First, I consider Laini (MochaJew to most of you) to be a dear and personal friend. She and her husband are part of my daily prayer list, and likely will be for some time to come. I have already apologized personally to her for any discomfort I may have caused her on this subject.

Having said that, Let me restate what I've already stated in other posts: We should NEVER EVER attack our fellow forumers! It is perfectly acceptable to disagree with them and even to debate with them, but it should NEVER be made personal!

Also, I quite understand why many people simply don't get upset over the subject of marriages and or inbreeding in the game. These are, after all, "Virtual" villagers and you start the game with a very limited choice for making new villagers. If (as an example) 3 women; 2 men and 2 children suddenly landed on a new planet, it would be absolutely necessary to make the maximum possible number of "baby" combinations in order to insure the maximum possible gene pool. Only by doing this, could the new settlers have any possible chance of long term survival.

Each woman should have a minimum of 1 child from each man. As the girls grew into womanhood, they in turn should have at least one child by each man who isn't her father/brother. By continuing this through at least 4 (and preferably 6) generations, you would have a large enough gene pool to then allow survival of the species and at that point, breeding could revert back to the so called social norm we experience today.

This is precisely how I currently play my VV games. It avoids the "inbreeding" so many people are upset about, but also avoids the "marriage" role that so many of you are so hip about.

My suggestion for VV4 (indeed if it's not too late, I'd like it as a new version of VV3) is this: ELIMINATE THE PARENTING/ BREEDING OPTION AS IT CURRENTLY STANDS. IN IT'S PLACE, THERE SHOULD BE A "BLANK" DETAIL SCREEN WHICH CONTAINS ONLY THE CHOICE OF "CREATE NEW VILLAGER?" WHEN THE PLAYER CLICKS ON THIS SCREEN, THE COMPUTER WOULD RANDOM GENERATE A NEW INFANT ALREADY 2 YEARS OLD. (THIS ALSO ELIMINATES THE "NURSING MOTHER" PROBLEM) THEY COULD INCORPORATE AN "OPTIONAL" FAMILY TREE STYLE DATABASE AND THE PLAYERS WHO SO CHOOSE COULD DESIGNATE MARRIAGES AND DECIDE ON THEIR OWN WHICH "COUPLE" HAD GIVEN BIRTH TO THE NEW CHILD.

Not only does this eliminate three troublesome topics, e.g. breeding/marriage/nursing, it also should enable them to eliminate a few thousand lines of code, since they would only have to write say 15 variations of each sex and the computer could randomly choose which one to bring into the game.