Best Facebook Apps – CityVille: Building the Ultimate City Tips

CityVille Game

So I have bee getting a lot of questions about my city and why I built it the way I have. In this post I will spill the beans and let everyone in on my secrets. My city has a max population of just over 12,700, I have just over 40 million in coin. I am currently level 62 and my population is so low because I am trying to staff more observatories. Appster's Town is just about out of room and I really need to focus on getting more permits really soon. However, waiting for permits isn't a bad thing, it's actually a good thing.

Tip #1: Less is more, smaller is bigger

I've seen so many players rush to expand their city as much as possible. While this is the eventual goal all players should work towards, it isn't something everyone should immediately strive for. When you purchase all expansions for your city, there is no possible way you could get enough energy to do all the things you need to do in your city. You can only do a maximum of about 110 action if take into consideration neighbor visits, energy packs, energy bonus from community buildings and the amount of harvesting you need to do. Unless you have a group of neighbors who harvest for you, collect your house rents when they are up, it's just impossible.

CityVille Game

Its for this reason that it becomes necessary to destroy older homes and businesses. For example, when Atrium Lofts unlocks for your city, there is no need for all houses before atrium lofts. Get rid of all homes that don't match the population of your highest population home. Your entire city should only consist of homes that have the highest population. This keeps your population high, saves you energy to do other things and gives a huge boon to your businesses. Instead of buying expansions to place more country homes and bike shops, get rid of older buildings and replace them with newer ones.

Appster currently uses Atrium Lofts and when the next highest population home opens up (parkside villas) I will destroy all atrium lofts and replace them with the villas.

Tip #2: 270% Payout Bonus increase layout

CityVille Game

The key to making more money with less is through decorations. The plan used in Appster's town is a 4x4 business surrounded by two layers of 1x1 flowers and then surrounded by either 11 arboretums or rocky hills and 1 3x3 playground. My highest payout bonus is 277%. You can go much higher than that if you use cash shop items. Its important to use this design for your highest paying business. Appster currently has tower eats as the highest paying business so its used. Simply build these layouts and surround the businesses with your homes. Closer homes will make your businesses cash out faster!

Tip #3: Stagger your crops, shipments

Don't build 40 plots of the same plant and don't send all your ships to the same place. If you do, crops will wither because you will run out of energy collecting crops. Stagger them! Plant 5 of each plant that takes more than 1 hour. Replant immediately after harvesting.

The whole idea of playing Cityville comes to being able to play and getting as much done as possible. Players should strive to keep the city as small as possible. There is no need to purchase all expansions to have 40,000+ population, you can do it just fine with a third of the size. If you're going down the wrong road, stop now and reorganize your city before it is to late.

Do you have any more tips? Post them as a comment! Help out your neighbors!

Best Of Facebook Apps - NOVA: The Black Ops of Facebook!

MMORPG, Game, FPS

N.O.V.A, or Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance is a fast paced competitive FPS that comes bundled with everything you would expect from a modern day FPS. Did I mention it was an MMORPG? In fact, you can mark N.O.V.A. Down as an MMOFPS! Leaderboards, hundreds of armors for a unique look, shops, group play, solo play, thousands of guns, forums, gifts and facebook cash, NOVA has it all. The competition is stiff and it takes a bit to get used to, but once you do, you will become hopelessly addicted.

MMORPG, Game, FPS

What Is NOVA all about?

Anybody who calls themselves a gamer is no doubt aware of what Black Ops is. You've either heard of it, played it a few times, or your working on your fourth prestige. NOVA is a game that takes so much from Black Ops and crams it into this amazing MMOFPS. You start by creating your avatar and buying your starter weapons with the currency you are provided. If you're a fan of Halo, you will see quite a bit of resemblance here. But that’s only in appearance as the leveling aspect tends to lean more towards the Black Ops side of things. You get points and coins for killing other players. The amount of points, coins and experience you gain all depends on your performance while in game.

You are set up in a deathmatch free for all, the first player to get a set amount of kills wins. The player who scores the highest will be rewarded the best. That’s pretty much NOVA at its core. Its just plain simple fun. Any fan of Halo, Black Ops or any other competitive FPS will fall in love with this. Players start with two basic weapons, a pistol and a rapid fire weapon. Throughout the various maps you can pick up other weapons. However, to truly rack up the damage in NOVA you should strive to purchase the best weapons for your level from the shop.

MMORPG, Game, FPS

Ranks and Coin

You spend the coin you earn in game on gear. Everything from weapons to armor and melee weapons or grenades. It has everything you would come to expect. A unique aspect to NOVA is the upgrades you can purchase. Upgrades give you certain benefits or buffs for a particular aspect. Upgrades come in the form of weapon modifications, weapon add-ons such as scopes, buffs to your radar, debuffs to your enemies radar, and general buffs to your character. All things purchasable are bought with either coin or facebook cash and are restricted by level. The higher your level more gear you character is opened up to.

NOVA – Basic Tips and Tricks

Above all else, practicing is the best way to get better. However, there are a few more tips that can give you an edge  and improve your game over your enemy when you are just starting out. You are going to want to purchase a knife and some grenades as soon as you can. Knifes are great for when you're weapon is reloading and you've got someone on you, its a 1 shot deal that no one should live without. Grenades are great for throwing at others who are fighting each other. When you hit level 4, purchase Enemy Radar so you enemies will show up on radar when they fire, it makes hunting them down easier.

Best Facebook Apps - Age of Champions: First Impressions

The Best RPG on Facebook, enough said

I just cant get over how amazing this game is. It gets its roots from first generation rpg apps in as such where you click the “Do Quest” button to complete quests but it adds its own insane graphical flare and a load of extra goodies that would choke a billy goat! Age of Champions has it all; questing, crafting, guilds, pvp, raids, army building, empire building, army management and outfitting and leveling your very own character is just the tip of the iceberg. The only time you will run out of things to do is when you're out of stamina and/or energy. Even then, the amount of information you need to process and the learning curve has spawned its very own forum! If you're an RPG fan, stop wasting your time with other Facebook apps, start playing Age of Champions now!

Age of Champions – RPG you say?

You start the game by setting up your champion. In Age of Champions you have 3 races to choose from; Human, Elf or Minotaur. Each race has their own benefits and you can change your race at whim. After you've picked your hero you can begin outfitting him with clothing and gear. All gear and clothing will either cost you gold or crystals. You gain gold by doing quests, crafting, raids or battling other players. Hell, getting gold can even be done by claiming rewards from achievements!

Your champion has stats that effect your gameplay. Power, Life, Damage and Protection are the 4 stats that drive the strength of your champion. The higher they are, the better all around champion you become. Once you gain enough experience you can level up each of the 4 stats however you like. Each level up gives you 4 points to spend on any of the four stats.

2d/3d Animated battles and raids

When you battle another player you have the choice of playing an animation sequence that varies depending on your army composition. With a huge selection of different units you can stock your army with, the animated sequences can be pretty entertaining. But watching them over and over can become tedious. Thankfully Age of Champions allows you to skip the battle sequence. It's a bloody display of an epic battle going on and very enjoyable to watch how it changes based on your armies progression.

Raiding is done in a 3dish type animation setting. Once you summon a creature you are brought to a window with you standing before the towering beast. Full animation sequences take place when you attack or cast spells or abilities. Raids also come with a chat box so you can talk with others who join your raid group. It's even equipped with a combat log! Simply insane goodness. Call to Arms a recruit other Age of Champion players to help you bring down summoned beasts for loot!

Questing, not so boring anymore

While Age of Champions tends to follow the tried and true quest design of button clicking quest objectives, it does so with such stylish grace and captivating storyline that it breaths new life into questing. The art effort put forth in Age of Champions make you want to read the quests. The only draw back is that some of the quests are not repeatable. No need to fear as there are hundreds of zones to visit for questing.

Age of Champions is truly an amazing app that shouldn't be missed by any RPG fan who loves facebook apps.

Best Facebook Apps - Backyard Monsters

Backyard Monsters on Facebook is a pretty unique app. It's actually one of the few that doesn't depend on how many other friends you have. I guess you can say that it's a social game in an anti-social way. You actually benefit from fighting with others more than becoming their ally. While friends can help you speed up the production on your buildings, it's really not needed if you have a strong enough defense. So here are a few tips and tricks to get you started in the right direction.

Tips and Tricks on How To Play BackyardMonsters

I'll be honest, Backyard Monsters has a pretty big learning curve. If you've never played a Facebook game like it before, it might initially overwhelm you. However, once you get the hang of it, it is actually pretty simple.

The jest of Backyard Monsters is that you gather resources to build buildings that protect your yard, build your army and boost your collection rate and hoarding capacity. There are 4 different resources in Backyard Monsters; Twigs, Pebbles, Goo and Putty. Each resource is used for certain objects. Over time you will eventually want to build up stockpiles of these resources. You can spend the resources on troops to fuel your army, upgrading buildings and defensive structures.

So if you're playing for the first time or thinking of playing, you're going to need to complete the tutorial that teaches you to play. After that just do what needs to be done to upgrade your Town Hall so you can build more defensive towers. Place enough defensive towers in your yard and spread them out and do not forget to upgrade them. Occasionally you will be attacked by both a computer player or an actual player. The defensive towers are what will hold off the attacks. But don't worry if you town gets destroyed as you can always repair.

Backyard Monsters - Tips and Tricks on How to Gain Resources

The four different types of resources in Backyard Monsters are used as currency to do pretty much everything. Without enough resources you won't be doing a whole lot. So it's important to be gathering and collecting as many as you can. There are 3 different ways to gather the four types of resources. The first, and most common, is by building the gathering buildings. Twig Snappers, Pebble Shiners, Putty Squishers and Goo Factories that you build in your yard will generate a small amount of resources every 10 seconds or so. They gather more faster the higher level you have the buildings at. So build as many as you can and upgrade them as often as possible.

The second way to gather resources is by sending your army to others yard and attacking their city. Depending on how well the attack goes will determine just how many resources you can loot from their yard. The more damage you do, the more you loot. You can fight anyone as many times as you want, so long as you have the army to do it. If you run out of troops, just go back to your yard and produce more.

And finally, the last way to gather resources is just to outright pay for them with shiny. Shiny is an in-game currency that you can pay for with real cash. You also have a small chance to gain shiny while harvesting mushrooms in and around your yard. Spending shiny to get resources is always the fastest way to get them, but they do cost you.

Backyard Monsters is a competitive game available on Facebook. You can find all sorts of tips and trick all across the net. So if you have any tips and tricks of your own, please come back and post them here to help everyone else!