The game speeds, in general, do exactly what they say: Normal speed is twice as fast as 1/2 speed, and 2X speed is twice as fast as normal speed. There are, however, some things to keep in mind that affect how the game operates.
One of the interesting things about Virtual Villagers, that differs from most games, is that what happens when the game is actually running can be very different from what happens when the game is off. When the game has been off for a period of time, the game state is updated at game launch, and the game speed setting becomes an important factor, due to the world-state calculations that are being performed "behind the scenes." When the game is actually running, however, the game speed setting has little or no effect on the villagers' work. They do their jobs and produce tech points, food, etc. at whatever rate their movements allow. During that time, the game speed setting affects only calculated values, such as the time it takes to nurse babies, how fast the villagers age, and (to a degree) their food consumption.
If the difficulty that you're experiencing is occurring when the game is not actually running, then it could be something we see frequently when people try to make the game progress more quickly by adjusting their computer’s system clock. While that sort of “time travel” is a popular way to speed up game play, real-time games rely on the accuracy of the computer’s system clock to operate properly. Unpredictable results can occur if adjustments are made to the clock, especially moving the clock backwards in time. Different games will respond differently under those circumstances, ranging from minor statistics anomalies to killing whatever is living in the game. Virtual Villagers has a much more complex real-time engine than Fish Tycoon, and you're much more likely to see problems with it when adjusting the system clock.
While many people do adjust their system clocks to speed up play, doing so affects far more than just the games. Every application in your computer is affected, including the file system and Windows system applications. For all of those reasons, we don’t recommend changing your computer’s system clock to speed up game play.
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Barbara
Unicorn
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