Hi everyone!

OK, well I have been playing 3 games for exactly one month today and as you know each game has 4 collections that need to be completed. (Shells, Pebbles, Beetles and Butterflies)

I play this game all the time and I have been recovering from surgery for many weeks so all I do is rest in bed and play games. (Sounds like Heaven right? Not so much after 6 weeks of it! :)) Once I completed all the major puzzles I of course focused on getting those collections completed to see what would happen. After 30 days I have only completed one Butterfly collection. I am so frustrated with myself. It seems that the same items keep reappearing and I can spend an hour straight with a child just focusing on picking up items and after all that time might culminate in one new item to add to the collection. Is there anything I can do to speed up the freqency of new items? I am playing at the easy level on 2x speed. I have been keeping my populations in the 70s so I alway have children available to look for items. Do things like the number of children you have or putting people in key areas of the island trigger items appearing or is it just totally random luck?

I have seen many people post that they have completed all 4 collections. How did you do it? How long did it take you? If you have finished all 4 collections and want to post or PM me with advice I would really appreciate it.

I hope you are all enjoying your weekend! Don't let anyone April Fool you today! LOL Fluteteacher

If you have level 3 exploration, you can see items on the map screen. Just remember to refrest the map every 30 seconds! It took me about 2 - 3 weeks to find them all.

Wow! I didn't know that you could look at the map and see the collectables. That is certainly easier than scrolling around the village constantly which is what I usually do. My main problem isn't finding the items it is that the rare items really are rare items and I can't ever seem to catch them. I can try all day long and I might get 18 red butterflies but not one of the blue ones I need. I wish I knew of a way to stimulate certain outcomes but I am pretty certain it is all random from what I am hearing. I am not going to give up though. As soon as I get all 4 collections in one of my games I will be sure to post. I wonder how long it will actually take to do so. I keep wondering how the others have done it. Do they sit on their computers constantly? Maybe they are just REALLY lucky people. LOL Anyway, thanks for the info Charley! Fluteteacher

I have been playing for almost 600 hours, and just within the last day got the last pebble and shell that I needed. I only had the butterfly collection completed for the longert time... don't loose hope......from what I can gather and what everyone says, it is totally random. One beetle to go for me... Good Luck!!!

Yup! We constantly sit on our computers all DAY LONG. It's called computer-litus. Which means "those whohave a LOT of time on there hands". Good luck at finding your items.

I got all four collections on one of my games. Had completed all the puzzles and had around 43 people, I think. Actually didn't take me very long. Was lacking only one shell when I bought exploration 3, the last thing I bought on that game. On another game I've been searching for ages, but still lack one shell, one beetle, and one butterfly.

Buying Exploration 3 hasn't really increased the frequency or rarity of my collectibles...dunno why.
Still need Science 3 - maybe that's why?
Have completed everythting else.

I can't tell that buying "Science" helps at all. It's so expensive and tech point are just as slow mounting up. What say you?

Science 2 - buy early...it doubles the amount of tech points you get per researcher, and it's relatively cheap.

Science 3 - buy very early, or not at all. If you are patient and get Science 2 and 3 right after Engineering 2, you'll gain tech points faster towards the end of the game. Science 3 triples the number of points you get per researcher compared to no science tech at all, but it's so expensive that there's no point to buying it unless you get it as early as possible.

Hope that makes sense -- I'm happy with the strategy of getting Science 3 very early (which means waiting a day or two for the points to build up with a small village), but that might not work so well for someone else.

-- jen

Just to make you feel better - I've got six villages going on two computers. One has been going since the game was first released. I've only managed to find the butterflies in two of them. Actually I haven't been focusing on finding the collectables, they are just being a pleasant surprise. But don't feel bad about not getting them quickly!