One of the best features about Farmville (by Zynga) that I quickly noticed was the math that could be applied to the game. From a strategic standpoint, I discovered not all crops that I was planting yielded the same amount of ROI. In Farmville terms, this would be coins (and XP points, but I haven’t really figured out XP points yet). So I started a spreadsheet for myself on Google Docs. The more I continued to play, the more items I was able to unlock. And in doing so, I found myself wanting to throw every unlocked item onto my spreadsheet so I could see if the new crop, animal, or tree was a better return than the current options that I had available.
I also noticed it came in handy when I talked to some of my Farmville buddies:
“My artichokes are choking my profits ” – Farmville buddy
“Yeah, I know. That’s the third worse ROI crop!” – Me
I’m only on level 11 right now so wanted to develop the spreadsheet a little more before putting it out for my friends to use it. But, I promised that I’d get it out, so here it is (Farmville ROI Analysis — Google Spreadsheet)! (It’s in its very rough stages as you can see, but it gets the job done for me.) Some more analysis that I have not done, but would like to add to the spreadsheet are:
- Trees & Animals have one fixed cost whereas plots of land is linear.
- Trees take up less space than plots of land.
- Space taken up by animals vary. Must be factored in to value the true ROI.
Hopefully, it’ll be helpful to all you Farmville fans! And if you find new discoveries or have any comments, feel free to share!
Update: Per the comment below, a much more comprehensive and complete Farmville spreadsheet is located here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rrFQP5AOGa4yUZCL-1VLUyg&gid=9
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rrFQP5AOGa4yUZCL-1VLUyg&gid=9
this might help you alot, it has all the information for pretty much everything except the latest crops hope it helps
I think this chart is wonderful. Much easier to understand and follow than the other big one out there. Thanks a bunch.
good job, thanks for posting.
Here is another spreadsheet I’ve found helpful
http://sites.google.com/site/farmvillespread/
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
@Polprav – sure! Glad you found it this post useful.
I definitely found this very interesting, but both spreadsheets seem a little incomplete in what the assumptions are. I am a level 7 novice farmer, and have not gone through the level 35 farm full of peas stage.
The ROI you mention would seem to imply a return on financial investment, but that is not the limiting factor in Farmville moving forward, because the typical high level user has tons of money sitting in the bank, but has maximized their land use, so wants the highest return on acreage with little regard to the return on financial investment.
In this case the numbers definitely seem to point towards the peas if increasing a bankroll is the primary goal. Regularly planted peas provide $2112 per 12 days, which is $176/day which is $11/mini-square/day as the top seed.
I don’t know the rules enough for how this compares to Goats @ $27/mini-square/day or Olive Trees @ $28/mini-square/day, but absent limitations it would seem like a farm 100% full of Olive Trees would be the biggest earner for any given space (again we don’t care about return on financial investment, but instead space, because we have more money than we can spend).
The math is different for someone starting out and who hasn’t filled their space, because you can plant 1 area of peas or 7 of soybeans for the same price, and 7 soybeans pays more. Additionally when space is not limited compounding needs to factor in when comparing different harvest rates.
Anyway, I don’t have it all figured out, and I personally am playing and designing my farm for more enjoyment based goals rather than just the fastest millions and highest levels. I just wanted to bring up a couple of the assumptions that need to be specified for economic analysis as well as differentiate between the scenarios of Space-Filled-And-Lots-Of-Money and Still-Have-Empty-Space-But-Limited-Money.
Pretty sure the Aloe is incorrect…85-50-15=20, not 77
Your aloe vera calculation is wrong. It leaves out purchase cost. The Quality score (Coins/Hour) should be 3.33 for Aloe Vera.
@durk and @tim, aloe vera is fixed. Didn’t mean for the long delay.
I’m going back to make some revisions as well.
Does this sheet include bees as indicated on http://gauravpeters.blogspot.com/2009/12/farmville-apiary.html
Thanks for posting. Now I know a) I am a geek and b) I am addicted to crackville, I mean Farmville!
Thanks for the spreadsheet i have email my list about your website since i found your spreadsheet will help them playing Farmville.
farmville is the best game ever and this is the best blog post!
I am addicted to farmville.Thanks for the chart!