FarmVille - Tools of the trade

1. Multi Tool

is the default setting when you open the game.

2. Plow tool

This tool allows you to plow the empty field to start farming, or to get started with a new crop after harvesting.
 

WARNING:  Playing FarmVille requires A LOT of mouse clicking.
Recommendations to help avoid carpal tunnel problems:

1. Work in short stretches of 5 to 10 plots, so you limit wrist movement.
    
2. When dragging the screen, move your entire arm from the elbow or shoulder instead of just the wrist.
    
3. Place some padding under elbows and wrists to avoid direct pressure on sensitive nerves.
    
4. After you have expanded your farm a few times, you'll probably want to look into using a tractor, plow and seeder and when you can access it, even a combine. That really helps to keep down the clicking count ! Trading activities and rewards can help you get the fuel you'll need for those vehicles.

3. Move tool

Is used to re-organize your farm. You can move just about everything within your farm:
farm plots, trees, animals, buildings, decorations ...

4. recycle tool

With the recycle tool, you can delete farming plots to get more open space to place buildings or other items.
Inventory items like buildings, animals, trees, decorations can be sold for FV coins.

5. Fencing in Yours Truly (and your neighbors.)

When visiting your neighbors, you'll notice quickly enough that many players have fenced you in: you are locked up in some sort of barrier, sometimes very small, sometimes a bit bigger.

What they are really doing is fencing themselves in.

When you plow, plant or harvest, Yours Truly (= your avatar) walks around, and you will often have to wait a while for it to finish what you have been busily clicking at. If your screen reloads while you are waiting (as it so often does), you have to start clicking all over again ...

Fencing in Yours Truly prevents it from walking around.
The happy result of that: you don't have to wait for Yours Truly to go somewhere, and your busy clicking takes effect almost immediately. 

One plot still takes about 1/2 second to process, but  there is no waiting for Yours Truly to move between plots.
All in all, that speeds things up considerably. Good for you. 

How to do this fencing-in?
When you game reloads, it puts you in the center of your farm.
Recycle that plot and put up a barrier.

Hay bales are very popular because they can easily be stacked on a single farm plot. 

You can use anything you have available that will stop Yours Truly.
As you can see on the right, I used the greenhouse as the rear barrier.

The Chicken Coop sits right next to it. This way  my harvestable buildings are easy to find for visiting neighbors when they stop by. 
 

Alternatives:

I kept clicking on Yours Truly by mistake when trying to work the field near it.
Before I realized what was going on, the 'avatar clothing screen had come and gone again, and my FV cash was gone as well ..
I have 'bought' several outfits and the clowny hat this way, none of which I really wanted.

If you are having trouble with Yours Truly in the middle of your field, there are several options:

1. Enlarge the area around Yours Truly, so you don't click on it by mistake.
   1. You will lose more workable plots that way.
       
2. Lock it up at the side of the field.
   1. Make a fence somewhere outside your worked farming plots that Yours Truly cannot leave.
   2. With the 'move tool' you can pick up Yours Truly and lock it away behind that fence..
   3. You do not lose a workable plot this way.
   4. You'll have to move Yours Truly every time you reload the game screen. That can get annoyingly repetitive...
       
3. Use the farming vehicles. They do not bother Yours Truly.

Page last modified: November 16, 2012
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