I cannot seem to advance my villagers fast enough to have them master 3 skills. Any helpful ideas? Thanks

I've got a "Cheater's" way to make an Elder:

1) When a kid turns 14, I will make him/her start Farming; he/she will 'usually' Master Farming by age 24-25*.

2) Then it's Research.

3) After becoming a Master Scientist (usually about age 35-36* or less!) I will "force" my villager into a Master Parent. I make either male/female kiss another villager until they become Master Parents.

Note: Male villagers can Master Parenting skills with 50+ yr old female villager. I usually let my young female villagers gain Healing skills until they are 50 before I force them to become Master Parents.

* Ages can vary, depends on how stubborn, lazy or clever your villager is! LOL!! But that's a general gist....

I hope this helps!!

Whenever possible try to set the young villagers to be builders or farmers at first. Both skills entail a fair amount of walking about so it takes considerably more time for them to become masters than scientists. Try to use the older villagers on the research table, as being elderly doesn't slow you down there. Obviously, there are times when you will want extra builders/farmers/scientists, so you won't be able to stick to that plan rigidly.

I'm having a frustrating time getting my folks to get that third mastery. I had one master builder, master farmer who spent about 10 years researching before keeling over -- and never got past adept. (BTW, he was 65 when he died.)

I've got the same problem now with a female master farmer, almost master builder, whose bar on research is not budging at all, despite her being at the table.

The "cheat" makes sense, and I thank you for that. But does anyone have any ideas as to why I can't seem to get more than one esteemed elder? It's like they'll die before they get to that level. Do folks not "learn" any more once they hit 50?

Thanks.

I start all mine with research. It's harder to get elders earlier in the game, but by time I had tech three in my first game I was eldering people at 25-35 years of age. And that's without training them when they were under 14. But once you run out of things to build, it takes a bit longer.

Once the villagers become "elderly", they slow down -- this means they perform tasks slower (so they don't succeed as often as they did when they were younger).

Build up your medicine tech, because it keeps the villagers from being elderly until they are a bit older, and allows them to live longer (65 is a bit young - I bet that villager would have made elder if they had gotten to age 70).

I think it also becomes harder to learn as they get more skill, which makes a lot of sense -- which means that even though they are successful at the skill, they don't always gain skill.

I like Arnie's strategy -- use the youngest villagers to farm and build, and then put them on the research table when they get older. It's actually easier once you have a few more villagers, since you can have several villagers researching and farming to get you tech and food.

Good luck!

Ive got one of my elders still loves running....and he's 69 years old!!!

My problem now is that I havent got all of my collectibles (missing 2 bugs 2 pebbles) and Im at my max 100 villagers until I find them...and only 2 children to hunt for them until someone dies off.