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?