If you want another option for turning hunting cash into food, you can use the money to buy a new fridge rather than ordering groceries. Buying the new fridge gets you a fully loaded fridge, and as I recall, you get to keep any leftovers you have. Personally, my sims usually catch enough fish to feed themselves, so I would probably keep the cash as cash, and just add meat dishes to indicate that we're bringing in meat other than fish.

I love this challenge, I love thinking about this challenge and all the different ways you can play this or add to the challenge. I've just learned I don't have the patience to play this challenge - not without massive amounts of CC, which my computer can't handle. But, I still lurk here on the thread, join in discussions sometimes, and keep generating ideas in my head. So far, I've written up two general ideas that apply to every stage and ideas for the Neanderthal age. I've added the document (as it is now). If there's interest, I can write up the rest of the eras as well.

My newest neanderthals don't fish which makes it much more challenging. I think I'll just keep it simple and just buy fish for objects, if they starve they starve lol.

No More Island... -_-'
 

So I haven't posted here in a LOONG time- I'm sorry about that!

But the truth of it is, my sims outgrew the island that I took days making for this challenge, and I have no idea what to do! I'm still using my original sims families though, I'll never give up on them!

It just took me a while to realize that there was nothing I could do to redesign my island, and they had to move on.

So, goodbye Sandsteps Isle, I shall miss you! It lasted through many generations and halfway through Roman. Because I'm still using Sims 3 for this challenge (I like the fact that I don't have to download a lot of cc for it), I switched them over to sunlit tides, one family at a time. I removed the modern buildings and popped in my own from the contest- I LOVE the orchard I made that's like a tiny neighborhood nectary (plus it's an additional way to get food, foraging), so I can still use what I've designed.

I'm still sad though, it was all so pretty...

I'll keep you guys posted now that I'm back playing again. Still having problems developing a real mortality rate- with no SoWo in Sims 3 and rare fighting and illness, I need to become more creative!

You could still do the challenge in the theme of 'rebuilding after an apolocalypse'!

People were talking about it here a while back- set the seasons all to winter or something, but basically act as if your starting families are the only ones that survived and have to rebuild civilization. This way you can use whatever content you already own (all the better if it's mismatched, really), and you can still limit learning etc by having them 'rediscover' things like libraries later, or building a school one they have enough children to do so.

What do you think? (I actually want to play that scenario too... )

Personally I would have just killed sims until they fit Sorry to hear about having to relocate all your sims it sounds tedious.

Post apocalypse or aliens could work for a cc free alternative.

Ah, but if it's Post-Apocalypse, I need all types of grunge stuff, to make everything look properly apocalyptic....Plus, my neurotic mind won't let me think all knowledge is lost after an apocalypse.

If I were to play aliens - well, it couldn't look human. So, lots of cc again. Yeah, I know, I'm difficult So I'll just enjoy your stories, which are all lovely :lovestruc Oh, and butt into the discussion here of course

@samantha_kathy I took a quick look at the document and the ideas seem really nice. There's sadly just not much of use in there for me as I'm about to reach the roman era. Would you mind writing down the ideas you had for the other eras? It's always nice to get inspiration from other players.

I'm currently playing my last neanderthal round and started building my roman hood, but I'm still not sure how my roman society will look. There may be just some households left to play, but I know that my simmies would manage to mess up any plans that I make now. XD So I'll simply wait and see. Moreover, I really need to migrate my sims over to a new 'hood (lots of work *urgh*) as my current one is getting... rather corrupted. But it's kind of funny because I had a toddler 'pronounce his parents dead' and only have generic play/cuddle wishes (instead of with his parents) and made ups affairs are also a recurring trend. o.ô Deira (who is now married to Roran) with her dead boyfriend Yeden, Ivan with his two youngest sisters (they somehow cuddled while sleeping in the same bed?) and Aska with Roran even though I'm nearly 100% sure they never interacted romantically and I don't think it's reciprocal either.

Besides this, I really need to start updating my blog again. >_> Maybe I'll get to it this evening. *fingers crossed*

@TheFlyingRaccoon I'll try to write it up tomorrow, but will definitly get the Roman Era done this weekend. The rest of the ages might be a bit slower to come - writing my ideas down coherently and understandable for other players turned out to be harder than I thought.

Being the kind of sim player that I am, I recently started a Dark Ages hood using Ditzy Ekko's rule variations. Most of the rules are pretty self-explanatory, but I do have a quiestion. What exactly falls under the "no recreational objects" rule? Is it just everything under the "hobbies" tab in buy mode, or is it anything that increases fun (I would assume other than gardening, sewing, etc.)? I'm sure this will come down to personal interpretation, but I was curious about what ideas were out there.

Well- doesn't 'looking out the window' rebuild fun? It's not like you can chase them around and prevent all fun, right? Plus Sims are useless when they just cry all the time.

And sorry, I have no useful ideas now. I think I've played Roman for like, two years. >_>;

I would say recreational objects are from the hobbies tab since the original rules say only the book case from that tab may be purchased.

For the most part that's what I was thinking myself. However, I was wondering if the toddler skilling toys should also fall under the ban, since they could easily be considered recreational. So far, I've allowed myself the exceptions of the sewing machine and the pottery wheel. I figure they're not exactly "recreational" and the sewing machine is needed for clothes since community lots are forbidden. Any other exceptions (for and against) you think you might consider?

Well toddlers have limited ways to boost their fun and little kids are going to play and learn stuff so I wouldn't have a problem with using them myself but it's your game. I'm trying not to think that far ahead tbh,

Roman Era ideas added to the document with play variations. I do hope everything is clear - feel free to ask questions if there's something you don't understand and I'll clarify it. It's hard to write down these ideas in such a way that others can follow me

Anyway, I'll start working on writing down the Dark Ages, but I know most of you are in the Roman Era or about to start it, so I figured I'd upload this version now.

samantha_kathy, thank you for these detailed variation ideas! I really love them. I had to restart my challenge recently. The 5th gen was already in reach and now I'm back with a founders generation. I already implemented several changes this time, like creating pretty random sims and letting them figure out their couples themselves (ACR). Ice Age might actually be a nice change for the 2nd or 3rd gen.
And the Roman variations are especially great. I was actually thinking about skipping the Roman era this time around, as it does not really fit my concept. However, the slow development with different forms of ruling might work. Ah, now I'm looking forward to playing again. :D

Your ideas are great, samantha. Thank you very much for sharing this with us.

@Yukishine I'm glad you like the ideas. It's fun to think them up. I think playing the Roman Era with just the base rules would get a bit boring, but throw in some variations and you get really cool storylines. I tried to make all variations in such a way that you can use only some of them or all of them together.

@TheFlyingRaccoon Thank you! It's fun writing them up.

*sigh* i now have the urge to abandon my current version (which is getting kinda boring) and restart without my aging mod and ridiculous odds on triplets and quads. and i want to adopt a few of samantha kathy's variations. And maybe it won't take me for-freaking-ever to get done with a generation. my first version was a lot more fun without slightly stretched out lives and an overabundance of babies. well i'm off to create some new sims. and search out some new names. and maybe i'll actually make it out of the neanderthal age some day ~VP

But you restart a lot, right? I thought you just had to a while back.

I found a great site for names (especially in the roman stage, because so many names go back that far). If you research according to parts of the world, you get names closer to the time period you're playing. http://www.behindthename.com/

Of Coves and Covales
 

Welp a lot just happened.

I guess I don't make my sims cheat on each other a lot, otherwise I may have been better prepared...

The two bachelor boys Cemre and Stuart Cove (fourth and fifth in line to be emperor not counting their nephews) were living together while going to university. They had a household slave in Vitus Fahadeena, and after a campaign abroad obtained a live-in Plebian, Adelade Park (CAS sim) there were four people living in the house.

Adelade is from Iceland and is very unusual looking, and was getting invited to a lot of parties (she also had a friendly nature), but eventually Cemre won her heart. Well right after Vitus became pregnant with Stuart's child, Stuart got a cold and died. Cemre and Adelade were recently married (changed last names to Covale), and both couples lived in the same house. After Stuart died and her son Acacius was born, Vitus sought comfort in Cemre, who was happy to give her attention as his own wife was pregnant now too.

Well Adelade decided to slap her husband around, and right after her son, Adonis was born, they got into a knock-down drag out fight that she lost.

This all happened while everyone else started to get Stuart's cold (literally every adult in the house). I realized that the germs in this game hit everyone in a house at a time, so I began rolling dice and giving everyone a 67% survival rate if they were in the same house (if that is too high I'll just have the next time they get sick be a pandemic and end them).

So now it's only Cemre and Vitus in the house, who are both going to get over their colds, and the two children. When they have a baby the circle will be complete and the family tree royally messed up.

Also, there's a fun ghost type in Sims 3 (came with Supernatural), where a sim can die if they eat the wrong magic jelly bean. So that's what I had Stewart do, so every time someone dies of disease they will have a purple ghost with beans floating in it(looking germy).

Other pics to follow.

This would actually be my second restart. The first restart was due to computer death with no recent backup. This one is a choice, due to annoyance with mods. My extended lifespan mod is driving me nuts as well as how high I had triplets and quads set. And since I don't really have a connection with any of these sims, they can sit on my external hard drive for a while and maybe someday I'll play them again. ~VP

Sounds like the kind of town to keep playing, lol.

Too bad about the corruption, though. Are you redesigning all the houses, or just letting them evolve through the generations when your simmies start making more money? The starting gen bonus was pretty helpful for that.


@ VP- let us know how the restart goes, then! (Or you could always roll dice and kill one of each twin. ^_^, for the whole... town.

@ Samantha- I agree- your ideas were really well thought out, I enjoyed reading through it! LOooking forward to seeing your other ideas, but it sounds like you'd be great at starting new challenges, too.

Yes, it's quite amusing to play. The newest thing is animations that don't work like they're supposed to. I had sims standing inside the house, tending the plants in the garden somwhere behind the house. Or Ion washing his little one in the sink while he is floating in midair behind him (see attached picture). I know those things can happen in a none corrupted hood, but not several times in a play session. Let's just say that I keep my fingers crossed that I can finish this round without any major trouble.

As I'm going to start a new hood, I'm building completely new (and roman) houses for my families. But letting them evolve through the generations seem like a pretty neat idea. May keep that in mind for future transitions.

I'm glad everyone is enjoying my variations and ideas. I wouldn't be very good at coming up with a challenge from scratch, but there are plenty of challenges I see that I could "make better" - as in, add my own ideas to it. This one is so much fun, I couldn't help myself from writing them down. Working on the dark ages and the middle ages/renaissance, since they kind of go togehter.

I had similar animation problems! For awhile I also had sims dropping babies randomly or stopping interactions to jump--I discovered that some of my CC was corrupt and on one lot there was a corrupted tombstone/ghost that would cause people to 'get scared' pretty much all the time. In the end I was able to fix it by deleting some CC and removing all my gravestones to graveyards.Now I don't get fright deaths, though

I have inteen I can't seem to find any that are compatible with inteen, plus maternity clothes doesn't seem to work for them, so they never look pregnant.

In regards to the mod, SUPPOSEDLY Squinge's mod will work with inteen, if it loads after inteen does. Or so says a bunch of random sims 2 users. If you want to try it, back up your files first just in case.

In regards to sims looking pregnant, the mesh has to have a pregnancy morph for the sims to look pregnant. A lot of people will put one on thier stuff, but not everyone, even EA, will. Some of my sims waddle around with no discernible belly. Or with half a belly if a top or bottom has a morph and the other doesn't. ~VP

I agree for my challenge i say 5 couples fall through a misterious time vortex to the prehistoric so it makes seince for them to have normal cloths and the normal stuff in the sims 2 can look like prehistoric time stuff

I know that there is a inteen compatible version of squinge's mod out there because I use that one, too. But I don't have the time right now to look for it. As for maternity clothes for teens (if that's what you mean, Totallyshort?) that's not as easy. Teens cannot wear their normal clothes during pregnancy even with Squinge's mod. As far as I remember you can just use those shipped with InTeen. For the one pregnant teen I had in my challenge before deciding I don't want pregnant teens after all (mostly because I changed their life span from 16 to 8 days) I replaced the textures for the base clothes that came with InTeen with more neanderthal-y ones in one of the Inteen packages (don't remember which one). But I sadly can't share this with you as their policy doesn't allow it. Maybe I could see if I still have the textures (even though they're far away from being good :p) if anyone else needs them and knows how to replace textures with SimPe?

*delurks again*
Or, just delete the file that contains the Inteen maternity outfits (file D) - if the game can't find the maternity outfits, then they will stay in their regular clothes, and show pregnancy if those outfits have the morphs. This is what I do and it works fine in my game,

I will try that, thanks! I had heard that having pregnancies that don't show can cause the game to crash, but I know that I have clothes with preg morphs that would be more fitting to the neanderthalithic era. Although, I'm almost into roman, so I could just look for roman replacements.



I might try to do that for teens, or just remove inteen for now. I'm currently aging them up at 9 days, so I don't really need them to be able to get pregnant/married as teens.

Hey- I missed this! Have everyone checked out the facebook page yet? Nice Idea, SwallowTail!

FREE DOWNLOAD OF THE SIMS ULTIMATE COLLECTION THIS MONTH FROM ORIGIN

My sister told me about this and I just did it. Origin is offering a free download of the ENTIRE Sims 2 Collection (all expansions & stuff packs) on their website/app. Just log in with your credentials and go to My Account and Redeem Code. The code is this sentence - I Love The Sims. Hope that works for all of you. I haven't ever had most of the stuff packs and only installed Pets once. Never had Apartment Life or Bon Voyage. This might interfere with downloads (mods and such) so redeem at your own risk.

I have 1 question, how do you prevent a sim from becoming a plant sim? It drives me crazy calling the matchmacker to buy 10 potions add 600 bucks to the familyfunds and use it everytime they spray their crops. Any way to prevent it other than not spraying a lot?

I'd suggest searching on here/googling for a no plantsim mod if you want to get completely rid of them. If not, the only thing I can think off is letting your sims have smaller gardens which reduces the amount of spraying needed and sending them to fish instead.

having ladybug houses will reduce, but not eliminate, the number of bugs so there's less spraying ~VP

I found a mod that gets rid of plantsims but i will have ladybug houses just to be safe and make it easier to take care of plants

You can also rotate who is the sprayer. Extended exposure to the spray is what makes a plant sim, so I have the adults take turns spraying and when a child can do it, let them until the next child. I think the greenhouse would help too since bugs might not be able to get in. But I don't have greenhouses enough to know if there is a difference or not

I came here today to say good-bye. I am uninstalling the games so that I can install the Ultimate Collection that EA gifted everyone. I am losing everything and since I was in the Dark Ages, I am just too devastated to start right back up. I am gonna try something less intense (the Apocalypse probably). I will be back. I really want to finish this challenge, but I need to step back and get a little variety before jumping back in. Good luck all of you. I will see you again hopefully.

DitzyEkko, you simply have to remove your files from Documents/EA games/ SIms 2 to some safe place, uninstall your old games, install UC, run UC once and copy your old files back in place.
As for the plant sims: Children can't be turned into plant sims, so it's pretty safe to have them do the spraying.

Btw, my own newly started ToT challenge neighborhood is pausing too. I'm currently working on a medieval-y hood, but I'm pretty sure I'll be back again playing ToT. ^^

Finally finished writing up the Dark Ages in my play variation document and decided to go ahead and write up the Medieval & Renaissance too, while I was at it. At 16 pages of variation ideas, the end is coming into sight! Thinking up these ideas is fun, but I always underestimate how long it takes me to write it down. Updates document is attached for download, please let me know if anything's unclear!

On the upside, I think I might have figured out a storyline where I won't need CC to play the ToT! *cheers* I might actually spent some time this week setting up and starting a new ToT challenge.

Just discovered this challenge and can't wait to start it. I'm going to have to wait thouse, as I am currently in the middle of a good old fashioned Legacy challenge and know myself well enough to know I can start a new challenge untl the end is in sight for the old challenge. I haven't read any of the rule changes people have suggested, but I found myself adding a few of my own just while thinking about the challenge. Can't wait to try it.

I'm probably going to regret this, but I'm going to try this challenge anyway. Should be interesting, if only because I have a short attention span and never make it past the first generation of my Sims...

Yay new people The challenge is really fun but I find it isn't too bad repetitive wise since every few generations the whole structure of the hood changes. Many of us have shortened the number of generations in each era or plan on skipping over some of the eras to make it quicker. The great thing about this challenge is how versatile and easy to adapt it is. I haven't really had time for my tot sims lately but I hopefully will finish this round soon

From what I've seen it looks super fun and the problem I have with living past a single generation is pretty much fixed here as it was in Sims 3. That nothing changed outside my family so the friends my Sims had as kids,would stay kids instead of growing up with me. That being said I've found the CC I wanted to use for my first era and am ready to start ASAP.

I'm actually looking foward to this challenge more than tackling the Apocalypse challence (again. Last time my computer died and I hadn't backed up my game in a while and thus lost most of my challenge ). And this seems just....more interesting. Maybe just because it's something I've never tried before. We'll see. I've got about 2 more generations in my legacy challenge before I'm willing to tackle this. It's not the time, I don't mind a 20 generation challenge, just like I don't mind using a lot of Maxis made content, I just have a habit of focusing all my attention on one neighborhood at a time. I'm going to use almost all Maxis made stuff, except fot the toddler outfits. I couldn't help it, I've already gone out and downloaded toddler outfits for the majority of the eras. I'll add and remove them as I need them, but I can't handle any of the regular made toddler outfits for a time era challenge like this.

I'm obviously going to have great luck with this challenge. The first family I played, my female Sim almost lost the baby three times and alsost died of heatstroke. As for the second family, she miscarried the first day and then died of heatstroke and starvation while pregnant with the second child. I'm now too scared to go back and play the other three families.

Are you playing with the original rules? If so I really suggest building a house for them because it's just too hard otherwise. One of the things I found useful in the first era was using a hot/cold shower mod and having sims drink to cool them down. You really do need to watch to make sure no one overheats. Heatstroke is a massive killer in the first era, good luck with the next few families.

I recommend MATY's warmthfixes. They reduce the overheating significantly, especially indoors.

The other three families haven't had heatstroke yet. I installed the waterfall shower and they use that to cool down at least once a day and I have all of them living in houses, it was just that I didn't think about overheating so I let my pregnant Sims work outside instead of keeping them in the house. That's one round done at least.

If anyone's interested, I just posted the results from my first round!
https://trecereacaveman.wordpress.com/

Hey there fellow Simmers! I'm new here, and womdering if anyone can help me
Which expansion packs do you need for this challenge?
How do you give the gifts of money when sims of different classes get married?
And how do you get servants, farmhands and knights etc. living in with the people they are working for? Are they official things in the game or do you just move them in jow you usually would then get them to do work?

Thanks for your help!

1) As far as I know, you can play with simply base game, though seasons is recommended (I think) just for the ability to garden/farm. And in later eras, OFB would probably be helpful, though I don't know as I've never managed to progress that far.
2) For gifts, you can use pescado's Money Order, or simply put an item in the sim's inventory equal to the cost before he/she moves into the new household
3) The servants/farmhands/knights/etc. are normal sims. Just move them in like normal and direct them to do all the work/chores instead of the upper class sims. A larger households mod would be useful if you don't want to limit the size of your upper class families b/c they have live-in servants. Also having any EP Uni or higher would be helpful so that you don't have to work to get the servants to move in, just combine the families in neighborhood view.

I guess that's it. Good Luck!

Without Seasons your neanderthals can't farm or fish. That's why Seasons, at least, should be installed.

Thanks both of you, those were the two expansions I was planning on getting so glad to clarify
What is pescado' s money order?

The money order is here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...php?topic=215.0

@FireflySong Look's like an interesting first round you got there. Keep it up.

As to my own challenge: After over one and a half year, I finally finished the neanderthal era two days ago. \o/ And then spend half the night writing down information (skill points, badges, friends,...) to create a ranking. I proceeded a little bit different from what the rules suggest, though. I didn't consider the households with the same family name as one, but each household separately. Otherwise marrying sims off would have been nearly impossible. After analysing the information I collected, I wrote the households down from richest to poorest and then shuffled them around a bit according to existing (and possible future) relationships. The only 'problem' with the distribution I ended up with is that a lot of light skinned sims ended up as slaves and dark skinned sims as patricians, but whatever. I'm happy I got it working.
And that's how it looks now:

Emperor family: Ehler
Patrician families: Monsa2, Bottlefield
Plebian families: Monsa, Brandt, Onsen
Slave families: Brandt2, Bottlefield2, Ehler2, Ehler3
'Native' family: Monsa3

I think I'm going to give everyone new names for the roman era, too. And now, I just need to finally update my blog to reflect my progress. >_<

Here’s my idea: a while ago I downloaded BecksFarm farm animals like chickens, pigs, sheep and cows. These animals come with a slaughter table. That means you can raise the animals, get them to have little animals (cows can get calves, pigs can get piglets, the chickens lay eggs and if you have a hen, they’ll hatch into little chicks (and idk about the sheep)). This way you can have a real farm.

A farm, however, does not fit the Neanderthal Era, but hunting does. I once read somewhere on here I believe, that you can get sims to go gathering food buy making a community lot and planting for example tomatoes on that lot. Then have a sim stay there for a few days while the plants grow. Then later on you can send your sims there to “gather” food, like in the real Neanderthal Age.

So what if we try this with the farm animals. You could send a couple of sims to that community lot to hunt the animals (slaughter them on the table) and so they will bring back meat for the family to eat.

I have no idea if this will even work, but I’m willing to give it a shot. It would really make the Neanderthal Era more authentic if they can also eat something else besides fish and vegetables/fruits.

On another note, I have been rereading the Clan of the Cave Bear and it’s making me want to resume the Totm challenge. I think I’ll go play it again someday this week and I’ll try out the hunting thing. (though I might not stick around for a long time with sims 4 coming up).

EDIT: I tried it and I made pictures. Behold this adventure (look at the pics)

SO yeah, it didn't quite work out as I wanted to. The first problem is that the sim has to buy the animal, instead of placing it there when creating the community lot. And as the animals are quite expensivfe (250), there's no point in hunting at all. The next problem is that even though you can slaughter the animal, you can't pick up the meat and take it with you, which sucks big time (especially with the plans I had for farming, during the next eras).

Conclusion: my idea doesn't work

I did try something similar to that in the past and as you discovered it doesn't really work well. One idea that has recently been made possible is since there are now a few crafting stations that create food at Plumbbob Keep a foraging environment could be stimulated by giving each tribe a set number of bushes/trees depending on how much land they owned. If you wanted to implement a hunter gathering society sims might be able to hunt by having the hunting party fish for a small amount of time (1/2 an hour or something) each time they go hunting.

Hmm now I'm itching to start another hood to give it a go.

Off topic im going to do my test of time challenge using samantha's rules they look like there alot more fun and im using a shorter lifespan mod so it doesnt fell as tedious as a normal lifespan

@lbsgirl24: that's interesting idea as well. Keep me updated if you try it out!

Here's another idea: how about going to a community lot and digging for treasure. this is a similar idea to your first idea about hiking, but by digging for treasure, the sims are more likely to find someting. (though I don't know if digging for treasure comes with a specific expansion pack)

@jckgwk: what shorter lifespan mod are you using? I've been looking for a good one that allows me to shorten all the lifespans, not just the teen lifespan, but at the same time, I want one that won't conflict with inteenimator.

its just called shorter lifespan just look up lifespan mods here and i think you need to read the comments to make it work with inteen i dont use that mod so i dont know

@Floor1304 I'll definitely let you know. Digging does come with BV from memory but it might work better than hiking. The thing with treasure is they often find really expensive objects which is kind of unrealistic. With lifespans the agecons package is really useful it allows you to edit the lifespan to your own specifications (assuming you have simpe) http://www.simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_Aging.htm I'm not sure if it does conflict with inteenimator but I haven't had any issues with it so far and I've had it in for ages.

Hey guys, Im now halfway through my first round and loving this challenge already!
However, one of my families is starving, because they cant seem to catch any fish... Can anyone tell me if Im doing something wrong?
When I click fish, they throw the line into the pond, more violently than the other families who are fishing successfully, then after a second the rod twangs backwards and out of the water, and they stop fishing
, without catching anything.
I cant see anything Ive done differently with this family, but I keep trying to no avail, and they going to starve soon unless they catch something! Help!

I don't know if that could be the problem here, but once sims are really hungry they don't stick to occupations that take longer (like fishing) anymore and just stop after a few seconds.

Sounds like they're too hungry to fish. There are a few ways you can manage this with varying levels of 'cheating'.
1) Have another family give them a fish by teleporting a family with at least one bass in their inventory to the lot, make the other sim selectable and transfer the fish over. (You could also load up another lot, invite over the starving family and use the 'give gift' interaction to give them a fish). You could have them repay the fish later or not as you see fit.
2) Buy them a new fridge (or groceries over the phone if you have an empty fridge hack). While it is technically against the rules sometimes sims just have no luck and don't catch anything edible on the first day. Personally I would empty the food from the fridge once the sims are feeding themselves from fishing.
3) Move on to your next family and hope the starving family shows up on the lot. When they do have the members of the next household fish and then ask the members of the starving household to join them. They should fish for a while and hopefully catch something.

In general I find that sims often risk starvation if you don't get them one bass as soon as you start playing the family.

Hi Everyone! I hope those of you still playing are enjoying the Challenge. I am still working my way through and have made some minor changes to the rules hoping to speed things up. ie shortening the life span of teens so I can get to the leader! ST has sent me the link for her Official Facebook Page so if you want to check that out please visit https://www.facebook.com/SimsAToT?ref=br_tf

Yaw are doing so good! I wish I could still play, but my computer has became crappy. I get a new laptop in Dec, and I can't wait!

Hello, Wow it has been a crazy year for me the last year. I'm peeking in and trying to catch up to everyone's posts and challenges. I have a lot of updating to do! I decided I needed to return to the one thing that makes me half way sane: playing Sims. Oh well, this challenge is a long one so it works out pretty well. No hurry to finish, something to the pass the time. How is everyone doing? Missed all of you.

Hey All! *waves to everyone* looks like we're all coming out of the woodwork (planetary alignment anyone?) I popped in yesterday and got hooked (as usual) catching up with things. It seems like some people have made it to the Dark Ages, and a few in the Roman Era too - lbsgirl24 are you playing both Roman and Neanderthal?! Crazy! I love it (is totally going to do that too). Anyone else notice how it's so exciting to reach the Roman era only to find that you miss your Neanderthal Simmies so much you're in mourning? XD And yet without the Roman Era to strive towards I'm not as interested (contradictions much).

With that in mind, I went looking for my old pictures (as kept the gazillion from the abandoned Tempus life) and discovered I am missing the entire last round I played, which is HORRIFIC because that's the round my beloved Detlef got cursed and now I have no record of it GUH! (count to ten... count to ten...). And double whammy looking at all the pictures made me miss them so much I'm going to brave the neighbourhood today to see if I can salvage anything...! (fingers crossed people) it was getting freaky last time I was in but heck half the fun is after having a break I have an idea so if the neighbourhood will play along for a while I might be able to continue for a bit.

On that note, speaking of those addictive Neanderthals, I decided to start again recently going back to basics with the original rules bar a few tweaks that are purely for sanity purposes - which I have done on my newer computer that loads like it's got cheetahs running through it's harddrive... ! Random fact - it takes me 7 minutes to get into my sims game on my old computer !_! ya'll just pick your jaws up off the floor now I'll wait... once I'm in it's fine but ya KNOW right?! (I've had slower... in the original days...moving on now). With the new Neanderthals (Im only a few sims days in) I'm experimenting with the THS and birth rules from the Warwickshire Challenge for a bit more excitement in the death and life department. Originally they all just lived happily ever after -but that's never fun right?! And creates too many households, too much linear non-excitement; so this time I've given more death options but that's too much disadvantage for the girls, so I noticed somewhere on here (I'm sorry I read so much the last few days I've forgotten who posted it!) mention about hunting and rolling options for that which is brilliant, so every season my boys lose a few hit points for hunting. No idea how it's going to pan out but I'm looking forward to it.

I'm pretty sure I've said this before but this thread is just the best! So many people come and go from this challenge and there's always plenty of help and ya'll so nice about it too. :lovestruc (everybody blush now). It was going good over at the bbs before too but I just saw yesterday this particular thread has been going here since 2011...?! Right?! I can't even remember what I was doing back then! When was that?! (obviously playing too much TS2). Cor... I gotta go dig around Tempus now and see if Korbl will forgive the mess I made of his life and come out to play~

It's good to see everyone again you all rock!

taliah~

Whew finally got through all the new pages in this thread!

@bnymph thank you and yes, steal away. It is wonderful that everyone shares ideas. Makes this challenge fun.
@Samatha I love your idea pages. Scribbles notes for later. That's what I'm talking about brainstorming!

As for all the newcomers, welcome
As for all the old times, missed you!

@Cspencer I'm in tears for you
@taliah hugs, great to see you

As for the shortening lifespans. Yeah, I can understand wanting to do that. Laugh, the funny thing is the point of the challenge was the length of it. Not only 20 generations but the challenge to test your nerves in doing it! But i think its wonderful that everyone is adapting to make it fun and unique to their own play style and learning new play styles!

I jumped into my Delta Group, much easier. Rinse and Repeat, not much story driven. Great to get back into the game. About halfway through Round Three, halfway through the neighborhood.
I try and play one to two households in one day rotations each day. That way I don't burn out and I get into a pattern to balance out playtime with RL.
I also have for the first time an uberhood! I never played one before, so I have been playing the maxis premades. I'm really enjoying it! The oddest thing was to have Bella back. Laugh. Poor Dina, I'm having to rethink some old Maxis storylines from Pleasantview. I'm trying to get the hood all to the same starting day, so I can maybe post about the Uberhood for fun or Megahood or whatever they call it nowadays. Again only one to two houses a day for balance.

As for my Delta Group
I was going to do the same thing with my teens, divide them up into communal caves based on family ranking to have them mingle and free up space!
I'm actually thinking about doing a uni prehistoric hood to mix it up. Allowing maybe only Art degrees. Prehistoric peoples did have learning and spiritual centers. I plan on doing an Egyptian group. So math, astrology, art, dance, crops, farming, cattle breeding, writing were all taught. As for the neanderthal stage I figure it could be a vision quest or a tribal training period. Again to free up living space and provide population needed to prevent bottle necking when the death and mortality rates start kicking in. I find it easier to provide the basics: shower, tub, food ... if not playing a house full of babies is awful! Therefore, like most players I prefer rolling or creating scenarios for deaths. I'm thinking second or third generation start kicking off the die rolls. Anyhow, lots of ideas to think about. I'm still a long way off than everyone.

Also LOVE the idea of keeping a future prehistoric tribe migrating for the Americas down the road. Excellent idea!

I still need to catch up on everyone's blogs, pages, and challenge updates including the new facebook.
I'm hoping to start updating my weebly very soon. I can't believe a year has passed without me playing! RL, wow it goes by fast.

I will be checking again very shortly and let everyone know when I have an update.
Love you guys. This is the best gaming group I have ever come across. Hugs.

I've done it - I restarted my Test of Time Challenge. It will not be blogged about in clearly defined rounds, but as a true story. The prologue is up, as well as an 'about the challenge' page that gives some background, a rules page that shows the rules I'm playing by and there's the 'state of the world' in which I keep population counts, probably I will update this the first day of every season, giving a real look into the ups and downs of the population. It's also the only page where you can see the rounds in action, so to speak. I hope you'll all enjoy it. The link to my blog is in my signature, it's called A Hitch in Time.

On another note, I still plan to update my variation ideas with the last two eras, but oh, where to find the time!

Let me be the first to say nice way to start a blog and a creative way to start a blog

Thank you! I'm a writer at heart, which is why I often times have problems remembering to take pictures. But stories, oh, I can come up with tons of them

Genius samantha_kathy! I agree, a very inventive start. Very intriguing too. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next with those rambunctious teens... ohh the possibilities



This is a good point! I think I got so deep into my own challenge I got bogged, as it was the length of it that appealed to me as well as the changing of the eras. So while I'm in definite agreement that people should play to their own styles, after having a break I'm going to return to how I was originally playing - and this time learn to take breaks instead of running off like a mad hatter pulling my hair out as I go! Ya'll quote me on this when I try to run away again ya hear?! Not that I can run far... --> Of course this does entice murphy to come mess with my game just when I'm getting back into it =/

Randomly... how do I check this thread so often yet still manage to miss the free ultimate sims2 collection from origin?! UGH some higher power hates me! (that's what you get for abandoning your challenges people) *throws herself down on the floor in despair*

For two seconds... sims to torture now adieu!

taliah~

Hi folks, nice to meet you all. Came across this challenge today and have decided to give it a go! I have always liked the idea of these historical-esque challenges, but figured I'd get bored with them quickly. But with the neighborhood constantly evolving, this looks like it'd hold my attention. I loved reading everyone else's stories, though I confess I didn't read all 83 pages.

I don't have seasons, so I'm using the Simstones custom career to support my families. Think the fact that my sims aren't constantly on the brink of dying of either starvation or heatstroke removes a layer of difficulty, but it's still been challenging. So far there's been two sets of twins, and only one boy born out 7 babies! I fear for the next generation at this rate, haha. The women are all constantly grouchy form the childcare and pregnancies, and always seem to be picking arguments with each other... I'm betting it won't be long before the first fight! (As a note, if both parents of a child lose fights, I am planning to move them in with the family that "killed" them and have the victors raise the kids as kind of slaves? Just to make sure everyone doesn't die out too early.)

I made a tumblr where I plan to document the cave sims' progress: http://katsimsblog.tumblr.com/.

I can't find if these are allowed:
buyable chickens; worth while because they reproduce and you can eat eggs or chickens. Um, but you have to buy food (SimSlice)
banana & coconut tree; can be placed on lot. And the coconut tree can be "played" on.
there is also a little "harvestable" apple tree, and grapes.
This seems more like foraging, but maybe too easy?

I use things like harvestable apple trees and berries in the hunter gatherer phase by placing them on a community lot, sims then need to make a trip there and they can only do so once a season. They can also fish there. Once they come back from that one trip, that's it. That's the food they need to survive on that season - which means large families have more trouble surviving.

Chickens (as well as other farm animals, by Beck (I think)) aren't used by me in the hunter gatherer phase. I use them in the farming phase, where each family gets two animals (which type depends on the rank at the time) - one female and one male - which then produce babies. With good management, there never needs to be hunger again. They also get an allotment of garden plots to grow crops.

@Taliaheth and Nesxya great to see you guys back

I am mostly playing my roman hood when i find the time to sim but did put a few days into my new neanderthal hood as well.

@grammapat we've all chopped and changed the rules to better fit our playstyles. If something doesn't feel like cheating to you then go for it the challenge is next to impossible by the original rules. One of the things I'm currently trying in my new hood is using tg berry crafting stations and fruit tree crafting stations from plumbbob keep to simulate gathering. Personally I don't find they make the game too much easier as long as you don't have too many of them. Each of my families has three berry bushes on their lot and even with hunting they need to ration their food to put aside enough for winter. So just play how you like.

@Samantha_Kathy I love the prologue It's a really interesting take on the challenge. A gathering community lot sounds really interesting. Weighting survival against large families would be useful to ensure everyone's survival, ironically it's always been my smaller families who struggle to feed themselves in the past.

@Palhoncho I'm loving your start to the challenge. I wouldn't suggest deleting the mail boxes as that can cause corruption. Perhaps a no social worker hack would help. It does get easier once you have teens to look after the kids.

In case anyone's interested under the spoiler is an update on my second ToT hood (I'm probably nearing my tenth attempt by now lol) and an explantaion of my approach to the challenge this time round.

Thanks lbsgirl, I didn't end up deleting the mailbox in the end because I wasn't sure what the outcome was, definitely won't be doing it now! It's definitely easier now that some of the kids are old enough to help with chores, and the mums have enough cooking skill that the stove isn't catching fire constantly. Might install a no social worker hack just to be safe though, I'd like the father to be able to continue work if the woman dies.

I like your ideas for the challenge, the idea of measuring wealth in land and materials rather than money is definitely more realistic.

If you have the visitor controller you could also ban the mail carrier from the lot or else delete the bills when they bring them home. Good luck with your challenge

Had horrible luck today! I noticed the first boy born to the caveman hood, a kid named Rex, was furious with one of the other kids so I took a peak in his memories to find out why. Turns out he recently lost a fight

I knew this meant he needed to die so I got Rodney's Death Creator set up and tried to kill him- but encountered a rather worrying glitch. Instead of dying an object error on the grim reaper appeared! The kid either carries on living but becomes unselectable, or just dissapears without a trace, depending on whether I pick "reset" or delete" :/ I've tried killing him in a number of ways; the same thing keeps happening! It's really weird, because when I tried killing the rest of his family, including his toddler sister, (just to test it out), everything went fine. Any ideas on how to go about fixing this?

Nevermind, ended up killing him the old fashioned way, in a pool, with cheats turned off. (Wanted to avoid that because I hate the wretched puddles their ghosts leave behind, but oh well.) Still got a weird grim reaper glitch initially (http://puu.sh/b7ZG5/3bf04c83b2.jpg) but after a minute or so it disappeared and the usual death sequence followed.

I feel so bad for my poor Teshash family! Little Rex was one of my favorite kids :'(

I find children tend to glitch out unless you kill them with the death creator in a way in which they can actually die (drowning or fire) I used to just set fire to sims by moving them and a grill onto the roof. I feel your pain, I just lost one of my favorite sims as well. It was a real pity because she was married to the son of a patrician family and he doesn't have a son. To make matters worse I'm at that stage where there are only a few possible marriage candiates for each family so losing one is really annoying.

There are three female teens he's unrelated to. Two are engaged to his younger brother and cousin (who I only just moved out of the house at the start of my current round) and the other is a werewolf slave and is betrothed (plus I'd rather keep all my wolves to the one lot).
There is a plebian toddler and a few slave children who he might be unrelated to but knowing my luck they would just be murdered before reaching their teens. I suppose I could make him a CAS sim but I am trying to keep it 100% original sims and I really don't need a CAS patrician when my slave population is so low.

So my options;
1. Have him marry the fiance of his cousin or younger brother
2. Move the cousin/younger brother back in to marry and have kids at home. Technically the cousin should be the heir.
3. Have him wait for one of the little girls to age up
4. Since his parents are quite young I could also have them try for another son. Otherwise I could have him adopt one of his nephews as heir or something.

Any opinions on which one I should go with?

Having him marry his younger brother's fiance would put his brother into the same predicament as him, presumably? Although I suppose as a younger brother there's slightly less pressure for him to have kids since he has more time left. Having him marry somebody else's fiance brings in a lot of dram though, which I always find really fun for story-telling. It all depends how attached you are to the existing couples and whether you're willing to split them up too, I suppose.

Personally I don't like it when my sims have a large age gap between them, although I suppose it's more historically accurate since brides were often really young in roman times! Plus if he's still only a teen the gap wouldn't really be that bad.
I think adopting a nephew as an heir could be a cute option, too. Adds variety to the families. Or maybe he could adopt the son of his cousin, since the cousin is supposed to be heir?

I'm trying to let my 2nd gen's relationships develop naturally since I don't need to worry about family relations getting in the way yet, but it's so difficult to resist planning the pairings in advance! I channel this urge into the stories by pretending the parents are all constantly matchmaking, haha.

I might see which girl he likes better of the two betrothed ones. His cousin and brother both can't marry anyone else either but since they're glorified plebians it may make more sense for one of them to marry a slave (one of the slave girls is nearly a teen so it isn't a massive age gap). He just grew into an adult. I'm not really attached to any of the couples (it was literally here are the three girls you could marry and pairing them off according to age) but I may see how they get along with their original fiances first but it shall be interesting.

On age gaps I generally have small ones but it I did marry a founder to a second gen sim (and then another second gen sim when she died) but at this point in the challenge keeping the bloodlines going is a much bigger priority.

I know what you mean. I did a series of challenges to pair off my younger gen 2 and older gen 3 sims and I was always wanting to 'cheat' and put them into the couples I really wanted.

Hold the phone... lbsgirl you have werewolves in play?! Dang girl that must be exciting! *moving in* I was planning on having creature features at certain eras but they all seem to be "down the track a ways..." but in retrospect I seem to have trouble keeping my bloodlines going without all the extras so maybe it's a good thing I just stick to the regular... hmm >_> yeah... *slinks away*

As for your dilemma that does sound like a tough one; I get personally attached to my sims so it would all depend on that... I have no idea (big help). Curious to me though... have you not added any CAS sims yet? I found I linked sims up mostly on same ages for Gen2s and then the Gen3s didn't want to match up with anyone coz they were all related and I ended up adding a new family to help out; since then there's been no probs. I do wonder though if it's possible with just 5 families to get all the way through without any CAS sims whatsoever...? Keeping in mind too the five original bloodlines; or would that not matter? *is just confusing everyone now*

Age gaps are no issue with me XD *disturbed simmer* they're always entertaining; though mostly accidental really it just sort of happens with so many sims I forget their ages, move them in... oh oops 20+ year difference sorry about that!

Speaking of ages though... I am discovering some very young patricians left to fend for themselves in Tempus and all available girls are older than them , and in my new version I've had 1 boy and 4 girls born in the first round - what is up with that? I think my new computer is sexist

taliah~

I'm kind of regretting having them introduced so soon (pretty much all of my sims have at least one *Simname howls* fear at any given time so having them on lot or having visitors on their lot is kind of a nightmare. Each sim from one werewolf parent has a 50% chance of being born a werewolf (I cheat to make them a werewolf upon reaching their teens. I roll for this on the teen birthday) and an additional 50% chance of being a dormant werewolf (if they are savaged by an adult relative. I only roll this when the sim is actually savaged. If they fail this roll they die. I plan on pretty much only using this for knowledge non werewolves or if there appears to be no wolves in the next generation). If any other sims are savaged they automatically die.I may add in a roll for sims with grandparents who are werewolves who are savaged but I'm only on the second generation of werewolves at the moment so it hasn't really come up yet. I'm surprised you didn't get plantsims at least in the neanderthal era, this time I have been lucky but in most of my other attempts I had a few.

I haven't added a single CAS sim yet. I've had to be very careful with marriages so far and I pretty much assigned everyone to ranks based on who they could marry rather than wealth but it looks like it will all work out if I ignore some large age differences and most of my sims survive.

Awhile back I did the maths and with four couples, each having 3 surviving children, one of whom marries each of the other families. If a child of each of those couples marry one child from each unrelated couple the fourth generation can marry without any problems. So as long as you don't completely lose more than one family (I had two families nearly completely wiped out early on) and you're careful with marriages it is possible. I've copied my notes from when I worked it out below in case anyone's interested. It can be done but it's quite easy to mess it up, especially if you completely lose a family or two (or have the families that breed like crazy in the second generation also breed like crazy in the third generation, then everyone ends up related/married)

Say we start with four couples, A, B, C and D.
Once the second generation marries we have AB, AC, AD, BA, BC, BD, CA, CB, CD, DA, DB and DC
Each of those families has two families to marry into. When the third generation marry you have ABxCD, ABxDC, ACxBD, ACxDB, ADxBC, ADxCB, BAxCD, BAxDC, BCxAD, BCxDA, BDxAC, BDxAC, BDxCA etc
So who can their children marry?
Let's look at ABxCD. If you look a little closer the children of all the families with AB in their name are cousins, same with all those with CD. However the children of those BA and AB only have the founders from A and B as common ancestors. The founders are actually their great grandparents which makes them unrelated enough to marry.

I agree when it comes to age gaps. If a nearly elder sim looks like a 20yr old who's to blame us for confusing them? They don't bother me as much as they used to tbh. Wanting my favorite elderly sim to keep having pretty babies (why do all my pretty or interesting couples die early?) kind of outweighed the weirdness of marrying him to someone younger than his son (and then to her youngest sister when she died).

I hate it when that kind of thing happens. Sure it adds drama but it does get repetitive after awhile.

I think I've had one play through without vast gender differences, this time it's been pretty good but I've still had more girls every generation so far.

As to my dilema I have most of a round to work it out so I'll see how I like the existing couples and then work something out. I would prefer to have the slaves/plebians marry slaves/plebians since I have more upper class sims at the moment.

I've updated my blog. This part's called 'Life Without Adults' where the teens are getting used to living without adults. It's not nearly as smooth as they'd dreamed of. Check out A Hitch in Time for the full story and pictures.

*struggling to keep on the straight and narrow* LoL XD now I really want werewolves it sounds like so much fun! *spoiled child* In my original challenge I did have ONE plantsim - not sure if she ever made it online - but I didn't want them so I fixed her straight away; pretty sure I had just been playing with them not long before and was kind of over them - for all their cuteness with that pollen of happiness thing and sprouting uber cute toddlers at will XD to keep them away I just used kids and teens to spray the plants. Now I have the ladybug houses to keep that problem down thinking that would be more realistic than manmade insecticide =/ that's my theory and I'm sticking with it anyhooo~

Thanks for that info *saves that immediately!* I'm really really wanting to stick with just the original families so hopefully that works for me. I think it was the "let anyone marry whoever they feel like and then let them breed like crazy" thing that stuffed me up =/ probably... (definitely!)

How quick is it to play through a round just starting Neanderdal Era? oh for the love of just five...

@samantha_kathy - exciting stuff! I do love a well placed lightning strike

taliah~

Heh, sounds like I'm going to have to get over my hate of age gaps if I want my neighbourhood to prosper! It won't be the end of the world if I have to introduce some CAS sims (I was thinking of making a Zeus/Jupiter for the Roman stage anyway, he'll go around impregnating random women just as he does in classic mythology, haha) but it'll be nice if the majority of them are descended from the original 5 couples so i'll keep your tips in mind, lbsgirl! You've certainly got it down to a science :P

samantha_kathy, I love your take on this challenge! Very creative, and having 8 sims all partying away on one lot must be a lot of fun.

I'm on my 3rd round now, and so many deaths! One father was killed, and then his ghost frightened his poor grieving wife to death. Their twins had just reached the teenage years, so luckily there was no visit from the social worker. It throws off my plan of marrying them both off to the same boy, though. (I have way too many girls, so polygamy seems like a plan.) They have to look after their little siblings so they can't move out! I suppose I could have him move in with them instead, though I was initially planning on having him inherit his parent's land.

Have also discovered echo's farming stuff, so I'm excited to introduce farming to my game even without seasons. I'm planning on bringing it in when I reach the second generation, as if they've "discovered" farming :D

I finally have my ToT blog up to date, heh. Currently in the middle of my 3 round! Here it is: http://katsimsblog.tumblr.com/

I've not kept a blog/story alongside my sims before, but I'm glad to be doing it now It keeps me interested, and I have a feeling that having it all written down will be helpful in jogging my memory once the population starts growing! Already I'm finding it useful in remembering what the heck all these babies are called

I've used it to work out the gender ratios of the 2nd gen, and as it turns out there's 9 boys, 9 girls! There was a lot of girls born initially, followed by a lot of boys, so I think most of the girls are going to be taking on much younger husbands! I'm a little sad it's all ended up so neat and tidy (I want polygamy!), but the 1st generation are far from finishing with their baby-making, so the possibility is still there :D

Plantsims do stop being fun quite quickly without the sun lamps, by the time I got the plantsims from my last attempt in a good enough mood to listen to me the sun was nearly setting lol.

@Palhoncho you could always just marry one of the girls to the original spouse. You could always just wait for a younger sibling to grow up and then move them out. The prospect of farming must be exciting I always struggle with names as well, I wish I took better notes in the first era. Lucky! Even gender ratios are good even if they have a bit of an age gap. You could always kill a few boys and have polygamy if you really wanted to. Your updates bring back so many memories of the neanderthal era So many deaths and so much drama. One difference I've noticed between our games is that twins in your game seem to get along, in my game multiples tended to murder one another in the neanderthal era.

Looking back on my notes I had 36 kids born in the second generation (two families only managed 3 or 4 kids but the others had around 10). Just 13 boys and a whopping 23 girls. 60% however died before reaching adulthood. With a really uneven gender ratio and such a high death rate no wonder I don't have all that many households.

I've started using the radience lighting system and a seperate program to take pictures. I'm honestly amazed at the difference. At the moment I'm about two and a half rounds into the Roman Era, making slow progress towrds the dark ages.

Aaahhh, why does everyone starts getting active here again just as I'm off for a vacation in Japan. >_< But it's still nice to get an insight in all of your challenges again. I don't really have anything new to tell though as I haven't gotten around building my roman hood with all the vacation preparation and, of course, the actual vacation. But yes, blogs are great because you can look back and see how far you've come and new computer + lightening mod + fraps = amazing.
I've only gotten plant sims at the end of the neanderthal era, so until now they did not have much time to annoy me. =P But I might allow them to have kind of a rite (like making a sacrifice to a sun god) to refill their sun need during the night in the roman era. I'm not sure yet, though, because they already have a lot of advantages compared to normal sims. And does anyone know if they can actually die when their sun need is low for too long? Or only if one of the other 2 needs is low, too? Until now I've only had one of them become unconcious.

Off for a good night of sleep on my futon!

@lbsgirl24 haha, siblings in my games always tend to get along well! Perhaps because I push them to play with each other if their fun levels are looking low, although for the most part they befriended each other without my interference. (Or maybe because I'm very close to my own brother and tend to romanticize sibling relationships a bit?) I had a lot of fun playing Angela and Lilith Pleasant from Pleasantview though, so it'd definitely be cool to have some enemy twins for a change. There's three whole sets of twins in my game so far, so it's not too late!

Very jealous of all you Roman era folks! I did a class in classical civilisation at school and it was always my favourite, I have tons of plans for Rome already. (I'm going to make an Ancient Egypt subhood alongside it, and possibly have a big political Roman/Pharaoh romance akin to Mark Antony/Cleopatra.)

I don't think plantsims are particularly difficult in Neandersim Times. If one of mine passes out or nearly does so, once its daytime, I send them to shower, if I can then make them fish. Usually there's someone else to fish with them, so they gain sun and love at the same time. If I couldn't send them to shower, I just wait for them to fish for a few hours then send them to do that and send them right back to fishing until their sun meter is full again. Then I try to keep them outside for the remainder of the day to avoid a repeat. This is probably the reason why my plantsim families are the richest since excess fish get sold off in my game. I wonder how different my game might be if I stockpiled the fish until later? Hmm.... I really should get back to playing... ~VP

I suppose the sibling thing is probably just a play-style thing but then most of my sims aren't overly nice so that may also have something to do with it. I'm ahving so many issues with converting the bmps from FRAPS to pngs so the next update may be a while. Funnily enough my plantsims got really rich as well.

One of my sims was killed by their brother today, whoops. Looks like some of my siblings don't get along great, either!

Man, I am officially addicted to playing this challenge. I find myself up at ridiculous hours thinking "just one more family round", much to the annoyance of my parents. I suppose it helps that it's summer and I have nothing better to do, hehe. At the rate I'm going, I should reach gen 2 this weekend, which is exciting. I'm looking forward to it since I'll be able to introduce farming

Also looking forward to Roman times a lot, I have a great set of rules regarding the gods I'm working on. I've always loved Greek and Roman mythology so I'm going to make a few of the Roman gods as custom townies. (I want them to be a more "random" force rather than something I control, plus it makes them effectively immortal!) Sims can befriend them and get certain befits from it (their "blessing"), and even have romantic relationships with them. Of course, if the god aren't happy with a Sim, the Sim will be punished in some cruel way. Usually death, but in some cases they might destroy their home, or kill family members? I'm still brainstroming the system. If anyone has any other ideas for blessings/punishments, let me know!

Reading some of the great ideas other people have had, I'm a bit disappointed I didn't come up with a bit more culture, tradition and religion for my cavesims. I really dig the stories with matriarchal tribes, spiritual beliefs, and all that good stuff. It's not too late I guess, but I kind of dived in without planning anything, whoops. So much regret!

I know the addicted feeling. It must be very exciting

Sounds really interesting I can't wait to see how you play it. I'm thinking of replacing the Colosseum deaths with a offering of the lives of elderly slaves (since killing children or adults makes little sense if I want to keep my population going) to some deity or other. Perhaps a cat deity. I did have a bunch of punishable by death things planned out and a hunger games themed Colosseum thing planned but my population can't really support it.

I find that coming up with culture beforehand tends to take some of the fun out of it. Any culture my sims have had in previous attempts have been due to events in the game.

In my first attempt the penguin from seasons keeps wandering past the houses despite the season being set to summer. My sims called it the illogical penguin and had to feed it fish. (Come to think of it nearly all my games have followed this religion since) After one family couldn't afford the payments and started to die from sickness I decided to kill a sim each time the penguin walked past and was not fed. It also helped to keep earnings from fishing down since they fed the penguin so much. In the ice age when fish stocks were low my sims instead built shrines (snowmen) for the penguin.

In one of my games where I played a matriachy with complicated marriage customs it was due to a crippling shortage of girls and the fact that only six or seven girls lived long enough to marry and two of them died soon after (there were at least 40 kids born).

It's not too late. Pay attention to the strange little things your sims do, make odd occurrences part of their culture.

Today is a monumentous occasion in my game. The recessive genes are finally starting to come through from dark haired couples Yay.