Hi, I am new to the forum and thought I would introduce myself and then beg for advice as I am desperately unhappy with V V 2!

I am one of a group of three, here in the UK, who have been trying to play the new VV version. We loved VV1 and were thrilled when the new version was released. One of our group was the first (we were told) to complete VV2 or so the Stats said) but since then, they have also had terrible problems trying to get anywhere. We have virtually reached the point of total disappointment where we are seriously thinking of giving up and never bothering with it again. I was voted spokes person to come to the forum to see if we could get help or advice before we gave up completely.

The problem that I have is that I can get the fire going, and a couple of times I have even managed to get the dam built but I frequently get algie and then all my villagers die. In fact, so far all my villagers die within 24 - 48 hours no matter what.

I cannot tell you how frustrating this is proving to be.

There were a lot of new features on VV2 which I really liked, but whereas I still have several VV1 going strong after about three months, every single VV2 village fails at the first level.

If anyone can offer me any advice or help, all three of us would very much appreciate it.

Thanks
Flori

Yeah, that's they trouble. But then again, how can you play a game that has no challenge. There HAS to be a challenge (usually) or else it wouldn't be fun. At LDW I suppose algae was there challenge for you.

I'm sorry to hear that you're so frustrated. The puzzles in VV: TLC require a completely different strategy than the one that you used for the first Virtual Villagers game. You might try perusing the information in the Guide Section, which can offer you everything from spoiler-free strategy tips to a complete walkthrough. The food problem is solvable, but (unlike VV1) a series of puzzles must be completed to provide a sustainable food supply for your villagers. Feel free to send me a Private Message if you have specific questions.

Hi Barbara, thanks for such a speedy response. Can you confirm that this is the correct email I should send specific questions to?

I have reviewed the spoilers and know how I am supposed to solve it. I cannot find a way to earn the points, the villagers just die off!

If you want to send a Private Message to me, just click on my User Name to the left, and then on Send a PM.

The best way to keep your villagers from starving is to limit the population to about 15 villagers until you are able to solve the algae problem. There is plenty of food with the first 3 sources as long as you don't make too many new villagers. You should also take advantage of the tech points that the children can provide by finding duplicate collectibles.

I don't think I have managed to ever get as many as 15 villagers in any game. The average tends to be about 3 or 4 with 3 or 4 children. The algie tends to arrive more often than not, even though I only have one villager fishing. Then I switch to coconut harvesting (in at attempt to avoid over fishing and getting the algie) it still fails and everyone dies.

We all do the 'children collecting duplicate collectibles' thing, that hasn't helped either - and it is interesting that we all experience the same basic problems.

have to go now - but will check back tomorrow. tks

A thought just occurred to me that you might not have the latest release of the game. Could you check on the menu screen to see what version is displayed in the lower left corner, please?

Have you checked the difficulty setting? The reason I ask is that what you describe about getting the algae too soon sounds like what happened to me when I kept starting new villages and then deleting them, trying to get the pretty people.

I finally found villagers I liked, but then I got the algae way too soon, and when I checked the difficulty setting, it was on 'hard.' I thought it would automatically be on easy, since that's where my other villages were.

I kept my village to about 15, got the first two milestones done on food, I let them fish on a limited amount until I could solve the algee problem. My village is at it's maximum now, all puzzles, solved and am working on getting the collectibles finished. It is workable with alot of patience and planning.

Flori- You need a very focused strategy. First off, when you start a village, you really need a lot of time to babysit. Later on, you can leave it for half a day, a few days or whatever at a time, but in the begining you need to really focus on being the guiding hand.

If you read the pop up that occurs with the algae, you'll see that your villagers create the problem. You can delay the problem by monitoring the actions of your villagers. In the interim, it takes a fair amount of technology points to get all the things in place to resolve the problem. Therefore, you need to focus on technology and food for a very long time. Be very careful not to populate too much before you have a stable food supply. Keep your villagers working on food and technology at all times.

Hope this helps!

Tess

I agree with Myari, check your difficulty setting. I started my first tribe on the hard setting because I thought it would make the game last longer, but it was touch and go for the first part of the game. I lost 2 villages before I got one to survive. It took a lot of planning and guiding my little ones, I was with them so much my husband said it was like I left him for them! So if you don't want to be chained to the computer you should opt for the easy setting right at first. Don't give up, this is the best VV. Good luck!

I just pause the game whenever I'm not home to check in every hour or so. That's the only way I made it. I got a runner in my starting group and put her--and her only--on fishing. Put one guy to learning building. Put everyone else to researching. Upgrade building first, then farming (so you can build the dam and farm), then forget everything else till you get the highest farming level. Teach someone to make a fire, then teach 3 or 4 people how to gather firewood so they'll do it before the fire goes out. Don't have any children unless you have to so that you will have a child in the village for mushroom hunting. I had 2 babies 12 "years" apart out of necessity before I got my algae problem solved. Also, the farmers are dunderheads. You can't leave them alone and expect them to farm. Not even the master farmers. That's why I say pause the game when you're not around. You have to keep plopping your farmers onto the crops to get them to harvest or they'll go gathering coconuts instead and sit around right next to a full garden "worrying about food" while everyone in the village starves. Time your visits to coincide with crops, make sure they are all harvested, then do other things until the next crops are due. Pause any time you aren't available to babysit. You have to do this for the whole game unless you want your village to starve.

I have 2 villages on Easy and 1 on Normal. I don't let anyone build until I have enough tech points. 1 fishes everyone else researches.

" teach 3 or 4 people how to gather firewood so they'll do it before the fire goes out"

How do you get them do do that on their own?

It's not a given. Some people seem to "learn" from being shown where the firewood is how to gather it and renew the fire. Some don't. That's why I teach 3 or 4 people to do it, because I've seen that one or two of them will gather firewood on their own. I've had fires with 3 hours left that had 14 hours left next time I checked, so someone is feeding the fires
You do need an adept builder to make the dam, but you can do that after you get the building tech raised, if you like. Point is to put the majority of your people on tech, build that dam and start farming ASAP, then shepherd the farmers so they actually harvest crops and don't go kiting off after the coconuts. You really do have to babysit this game, it doesn't run as well on auto-pilot as the last one does.

Hi Guys, thanks for your tips and hints. Unfortunately I cannot keep my village numbers to 12, basically because I cannot get them up to 8! They seem to start with 3 adults and I do have the setting on Easy!

I try to get one adult collecting wood for the fire, whilst another gets the grass and the first one starts it. Then I have to put one adult to fish and everyone else on research. If I manage to get enough points to get coconuts, try to avoid over fishing, by alternating fishing and coconut harvesting (got to avoid that algie!) The last time I got a village going, I managed to get a dam built, but by then, all the villagers were dead - again!

Goodness, it has been frustrating!

Flori

Getting the fire started is a 5 minute one time project. After that you can have someone add some wood when the fire gets low (click on it to see how much time is left). When you're down to 1, 2 or 3 hours, someone can get more, then get back to "real" work.

Be sure to be the guiding hand and have your younger children collect every mushroom and seashell and butterfly they can. Mushrooms add to the food stores, shells and butterflies that are duplicates add to your tech scores. Keeping the fire lit also helps to gain tech points. When children reach 14, they can start learning to farm or research as well.

Keep after it. The game is definitely "win-able", you just have to be patient and priortize properly.

Tess

I went after the dam first, then the coconuts. Seemed to be more of a payoff. You do have to upgrade to the coconut level to be able to farm, but if you start harvesting coconuts, it takes a lot of time for very little food return--time you could be using doing research for more tech points. Fish and gather mushrooms like crazy, upgrade your building first, then build the dam ASAP. Put your fisher on the research table when the algae comes and only upgrade your farming when you absolutely have to (when the dam is built). Don't let your people waste their time gathering 8 points of food per coconut--it takes forever to get any appreciable amount of food. You can harvest 800 food units from your first garden in way less time than it takes to get 200 food units from coconuts. My first 2 villages starved that way. Coconuts seem like the best thing to get after the fish run out, but it's a false economy. Get that dam started instead.
What I meant about teaching people to gather firewood is to use a different person each time the fire runs down low to get firewood to feed it. Someone will eventually start feeding it themselves, but don't devote a lot of time to it. It's just a convenience, and if you just keep a watch, you can rebuild the fire easily. That's another reason to not leave this game run when you're not actively monitoring it (not necessary to watch every second, but just at least able to look in hourly whilst at home doing other stuff).

I agree with building the dam first. In fact, I don't buy coconuts until I buy farming 3 - I hate the things. I have bought them as a stop-gap before I knew how to get rid of the birds, but since I've figured that out, I don't buy farming 2 at all except because I have to to get farming 3.

Also, I recommend playing at half-speed - it makes things a lot easier.

Ditto.

I am having a similar issue. I and my two kids all started villages at the same time. I'll call them A, B and C. Village A has never been sustainable, and never got more than half the puzzles done before everyone dies off. Villages B and C both have all the puzzles solved, and 90 villagers. We have restarted village A 4 or 5 times. The most recent time, everything seemed to be fine, then 2 hours later (on 2X speed) all dead but one 6 year old. I also noticed my adept farmer didn't seem to be keeping up with the fishing, so the food was always low. Why does this one village have so much trouble, when we had no trouble at all with the other two?

It's always risky to run the game on 2x speed in the beginning. If you're lucky and get a particularly industrious set of starting villagers, it might be OK, but you can't count on that happening.

these bugs are annoying , very annoying, I dont how this game got past the first beta test , seems this forum will be busy with posters until there is an updated version , or a patch!

but I hate baby sitting I want to play , and if the bugs are intentional , then someone has a weird sense of what game players enjoy!

"Babysitting" is "playing". You're supposed to be guiding your little villagers. This isn't the kind of game you ignore for lengths of time before you have all the puzzles solved. It may just be that you're not patient enough for a game of this type.


Tess

baby sitting glitches I meant

I wish i had screen shot Alana.. she was stuck ..wanted to see the old place.. wanted to visit village centre, but she was stuck i watched her... this is a glitch she was trying to move but was stuck? I left her for 3 hours before I HAD enough and moved this child!!! i have played Sim games where you build and peeps get stuck , but this is a glitch, another one, I am so wanting a workable game! you pay your money and ??/ and?? come folks you have my money ?? I wish I was a tester I would have brought this up a long time ago , along with my glitch gallery and list of glitches!!, I hope they enjoy my money!!

My main strategy is to amass as many tech points as fast as possible at the beginning. Of the three initial workers I'll put two on research and one on farming. If I'm lucky and get a food bonus with an island event I'll switch the farmer to research as well temporarily - but don't forget to switch him back to farming if food levels begin to get dangerously low! When the tech points reach 5000 I'll get L2 Engineering and put as many as possible on the building the dam. When the oldest child turns 14 he or she will be trained as a builder and put on the dam unless I still need the points, when they will first become a scientist. Meanwhile I'll be scouring the area for collectibles and mushrooms. The 100 for a duplicate common collectible is useful and the 1500 for a rare one is a great step. I have always managed to complete the dam and have the farmer harvesting crops well before the coming of the algae since I developed this way of playing.

Once the dam is built I can take time off to possibly have a cup of coffee and a cigarette; maybe even to visit the bathroom. While the danger of starvation is not over, it has receded by this time and I can return a scientist to research and make a start on hut-building, etc.

My strategy is very much like Arnie's except I always have a builder with my farmer and researcher. It takes so darn long to get the builder to master that I like to start them out right away, especially if I need another hut (which I try not to because I don't want a huge population and a shortage of food). A runner as a builder is perfect -- it goes much faster.

Also, I only start a new game when I can devote a lot of time at the start up because of the change of starvation.

I quite agree. In fact, reading my post through after posting I was thinking of editing it to add words to that effect, but got sidetracked and forgot.

i try to have all of my people on researching until i get the 5,000 for my first tech or even untili get the dam started with either 1 or 2 villagers

the faster i get those points, the happier i am

i use the kids to collect mushies and shells and butterflies

after that, it is my choice if i want to babysit or not

if not, i understand that things may go very very wrong when i am not watching, and I accept that risk

The point of the game is to define a strategy. After neglecting my first game, I ended up with 4 dead villagers. One was a child. I was able to recover by paying very close attention to when and what the villagers were doing. This game is really not a 'once through' game. The fun of playing is trying new things. How you play depends on how much time you can devote and what your goals are. In the beginning, you must watch the villagers. They are trying to survive, so must you.

I completely agree

I have one village that I have decided will not gain and farming techs until after all other possible puzzles have been completed

it is very very difficult, and i haveto spend a lot of time mushroom hunting, but i am so into that particular tribe

part of the beauty of this game is that you can play in SO many different ways, it never gets old

When I start a game i'm on it for a least 12hrs. I have one on fishing one on building the rest on reaserch. Depending on the first two events, is how I take the lead. Picking musrooms and collectables along the way. Having the odd baby, to keep the flow of things.

Since this thread is all about fishing and algae, I'll post my question here instead of creating another thread.

I started a new game of VV2 a couple of days ago. (I had played it for the first time a couple of months ago, but I stopped when I had developed level 2 of every technology and solved about 40% of the puzzles, so please don't post any spoilers.) Difficulty was set to "easy". I remembered that it's vital to build the dam early in the game in order to prevent my villagers from starving. It was completed before the algae showed up, and the villagers completely focused on planting and harvesting crops instead of fishing. Now that I have solved about 6-7 of the riddles, the ocean is still crystal clear. But I know that it is necessary for the algae to show up because one of the later riddles is to get rid of them. Did I mess up the game because of switching to farming too early? I tried to make the villagers fish again, but they just seem to prefer planting crops. I had to manually place them in the ocean every time as they just wouldn't keep fishing.

What can I do to make the algae show up? And why do the villagers refuse to fish? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Algae shows up after you take a certain amount of fish from the ocean. Keep fishing...it will show up!

Many people have done the same thing, and it won't prevent you from solving the algae puzzle.

I tried to keep fishing, but I had to manually move my farmers to the ocean because they didn't keep fishing on their own but preferred watering their crops instead.

Anyway, I'm relieved that I'll be able to solve the algae puzzle no matter if the ocean is polluted or not.