The most common causes of villages being wiped out are:

1. Having only one trained farmer. If the farmer gets sick and is not healed, starvation is a real possibility for the tribe. Villagers can (and should) be trained in more than one skill. In VV3, any villager with farming knowledge will harvest food when the food supply is critically low.

2. Not having a trained healer to take care of the sick when the game is off. If you're using kids to heal sick villagers when the game is on, you need to be aware that kids will not heal sick villagers on their own. If there isn't a trained adult healer, you need to be vigilant and check frequently for sick villagers. Keeping the fire going reduces the frequency of disease.

3. Growing the population too large and too soon. The initial food supplies in all VV games are limited and won't support a very large population. In VV3, if you grow the population beyond about 10-12 villagers before you have an unlimited food supply, you will need to hunt mushrooms a lot to prevent starvation.

Some things you can do to help get extra food:

- Make sure you are using your chief to make extra food every day.
- Hunt mushrooms, especially when it's raining.
- Have all of your working-age villagers do research when there is no food left to harvest. This will get you much-needed tech points.
- Make sure you check what each village tech does for your tribe (click the "?" next to each Buy button). Some are more helpful than others early in the game.

Very good advice! Thank you.

Yes! Thank you for the advice Lady, I never knew that mushrooms sprouted more frequently in the rain

Or you can check Jazzo's [MAJOR SPOILER] Food Guide

LadyCFII edit: Added spoiler warning. (Sorry, Jazzo. Some people only want a little help in the forum of hints and tips. Your guide is quite a spoiler).

I am also losing my villagers. How do I get an unlimited supply of food? I have the orchard going (which only produces food maybe onece a day), have harvested the bee hive, I use the chief everday to give food, most villagers are cross trained. [Ed. spoiler removed] my villagers are all dying of starvation because food is not lasting long. Also it takes forever for the builders to build anything. What am i missing? Tech points are taking forever. I have at least level 2 on everything, some have level 3. The most villagers I have had is 20, but they didn't last long.

Read this thread from the beginning. Check out Jazzo's food guide. It is very thourough and accurate. Look on the VV3 guides.
That should really help alot.

Good Luck!

For unlimited food, you need a certain puzzle (it's in the VV3 guide). In waiting that, put all your kids on the mushrooms!
Are you playing in Nature or Magic faction and which level?

I am having the same problem. I have only been able to grow one fruit tree. How do you get the chief to do something other than watch everything? How can I fish when there are sharks in the water?

Those are puzzles that need to be solved. If you would like help with the puzzles, look here.

Maybe this is completely obvious, but how do I "use the chief to make extra food"?