I do not mind that VV2 is harder than VV1 when it comes to doctors learning their skills, but I thought that once I got the hospital they would be able to study there and develop their skills. Oh boy, was I wrong! What exactly is the hospital there for, other than as another piece of the puzzle? It is not even useful for the doctors when it comes to healing people there - when a sick person steps inside the building and sits down on the bed or on the floor, it is impossible for the doctor to reach that person/persons. The doctor will circle the building and eventually the person/persons will get tired and start moving around slowly. Then the doctor decides that everything is fine and goes for a drink or something! It drives me crazy, because I have to move the sick people out of the building and chase them around with my doctor in order to heal them. And I have fully researched everything possible to research.

Hmmm, I thought I was the only one having that problem.

It can be frustrating, but I think that is what keeps us coming back for more! I mean who would play if it all came easily?

I like the idea of the hospital being a place where doctors could develop their skills, who knows, VV3?

Im having that problem too, or the sick get up and circle around, and the doc tries to help but the building is in the way, and he gives up, the doctors in this one are quite simple minded when it comes to that, with the first VV, my doctors would never give up, but these guys tend to give up easily.

I'm REALLY not liking the whole doctor thing. I could understand that maybe we would have to have them investigate ALL the herbs before they start being more proactive, but to NEVER take on their roll themselves? Yuck. I think they need to release a "_bug_ fix" for this - seriously!

I'm with Melian, Terina and Robyn on this one.

Mine seem to get to the middle of the bar and no matter how hard I try, they never advance... same with parenting. Don't have the hospital yet though.

It would be nice if you could drop your doctor on the hospital and he could learn doctoring and up his stats there. But even so I have still had 12 Master Doctors in my game.

I agree that the doctors should be able to do "researching" and gain skill. Most of my drs are not training themselves, and when they try to get to the red flower by the mosaic, they get stuck between the pond and the rock/stump and just go baqck and forth "studying strange flower" until I move them to the plant. While I am waiting for the yellow pebble to show up again, so I can get it before it disappears.

12 master doctors? Yikes. I don't have that kind of time to give.

See - I believe they did this because we wanted the game to be more interactive and 'harder' to play. But this isn't interactive OR hard. It's just busy and annoying. I mean, helping the doctors to solve little mini-puzzles to get more experience - THAT is interactive and what not. Sitting at my desk while I struggle to keep my eyes open and not fall asleep so I can grab my doctor's butt and drop him back on the flower for 40 minutes is not really what I call fun.

I agree that the doctors should be able to do "researching" and gain skill. Most of my drs are not training themselves, and when they try to get to the red flower by the mosaic, they get stuck between the pond and the rock/stump and just go baqck and forth "studying strange flower" until I move them to the plant. While I am waiting for the yellow pebble to show up again, so I can get it before it disappears.

So I'm not the only one who can't get a doctor to go around researching his stuff?

In my Village Sim (for palm) I dropped a guy on the plant and he'd study away, so is this a _bug_ for VV2?

Nope, you aren't. Mine will study on their own (usually) to get from trainee to adept-after that, I have to micro-manage what they do in order to get them to do anything other than eat or relax in the pond.

I had no idea the sick ones went to the hopsital. I never see anyone in mine other than the occasional builder repairing it.

Your builders repair things on their own??? Mine hang out and play golf with my doctors.

LOL, yeah a few of them do. And I spoke too soon about the hopsital. I just opened the game up and saw a poor elderly sick person standing in the waiting room as my one master doctor casually strolled by on her way to the food bin.

I have found that if i want my doctors to progress, works with the builders as well, to acually place them on one of the herbs, and then exit the game b4 they are done, usually what i do after im done playing, is pause it, move everyone to where their supposed to be, and then unpause and exit right away, when i get back, their skills are twice as when i left, and some more.
I left the game for about 2 hours once, and my trainie doc was a master, but on furthur checking, he liked herbs and bushes lol and i just got an esteam elder at 39, she was a master parent and then a master researcher, and then a master farmer, and the only reason she got it done so fast cause she likes work and turnips. lol lucky.

The only way I've seen a villager study the plants on their own is if they are started in that skill, and have no training in anything else. However, they'll get to the Adept Doctor range, then they'll stop studying on their own. I don't know how to keep them studying plants until they've mastered the skill.

I think that the doctors should stay at whatever plant they are studying, like in VV1 to gain skill. It's annoying when they gain skill, and then they move on.

I agree that the doctors are the most frustrating villagers in VV2.

I have a set of triplets whose Likes are listed as "herbs"....so I thought making them doctors would be a great idea since they already liked herbs.

Well, nope. They will not go to the herb plants on their own. All they want to do is "enjoy the pond", "Eat', "cool their feet in the stream", and "admire" everything in the village BUT the herb plants. I finally decided to make the sick stew and made the entire village sick. 1 of the triplets became an adept doctor because of that and the other two remained Trainee doctors.

As time has progressed that 1 triplet has moved his bar significantly, but he still has a long ways to go. The other two are just hopeless, but I'm going to give Terina's idea a try. Maybe that'll work for me!

I agree... Terina's method sounds like the best!

Yeah the AI on this game is starting to get on my nerves. It's pretty stupid. I was hoping for a game that I could leave like a virtual fishtank and walk away. But instead they've either made things intentionally difficult, which the solution is alot of micromanagement/busy work.

The doctors are pretty stupid. Without the hospital, Sick people get healed sometimes, and sometimes not. They never train themselves alright. The same thing goes with parenting. Even when your village is out of space for newborns, all the parents want to do is have sex in the funky shack. It's really lame, since mates tend to go for those who have alot of skill, which means that the non-parent mate gets distracted away from whatever job they were doing. Why can't those set as parents just teach the children?

I never played VV1 and hoped that VV2 could be as hands off as VV1, but the level of lame micromanagement is getting really annoying. It's kinda disappointing.

There are ways around those problems. If you don't want too many children, then try to make only the women parents, and make a parent male only if you're ready for a population boom. Then the parent women won't distract the men from their job for too long.

If you just want to make master parents, then do so while they're old enough not to have babies, and find them an older male to mate with. Keep them together, and they'll continue to mate together without distracting anybody else.

Though, I do wish that adept parents would be more apt to teaching lessons to the children after they've been shown to do that...

I've found if my food is on the low side, in the 100's my adept doctors will wander around and study plants on their own. Don't know why, but it's the only time they do it after reaching adept.

The micro-management in the game is actually somewhat of a "feature" if you look through all the posts of what everyone wanted in the new game, that's basically what they all ask for. Everyone wanted to be more "involved" in the game and they wanted more to do than "set it and forget it". IMHO, I think that LDW did a great job at developing the game so it could be played succesfully either way. You can go through the game with a fine tooth comb and get every collectable etc, or you can spend a little time each day playing it then leaving it for long periods of time. One thing that I think this game does is give you A LOT more game play for your buck.

Completely agree with you Batgrl2u, I was about to post separately to say how much more interesting this game is because once you get someone to Master in a skill, you can move them on and make them start to gain more skills in the hope of getting the '3' Masters. I'm forever checking on their skills and moving them on now, there again I have all the time in the world because I am off work sick!

What I have done with my kids is start them healing as soon as possible, then by the time they get to 'working age' they already have a fair bit of skill as a doctor to work with, I have several Master doctors now this way, I am however at Max population with all puzzles solved and only one collectible to find an elusive butterfly!

Have fun
NN

Say, could you explain that a little more?
I thought the kids wouldn't do anything but play and collect the collectables until they reached 14. Even setting their basic skill at healing doesn't seem to help.

Kids can heal sick people. So if you use a kid instead of an adult everytime someone is sick, the kid will gain healing.

No kidding? Well I'll be darned.
(seriously considering making an "icky" stew and dragging my kids around, seems kinda cruel though.)

Using the black plant by the pond for all three herbs makes and icky stew. I haven't tried that as a way to heal people deliberately though.

I can't either :(. I tried making ALL my kids healers so they could get a good start when they got old enough but all they did was wander around the village "Bored" and even when I grabbed them and made them into Trainee Doctors they just stayed at that level unless I kept dropping them onto the plants - which takes a LOT of time :(.

Hands up how many people here are going to rush off to try this NOW :)!!!

12 master doctors, how in the blazes did you accomplish that?
I have one.
i opened a game up for my hubby and that brat already got
3 totems after just playing4 days.
I have only 2 and have been playing for over a week.

The healing skill is the hardest to do, my doctors don't want to heal or even study the plants unless I force them to-- he or she will always farm, build, or research instead. It drives me crazy!

Good to know the kids can help heal (that is really strange but ok!)

Dianthus, I have tried that but it didn't work for me. Don't know why as I followed the procedure described by Terina.

I have noticed one thing, though: If you train a villager with no other skill (that is, a 14-year-old person)to become a trainee doctor, he/she will train himself/herself until he/she becomes an adept. Then he/she stops and never advances unless there are sick people around to heal or you monitor the doctor constantly and force him/her to study the herbs.

Oh, I love that, playing golf with the doctors, LOL!

I've only had one master doctor happen, and that was just because he had lots of time to heal all the villagers by himself. All the other master doctors I've made by plopping them repeatedly on the black flowers, then re-setting them when they start to walk away. Tedious, but I've gotten several Elders that way.

I can only assume that that was achieved by a lot of tedious work - that is, forcing them to study the plants over and over or cooking stews to make villagers sick and then monitor the healing process. I have a doctor now whose choice of work was healing at the age of 14. He is now 46 and still not master!!!

Several of my villagers has succeeded in becoming masters in BOTH science AND farming at that age or even before that! Frankly, it is almost as bad when it comes to building. They work more than 20 years as a builder and still don't get a master degree.