After having a rough time playing at 2x and running thin on food (with 16 vils, 2nd level farming), another thread recommended running at 2x when you're actively playing and 1/2x before closing the game.

Playing actively through two harvests, I found that I had to hunt mushrooms to keep from running out of food. After catching the tip above, I checked at two separate harvest times and found between 100 and 200 food left.

Are the vills just more efficient at 1/2x? Obviously they don't walk any faster when you're playing at 2x (which is a flaw itself I think), but being offline shouldn't make such a big difference to me.

Anyone else notice this?

-Matt

The problem that you're having with food is caused by the fact that the farm won't comfortably support the population that you currently have. I don't normally have more than a dozen or so villagers until I've gotten the ability to fish.

I've explained how game speed works in this post.

You didn't mention how many of your villagers are farmers. I've discovered that when you're "offline" the villagers only do what they're trained to do, or so it seems, so farmers will farm, builders build, and scientists research (as best I can tell). And if they're old enough to breed, and know how, you may come back to a baby or three.

I don't think it's a flaw that they don't work faster at 2x. As far as I can tell the speed is just relating to real time. At double time, one hour of real time is one year of game time (based on nursing taking 2 years/120 minutes).

If I understand correctly:

at 2x one hour real time = 1 year game time
at 1x one hour real time = 6 months game time
at 1/2 x one hour real time = 3 months game time

Of course I could have this totally backwards? I am such a Luddite.

Don't know if that helps you figure out how to proceed - you could just pause the game when you exit so nothing happens until you restart a few hours later? Good luck.

Dar

Barbara, Dar, thanks for the replies.

That does better explain how the timescale affects the game, although it does tend to say that the village is much more efficient offline.

I think I figured it out now: offline timescaling (probably) does not take into account the roundtrips that the villies make to move materials when you're in-game.

SO, the sooner you clear the field of crops, the sooner the harvest resets, and so on.

Try comparing the time it takes to clear the blockage. When you're active, it takes around 10 minutes to clear a few percent, whereas offline the whole thing is done in about an hour.

-Matt

PS - Barbara, I did make it to Level 3 farming this way without losing any vills, at which point it was smooth sailing with 20 pop and 3 preggers at 48 hours. But I am ranked 206 for Mushroom harvesting.

-Matt

The mushrooms can make a significant difference in the food supply, but I rarely have time to sit there and gather them!

I'm only offline to sleep, so I didn't notice the difference...lmao.

Good point though about the harvest - I noticed that too - as soon as the one harvest was collected, there's another one coming up in an hour (a year of game time, right?). Eureka!

I love this forum. Wish I had found it before I had a whole village die out - <sniff>.

Dar

The time factor is a bit badly developed, as far as I noticed. The nursing and crop-growing time shortens, but they don't work any faster, so the food-hunting isn't "catching up" with the accelerated time. Either the villagers needs to move faster with the time, or do more work in the same time. If I leave my village at 2x, they die out of hunger, but on 1x, they always have surplus of food

Well I confirmed my theory by setting my game on 1/2 speed when I went to bed last night and following the age of one of my little boys. I changed Howi's name to "5 at 12" so I could track the change.

I've got a significant surplus of food now but since I only have one actual Builder that final hut still isn't done so my breeding program is on temporary hold. With the deaths of some of the original 6 I was able to have a couple more babies (my 60 & 65 year old originals are nursing...lol) but that's all.

I'm just having soooooo much fun with this game it's scary. Hadn't realized how much I wanted to rule the world until I discovered I could have total control over this tiny virtual world...lol.

Dar

Yep, I'm cruising now with this little tidbit. This is something that should probably be corrected, since it's actually a deterrent to being in the game (which certainly can't be the desired effect).

Just the same, now I've got 5K+ food (and growing) with only ONE villager fishing. My pop is up to 25, although Kato (the original do-all, thanks to a monkey/island event) has finally passed away at 70something.

Once I finish this game, I'll probably go back to see how perfectly I can "sprint" to Farming 3 and finish the game on cruise control.

-Matt