I've only been playing for a few hours now, still in the demo, but I have a problem with a sick builder. His health is very bad only about 10% of the bar graph. I have a woman who is a trainee doctor (and an accomplished researcher) and I keep trying to put the two of them togethre, but he thinks she's interested in lovemaking and runs away.
I have tried to get the male member of the crew to heal him, but they both run away.
How can I get some help for my builder before he dies?

Walt

Hi Walt, does the status of your sick villager actually show 'sick' or 'weakened'? A villager can only be healed if they have a status of sick. The only way to improve the helath bar if a villager is weak, is to ensure that you have plenty of food around, and try to give the villager an easier role. I usually let them do some researching. It seems that if they are doing active tasks, the extra exertion makes recovery slower, and tasks such as building can actually make it worse as well

Hope this helps, but feel free to ask if you have more questions

Savi

Walt,
What is your medicine level ?
Do you try to train some of your villager at healing ?
JP

Getting to higher levels of medicine technology will help your villagers live longer and generally be healthier. But doctors (regardless of how skilled they are) cannot heal a weakened villager unless their status actually shows "Sick." The advice that Savi gave is the best you can do for a weakened villager if they are not sick.

With a health bar at 10%, you can't do nothing for your villager except putting him on research which is an excellent advice.
Be prepare to welcome a new one !
JP

I'm actually running into trouble with researchers getting weakened, despite the good amounts of food around. I'm about to lose one of my very few women here, and I only have about 20 tech points. Any ideas?

what do you call good amounts of food?

Savi

Anywhere from 100-800. It doesn't seem to matter. o_O

I left the village last night after turning my palm off, and found the researcher weakened and a farmer dead. Best I can think of is to make the researcher eat, but I'm not sure how much that helps...

Edit: I dunno. Maybe she's just getting old. She's only 52 though. Hmmm...

It's worrying me since all the babies so far have been boys. It'll be a problem if I have only one woman left in the village. Everybody else seems to be doing fine. I just don't get it...

Polychrome, I always try to have at least 300 in the food bin. The villagers seem to improve healthwise after that point, anything less, and they seem to either remain stable, or get worse

Can't help you in deciding if force feeding them does improve their strength, but I like the sound of that at least. Also, I saw at some stage someone else saying that letting the villagers go off and do their little explorations (and other seemingly useless tasks) seems to give them a new lease of life....dunno, but again, sounds good

I have had a few villages where my male/female ration was a bit wonky. I think I even got down to 2 males and 2 females, and still managed to get the village back. It just takes a little planning, a lot of watching, and a huge amount of patience. I basically just kept one woman on permanent breeding duty, and let the other villagers take care of everything else. gradually, the numbers did start evening out again. The big tip here, while I was not watching the game I ran it either on slow mode, or actually paused it if I was to be away a long time. This way, I was more in control of what happened

Well, she finally just keeled over and died. Unless the baby my very last woman is holding turns out to be female, this is going to turn into The Smurfs very quickly. ^^;

I still don't get it though. All the other villagers seem to be doing fine, despite their small number. Oh well.

Edit: Hey, here's a suggestion. Why not add a status screen for babies as well as those who are walking on their own? That way we know whether to panic or not. ^^;

Crud... another boy...

I got her to have another baby on the next try. Please, be a girl.... Please be a girl....

I have a question about sickness and healing. My little village is just one adult and two children, and the adult is now sick. I'm letting the sick adult rest and drink water and do whatever he likes while I wait for the kids (now 11) to grow up so they can start attempting healing. I'm still many tech points away from a Medicine upgrade, so I don't think forcing the poor old guy to work at research would pay off at this point. Is there anything else I can do? Villagers can't heal themselves, can they?

a child can't heal a sick villager, and they can't heal themselves. You'll have to wait until your kids get older and I can't guarantee that you're sick villager will last that long!! Once he's healed, I'm sure his status will say "weakened". I would suggest having him rest as much as possible and he "could" get better if you're lucky. Good luck!!

Goatherd, when you say your villager is sick, does he say sick or weakened? Healing can only be done on villagers that are actually sick. If they are weak, even critically, all you can try to do is protect them from getting weaker still and ensure that food is plentiful. There seem to be certain jobs that are safer than others. You seem to be conserving your villagers strength correctly, but as Michelle said, I am not sure if he will last long enough for the kids to grow up enough to start collecting food as well....good luck

Savi

Thanks for the help. He did hold up long enough for the young teenager to come of age and heal his sickness. I knew he would -- that fellow had seen harder times than that. Lonely Malik, as I called him, was the sole survivor of the initial villagers after everyone else starved to death when it took 20 years (!) for my first crop to come in after the berry bush failed. Luckily, he had special powers (having been age-zapped) and was able to live for 18 years without eating a bite of food!

So he spent 25 years all alone on the island watering those darned crops, then stocking up on food and researching, when finally a barrel o' babies arrived...two boys.

He lived until he was 58...not bad for a first-generation villager, I suppose. He was given a lovely burial and his passing was honored. One of the two boys died young, but the other is now 20 and alone on the island. He mainly spends time researching (I'm hoping to upgrade Medicine to give him a longer lifespan) and asking the island gods to send a female castaway to join him, so that his lonely line can somehow live on.

(Hmm...I don't suppose a Fertility upgrade ever allows a male to give birth, does it?)

I'm eager to start again (this is my first tribe) so I can experience a more normal game, but there's no way I'll kill this kid off after all he's been through. And if my village does somehow make it, I'm keeping the movie rights for this inspirational tale of survival against all odds!

(Any other advice for my near-hopeless situation is welcome, of course!)

Oh wow, I'm somewhat sorry for your lonely little men. Too bad I can beam you one of my little ladies, now that I've finally got things settle my village is out of the red. XD