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FarmVille 3 Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Expand Your Farm Quickly and Get It To Produce at Maximum Capacity

Zynga, the mobile gaming giant behind titles such as Bluff Plus, CSR Racing 2 and Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells, has just released an exciting new title for iOS and Android.

It’s an adorable farm simulation game called FarmVille 3, the latest chapter in the FarmVille series which was launched 12 years ago and proved to be massively popular among casual gamers with a passion for farming.

farmville 3 guide

Marie, the farm girl introduced back in FarmVille 2 (that was also available on PC) is a returning character in the new installment. She will be joined by a host of specialized farmhands who according to Zynga boast diverse backgrounds and skills and will assist the her in developing and growing the farm.

FarmVille 3 also introduces new husbandry mechanics, so you’ll be allowed to breed animals and add babies to your farm. Other than that, the game brings all the things you can expect from a farm simulator including the ability to grow crops, produce a wide range of products, exchange goods with others, welcome an impressive range of animals to your farm (including exotic) and many others.

farmville 3 farm house

At launch FarmVille 3 packs a truckload of features and so players will need a minute to digest everything that’s being offered. Which is why a FarmVille 3 beginner’s guide might be just what you need right now. If you’re still trying to figure out how things work on your new farm or are looking for ways to optimize your output quickly, look no further than this guide. We have you covered with a comprehensive list of tips and tricks that will allow to expand your farm in no time.

1. Plant Constantly To Maximize Output

The bulk of your farm’s production is derived from your planting fields. On the fields you can sow various crops including Wheat, Sunflower, Soy beans etc. Each patch of land costs a small fee to plant, depending on the seeds you’re using.

At first you’ll have only a few patches of land to plant, but later on as you evolve your farm and level up, you’ll be able to plant on a larger area. The crops you harvest can be then used as raw materials for a series of items produced at the various factories you’ll be building on your farm. For instance, the Mill uses a variety of crops such as Wheat, Sunflower Seeds, or Soy Beas to produce Flour, Sunflower Oil and Soy Sauce. Most importantly crops can be transformed into animal feed, so that your animals can produce their own products such as Milk, Eggs and more.

farmville 3 production output

Without crops your farm will simply not be able to operate. This is why you should make sure you always have the entire range of crops available to your disposal. You can achieve this by using crop rotation. Some crops are more in demand than others (for instance Wheat), but that doesn’t mean you should neglect the others. Depending on additional factors, sometimes it might prove useful to plant the same thing over a short period of time. Just don’t forget to mix it up and constantly check to see how many crop items you have left.

To maximize production, make sure you add new fields as they get unlocked, so you can increase your planting area. New fields become available as you discover new breeds and types of animals.

2. Ensure Your Factories Are Always Producing

With your silo full of diverse crops, it’s now time to put them to good use. Crops can be used to fuel factories on your farm and get them to produce goods. Producing some of these items will require a combination of these crops. For instance, to make Carrot Bread at the Bakery you’ll need Carrots and Flour (which is made from Wheat at the Mill).

Overall, there’s a wide variety of products you can make at your farm. The main reason for establishing a steady production line is that so you can sell these goods for coins later on. You’ll need lots of cash to expand your farm, because factories and unlocking new territories in the FarmVille 3 universe require monetary power.

farmville 3 factories

To ensure you have a steady flow of cash coming in, our advice is to make sure your factories are always producing something. Don’t let them run cold, so to speak. If you want to speed up the pace of the game, you’ll have to make sure that your processing plants are always working.

Some advanced items take a long time to make, so unless you want to wait ages before completing an order and grabbing the money, you’ll be extra careful not to leave factories on pause. This might be easier said than done for those who are busy at work or school and can’t check their phones constantly. Even so you should try your best to add new items in the queue of factories every time you visit the game.

3. Prioritize Orders With Higher Pay

Gathering funds quickly is pretty problematic in FarmVille 3, at least at first. In order to accelerate this process, our recommendation is to focus on the more expensive orders on the Order board. Try to make and deliver them as quickly as possible to earn cash and to fill up the cash meter at the top.

farmville 3 order

Once you’ve reached the set target, you’ll receive an animal box which usually contains a new animal for your farm, as well as other items including decorations, elixirs and many other useful items. That’s not to say, you should ignore the smaller orders altogether, not by a long shot. Get to them when you can or have the necessary resources, so you can refresh the order board and maybe get new larger orders in.

4. Tips For Levelling Up As Quickly As Possible

Levelling up your farm is essential for making progress in this game. Doing so unlocks a nice reward package which consists of precious resources. In addition, it brings access to new factories, animals, recipes and more for your farm. Levelling up is directly connected to expanding the farm, so you need to consider this aspect as well. Fortunately, acquiring XP is not too hard, usually. You can get it from completing various tasks such as:

farmville 3 tryol grey
  • Welcoming new animals: Acquiring new animals always comes with a XP reward (the blue star hoovering over them). At the same time, each time your animals mate and spawn a new baby (which will a higher-tier animal) you’ll get even more XP. For instance, tier one Holstein cows can produce a tier two Shorthorn cow.

    From time to time, your animals will give birth to a new species (for instance Ducks are derived from Chickens in FarmVille 3) and when that happens you’ll be given an additional gift consisting of Gems and arable land patches. Farm animals aren’t the only ones you’ll encounter in FarmVille 3, as the game also introduces a range of exotic animals, but more on that later on in this guide.
farmville 3 weed
  • Clear the land: In FarmVille 3 you can collect resources from the environment such as Weeds, Wood, Rocks and more. Once you instruct one of your farmhands to chop down a select tree or clear some weeds, you’ll gain a tiny amount of XP.
  • Build new factories: Each time you build a new factory on your farm, you’ll receive a XP prize, so keep expanding your operations. Remember levelling up unlocks new types of factories you can add, so that you can offer more varied products to your customers.

Once you’ve levelled up enough, you’ll be allowed to unlock new areas around the farm. Although simply levelling up is not enough to gain access to the new lands. In addition, you have to pay a sum of gold coins to be able to exploit new plots. So make sure you keep producing goods and selling them for cash, as to have the necessary resources when the time comes to expand.

Levelling up is a rather slow process in FarmVille 3, but there are ways you can speed it up. You should concentrate on acquiring as many animals as possible and breeding them to create new more advanced animals. You can increase the head count at your farm through various means:

farmville 3 order meter
  • Fill the order meter at the top of the order board: Deliver orders and earn cash. Hit the thresholds and unlock the boxes which contain animals – mostly first tiers. If you can unlock the fifth box in a row, however, you will be able to grab a higher tier animal. This is important because higher tier animals tend to bring more XP to the table. For instance, the tier 1 Yorkshire pig is the common kind and can bring just 5 energy points. However, the tier 2 Gloucester pig will shed 7 points once unlocked.
farmville 3 special request
  • Fulfill special requests: Make sure you cater to the needs of walk-in customers, as well and sell them the products they need. In exchange for your service, they might reward you with an animal. This isn’t always the case, so when you see someone willing to pay for your products with animal boxes, go for it.
farmville 3 exotic animals
  • Take your exotic animals on quests: Exotic animals don’t produce goods in FarmVille 3, but you can take them on quests to win specific rewards. For instance, you can use them to get your hands on exotic fruit such as Avocado or Mango, and from time to time, you can even win animals. If you have unlocked a few exotic creatures, see if you can use them to bring extra animals to your farm.  

As you start welcoming animals to your farm, they will begin breeding. This process happens automatically in the game so you won’t have to do anything yourself. Once the animal has been unlocked it will walk by itself to their respective pen.

If you’ve previously unlocked an animal of the same tier, the two of them will proceed to mate and create a baby. The new animal will be of a higher-tier or might be of an entirely different breed (you can make the jump from Chickens to Ducks in FarmVille 3).

creating a baby in farmville 3

Now, the baby will take a while to grow up to maturity but to speed up this process, you can ask Marie for help. She will hand feed the baby and accelerate its growth, so the newly adult animal can go on and reproduce itself.

To recap, this is the easiest way to level up in FarmVille 3. Collect as many animals as possible and breed them to create higher-tier animals which bring more XP to the table. Speed feed the babies so you can grow them to maturity faster and then repeat the process again and again.

The second best way you can get ahold of extra XP is through clearing land. Building new factories and completing select orders require that you use some additional resources that you can’t grow on your fields. For instance, wood.

farmville 3 chad

A specific farmhand takes care of the wood chopping tasks and his name is Chad. Marie, one the other hand, will take care of removing weeds from your property. Anyway, all these tasks require that you spend a tiny amount of energy.

You can view the amount available for spending in the upper right corner of the display. Your energy gets refiled over time, so once you run out of it, you’ll need to wait for a period of time before you can start clearing land again. Or you can use Gems to buy more, although we don’t really advise you to do that.

Now here’s the thing – it’s not hard to get lost in the planting, crafting, feeding, checking to see which products you need to complete the next big order cycle of things and forget everything about the energy aspect and associated tasks. Perhaps an order that requests wood or some byproduct might jog your memory, but you should really make a point of spending your energy regularly.

farmville 3 farmhand energy

It’s worth collecting these additional resource for various reasons. For example, you won’t have to scramble for wood whenever a new building upgrade has been unlocked. In addition, you might need some of this stuff to fulfill orders. Actually, you should build a dedicated factory (the Tinker station) which can transform the junk you collect into items that you can sell. But the number one reason why chopping trees and getting rid of weeds is so important is because all doing so brings tiny bits of XP.

That’s right, spending energy on clearing land actually helps you work towards your goal of levelling up. Although not all this junk yields energy, so pay attention to the description of each item you’re about to tackle! Anyway, remember this – whenever your energy meter is full again, go ahead and spend it quickly to get your infusion of XP. One of the best way to spend energy is to have Marie feed babies on your farm and thus accelerate their growing process.

5. Build Shelters For Your Animals

Simply unlocking animals is not enough to get them to produce goods or reproduce. You’ll need to build them nice cozy homes where they can live and thrive. So each time you welcome a new animal to your farm, make sure they have a place they can call home. Without a shelter to go to, they’ll just roam around your farm aimlessly without being of much use.

The same applies for farm and exotic animals alike. They all need homes, although the latter type does not produce goods.

Unfortunately, building these shelters costs money and they don’t come all that cheap either. If you’ve just unlocked a new animal but find you’re short on funds, try and focus your efforts on quickly delivering some orders so that you can gather enough to pay for a shelter.

farmville 3 animal shelter

Don’t worry, the homeless animal is not going anywhere and will wait around your farm patiently until a space opens up for them. Also note that each home can house a maximum of 2-3 animals. Once the pen is full, you’ll have to build a new one and so on. This means that as your farm grows, the number of animal homes will expand considerably.

The good news is that animals won’t keep piling up on your farm and eventually take up all your space. Once two animals have a baby and it grows up, the parents will retire to an animal sanctuary thus allowing you to house new animals in those pens and also leave a cash price behind too.

At the same time, make sure that you continue adding Feed makers as soon as they become available. With more and more animals making your farm their home, you’ll need a steady influx of feed to keep them all happy and producing.

You start the game with a Feed maker already in place, but later on you will be given the option to add more to your farm, and we encourage you to do so as soon as possible. This way you won’t keep your animals waiting for their next meal. This strategy will also have the effect of ramping up production of animal goods such as Milk and Eggs.

6. Don’t Ignore Special Requests

On top of regular orders, you’ll also notice that various people are coming to your farm and making some requests in person. Unlike orders, these don’t bring money but other rewards instead. You might be tempted to ignore these requests and focus on those that yield money instead, but that’s not a good strategy to work with.

Actually, these requests come with really useful rewards such as tools including things like Screwdrivers, Hammers, Axes and more. Special requests are actually the only source for these items which are needed to expand your Barn and Silo storages. Why is that important?

Well everything you end up producing including crops and products has to be stored somewhere. Crops go into the Silo while products are kept in the Barn including tools and other random items such as Keys. Once these two storage units reach their maximum capacity, you won’t be able to add bring any more products on board. This can be particularly frustrating if you’ve just started expanding your farm and are ramping up your production line.

completing a request in farmville 3

This is why focusing on completing special requests and getting your hands on those tools is super important. The more you deliver, the better your chances at acquiring the necessary tools needed to upgrade your storage locations. It’s important to note one more thing here – tools aren’t the only rewards you’ll be getting in exchange for helping these people.

It’s also possible to grab other things such as Rubies, collectable stickers, animals, coins and more. Don’t shy away from customers offering these rewards in exchange for their orders. You’ll need all of these to successfully manage your farm. We’ll explain more about these elements in another section.

Later on in the game, you’ll unlock the food truck area where customers will ask for specialty items such as Tacos, Burritos or Grilled Corn. These orders can get you more cash. This is another way you can make more cash, and we suggest you work hard towards delivering these dishes to your customers, so you can expand your income.

7. Complete Story And Daily Tasks

FarmVille 3 sets up a list of tasks for you each day. On top of that, there’s also a series of Storyline-based tasks, which progressively get unlock as you advance the narrative. Each can provide you with reward chests that can contain a lot of useful resources. The most important one being coins.

farmville 3 daily task reward

As we already mentioned, coins are pretty hard to obtain in FarmVille 3 and so you’ll need to exploit any opportunity of getting more without fail. Make it a point, to complete at least the full list of daily tasks for the opportunity to win cash, Gems, stickers and more.

8. Level Up Your Farmhands

Farmhands help you complete specialized tasks on your farm. For instance, Marie can clear weeds or feed baby animals when instructed to do so. Others work in factories such as Katie Cookie who is Farmville’s baker. Some farmhands are animals, like for instance Buddy who likes to dig for dirt.

Anyway, you can level up each of these helpers to make them better at their job. Once upgraded Marie, for example, will use up less energy when clearing out land, while Katie will charge more Ribbon points (needed to redeem rewards during a specific event) for her orders.

levelling up a farmhand in farmville 3

So how do you level them up? You have to collect stickers and complete collections in order to unlock training sessions for each character in part. Once you’ve managed to do that, you’ll have to pay a small fee in gold coins to level up your character. Where can you get these stickers from? Well you have various options at your disposal:

farmville 3 sticker
  • Reward boxes: You get a free Daily Chest per day in the shop, but to crack it open you will have to watch a quick ad. This isn’t too bad, since FarmVille 3 is not spammed by ads, although the occasional one might pop up. When it does, we recommend that you go ahead and take the offer up.

    In addition, you can purchase sticker packs from the same Deals tab in the Store. You can use coins and Gems to do so, but given that you won’t enjoy an overabundance of either while playing Zynga’s latest farm extravaganza, we recommend that you save up your resources to use on other tasks.

    There are other reward boxes to watch out for, for instance the ones you can get by completing story or daily tasks. Make sure you check the Tasks tab daily and see what the set goals are. Finalizing them will have the effect of yielding a fair share of rewards including stickers.
  • Special requests: Check the in-person requests customers bring to your farm, and you might be able to win some additional stickers to upgrade your characters. Don’t let these orders expire, because as soon as you start training your farmhands the better.
  • Animal boxes: Sometimes animal boxes can contain other rewards including stickers. You’re mostly likely to find this type of reward in the fifth box (the wooden one), so be diligent in your efforts of delivering orders.

Once you’ve collected the stickers you need to level up a farmhand, you’ll have to manually train them by visiting the Employee section in the lower right part of the display. Welcoming a new farmhand to the fold is also done from this location, where you’ll have to press the unlock button to officially bring them onboard.

9. Put Your Exotic Animals To Good Use

Ah exotic animals are a unique element of FarmVille 3, one you don’t usually encounter in similar farm simulation games. In Zynga’s latest game, exotic animals live side-by-side with farm animals. You’ll need to build them habitats first, but once you do they’ll be ready to take up various quests for you in the wilderness.

farmville 3 exotic quest

Exotic quests can bring you a number of rewards including special exotic fruit (mango, pineapple and more), keys, coins, stickers, tools and many others. All you have to do is equip a party of exotic animals and find the hidden chest. While this might sound like an easy to do task, you’ll have to train your animals constantly so they can become more skilled at finding the treasure. As you progress, exotic quest become more difficult and so you’ll need to make sure your animals take advantage of upgraded capabilities, as well.

Exotic animals in Farmville are divided into several categories including: Forest, Mountain, Snow, Desert and more. You’ll need creatures from all biomes if you’re to successfully complete each level in the exotic saga. Some level boast requirements such as equipping a certain type of animal, for example, a Snow one, and you won’t be able to play if you don’t comply with the demand. This is why you need to make sure you’re constantly cracking exotic animal chests, so you can have at least one animal from each region.

levelling up an exotic animal in farmville 3

You also have to make sure you level up these animals too. While exotics don’t consume food or produce anything, they can be leveled up using specific Elixirs (Forest, Mountain, etc). You can get these items by cracking open rewards chests of all kinds. Sometimes, you can even win some by playing an exotic level.

Playing exotic levels requires Energy just as clearing land. Fortunately, you won’t be drawing from the same source as your farmhands, but even so be aware that your reserve won’t last forever. Once you run out of energy, you’ll need to give it time to regenerate back again, just like it’s the case in the main game.

Don’t forget to play the exotic quests, there are plenty of useful resources to be won. What’s more, some of the orders received at your farm need ingredients which you can only acquire by playing exotic levels. You can’t get Pineapples anywhere else, and so you’ll need to plunge into that part of the game from time to time.

You can get new exotic animals by cracking open special chests in the store. To abstain from paying Gems or other precious resources on them, you’ll need to acquire exotic tokens, and this is what our next section is all about.

10. Use The Boat To Deliver Orders And Get Some Exotic Coins

Once you unlock the harbor expansion, you’ll be able to send orders via a ship. These are larger scale orders, so it might take some time before you can put them together. The good news is that you don’t have to fill up the boxes to the limit. Instead, you can just worry about filling up the meter at the top.

farmville 3 boxes

Once you ship out the goods oversea, you can redeem your rewards which consist of exotic coins of various tiers. Use them in the Shop to unlock exotic animal chests and get new creatures on board. If you’ve happened to unlock an animal that you already own, you can sell it for additional Elixirs. So even getting doubles is rewarded.

11. Visit Other Farms And Send Gifts

Need a vacation far away from all your farm responsibilities? Join co-op mode and go exploring other people’s farms and find the presents hidden there. This is a great away to take a short break from your work, and grab some free goodies while you’re at it.

farmville 3 neighbors

You can also send 5 gifts to other people in the game, and we encourage you do so in order to stimulate others into being kind with you in turn. These small packages can include small sums of coins or products. Either way, they can be pretty useful and so visiting other farms should definitely make it on your list of priorities.

12. Use Gems To Expand Your Factories’ Production Capacity

As your farm gets bigger and bigger, you’ll have your factories working at full capacity almost constantly. There’s always something to be made, and if you wish to maximize output at every factory you’ll invest Gems into adding new production slots.

Gems are premium resources which aren’t widely available in FarmVille 3. To this end, we don’t recommend spending them in excess. Actually, our advice is to use them solely to expand factory production by adding new slots.

Alternatively, if the situation calls for it, you could use them in order to buy extra Energy from the game’s shop. Other than that, you should abstain from using Gems and just work towards collecting as many as possible. Speaking of which, here’s how you can get Gems:

farmville 3 rewards
  • Free rewards chests daily: It’s available from the Shop every day and might contain a Gem or two.
  • Ads: Notice any vintage video cameras scattered around your farm? Tap on them and watch a quick ad in exchange for a small prize which can include a few Gems.
  • Discover new breeds: Each time you discover a new animal breed you’ll be able to redeem a small Gem gift, as well as a bundle of coins.
  • Achievement rewards: Hitting certain milestones on your farm is rewarded with prizes that consist of cash and gems. Check the Achievements list by visiting the Town hall to see all the tasks you need to complete so that unlock these goodies.
  • All kinds of boxes: Select animal boxes might contain Gems, as well as the reward packages that you receive when completing Storyline and Daily tasks.
  • Exotic quests: Some exotic quest can yield Gem rewards, but not all of them. Actually, they are quite rare, but know they do exist. Unless you’ve uncovered regions where you can mine for Gems.
  • Levelling up: Levelling your farm up usually unlocks a small Gem gift.
  • Use codes to grab free gifts: In the game go to Settings and tap on the Redeem Codes button and use the “farmvillelaunch” code to get 50 free Gems.
  • Log in with Facebook: Connect your Facebook account to FarmiVille 3 and you’ll receive a nice bundle of 20 Gems for doing so. If you do that, you’ll also be able to add your friends in the game.
  • Redeem any available event rewards: Make sure you redeem any new rewards made available by the events. For instance, during County Fair, you can exchange the purple ribbons you receive for doing tasks around the farm for reward chests filled with goodies including Gems.

Using all the methods we outlined above, you should get a decent influx of Gems coming in provided you’re active and keep playing.

13. Spend Keys To Crack Open Chests That Show Up Around Your Farm

Clearing land around your farm will reveal all sorts of chests filled with goodies from time to time. Some require you use Gems or coins to open them, but others only need keys to give you access to their contents. Keys are rewards you can get for all kinds of tasks in FarmVillle 3 including delivering special requests, playing exotic quests and cracking open rewards chests.

opening chest in farmville 3

Whenever you uncover a new chest around your farm, check to see if you can crack it open by using your stash of keys (gold, silver, and bronze). If you have enough, that’s great you’ll be able to grab some nice rewards.

14. Use Rubies And Emeralds To Activate The Weather Station

The Weather Station expansion activates at level 19. Once you’ve build the station, you’ll be able to activate various Boosters which will allow you farm to produce more efficiently. To pay for these Boosters you have to shed Rubies, Emeralds and Pearls.

farmville 3 active boosts

These are scarce rewards you can get from cracking open all kinds of rewards boxes, as well as from exotic quests. They can also be used to unlock decorations around the farm, but we strongly advise against using them in such fashion. Conserve them for use at the Weather Station. For instance, in exchange for 8 Rubies and 3 Pearls the factories will produce double the amount of products.

With this last tip we conclude our FarmVille 3 beginner’s guide. The game is massive, and so you’ll need time and patience to grow and expand your farm. Armed with our list of tips and tricks, we’re confident you’ll get there in no time. If you’ve been playing the game yourself and have stumbled upon some strategies we haven’t mentioned in this guide and you wish to share, we invite you to do so in the comment section below!

NW

Sunday 14th of January 2024

Sunflowers are free and when you harvest them you earn one gold coin. If I have enough of a variety of crops in my silo, I plant sunflowers and harvest them to help with cash flow.

Tammy S

Sunday 1st of October 2023

When I receive free items such as fences, etc., where can I find them in the game. I've looked everywhere. Please HELP?

Noble

Wednesday 22nd of November 2023

@Tammy S, Open up the bar where you buy things like factories and they'll be a bar at the top of your screen with different items. One of those will open up a separate bar of items (your items in storage), you'll find them in there.

Dt

Wednesday 19th of October 2022

I had over 900 elder animal sale points. They disappeared. Why?

Brian

Tuesday 23rd of August 2022

My barn is full which means I cannot get the food I need to feed my animals. How do I free up some space without expanding the barn?

Darla Shusta

Sunday 19th of June 2022

Is there a way to sell or delete animals from the barn? My barn capacity is 300, but there are 180 animals, which takes up a lot of room. Also...I notice I'm the only one who has 50+ homeless animals roaming on my farm. Is there a way to sell or delete them??