Odd you should say that it's impossible to make progress. I've already completed the 15/16 puzzle scenario haivng lost no villagers in easy and normal mode... now near finishing a Hard Mode one and will achieve the same thing.. needing only the graveyard to finish. Suggest you take previous advice and start in Easy mode. You need tech to improve your farming, so allocate most of your villagers to researching rather than clearing the beach which isn't useful anyway until you can buy farming tech 3. The game is simply about managing people and resources sensibly.