Farmville is a highly addictive farming game on Facebook. It is relatively simple to learn how to play but that said, there are many techniques and strategies that will have you earning millions of dollars and gaining special items.. But we can go into that later.

For now, I just want to give you a brief overview of the game and what is required to play it.

How to find and play Farmville in Facebook:

Firstly you will need a Facebook login to play Farmville. Facebook is a free social networking site which only requires an email address to get started. There are several ways to find Farmville the game, you can click on the "Applications" menu on the bottom-left of the screen, and browse for the game that way. Another method is typing "Farmville" in the search bar up the top right of the page.

Once you are in Farmville you will soon discover that the aim of the popular farming game is to plant crops and harvest them for money. Doing so will increase your "Coins" and XP (Experience Points). As you find out more details of the game you will discover Levels, Ribbons, Gifts, all different fun little things.

So let's break it down.

Planting Crops

Planting crops is the quickest way you can earn money in the game and one of the core elements of Farmville. Planting crops involves these three steps, which must be followed in order for any particular crop.

1. Plowing: Plowing is the digging of the ground and preparing it for planting the seeds. (the farm is divided up into a grid with little squares which your farm is based on, each crop will take up one square or plot on the grid). Your farmer can only plow one plot of land at once. You may purchase a tractor when you gain $30,000 of coins which can plow multiple plots at once, this has its drawbacks as it actually requires fuel to run!

2. Planting: This stage requires planting the actual seeds. You can then wait while your little babies grow, each type of plant will take a different amount of time to grow. To see the full list of crop growing times, profit per seed, and profits per month, I highly recommend you take a look at the Farmville spreadsheet.

3. Harvesting: Harvesting is the act of using crop for its fruit/wheat etc. This is where you gain the coins and xp. Once you do this your crop will disappear from the plot and you may re-plant.

So this is the basis of how to play Farmville, but there really is a lot more to it:

There is a large selection of different crops / trees that you can plant, some will require more experience to unlock, XP points can be gained a number of ways, from harvesting crops to working on a friends farm.

You can also expand your farm to allow for more crops and therefore can be a larger potential to gain more coins. Expanding the farm can be done a couple of ways. The common way is to gain enough coins and Farmville neighbors to upgrade, or simply by buying the expansion with "Farm Cash", which is real money that you can put into the game. I highly recommend you don't use these options though, especially as there are some brilliant guides for under $27 which will explain how to get all the coins and xp you want using some secret strategies.

As you gain more coins and more experience you will level up, leveling up will give you access to more things such new crops, special items, etc. There are rumors about how many levels there are on Farmville but there are 70. I know, I made it there :)

There are also ribbons that you can collect. Ribbons are awarded to you for all different things, from helping out a friendly neighbor to spending loads of cash for the "High Roller" ribbon. Ribbons are a way of showing off your accomplishments to friends and neighbors.

The main Farmville strategy is to work EFFICIENTLY, not hard. This means harvesting crops on time, i.e.; if your crop has been ready to harvest for three hours then you have just lost 3 hours of coins! You mustn't ever let your crops wither, this is not only a waste of time and money, you have also lost potential XP points. Things like expanding your farm, buying lots of seeds etc are all great things to have you earning coins at a rapid pace. Don't forget to claim some extra XP from adding lots of neighbors too! This is also a great way to get some ideas of your own.

Of course, the best way to learn how to play Farmville is to just jump in there and go for it!