I have never, ever seen a tree boost to 1000 without an event; and I've run the game for hours on end with a program monitoring changes in memory-addresses to log changes in the number of fruit on a tree. (In fact, I let an entire starting village die in order to get the numbers, since they would assuredly harvest no fruit. I propose a toast to their noble sacrifice.) They gain 111 fruit each every three hours. Anything else is due to an event, such as the fertilizer event. (A villager finds some beans - one option is to grind them for fertilizer)

Irrelevant. If they have farming skill, they will farm. The only way to prevent them from farming is to let all your farmers die without training more, or to pause your game every time you walk away from the keyboard or close the game.

Here! Here! Noble Villager, as this post suggests...your sacrifice was not in vain!

Yes,thanks, I did know fishing was limitless but I'm not quite ready to focus on farming yet. I'm keeping my adult villagers on research and building that darn bath for now. My 12 year old is slated to be the first farmer in this village. Then I'll just let her go for it!!

By the way lurkily, in ALL the games I have played I have always had my trees boost to 1000, the trick is to not allow the villagers to strip them dry. I think you must have misunderstood what I meant, perhaps I wasn't clear. I'm talking about the beginning of the games, after a while when your population grows and most of the puzzles have been solved it doesn't matter so much.I have mentioned that my children do most of the food collecting with mushrooms. My trees never get down to less than 912 each before I stop them being harvested. I've never had any kind of event that had anything to do with the trees. And, you CAN prevent them from farming if you watch carefully and I always pause the game when I leave my desk, so not having trained any farmers to be just farmers is hardly irrelevant. If you're careful and play with attention it can be done. I'm in hour ten of playing this particular game and I haven't missed a single villager trying to harvest honey or fruit. In fact my honey supply just keeps getting bigger because the villagers haven't been harvesting.

What a great stratagy for a beginning village. Tell me, is your game on easy? I tend to go for the more difficult settings and I am assuming you have not selected a chief yet? Are you chancing any potions to keep the health bars high? I do agree that a low number population is far easier to track especially spotting the collectibles and edibles and I never leave my games running unsupervised. Thanks for the tips!!

Thank you, I hadn't thought of that. I didn't realize you paused every time you quit; I would get way too bored if my villagers only worked while I was watching them. I'm not sure though, how it's possible to say you haven't missed a single villager. You would know it if you missed one?

By "boost" I'm talking about a one-shot, 0-to-1000 all at once. You sound like you may be talking about a regular increase, until they reach their full potential at 1000, which is I think where the confusion lies.


If you pause, you can do that with dedicated farmers if you like, too, you'll just be busier. If you don't pause, it still doesn't matter, assigned to other tasks they will still farm. This is what I meant by irrelevant: their cross training makes no difference to your ability to stop them from farming.

And yes, the honey limit is surprising, though its regeneration is . . . not tremendous . . . what is it, like 2 or 4 honey per hour, something like that?

Hi Lurkily! Yeah, something like that. I would know if I missed a villager off farming on their own, I keep track of how much food I have in the food bin, and I know when the honey is regenerated, usually after a fog, and I know how many fruit is on the trees, so if a villager escaped my detection I would know it!! I'm a bit of a control freak in the early stages of a game, after a while I do let them work independently but not until I have built the bath. It all stems from being determined not to miss a single tablet piece, though I do give up on that after a while!! It is the single most annoying part of the game for me.

meems, I do have a chief, she's 8 now. I do have this particular game on easy though I have a couple of independant villages on normal, I'm not brave enough to try hard yet!! I have found it is a good starting strategy, but be warned, pausing the game for the kids to collect multiple mushrooms plays havoc with the first nursing mothers clock. So she takes ages to be able to work. So the strategy is not infallible but it works for me!! I do occassionally go for health potions if needed but if I keep the food bin well stocked and someone is losing health I just force feed them!! I told you I'm a control freak!!

Isn't that just done hourly?

Probably, you seem to be far more aware of the timing of things in the game than I do! I just noticed that the honey seems to be more after a fog, how often do the fog's appear?

I've observed honey to regenerate every hour on the hour; I can't remember the amount, but it's miniscule as food goes; 2 or 4. I didn't run a long game while monitoring the numbers, so it could be that a fog simply never occurred during that game.

You seem to be very minutely observant of your village, so if you happen to notice hard data during one of these events, I'd appreciate it. Next time you see fog, jot down the amount of food on your trees (Unless they're maxed) and in your hive, and see if they change noticeably? If you'd PM me if you have the opportunity to notice that, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'll dig up my old thread if solid numbers are found and add it to the topic.