You all know my story...I start a game and everyone starves to death within days. It's happened to me over & over & over again.

About 3 weeks ago, I began a new game. I hate looking at cheats or guides so I always go alone unless you guys help, sometimes.

Well, I thought it was going great. I actually had 53 villagers.

As many of you know, I'm a cancer survivor who spends a lot of time in the hospital. On Saturday afternoon I asked my daughter to put the game on 1/2 speed. I spent 48 hours in the hospital.

I just checked and I am now down to 3 villagers, 1 male & 2 females, all age 6.

Is there any hope for me or should I finally delete the game once & for all?

Terrri

Please don't give up! It's not hopeless at all! I know it's only a game, but it's still worth giving the little kids a chance. You've overcome a lot, both in life and in the game. If you need a little inspiration about how you can come back in the game against all odds, you might want to read The Story of the Hard Tribe. It has inspired many of us.

You have a pretty good chance. Since you can still breed, you can try to get your population back up. Having 2 girls instead of one will also help, since they need the long break between births. And since they are still young they have their whole mature life to breed.

Is this Death/Starvation thing common?

I left my villager's this morning with 1 Master Scientist, 4 other adults who were Adept at at least 1 skill, solved 4 puzzles, had 650 food stores and 800 crop stores, 7 shells, 5 butterflies and and found the first and second pieces of the gong.

I come back now and everyone is DEAD. I don't even recognize anyone in my village accept the slowest and least Adept i.e. the children and the slowest women who does nothing but shake her head and has zero skills.

What in the world did I do wrong?

If you haven't done puzzle number 3, you can end up loosing your crops, which would cause problems

I had finished puzzle 3 and 4, so I felt really comfortable. I figured always having someone gathering crops would be a bonus. I guess it doesn't necessarily help.

One of the commonest reasons for the loss of a tribe is an outbreak of sickness. If your farmer/s cannot work, the tribe will starve; even if you have other villagers with farming skills they will not switch jobs to save themselves. It's important to have doctors to heal the sick in such cases.

It's probably too late now, as it has probably been overwritten, but your log file should give a clue. See the sticky thread about the log at http://www.ldwforums.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=55432&page=1#Post55432

Seems to be common for me lol

Don't know what's going on but overnight half my village dies and there is no food in the bin, they have full access to the fish and the crops.

This is much harder than VV1 i'll say that!

My first couple of tribes died mysteriously so now I am very careful before I leave a game on overnight or longer, even on half speed. I have not had the problem since. What I do differently is that now I will only do it if I believe the island seems stable. If the island doesn't seem stable I will put it on PAUSE and come back to micromanage it at a later time. Or - at least - I will back up my files in case something goes wrong.

What I consider stable is:
* more than one doctor with "healing" checked so that they are free to heal. I am more comfortable with more than one because the doctors more than any other profession seem easily distracted and I don't trust just one to heal in case of an outbreak overnight.
* I watch the food levels for a few minutes before shutting off to make sure it looks like the levels that the villagers are collecting food outweigh the consumption. This is easier of course with higher food levels and one or both of the key food puzzles solved.

If I don't have a doctor or two with "healing" checked as their preferred skill, or if the food gathering-to-consumption ratio isn't right, I won't risk leaving it on.

This has worked 100% for me so far on this second tribe. I have a population of over 60 now and have solved most of the puzzles, after having a rough start with my first tribes. Good luck!

Oh, another thing you could consider, though I haven't tried it, is that if you do leave it running over night, check the "easy" button and then move it back to "normal" after you open it up the next day. I don't know, but it might help with less chance of sickness, etc.