If you have Seasons and Open For Business expansion packs, try the Produce Packing Station at

http://simwardrobe.com/

It might be what you're looking for!

Vllygrl, HI! It is so good to see you--I know we shall both be glad for summer and some much needed rest from teaching and grading!

Also, I wholeheartedly second your recommendation! The produce and fish packing stations are a must for medieval games. (I'm also secretly hoping that the gardening theme will be among the top picks at PBK! teeheehe I love seeing what new and wonderful ideas all the masterful creators come up with to enrich my little make believe universe )

And BIG hello's to LilyXD and Starla13!

LilyXD, I read over your families and their progress so far--looks like you are off to an amazing start! I sympathize with you over your Lord Ashdown with illegitimate children all over the nh--I have one myself lol Do you think Lord Ashdown will consider leaving his wife? Mayhap she has a convent in her future? I have one marriage that is in a similar shape in Warwick--though the man in question is not a noble. His wife had a sudden miscarriage in the first year of their marriage and has never been able to get pregnant again--though she has certainly made it her mission to do so--and now with her multiple affairs, her husband is furious with her ... and he still has no heir. I would have had him divorce her, but I realized it wasn't in the behavior set ... I think I shall have to change that ... since I don't think he would do anything else untoward to her.

Starla13, I am interested in your economy. I applaud your efforts. I have found it is the hardest part of this challenge, to keep goods circulating through the nh, but in some odd way, I also find it to be the most rewarding for me.

Thank you Vllygrl for the recommendation I will for sure check that out.

I was quick to the chase to ask my question but I did want to say what a wonderful complex challenge you have made M3g7e. After reading the rules for 3 days I still haven't fully grasped it. I decided instead of worrying about putting every step in place that I would begin and add later. I am starting with 1 serf, 1 peasant, 1 merch, 1 duke and 1 royal. I will only be adding to the serfs and peasants for awhile so I can understand that status first and work my way up. I just created the bare minimum higher up since I really want to see my lower status make it higher.

I have to say I love the diversity. My other challenge is test of time and each rotation is the family in the same situation but with this challenge I get to have a store with one, convent with another, royalty with all the luxuries in another, and then broke poor. It's refreshing to change it up like that.

I also love the economy in this challenge that the sims must buy what is being produced or made from citizens through the Merchant. It just makes it so much more satisfying to the story. I plan to add more such as pottery, alchemy (potions made from a witch), paintings (portraits of the sim), treasure (from digging) and flowers. Does anyone know of any other things that can be made in game and then sold through the merchant? I have pretty much all the EP's.

I think I am just touching the top of the iceberg for this challenge. So much more to figure out.

Hey starla13,

I do know that sims can make objects from any of the three crafting tables: flower vases, toys, and robots. Of course, your sims can sell far more than the mentioned above. The mentioned above are merely craftables. You can sell almost any kind of object in the game. You may start a furniture store, bakery, flower shop, toy shop, night club, electronics store, hair salon, robot shop, car dealership and so much more! Your sims can either make their own stuff and sell them, harvest their own stuff and sell them, own a retail shop, or own a community-lot commercial venue where sims can collect earnings from the customers' stay. The choices are limitless.

I have a custom neighbourhood in my game that I am building just for fun. It has a fairy-tale and 19th century theme to it, because I am more acquainted with the 19th century than the Middle Ages or Renaissance and also because I need to download far less custom content for it. I have already built a home called "Rose Cottage" for the Flores family, which is based on the Delarosa family in Bluewater Village, but the Flores family has two elderly folks with a grown-up daughter who is 28 years old. The daughter works as a nurse-midwife (in reality, she is in the science career track), but since her current income is so low, the parents are quite worried for the well-being of the family and the family's future. So, the mum, Mary Flores, is playing matchmaker for her daughter. She hopes that her daughter Rose will marry a young man next door. That young man is the heir of a nearby farm called "Mellithorpe Manor". I have to admit, I am really enjoying playing this neighbourhood thus far. As far as naming goes, all the houses will be given names, and the family names will be loosely based on those in Bluewater Village.

There will be:
-The Flores Family (Rose Cottage)
-The Beaumont Family (Mellithorpe Manor)
-The Spielzeug Family (???)
-The Jiménez Family Family (???)
-The Lawson Family (???)
-The Wisely Family (???)
-The Moneygraab Family (???)

The Floreses, Beaumonts, Spielzeugs, Jiménezes, Lawsons, and Wiselys are all members of what I call "The Commoner Class" or "The Third Estate". The "Second Estate" would be the nobility and royalty, and the "First Estate" would be the clergy. The Moneygraab Family is the only family that is upper class. Mr Moneygraab is a gentleman who owns a grand country house and a lot of agricultural land where peasants can work on it. Perhaps in the future, I may consider on adding a noble and royal family, but I'll see as time flies.

As for diversity, I am playing with the usual custom townies (i.e. the Pleasantview townies). I do that for two reasons: the first is that Pleasantview townies have bottomless wallets, which would be good for the start-up of my neighbourhood, and the second is that I can diversify the game some more. If you want, you can create sims of all colors. Who knows? Maybe someday I can add a black moorish family into my game.

I am not sure if my game would count as a "Warwickshire Challenge", since (1) it takes place in a land far far away once upon a time and (2) it does have resemblances of the 19th century in terms of culture (clothing, manners, attitudes, technologies, etc.), and (3) I am not really keeping score or reading the charts of the Warwickshire Challenge. That said, I don't really think that my game can be classified as "Warwickshire". Perhaps an ordinary "fairy-tale" gameplay style would be a better term. Still... hope my neighbourhood has helped you in any way, even though it's not really Warwickshire.

Hi M3! Yes, I've been a little busy and preoccupied lately, so have you, I bet! And you know it -- we will be sooooo glad for summer and a break from the teaching/grading/etc., won't we?! We have had an annus horrendus here with unending contract negotiation upset and I'm exhausted, but we're in session until June 29th, so awhile to go yet.

Yes! I voted for the gardening theme at PBK, too! Also for the dogs of war theme, as I have a new little challenge ready to introduce as soon as we have that one! Well, we shall see which one gets picked next, but it will be fun for sure!

. . . and you're welcome, Starla! I hope it works for you!

Thank you for all of your suggestions Anonymous101. So many ideas. Perhaps even if the object can't be made through the game by a sim I will still have Masters / apprentices that train in that form for it to be able to be sold in stores. Such as furniture. Still thinking on it as my hood starts to form.

Below I have attached a pdf form that I made concerning ages of sims compared to their days. For instance adults have 29 days. Lets say your sim is an Adult and on day 15. Look for day 15 along the sims day row to find 15 and you will see that your sim is 43 years old. I also added teens under the adults. It works the same way. Hopefully that makes sense. I thought it would be helpful for figuring out when teens move out then decided to do adults as well.

Thanks for the PDF file, starla13! I would find it wonderfully useful! Heh, I have always wondered how old my sims are. I can keep track of how old the toddlers, babies, and children are, but by the time they become teens and adults, I begin to lose count. I have thought of making a table like yours, even though I have never really got around to it. The PDF file is certainly going to add some realism to my game.

I am still pondering on whether I should make my 19th century-style neighbourhood fixed in the time period or time-progressive. I think I would do a time-progressive game. I have downloaded clothes from the early 19th century to the late 19th century/early 20th century, and I can just use Maxis clothes for the mid-to-late 20th century and the early 21st century.

Thanks and you are welcome.

First thing that came to my mind is.. Are you prepared to download the content needed for it to progress? That would be interesting but you would need to change the look of the hood and what the sims would wear as you go which is quite a job in itself. But if you are prepared for it then why not. Should be fun.

Easy. All I have to do is, download a couple of lots loaded with CC and some outfits from All-About-Style or Parsimonious. I have about 905mb in my game. In the beginning, the sims would be living in the early 19th century or the Regency era. Here is a timeline of how I would progress in the neighbourhood:

First Generation: 1800-1825
Second Generation: 1826-1850
Third Generation: 1851-1875
Fourth Generation: 1876-1900
Fifth Generation: 1901-1925
Sixth Generation: 1926-1950
Seventh Generation: 1951-1975
Eighth Generation: 1976-2000
Nineth Generation: 2001-present
...and so on.

I am actually not going to install any default replacements; I actually do not like default replacements, because I like playing the pre-mades, I want them to be CC-free. So, I think it would be convenient for me to play with only regular CC in my game. For storytelling, I would just have to cut out all the anachronisms in the game to give it a realistic touch and feel.

Are you going to be time-progressive or make your neighbourhood stuck in the medieval & renaissance era?

wow now that is a plan. You have all the generations mapped out. My hood is going to be stuck in the medieval era. There is so much going on with this challenge that I don't need to add to it.

I have been working on Apprenticeships tonight. I've decided on these ones to start. Might add more way down the line.


Apprenticeships middle & upper burgeoisie only
Tailors - gold badge in sewing
Potters - gold badge in pottery
Botanists - gold badge in flower making (can be tp'd in to water flowers)
Toymakers - gold badge in toymaking
Plumbers - level 10 in mechanical (tp'd in to do repairs)
Bakers - level 10 in cooking (sell cooked dishes)
Barbers - gold badge in cosmotology
Carpenters - (tp'd in when buildings are being built)

Apprenticeships gentry & nobles only {will have a court position}
Artisans - level 10 in creative (painting)
Musicians - level 10 in creative (play piano/violin at the concert hall)
Poet - level 10 in creative (use mic at court)
Minister of Agriculture / Courtier / Physician / Astrologer / Alchemist /Head Master (Monastery)

I've decided to start with making a guild master and a guild headquarters then grow from there when I have teens who will move out to learn a craft.

How do you do your storytelling? Is it just something you make up in your mind or do you write it all out? Do you have a website or blog where you post them? I'm curious.

and so on? Are you going to keep progressing into the future?

That sounds good. The Middle Ages lasted a long time. For a rough estimate, the Middle Ages could be anywhere from around 500AD to 1500AD, so it's perfectly sensible that your challenge would be "perpetually" stuck in the Middle Ages. The early modern age would be from the time of the Renaissance and The Scientific Revolution (1500AD) to the end of the Industrial Revolution (late 1800s). After that would be known as the "modern age" with the happenings of World War I (AKA The Great War) and World War II and the "Cold War". Of course, history doesn't change overnight. So, the evolution of humanity and society is actually quite gradual.

Your planning for the trades and apprenticeships sounds quite interesting! You may teleport sims to a lot and use the home owner sim to influence the guest sim to repair something around the house. Be sure to have a lot of influence points to afford the "Influence to.../Repair" interaction. In my game, Rose Flores shall own a flower shop, similar to Florence Delarosa. Gilbert Beaumont shall own a French bakery, similar to Gilbert Jacquet. The Jiménezes shall own a furniture store, similar to the Ramirezes. The Spielzeugs shall own a toy store, similar to the Tinkers. The Moneygraabs shall own a bar-and-dance-hall, similar to Malcolm Landgraab. As time goes by, electrical appliances can be used, and the Moneygraabs can one day own an electronics store just like the Landgraabs. The Lawsons shall own a hair salon or barbershop. The Wiselys will just enter the science career track but someday they shall own a robot store. Townies, non-playables, and playable sims can be hired as paid apprentices or journeymen in the game.



Good question! I do my storytelling by taking pictures with the in-game camera in large size and high quality. The pictures are taken so that they are just so resolved that one can see what the sim is doing or what is happening. I arrange the pictures using the in-game story editor into a coherent story. Occasionally, I take pictures from other families to move the story along and so that one family's story appears full and interrelated/interconnected with the other families in the neighbourhood. Most of the time, it's something I've made up in my mind. I take in account of many things in the game too, like thought or speech bubbles, in my story, inserting meaning into those things that would otherwise have none. As of yet, I have no website or blog to host my stories. I would usually post them on the Official Exchange, but since the Official Exchange is down, I think I need some external resource to host the data online. I am thinking on putting the data in a slideshow format that can be opened with a click of a button and attach the link of the slideshow to a blog or a website. Each chapter will be about a family, and each family will have a cover picture, a basic story description, and at least 50 pages in length. Each page will have one picture and one caption, as it is laid out in the game.

For the timeline, each generation will live in a different time period, as mentioned earlier, and I can continue this for as long as I wish, including into the future. Given that I play rather slowly and that I have so many initial families to start with, it would be a miracle if the neighbourhood interests me to the third generation!

Does anyone have any tips on playing a large, royal lot? Every time I play my royal family, my game crashes.

I play on a large lot, not the largest, with many rooms and four floors, but not every floor is furnished. There isn't massive amounts of CC or decoration so it can't be that. I do summon sims to perform their duties, and I've recently pruned the family down to four members living in the castle while the girls are off at prep school with their nanny.

Do I just need to create a smaller lot with fewer things? I'm stumped.

Small update on my game... I've played the neighborhood through two seasons, except the royal family which is behind a season due to the crashes and my overall annoyance with it. I've taken out the royal/clerical points because it was too much for me to keep track of, but sims do still perform evil/manipulative actions and that reflects on their relationship with the monarchy/church.

My Queen Regent was a bit naughty with ACR and got knocked up by the elderly Lord Chancellor. Oops. I wonder how I should handle that child in terms of a royal title.

Hi Kirrie,

If your computer cannot handle lots of a certain size or greater, then you may try playing only on smaller lots. I try to cut down on the amount of flora on the property to play smoothly. You may also cut down on the graphics, even though the pictures may never be as high quality. That said, if you really want to take high-quality pictures, then you may first set the scene, go to options and set up the right settings, move the camera in the proper position and take a screenshot of the current scene. Afterwards, you may revert the settings to the original, so you can still play smoothly. The only problem would be that it takes some time trying to adjust the settings, so at best, you may also have to choose carefully when and how you are going to take a picture.

Nice going with the story. I am not sure what exactly is a "Queen Regent", but to answer your question, your situation would depend on whether the queen is regnant (ruling sovereign) or consort (wife of a ruling sovereign). If she is the ruling monarch and has an illegitimate child, then she may do whatever she wants. She may even give that illegitimate child of hers some property and a title, but that child must never inherit the throne. That child, however, can compete for the throne in his own right, but the throne is not entitled to him. If she is the queen consort of the ruling monarch and has an illegitimate child, then she may ask the chancellor to marry her and help raise the child together. Of course, she may also need the church's permission to marry. At this point, you may set the parameters and roll the die to see whether the church approves of her marriage. If the church approves, then congratulations. If the church does not approve, then the child is born illegitimately and thus cannot inherit the throne. Furthermore, because the mother is a queen consort, the child will probably be in the same social class as the queen's childhood family.

Kirrie, I'm with Anonymous101 on this one--smaller lots are the way to go. I have my royal court divided into lots of smaller lots--though I do teleport in servants, etc. I have the Queen's Tower and the King's Tower separate. When I play the Queen's lot, I may summon the King over occasionally, but I don't try to play everyone all at once usually--it's just too hard to do. If I have a story line planned I just bring in all the characters I need to make the story work. When I play rotation, I just play all the little lots around till I get everyone aged up. Average lot size is 3X3 in Warwick--with most lots weighing in at 2X2, and only a very rare few at 4X3.

Good story! hehe ... love the plot twist. lol
Also, Anonymous is right about the lines of succession--the royal bastard cannot be placed in the line of succession (see p. 43).
As for marrying the Lord Chancellor, yes--I think I would go through the regular marriage rolls, though there is nothing specifically designated in the challenge for this scenario. I suppose the Queen's "parents" are the church, and the prospective groom may be expected to settle upon a suitable bride price--to fatten the coffers of the crown.

Sounds interesting Let us know how it comes out, won't you?

For simplicity, you may check out the law of primogeniture (link), which states that the first son is the heir of everything. The subsequent sons must look for their destinies elsewhere. A nobleman's second son would probably join the clergy or enter the military service and acquire land or apprentice oneself to a merchant.

Why do they do this? I don't know exactly why. You may want to do some research on this topic to find out. It seems to be a very old concept. You would think that a parent would divide his property into three to his three children. Speaking of division of property, I believe people back in the day used the law of primogeniture so that they didn't have to divide up the property. They could bequeath the whole property to their eldest son when he had come of age.

Anonymous101, there is a chart in Warwickshire for the line of succession which gives the specific rules for determining the next monarch.

... which can be summarised by the law of primogeniture.

The basic concept means that the closest male relation is the heir. Now, if a family has all daughters and no sons, and the daughters cannot inherit property, then the daughters must marry off to wealthy, or at least well-to-do bachelors. The maiden daughters may also become professional seamstresses or milkmaids or factory-workers or nurses or school-teachers to support their own living. Ah, this is one reason I choose the 19th century, the time period of women's suffrage and movement.

Thanks for all of the input! I'm still not sure if I will even bother trying to marry them... he's so old and I'm sure the time is near for his next age roll. But, at least his line will continue in a weird way!

I have a strange royal family when I first rolled for them. The "real" queen is a child, and she has a younger sister. Her Aunt is her oldest living relative, so I made her the queen regent to rule in place of the real queen until she becomes of age. Her Aunt also has a little girl, who's father (the original King Regent) passed away due to a fire that occurred on the lot while I was up getting a drink. ~.~ But, c'est la vie! Now she has this oddball child on the way, and I'm hoping it's a boy so I can create some sort of drama. It would be fun to have some sort of war of succession, even though the lines clearly say that it will go to the current Queen.

Having a Queen's Tower and King's Tower is a great idea! I'm definitely going to break up the family into smaller lots... I'm thinking the Lord Chancellor will have his own, maybe the Wizard will stay with him because they're good friends... and then the Queen Regent can have her own, until the girls come back from preparatory school and ruin her privacy.

I wish I would've thought of how this would affect my game before I spent so long creating my castle. The game doesn't lag, it will just randomly crash after a random amount of time... I could play through three days, or one, and bam, back to the desktop. Oh well! Maybe one day I will own a super computer that can handle large Sims lots! :P

Wow. All I can say is that you have a lot of females in your game... which may be somewhat disadvantageous somewhere down the road. Well, let's just hope the females are raised like boys and compete for the throne!

The reason for the Law of Primogeniture is perfectly sound: If you divide your property evenly between your offspring, and they divide it evenly between their offspring, and so on and so on, eventually, nobody has enough to live on. Remember that the economic cycle of perpetual boom and bust is a modern thing, dating roughly from the discovery of the Americas and the massive influx of gold and new resources it created. Prior to that time, resources were assumed to be finite and in a constant state of reshuffling, not growing along with the population.

Primogeniture at the level of the ruling classes also created more stable states than division; even with the fierce disputes of the wars of succession (and it doesn't matter how easy you make the rules, everybody will find ways to interpret them in their own favor), the state itself retained its identity, more or less. And the fight over how the division should go would have been just as savage as the fight over who got the whole pie, you can bet on that.

No truer words e'er spoken ... lol

All this chatting reminds me of a story: Charles Perrault's Puss in Boots. In it, I recall the eldest son got the mill, the middle son got the mules, and the youngest son got the cat. Charles Perrault lived in the 17th century, so I suppose the story can give a nice backdrop to pre-industrial life.

Anonymous - Sounds like you have a good plan for now and the future economy of your hood. I plan to teleport in the repairman and use boolprop to select him if the family doesn't have enough influence.

M3g7e - What a great idea to separate the King and Queen to different lots. I think I will do that later on when the royal family grows.

Kirrie - Sorry to hear about your game crashing on you. How frustrating. But I think lowering the graphics or dividng up the king and queen onto smaller lots like M3g7e suggested would possibly help.

I finally am trying out apartments. I created a house for a knight with four serf hovels. I was able to move in 3 serf couples and the knight but one apartment got snagged up by a townie. It's very interesting since all three gardens grow that were planted by the serf families even when I am only playing one of them. The landlord comes and waters and tends the garden every day. I also have the active family tend and keep the gardens of the ones who are inactive. So I guess it will be more a community share of the harvest? Which seems like an interesting idea for this setup. Whatever is harvested is split in three at the end of the fall. I have it that they pay 40% tax to the duke who takes a 15% cut and passes it on to the king. But what about the knight who is managing the land. Should the serfs have to give him a percentage of the fish they catch and the produce they harvest?

Since your three serf families are working under their lord, the knight, I think you should make the serf families pay rent to the knight. What you may do is, wait until the day you have to pay rent to the "landlord". Remember the "rent" money, because that is the amount of money that you add to the knight's familyfunds, so that it looks like a transaction has taken place. That way, the knight will get the money from the serfs who live on the knight's estate. In addition to paying rent to the knight, the serfs also have to pay a mandatory tithe to the church. The church by itself can hire serfs to till its fields and appoint members to join the clergy. The church model that the Warwickshire challenge uses is the Anglican church. On mainland Europe, the church is really the Roman Catholic Church and has higher power over the monarch.

Wow. No wonder these serf families are so poor. They are busy paying everyone a piece of their earnings. Is it a 10% tithe to the church?

Thanks for your suggestion for paying the knight the rent money. That makes sense since it is his land.