CityVille - Cheats for Facebook's Hottest New Game

CityVille is Facebook and Zynga's newest and most popular game to date, attracting over 25 million players in its first month online. In the past, hacking into these games using programs like Cheat Engine was the easiest way to make millions of dollars in minutes, but the Zynga programmers have learned how to block any vulnerabilities from the get-go, leaving eager players to fend for themselves. Luckily, there are still ways to get ahead of the game. Here are the top ten ways I've found to make the game work for you.

1. The fastest way to make money

In CityVille, there's only one relatively fast way to make money. Buy a plot of land (or use an existing empty plot) and place your most profitable business in the center of it. Buy one square of road, and place it next to the business to make it functional. (Thankfully, the roads in this game don't have to connect in a manner that makes sense in the real world.) Now place decorations around the business until they can't reach the business and affect its profit. Basic decorations raise the profits by 1% per tiny square. More expensive decorations, mainly those that can only be purchased with in-game cash, give more profit per square. The best deal is the bandstand, which gives a 32% raise for only 15 cash. The best businesses, such as the wedding store and cinema, can yield just over $2,000 per collection.

2. How to make room for more houses and businesses

Houses and businesses need to be connected to at least one road piece in order to make money. Without thinking, new players will also place community buildings and headquarter expansions onto roads as well, but they do not need to touch roads at all. The best way to save space is to dedicate one full plot of land for these buildings, and cram them together somewhere out of the way. You will still be able to collect money on the community buildings. In fact, the headquarter buildings aren't even used in game-play; they don't affect your income, so you can place them and delete them (before building them), to get them out of your inventory. They are fun to watch grow as you place more businesses in other people's cities, but that's all they are good for.

3. Get rid of in-game junk

As you progress in the game, you will be asked to place businesses and decorations to complete goals. After a while, you will be stuck with low-level businesses that hardly make money and take up room. Once you complete the goals, feel free to delete these businesses and decorations. You can also delete small signs like the "Beach Town - coming soon!" sign, or the city flag. Don't become a hoarder of cheap businesses - save room for the more profitable ones.

4. Use gifts to your advantage

Like other Zynga games, you can send tons of different gifts to your friends, but only two are usually important. Send energy and zoning permits often, and hopefully your friends will reciprocate. Zoning permits are needed to expand your land, and if you don't receive them as gifts, it will cost you 10 in-game cash to buy however many you need (no matter how few or many you actually need).

5. Make the businesses work for you.

As I mentioned before, low-level businesses are a waste of space if you have unlocked more advanced businesses that make more money. In my game, as I've gone up in levels and acquired more money, I've deleted small-time businesses like burger joints and coffee shops, and replaced them with wedding shops and cinemas. Thanks to this technique I can make over $20,000+ in one sitting.

6. Storage upgrades

Storage and harvesting crops is a very important part of CityVille. Zynga can't seem to let go of the whole farming deal (wouldn't it make more sense to have grocery stores in a city?), so here we are wasting energy on farming once again. You will have to buy two silos to complete a goal early on, and they do come in handy in the early levels when you run out of room fast and only have enough money for a silo or two. As soon as you can, delete the silos and replace them with red barns or sticks, which cost about $1,000 each and hold 415 and 485 crops respectively. If you have money to blow, cargo sheds cost $20 in-game cash, and hold 1,000 crops and take up a small amount of room. Once you're able to buy piers, buy as much coastal land and piers as you can. They don't waste room and you can stagger shipping times so you don't waste all of your energy offloading goods.

7. Get more friends

Ah, the crux of Zynga games. Without friends, you're dead in the water. Without friends, Zynga doesn't make money. With each new game that comes out, Zynga gives new friends less value, and they make you shove your gameplay down their throats to accomplish tasks. Yay. Still, with each new friend you have in CityVille, you get a one-time reward of extra XP, energy, and coins, but once a day, you will get one energy, (important since energy is hard to come by, and the Zynga developers are stingy with energy in this game), and five reputation points. Every time you gain a new reputation level, you get a couple hundred goods, which is always a good thing.

Unlike other Zynga games, there's an opportunity to cheat your way out of annoying your friends with stupid game requests. When sending the train out for goods, for a trip that takes longer than five minutes you're supposed to send a request to your friends to get the goods. This part you can skip, and it will still bring you the goods.

8. Save cash (not just coins) for decorations instead of energy

Let's face it. Zynga has done a great job of making it hard to gain levels and finish goals without spending in-game cash on virtual goods. Between wasting your hard earned money for literally nothing, and advertising, this is how they make their millions. If you're like me and don't have hundreds of dollars to waste, it's best to save up all of your cash (you start out with several and gain one every time you level up) for decorations zoning permits. Zoning permits are needed for expansion, and decorations are needed to boost your business income. Stay away from community buildings like the schoolhouse that require the city seal, building permits and the like. It's unnecessary when there are other buildings that only need the zoning permits.

9. Decorate your businesses, not the houses

Once you learn that decorations boost income, it's tempting to decorate around houses as well as businesses. The truth is, using decorations around houses is a complete waste of space, as it really doesn't make a big difference in income. Houses are population builders only. Cram them together and forgo decorations to save space for businesses.

10. Eliminate human tendencies

Facebook gaming addicts tend to save and personalize every little thing they receive. How many cities or farms have you seen where people have a thousand of one item just because their friends sent it to them? It wastes space, and it slows game-play down as far as income, and it slows browser speed for people visiting as these games are memory hogs. Since there is no item storage option in CityVille, keep what you need, and scrap the rest.

Another human tendency, it to visit a city, and select the first five businesses, houses, or crops you see. The problem is that most people click on the same items because of the way the game loads, and because most people need the same thing. When visiting another person's game, randomize what you click on to help the other person use less energy when they return to the game.

For instance, how many times have you logged on to your game to see that three friends have selected the same five crops when you have 95 other crop plots laid out? Had they staggered their choices, you wouldn't need to spend as much energy harvesting the rest. It's just a nice way to help out your neighbor while still obtaining the items you need.

I hope these tips help enhance your CityVille game-play. These weren't taken from the web; the suggestions are based on my own experiences and success with CityVille. If you know of other tips for making money, please list them below in the comments section. Happy gaming!