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Here are a few tips and tricks I have found while playing the Farm Town game. Some I found on the Farm Town Forum, some from chatting with folks, some have been sent in by visitors, and a few I came up with myself. Be sure to check out the facts page for data on the game, lots of stuff there I have put together for us to use.

Uncle Joe's Tip of the Day

Plowing and planting while workers are harvesting for you increases the load on the servers slowing things down and the odds someone will get bumped go up.

Butterfield/Dwyer/Ashton Email Hoax

This hoax has been circulating for years, it has now found it's way to Farm Town on MySpace. This is one of the most famous of all time. The names may change but it is all the same.

"Do not hire anyone named Tanner Dwyer (Beef Jerkey Roxxx!!!! is his farmtown screen name). he is a hacker. Tell everyone on your buddy list because if someone on your list adds him, he'll be on your list too. He'll figure out your computer ID and address. So copy and paste this message to everyone on your buddy list, because if he hacks them, you're next."

You can read more on this on snopes.com Butterfield/Dwyer/Ashton Email Hoax or this thread on the Forums Beef Jerkey Roxxx IS A HOAX

Report Abuse Valid Complaints

This is a misunderstood function and deserves some mention here, I have copied an excerpt from the post by Sunshine on this you can take the link below to read the entire thread.

Report abuse is to be used for offensive language ONLY and not for other annoying behavior.

If it is not offensive language (like cursing), then click ignore.

Both functions report the farmer to the developers.

Report abuse and Ignore do NOT kick the person off your farm or stop them from harvesting.

Both functions will add that farmer to your blocked list. Once they are blocked you will never see or hear from them again, and the developers will have access to who they are. I (Sunshine) tested both the ignore feature and the report abuse feature with a friend. Once you do this, they will go on your blocked list and will no longer be able to contact you in any way. However, they will be able to come to your farm still if they have the link, but you will not see them even if they are there. They will not be able to chat with you in the chat window and they will not be able to send you messages or notes.
OFFICIAL Report Abuse - Valid Complaints

Farm Town Dirty Tricks

These have been discussed in the forums many times over so I am placing them at the top for everyone to see. I have posted them as the Tip of the Day before but now feel that they should stay. If your friends or neighbors don't know about these let them know. If you see someone doing this call them out in public for it.

"Double Click My Feet and I Will Hire You"
Don't fall for this, you will hire them to work on your farm and there is nothing you can do about it. Single click an Avatar's feet and the menu will pop up with your pointer on the option to hire them. Double clicking the feet automatically chooses that opton.

Mass hiring and sending players to a farm with nothing to harvest. This is done to clear the room of competetion. The devs have put a fix in to stop this but there are ways to get around the fix. There is nothing you can do about it and odds are you will not return to the same room as before. You can leave a message but most likely it will be laughed at. Telling people about the farmer and farm name doesn't help since they can be changed quickly.

General

First of all remember this game is in beta which means it is still in the testing stage and not yet in the final release. This is both exciting and frustrating to say the least. We are in on the ground floor of this game with lots of new things to come and we have to deal with the problems that occur while playing. The developers are depending on us to help them with the issues and suggest new features to add, so make the best of it and hang in there it will get better in time.

If you are new or fairly new at the game then I would recommend you visit these links and read up on the game.

Farm Town User Guide Farm Town FAQ - General user information.
Official Farm Town Guide User added information and more links.
Farm Town Etiquette A must read if you want to really learn the game.

If you haven't joined the Farm Town Forum by all means take the link from here or on the game menu bar at the top of the game screen. Register and link your farm with the forum, this allows the developers and administrators to look at your farm if you have problems or issues. At the top of the page will be red text which reads 'Link Farm Account', it will be right under the words 'Play Farm Town'. After clicking on that it should turn gray and read 'Farm Town Account Linked', that's it you are done.
Forum Register Page

These emails are good examples of why you should join the forum:

"Hi i keep getting sent strawberry plants from the same person but i cant use them why is this ? i have at least 22 of them."
This is a system glitch the devs know about, they will be addressing the issue. For now you will have to live with it since you can not delete or sell them. See this thread on the subject:
http://www.slashkey.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2482&highlight=strawberry+gifts

"I had bought a silo. Coins disappear silo did not appear.This happened twice (I know BooHoo) This a glitch or bug. I wont be buying silos any more."
If you can see other buildings then there is a problem. Make sure the option to hide buildings is not unchecked in your preferences. If your farm is linked to the forum the devs can look into this and repair the problem. Just post in the support forum under one of the threads related to lost items and game problems.

Inventory your farm. Field count, trees, animals, and all the other things you buy and add to the farm. Things like fences are expensive I have 130 pieces on my farm with a total investment of 32,500 coins. If they just disappeared one day I would want them restored (see Farm Manager for more).

One thing I have noticed is when the farm first loads and I click to my character somewhere he moves slowly. If I zoom in with one click on the magnifying symbol he speeds up

If you are just starting out go for the cash crops to earn more coins. Hire others to harvest for you, you make more by doing so and you may get hired in return earning more coins. At first the best crops were potato, rice and sun flowers. It seems that may have changed with the new crops, cabbage, peas and onions. Grapes can be planted every 4 hours bringing in some quick coinage and experience points but with a lot of effort in plowing and planting. Tight cropping will maximize the use of your land space, you can use one of the methods below or just uncheck the crop spacing in your preferences.(the safest method)

Changing some of your preferences (the wrench icon on the mini toolbar, see the image below) can help in many ways. You can uncheck display trees to get to hidden fields, find lost animals and items, re-arrange things on the farm, or do an inventory. You can also show/hide buildings and flowers. Freeze the animals, good for moving fencing around. Uncheck follow avatar while walking (an annoying thing sometimes), and smooth graphics. Unchecking the smooth graphics may help speed the game up for some people.

Remove space between fields will also allow you to some other things such as place paths closer to the fields or next to each other. I deleted all my fields and used this method to re-plow and plant everything. This is by far the easiest and safest method to use. I gained 26 fields and eliminated all of my problem fields, the ones that would plow and plant twice or show up the next day as not plowed or planted.

Notice the Disk Icon on the mini toolbar. While plowing and planting keep an eye on this, if it stays blue for an extended period of time click on it to force a save. This seems to cut down on the XLink save errors and farm reloads while working. I also plow, plant, and re-arrange my farm in offline mode. If the plow tool starts acting up like sliding under fields or jumping around, click on the walk icon to drop it and re-select it. This seems to reset the tool.

Earn Coins....I avoid this like the plague. I tried it once and made out well, the next go at it I got trapped on a site and had to close the browser to get out. Now I get endless emails and text messages from that experience, my bad. So use this option at your own risk.

If you are visiting with friends or neighbors at one of the Inns, get booted and can't find them again, send a PM and arrange to meet on someones' farm to continue your conversations.

Tips Sent in by Visitors

This tip was sent in by Cassie:
When someone hires you try to add them to your buddy list. That way if you are disconnected for some reason you can click on your buddy list to return to their farm.

Good idea Cassie. Another thing would be to send them a message when they arrive at your farm, then they could open the message and click on the icon to return to your farm. (UJ)

This one is from andy's farm:
When you get a notification on facebook that someone has worked on your farm, you get the link, "click here to help him/her back", once you click on link you go to there farm do what needs doing and you get 6 XP points, go back to notifications and click on "click here to help him/her back", again, you will be able to do work again and get another 6 XP points, you can do this three times, so you end up with 18 XP points.

James sent this in:
The XP for products thing is stupid. I am buying a ton of wood piles and selling them for a net loss of 94 coins and 5XP whereas bigger items cost more XP. The developers will have to fix the XP (hopefully not before I get to level 30 or so)

A good point here, I have only bought items solely for the XP only when the points would take me to the next level. I also only buy items I intend to keep. (UJ)

This from Christygirl:
I noticed that I go much faster and don't weave in and out of crops if I start to harvest from the top down---right to left. I always start back at the top instead of going top to bottom and then bottom to top. Just thought I would share.

Gary sent this:
Plant lots of one day crops to gain experience points, visit all your buddies and tend their farms. Save your money and keep up grading size of the farm. Find a good friend to trade off harvesting.

This one from Farmer Ed:
Hay Bales are a great way of getting quick experience, as it works out at 10 coins per 1 xp. Much less than buying woodstock (20 coins per xp) or buildings (~100 coins per xp). You can choose to sell them again making the total 8 coins per xp! (though using the Clear Tool is much faster).

This one sent in from a visitor:
Harvesting tip... Click on show buildings and/or show trees options in the settings menu to get those hard to reach crops. Also turning off the sound/freezing animals will help the harvest go faster.

This one from Farmer Olivia:
I notice that 1 day crops are about 100 coins. Plant grapes twice and you get that. It is quicker and simple.

This one from Ladyd:
When working on a farm and the lost connection comes up, just click on save then on the green arrow to reconnect that way you are not booted from their farm.

This one from Louann Thomas:
If you set your computer's screen to low quality the farmer will move faster..sort of like taking a pictue with a digital camera..the lower the pixel # the faster the processing time. Right click mouse, select quality click slow. This must be done each time you leave the page because when you leave the page the computer automatically returns to the default setting.

This one from Someone:
If you are in the Marketplace and aren't getting work, just click on the Map and go to the Marketplace again. It will take you to a new room and all new people. I do this until I find someone who will hire me. And remember...don't beg.

This one from Mike:
Place trees and buildings to the top and right as much as possible, that way they don't block your visibility of your crops without hiding them

This one from dixie:
Have a harvest party...i have started this new and exciting method of harvesting and sharing the wealth among my high level farmer friends. invite your best farmer buddies to your farm. plan in advance for the day and time so all of them can have their farms ready to pick. set up some ground rules to stay organized and keep things fair. hire everyone to work your farm, and then the next party goer will hire the entire group to do the same. everyone offers up a farm full of good crops and in return gets in on the action on all of the other farms. this has been so much fun and i have had a fantastic response. it allows those of us who've been at this awhile to escape farm town between parties and really make our time on the game profitable and fun! give it a try, form a group of farmers you trust and share the wealth!

This one from Pasture Patty:
If someone walks in a room and says they have a HUGE harvest to trade (work for work), don't believe them. If you have crops ready and want to trade work, ask them to hire you first. If they won't, they are likely lying.

This one from Demetra:
When farmers are constantly updating and changing their farm layout, they have added and deleted multiple fields. In order to eliminate the avatars desire to wander all around your farm. Delete and plow in straight lines. Plow on new green fields in a downward movement. So, if you want 10 fields of something, plow the fields upper left and then go down one space and do the land underneath it and so on for 10 times. Its all in the math. Harvesters will appreciate this too. It will speed up your plowing and planting by up to about 40%

This one from Phyllis:
You can create an illusion of height if you put hedges in front of each other. You can also add stone fences between the green hedges to make it look like steps. Use at least three levels of hedges or more depending on how high you want it to look. It will create an illusion of different levels, such as a being on a hill.

This one from KTMasters:
Instead of waiting 4 days for your pumpkin crops to come up, plant seperate fields of pumpkins each day. This way, you have a daily harvest of pumpkins to sell and continuous profitable income. Clearly, this would apply to any crops that take more than a day to grow. It seems to work well for me.

Play Nicely

A few words about Farm Town Etiquette. Begging for work and spamming the screen with endless jabber is generally frowned upon by the community. I have noticed a lot of people begging for work and getting hired so it must work for some. I you are going to beg for work then keep it at the Market Place and not the Inn or Real Estate Office. Don't PM people or follow them back to their farm to beg for work either, just bad taste there. I you are hired always ask what they would like done first, unless it is a mass hiring. Either way always thank the farmer for the work. If you are asked not to harvest some things such as trees respect the farmer's wishes, it is the neighborly thing to do. Farm Town is a social experience, make the most of it. I have had conversations with people from all over the globe by just having general conversations. Try it you just may make some new friends.
More on Farm Town Etiquette can be found in the forum here. Farm Town Etiquette Thread

Don't misuse the Report Abuse option. It is for offensive language only, not just for annoying players. Use the Ignore option to remove annoying or otherwise bothersome players from your screen. Both options will report the Farmers to the developers.
You can read more on this in this forum thread. Block Unblock Ignore Unignore

Tight Crop Placement

This was supposed to go away with the last release but it didn't seem to be. I still got to farms and see the ones that were supposed to be eliminated. Use these methods at your own risk. Read what was posted on the forum and look at the examples they show.
Originally Posted by Bert
The next release will not let users overlap crops any more. This will be fully enforced.

This was copied directly from the Farm Town Forum. I had problems with the Fire Fox method the IE technique works best for me. This takes a little practice and you may have to delete a few mistakes but you can maximize your crops with this. The overlayed fields will disappear one day with little or no notice. The tight placement they have no intentions or fixing right now. Once you have it done it is easy to maintain however, this can make plowing difficult sometimes, the plow tool will slide under some fields. I just drop the tool and pick it up again and the problem goes away.

Intentional Overlapping - similar to dragging the map
main steps - click, hold, drag, and drop
(steps need to be done on grass. harvested plots will get in the way, so bulldoze them first)
1. place beginning plot anywhere (i suggest a corner)
2. with 2nd plot in hand, move near the first plot (as if going to place normally)
3. while plot is green, click, hold (mouse button), drag (towards 1st plot), and drop
it takes some practice at first, but after a few successful tries, it's easy.
best benefit of overlapping: more crops for same space
note: once it's done the first time, maintenance is easy
caution: do NOT overlap near already placed fences, as this creates a conflict with the objects. you CAN safely place fences near overlapped plots, but not the other way around.
good luck, and enjoy.
hint: (seems to help some) pretend you are trying to slide the 2nd plot under the 1st
These instructions added for use with Internet Explorer (does not work in Fire fox) [copied from post by BubbaCoop]
One of the easiest ways seems to be as follows:
You need to have some open space big enough for a green "plow field".
While it is green, you click the RIGHT button on the mouse (click only, do not hold the button down).
You need to set up your farm so you don't need to drag it across the screen. Dragging at this point will ruin what you're doing.
After right click, move your pointer to the point where you want the top left corner of a field to be plowed and LEFT click.. It doesn't seem to matter where this is. Under fences, on top of other fields, whatever. I have several fields that hang over the edge of my property due to this technique, whereas most of the rest of my plowing was due to the click and drag technique. You can do a slight overlap by putting your pointer on the top RIGHT of another plowed field, or overlap by half by pointing at the top between the middle 2 rows of a field.
There is a drop-down menu that appears when you right click. This is why you need a reasonable amount of space (and possibly a full-screen zoom-out). You have to be able to right click, then move the pointer somewhere else on the screen (again, without dragging the farm across the screen), then left clicking in your chosen position.
Please be aware that this is a known glitch within the game that the developers have decided to leave as is, to give farmers the opportunity to to create a completely different look. You also need to be aware that, as this was not taken into consideration when the game was first introduced, you may experience problems with large areas of crops going missing once you upgrade to a 24x24 farm. This is a technical issue and the developers are working on increasing the limit allowed on larger farms so that this will no longer occur. I have used this method on my farm and have not had a similar problem, but a lot of farmers have. It seems to be linked to the total number of items you have on your farm. Too many animals, fences, hay bales and crops will cause this problem.
Sunshine (Moderator)

Forum Links

Farm Manager

To fully use the workbook you should inventory your farm. Once you get the first count it is easy to keep track by updating the data when you add or delete items. Here is how I go about getting a count. First I make a list of all the items then start with the trees first. I mark the list using the old concept of 4 marks and a slash to make 5. As I mark each tree I hide it, I have found things I thought were lost by hiding the trees. I work my way around the farm until all the trees are hidden. I have a fence around the perimeter hiding trees and structures as you count makes it easier to get a good count on the fencing. Be sure and hide the big items like barns and windmills I have found animals behind them before.

Counting fields can make your eyes tired for sure. I placed scare crows spaced 10 fields apart along the back and 5 down the side made the count much easier. Now I have sectioned my fields and know how many there are in each. This also sped the game up, before I had sections it Uncle Joe forever to mosey around the place the pathways let him get places quicker.

Make note of your farm id number (you will need this to link your farm to the forum). Go to your Face Book Profile page and look in the address bar the id # will be in the link displayed right after the ...profile.php?id=. Then you can add the id number to the farm link displayed in the site links on Farm Manager. You will need to unprotect the sheet to edit the link. Go to Tools - Protection - Unprotect Sheet, there is no password set on this. Then right click on the link which should be listed as your farm name if you put that in the Farm Name cell, if not it will be displayed as Farm Town Farm (the default), replace the existing id number with your own. Then protect the sheet again, this will keep you from overwriting any formulas and enable the tab key to jump to the next cell for input. Now you can go directly to your farm from Farm Manager.

Adding your farm size, level, experience points, coins, and fields will enable the formulas for tracking to work. Be sure to update these as they change, I do mine at least once a day.

I added the farm value just to give it a little realism. I used fictitious numbers in the formulas so buildings, structures, and land would appreciate.

Do You Have A Tip To Add?

Tips for game improvements should be posted in the Forum Feedback & Suggestions. Tips containing partial or incorrect information will not be corrected or posted.

Send me your tips and I'll add them here. If you include your email address asking for a return email I will try to respond within a reasonable amount of time. Add you name or farmer name and I'll credit you with the tip, if not it will be credited to and anonymous contributer.

I am just another farmer, I am not a member of the development team and have no contact with them or any of the moderators.

It seems the sendmail program is broken once again. I have not been getting email from the forms using that program so I have disabled the function until it gets fixed again.
Please use the email link below to contact me.
This link will open your default Email client

Email Uncle Joe

I do keep some emails archived for reference, I do not maintain an email list. I have not nor will I ever sell email addresses. I do respect the privacy of others and try to prevent spam from growing.

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