Hello all on this wonderful Saturday night: Except for my poor villagers.

I had just started a new village (on hard) and my second crop had just come up. I had my runner on farming since he does the work of two and he had build up over 150ish in food when a dense fog came and wiped out my food suppy. It would have wiped out more, but I didn't have more. Then I (I mean Koi) started to build a food supply again (I believe he had around 170ish in food when a "flood" came down over the waterfall and wiped out all but my top layer of food. Now I have 9 people, 31 minutes til a new crop and 0 in food, get that 0. My poor little peeps just haven't had any luck this game at all.

Keep your fingers crossed that no more island events wipe out anymore of my food supply. I don't think they'll survive another catastrophe. (Thank goodness for health restoration!)

I will! Hopefully they will soon get some good luck.

And also, when you're down to zero in food and crops are taking a while to grow, you can raise your game speed to 2x so that the crops will grow faster and then lower it once they've grown in

Thanks for the info... I usually keep it on 2 times speed but I didn't know to lower it back down.

Also, don't forget to have the children pick up mushrooms, especially the red ones. That should keep them going until more food comes.

If things get dire, you can pause the game while waiting for mushrooms, then unpause it just long enough for a kid to get it. I've also heard people say they've paused the game, and when a mushroom appears, they pile on a bunch of kids. When they unpause the game, several of the kids simultaneously pick up the mushroom, with each kid receiving food credit. So one mushroom picked up by 5 kids is equal to 5 mushrooms with just one kid. I haven't tried this myself.

I found that the villagers last a very long time — with continued good health — when I ran out of food in the beginning. So I didn't do any pausing or cheats and it worked out just fine.

You may want to pause the game when you're not actively playing it so you don't have villagers messing with the crops or running out of food with no kids picking up mushrooms. Once you get the algae out of the water, you'll be set for the rest of the game.

Thanks Complexity... Appreciate the advise. I've never had this problem before, but then I never played it on hard. I'll try your advise.

This is true that piling kids on gets extra food, but, in my experience, VV2 is a little funny about that. You need four kids to get two mushrooms... two always seem to be left out.

Maybe that is what makes it "hard"

Yes, you're right, heather. On the hard level of VV2 (not VV1) food is more of a problem than on other levels of difficulty.

Update:

I still don't have level three farming and they run out of food for about "40 VV minutes" everytime. Needless to say I have every possible hand on research when there isn't a crop and I have to use the health restoration when I do get food since their health bar goes down to half or just above. I should have level three farming today. Thanks for keeping good toughts for my little villagers and yes, those mushrooms are a life saver. Plus it seems to drop collectibles more often when I'm out of food.

Probably you are looking harder for mushrooms so you spot the collectibles more.