When I just started to play CityVille, I thought that the decorations were for the sake of making Zynga (the maker of CityVille) more money.
My reasoning was, the nice looking bronze statues, trees and flowers are there so that we, the players spend more coins, so that our city will look nicer.
I made a very grave mistake until I realized how important the decorations are; with decorations, it is possible to get 100% or even close to 300% more coins.
For example, if you have a Coffee Shop which earns 320 coins, every time you collect the coins, you need to spend 1 energy.
But if you arrange the decorations around the Coffee Shop correctly, it is possible to get 640 coins (100% bonus) by spending only 1 energy.
If you do not use decorations, you need to spend double the amount of energy to get 640 coins.
One easy way to place the CityVille decorations is to place them between your shops or houses.
This is because the decorations have their own "influence area" which is indicated by the blue square when you place them.
So, if there are 3 buildings within the blue square, all the 3 buildings will get the bonus pay outs.
Besides, it is also important to monitor your CityVille energy, coins and supplies when building decorations.
It is important to adjust what we plant and harvest, to maintain enough supplies for the shops.
Managing the energy levels is also important so that we have enough energy to plant in our farms, and also to collect coins.
Many players tend to spend their energy on collecting rent from low earning houses or shops.
For low paying buildings, I usually rely on my neighbors to help me collect them, so that I can spend the energy on high paying houses or shops.
(Newly added neighbors are usually very helpful in helping you to collect rents) Another relatively unknown tactic is to use the same set of decorations for many shops and houses, even when the buildings are completely out of the decorations' influence area.
This can be easily done because players can move the buildings in and out of the influence area.
For example, if my decorations are now built around a Cinema business for the Cinema's bonus coins, I can always move the Cinema out, and move my Coffee Shop inside when my Coffee Shop needs to collect coins.
Using this tactic will help us save thousands of coins to get the same amount of bonuses.
My reasoning was, the nice looking bronze statues, trees and flowers are there so that we, the players spend more coins, so that our city will look nicer.
I made a very grave mistake until I realized how important the decorations are; with decorations, it is possible to get 100% or even close to 300% more coins.
For example, if you have a Coffee Shop which earns 320 coins, every time you collect the coins, you need to spend 1 energy.
But if you arrange the decorations around the Coffee Shop correctly, it is possible to get 640 coins (100% bonus) by spending only 1 energy.
If you do not use decorations, you need to spend double the amount of energy to get 640 coins.
One easy way to place the CityVille decorations is to place them between your shops or houses.
This is because the decorations have their own "influence area" which is indicated by the blue square when you place them.
So, if there are 3 buildings within the blue square, all the 3 buildings will get the bonus pay outs.
Besides, it is also important to monitor your CityVille energy, coins and supplies when building decorations.
It is important to adjust what we plant and harvest, to maintain enough supplies for the shops.
Managing the energy levels is also important so that we have enough energy to plant in our farms, and also to collect coins.
Many players tend to spend their energy on collecting rent from low earning houses or shops.
For low paying buildings, I usually rely on my neighbors to help me collect them, so that I can spend the energy on high paying houses or shops.
(Newly added neighbors are usually very helpful in helping you to collect rents) Another relatively unknown tactic is to use the same set of decorations for many shops and houses, even when the buildings are completely out of the decorations' influence area.
This can be easily done because players can move the buildings in and out of the influence area.
For example, if my decorations are now built around a Cinema business for the Cinema's bonus coins, I can always move the Cinema out, and move my Coffee Shop inside when my Coffee Shop needs to collect coins.
Using this tactic will help us save thousands of coins to get the same amount of bonuses.
Source...