CityVille is a social game on Facebook. The goal in the game is to found and grow a city. The player can build residential and commercial buildings, city management offices, hotels and resorts, and so on. Houses generate people, who shop at businesses to produce money, which can be collected by the player, and when the player doesn't collect the income in timely fashion no new income will be generated. Population is limited by city infrastructure, so management buildings (such as fire or police stations) need to be built to unlock larger populations, which in turn requires spending more money and various resources collected in the game.

The game makes use of an energy system meaning that the player can only perform a limited number of actions before he or she has to wait for the action bar to refill again, which happens persistently. The plow/plant/harvest mechanics loop familiar from FarmVille is themed for a city game, as a business open/close/collect cycle.

CityVille's multiplayer support includes letting players start businesses in their friends' cities. If the friend permits, the player can name and place a franchise business in their city. With a franchise business, both players need to keep visiting and maintaining the business, to keep it thriving and making money. Setting up many businesses from the same franchise in many friendly cities is rewarded with a headquarters skyscraper, which grows larger when the franchise does.

The game features a number of social features such as visiting friends, multiple types of currencies, in-game micro-transactions to buy new buildings or increase the city boundaries.

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