the other two.

Warning!: Elder trees are the worst to have in a grove. They take more water than heirloom trees and does not drop random Pruning Shears as ordinary trees do. The game will warn you about the first elder tree you come across during harvest, and you'll be offered to sell or store it, but there can be more elder trees in your groves. Check the groves regularly and remove them.  Store the elder trees if you have all the Pruning Shears you can hold, and sell them later when you need more.

Bees

Bee Box

 The Bee Box is built with the help of your friends (as always). Then you harvest crops to fill it with pollen. When it's full you harvest the Bee Box for honey and honey combs. Once you've collected enough honey combs you'll get a Honey Bee Hive (5 in total). The Bee Box stays on your farm and you collect honey for the Honey Bee Hive as well as some recipes. You put honey in the Honey Bee Hive (once a day) and use the bees to fertilize.

Tips: Use the bees to fertilize fields rather than plots. The bees will fertilize 4 plots while a field holds 5 plots.

Honey Bee Hive

Warning! Bee hives does not count when you need to fertilize things for some quests.

Animal Barn

Animal Barn.

A building bought with coins and favors. When first bought it needs to be filled with all your water troughs and you shady trough. (Some report that they had to buy additional troughs to be able to use the Animal Barn.)

The Animal Barn is the building with the most bugs at this point. Earlier it stole all feed when fed through a feeding trough. That seems to be fixed now. Now it freezes in two different ways.

1) It freezes when an animal becomes prized. You can then see a sign that you have hungry animals in it, but when you go there it says that you have 0 hungry animals.
Fix: Open the Animal Barn and super feed the animals once. No feed will be taken from you and the prized animals will leave the barn. OR, do as Zynga suggest add an adult hungry animal to the barn. Remove an animal if you have to. Then feed the Animal Barn. (I have not tried out Zyngas solution.)

2) It freezes and you can't do anything with it.
Fix: Reload the page. Feed. Reload again. Repeat until it works again. Zynga claims this has been fixed, but I still experience the problem.

The Animal Barn also spits out animals that start walking around, sometimes prized other times adult animals. You can't put the prized back in the barn or into the pasture. Feed them and they will go to pasture. You can put the adult animals back into the barn, but they will be thrown out again the next time you feed an animal in the barn. Wait until they are hungry, or speed feed them, and they will become prized with one feeding. You might have to manually move them to pasture.

State Fair ain't Fair (Either)

The cheaters stood out in the old County Fair, but in the State Fair they come with bells and whistles. As long as you are competing against cheaters you have absolutely Zero chance of winning the trophy.

This is how it works. Each week you compete against a random set of people, not your neighbors. "Based on Medal/Trophy tier, County Fair points and player level." According to Zynga.

Great! Now you can get away from the cheaters that have been annoying you in the County Fair, right? Wrong.

Once you have competed against the random people, (odds are that some are cheaters), you are weighed against your neighbors. Yepp, the same old cheaters. To get the League Trophy you have to beat them too. Impossible of course. Now the cheaters have the best spots in the neighbors bar and will get the most visits.

Brilliant Zynga! That's exactly what we need, people helping the cheaters instead of those who struggle to play within the rules.

I competed against the strangers, two have over 1.3 million points. Yes, you read that right, million. Using prized shovels x10, certificates, speed grow and a lot of time I landed on 3rd place with 279649 points.

My conclusion is that it will cost too much money to compete with the cheaters. It's simply not worth it. Now there's only two choices left. Forget about the State Fair all together or join the cheaters.

EDIT 14 JUNE 2015:
Zynga claims that they have listened to the critique and that they are making changes that will make the game more fair. What changes they are making is unknown to me at this point and it still remains to see if the game becomes any fairer. I did get one ruby shovel when they made the announcement. One shovel for 24 hours to make up for weeks of struggle. I'm not impressed.

Prized Animal Clone Bug

Make sure that your farm is full with adult animals, then move a prized animal from a prized animal shed to the pasture. An Animal Crowding Alert pops up and to the right of it, the game notifies you that your prized animal has been put in your inventory. That's a clone.

Now open the pasture and move the prized animal back to its shed. The message pops up again.

Go to the inventory and you'll find two clones of the animal you moved.

I've used this bug to fill my prized animal sheds with the best prized animals I have on my farm. Some that gives more prized goods and others that give higher XP.The bug can also be used to fill the pasture so that you can get fuel pump upgrades and keeper points in the journal.

Discounts on Farm Upgrades!

I started my oldest farm when Farmville 2 was just a baby, many years ago. Back then we bought groves with coin and had our friends help build them, just like any other building. I started collecting groves on a big scale since I use trees to make coins and get XP. The problem is that I couldn't upgrade all my groves when they changed the groves function.

Until today. =)

Using the discounts I can upgrade all groves, and I've luckily collected a lot of favors to spend.

Co-op Power Hours Bug

I bought a Co-op Power Hour pack for my co-op, or so I thought. It turns out that I'm the only one that benefited from it. A Google search let me know that this is a bug that has been there since 2014!