FarmVille and CityVille are released by same company, Zynga.
In gameplay, FarmVille focus on farming, CityVille orientate on building a city. In FarmVille, the player as a farmer and in CityVille the player is a Mayor.

You can play FarmVille on Facebook and iphone. CityVille is only available on Facebook for now. Let us see what are the differences and similarities between these two games. (FarmVille abbreviation as FV, CityVille abbreviation as CV)

Basically, as online community games, players need to play with their friends called neighbors, visit their farms or cities, help them out, send them gifts, and even buy stuff from them. You take care your farm or city, collect money and rewards, and you will level up, you can buy more things for your farm or city.

These two games both can grow plants, after harvest you can make by-product out of it in FV. In CV, your crops become goods for you to supply business shops/stores. And you can’t harvest trees in CV. Build buildings: various buildings in both games, but as mentioned above, FV buildings are for farming purpose, Horse stable, Pigpen, Barn and ex. CV do have farming houses, but more residential and business building, for example: Apartment and Bakery. In both games, some buildings need your neighbors to send you materials or staff to complete. Animals: Not too many kinds of animals in CV, and they are more like decorations. While in FV, your animals can help you make money, finding treasures and you can sell them. Speaking of “sell”, you can sell most of your property in FV. And in CV this function seems doesn’t exist. Another difference is you can customize the farmer’s look: eyes, hair, outfit….. You can’t customize your mayor. Actually, you don’t see your mayor around, “he” only appear when he needs give you a hint or mission.

Why FarmVille is popular? Many people think it’s because most of us living in the city, play FarmVille is just like another life in the country side, most importantly, we nurturing our crop, watching it grow, and waiting for harvest. And we feel guilt if we let our crop die.

Why CityVille is popular? I think CityVille is like extended version of FarmVille, you are more like a “God” now. It keeps the farming feature, so you still can be a farmer. It added more features, have your franchises in other cities, you are a successful businessman. You build roads, houses, school, museum, find staffs for your community, you are a mayor. Multiple roles bring mixed fun.

Ok, I think I have to go now; otherwise my crops are going to die.