Originally Posted By: JaneAverage
I have had this problem also, throughout the game. Currently I have a population of 22, of whom 15 are farming (I took it down to the wire to get enough tech for Farming 3 ;\) ). Coconuts are more or less gone, but as soon as they get up to 20 or 30, everyone rushes over there to pick them, despite the fact that I have cleared the algae (thus leaving them a pristine fishing spot) and of course the irrigated cropland.

The cropland, though, is the real problem. As a couple people said above, it seems like all the farmers want to do is water the crops. Now again, I have 15 villagers farming. When the crops were growing, I had to keep babysitting them, dragging them back to the ocean -- at one point I'd stepped away and returned to find 8 of the 15 watering the crops! Now, the crops have come in, and suddenly nobody wanted anything to do with the farming patch. I had four people there, when they first came in, which has rapidly dwindled to one, and the rest of my farmers have suddenly decided they really like to fish!


Could have been describing my game. I had to leave the game alone all day yesterday due to other responsibilities and this morning found four dead (I think my max population has only been 15 so far). Two dead adults and two dead 9 year olders. I don't get it! Why do I need to babysit them when they have a cleared ocean, the coconut trees and crops? I don't know how to "time travel" as I read many refer to, so to get as far as I have took hours of my time. I still like this game and still have puzzles to solve but I don't have a lot of hope my villages will survive over the long run.