My niece started a game a few weeks ago while visiting and forgot to pause it one night, when she opened it the next day all of her people were sick (algae in the ocean and no crops yet) anyways while she was building up her tech points to be able to farm her last man died. She has been running the game with 6 girls in the hopes of something happening to give her a man, all of the girls are grown now and a couple of them are elderly (ages 27-59), should she just call it quits and start a new game or try to wait it out? She now has 6 master scientist, 1 master builder (nothing left to build right now) and working on all 6 master farmers.

There are several different Island Events that can bring new villagers to your game, so it's never hopeless until all of your villagers have died.

How long is it between island events? I think she's only had 4 since she started the game. I've been playing it the past 2 days and only had 1 so far, unfortunately none have given any more people yet.

The game starts with an Island Event after 15 minutes, (when your village is brand new), then one 45 minutes after that. Then you'll get an Island Event every 24 hours. Note that pausing the game for extended lengths of time can prolong the amount of time you might have to wait for an Island Event.

Does game speed also have an effect?

I lost one of my ladies tonight so afraid to leave it running all the time, don't want all of them to die on me.

I understand the desire to avoid disaster by pausing the game, and if you can't check it often, that's probably the best you can do. The problem with pausing the game is that you will inevitably miss Island Events, which are the only possible source of new villagers. It's sort of a Catch-22 situation. The advice I usually give to players in your situation is a strategy that will provide the opportunity to get as many events as possible while the girls are still younger than 50:

Keep your game on slow speed to maximize the number of Island Events that you get in your villager's lives (more events happen during a villager's lifetime on slow speed than on any other game speed). Island Events are "scheduled" to occur a random number of hours (not game years) after the last one (usually in the range of 10-22 hours), so make sure that you launch your game at least twice a day to increase your chances of seeing the most events (and take care of any sick villagers or food issues). Also, don't pause the game if at all possible, since that will reduce the number of events that you get, sometimes significantly. If you frequently pause the game, you will see a reduction in the number of Island Events, because the game cannot generate a scheduled Island Event when the game is paused (so it will be skipped and another one scheduled from the time you launched the game).

While the mask tips do advise players to, "Pause the game if you go away for very long," it's not advisable to pause the game every time you're not playing. Our games are designed to use the real-time feature, which is how the the game 'continues' when it's off. The most progress is made, and you'll have the most satisfying game experience, if you use slow speed, rather than pausing the game, when you'll be away for less than a day. Unless you're very low on food and need to gather mushrooms to keep your tribe alive, it's far better to put the game on slow speed. If you keep your population levels appropriate for the available food supplies, you will not need to pause the game all the time.

I hope that helps you.

Thank you so much, I have about 4500 food for 5 people so I'm good on food for a while, a very long while if I don't get more people, so far I have one farming, 2 research and 2 building (until the briar patch is cleared) then I will have 3 research and 2 farming, should I put them all on research since I have so much food?

I always move my farmers to research or a building project when there's more than ample food. If you let them, those farmers will pile food up beyond what the tribe can ever eat!

At slow speed the number of food points earned per "normal" food item is reduced. The amount of food consumed per hour by the villagers is reduced by a similar amount. However, mushrooms have a fixed value (6 for a brown one, 35 for the rare red) so they become comparatively more valuable when the game is on slow.

That's very true, and when the game is actually running the choice of game speed depends upon the circumstances. What I meant by that statement was that is is far better to put the game on slow speed when it's off and unattended, unless the tribe is in danger of running out of food, in which case the game will likely need to be paused when it's unattended.

Thank you all so much, so far i've stopped the farming and moved everyone to research, We've lost 2 more and down to 3 with the youngest being 47, hopefully we will get something soon that will give us a man so that we can keep the tribe going. She is over this weekend and was very upset that I still haven't gotten her a man but I've explained that it will take time and patience and a great Island event to succeed with this tribe.

Thank you for the update! I've been wondering how the villagers were doing. You haven't gotten her a man? LOL! Just keep it on slow speed to maximize the numbers of island events and keep everyone healthy. "It ain't over until it's over" and your niece's game isn't over. I bet you've become attached to these villagers as well.

I have, very much so. I only have the first 3 VV games and I hadn't played them for a while because I got a new pc and my kids have my old one but now I may have to purchase the newer ones to keep up, I had forgotten how addicting these games are.

They are still trudging along albeit slowly, youngest is now 57 and the 2 older ones are 64 so no hope of them extending the tribe but I am still hopeful for a barrel of babies or someone to fall through the water fall to extend the life of this tribe somehow.

So far all 3 ladies are Esteemed Elders from farming, building and research. Still have over 5,000 food and I've been upgrading Tech as the points get there, currently trying to decide what level 3 to get, thinking long and hard about medicine since it's the least, have just under 15,000 tech points, like a dummy I got culture earlier this evening and wasn't thinking when when I did that I only had 3 ladies, but it allowed the youngest to master building and gain that totem.

I would choose medicine in order to extend the ladies' lives as much as possible.

I awoke today to find all of the ladies has passed away.

Lucky for my niece I have a copy of the game file from when there were still 6 ladies so I replaced her game with that one and will continue to try and get her the island event giving her either the barrel of babies or the visitors falling through the waterfall. I had almost forgotten that I saved the game file, as I had copied it over to my computer so I could try while she tried and hopefully one of us succeed, and it went into the wrong folder and I didn't delete it.

YAY! The most important thing is to give those ladies as much time as possible, using the methods that have been mentioned already. Getting to Level 3 of Medicine Tech before they reach 60 will help a lot, too. Good luck! (And hang onto a paused copy of that savegame file, so you can try as many times as necessary).

You might find this story encouraging. It's one of the first Fan Fiction stories from back when VV1 was new, and it's very touching.

Thanks, I realized that when I copied it earlier that it took the actual file so I quickly made a new copy to keep just in case I need it again. So far, since I've been through this before, we have mastered the medicine and have 3 gong pieces along with 3 esteemed elders. The others are only 1 mastery away, 2 in farming and 1 in building. The ladies range in age from 30 to 63 so I have a little while longer to work with them to help her get her village going again.

I had nothing to do today so I sat here and played with this almost all day to get them to where they are now, guess I don't have a life, lol.

I love that story, very touching as we all feel like the tribes are our families since we work with them to teach them everything they know.

Here are the ladies:
Aria, age 63, EE, mastery in farming, building and researching
Ezra, age 61, EE, mastery in farming, building and researching
Riley, age 51, master builder and researcher, adept farmer
Dr. Skye, age 37, master builder and researcher, adept farmer and doctor
Layne, age 37, master farmer and researcher, adept builder
Avery, age 30, EE, mastery in farming, building and researching, also doctor in training

Since last night all the ladies have become esteemed elders in farming, building and research, and the youngest 3 have some training as doctors.

Aria, age 69
Ezra, age 67
Riley, age 58
Dr. Skye, age 43
Layne, age 43
Avery, age 37

Wow! And it's encouraging that 3 of them are still fairly young, too.

Sorry that I didn't get to post yesterday, started the day with a pc crash and ended it in the er with pulled muscles after my landlord had 9 ton of gravel dumped in my parking place. Anyways, the ladies have lost 2, Aria and Ezra have passed on but all is not lost we still have 4 remaining.

Aria, age 74 when she passed
Ezra, age 79 when she passed

Riley, age 71
Dr. Skye, age 56
Layne, age 56
Avery, age 50

It sounds like you and the ladies had a pretty bad day.

Let's hope that you get a helpful event soon!

Well we've lost all the ladies but Avery, she's now 68 and plugging along slowly. Still no island even to save the tribe, but i'm not giving up until she's gone as well.

Awwwwwwwwwww, I'll keep my fingers crossed for the both of you!

Here's hoping something shows up. I used to play Virtual Villagers 2 all the time, it actually is my favorite. Unfortunately my old computer crashed and I lost the game and the info I needed to get it again, although I did not buy it from LDW. So I am planning on buying it again.

Sorry that I haven't posted lately, I had to restart the game because I lost all of the ladies, but since then they have all passed on again, but we got an island event that gave us a barrel of babies, just before the last passed on and it gave us 1 baby boy. He is now 44 and we just got a new island event giving us the couple from the other side of the island so needless to say I got the lady pregnant (she's 27) and we are hoping to refill t his island!

This is so worththe wait and struggle to get more villagers. Thank you all for holding my hand while I worked through this trial.

Hurray!!! I'm so glad that you finally got an event that gave you a child as well as a second event that gave you a couple! I was worried when we didn't hear anything from you for a few days. I got a barrel of babies last weekend (turned out to be three 10-year-olds, 2 girls and 1 boy) and I wished that I could send them to you! Good luck filling up your tribe... you did GREAT saving it!

Thanks so much, I was beginning to dispare after so many times of restarting and then loosing everyone but it finally happened. Such relief.

New update, Paco, the boy from the barrel, has fathered 2 children, 1 boy and the other is still carried, the tribe count is now 5, sorry to say this but i'm treating Laila like a brood mare since she's 30, I need a full village, lol.

That's okay! You'll get a tribe up and running, then you can be more selective, if you choose. I'm glad you finally got an IE that helped your tribe start to rebound.

Laila got us up to 13 before she turned 50, there were only 2 females born but I'm sure that they can carry on with bringing this tribe back from the brink of disaster. Things are looking up ;-)

That's wonderful news! I'm sure you are very pleased with the results of your hard work, and I'm sure your niece will be happy, too.

My niece was thrilled because it was on her game, not the one that I copied to my pc to help out with. That made it extra special for her.

On the one that I copied over to my pc, tonight I got the visiting couple (finally after I don't know how many tries now, lol) Avery was still young enough to have a child, this will be her only one as she was already 48 but the new lady is already willing to repopulate the tribe. It went from 4 ladies to 5 ladies, 1 gentleman and 2 babies. Yes things are looking up.

Can you tell that I was attached to these lovely ladies as we journeyed to keep the tribe going? I know their nuances better than my niece did, lol.

What a lovely ending, to a happy story. I bet these events made a lovely new tribe, congrats on that!