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  Moxie’s Game Tips: Virtual Villagers 3

The Care and Feeding of (Virtual) Villagers (3)

You’d think the little guys have it made, on their beautiful tropical island with its waterfalls, lush jungle foliage, fascinating ruins, and a lovely reef. You’d think they would just pitch a couple of tents, do a bit of exploring, roast a few shellfish from the reef, and get on with their lives. But no… no, there’s one more important thing to know about your villagers, and it’s a doozy. See, they have the collective IQ of a tree stump. Sure, they can do basic tasks once they’ve been shown how, but don’t expect them to show a lick of initiative. That’s not how they roll.

With that said, though, all is not hopeless. So long as you set things in motion when the villagers first reach their new home, they’ll have plentiful food, and you’ll have one less big problem. Now, please keep in mind that everything I’m going to say in the rest of this guide contains SPOILERS, so if you’ve only just started playing the game, you don’t want to read this just yet! Give it a few tries on your own; if the little guys perish from lack of food, you can always restart and try something else.

However, if you’ve been trying again and again, with little success, read on. Each section below covers a specific problem encountered early in the game; I suggest reading only the one that applies to your current situation, and trying to work the rest of the puzzles out on your own. After all, that’s the fun of the game!

“We just arrived on the island, and there’s nothing to eat here!”

Welcome to Isola! Not to worry, there’s actually plenty here for your little villagers to eat. You’ll have to do a bit of work to harvest it, though.

Your first order of business is to build a fire. Drag one villager to the northeast part of the map, and drop her onto the pile of wood. She’ll start carrying it down towards the fire pit. Meanwhile, drag a second villager to the northwest part of the map, just below the cliffs, and drop him onto the dry grass. He’ll carry this to the fire pit as well. As soon as both villagers have dropped off their fire-building materials, drag one of them onto the fire pit to start a blaze!

Okay, now for the clever part. Next to the beehive in the northeast is a pile of burned-out torches. Drag and drop a villager onto the torches. She’ll carry it down to the fire pit, light it, and carry it back to the hive to calm the bees with smoke. Now all you need to do is set one of your villagers to “Farming”, drag her to the beehive, and she’ll start harvesting. Mmmmm… honey…

“The honey eventually runs out! Now what can we do?”

Find a second source of food! Actually, you’ll want to start on this as soon as you reach the island. On the east side of the map is a broken machine. Nearby, you should find a piece of fruit, either a banana or something round-ish. Drop a villager on the fruit and he’ll carry it to fertile ground and plant it.

It takes the fruit a while to mature into a tree, but by the time the honey runs out, you should have a second source of tasty and nutritious food for your villagers.

It won’t be enough to keep them going indefinitely, though. You need to grow a couple more trees, and the only way to get additional seeds is to repair the broken machine. Once you’ve started your warm fire and assigned a villager to collecting honey, drag the rest of your adult villagers to the research area near the southwest side of the map. Set all of them to “Researching”, and let them work until they’ve accumulated enough tech points to buy Level 2 of Restoration.

Once they’ve finished their research, set all your scientists to “Building”. Drag them to the east side of the screen and drop them on the pile of leaves that cover a dark stone. This is the fastest way to gain skill in building. As soon as three of them reach Adept Builder, drag them to the broken machine. It takes three adept builders to repair it!

Now that it’s fixed, you can see that the machine is a primitive lift. The next time it starts to rain, quickly place one of your adult villagers on the lift’s flat platform. As it rains, the bucket will fill, raising the villager to the trees above. A piece of fruit will fall to the ground; drop your villager on it and he’ll plant a new tree! You can have three trees in your orchard, and these will provide more than enough fruit for your small group of original villagers.

“There’s not enough fruit on these trees for a larger population!”

Ahhh, the inevitable conundrum. In order to research and restore things faster, you need more villagers. But more villagers eat more food, and there’s just not enough fruit on the trees to last forever once your village has grown larger. So what to do?

Fortunately, there’s a beach at the northeast corner of the map, and plenty of delicious fish swimming just offshore. On the downside, there are also plenty of sharks swimming just offshore, and according to them, the delicious ones are your villagers. The challenge here will be chasing the sharks away so you can fish.

And the solution lies in the potion pot next to your research lab… or it will, once you’ve tidied the place up and done a bit more research! Take a look around the map; you’ll see assorted pots and bowls scattered around. Drop an adept scientist onto one of these items, and she’ll carry it back to the lab. Repeat this process with each of the scattered items. Once the last piece of alchemical equipment is back in place, the lab will be ready for potion-making!

You’re not quite ready to repel sharks, though. First, you’ll need to discover a secret herb, and for that, you’ll need lots of research. Set as many of your villagers as possible to “Researching” (remember to keep at least one or two set to “Farming”), and build up a big stash of tech points. On the Tech screen, you’ll see two different factions: Nature and Magic. Choose whichever you wish, and research both levels 1 and 2 in this faction. Once you’ve attained level 2, the secret herb will appear and you can brew a bowl of shark-be-gone.

At the risk of revealing too much, let’s just say that the potion contains one dose of your secret herb, and two of a different herb. Have fun trying all the combinations; you may find some very useful concoctions in the process!

“Ack! We’re going to run out of food before we’re done researching!”

Those little villagers sure do eat a lot, don’t they? Luckily, there are a few tricks you can use to stretch your food supplies while the scientists do their work.

First, you can hunt mushrooms. Villager children may not work, but they can contribute in a pinch by picking mushrooms and adding them to the storage bin. Just scroll around the screen; if you see a mushroom, pick up the nearest small child and drop him on top of it. Even a regular mushroom will add several units to your food count, and a red mushroom adds quite a few! Make sure to pick up any other collectable items you see while you’re looking for mushrooms; duplicate items add points to your research score, and can speed up the process of unlocking necessary technologies!

Another good trick is to choose the Nature faction instead of Magic. A level or two of Nature will allow your resources to grow back faster, so new honey and fruit reserves will appear a bit sooner than otherwise.

Take advantage of the rain! Once you’ve planted all three of your orchard trees, you can still ride the lift in a rainstorm to obtain a piece of fruit. Drop a villager on it; since there’s no place to plant it, they’ll just carry it to the storage bin and add it to your food count.

Finally, you can designate a village chief. This can be troublesome early in the game, since a chief does not work (less workers means slower research), but what they can do is create magical food once every 24 hours. And if you’re really lucky, your new chief might turn out to be a child, who wouldn’t be working anyway. On the west side of the map, you’ll find an amphitheater with a beautiful robe hanging inside. Drag one of your villagers to the robe; if he can wear it, he’ll be the new chief. Even if you can’t spare any adult villagers at this point in your village’s development, it’s always worth seeing whether any of the children can wear that robe!

As you can see, with a little work and a lot of planning, your village will soon have enough food to thrive and grow. The rest of the puzzles are up to you… best of luck with your little castaways!