Hi all! I saw in another topic that farming is timed. What I was wondering is, do villagers need to plant crops and water them the entire time, or will the crops grow on their own? The reason I ask is that I have only three women of child-bearing age, all with babies so they're useless for now. I have only four males who can work, but I'd like them to be researching to get to Lv 3 farming so my 18 villagers don't starve. (I just started playing a few days ago.)

On a somewhat related note, last night I paused my game, but I found out this morning it didn't pause at all. I went to the menu, clicked Options, clicked Pause, and clicked on Done. It stayed on the main menu all night, but when I came to the compy this morning my villagers were all five years older and weakened because no one had farmed all night. What gives?

I don't know what's wrong with your pause. I would save and back up my save files, then re-install and copy the save files back in, in that situation.

As for farming, I believe watering the crops is pretty much the same as "Studying the medicinal cactus" or "Fixing hut". Pretty much a practice task to use to make skilled farmers, even when there's no food to harvest. It doesn't change the time until they sprout, and I don't believe it affects the yield, either.

Thanks, Lurkily. Pause works when I shut down the game, just didn't work last night for some reason. *shrugs*

On the plus side, I now have two villagers old enough to work.

It may be because game speed usually doesn't slow down the villagers' movements on the screen, only the rate at which tasks are completed, and the calculations done when the game is re-opened to figure out where your villagers are.

I would assume this is the root of the problem, that aging doesn't stop, on pause, until you close out. Lady CFII would be able to give better feedback here.

There is nothing "wrong" with the pause function in the game, as long as you understand how VV handles game speed settings. People expect (rightly so) that the game will pause as soon the radio button for Stop Time/Pause is selected, but that's not the case. It's such a common problem that I've written an explanation of what happens in this answer in our Support FAQ.

I think that's the problem; we don't. My VV1 village is mostly self-sufficient, so it's not something I've been worried about; VV2 and VV3 are my concerns, these days.

Thanks again for your input, CFII! Your posts are always straightforward, always helpful, and almost never fail to clarify. Unlike my particularly tactful two-sided doublespeak.

Aaaahh... thanks, Lady CFII. 'Splains much. Merci!