I noticed when I was going back and forth between two tribes, one paused, to get rid of the stews I was making on the active tribe, that the little tribesmen were always somewhere else even though they were paused.

To prove my theory, I paused the large tribe, seperate the men into the pond and put the women around the fire. Exited the game, came back and everyone was everywhere!! The fishers, men and women alike, were carrying fish. And to top it off, I paused the game overnight and my two adept doctors are now masters. How did that happen? Seriously, the game came on paused.

Also, my Master doc, hes been a master since he was 37, is now an adept doc O_o! And hes 62.

Baffled.

The game doesn't store the position of each villager in the savegame file, so each time the tribe is loaded (whether or not it's paused), the villagers are put onto the map in new locations.

Was your master doctor eating stew, by any chance? Some stews have the side-effect of lowering a villager's skill.

Aha! That explains the villagers moving around. Thx

He could have been. I didn't know the stew could lower. The docs tend to LOVE the stews that give energy.

It's a stew that makes the villagers healthier and that they go to eat it by their own!
I have noticed too that the doctors like stews a lot!!

That's what happened to me when I paused the game during the trail vision until I could buy it, then when I bought it the following day, All the villagers were dead only one servived who was burying the dead and it was not on pause any more. So knowing my village had no chanch of survivul I restarted. I had not joined the forums then.

Thanks, that really helps,( I didn't want 2 leave the computer on at night!).

I don't think the game really pauses. I paused the game for about 4 or 5 hours but when I came back, I found everything has changed. Adepts became masters, food and tech points increased ... etc.
Is there a way to really really pause the game?

The easiest, and most sure way to pause the game is to press the space bar. The game is not paused by leaving it on the menu or options screen. You can see more complete information about pausing in this answer in our Support FAQ.

Thank u LadyCFII. Now I know where it went wrong. I paused the game using the game's Options screen but I didn't exit the game so the change in speed didn't take place.
Thanks again.