I want to try this challenge but how are you supposed to make Neanderthals and Romans?

You are simply creating normal sims in CAS and then play with them. You can download custom content to make the sims and their houses look closer to the different stages and the rules give restrictions for each era to make the sims lifes more representative for their epoch. For example the Neanderthals: You can give them clothing that looks like fur from animals and you can build their houses with furniture that looks like stones. The rules restrict you to certain behaviour and objects, excluding (mostly) objects that did not exst during this era. Of course, it's nearly impossible to play in a complete realistic way, because the game is not originally designed for this and most of us use for example toilets and showers/bathtubs when playing with their Neanderthals. That is clearly not historically correct, but that's not the main point. Bend the rules like you want as long as you have fun with your challenge. ;o

If you are still having difficulties imagining how it works, it may help you to take a look at some of our blogs. =)

Raccoon your sims' names make more sense in the Neanderthal era than mine, so you're more creative in my opinion. It's a shame the social worker bear took most of the children from one of your families. In my whole time of playing the sims I think the social worker has came twice. However that is likely to change in this challenge. :P

Yeah, the tediousness is what's getting to me. I can only focus on some things for so long.

Also I had forgotten that a play with an anti social worker mod. I love my simmies way to much to let them be taken away due to circumstances I can't help. Like heatstroke in the Neanderthal era. ~VP

I play with pescado's social worker hack that makes the social worker sane, cause it's dumb that Sims 2 will take your kids away for leaving an elementary schooler home alone for an hour, or because one of them is a bad student.

At least they fixed THAT in Sims 3!

My most important mods are ACR2, inTeen, noinstantlove, romancemod, CJ's job stopinator (for Roman era), no20khandout, warmthfix (important for stone age) and several other fixes and small stuff, mostly from MATY or MTS. I think I have a cheat for having more than 8 sims per lot, instead of a hack. Social worker is still active and unmodded in game, but I'm thinking about getting a mod that removes her.

It's amazing to see new people starting. Good luck to you, have lots of fun! And it's a shame about your computer, VP. I know I wouldn't want to restart... If my computer was to die along with the harddrive, I'd try to recreate the families I had at the point, more or less.

I too find ACR, Inteen and a number of other mods indespensible. I also use the simlogical school changer it really adds to the realism when a bright yellow bus doesn't abduct all the children and teenagers everyday. Also a shorter more realistic lifespan gets the game moving quickly. Oh and for arranging marriages I use a hacked wedding arch.

Just letting everyone know I've got all the pictures for round one up, I'm not done with writing it up yet but almost. I'm partway through round two and having a blast, its going so differently yet similarly to my last tot. I didn't realiz how much easier plantsimism makes it for a family, tons more money also along with an occasional bath and company plantsims are content to fish all day long. The one family with a plantsim is quickly becoming very rich.

There are days when my Sims just make me laugh. When I hear about Mars and Luna's behavior it makes me marvel at the programming that went into this game. Don't you just wish you could sit down and watch game developers at work?

My RL has limited my own playing time since I have jumped into some serious spring cleaning, so I really am enjoying seeing how things are going in everyone else's games. Thanks for sharing.

You're right, they do fit the Neanderthal era, but if I would start again, I would give them more meaningful names or names that fit a certain theme. That would at least give the impression that I'm doing this challenge in an organised and well thought out way. :p
Actually, I never had the social worker visit before I started this challenge. But on the other hand, I never had families with that many children either, I think. This challenge definitely makes you experience lots of firsts.


I've been reading what you've gotten up so far and I think you've done a really nice work. Hope you get up the rest soon


May I ask which one you're using?

I actually downloaded pescado social worker hack, but haven't been playing since then, so not tested yet. But for my challenge I will definitely switch to a no social worker hack, if I find one that pleases me.

Despite the fact that I've re-downloaded practically everything in the past month, I'm not sure which one I'm using. I've visited too many sites recently. Once i figure out which hack is making my CAS be weird (instead of being on the podium, the sim is visible though the window, and errors constantly. I'm narrowed down to four creators and of course they're the one's I feel I can't live without), I'll poke around for the social worker hack. K? ~VP

Ok, thank you and no need to hurry

Well, yeah, that's my issue. Where do you download that kind of content?

I never know what to search for.

If you search for 'Neanderthal' here on MTS you find a few good starters and clothes (mostly for toddlers, if I remember right). The Mod Squad has made a whole set called 'The SimStones' [link]. You find the downloads in the comments. I know for sure that at least one person has a list with custom content they use on their blog. I just don't remember who it was. :D

It's Chicklet's site: sims2testoftime.weebly.com

I suggest using the list linked above, searching for the era name or something similar. Alternatively you could do a post apocalyptic challenge meaning everyone could just wear normal clothes. If you do plan on doing Neanderthal you could get by with just the simstones set plus a few odd things found from searching Neanderthal or cave.

I'm up to the third round of my challenge and as much as I liked playing through having a severe shortage of girls last time I really didn't think I'd have to play through it again. I have now 17 boys to 9 girls. I'm not going to say it won't get any worse because then half the girls will die off or something leaving me with a pitifully small population again. I will say that there's no way that this gender imbalance can correct itself before my gen two simmies start reaching adulthood because knowing my game it will do whatever I think is impossible.

Edit:
I don't know if I'm the only one who does this but when I want more of a gender I give babies of the opposite gender bad names. For example I have OMFG and #$%^ and i'm very glad that my gen 1 is very close to elderhood so I can stop before the names get properly nasty.

Currently I have 15 boys and 11 girls and two women from the first generation are still pregnant. Moreover I managed alread to have one cross-generational pregnancy and I'm only playing the 6th round It would be somehow funny, if I would end up with a equal number of girls and boys, but thats's quite improbable and would also be boring xP
Even if you have such an imbalance, don't have a negative attitude. I'm sure it will work out in the end. ;o Five women can already give birth to quite a huge number of babies, especially with the shorter pregnancy hack you've in your game.


The only ones I've given strange names are parents I had to create in CAS because you cannot create teenagers alone and guinea pigs for my skin set (aa, bb, ..., 11, 22, ...)


During the last week, I've been cleaning my hood: deleting unwanted townies and NPCs and finally putting in pescado's needed no regen hacks and then giving my ToT an own account in order to keep my normal game neanderthal CC free.
Only a few days ago, I finally got to continue the challenge and I had already completely forgotten how much fun it is to play. Can you imagine that? School is mean >.<
This afternoon I'll hopefully find time to update my blog.

Well its just I like a lot of variety in my game it's a little less imbalanced now but a lot of the girls are under seven whereas th eldest are just about to become adults. The first gen 3 baby was just born in my game.

Yeah I think I'm going to have a large population this time, my sims can have children for 16 days as adults, plus 4 as teenagers which results in like an average of 10 pregnancies as I like to give them a little time in between. There were also 7 sets of twins born to my sims. One for each family and two families had two sets. No triplets or quads though. No child has died yet in my game but one of the adults did leaving his wife with only four children. Most of the others have between 6-8 whilst one family has ten (I have never had ten kids in a family before.)

As to the pregnancy hack I couldn't bear having any pregnant sim do pretty much nothing (as I was playing with miscariages) for three days just to have one baby. It also really doesn't make sense with my shorter lifespan, not only would it mess with realism being pregnant for three years but it is perfectly feasible to have several children under five, up to three is understandable, especially in those times but with the combination of short lifespan and normal pregnancy children have to be three years apart plus if a women miscarries near the end you've wasted two years and it will be another three before she has a baby.

By messing with the genetics of one of my founders I actually have red headed babies this time around.

I can't wait for you to update your blog. It's really fun to read.

I always get bored of updating. I think its because its all about so and so was born, so and so aged for the whole thing. I think I may just take a start picture and a end picture each round and then only talk about the interesting stuff.

I had two founder couples with each one redhead, but I haven't gotten any redheads in my second generation. ;A; I haven't checked but I hope that at least some of them have the unexpressed gene for red hair.

I love making photos of my sims and I like writing, so I actually enjoy updating my blog. Especially when there is some time between playing the round and writing my blog entries. It's like rediscovering what my sims did. ;o And their expressions are sometimes simply hilarious.
Moreover sims don't live very long and when I'm playing a 'hood more extensively I have the feeling they die simply too quickly. Having a blog, I have traces of my dead sims, which otherwise I hadn't. In game, there is sadly nothing left form them (apart from a picture in a family tree) when they die.

I added yesterday the first part of the fifth round, but it may be some time before I can continue.

@VioletPadfoot: I found a no social woker hack from inge jones and it seems to work properly, but thank you for you help anyway.

In my first attempt, I had a blonde or red-head as part of each couple, and none of their kids expressed blonde or red hair b/c the brown and black are dominant hair colors. But several of the next generation had blonde or red hair. So as long as the babies of gen three have a recessive haired grandparent on both sides, you should be seeing some red-heads then. ~VP

Well all of the children should have the red head gene somewhere, if you pair them with blond sims/children of the other family 1/4 of their kids should have red hair. I have a family with one redhead but when I made the family I made the husband who had dark hair as the child of a darkhaired sim and a red haired sim giving him the recessive gene. All but two of their eight children have the gene and so it doesn't disappear like last time I'm marrying I'm planning on arranging two marriages between the half red haired family and the blond family. Last time I had a single sim carrying the red hair gene into the roman era, the game seemed against me getting it through at all.

There are already a few (unexpressed) redheads who are, let's say, getting closer to some blonds. I'm optimistic.
If everything else fails, I still have the possibility to add a (redhaired) CAS sims when I start the roman era and pair him/her with some blond. ^o^

Yeah if you try to keep the genes going as much as you can or even have them have affairs with other light hair coloured sims I'm sure it will get through. Actually that would make an interesting sub challenge, start with one red headed/blond sim and no recessives added in at all and keep the gene going.

The problem is if you are for example having one redhead and no blonds, the redhead will give the gene on to his children, but those children will have to marry sims with dominant genes (black and brown) and the possibilty that the gene will disappear before you can marry two cousins of the second degree is really high. But of course it's not impossible to achieve. You just need to be really lucky. ^o^


All the material that I have can now be found on my blog. That means it will take some time before the next update because I need time to play first. :P

And i just have another question for you:
I was wondering the other day (while writing my blog :D) whether it is obvious that I'm not a native English speaker?

Hmm yeah probably. Unless you had say three/two blonds and a red head and then tried to continue the red head gene although it would be pretty difficult.

No its not obvious at all. I had absolutely no idea until you mentioned it.

Unfortunately thanks to my final school exams starting in a month and going for a few months grr. I can't play much I sit down for a half an hour break and just get so distracted so it may have to wait a while. I'll have to make do with reading about everyone else's challenges and maybe sneaking a minute here and there.

Updates
 

Flying Raccoon, VP, and Lbsgirl:
Glad you are still updating and chatting in this forum. I think that summer and folks' RL have taken others away for awhile. I took some time today to visit my Sims, (I missed them), to see what they have been up to. Of course, they haven't been up to anything since they just sit there and wait for me to come back and visit. Based on the one lot I visited, the Barony of Bithynia, I updated my site. Stop in if you want to see the very short update.
Barony of Bithynia

Greetings to all my other TOT challengers. Hope you are doing well.

Here on this site there are some great things to download. Use the search to type cave or other keywords to find what you want. Just be sure to download for the version (sims 2 or sims 3) and EP (expansion packs) that you have on your computer. I love custom content. It makes the historical aspect of this challenge feel so cool. :lovestruc

I love all the drama death and destruction. Its fun to read about.

Meanwhile of the three households I've played so far I've lost two of the wives pretty much before any babies. One had a lot of drama sims fighting relatives, a husband cheating on his wife, getting caught being attacked by said wife, killing her. They'd already had a daughter and a son but I'll have to wait longer for a spare and to line someone up for his brothers and kick them out.

Also in this same household the bi brother of the wife killer decided to woohoo with the gay brother of the wife and get pregnant. I had the hack in for all of two minutes as well. (I reinstalled inteenimater to remove miscarriages)

And then in this next household, happening to be the murdered wife's family, I had another unfortunate death. Sims marry. Woohoo. Lullaby. Wife, in perfectly good health if a little overheated (maybe she was sick, I ignore these things) she got up and died. The husband got up I thought the death was stupid and told him to plead (I also do this with fire right next to a pond) but no he was too busy worrying thinking she's hot to try and save her. Her family, still present fishing after the wedding didn't bat an eyelid. They were losing their daughter one way or another I suppose. The girl pretty much every male sim wanted to marry died three hours after she was married. (And the guy who killed his wife was funnily enough the man every girl wanted to marry o.O)

So that is what i'm dealing with. There's no more marriages this round but hopefully the ones planned for next round don't fall through as horrifically. Oh and in respect to new spouses I got lazy and arranged marriages between the widower and his former wife's eldest younger available sibling. I don't have issues at all.

Edit and also in household with generally upwards of nine child and up sims and 4 beds plus two lounges (I know I cheat) the dog/cat gets one of the beds while sims are sleeping on the floor. I mean seriously.

Sims are simply gorgeous And the best part about it is that in fact all those stupid things they do, makes them nearly like humans. xD Most of what you wrote could also be right out of a news paper. Well, besides the thing about the male sim getting pregnant. =P

I hope I'll get time to play today. *keeps fingers crossed* I'm currently playing the sixth round and after that round all my founder sims will be gone, which is kind of really sad. >.< But on the other hand, it starts getting interesting now with sims moving out, new households and marriages.

About the arranged marriages: Normally it would be the other way around. When a husband dies, one of his brothers takes care of the wife. xD
And in my game the dogs got an own sleeping place outside, so I hadn't the problem yet. :p

Thank you all for the responses. I'll attempt the challenge soon (I guess)
The blogs are absolutely wonderful. I like to read all the stories.

Second Generation Dark Ages
 

My first born of the Dark Ages are becoming adults and so I have decided to start the second generation as High Medieval or the year 1000AD. This will allow me to continue to have viking sieges, but I want to add some shops. Afraid with almost thirty lots moving into this next age, that I am getting bored with the Dark Ages. There's nothing to do since there are no recreational items allowed on the lots and no visiting community lots. I just had to change things up a bit. Can't let all my excitement come from affairs and other misconduct.

Speaking of misconduct, I just finished updating my Barony of Landshut II for my second Baron of Landshut and his wife. Stop by to see a quick update.

TheFlyingRacoon yeah my founders are starting to drop like flies too. I'm killing them all first day of next round after a roll, after all they'll only be like 40 or something so its not inconceivable that they'll survive longer. Its strange that I get this attached to sims, I like having most of them around. As for arranged marriages, I generally choose whoever's convenient for widowers and a brother for widows. If the mother of a heir becomes a widow its especially problematic, she can't become separated from her children yet I want them to grow up in their family home so she can't really remarry unless its to a brother in law.

I can't wait to here how you get along with it. This challenge is ridiculously fun.

So much drama seems to be happening in your game Cespencer. I'm very surprised you have so many families still, you seem to be killing so many sims. If you don't mind me asking how many sims did you have at the start of the era?

Hey All! *waves like the mad thing she is*

Just dropping in to say hi because it's been like foreeeverrrrr *flops in defeat* and ya'll talking about founders is making me feel old =_= see this old face?! *is still not going to be finished by 2020* I watch cespencer zooming along and think if I didn't update so extensively I might be joining you in the Dark Ages already! But then like Raccoon says ._. I like updating and re-reading what my simmies have been up to.... rock and a hard place? XD It's especially fun seeing the Neanderthal Era, it's been literally SO LONG since I played the feeling of nostalgia is definitely genuine - 3 years last month and I'm still going! *everyone just starting just died from horror thinking about still playing this 3 years from now* ^_^ heh, I do like to spread good cheer around! Good luck!

Yeah I had nothing insightful or helpful to add AT ALL .....*crawls back into her hole*

taliah~ who keeps playing atot like a broken record on and on and on and on

PS: chicklet - Divergent - read it - that is so going on my sim list I can't believe I didn't think of it before! Maybe it can be inserted post-apocalyptic? Oh gawd somebody stop me XD

Hi ya'll! Sorry it's been so long (seems there's more news this time around- and Raccoon, nice to meet you!)

Haven't played the TOT as much as I'd like, however something amazing happened. (Ts3 Island Paradise, of course). This worked wonders for my world as I designed it myself and frankly it was getting way too small for all my Roman families. Now if I absolutely need to I can shrink a few lots and give my sims houseboats (this will be key to the Viking era, but I'll try not to use them before they might've actually arrived in the timeline. Another great thing about it is that a lot of 'useless' beaches and space that I ringed the island with can now be accessed by boat- so exciting!

I'm still having issues with sims being all related to one another (a great thing about ts2 is that after you move a family, a lot of times you get that fresh start with them). I don't want this game to be an influx of CAS sims, so I'm still struggling with that one a bit. I do have a lost child sim (Apollo), who isn't dead but isn't with his family (and I did try to adopt a child to make sure he didn't get removed, but I don't know if ts3 has the equivalent of a social worker???- Does ANYone know this??

Well, long story short I adopted a kid and named him 'Appollo' in honor of his lost brother, and edited him only to get his features/ eyes color hair color etc back to what he should be to not mess up their genes pool (I hope). But the Apollo who is nowhere is in the family tree in color (therefore alive), so I'm guessing he's just been forgotten? On that note, I don't have many graves either as I've been playing families for a game week at a time (still considering a generation to be a child, so rounds don't limit gameplay), and when they age up and I lose someone I can't find the graves later (checked the mausoleum too).

CSpencer, Violetpadfoot, lbsgirl- great to see you guys!

Hi (sorry forgot to mention hi to you earlier!) And I've never read divergent, but post apolcalyptic HAS to happen (>_<).

I've also recently decided that I'd like my simmies to stay on the 'European' side of things, as the colonization would disrupt what the families all are, so I may well do 3 gens at least of a 'Crusades' period? Which I believe is right around/ after the Rennaisance anyways and would just take the place of the whole cowboys & Indians idea.

----> Speaking of, It might be cool to do an only America TOT later that starts with colonization, goes to Rebellion/ War with the Redcoats, followed by expansion/ gold rush (California & Alaska), then Civil War, the end of slavery, the industrial revolution, then Prohibition (no drinking!) women's sufferage, WWII, and the modern era?

.....what do you all think?

Good luck with your challenge, Right-thgiR.


The dark ages still seem so far away for me and I can't imagine how long it'll take me to play one round with so many households. I need terribly long to play, because even though I'm not giving my simmies commands, I always want to now what everyone is up to and taking photos is quite time consuming as well. Like lbsgirl, I would really like to now how many sims you have by now?


Welcome back and thank you for answering me on your blog. I would have written you there but it won't let my reply. =/ And yeah, it's hard to imagine that in three years I will still be sitting here playing this challenge. But considering that I already started over half a year ago (which I just realised; time's flying away ) and am currently starting the second generation, it's not that incredible anymore. xD

I've spent the afternoon/evening refreshing my knowledge about the human history and am now reflecting about certain things:
- I think I will already introduce pottery and simple musical instruments (like drums) in the neanderthal era.
- At some point, I want to include pirates in the challenge, but I'm not sure whether I should do that already in the roman age or wait until in the dark ages. Then I could combine that with the vikings.
- For the roman era I will create a goddess, who will be responsible for the killings every round. Maybe the emperor will get his own rites when I have enough slaves.
- Convents or monasterys could be used instead of/in addition to universities in later stages. Parents would send their children there to be educated.
- I would like to keep one part from my simmies separated from the rest when starting the roman era (they would continue livinig pretty much like they did before) to be the natives later on during colonisation. Otherwise, I think I will end up like Frogsnack and I won't do that part because it's like ripping the population in two.

But maybe I shouldn't spend so much time on those things. xD They are still so far away and I have no idea how large my population will be and which changes I can actually do (especially the last point). >.< And if I even get that far at all.
But I really see forward to build the houses for my next generation and even more to build the houses for the roman era.


Especially when you're leaving the colonisation in this challenge away, it would be a great idea.

Long post is long and now I'm off to play some more. *as soon as my internet is working correctly again and I can post this ._.*

Can Sims actually kill each other (with or without a hack) or do you need to "help" them along (i.e. you killed the sim and the story is the husband killed her)?

taliahneth nice to see you I would be stuck in roman with you (multiple times) if my games hadn't been giving out. I've been playing this challenge for ages like at least a year and a half since my first attempt but I lost so much progress. I'm now on my fith? attempt XD. I think if my game survives that long I'll need something to occupy my masses of extra time if I ever finish the challenge. I'll have to a) start over of b) go apocalypse and play through all the disturbing apocalyptic books I've ever read.

Frogsnack I was toying with the idea of starting another ts3 tot (last thing I need with exams coming up) but its just such a different game I'd go mad trying to keep everyone period appropriate and everything. Its really cool how you replaced Apollo with another kid. As to a sustainable population, it gets worse before it gets better. If you god mod most marriages you will be able to find sims to marry, at worst with a few cas sims thrown in. It is possible to reach a sustainable population with just 4 couples if you're very careful.

Your point about losing that kid remids me about how I have some 'cursed' names, I've been reusing names since my first tot rather than being creative, one that comes to mind is Pyra, I had three my one my first tot, three in the second second (I renamed a sister and a niece after her), then one or two, then one or two and now I have one. None of them (except hopefully the current one, whose just a child) have survived long enough to have children. There has been a few others but I can't put my finger on them right now.

I'm sticking with European too, because I'm not overly familiar with colinization and it doesn't fit my playstyle instead I'm cutting that and everything to two gens and then I'll have a ten gen challenge. Although doing more on different parts of the world may work. Or an epic tot with like 10 starting families, in 5 sets each situated in a different part of the world, as some of you have been doing and then too have different groups rise to power or act out different places at a time in history.

TheFlyingRaccoon your ideas seem great. I think pirates were more renaissance or dark ages? I'm trying to focus on Neanderthal in the challenge, that or rebuilding my roman housing. I want to get near the dark ages before I start planning it all out.

samantha_kathy it is not possible without a hack to have sims kill one another so yeah I did kill the wife, However the rules for this challenge state that the loser of all fights must be killed, therefore if a sim attacks another sim and wins they effectively killed the loser. If the attackee defeats the attacker I would say that they killed the attacker defending themselves. Basically yeah its a story mechanism.

There's pirates in every era with seafaring, so the probably existed in the paleolithic (in which somebody must've had a maritime adaptation because you can't get to Australia without a boat), but the classic pirates everyone thinks of date to the heyday of the Spanish colonies in America, the 17th-18th centuries. William Kidd was hung in 1701, Blackbeard died in battle in 1718, and Ann Bonny and Mary Read are last definitely heard from "pleading their bellies" in 1721 - they'd both gotten pregnant, so the hanging had to be postponed and that's the last official history knows of them.

wahhh reading all this really makes me wish my sims and I were in the same country

I can't wait till I get home so I can play too! I've already made up names for my Neanderthals and my own rule adjustments It looks so time-consuming, though..I haven't even started and I already feel like I'll never make it past the ice age..

Ah, that makes sense. I like the rule of killing the loser of a fight, and I might even adapt it and use it in the medieval charter challenge I'm playing right now. Maybe rolling a dice for the outcome - to kill or not to kill

I love this idea. Ts3 is way tempermental and it's hard to know when sims are 'fighting'.

What do you all consider to be a 'sim fight'?
Because it seems nobody automatically dislikes each other based on personality in ts3, I recall at least in 2 that sims had an immediate chemistry reaction (for better or for worse). I can't seem to get a sim to even the 'faceslap' stage without a lot of actual work to make them dislike each other. Even mean-spirited sims have been able to marry and have good relationships with their families without my interference.

As a result, I'm 4-5 gens in and nobody has died by 'fighting'. So if they argue, just an argument, then there's faceslap, then the full on, drag out, dustcloud rumble, right? I can't get to stage two. Makes the challenge way too predictable and easy, when there's barely a mortality rate. (I just installed the new seasons, too but have yet to have someone be sick. In seasons, sims can get 'germy' for two days and then get sick, so it seems even the death by disease won't be so easy to achieve).


lbsgirl- I didn't know there was another ts3 tot'er... **snfl** ....so happy....

As for period clothing, I'm with you on that. There's not as much challenge-oriented content here or on any other free site that I've seen. I've seen some terrible togas on paysites, but I refuse to buy them. So what I've done instead (and I think it works pretty well), is limit the materials sims can wear based on an era. In neanderthal everything was leather and plant fibers, now in roman I've allowed sleeker fabrics (metallic materials, exotic leather like big cats that might've died in the Colosseum- I didn't allow neanderthals northern animal leathers as they're in a tropical zone, I know it's a bit weird but I love it that way)), and everyone wears sandals or is barefoot. If you find one or two good patterns that are appropriate to the age, you can fortunately change the colors etc;

((Pic 2 and 3 have the same greek-style pattern, just in different colors)) What do you think?

For me (and for most of us?) a fight is, like you called it, the dustcloud rumble.
I think most sims fights are started by jealousy. For example when a husband is caught cheating on his wife or I had recently a guy who was angry because his crush/affair slept with another man (sadly no fight, only faceslapping :p). But I had once two girls fighting. I'm not sure what happened because I missed the beginning, but I'm pretty sure that one of them gave a noogie to the other (because she's doing that all the time >.< ) and because they didn't know each other before (0/0 relationship) that was enough that they started arguing which led to faceslapping, poking and fighting. As for the chemistry, it has no influence on 'normal' social interactions (at least not that I knew of). Chemistry influences only how good romantic interactions work between two sims.
But in general you can say that it's pretty hard to actually find sims who dislike each other from the beginning on, whether it be in TS2 or TS3.

As for sickness, I wouldn't expect too much because when it is working similar to the way it did in TS2, it's nearly impossible that one of your sims is actually dying. ._. Although sick and pregnant may be working if you manage to keep the sim sick for a few days. xD

And to get back to my pirates: It may be the best solution to turn a few of the vikings into pirates (instead of knights) when reaching Medieval&Renaissance. But like I said, it's still far, far, away (even though I finished the sixth round pretty fast ) and it makes no sense reflecting longer about that now. I just needed to get the ideas out of my head and writing them down (and sharing them ) is best for that.


My sixth round was really interesting. My simmies were amusing me so much, I was actually sitting their laughing, which does not happen very often. Most of the time, I don't have to laugh until I try to tell someone what they were up to. :D
For those reading my blog, the 'Ivan-loves-Kema-loves-Zeno' situation is now solved whereas the love triangle around Ivy, Riko and Ron is still a lil' confusing. And of course there was lots of other usual and unusual crazyness going on and (what I already suspected) Zeno is definitely one of the more interesting sims in there. ^w^
I will be updating my blog this weekend.

*feels like she's babbling too much*... >.<

The dust-cloud, rumble is definitely a sim fight to me, and even in TS2 (which I play exclusively) it's not that easy to get my sims to do it. Not autonomously, at least. However, since I've decided to roll the dice on whether a fight kills a sim, I think I'll give it fifty/fifty odds if there's an actual dustcloud fight, and twenty/eighty odds if there's poking and shoving, which does happen a little more often. So, little fight, small chance of dying for the loser; big fight, bigger chance of dying.

Hello to everyone..*Waving*
Great to see the thread still alive and well. I took a break from the challenge for a spin, and am now in the 'catch up' mode. Gosh, I hadn't realised how long I had abandoned my poor roman simmies for until I opened my hood and forgot what was what, and who was who... So I spent all morning trying to find my tracking notes (alas, to no avail) , so read back through my blog and am now kinda on track.
I played a short while, then forgetting I had an aging hack (shorterLifeSpan) my sims transitioned into the next stage of their lives. So I have my first generation six adults and teens all ready to be matched and married and the rest. Generation five adults are in their elder years so no more babies from them, which meant my poor emperor begat only two daughters. Actually all families only managed to breed two children each. So I have two males for six females....
Any way, I best shaddup and go play my simmies and try to figure something out for the man drought. Until next time...

Happy Simming :lovestruc

With fighting it helps with having kids in aspiration failure, all of my fights have either been because of that or because sims have become enemies because they aren't programmed to like one another. Although maybe if sims get to enemies sometimes I will help them along. I like drama. However since I generally don't help sims into green aspiration if they're red fights have always been common.

I am more concerned with getting everyone in other households into the clothing than with making it. I like to play with short lifespans so it becomes especially tedious and I'm trying to keep my s3 unmodded atm.

I did have a sim get up to die of sickness last tot and the second wife who died last time I played (the one who woke up in the middle of the night, apparently in perfect health, to die, not the murdered one) technically died of the flu I believe however it is uncommon.

Aspiration failure, right... that makes sense. I used to have such a hard time making sims happy, and once I figured it out I felt guilty not letting them be happy. It's probably time for some of my married sims to stray a bit, if they want their lines to continue.

Thanks for the advice, guys!

I think that may help however your only real option with s3 because they can't go into aspiration failure and attack sims is to make them fight when the options become available or maybe have a chance of death in low scale fights like slapping and stuff. I think if a sim rolls the want to see a sims ghost in my challenge I will have them try to murder the other sim. I like to create drama in my game.

..I think you may be right. And that's fair, too to give a lower chance of death.


New updates (played a bit today), The Bupkis family (Patricians) were gifted with two kidnapped girls from Roman conquests in the North (Perrti Gulliver and Svetlana Borsetscova), when the Imperial Army invaded their lands. As a result- new kidlets! New pics are in my family tree in my signature.

Asa had someone in mind who quite didn't like him, so when Perrti responded to his advances he immediately asked for her hand in marriage, and now they seem to be quite in love (they didn't need my help to start a family, at least). Asa is a good sim (and one of the few who grew up well, so while Pertti can be childish she's also charasmatic and friendly, so they make a good match.

A few random things happened this time: The game forgot to inform Asa that Charlene Edifica is his Aunt, and apparently she's his type, but for some reason SHE seemed to remember they were related (Hence all my questions about fighting, because they went from being the best of friends to several notches into the red while I was watching his wife and babies). They left it at yelling and he went home.

Pertti also sneezed a few times but never got to be 'germy', so she's safe for now. She did however, decide randomly to play tag with her daughter in the rain in her nighty even though it's not an outfit I put her in. I think she changed into it because she's pregnant again? All the more reason to run w=around getting soaked. It can't be too long before she really does end up with the reaper. :/

After which, Asa decided to learn how to windsurf and got stranded on the other side of the island, and riiiight after they moved in, the neighbor immediately came to stare in their window? It was one of the Emporer heirs, a Cove, so it was all they could do to just politey ask him to leave.

If I remember correctly, I had over 50 lots so I think I had about 200 sims before I started the Dark Ages. Right now I have about 29 lots going into the next era. The new births helped to keep the population around 100 or so.

EDIT - I went back to my old website and realized that I actually lost a few family names. When I started the Roman Age I added 7 new men and some Sabine women so I could have a larger group to get married. Now, I have lost several families surnames - Babich, Crus, Krapina, Engis, and Vindija. Most of my families are directly related to the Scalyn emperor and now King. Being wealthy helps them to survive. Many of my lost families were poor slaves and serfs. They were the first to fight, die of the flu, and get killed by vikings. Kind of interesting, huh?

Wow that's a lot. Though the way my sims are breeding (4-10 children in every family) I think I may not be too far off soon.
I'm struggling to get through the last family of the round. There's only a few sims but there's no drama so they're so boring. I long for the drama of the households with twelve or more sims.

My second generation is made up of 29 sims, thereof 16 males. The last 2nd gen childs will turn into adults a few days before my first gen 3 childs, so when reaching the roman era I suppose I will have around 20 households. *don't want too >.<*
I'm never going to finish this challenge, right? XD
But as the saying goes: 'The journey is the reward.' and that definitely fits the challenge. :p

As for last households in a round: I just have a few days left before finishing the sixth round, but even though that household is interesting to play, I simply don't get the time to play. ._.
But it's always a good idea to put one of your favourite and/or action-packed families at the end of the round.

Hey all!

I spent the week catching up on older posts I missed in recent months and reading some of the "newer" blogs (>_> not all brand new but newer for me... *guilty conscience hasn't been keeping up*) and I'm seriously impressed by how ya'll doing! *round of applause* it's just incredible to me how everyone reads the same challenge and have all adapted it to suit themselves. I've never seen such variety in a challenge before it's really inspiring.

So saying, I got to looking over my own challenge and realising in that - how did I know this but NOT know this?! - way just how long it's taken me to get through the last TWO rounds and I was like... seriously... taliah... just no girl, no!

As much as I love my sims (really really!) there are only a few I miss when I'm in other families that I have "stories" that I'm following, but my sims are such a mess (seriously MESS) family lines are completely interwoven, generations are tangled and I don't even know what's going on anymore... and I think "it's only going to get worse from here ya know!"

So my Tempus Temporis simmies are on hiatus while I follow inspiration down another road; I'm not deleting them, because if this new plan I have in mind fails I'll just waltz right back over and start messing with them all over again!

I started Tempus waaaaay back at the beginning, with the original rules when they were first put up, and I had no idea what I was doing so I just attempted *cough (badly) to follow the... historically realistic? version >_> I dunno, I was just following the rules and researching what I needed to know at the time. Tempus is officially my 3rd attempt (1 of which was virus related grr).

But for now I've started anew with an alternate reality themed timeline and a few "unusual" sims thrown into the mix. This is not "Earth" as Tempus was pretending to be, and they are not "human" (using that term loosely btw), but nor am I going way off super crazy lost in space futuristic whatever. All I have right now are a few sims at mercy to the seasons populating a brand new world and evolving with each generation. I'm pretty much making it up as I go along. Adding to that my other main purpose is to get through 20 generations - with a reasonable amount of sims - ya'll can hold me to that! XD it could happen right?! And I shall invent means and ways to keep population down. Starting with not having rabbit-wannabe sims

I hope I can join in with the rest of ya'll down at Level 1 (so to speak XD) coz otherwise I'd be a loner... a really sad one...

taliah~

PS: that is so true (and aptly timed! XD)

Hello everyone!
This challenge ist perfect, I think I'll have a lot of fun playing through the different ages
But I have a lot of questions that came to my mind right after reading through the rules.
1) During the neanderthal stage, do you set familyfunds to 3000 after buying the furniture and building your cave/hut or directly after you have bought the lot?
2) Can teens be taken away by the social worker for not going to school?
3) How do you build the finishing school? Is it a residential lot where female teenagers simply move in?
4)Same question for the jail
5)Are knights/Noble women paid for working as a guard for the jail/a madame at the Finishing School? If yes, how much do they get?

I can't answer all of your questions, and I don't recall if teenagers can get taken away by the social worker; but if you don't want any of your children taken away, there is a no social worker hack. I'm using that one, and no matter how hot/hungry/whatever your kids get, they won't be taken. They can die, though. It's on this page .

If you want to play the finishing school, you can build one as a residential lot and use Simlogical's school building stuff; there's a tutorial on how to set up your own school available here. If you don't want to play the school, a good alternative might be Simlogical's school changer, and the custom school types. There's a boarding school, which will have the kids home on the weekend only, as well as a flexi-school, used for homeschooling (in other words, there's no school, great for the early ages and lower classes), and a prep school, where the children and teens are at school from nine to five, but bring home no homework. These can be found here.

A jail can be made and run with the objects on this page, and a tutorial as to how to set up your own jail is also available there.

While samantha_kathy answered, I'm going to add my two cents.
1) I do it after the lot is furnished. Actually, I have a pre-furnished lot that I plop down, move the family into and then set the funds to 3000
2) Not that I'm aware of, but I use a no social worker hack and for this challenge, Inge's flexi school that samantha_kathy linked to
3) and 4) I'm not sure on these, especially since none of us has reached this point. Like most of the challenge though it's more how you choose to do it. Obviously its will be its own lot, played in such a way to simulate a finishing school or jail. The hacks by Inge (samantha_kathy linked to ones for the school, but Inge also has a slew of stuff for jails too) will help alot
5) Again this is player discretion. Personally (if I ever get this far. I really need to get my restart set up) I'll use the family funds cheat to pay my guards/madames but I don't know how much just yet. It'll depend on my sim's financial status when I get that far.

For the most part this challenge is up to the player's interpretation. A few posts back taliah commented on the wide range of us playing. My own challenge is altered by my use of colored skintones and the story that my sims are aliens who crash landed. As long as you follow the spirit of the rules and are having fun, then you're doing just fine. ~VP

Talineth your new idea sounds really interesting can't wait to hear how it goes.

1) after you buy the lot with the allowed furniture (or whatever you decide to add) set funds to 3000,
2) teens cannot get taken away but children can, I heavily suggest using the no social worker hack linked above or being very careful
3) none of us are quite up to the finishing school yet but when I finally get up there I'll be using a residential lot, I may use the simlogical hacks listed above or as my teenage sims do not attend 'proper' school after the age of 11, (inteen & shorter lifespan) my girls will probably just work on there necessary skills and make friends. Another alternative would be to have it as a college residential lot.
4) You could either use the simlogical hacks to make a functional prison using prisoner tags also from simlogical to keep them from escaping and make a functional prison or just have another residential lot.
5) This depends on how you want to play it. Again there are a few options, In my medieval hood I had prison guards and guardsmen work in the law enforcement career and the nuns who ran the schools in education. Alternatively some the money paid to the finishing school could go to the madams/their families. If you wanted to be cruel you could also make the prisoners work, effectively paying the guards' salary.

One thing to keep in mind is that no one is up to the Victorian era or anywhere close yet. Cespencer is the furthest and still in the dark ages. None of us are/have stuck comepletly to the Neanderthal or Roman rules, we've all adapted the challenge to make it harder. For example with an average of 7.5 kids per family I haven't stuck to the one sofa rule, I've added in another one so half the family can be sleeping at a time. Cespencer has completely changed the original viking rules to something far more elegant and believable. Although the rules say no showers or toilets, most of us have added them in to keep what's left of our sanity. As we all progress up to the later eras we'll adapt those rules as well. So don't by any means follow them all if it doesn't fit your play style and with the ones that are open for interpretation, you can really interpret them in any way you like.

Thanks everyone for your quick answers!
I have to say, I'm quite surprised that I got 3 answers - this forum is a really good one :D
I will definitely try out all of those sites you linked to, thanks a lot!
Concerning the no social worker hack thingy: can you deactivate a mod by removing it from the Downloads file of the game?

As far as I know, once the hack (it's just one file) is removed from the downloads folder, your social worker will show up again.

Yeah as long as you remove it completely from your downloads folder and I think maybe the sims 2 folder as well she will come back.

You don't have to use the hack but it is useful. If you decide to go without you will need a good way of cooling your child and toddler sims off. I suggest the hot/cold shower mod http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=286932. It really helps to cool sims down which is useful whether or not you plan on playing with the social worker.

Well you all answered that one really well! (And welcome in purpleFlower). Here's my answers;

1) I use a premade lot like VP mentioned above, saves a lot of time as you may easily have + families at the end of the gens.
2) Don't know if you delete the school, what happens in ts2 (I've forgotten). I created my own neighborhood and made it without the school, and am using ts3.
3) Again, I get to be lazy. There's a basic 'send your kids off to private school' option I can use. I just feel guilty not playing them directly, so I tend to not send them anywhere. -_-
4) Can't WAIT to make this! It'll have to be residential (ts3 teleports sims that get stuck on community lots sometimes). I'm not cheating in terms of household size, so I'm thinking I'll just have to kidnap people in a large jailhouse and leave the doors etc locked or remove them. I might go as far as to throw a fridge in a cell with a few people and a grill or something so they don't starve to death. The residents will be the guards.
5) I'm too lazy to pay everyone, funds in my game are really screwed up because the game keeps giving sims I'm not playing cars and expensive (2+k simoleans valued) books in their inventory and I'm tired of using family funds. I might pay them by buying things for the jail at set values and letting them put it in their personal inventory to sell when they move out.

And yea, this challenge is my all time favorite one!

Taliah- I gotta hand it to you girl for restarting so many damm times! I still remember when my one of my founding wifey 'eve sims' glitches and I couldn't play my game. I was just saved because my first two generation families I was saving to the gamebin as soon as they had kids, just in case.

Cspencer- The names you've chosen are great (Love Baron Dirk, poor guy), is Decima a name you researched? I keep going to Behind the name (dot) com for new ideas, found a lot that way. My newest babies are Anfisa ('flower) and Antipater ('Like father')- he's has a few of dad's traits. ^_^

Frogsnack: I was just using a regular baby name site. I have been trying to stick close to the region of Europe or Asia where I placed my different clans.

Everyone else: "Rules" -
1) I started out trying to follow all of them, but then decided to adapt where it would make it more fun for me. So, I shortened each era to a founding generation, one birth round and then on to the next age.

2) History is inspirational, not technically accurate.

3) When your neighborhood starts to get too big - over 30 lots - try to find ways to kill off a few families or relocate them with another family. I am using Viking sieges, the plague (flu), and fighting means death for loser rules to let Sims die. At first I rescued favorite sims, but then realized I had to let them die. It is hard! But it adds interesting story lines to the challenge that might otherwise become too safe.

Hey everyone :D

Trying to save your favourite sims is a really bad reflex you have to get over if you want the most interesting story lines, but it's hard to do. ._. My first generation was interesting like I played it, but all my founder sims survived to die of old age and I want to change that in the next generations. If not, I fear I'll be getting bored. xD See what I can come up with.

@ taliah: Yeah, your tempus temporis has been kind of a big mess. xD But that's what (partially) made it so fun to read, even if you forgot like half of the time who was actually who and related to whom. XD Your new take on the challenge seems to get really interesting as well. I've been reading through the first posts and you are really lucky that the Dionysos' had a boy. Otherwise you would in fact already have lost the challenge. =P


I have been updating my blog today, so two new posts for everyone to read. ^o^

It's been so long since I've played this! Ok, so I finally got around to making my new founders and all five couples are now on lots. I'm going to go play them in a few minutes so pictures of them should be on my website within the next 24 hours. Speaking of my website, I overhauled the entirety of the the ToT section to move the first attempt so that the new one will take precedence, and everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in the ToT section has links at the bottom of the pages to other areas of the ToT section. Especially since I'm trying not to overload the drop down menu. Well I'm off to play now. ~VP

I'm quietly playing a mashed up version of this challenge. Last time I played Tree Tribe I couldn't figure out where all the fires were coming from; apparently Rebeka's chickens (Affinity Sims) can spontaneously combust. So with chickens aflame, wolves running away from home and sims passing out it was hectic to say the least. O_o

I've been pondering this phenomenon myself (that of restarting without any actual need for it) I think there's a legitimate medical case here for "ATOTC Addiction" XD but one day! I'm going to finish! Just you wait and see! (if anyone is actually still alive then)


I know! It's so tragic I must laugh to keep from crying XD When Grimmie showed up I was literally staring at the screen with my jaw on the floor in disbelief. Poor Nico will be wrapped in cotton wool until he has an heir now. On the bright side, I would have been forced to go back and fix up Tempus instead! ^_^ ...wait... no, don't admit that in public...


Say what?! Good luck with that!

Happy simming everyone~

taliah~

Ok, pics of Gen 1 are up! And after one day, 4 of 5 ladies are pregnant, two of them without me telling them to woohoo. Go ACR! The non pregnant one was ACRed as well, it just didn't result in pregnancy. Now I'm off to play some more. Maybe I'll get through enough one day rotations to see some of my Gen 2 babies before I get tired and have to go to bed. And maybe, just maybe, I might get all the way through Saturday and be able to post an update. ~VP

Edit: Yeah not happening. Got pulled into going to the grocery store. Considering the fridge was pretty bare, (we were getting those warnings that food stock was low. I'm pretty sure we'd have run out of food points if we put it off any longer) this was a good thing. However, I didn't get far enough to see any pretty babies. BUT my last female FINALLY got pregnant after god knows how many tries, just before I left the lot. ~VP

Raccoon- I love Fred! She's so funny.

And what happened to Merida... did you let her ...starve? O_o;

Love Death, he's so much fun. ^_^


Anyway, Taliah- you restarting has kept me from restarting- I've been thinking about it again, and it reminds me that I can do so anytime (things that were small issues before Roman are getting harder to fix, like size of the place. lol). So I'm going to stick it out and if I run out of space I may just turn the whole neighborhood into the Vikings early.

I played a bit today, but no update as I'm taking census; I have too many families to play with aging on, so twice a round (a round for me is one game week played at every household) I leave aging on. Then I have to go around and make sure no sims were lost (I think another one was), and see ho many aged up with sh*t traits... got a few insane people this time, and in the wealthy Cova family no less. I guess you gotta be crazy to run the place.

Glad to be of service, Frogsnack! I also find it amazing how you manage this challenge with TS3. I tried it and failed... miserably I never thought about turning aging off though hmm =/ that may have helped... but my sims kept adopting puppies and kittens and stuff when I wasn't in their lot, and why when you turn everything off do they always get a car in their inventory?! WEIRD! XD

@Frogsnack:
Yeah, I love her too. <3
When reaching the Brandt family I was already pretty bored with all those people dying of old age, so I decided to take a look at her needs and hunger was the lowest. Same for Xaver who was killed by flies. *whistle*

I don't think I could ever play this challenge in TS3. I'm way too perfectionist and after loosing my first sim, I would probably throw the whole thing into the bin. XD

Grimmie for the win!

LOL!! Yes, yes they do always have a car. I was going to ignore it (because it happens to everyone, and they'll all need money for the Vikings, plus the Vikings could just take 3k per marauding if I like), but now that I have Island Paradise they keep getting $45k boats handed to them! I need some kind of 'leave the neighborhood simmies ALONE' cheat... **grmbls**

I have a family that's had an 'neighborhood pet adoption' for four generations... I couldn't play the household of the Fahadeen progeneration (founding) couple, so I had to uninstall pets. Which does suck, I would LOVE to be able to incorporate taming wild beasties according to the timeline. That's also likely why the Fahadeens ended up as slaves, they were two rounds behind before I got mad enough to uninstall... thinking back I could've just played them for a while after, but it was before I realized it wasn't cheating to turn aging off. :/ Tankfully gen 2 had a enough males.

....*thought*.... I suppose I COULD play the heir family now for two gens to see if they can catch up...? They still have only two (almost three) households.

Current list;

Cove (Emperor)
Cova
Coval
Covre
Covea

Bupkis (Patricians)
Bupkisa (4 sons, will have three more splits)

Saulson (Plebians)
Saulsona
Saulsonesca
Saulsoria

Edifice
Edifica
McEdifice

Fahadeen
Fahadeena (3 sons, will have two more splits)

According to the Myheritage site in my sig, I have 80 living sims, and about 17 have died.

Raccoon- Congratulations getting them to old age. The flies thing made me laugh, I just recently found out sims could die that way. But you really have to neglect them for that...!

@ Frogsnack: Yes, they need to stink for a really long time until they get attacked by flies. XD I simply used the tombstone, for the deaths of old age (my sims only have been adults after all) as well as starvation/death by flies. :p
A total of ~63 playable sims is quite a lot. My family tree page tells me I have a total of 44 sims, but out of those are 11 dead and 3 got taken by the mean witch. ._. That means 30 playable sims, plus three pregnant women. ^o^

I made the final update for round 6 on my blog this afternoon/evening/night and I needed hours because I took so many photos. >_< Not only for the Monsas, even though there I hit my record of over 170 photos, but also the last few households before this one. I have the feeling my blog entries are endless. xD How many pictures you people normally take in one round? =o

I'm going to answer that question seriously! Look... serious face

Far too many XD It really slows down updating, but if there's stuff happening I like to see it, and it's always fun looking back. Also I noticed in families I take nothing I tend to look at the folder like O_< why no pictures? *thinks obviously coz nothing happened* but it makes me curious still! So I must take pictures!

In all seriousness, with tempus having so many families the last round was 1170......*had never counted before and so just died* In comparison 350 for Round 1 of the new version ^_^ haaa I'm gonna go read a book now *crawls away*

taliah~

taliahneth, your TOT blog is really funny. Well except for Natasa dying. is your game patched? Sims shouldn't randomly be on fire like that all the time.

Thanks ^_^... *then proceeds to bemoan her own stupidity at the reminder of poor Natasa dying* I don't know what's up with the game itself =/ I've never had it before, other than normal, but with this neighbourhood every lot started with heaps of rain, and lightning, stuff caught fire... and then the sims got caught in a fire error that only disappeared when I deleted them. It was WEIRD but as long as the game keeps running is all good! ^_^

taliah~

This may have been discussed already, but there are so many pages..Is there any way to stop townies from visiting/existing?

The easiest way is to simply create a new, clean neighbourhood without townies to start your challenge in. For that, you need to use clean (or even empty) templates.
If you already started the challenge, you can either delete the townies or you can use some kind of visitor controler to keep them off your lots. With the visitor controler I cannot help you, because I'm not using one, but deleting townies can be done by using the batbox and simpe (and needs freaking long because you can easily have a few hundred townies and have to delete them one by one *speaks from experience >.<*) or some tool by Theo I think. But if I remember right, Theo suggests to use his tool in addition to the batbox and it covers the simpe part for all those who are not comfortable with it.

I would check on the bat box and see if you can stop the weather as that does not sound normal. I once had a lot that would not stop raining and it was covered in puddles but the bat box fixed it and it stayed normal after that, so it's possible you have some kind of stuck lightning problem.

I use the visitor controller to keep townies out and that is quite simple to use.

I use the Visitor Controller as well. It's currently set to ban Townies, Downtownies, The Paper Girl, The Mail Carrier, and pregnant sims. That last one b/c it messes up their timers when the hang around on my lot, and I was getting really tired of the camera zooming over to them if the timer decided it was at hour 25 or 50. The Paper Girl is banned b/c I'm not using the paper yet and I don't want my Neanderthals reading it. Also did you know, if you let the paper girl deliver a paper then proceed to ban her, the paper she delivered never gets to the old paper state? Not sure if the jobs inside change or not since I had Sarina toss it before I thought to even check that. And I'm experimenting with the mail carrier. I figure if she gets banned before she can even deliver the bills, you don't have to pay them right? I'll report on this when I've played more than a day or two in the challenge. ~VP

Hi all - any chance of me getting back in? I've just been busy with other things, but I found this thread again today and it's making me want to start a new ToT!

Thanks everyone for the prompt responses! Is there a specific visitor controller that is good to use?




Clean/empty templates? I assume that's not just the normal 'create new neighborhood'?

When creating a new 'hood in an unmodified game, there is automatically created a whole batch of townies and npcs. To avoid that you need to replace some files in your game (templates) with empty templates. Here is a blog entry that gives a pretty good overview of the possibilities you have and has the needed templates linked.

@VioletPadfoot: I'm simply deleting bills and news papers as soon as my simmies get them. Same for homework, if they're not already eaten by dogs. >_>

@TheFlyingRaccoon: I was just going to refund the amount of the bills with family funds, until I noticed the ban mail carrier option on the Visitor Controller's menu. Newspapers were getting tossed in the compost bin as soon as I noticed them. Now I just notice the blue lights as the mail carrier and paper girl get booted from the lot immediately after arriving. And that's only because I'm making sure I play so I can see the sidewalk so I can greet walkbys if I feel so inclined.

@Totallyshort: AFAIK there's only one Visitor Controller, by TwoJeffs on simbology. Here's the link: http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php?topic=17.0 Also for clean templates, you can use these ones. They're the ones I use anyway. Here: http://meetme2theriver.livejournal.com/63030.html

Now I'm off to go play in Cassidy (for anyone wondering that's the name of my ToT hood). Sarina Scalon just gave birth to the first babies of the challenge when I had to get off to get ready for work. Twin boys named Clifford and Coleman. ~VP

I wasn't too sure if it was safe to ban the mail carrier so I've been paying the bills. Tree Tribe are so poor they can barely pay theirs. It was a matter of feed the wolves or pay the bills? I guess another option would be to use the Bat Box and click on stuck bills. I'm fairly sure that makes the bills disappear. and I like the newspaper for compost, although I agree you don't want your neanderthals to start reading it. I've only had that once.

So far nothing bad has happened bill-wise, but then I'm only on Wednesday. Playing one day at a time this time around and I think I like it alot better. ~VP

Welcome back VT! I'm pretty sure everyone thinks I'm crazy for re-starting but so far nobody has thrown eggs at me. So join the club! Everyone is always welcome here

Good luck with your new neighbourhood

taliah~

@taliah- I just restarted too. I could have popped my backup in and only lost a few rounds of progress. Instead, I created new sims. We're all crazy for even attempting this challenge.

@VT- Welcome back! Your restart is still going to be all anti-historical right? You're not gonna make me be the only rebel here, are you? ~VP

I like restarting, then everything is nice and clean and non chaotic (finally got through my boring family and now for the one with 3 times as many sims as bed O.o)

I do have an interesting scenario in my game right now. I was introducing prospective spouses awhile back in one of the first families this round and a little boy who was visiting attacked his sister and lost. Then his sister attacked him straight after and also lost. Since I have a shortage of girls I spared her but killed her brother, what would you guys do in that scenario? Technically the girl lost a fight and thus must be killed. But the boy also lost a fight so he should have been killed before he could be attacked by his sister and kill her in the struggle.

Normally I'm fine with killing sims but she's one of the last kids with a proper name (ie not !@#$ or OMFG or Twin 1, Twin 2 or the like. One of my families did have eleven living children and a pair of cats at one point.) and I like her and have a husband lined up (her sister was the girl who dropped dead after her marriage two families ago) so I spared her whereas any other sim would have died. I quite liked her dead brother too but oh well.

Now currently my final household is half way through the round. At this point finances are 55 000-Moran (Family with plantsims and average # kids), 50 000-Wynn (Most kids, 2 days left), 26 000-Harmon (Least kids), 25 000 Accardo (below average kids) and then finally, 23 000 Fisher (average kids)

I find it funny that before having sons move out, there seems to be no pattern to who'll win. It does tend to be larger families or ones with plantsims but other than that there isn't a real pattern.

Jumping on the bandwagon - hi, I'm Whitney, and I have started this challenge like 7 times recently. I've also installed EP/SPs and/or changed around all my CC about 7 times recently, so I have nothing at all to show for it. Oops.
However, eighth time's the charm, yes? I've got my base lot built (I may have ripped off some structural ideas from VP, but there's only so many ways to build a hut, really, and my old ones didn't work) and one couple made so far.
I'm thinking I'd prefer to do a 'rebuilding after disaster' than a 'first time through history' thing, and I'm almost definitely making half the founders alien-y - because why not?
I'm going to attempt to story-journal the challenge, but if I fail I'll just post pictures anyway, I'll give a link when I get the first pictures up I guess.

oh and about Visitor Controller/blocking the mail people: I'm pretty certain there's no reason not to - like, no bills issues crop up - I don't get warning pop-ups or anything - but I think I may have blocked the repoman as well just to be sure.

My latest lot incarnation is less of a hut and more of a house, but then I got really tired of certain things. There are three bedrooms, one for the babies and toddlers, one with a double bed, and one with two singles, a room for the shower (not that its necessary, I just wanted it inside to prevent the weeds that spawn when the stupid thing breaks.), a room for the toilet, a kitchen, and a hallway connecting the bedrooms to the kitchen, that will serve as space for more cribs/toddler blankets when I run out of room in the baby room. I put pics of it up on my website on the "Neanderthal" page. As well as a very long description of just about everything on the lot. ~VP

Well i am glad to see I am not the only one who has decided to restart .
I really wanted to see my neanderthal families actually make it through without any hiccups from my dinosaur pc, and its amazing how i am enjoying this again. I have added a couple of *tweaks*...one being that once a male is born the families may cease having babies...I must add, that if the first born is a male, the couple may try for one more child in the hopes it is girl, if it is another boy,upon coming of age the two will vie for the title of heir. The loser will of course be exiled forever. Is that too mean? I added this to my game solely for the purpose of trying to keep the lagging to a minimum, as it takes a seriously loooong time to load when there are too many simmies to handle.

@ VP & Taliah- I am loving the new ToT you have both begun.

The link in my siggy still works, so it will take you to the new beginning..

Happy Simming
Tga Kiwi

Ok guys! I finished one whole round! My website's been updated, and I'd really appreciate some feedback either here or on my site, about how I've done the Gen 2 page. And if my VP's Note on the Round One page really seems necessary or too long. ~VP

VP, I like your set-up! I loved the researcher's comments on how it wouldn't be so easy to trace ones plantsim lineage after all by the time Eli Pineda became one *grins*. Your notes on the Round One page are interesting, it's probably not necessary, but I would leave it there. People can choose to read it or skip it, up to them. I also like how you've done the Gen 2 page, especially the fact that you mention the parents of each child. Perhaps it's a good idea to arrange the page by family unit in later rounds, so you can see which children belong to which parents at a glance, but for the second generation this works.

*waves from the restart bandwagon* I didn't realise there were so many of us, yay! ^.^

And thanks Tga Kiwi!

@ VP - I'm with samantha-kathy on this one, looks good to me! I like reading notes, players random thoughts etc, gives a little insight into how they're actually playing the game. Gen2 page is also easy to understand. And your lots look so lush! I want to live there =_= no, seriously... I do *gone to find a shrink ray*

For myself I have started on the second season and thirty seconds into the Dionysios lot (the one with the single parent and child coz the female DIED, stupid god-hand) caught on fire >_> oops... forgot to reset him last round... but is ALL good! ^.^ He lives to tell the tale! (yay for boolprop)

taliah~

You guys are all doing such a great job with your blogs, etc! I don't have the patience for that.. :/

Oh yeah VP, that's what I copied from, the new pictures & description - small house rather than tiny hut.
Mine's a bit smaller because I have the waterfall shower and 'squat anywhere' instead of a bathroom inside, and most of the kitchen things are outside too, with the 'fridge' (I've got one that looks like a big sack of stuff) and table/chairs indoors. I was just building a square before - one corner for baby room, one corner for bathroom, and the rest open with the beds/loveseat/fridge/etc. You can fit approximately two floor blankets in a space like that, and two of my families last start got hit by T&Q for triplets. (I also sacrifice a bed for more baby/toddler space. That was my second rule change. First was getting rid of the skin rules and third was showers.)
Also, I like the notes, and the gen 2 page looks good to me.

I am going to make the rest of my couples now, and hopefully tomorrow I will return bearing pictures and things.

@ VP, as Taliah and Samantha_Katy say....your site is great.

I have managed to complete two seasons and all clans have given birth to their first children for generation 2. And what would you know, just because I changed a rule stating families could cease procreating when a male is born, all the babies born were...yes you guessed, boy's.
So, looks like the God hand shall insist each clan shall stop when a daughter is born this round.

I have also decided to keep records of each families funds, births, deaths, and am thinking of perhaps a record of marriages?.

Happy Simming
Tga Kiwi

tga kiwi- you should see all the stuff I have to have in order to play this challenge. First, I play in windowed mode. Then there's my screenshot program, and Phaenoh's Transition to Teenhood Random Generator (which isn't necessary right now but will be several rounds from now), then my Sim Tracker, which is mainly used to keep track of who is who, who their parents/siblings are and their genetics, and finally three, yes three, excel spreadsheets. One tracks marriages, so I know who can be paired with who, definitely necessary once I need to pair up the Gen 3s and not have a bunch of immigrants. God only knows how I'll explain those. One is a gigantic list of names, that gets shorter with every birth. I use a random number generator on my phone to pick the name. And the last is tracking my rankings. And frequently the internet is open as well, so I can update the Gen 2 page as the kids are born or age up. Oh and the folder where my screenshots are saved to so that i can move them into sub-folders of Round Number, then household. And to top it all off I have three notebooks. One I'm using to record friends of the household, for use in my rankings, one records when I need to crop an aging picture for the Generation pages and is just two columns of names, and the last notebook is a note of what the pictures are, and any other happenings in the house. Or of my frustrations with certain sims. That last notebook is currently in a three subject notebook since i ran out of room in the one subject I was using last time and had to start a new notebook. I may still have to, but it won't be for a long while.

On another note, I was playing all last night, and decided to set my T&Q odds so that I had an even chance of any number of babies. Its approximately 25% for all (give or take a percentage since you can only use even numbers) I figure they're aliens and who's to say they weren't genetically altered? It's how I'm explaining that I turned off miscarriages too. Anyway, Sarina Scalon was the next to give birth once I set these odds and guess what she does? Go on guess. Has Quads. When she already had twins. But at least I'm no longer freaking out about not enough girls, since all four were girls. Currently the gen twos consist of six boys and seven girls. I'm pretty sure I'll be altering the T&Q odds later, but I think I'll do it as a generational thing.

@whitness: Yeah my first one was a rectangle with a small (2x2) room for the toilet. The beds, bench when I could fit it, and cribs/toddler blankets were inside and the small room held only the toilet. Everything else was outside, including the shower. My biggest problem with that lot was that a lot of the sims would be in the big room when someone decided it was ACR woohoo time. So the couple would shoo everyone out, and they ALL insisted in trying to cram into the bathroom. Not very fun. It got to the point where I would notice a couple heading for the bed and would take every controllable sim and send them fishing and try to get the non controllables (It happened frequently at weddings. Usually the newly weds. Had one sim miss seeing his brother get married because he was busy woohooing his new bride. But at least everyone else was occupied at the time.) to be invited to fish. On this new lot, I figure anyone who happens to be in that tiny bedroom, can be shooed into the hallway.

I'm going to stop babbling now and get some sleep, and see if I'm awake early enough to be able to both take a shower and play sims before work tonight. ~VP

VP - WoW, that is ... I have no words... only, I am such a dork, and I'm thinking to myself, 'sim tracker, duh, why did I forget about the sim tracker'
Thanks for the memory prod. You are awesome.

Happy simming

Of course it won't be historical! I Sim to get as far away from Earth as I can. I do have another project to finish up at the moment, but as soon as that's done, I'll be working on a new ToT and getting back into posting in this thread. I've missed hearing what everyone's Sims are driving them crazy with this time.

- VT

It's been ages since I found this topic and since I made my sims and their houses. But I've finally started playing. Man this is so hard! Only played one family for a whole week now, but so many things have happened. There have been fires when lightning hit a palmtree, the man almost died but his wife saved him thankfully. They had twins and both man and wife turned into a plantsim. This may not seem hard, but I had a stressful time.

I had to buy the drinks to cure them, since I thought this would be the best considering they need normal kids and stuff... And I also pay the bills. Not sure if this is allowed, but I don't want to play using any mods. Still, gonna continue playing in a bit. Excited to see what will happen to the other families.