FarmVille 2: Country Escape: Tips For The Newbie Farmer

Farmville 2: Country Escape is a big deal for many casual gamers, much like its predecessor. As we pointed out in our review, its relaxed nature when it comes to harvesting crops and simply waiting things out means it's strangely beguiling, although patience is certainly essential. To help you along in your path towards a farming fortune, we thought we'd round up some great tips on how to do the very best you can. While they won't make you rich overnight, they should help steer novices in the right direction.

Money (and Keys) Makes the World go 'Round

Farmville 2: Country Escape is a freemium game, so of course it comes with a couple of different currencies that are used for different things.

Coins are relatively easily gained. They're used for buying new types of fields, workshops, and decorations, amongst other things. The best way to gain coins (and experience along the way) is to use the Farm Orders board regularly. This offers up plenty of choices for items that one can sell, ranging from basics such as wheat, corn, and milk, to more complex creations such as pie. Selling such items is quickly done and the board is frequently replenished with new offers.

It's worth only selling the basic components when you have so many that you're practically swimming in milk and wheat (which has to be tricky going!) as they don't sell for much. It's better to put them towards creating more advanced items that do garner plenty of coins.

The Key to Success

[img id="farmville24-600x338.jpg"]Keys are the most essential currency in Farmville 2: Country Escape, which is annoying because they're rare to come by in comparison. Keys can help speed things up, but more importantly they can be used for certain items and buildings. This is where you should be using your keys! Speeding things up is nice, but plan around your day to day activities and it's not so bad waiting things out.

It's possible to buy keys via in-app purchases and you know what? No one will blame you if you do. At times, Farmville 2: Country Escape offers up some great sales or starter packs such as $1.99 for 190 keys (amongst other things), which makes the price not so bad. It's something to consider if you're enjoying the game sufficiently enough to want to invest money as well as time. Don't forget, that's how games like these get to be supported in the future.

Defy Authority

For those keen to be frugal though, resist using keys early on. The tutorial will try to talk you into using them but you can still progress by waiting it out. Do that! Work on shorter tasks when you're around the game and then set longer tasks to work while you're away for any length of time. Overnight is perfect for those long timers.

Use the keys to upgrade the barn first and foremost. You can never have too much space in there and it's ideal for storing plenty of crops and crafted items. Elsewhere, it's worth upgrading other buildings as well since these lead to increased productions, such as double batches of crops as well as lessening waiting times. It's worth the investment.

You can earn keys through finding and opening Hope Chests scattered around your home and fields, but don't count on it. Always assume that keys are going to be tough to replenish and think through your purchases. Coins are far easier to gain.

The Barn

The Barn is essential to your farm's productivity levels. I've already mentioned the importance of upgrading it often but use that space wisely. Don't bother clogging it up with wheat and apples. They both grow fast enough that you can easily lave them in the fields and trees until you need to harvest them. A new bunch will soon grow back. Use that space for more profitable items, especially when dealing with requests and quests.

Requests and Quests

Speaking of those, get used to checking what quests are going on and following them ASAP. Besides being pretty good at guiding you in the right direction and making things more fun, they also lead to more experience, which means more upgrades and new things to do! Farmville 2: Country Escape is a much more structured experience than other freemium games so it's worth following such a path. Make sure you don't do a bit of everything though. Focus on one quest line at a time to get somewhere faster.

Visit Grandma

As a kind of side quest distraction, players can send farmhands to visit Grandma's Glade every 15 minutes. Exploring such an area gains the player plenty of useful resources (such as nails to help towards upgrading buildings, like that all important barn) and experience. You need certain items to be able to send a farm hand out there, such as pie, but they're relatively simple to create.

Once you reach the mid teens, things get that bit more thrilling and the Farm Orders board takes a step back in terms of quick profit. You unlock Eagle Eye Eddie who provides a new set of demands and requests. They're trickier to complete as well as time sensitive, but it's worth working towards them. Complete one of his requests and you gain stamps that can then be used to buy prized animals, which besides being more fun to collect than the regular kind, are also pretty profitable in their own right.

No (Wo)Man is an Island

Don't forget that Farmville 2: Country Escape is meant to be a social game, too. You can play entirely on your own but it's fun to join a co-op (a form of guild) to gather together with other farmers. You can add friends and farm neighbors too, thereby earning extra farmhands. Visit friends often as you can earn extra coins that way, plus you can help them along by spreading some friendship fertilizer, thereby doubling their crops and hopefully encouraging them to do the same in return. Plus, there's good old-fashioned speed seed that helps speed up everyone's growing crops. Everything's better together, right?

The true key to success

Ultimately though, success is down to one major thing: patience. No matter how smart you play the game, there will always be times when you're stuck staring at a few timers wanting to progress faster. Rome wasn't built in a day and your farm won't be either. Play the long game and take your time moving forward. You can spend money to help speed things along a bit, but unless you're rich it's still never going to be quite enough. Much like a real garden, you've just got to stop and smell the roses.

Enjoy developing that huge and colorful farm along the way!