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Original Poster
#1 Old 6th Apr 2011 at 8:54 PM
Default Privacy...
Is there any way to make a room private so guests can't enter it? I was playing with my monarch and trying to have a baby but people were always coming in and out of the room, and by the time everyone left suddenly someone re-entered the room while my monarch was woohooing with his wife and gave him a negative moodlet like ashamed or something... And playing as the blacksmith I can never have privacy with my wife because people are always going upstairs to get a book from the bookshelf, not even in the middle of the night, a priest came right in, went upstairs to get a book from the bookshelf... It is quite annoying... Isn't there anyway to prevent this from happening? Another thing is that while my priest is giving a sermon kids enter in the church and start sparring and everyone quits the sermon and watches them sparring, sometimes some get up and start talking to each other... Quite annoying as well, would any normal person talk out loud in a church? darn
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Test Subject
#2 Old 7th Apr 2011 at 1:47 AM
Delete everything but the bed from the bedroom? Only thing I can think of....
Scholar
#3 Old 7th Apr 2011 at 1:55 AM
TBH, I don't have a general solution, and for some the space doesn't allow one. And I wish I did. It's annoying me too no end. But what I found that somewhat reduces the problem is:

1. Keep the idiot-magnet objects out of whatever room you want to have private. There are some items which are disproportionately so.

E.g., for everyone but especially for the smith, merchant and bard, for the love of The Watcher, never put a wash basin (not tub, the one for washing your hands and face) in your bedroom. Every single bloody child passing through the market square will come splash in it for hours.

E.g., the bookcase is another example.

The bedroom should just have the bed, lighting, cooking pot (except if you're given a cook for a quest, people don't come play with that), pantry and dining table with chairs. (Note that the chairs _are_ partial idiot-magnets, though, albeit we'll get to partially mitigating that in the next point.) Chamberpot is safe too.

Booze is not safe. The mobs which were generated with the alcoholic trait, _will_ come through no matter what number of rooms to help themselves to all 10 remaining beers in your cask.

2. Don't put the most comfortable chairs or sofas in the private room, and probably don't make it the best decorated room in the house either. It seems to me like if there is a more comfortable sofa and the bookcase in a different room, people prefer to use that one. But if you have a +1 comfort sofa outside and a +2 chair in your room, people will often prefer that one.

Unfortunately this doesn't make as much difference as you'd think. Some people still prefer to take their food to the desk in your room, or come hang around on some uncomfortable chairs anyway.

And of course it won't help against idiots who don't have to sit in the first place. E.g., if the bard or joker come play the fiddle in your bedroom at 2 AM, yeah, even the most spartan decor doesn't seem to deter them. And yeah, it's literally happened.

3. Don't leave food lying around. This annoys me no end, because I'm pretty sure they had a name even in the middle ages for someone coming uninvited to grab one of my flatbreads: theft.

Well, this should actually fall under 1, as food is an idiot-magnet, unfortunately. People will come through two rooms, if needed, to help themselves to your bread or stew. Put it in your inventory, if you made a large pot in the evening to last you for the morning too.

4. In the spirit of the unfortunate exception to point 2, don't give heroes fiddles, unless needed for a quest. If you do, don't be surprised if they come play at 2 AM in your room, just like the joker or bard, just because you're the closest room with an audience.

But, as I was saying, in the end none of these eliminate the problem. The only things that would really fix it were if EA finally went to a proctologist to get their head out, and finally understood why a TS1 with a city-sized household is annoying, or if some modders fix that in script. Until then, be prepared to accept that it will still happen, no matter what you do.
Field Researcher
#4 Old 7th Apr 2011 at 3:23 AM
Or until some clever modder removes the privacy requirement. That is far more medieval anyway, where entire households, even Royal ones, ate, slept, bathed, and yes, made love, all in the same room, separated by no more than a privacy screen, at most (and there are already lovely room dividers provided in-game).
Lab Assistant
#5 Old 7th Apr 2011 at 8:44 AM
If you play as the monarch, you could try sending those annoying people either to the stocks or right into the pit. My monarch already killed quite a bunch...and now its finally quiet
I agree however that this is a severe problem which needs to be fixed asap..either by a patch or by mod.

These room dividers need to be more useful too ! When i first got the game, i thought that their purpose was to serve as some sort of "wall replacement" ... turns out they are simply decoration. Needless to say that this needs to change
Field Researcher
#6 Old 7th Apr 2011 at 11:13 AM
I didn't have such problems: every time my sims go to make fiki-fiki (whooo) other sims in the room seeems to understand and they go away.
Instructor
#7 Old 7th Apr 2011 at 12:58 PM
The blacksmith's room is a nightmare, always crowded, and it's barely furnished. I think the room the bed is in should be considered "private", though it's true that the concept of privacy wasn't as nowadays in the Middle Ages...

"Deep down I'm pretty superficial"

Field Researcher
#8 Old 7th Apr 2011 at 1:21 PM
i have similar problems. literally every regular sim in the kingdom comes and stands around in the bedroom. the way i get them out is to add someone to my active family and start a duel with someone. they will go down to the throne room to duke it out and everyone else will follow to watch. those that don't are sent to the pit.

I'm cooler than cool! I'm stupid!
Test Subject
#9 Old 31st May 2011 at 1:31 PM
I almost went crazy when playing my blacksmith,(don't know why the interrupts are almost constant with this one sim/profession more than with other heroes) but then I got the assistant. When I had the money, I put a second forge and anvil upstairs that my blacksmith uses and all the people coming in bother the assistant while my smith can work. Worked flawlessly until I had a quest with smith and wizard, believe it was the philosopher's stone. So many people kept coming in, even when my smith asked them to leave (and they were not there to give/recieve items to others, pay for items or anything) that I had my wizard cast magic arrow on them...they left after getting fried.
Theorist
#10 Old 6th Jun 2011 at 5:11 AM Last edited by Sophie-David : 6th Jun 2011 at 6:48 PM. Reason: Grammer error
I have noticed that in both my game worlds (I have Sims Medieval on two computers) that neither the spy nor magus are ever bothered by uninvited guests. In the case of both these hero types, their quarters have become very attractive - high environment and lots to do - over the course of the game, but yet I do not have unwanted Sims bothering them. Perhaps there is a difference in the entrance portals that prevents uninvited entry - and perhaps that difference could be replicated for other buildings.
Test Subject
#11 Old 6th Jun 2011 at 11:00 AM
@OP: I totally sympathize with you. I had the same problems (though, I deemed the church thing to be due to the fact that my Jacoban wasn't feared enough... ). People kept walking in and out of my monarch's room when she was woohooing... staring at them on the bed, gasping at their indecency, and then taking a bath in her bathtub. Someone even had the audacity to come in and start eating at her desk, like it was some kind of show. Honestly, the only way to relieve this, as others have mentioned, is to rearrange some of your furniture and playing habits.

@Sophie-David: I've noticed this as well, though, mostly for my wizard. My spy had some trouble with my Jacoban priest, the monarch, and the adviser coming in on a regular basis to use his scribe table. That was mainly in one kingdom though, and I've not really noticed the same problem in the others. As for my wizard(s), I have NEVER gotten a visitor in my tower except for when a quest required someone to come there. Maybe the wizard tower should be looked at a bit more thoroughly to see if there's something preventing NPCs from "visiting"? (I'll see if I see anything, though I'm not that technically clever as others on here).
Test Subject
#12 Old 6th Jun 2011 at 10:27 PM
I was able to get a high degree of privacy in the Knight, Spy and Magician's quarters. I was able to do this even with high environment/decor.

What I did was flip the structure of the quarters; put the "occupational" level on the bottom floor and the "private" quarters on the top floor. The private quarters have a lot of wall decor and statuary, however, no bookcase, easy chairs or washstands but each have comfortable beds, baths, dressers, oven or fireplace and dinning table/chair.

I've only experienced one brief interruption in the Spy's private quarters; none in the Knight or Magician's private quarters. In fact, my current Knight has fourteen relationships going on with all romantic interactions only occurring in the "private" quarters so none of the other ladies is the wiser.

I also use the Knight's quarters for other hero's when they need privacy. For instance, the blacksmith has become a regular. Interestingly, if the blacksmith and a "friend" are using the Knight's private quarters the Knight finds somewhere else to be (must be a frat thing).

It's not perfect but it seems to work well enough.
Lab Assistant
#13 Old 25th Jul 2024 at 3:56 PM
It has been more than a decade already, but no patch nor mod was ever created to fix this (to my knowledge ). I still struggle with the totally useless privacy settings of this game... And the reception hall doesn't even have those at all!
Peasants are like a plague, always going in and out where they don't belong. Important characters are no better either.
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