I've got a decent game going finally. Had to make some annoying mistakes and lose a few villages to get there. I don't want to spoil myself too bad but I also want to avoid getting myself in a fix. Not researching harvesting fast enough ruined two villages through slow starvation. Not breeding carefully enough nearly killed another one.

I don't mind if there are problems that I have to carefully feel my way around. I don't mind if something happens that knocks my population down a few pegs and I have to rebuild from there. What I'd like to avoid is some roadblock so severe that the entire game is lost.

I know there are bigger and better food supplies down the line. What happens if I outstrip my current supply? I'm imagining that there will be general starvation for all villagers until enough die and we are back to a sustainable level. If that's the case, I'm cool with that. What I really want to avoid is something that crashes the whole population and calls for a restart.

From other comments on here I've seen that builders have trouble starting from scratch, say for building a hut. They have to have certain tasks to develop that skill on in the first place. Is this truly the case? Are there puzzles that cannot be solved without a builder? My first builder has already died of old age. Presumably, any new builders I train will probably die before all my building tasks are completed. If I do every trainable building task first, it sounds like I'll get stuck. Any pointers?

Thanks!

I don't consider this post a spoiler, since there is only general information about how to avoid being unable to complete the game. If anyone reading this post doesn't want ANY information about Puzzle 12, don't read this.

The only MAJOR roadblock that many people encounter is that you need a master builder to complete puzzle 12, and you won't have one when you need one if you don't plan carefully. That isn't the only requirement, and I'll refrain from giving more detail, except to say that it can be completed much earlier than its position on the puzzle screen would suggest (as soon as you have the necessary levels of Village Tech and the required villager).

There are no other pitfalls that I'm aware of that will "toast" your village or your chance to complete the game.

My crops just failed for the first time and my saved food stocks are dropping like the proverbial stone. I have 12 villagers right now. I'd put four on breeding duty earlier in the day thus 8 are adults, four are kids. I'm 30k of the way towards my next tech which I'd planned to be harvesting. What exactly are the cycles that the crops and berries follow? I've yet to see the berry bush regenerate save for when the drum is played.

If the crops don't come and my villagers start starving, what is the typical resolution of that? Do crops tend to cycle before all the villagers starve? Would I typically see a die-off of half or three quarters of the population before the crops come back?

It's hard to say exactly when the crops will regrow (if they have truly failed) or what will happen if you continue on your current course. We have seen reports of crop failure, and the farm is being examined for the v1.1 update to make sure it produces reliably. One thing you might try is to pause your game for at least a few hours. The game doesn't differentiate between paused and unpaused states for certain aspects of the game, which could work to your advantage. When the game is paused, your villagers don't age, don't eat, and don't work. BUT, the farm may not be aware of being in pause and the crops could regrow. I haven't tested that in v1.0, but it's worth a shot.

I'll give that a shot. I paused the game, did a hotsync, and went to bed. I'll see how this looks this morning.

I may also just drop the difficulty down to easy. I wasn't looking for a pushover easy sort of game here but it looks like I might need it if these villagers are to survive!

How do you currently have the relative difficulties setup? My assumption would be that easy limits the number of truly nasty island events, even things that should be fatal would just leave your villagers near death. Villagers would not die unless severely neglected, i.e. you haven't picked the game up in 48 hours. Bottlenecks and roadblocks would not be as fatal. If you don't make farming a priority, you can run the berry bush out and then see "oh my, I need to expand my food source." There's leeway for exploration and experimentation. Your warning that you're going down the wrong path will be sick or starving villagers, not losing the whole game.

Normal would increase the likelihood of death from neglect and poor planning but would keep the roadblocks and bottlenecks from being 100% fatal to your entire game. The key is, you don't need prior knowledge coming into the game. I lost one of my first serious attempts at a village because they ran out of food before I had farming researched. I had no idea when I started that the berry bush was such a limited resource. I saw the farm and thought "Ah, this must be for when I want to expand my population. Create more food sources, then make babies." I feel like I need to be reading a cheat guide rather than just exploring with a little due caution.

Hard should be for the people who have already beaten the game the first time around. They're familiar with all the technology and the best way to create a village and now they have to put that knowledge to work since there's no slack. If they don't do things in the right order, they'll run out of food and fail.

It sounds more like you're suggesting how the difficulty levels should work, rather than asking how they actually work!

Part of the fun of playing LDW's real time games is discovering what works and what doesn't. It can take several tries to determine the best approach. I don't know of many people who were successful the first time they played any of them. In Village Sim, however, you are warned by the tutorial that the food supply from the berry bush is limited and that research is important. It's a good thing that the plants, fish, pets and people in these games are just cute little arrangements of pixels!

In general, the difficulty levels determine how easily and quickly the villagers are able to be productive at their tasks (food, research and construction projects). The starting position is also less favorable as the game difficulty increases (initial food supply and number of villagers). It's a lot easier to succeed on the easy difficulty setting, although you're not totally protected from disaster. I really don't want to divulge exactly how the game responds to different settings and strategies, since that would remove part of the fun of these games - discovering what works and what doesn't.

How do I fish?!!? I have farming research 3 now. Does fishing require another step?

Also, the stupid villagers never stick to the assigned tasks. I can understand a little variety but these guys consistently go off to do other stuff to the detriment of food and research.

The villagers require unobstructed access to the ocean or they won't go fishing!

Don't worry too much about how often they wander off to do other things. Although you can micromanage your villagers, and sometimes I still do that if I have a specific short-term goal in mind, most of the time I've taken a more relaxed attitude toward their wanderings and let them have breaks! I'd hate it if some giant with a stylus made me stand in the kitchen all day!

"micromanage" - is THAT what you call it