Cityville Guide

This is quite similar to FrontierVille but have much success as lots of people are playing it already and I was also late to this game. But Zynga has become quite good at preventing these cheats now. The only valid cheat you could actually do is to have multiple facebook account and it is not easy to grow those account as Facebook are also stopping you from adding too many friends or the other party will report you as spam..
The Beginner Starting Cityville Guide
It would be best for your to follow the job mission which is at the left panel as it will advise on getting a good balance of Resident and Business. But you will always need to plan for enough Goods, which could be obtained via planting and harvesting from neighbors.
There is a difference, it would be important to get active friends as they would be able to help you to support you in getting energy, completing mission, getting plants to harvest, and so that your first 20 visits will get your extra gold, xp and energy. Not to forget they might even send you freebies each day.
So by going to the My Neighbors tab, you get all your friends and adding those that are especially high level so you know they are more likely to stay in the game.