While I’ve merely dabbled in Farmville myself, being more of a Petville man, it’s hard to ignore a game that’s played by more than 1 per cent of the world’s population. Love it or hate it, Farmville has spread like crop disease throughout the Facebook community. My friends are constantly posting game updates on their walls, and even my older brother, a manly construction foreman by day, dons suspenders and milks pink cows after he gets home from work. It’s slightly frightening.

But rather than raging against my fear, I’ve decided to embrace it, and game developer Zynga has generously offered to help, by sharing with us Farmville strategy tips on how to make the most of your land, your crops, and your livestock.

Check out the gallery below for Zynga’s Farmville advice, along with my own colour commentary in italics.

Make The Most Of What’s Around

Utilise the space on your farm efficiently by keeping your plots organised. This will increase your Experience and profit.

My brother is dangerously well-organised. We’re like Goofus and Gallant.

Covet Thy Neighbours’ Gifts

Instead of purchasing animals and trees from the Marketplace, add some Neighbours! Neighbours can send these items as Gifts to you, for free! Don’t forget to return the favour by sending one back to them. Remember, what goes around, comes around!

And then Fahey shared a portion of his Facebook friends list with potential stalkers. Good call.

Take Advantage Of Your Animals

Animals are more than just cute! When your animals’ counter reaches 100% you can collect milk, eggs, wool and other items that you can sell for coins!

My cats never give me milk, eggs or wool. Hmph.

Here’s Why You Build Them Up… Buttercup

Buildings not only look great on your farm but constructing them can provide you with a hefty amount of Experience. Horse Stables, Dairy Barns and Chicken Coops can also be used to store your animals. If you’re lucky, you might even receive a Foal or Calf when collecting from your Horse Stable or Dairy Barn.

The more I read, the more pathetic my farm looks. Buildings?

Expand Your Horizons

Feeling cramped? If you need more room to grow, expand your farm! Additional land can be purchased from the Marketplace for Coins or Farm Cash. Remember, in order to expand your land for Coins, you must have enough neighbours! Check out the Marketplace to review how many neighbours you need to gain additional land.

I have one neighbour. What’ll that get me?

Pimp Your Farm With Your Rides

Vehicles can be purchased from the Marketplace to assist with your farming needs. FarmVille features a Hot Rod Tractor, Harvester and Seeder that can be used to plough, plant and harvest your farm in no time!

Everyone needs a Hot Rod Tractor.

Become A Tree Hugger

When your trees’ counter reaches 100%, you can collect various types of fruit that can be sold for coins! Fruit does not rot, so no need to worry about them withering.

Yes, my farm is a pathetic fallacy, but I have a tree!

Achievement Unlocked

Farmville features numerous Achievements that can be obtained by completing various tasks within the game. In addition to a Ribbon to show off to your friends, you can also gain Experience points, Decorations for your farm and Coins!

If they linked these to Gamerscore, you all would play, and you know it.

Time Your Harvest Well

Farmville features crops that are ready to harvest at varying times. Make sure to plant crops that ripen when you are available. Doing so will ensure that your crops are less likely to wither.

Look at me, ploughing the land like an old farm pro!

Neighbourhood Watch

Assisting neighbours with daily chores and fertilising their crops will provide you with valuable Experience points and Coins. Fertilised crops will reward additional Experience points when harvested, so don’t let them wither.

I don’t know about you, but I get by with a little help from my friends. Just sayin’.

Don’t Keep Your Comments To Yourself

Want to talk to your neighbours? Leave them a comment! The new Comment Box can be used to send messages to and receive messages from your friends. You can also easily keep track of who has visited your farm, fertilised your crops, fed your chickens and sent gifts sent to you by clicking the “visits” tab in the Comment Box.

I wonder if he’ll make the connection?

Save Your Coins

When starting Farmville for the first time, make sure to save your coins. Plant and Plough in moderation for the first few levels. Gradually add more plots of land once you are more familiar with the game and its mechanics. If you add too many plots of land too soon, you may not have enough money to buy crops!

Or buy more coins! That’s the beauty of having money to burn. There was an economic crisis? When?

Take Shortcuts

Farmville features various consumables that will make your daily chores a breeze. Use the “Arborist” and “Farm Hands” items to harvest all of your trees and animals with a single click!

If all else fails, hire someone else to play the game for you.

The original Ultima was a series of PC role-playing games with rich stories and deep character development, so disappointment over Lord of Ultima being a strategic kingdom-building simulation more akin to Might & Magic is quite understandable. Still, it’s a free-to-play persistent-world strategy game that can be played in your web browser, so we can overlook a few missteps, as long as everyone is having a good time.

So far I am, but then I’ve not done much more that build a few structures and watch people attempting to have cybersex in-character in the game’s chat window, which equates a good time no matter what game you’re playing.

If you’re interested in a way to waste a whole lot of work time without having to install additional programs on your work PC, head over to the Lord of Ultima website and get started on your little slice of heaven, before everyone else comes along and destroys it.

Kotaku was shown an early version of development studio Firaxis’ Civ V running on a PC on the first day of Game Developers Conference here in San Francisco. What was shown was a Civ that behaves just a little more like it is in the real world in regards to everything from terrain to the rules of war and international relations. All have been modified to feel more true to life and more rife than ever with strategic potential.

The game is still a turn-based single or multiplayer quest requiring ample brainpower and planning. Like other Civilization games, the player goal is to lead one tribe from the founding of a city to a position of global leadership, via military or peaceful means.

The most obvious difference is the look of Civ V’s terrain. As can be seen in screenshots it, looks more like real Earth. A representative of the studio showing the game said this new Civ’s worlds might look pre-rendered but are still, true to the series, randomly generated. An optional overlaid grid shows that the world is indeed divided into hexagons, a first for the series, which used to chop things up by squares.

The ground looked good, lifted naturally by mountain ranges and cut by rivers. As good as those graphics looked, the game is supposed to be able to run on the widest range of PC hardware specifications supported by the series yet, from laptops Civ fans use on planes to high-end PCs. The current minimum spec Firaxis is hoping to accommodate are 256 MB video cards and dual core processors. That target might change.

A lot of small changes have been made to the core Civ gameplay, tweaks that appear to have major implications. Players get a notification system this time, which alerts them to important new events such as a new bit of research being completed or a scouting party being attacked. Clicking on the alerts that appear on the right side of the screen, when relevant, warps the player to the location of the event.

Advisers are back in Civ V, characters who pop up to offer tips, Rival civilizations are now being programmed to fight with noticeably distinct artificial intelligence styles. (Less consequential to gameplay is the introduction of full-screen animations of rival leaders such as George Washington or Napoleon, set in character specific locales).

New city states appear on the map. These are always controlled by the computer. Players can enter pacts with them, trade with them, or even attack them. This complicates the relationships among the major civilizations, as an America that is friends with Budapest might be drawn into a war if it tries to free a besieged Budapest from the French. The city states were described by one developer showing the game as elements that “are there to make things happen.”

A great civilization’s area of influence used to spread evenly in Civ games. In the new one, a player will see the coloured border representing the limits of their people’s reach expand in more realistic ways. Turn after turn, the computer will automatically expand a player’s civilization into areas that have relevant resources, say forest instead of desert, early in the game. Players can spend gold to speed the expansion.

Combat has changed. Players will no longer be able to stack units onto one space and then carry that offensive stack to war. Each unit — which still represents and is depicted by — a cluster of fighters, can only occupy a space on its own. New ranged units can fire from afar (an extra hexagon away for the archers, according to the demo this week). And cities, which now have health bars, can fire back.

A number of other changes may be big or little. It’s hard to say. The developers said great civilizations can now agree to commence a research agreement, instead of just establishing trade or declaring war. The game will now allow easy access to a catalogue of user-uploaded mods. And, as a tease, the developers said there will be surprises as to how non-military ways of winning the game, the standard cultural and technological victories, for example, will be designed.

Civilization V, which appears to be a crafty evolution for the franchise, is set for release on PC this fall. No Mac version is planned for launch, but the producer noted that all Civ games have eventually come out for Apple computers.

Some would say the human mind is what separates us from wild animals. Others would say that wild animals are what separates us from the human mind, but they generally live in really bad neighbourhoods, like the jungle. I subscribe to the notion that our power to deceive and misdirect is what separates us from wild animals. It’s also what helps us excel at video games, as GamesRadar UK’s David Houghton points out in his article “How to win games with the power of your mind.”

His first two examples are ones that I’ve long utilised myself. Pretending I am either completely amazing or ridiculously incompetent is a tactic I’ve used not only to psyche out competitors in video games, but is one of the main reasons I have such a lovely girlfriend, at least until she reads this post.

I’ve used some of his other suggestions almost accidentally. For instance, remaining aloof and not talking is something I do because I am slightly shy, while switching up tactics is mainly a result of my overall lack of tactics.

His most useful bit of advice? Know when to quit.

With so much of the psychological approach to gaming based around the impression you create rather than your actual play level, knowing when to quit is vital if you’re going to have your dark legend live on. Maintain a good run for as long as you can, but as soon as you suspect someone’s getting wise to you, get out of there.

He could have just typed the chorus from Kenny Roger’s “The Gambler”, but I appreciate the extra effort. It’s what separates us from wild animals.

How to win games with the power of your mind [Games Radar]

Thanks to Sega we had five of the EB exclusive Emperor’s Editions to give away, each containing:

* Collector’s Edition box
* Collector’s packaging
* 2 Disc Digipack
* A3 poster illustrated Napoleon biography
* Napoleon’s Field Journal
* Napoleon 8” statuette
* Elite Regiment unit pack
* Heroes of the Napoleonic Wars unit pack

And the winners are…

Rhys F
Nworb
Matt
Chris
Chris Gander

Congratulations guys, I’ll be in touch shortly to arrange delivery of your prizes.

Kalpyso Media’s reboot of the classic island nation simulation Tropico last year was quite a success, garnering praise from the hardest of strategy game critics, so it’s only natural the game get an expansion. Coming in May, Absolute Power gives players even more ways to lord over their island as a benevolent ruler or oppressive tyrant.

Absolute Power will add new buildings, scenery upgrades, and landmarks to the game, along with a new campaign spanning 10 missions, a Loyalist faction that worships the ground you walk on, and new Megalomania edicts that will have your citizens celebrating your rule in the streets – or else!

Check out the full feature listing below for a better idea of what to expect when Absolute Power comes to Tropico 3 this May.

Tropico 3: Absolute Power Features

• New campaign featuring 10 missions on a separate map with 10 islands also available in sandbox mode

• 6 new buildings (including Garbage Dump, Marina, Small Garage, Children’s Playground, etc) and a new buildings category for current and new decorations with individual icons mode

• 10 new Megalomania edicts – demonstrate your absolute power by ordering the construction of a huge golden statue of Tropico’s top export, declaring an annual festival dedicated to yourself or even print your own money!

• 6 Landmarks – Build huge decorations and buildings which dominate the island landscape and make each island unique.

• New faction – The new Loyalist faction are your die hard supporters and want no elections (since you’re obviously the best candidate) and want a statue of you on every corner!

• Faction Disasters – Low standing with any island faction will trigger new disasters if not addressed

• New Intro and Win/Lose Cutscenes

• 4 Additional Avatar Costumes – 2 for male and 2 for female avatars

• Beautification upgrades for the presidential palace including rooftop pool, extra towers, flags, banners and a larger balcony (which will increase the effects of balcony speeches)

• More icons displaying the status of buildings and displaying input/output storage numbers for selected buildings

• Prevalent faction – In every sandbox game one faction is chosen as “prevalent” on the island. Members of this faction will be especially numerous throughout the entire game and their satisfaction will be more important than usual

• More Radio Announcements to guide you through Tropico’s daily life

• Gravel roads – Second type of road for rural areas with decreased travel speed

“We were targeting three to five months for the beta, we’re really at a three month period of time for the beta at this point,” StarCraft II production director Chris Sigaty said in a recent BlizzCast podcast. “We are still targeting the first half of this year, so with that in mind, it really shortens the window of time with our major content patch coming out pretty close to the end whether it’s even worth it putting out the map editor at that point.”

Don’t think about the map editor! Just keep thinking to yourself, if all goes smoothly, StarCraft II could be out this summer. If all goes smoothly, StarCraft II could be out this summer. If all goes smoothly…

BlizzCast Episode 13 [Blizzard via StarcraftWire.net]

“Attention, League of Legends players!,” starts a message on the League of Legends forum about the sudden news. Riot Games is unable to go into specifics about the distribution deal, but the company has it is “extremely excited at the prospect of being able to offer a higher quality experience to players in this territory through our new partner”.

“Through this partnership, we will be able to offer Southeast Asia its own, unique League of Legends experience,” the message continues. “In addition to a localised client, we aim to be able to provide increased accessibility to Southeast Asian players through features and promotions specifically geared towards the residents of this region. We also hope to advance League of Legends to many new players in the area, including a large number of veteran DotA players.

Unfortunately, this does mean that, as of February 25th, players located in Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, and the Phillipines [sic] will be blocked from the North American servers as part of our publishing agreement. All of these players have received a refund in full for any purchases they have made, and each has received a personal email from Riot Games explaining the situation, and offering a code redeemable for additional exclusive content once their local servers go live.

“We believe that this will be an exciting opportunity for League of Legends to achieve even greater success in a new market, and to provide a high-quality, competitive gaming experience to a much larger number of Southeast Asian players.”

The upside is that Riot Games is offering a full refund for any purchases and a code for additional exclusive content. That is making the best of what could be viewed as a bad situation. What’s more, Riot Games claims that the partner will be able to offer a “higher quality experience” by most likely localizing the game — though, obviously many Southeast Asian players already speak English…as their native language.

That being said, this move does potentially prevent people from playing with the friends they’ve made playing this game. And what about things like all the things, like XP or IP or runes, that players did not purchase, but spent hours and hours grinding through the game to get?

Riot Games is looking into “potentially” transferring accounts. Friends? Well, make new friends.

Riot Signs a League of Legends Publisher in Southeast Asia – League of Legends Community [LoL Thanks, Tody!] [Pic]

Napoleon is the latest in the Creative Assembly’s ten-year old Total War series. It mixes turn-based strategy and real-time battles as one height-challenged Frenchman attempts to turn Europe into his personal empire. And it’s out this week, exclusively on PC.

We have FIVE of the EB exclusive Emperor’s Editions to give away, each containing:

* Collector’s Edition box
* Collector’s packaging
* 2 Disc Digipack
* A3 poster illustrated Napoleon biography
* Napoleon’s Field Journal
* Napoleon 8” statuette
* Elite Regiment unit pack
* Heroes of the Napoleonic Wars unit pack

To be in the running to win, we want you to rewrite history. To the tune of Abba. By cleverly rewriting all or part of the lyrics, can you turn their hit “Waterloo” into a celebration of Napoleon’s glorious victory over Europe?

Leave your entry in the comments below. You’ve got until midnight EDT Friday to get your entry in. No multiple entries allowed.

Good luck!

UPDATE: I’ve decided to switch up the rules on this comp because I’ll now be out of the office all day Wednesday and most of Thursday. That’ll make it difficult to manage the planned daily giveaways. So instead, you can enter the comp on this post between now and midnight Friday. I’ll then pick the five best entries over the course of the week.

[Terms and Conditions]

Command & Conquer 4 will not only require a constant online connection, it’ll end support for LAN as well as dedicated servers, an Electronic Arts designer tells Destructoid. The reason is because the game’s global player progression system will all live remotely on an EA server. While it allows players to log in to their account from any machine, it’s incompatible with dedicated server support.

EA promises, however, that it’s overhauled the game’s networking to deliver a more stable experience, with quicker entry into games.

No LAN or Dedicated Server Support for Command & Conquer 4 [Destructoid]