Currencies

Currencies

Gold Coins:

Gold Coins are the primary currency in CastleVille. You can check how many Gold Coins you currently have by glancing in the top left-hand corner of the screen. You can spend Gold Coins on a variety of causes. For example, they can be used to purchase items, buildings and decorations from the Market. You can also buy more land to build on, which is crucial to expand your kingdom. Then there are other, less important uses, such as getting more clothes for your character's appearance. The maxmimum limit of Gold Coins is 5,000,000. If you're getting close to that then congratulations! But you need to spend it!

How to get Gold Coins:

Quests:
The most straightforward way to earn Gold Coins is to complete quests. Quests reward you with an abundance of coins, often with relatively little outlay. In fact, you normally are using Energy in the pursuit of completing quests.

Taxes:
Once you reach a certain level of experience at CastleVille, the tax from buildings may well become your primary method of earning Gold Coins. Buildings earn you a certain rent (which varies depending on the building itself) over a specific time period. The Cottage, for example, which is the most basic residential building, nets you a healthy 150 Coins every 5 Minutes. You can see how investing some Energy and money in building a lot of these could end up providing your with lucrative rewards. See the guide to CastleVille's buildings, below, for more information on the best buildings for collecting taxes.

Crops:
As the guide to Crops outlines below, there is quite a variety to the seeds that you can purchase in CastleVille to provide you with an economic boost on a regular basis. Crops are a great way to earn coins, separate from either of the ways above, because you can specifically buy seeds depending on how long you are likely to be away from the game. Can't play all day? Then buy seeds which take all day before they are ready to harvest! If you are able to sit on CastleVille for most of the day, you can focus on quicker crops. See the guide below for advice on which crops are best.

Animals:
You can earn a moderate amount of Coins for feeding the animals present in your kingdom. Once they reach adulthood, they also reward you with items. See our section below on Animals for more information on this.

Neighbors:
Much like completing tasks in your own kingdom, visiting your Neighbors to help with their daily duties will net you a coin reward. The big plus to this is that you have free Energy to spend while visiting Neighbors. This means that you are effectively getting completely free Coins for performing these tasks.

News Feeds:
Watch out on your News Feed to see what your friends are up to - certain links, if you click on them, will earn you Gold Coins. This is another free way of earning the Coins.

Selling Items:
If you are really hard up and need some Coins, fast, you can always sell items that you have in your inventory.

Buy Coins:
Finally, you can purchase Coins using real money - with all the ways above to help you get them, however, why bother!

Crowns:

Crowns are the premium currency in CastleVille. That means that you generally have to purchase them using real money. There are a couple of other ways to get them, which you can find out about below. In terms of what you actually do with Crowns, you can use them to advance yourself in the game far quicker than through standard means - for example you can skip through the quests requirements, rush resources, collections and crafting instantly, as well as purchase Energy potions. They are also required to purchase certain buildings and the more flashy items in the game.

How to get Crowns:

Buy Them:
We'll say this first as it is the method of getting Crowns that Zynga intend most people to use. You can buy them using real money, if you have it to spare.

Level Up:
Leveling up is the key way to get free Crowns. Every time you level up, Zynga generously rewards you with 1 Crown. This is unlike most Facebook games where you very rarely get premium currency through basic gameplay.

Earn Them:
As with other games of this type, you can earn the premium currecy by completing surveys and fulfilling offers when they are given to you. Keep an eye out for the 'Earn Crowns' tab at the top of the screen. Click on it to be presented with all the available offers for earning you Crowns. The reason this option is offered to you is that the developers get commision every time someone completes one of the surveys or offers, so they are still earning healthily from your Crowns!

Save Them:
You begin the game with a few Crowns. Save them for when you need them most if you want to avoid having to get your cash out early on.

Cheat:
There are no cheats available for CastleVille. If you are presented with the possibility of giving your Facebook account details in return for Crowns, don't do it as there are people trying to scam you. Also, don't download any programs to try to alter your game in any way - the majority of these result in your account being hacked. Even if it isn't, you leave yourself open for your account being banned or suspended.

Castle Points:

Castle Points are not really a currency, but they are important for advancing your kingdom and measuring your progress against your friends'.

How to get Castle Points:

These are earnt through building certain 'Royal' Buildings. These include items such as towers, cathedrals and decorational items such as fountains. You can actually see a list of buildings that give you Castle Points in the Buildings section of this guide.

It may seem like Castle Points are not having any effect on your kingdom, and so you may be prioritizing some of the more functional buildings in the game over these largely-decorational structures. While it is true that you may not find them as instantly useful as certain other buildings, collecting a supply of Castle Points is essential if you ever want to expand your kingdom. Bear in mind also that certain buildings later in the game require Castle Points before they become unlocked.

When building Royal structures, you will often also need to recruit a Crew. This involves inviting some of your Neighbors and Friends to joing the Crew - you can do this by clicking on the building once you have placed it in your kingdom. You can also recruit the Duke to help you, but he needs Crowns to help you, whereas Friends can help you for free, and more frequently. Only when a Royal Building has been fully crewed can you collect Coins from it.