Tuesday, January 19, 2010

How to Manage Country Story Friendship Points



Country Story Secrets

The goal of Country Story is to plant and harvest crops, complete quest, and build up your farm to be one of the biggest and most successful around. That said, you also need to maintain a good relationship with your friends by replenishing Country Story friendship points – the currency by which your neighbors and friends in-game will be measured. Without friendship points, you have a hard time interacting with those friends, so rather than spending them all down to zero, you need to boost them back up as much as possible with whatever strategies you have at hand.

What Are Country Story Friendship Points?

Friendship points are a measurement of your current relationship with your neighbors in Country Story. Friendship points will start out at 75 for new relationships and can be added to or taken away from depending on what you do for your friends. To add points to your friendships core, you can send gifts worth at least 100 coins. Each gift like this is worth 1 point and you can add up to 10 points per day to your score. So, the minimum you have to spend each day to boost that score is 1000 coins. Don’t go above this though as you cannot gain any more points after those initial 10.You can alternately give away sticks and stones for friendship points – 30 of them is worth 10 friendship points.

How to keep Your Country Story Friendship Points High

If you need your friends to help out on your farm or you do anything against theirs (such as stealing crops), your friendship points will go down. They can drop really quickly if you’re not careful. For example, if you have your friend harvest your crops for you, you will lose 10 points per plot of land, plus you will lose your green points for leveling. So, it is a good idea not to spend your friendship points until you absolutely have to.

If you can get and keep those Country Story friendship points as high as possible, you will have a much easier time engaging and maintaining good relationships with your friends from the start to the end of every day. You cannot just steal crops from them on end. You also need to go and offer them gifts, help out on their farms and just plain be nice to them. Good balance will help to optimize your coin intake as well as how well your own farm will perform in the future.

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Monday, January 18, 2010

How to Load Up on Neighbors in Country Story



Country Story Secrets

Like any good Facebook game, neighbors in Country Story are a fundamental aspect of play that can either make or break your strategies. In Country Story in particular, there are added levels of depth that you will not necessarily find for other Facebook games – things like Friendship points, and advanced gifting. Your goal is going to be to ultimately engage all of these potential hot spots of gameplay and enjoy them in ways that are going to allow you to excel when you reach the upper levels. Without neighbors and a good idea of how to manage them, you’ll have a hard time doing any of these things.

What Neighbors in Country Story Do

There are a lot of things your neighbors can help out with. To start with, they can help perform chores on your farm when you are away – watering your crops, cleaning up the detritus and making sure everything is running smoothly. Secondly, they can offer you gifts, which will help you grow your farm quickly with new items that would otherwise cost you an arm and a leg. Early in the game, this is especially helpful because it will give you a good boost as you get started with whatever tasks you are completing in the game.

Friendship points will come into play too – which are rewarded when you give certain gifts and perform certain tasks. You can then spend those friendship points to have your friends water your crops while you are away. You can also use up those points to steal crops from other people’s ready to harvest crops.

How to Get More Neighbors in Country Story

The key to getting more neighbors is to first max out whatever is on your friends list and then to go to forums, groups on Facebook, and even Twitter and start adding people who are likeminded and would enjoy having a larger base of friends in Country Story. Basically, short of spamming, whatever you can think of to gather new friends is a good idea and will help your farm.

Getting a collection of neighbors in Country Story starts and ends with having a successful strategy for approaching them. Just getting people you know to play the game is the easiest route, but it only works about 10% of the time. For the other neighbors, you need to go out and engage strangers and convince them that you are a worthwhile neighbor that will give as good as they get. If you can do that and maintain a good relationship with your neighbors, you will be well on your way to Country Story elite status.

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Sunday, January 17, 2010

Creating a Good Schedule for Watering in Country Story



Country Story Secrets

Watering in Country Story is something relatively new and unique to this farming app – at least if you’ve been playing FarmVille instead. It requires that you have an entirely different schedule and approach for how you maintain your crops, and that you are able to get online often enough to maintain the process throughout the day and until the crops are ready to harvest. That can be hard for a lot of players, especially if they don’t play the game very often. So, if you’re serious about playing this game well, watering in Country Story will become a primary concern.

How to Create a Good Watering Schedule

There are two options for watering and you will need to take advantage of both if you want your farm to flourish. The first option is to log back on often enough to water those plants and keep them alive. The second option is to have a friend water your plants for you – something you can do if you plan carefully ahead of time.

The Key to Successful Daily Watering

Unfortunately, you’re going to have problems if you start relying on your friends. Most people don’t keep their own schedules that strictly – especially for a video game. So, if you expect them to be online all the time and they are not, and then your crops suffer because of it, you’re going to be upset, but it really isn’t their responsibility.

Ideally then, you need to think of the amount of time you have yourself and how often you can get back on to water those crops. The only time you should ever rely on someone else to water your crops is when you cannot be on online for a few days and don’t want everything to wither and die on you. Otherwise, plan carefully and be online as much as possible.

As you can see, watering in Country Story is all about being able to pinpoint the exact timeframe that works best for you and then stick to it in a way that will allow you to master the crops you’re planting day in and day out. If you can maintain your schedule, get your crops watered and out of the ground before they dry up and die and maintain your protection of those crops before they are stolen, you will find that Country Story is an incredibly engaging game with a lot of depth to it.

>>> Country Story Secrets <<<

Saturday, January 16, 2010

How to Plant and Harvest Crops in Country Story



Country Story Secrets

The goal of any farming app on Facebook is to plant and harvest crops so that you can sell off the items you harvest and get a profit. In Country Story, the process of planting and harvesting is slightly more engaging than in other farming games and will require a lot more strategy on your part – to plan out the course of your crops and to ensure they are watered properly and protected against stealing. If you can plant and harvest crops carefully enough though and maintain a good plan throughout the process, you will eventually be able to showcase your prowess in a number of ways on your farm.

Creating a Schedule to Plant and Harvest Crops

To get started, you need to be aware of the costs of planting. There is a cost per plot of land, per action you take and per seed you plant. Your goal then is to determine the return on investment versus time spent with that item. Here is an example (not in the game). If you have a crop that costs 25 coins to plant and rewards you with 100 coins when you harvest it, your net profit is 75 coins. However, you must also take into account how long it takes to grow that crop.

If it takes 2 days to grow the crop that rewards you with 75 coins, you’re only making roughly 1.6 coins per hour over two days. However, if there was another crop that rewarded you with 40 coins but only took 4 hours to grow, you would be making 10 coins per hour.

As you can see, scheduling your time can have a direct impact on what you plant and harvest in the game. You need to keep this in mind as you move forward.

How Harvesting Can Be Optimized

For any crops you plant and harvest, spend some time verifying the value of it before you settle. If you think you can get online every 4 hours but it turns out you’re not actually making 40% of the time, how many coins are you losing as a result and what is your end profit. By optimizing the total return, you can choose crops that are best suited for your particular schedule.

If you plant and harvest crops willy nilly and without any thought for how much time you have, what crops are best in that space, and how your neighbors will help (or hurt) you, you’re going to fall behind very quickly in Country Story. But, if you create a good plan that takes full advantage of the different ways you can excel in a game like Country Story, you will be well on your way to the top of the game before you know it.

>>> Country Story Secrets <<<

Friday, January 15, 2010

The Importance of Playfish Cash in Country Story



Country Story Secrets

For every Playfish game, there is a choice you can make to pay for Playfish Cash, an extra boost to your gameplay that allows you to pay for upgrade, shortcuts, and high level decorations for your account that you would otherwise not be able to acquire. But, for every game, players must decide if that Playfish cash upgrade is worth spending their hard earned cash on to get. There are times when it is and times when it is not and as a result, many players are forced to skip some of the wonders of the game outright.

What Playfish Cash is Good For

In Country Story, Playfish cash is good for a lot of things. Unlike other games where you need the cash to help upgrade the size and performance of your farm though, it is used almost entirely for things like larger and better looking items. Additionally, fertilizer is only available with cash, which allows you to grow your crops faster than without the stuff. But, generally speaking, you miss nothing of the game if you don’t have Playfish cash – you just play a little slower and with the same tools everyone else has.

How to Get Playfish Cash without Breaking the Bank

Playfish cash is available from a special menu in Country story that allows you to go in and buy things like the cash and your coins. All of the items you can buy with Playfish cash are separated onto different menus, allowing you to more easily find and sort through them without needing to dig through the coin items. The same works in reverse (which, if you don’t like playfish cash, is a big plus).

Unlike Zynga games which often reward at least small amounts of cash on occasion, Playfish is a cash only business – you either buy the stuff or you get nothing. That means you will need to spend some time deciding whether it is worth going out of your way to spend real world money on virtual goods.

Playfish cash is a luxury that not every Country Story player can afford. But, for those that can afford it, they will find a variety of interesting options opening up to them, allowing them to access parts of the game they may not have realized were there before. However you play Country Story, make sure to carefully balance your decision about Playfish Cash over what you expect to get out of the game and what your budget allows.

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Thursday, January 14, 2010

Three Quick Ways to Gain Country Story Coins



Country Story Secrets

Like every good Facebook game, the importance of loading up on coins cannot be understated for Country Story. Those Country Story coins are going to be the lifeblood of everything you do – from planting and watering new crops to buying bigger plots, better items, and lots of furry, fuzzy farm animals. But, how do you get the necessary Country Story coins to do all that? It starts with a good strategy and clear view of what is involved in this game.

1. Plan Your Schedule

Make sure you know how much time you can play the game each day. If you can only logon once every 24 hours, you need to create a schedule that works well with that time frame. There are very few plants that take a full 24 hours to harvest and none that take longer, so you will need to get your friends to help as well, or have a dog on the property to keep your crops safe from stealing. Either way, make sure to spend some time planning what will work with your available time.

2. Engage with Your Friends

Your neighbors are a big part of the game. They can help keep your farm running when you are away from your computer for too long and they can provide needed crops to steal from if you have an animal with a ravenous appetite. Make sure to get as many neighbors as you can and do your daily duty to get those 10 friendship points.

3. Complete Quests

Quests are fun and will reward you with all sorts of Country Story coins and opportunities to grow your overall income levels. Try to keep up with the quests at each level. Additionally, consider getting the trophies that are available to you as you level. The more quickly you can complete Trophies, the quicker you can level up your character’s production ability and stamina – two things that will make you far more coins in the long run.

If you do these three things, along with the myriad other tasks that you are allowed to perform in Country Story, you will quickly find that the game will practically throw Country Story coins at you. While there are seemingly a huge number of ways to get rich in this game, the best strategy is to do a little bit of everything, working it all together into a well woven tapestry of strategies. Do all that and you’ll never want for coins again.

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The Different Country Story Animals



Country Story Secrets

Every farming game has its fair share of animals to gather and enjoy on your farm. That said, Country Story goes a bit above and beyond the other games. Whereas games like FarmVille have animals so that you can spice up the look of your farm, adding cows and pigs to the mix for people to watch, Country Story really has you engage with those animals and gives you quite a few options for purchasing and putting those animals in place. So, when it comes to planning your Country Story farm, you need to spend much more time considering what role the animals will play in it.

How to Raise Country Story Animals

The variety of animals in Country Story is great and allows you all sorts of options. To find the animals, go to the livestock shop in town. You’ll need to have saved a decent amount of coins or cash up to buy them and in Country Story you must feed your animals regularly to keep them productive. So, if you aren’t prepared to set aside a good chunk of your crops to feed animals, you should rethink your new venture. In addition to feeding, you will need to pay attention to your animals, giving them love to keep them productive. Each animal has specific crops they need to, so you had better be able to get them, either by growing or stealing the crops for your animals.

Choosing Your Country Story Animals

There are 8 different animals you can buy in the game, including 3 for Playfish cash and 5 for a combination of coins, stones and sticks. The most productive animals are cows which will produce 2000 coins worth of milk each day. However, buying a cow costs 80,000 coins, 200 stones, and 200 sticks (or 15 Playfish cash) and will require 48 Grass a day to feed. A good starting place is the White Chicken though as it produces 180 coins per egg and only costs a fraction of a cow. Eventually, you will want a cow though as these are high producers for minimal work after your initial investment.

If you are interested in creating a farm with a diverse population of Country Story animals, you should start out by planning your space and what time you have to devote to those animals – the same as you did for you crops. There are certain things you will have time for and certain things you will not, so by planning accordingly you will be able to get the greatest possible benefit out of those farm animals. But, remember above all else, have fun with them. These are cute and fuzzy animals after all.

>>> Country Story Secrets <<<