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#10793 - 06/01/05 07:01 PM
[CONTAINS SPOILER] Hard level? Impossible level ..
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Newbie
Registered: 04/24/05
Posts: 5
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Having done lots of games at the low and medium difficulty level, I thought I had pretty much got the strategy for this game sorted. So this last couple of weeks I have been trying it at hard level.
I am convinced it is impossible.
I have tried about 10 games, and have never managed to get further than level two farming, with no other tech levels - whatever I try, I can't get enough food to keep them going (even with the basic 5 villagers all set on food) before they weaken and die. I initially thought - Ok, slowly get the village population up by keeping one breeding while the others farm, but then I realised that without sufficient tech back up you can't breed them successfully as it has 2 effects - taking a woman off farming, so the others get less food and get weakened, and also then you have kids running round eating food but not being productive. Also, you can't research enough to get to higher tech levels, because then they all die because you haven't got enough tasked to harvesting. Its a catch 22 and you can't get any further.
My most recent game has been the best - I had got to a point where I had 9 villagers - 5 adults (2 women and 3 men), and 4 kids - (3 boys and a girl). Food 150, tech 11000, level 2 farming, level one the rest. Hut built, beach cleared. all were on farming. one of them was on red bar for health (but seemed to be increasing as the food went up) but the rest were all green and healthy - I left it for an hour to find that a monkey had visited my research table and given me 2000 plus tech points - taking me to 13000 - but 4 of my adults have died, 1 is on the tiniest sliver of red, all the kids show weakened, and they are all still under 10 (including two aged 2 and 4) . The food store is still 100 plus, and the farm is still there. but I only have one adult who is practically on the point of death. All the kids are boys too, so even if by some miracle they do survive I'm still going nowhere fast.
I really don't know how I can ever get past this point!
I really think it is impossible. Unless anyone can help?
Edited by ladycfii (06/20/05 10:46 AM)
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#10794 - 06/01/05 07:12 PM
Re: Hard level? Impossible level more like!
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Lead Designer
Registered: 10/04/04
Posts: 2729
Loc: San Francisco
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Maybe it really is too hard. Anyone having success on hard difficulty?
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Arthur Lead Designer Last Day of Work
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#10795 - 06/01/05 07:14 PM
Re: Hard level? Impossible level more like!
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Newbie
Registered: 04/24/05
Posts: 5
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Ah... I guess its not just me then!
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#10796 - 06/01/05 07:16 PM
Re: Hard level? Impossible level more like!
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Unicorn
Registered: 10/07/04
Posts: 17515
Loc: Colorado
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I can share a few pointers with you that will help you with playing on hard in the 1.0 release of Village Sim. The game balance will be tweaked for the 1.1 update to Village Sim, so these hints shouldn't be necessary for it. I won't divulge the inner workings of the game, but the following changes to your approach should help tremendously in this version of Village Sim: - Run the game only at slow speed.
- Keep the game on as much as possible, rather than off (or running another application)
These two things will help tremendously by maximizing your villagers' productivity and minimizing food consumption. I'd really like to hear how your game goes if you try it this way! 
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Barbara Unicorn Last Day of Work
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#10798 - 06/01/05 08:11 PM
Re: Hard level? Impossible level more like!
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Newbie
Registered: 04/24/05
Posts: 5
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slow speed takes forever though... not sure I can stand it! I can't leave it on all day, got to work, so will have to pause until I can give it my attention and then it will take years to do! and how do i keep the game on? do you mean i have to leave in in the cradle all the time to stop it switching off?
incidentally I tried adjusting the clock on the palm in a few games to see if i could speed up my playing of the game - I had done this before in the lower difficulties, and it made it less frustrating waiting (I don't have much time during the day to look aty it, even in the evenings). I only moved it 10 or 20 mins at a time max, but it didn't seem to work. the effects were variable - sometimes they seemed to be productive, other times the food stayed persitently on 0 despite me setting them all to work. generally they appeared not to be productive during that time, so the health levels went down much quicker. hopeless!
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#10799 - 06/01/05 08:18 PM
Re: Hard level? Impossible level more like!
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Unicorn
Registered: 10/07/04
Posts: 17515
Loc: Colorado
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That's the problem right now, but it's the only way I know of to succeed on the most difficult setting. It may not be worth the effort to attempt it in this release. My Palm devices are only used for testing, so I can afford the luxury of running the game that way!  The only way to keep the Palm from turning itself off is to play the game constantly or keep it in the cradle. When you use the clock forwarding technique, the game is going to behave exactly as it does when it's off - not a good way to maximize your villagers' performance.
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Barbara Unicorn Last Day of Work
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#10800 - 06/02/05 12:33 AM
Re: Hard level? Impossible level more like!
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Newbie
Registered: 05/13/05
Posts: 10
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I am doing hard level right now. Granted, I got a whale early on and that helped a great deal in the beginning foodwise, and I was able to put all 5 villagers on research for a year or so.
My biggest problem with hard level is that my farmers will stop fishing to push the boulder when food is really low. I keep having to dump them into the ocean.
I have found that I can go from having over 3000 food to only around 400 very quickly. It seems to take forever for anyone to become a master anything. But then again, this IS supposed to be hard.
My suggestion for hard level is to not breed at all until you have harvesting level 3 and the beach cleared. (I almost killed my little villagers by having 3 women with babies and suddenly realizing that I couldn't fish because of all the debris)
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#10803 - 06/03/05 04:09 PM
Re: Hard level? Impossible level more like!
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Unicorn
Registered: 10/07/04
Posts: 17515
Loc: Colorado
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You're exactly right! The game is much 'friendlier' with respect to food supply and research when the game is on (and slow speed is friendlier than medium or fast). The balance will be improved for the v1.1 update.
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Barbara Unicorn Last Day of Work
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#10804 - 06/05/05 03:33 AM
Re: Hard level? Impossible level more like!
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Trainee
Registered: 11/01/04
Posts: 47
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In that case, I'll have to work quickly because I actually kind of like the challenge. I love taking on tasks that others say are impossible-don't ask...don't know why.
Although, so far, I'm about 7 attempt in (making progress) and the only time that I was actually doing pretty well...my pda crashed when I tried to turn it on and I had to hard reset it, and of course I hadn't backed this particular game yet. Currently, four out of my five villagers have died and the only reason that the one survived was because I told him to do something that turned him into a healthy 10-year old. So now I have him storing up as much food as he can. Hopefully he can store up enough food for a barrel of babies to live off of until they grow up (so far, no barrel).
I think that I might end up starting #8 in the near future. Eh, oh well. It would be nice to see some healthy villagers again. lol -spaceman
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#10805 - 06/05/05 09:43 AM
Re: Hard level? Impossible level more like!
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Unicorn
Registered: 10/07/04
Posts: 17515
Loc: Colorado
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I'm a lot like that, too. I love challenges, and will keep at something long after others have gone off to do something else!  Even after v1.1 is released you could always keep a copy of v1.0 around somewhere and install it when you want to take on another desperate situation!  That's how it is with the most difficult setting. When I was running all of the game balance tests, I can't tell you how many dead villagers I had! And, since I was doing tests, I couldn't even intervene to help them! It was so sad! 
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Barbara Unicorn Last Day of Work
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#10806 - 06/06/05 11:31 PM
Re: Hard level? Impossible level more like!
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Newbie
Registered: 05/13/05
Posts: 10
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Ok. I succeeded. Here are my stats.
Realtime Hours Played: 222 Villagers Born: 98 Villagers Cured: 157 Villagers Buried: 28 Oldest Villager: 83 Max Village Population: 65 Food Harvested: 506758 Crabs Caught 3848 Total Tech Points Earned: 778715 Tech Levels Completed: 12 Island Events Encountered: 16 Puzzles Solved: 12 of 12
Puzzle 1: 52 Puzzle 2: 46 Puzzle 3: 78 Puzzle 4: 99 Puzzle 5: 102 Puzzle 6: 124 Puzzle 7: 75 Puzzle 8: 120 Puzzle 9: 139 Puzzle 10: 222 Puzzle 11: 222 Puzzle 12: 149
Played on Fast mode with game paused overnight. The GC took FOREVER to show up, but then wasted no time taking care of Puzzle 11. I had no major catastrophes and only a couple of times when I had problems with food. Nobody ever died of starvation. At around hour 219, I had about 15 people die for no discernable reason, but I was happy for that to happen because I was still waiting for little GC and had maxed out my population.
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#10809 - 06/20/05 10:34 AM
[SPOILER] Re: Hard level?
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Trainee
Registered: 06/08/05
Posts: 38
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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This is really interesting! So you don't need the GC for puzzle 12? I guess I really don't know what it is then. Well, I think it must have something to do with the cactus because they keep looking at it but if I put someone there, they start to study medicine and I really don't need any more doctors right now.
I was planning to go on Hard Fast next time but maybe I'll do Hard Slow. I think I'll keep the population around 50 or so instead of getting up to 65 so there'll be room for the GC. I'm assuming you have to do puzzles 1 to 9 before the GC will arrive, right? Of course, it might be hard to keep the population at 50 because, once they get turned on, it's not that easy to turn them off and there are a lot of dirty old men going after the young girls!
Mine is boring right now because all the tech points have been earned and we've lots and lots of food and nobody has much to do except figure out puzzle 12.
Edited by ladycfii (06/20/05 10:44 AM)
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#10811 - 06/20/05 05:14 PM
Re: [SPOILER] Re: Hard level?
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Trainee
Registered: 06/08/05
Posts: 38
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Quote:
I've gone back to easy and I'm experimenting (unintentionally) with how many ways I can kill off an entire village in the shortest possible time!
Interesting experiment! Actually, it took me 3 tries to get started the first time. Once I had 4 men and 2 women and they weren't interested in each other at all. The message was they were too hungry to think about "that". I didn't know that men, at least, could ever be "too hungry"!
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#10812 - 06/20/05 05:48 PM
Re: [SPOILER] Re: Hard level?
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Trainee
Registered: 06/06/05
Posts: 31
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I had a minor die-off in my game that essentailly took me from 25 pop back to 5. So I started the great breeding program. At one point I had 7 farmers, 14 women nursing and about 20 children running around. Its a surprise the garden didn't sprout on its own just from all the nature calls!
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#10813 - 06/21/05 02:01 AM
Re: [SPOILER] Re: Hard level?
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Newbie
Registered: 06/19/05
Posts: 3
Loc: Maine
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Quote:
I think I'll keep the population around 50 or so instead of getting up to 65 so there'll be room for the GC.
Hmmm - my GC appeared when the population crossed 25. I am doing very slow population growth - all research was completed with population less than 20 - then some breeding started and then, lucky me, GC I've archived the save-game file just to have a fall-back.
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#10814 - 06/21/05 10:16 AM
Re: [SPOILER] Re: Hard level?
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Trainee
Registered: 06/08/05
Posts: 38
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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I'm doing the hard fast level now and it's going OK. I have a population of 8, with one 5-year old and one baby. Two of my researchers are shown as "weakened" but they've been like that for a long time. I thought they would improve once there was a garden but they're staying at the same health. I've had them eating and drinking but there's no change. I hope they'll be OK!
At this speed and level, they are doing more planting at the same time as harvesting. Is that indicative of this level or are they just naturally smarter than the last ones I had? The last ones were always emptying the garden completely and someone had to forage until it was growing again.
I have 3 doing research, 2 farming and one Mother. One of the researchers just did some planting all on her own and then went back to researching!
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#10816 - 06/21/05 07:56 PM
Re: [SPOILER] Re: Hard level?
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Trainee
Registered: 06/08/05
Posts: 38
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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I had to start over again! My weak ones died and there was no food. There were 4 children and I think I started them too soon, as well as doing the building instead of research. Now I've started with only 5 (is that unusual?) I have noticed that the farmer is the healthiest so I'm getting everyone to take their turn to try and keep them healthy! It's an awfully fine line between research to get them farming and keeping them healthy without running out of berries! 
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#10817 - 06/21/05 08:06 PM
Re: [SPOILER] Re: Hard level?
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Unicorn
Registered: 10/07/04
Posts: 17515
Loc: Colorado
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It can be tricky finding the right balance at first.  The number of villagers you start with can be either 5 or 6. You always start with 6 on easy setting and 5 on hard. Normal difficulty can be either - it's random.
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Barbara Unicorn Last Day of Work
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#10818 - 06/21/05 08:20 PM
Re: [SPOILER] Re: Hard level?
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Trainee
Registered: 06/08/05
Posts: 38
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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That's OK then; I have it on hard fast. I've got the fat forager cleaning up the beach and the researchers are foraging so hopefully their health levels will go back up. There's not much food in the bin so I think they're eating it as they pick it, sort of like what I would do, especially if it's a blueberry patch!
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