MyTribe’s Second Island

I finally built the Great Ark and got off the island. Oh, hi, I’m talking about MyTribe again, not LOST.

When your tribe completes the Ark and sails to a new island, they’ll bring everything from the first island’s storehouse, even if that’s more than the tribe’s new storehouses can hold.  Making sure your stocks are full before leaving seems like a good idea, but it can create a small problem because if your tribe already has more rocks and wood than your starter storehouses can hold, you can’t clear any trees or rocks.  I arrived with lots of skilled people and lots of supplies, and no places to build all the housing my tribe needed. Oops!

Your tribe also retains everything they’ve found, harvested and made (under Supplies and then Raw Resources)

When you choose a new island, you can also choose three new mysteries. (Details on unlocking all of them are in my MyTribe mysteries walkthrough, if you’re stuck) The fountain of youth is probably the most valuable island mystery. It wasn’t so important in the old single-player version, but keeping your tribespeople young is essential in the Facebook MyTribe. Adding to your tribe becomes prohibitively expensive in stork feathers, so you need to keep your tribespeople young and fit. A drink from the fountain of youth makes your over-forty crowd feel 40, and your under-forty crowd feel 24, permanently.

The mysterious stump may be the worst possible mystery. The resulting Ever Tree is pretty useless, since you can replenish your wood source by planting saplings at any time. A sapling doesn’t cost any resources, just a tribesperson to tend it, and there’s also a MyTribe achievement for planting 20 saplings.

I knew I didn’t want a star rock or moon rock, since I already have more stardust and moondust than I can use.  I also didn’t need the Cornicopia Bush, because I kept all the stored harvests of berries and the ability to plant all the seeds gained from having a Cornicopia Bush on my previous island.

I picked a new island with a fountain of youth, the tiki head, and the fossil rock. The science bonus for the fossil rock is pretty helpful, but it would probably have been more beneficial on my first island, when I had fewer people and they were producing science more slowly.

The tiki head, well, I should just admit that I picked it because it was pretty. The powerup for any new babies is good too, but I won’t be using it all that often, since it costs me over sixty (!!!) stork feathers for a new tribesperson, and by the time I finish unlocking the tiki head, it’ll be even more expensive.

Collecting stork feathers is where MyTribe turns into a typical Facebook game. To accumulate stork feathers, you’ll need to visit your friends’ islands. Since players will more friends will progress faster, it only encourages the annoying friend-spam cycle. For maximum progress, players need to sign in daily to collect the feathers, but at least MyTribe doesn’t actively punish players for not checking in. (I’m looking at you, Farmville, Island Paradise, and the rest.) I’ve never had a problem telling my friends to play a game I enjoy – I blogged about enjoying the original MyTribe without the possibility of stork feather benefits from newly converted players – and I don’t want a game that requires players to participate in chain letter invitations.

Fortunately, most of MyTribe is a light strategy game on a cute tropical island, without the constant requests to exchange gifts or sign up for email updates.

What do you think are the most helpful mysteries? What would you pick for your second island?

Edit: Just added the solution to the new mysteries, Flotsam’s Call and the Jewel Vault.