I have a population that is too large for my food supply. I have 35 villagers (17 of which are kids), algae in the ocean, no coconuts and am working on my way to the last farming tech. I am consistently running out of food between crops.

I've discovered two tips to help keep my villagers alive, that I thought others may appreciate:

1. When you are down to 10 crops in the fields, drag the entire population to harvest. As long as they are gathering when there are crops in the fields, they will deposit their food. To maximize, run the game on double-speed so that each villager gathers their full 10 food. With only 10 crops left, I am still able to add 180 food (18 villagers).

2. Spend the tech to gain the 2nd level exploration and find the pot. Then with every harvest make the Purple-Purple-Orange stew and drag all the villagers to eat. This restores them to complete health and should get them to survive between crops even if they don't eat anything else. In a pinch, the stew can be made with only mushrooms, but it takes 2 mushrooms to add the food to the stew, and will disappear shortly after the food disappears again. Teaching the children also helps to make sure you get all the kids, since they line up by age. Otherwise they just run around like crazy and are tough to gather up.

Good tips! I never thought of the first option you posted!

That first option works with coconuts, too -- when you see that the trees are very low (less than 10), put all your villagers on the trees. If you are quick, you can catch the ones that don't succeed right away and put them back on the tree until they climb.

This trick works because the game doesn't remove the food from the trees or the field until the food gets put in the bin (works with the VV1 berry bush, too). [It's almost a cheat because it's a sneaky way of getting around the limits put into the game, just like putting multiple kids on 'shrooms, but sometimes you are just stuck....]

I think the stew is much easier .

-- jen

I used the coconut trick today and it worked great, but the "mushroom pile" doesn't work for me. The first kid gets it and the rest are left with air.

It doesn't work for me too, it works only in VV1

when you try to do the "mushroom pile" do you pause the game and drag all the children onto the mushrooms?

Yes! it works in VV1 but not in VV2

I't works great for me in vv1 and vv2

it doesn't work either with the collectibles exept when it's a rare one and if it is its first appearance (i! i! i! please, correct me when my english is wrong)

I can also do it with collectables rare common or uncommon is this normal then?