For some reason I have a tribe with 100 people, level 3 on everything and I don't have one dadgum adept or master builder in the whole village. So last night I spent, I don't know how many hours, clicking individually on every villager I could and putting them on a hut. I continually brought them back as they went over to get a drink or do laundry or fish for probably 3 hours. This morning, no one was fixing the huts, and still no adept builders. There's nothing else for them to acquire their building skills except the huts. I still have the statue and the pearl to do, but no builders to do it. And I'm tired of clicking on people and my hand hurts. But if I don't do it, they won't work. The chief will not direct work if I put him on a hut. I'm about to just delete that tribe. Any thoughts? A violin playing softly in the background would be nice, too. Hee.

Update: Well after looking at all of the people I have on huts, it looks like the majority of them are 50 and up in years of age, so my strategy now is to sit here and keep one 14 y.o. on the hut as long as I can. By the time he is 50, maybe he will be a master and can lift that statue. Yey!

Did you try the exercise potion? That builds skill too.

You may not have to wait to get a master builder. I had trainee, adept and master builders moving the statue.

Thanks for your ideas, it helped a lot. I kept my game paused over the weekend when I wasn't at the computer and when I was, I alternated between putting Iapo, a trainee, on the huts and having him drink the potion. Yesterday, he finally became a master, and today the statue was raised. So I'm relieved he did it, because he is a 70 y.o. now. Whew! They squeaked by on that one.

Another thing, put your chief to directing them as they build. They are less likely to wander off to "look at the fishies".

I presume that you have done this already but I thought I would suggest it anyhow. All these villagers who are not becoming masters, do you have checkmarks in the DETAILS for them to be builders. I sometimes forget and wonder why, after some considerable time, they are not at least trainees yet. When I go into the DETAILS, I see the builers skill bar is way up there but that the checkmark was for something else that had no bar at all.