The Path to Mastery -- The GU Farmville Series

The process of mastery in Farmville normally requires you to harvest one item to obtain one mastery point, but due to oddities in the structure of the game, there are methods you can use to obtain points over and over again from the same object by making use of the containers in the game!

When I say containers, I am speaking of the buildings and structures that you must place or construct yourself -- the Stables, Tree Orchards, and Dairy Farms are prime examples. Before you approach the process of leveraging the containers to obtain rapid Mastery you should be aware that not all containers can be manipulated in this fashion. For example while Animal Mastery can be rapidly accelerated using the Stables and Dairy Farm, it cannot be tricked out of extra points using the Duck Pond or Chicken Coop.

The trick I am about to explain to you has existed since the introduction of the containers, which took place long before Mastery was introduced into the game, and has long been used by farmers to obtain extra special items like the Arborist and Farmhand, or collection items that they can use to complete collections for extra XP and money as well as special items. It also has an application to Mastery, as you are about to see -- but because of that there is a good chance that this oddity in the container behavior will eventually be fixed by Zynga. Until it is however, there are no rules against using this trick, and it does not violate any of the rules for play.

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One way to maximize the effective gains in Mastery Points is to be sure that you remove animals that you have already Mastered from containers like the Dairy Farm when you are resetting the Harvest Flag. By keeping only the cows that you can gain Mastery Points for as the focus of your container population you obtain the greatest gains for your effort. You can use the cows you have already mastered as the triggers to reset the Harvest Flag, making them doubly useful to you!

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The Stable and Dairy Farm containers have a unique feature in that once they reach harvest stage, when you harvest them it does one complete harvest for each individual animal in the container. So, for example, say your Stables contains a White Mustang, 5 Black Ponies, 10 Gray Horses, and a Purple Stallion. When you harvest it, you will obtain a mastery point for each of these animals as well as the money and XP for harvesting each individually, and a chance to obtain one of the special items that the Stable can produce: a baby horse, Arborist, or Farmhand.

If your Stable has been expanded to hold 40 animals, you can obtain a total of 40 Mastery Points by harvesting the Stables. However, if you take a different approach you can use the Stable container to obtain mastery points from the same animals over and over again, simply by resetting its harvest state!

For our example you have emptied the Stable out except for ONE animal -- the White Mustang. All of your other horses are placed on your farm, outside of the Stables. You wait until both the Stables and ALL of the types of horses and ponies that can be placed into it are ready to harvest -- each has the harvest icon over their head, complete with Mastery Star. By following the steps below, you will see how this works to your advantage:

Step 1: Harvest the Stable

- You receive 1 Mastery Point for the White Mustang.

Step 2: Using the Move Tool (a hand shape) from the Multi-Tool Menu on the bottom right of the display, pick up a Grey Horse with the harvest symbol and drop it into the Stables. This resets the Stable Harvest Status, and the Harvest Symbol appears above the Stables. Harvest the Stables.

- You receive 1 Mastery Point for the White Mustang.

- You receive 1 Mastery Point for the Grey Horse

Step 3: Using the Move Tool, pick up another Grey Horse that is ready to harvest and place it in the Stables. This resets the Stable Harvest Status, and the Harvest Symbol appears above the Stables. Harvest the Stables.

- You receive 1 Mastery Point for the White Mustang

- You receive 2 Mastery Points for the Grey Horses.

Simply repeat this process, and you continue to receive additional points for all of the animals inside the container each time you harvest it. In addition you receive the XP and coins for them again, and have the chance to obtain a special item with each new harvest of the container. In the case of the Dairy Farm, that includes the chance to receive collection pieces.

The trick described above works on the Stables and the Dairy Farm, but does NOT work on the Chicken Coop or the Duck Pond . There are at present no Mastery Points for Pigs or Sheep, so this is not effective on the Sheep Pen or Pig Pen. Since they are independent of each other, this trick can be repeated on your English Farm during the same game session as your regular farm.

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Old containers like the Stables (pictured above) can have their Harvest Flag manipulated, but new containers like the Duck Pond, Zoo, Pet Run, and the like cannot. The rule of thumb appears to be that containers that existed in the game prior to the major update in 2010 can be manipulated, but those that came after the update cannot...

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As of the time I wrote this, tests of the new Pet Run and Wildlife Habitat have proven that this trick does NOT apply to them. Like the Chicken Coop and Duck Pond, placing a ready-to-harvest animal in either of these will simply reset its state to 0% ready and will NOT result in the awarding of Mastery Points, XP, or Coins. It also resets the harvest state of the animal you placed inside the container to 0% thus costing you the points and money for it. That being the case, it is pointless to attempt to use this trick on those containers.

The new Zoo Container has not been tested yet, but we can presume that it will not be susceptible to this trick. When it is harvest-able I will be testing it, and if it is susceptible to this trick I will note that here, otherwise it is safe to assume it is not...