I don't think the Warwickshire challenge really explains the church process in detail. So, you can just make any price you want for the church tithe. If 10% works for you, then that's fine. If $100 works for you, then that's fine as well.

For ideas, you may read Wikipedia's article on Tithes to give you a general idea on what are tithes and how much to pay them. Basically, tithes are 10% payment of something valuable. So, if you cannot pay 10% of your money/income, then you may pay 10% of your assets.

Hope it helps!

Starla13, the way the challenge actually reads is that tithing is a "very good" behavior, given under Fortune. If you *want* to have your sims tithe, then they will receive clerical favor for doing so ... but as with every behavior given in the game, it is a **choice.** Clerical favor points accrue over time (if you choose to keep track of them) and will result in positive benefits to the sim who earns them (see p. 81). The evil and very evil behaviors are the ones that incur negative consequences--like failure to pay taxes on time, or evasion of taxes. Much is left up to your individual discretion to decide how you want to set up the nh for yourself, and especially as to what choices your individual sims decide to make for themselves. The challenge is designed to have very few hard and fast rules that you "must" follow.

For my own serfs, I do have them pay rent, but I keep track of how much rent they've paid, so that the amount adds up toward their buying their freedom, which I've assessed at $20K for the head of household. When that debt is paid to the lord, the family is free and becomes peasants--as the challenge indicates, once you've amassed $20K in total family assets you advance to the level of peasant. Pages 25-27 give suggestions for taxation. The simplest to calculate is the flat income tax--at 40% flat rate for serfs, that's pretty hefty. It is what I've been playing with, and it pretty much means serfs can never make enough money to get out of indenture to their lord. However, the daughters of serfs *may* marry up to a peasant or a lower bourgeoisie and then send money back to their families, tax free, which does help their original families to make some money. That said, you have the latitude to decide which taxes you want to levy--there are six different types given in the challenge, and you are free to choose cafeteria style there, making life as (relatively) easy or difficult as you desire for your sims--and entailing as much or as little calculation as you can stand or bear to live with. I'm going very easy these first few rotations--just income and assets taxes. Note: serfs don't "own" anything, so they are not indemnified to pay assets taxes--that is the lord's duty who owns the fief and everything on it, including the serfs.

I love your nh plan btw--keep the updates and the questions coming!

Well, paying tithes would be a choice, depending on how realistic you want the game to be. Historically, paying tithes were mandatory, no exceptions. The serfs presumably thought that they would receive blessings if they did what they were told.

Nowadays, people still pay tithes, but they are voluntary.

Thank you both for clarification. I started with income tax since that was the easiest but now I've decided to try and add on a few more. Like the serfs paying rent to the Lord who owns the land they are living on. As well as asset taxes for those who own their land. I do think the church was powerful back then and also if they pay tithes they can then afford to run all the convents and monasteries as well as build a church with that money. I also have added the guild subscription tax.

I'm still very much learning how this challenge works. So much is included in the pdf. I have a sim that is pleasure aspiration and is -1 Evil. She went to church and earned 50 Royal pts and 50 Clerical pts. Now because that is seen as a good action does her -1 Evil change? I have seen the negative and good that the points give. Just not sure if there alignment changes over time or if they are say Evil are they only to do Evil things then?

thank you for welcoming questions since I seem to run into many situations where I would love some clarity.

to help me organize for quick referencing I cut up the pdf and put it in evernote. So I have the childbirth info in one note, mortality in another, etc. This way I just have to scroll down the titles to see the info I'm looking for instead of scrolling through 85 pages. Which I'm still amazed at how thorough and complex this challenge is.

Yes, it does. For every behavior performed there will be an impact on alignment--with the exception of neutral behaviors. All sims can perform any behavior, and the alignment reflects the composite behaviors performed. For this reason, it actually is rather difficult to keep "evil" sims evil. The reason seems to be that the good and very good behaviors are more likely to happen spontaneously, whereas evil behaviors are likely to require player decision or intervention to make them happen. I have plans to write decision making trees for the evil behaviors to help myself decide when to initiate evil behaviors for sims: if they work I may add them to the next version of Warwickshire.

From my understanding, I think M3g7e is trying to say in the challenge that, when evil sims perform evil behaviours in the same aspiration category as their aspiration, then the chances would differ by -1, -2, or -3 chances of successes. I am not really sure what M3g7e means by that, so my best guess is that the "chances of success" really mean any alteration of the probability value for any table or chart that would bring a negative result. Sometimes, you would really add +2 to the score and sometimes you would subtract -2 from the score: it all depends on whether or not the probability value of the situation is desirable or not desirable, and the purpose is to make it easier for the evil sims to perform evil activities and get away with them. In the meantime, if evil sims were ever caught in their evil deeds, then their chances in the courtroom would actually work against them. I'm not sure if M3g7e has this sort of thinking in mind. Not much is really said about how the scoring is to be kept, so one can just make guesstimates and suit one's own fancies.

I have noticed that it's quite easy to make sims live an idyllic suburban lifestyle. One can make a joke in the story that sims are all "naturally angels".

In my game, I have deleted my historical neighbourhood and custom content once more. I don't know, but somehow historical neighbourhoods don't really capture my interest for long. I like vivid, bright colours for my game, and it appears that it's very hard to do that sort of thing in a historical game. So, I am going to withdraw from any attempt of making a historical neighbourhood. Good news is: I have created a new subdistrict for Pleasantview. ^_^

Please, call me Heloise

Actually, no, not at all. In fact, quite the reverse. And the change of odds is tied to aspiration, not to behavior.

So, when a Family or Knowledge sim performs ANY behavior in that category--their natural ability--they are given a +1 chance of success in all their endeavors. If the roll originally given was 12/20, it becomes 13/20. The same is true for Pleasure and Romance sims who are given +2, and Fortune and Popularity sims who are given +3.

To my knowledge, there are no instances where the correlation of behavior and aspiration result in a negative chance of success--where, exactly, did you see this?



As I explained above, there are no instances in which you would ever reduce the chance of success owing to the aspiration-behavior correlation.



?? No. In fact, quite the reverse. As indicated on p. 67 (trial), you are to invert the sim's alignment in trial, to give virtuous sims a -5 chance of escaping conviction and evil sims a +5 chance of escaping conviction. As you noted above, it is much easier for evil sims to get away with evil behavior than for good sims to do so.




??? This just mystifies me. ???
Really, Anonymous101, I do not wish to be rude at all, but if you're not sure how to read the challenge, perhaps you might desist from making up the structural elements on your own.

Now that you're not playing a historical hood, I'm sure we'll miss your input.

That is too bad to hear Anonymous that you deleted your hood but I do understand. If it's not fun it's not worth playing. If you have ACR they aren't that angelic. What is your sub district about in Pleasantview? I deleted all neighborhoods that came with the game except Bella Donna Cove. I like to create my own sims and neighborhoods. But when I first bought Sims 2 I played the families in Pleasantview and they are fun just got bored of the storyline with them.

Thanks M3g7e for clarifying. I am looking forward to working on alignment. I have a family that rolled all evil. hehe or should it be.... mwahhaha. Just kidding. All my sims will end up Virtuous I'm sure. I am on Chapter 2 of your Warwickshire website. Nice read. I really like the way you have written a full story. I am intrigued from the get go.

It's about a small undeveloped patch of land on the outskirts of the Pleasantview suburb. Only one family has settled there. Whoopee. That family only has one member, and that one member will be played until I publish the story someday.



Can you please provide an example? A example can really help me visualise what you are trying to describe. Also, chance of success of WHAT? What is the unit of chance of success? What "successful outcome" are you looking for exactly? So, are you trying to tell me that the "chance of success" actually increases the alignment, or are you trying to tell me that the chance of success is trying to increase something else?

What I mean is, what "success"? Success in behaviour? Success in aspiration? Success in alignment increasing?

Really, Heloise, I do not wish to be rude at all, but if you could be so kind and give us an example of how you do it, then I hope that would be helpful for people who want to keep score.

Anonymous101,

Let's take a Fortune sim who decides to Embezzle money. Whatever odds are calculated for his chance of success & failure are, he may add +3 to those odds to increase his odds of success.

Any behavior that has some random odds built into it will have a chance of success-either of escaping detection, conviction, etc, etc--not all behaviors do, but a number of the evil behaviors do. The unit chance of success varies--you have to consult the charts for the specifics--there are charts given for nearly every aspiration, too many to enumerate here.

That said, I do see your point--the challenge still has bugs--not saying that it is perfect at all, so please don't misunderstand my tone here (long semester, tons of grading, bit under the weather ... we all have stress )


Another case--a Romance Sim performing a Romance behavior, say deflowering a virgin. There should be a +2 chance of success for him to escape a court case, etc. However, I *do* see that the only way that these odds could be entered into the chart on p. 60 would be to subtract the odds from the chances that the injured party would sue him. So, yes--you were right that it is possible in some cases to subtract to get the increased odds. Basically, the idea is to increase the odds by 1, 2, or 3 depending upon the aspiration-behavior correlation. What is increasing here is the likelihood that the sim will escape detection, conviction, etc. The behavior is correlated to alignment, so whether the sim escapes detection or not, an evil behavior will always deliver a -1 alignment adjustment. The more evil you do, the more evil you are: whether or not you get away with it is another matter.

I think this is an area that I will revisit in the revision. It does appear to need some work.
And truly--I didn't mean to sound snappish, so please don't feel that I did.

It's all right. You may also want to explain how all the equations work. On the other hand, instead of using equations, you may use a whole set of tables and charts. As it stands, I can't really tell the meaning behind all those figures or why they are arranged a certain way. So... that leads me to think that those parts presumably are under construction and shouldn't be taken seriously as of yet.

Methinks I need a math major to do this work. :lovestruc

Version 1.2 is all tables and charts. However, I did not like that they give a flat chance. I really wanted to include other types of character data in the outcome.
So, it seemed to me, for example, when determining whether a father would sue his daughter's lover for defloration, that it would make sense to take into consideration a number of factors--his class status, the lover's class status, his relationship score with his child and the aspirations of both himself and the lover.
There should be a very low chance that a sim of a very low class would sue a sim of a very high class. Also, it should matter whether the father is close to his daughter. And it should matter what the father's aspiration is--a family sim would likely be more upset about the affair than a romance sim, who might understand such things. These are the thoughts behind the equations. As you know, I am not altogether sure about the equations--for the romance behaviors there is an alternate chart to support the equations. If you don't like the outcome, or it doesn't make sense, use the chart instead.

Essentially, the equations are meant to involve a wide range of variables that might influence the outcome of a given situation. If the math doesn't work--and I have been very open about this--please, someone, come along and suggest an equation that works. I just may use it.

Can you list all the factors that are involved in the process? So far, you have these down for the case of a father's chance of sueing a lover for deflowering his virgin girl:

• Father's social class
• Lover's social class
• Father's relationship score with his deflowered daughter
• Father's aspiration
• Lover's aspiration

Actually, let's do it together. It looks like all the drama revolves around the girl. ^_^

OK. We first must know how the variables in the list are related. For example:

1. How does Fortune, Family, Popularity, Knowledge, Romance, Pleasure, and Grilled Cheese (er... just pretend that this aspiration says "Yummy Medieval Food") each affect the father's chance of sueing the lover? Perhaps, a family sim father would increase his chance of sueing whereas a romance sim father would decrease his chance of sueing.

2. How does the father's relationship score with his deflowered daughter affect his chance of sueing the lover? As relationship score increases, should the chance of sueing increase or decrease?

3. How does the father's social class affect his chance of sueing? As social class increases, should his chance of sueing increase or decrease?

4. How does the lover's social class affect his chance of sueing? As the lover's social class increases, should the father's chance of sueing the lover increase or decrease?

5. Are you going to apply the same concept, if the gender roles were reversed? If the mother finds out that her son is sleeping with a prostitute or a non-virgin girl, then can she sue the prostitute for deflowering her son? What happens if two virgins sleep with each other? Should the mother of the male virgin and the father of the female virgin sue each other, and there would be two probabilities to calculate? Does the gender of the mother/father/virgins really matter? Can the same concept be applied to ANY scenario, or does this concept only applied to a VERY SPECIAL CASE? For all others, there is no "chance of lawsuit", right? (Sorry, but I have to include this in here. We have to be clear on our definitions of "virgin" and "parent" and "lover".)

It is possible to use the following base equation:

(points earned / points possible) x 100 = percentage %

The points possible will be set as the "worst case scenario", so we have to lay out all the variables and their possible values and then assume the "worst case scenario". The points earned will be collected from the five variables, each variable will be defined by an equation and an interval. Now, all you have to do is assign the relationships.

You may want to write the relationships first algebraically and plot the equation on a line (geometrically). To make the linear curve slightly more complicated, you may have two different slopes, one steeper than the other, to complete a single linear curve (OK, I admit. It does have one undefined slope at the point where the two linear curves meet, but at least the curve is continuous). If you want a stronger relationship, try a parabola or exponent. If you have a graphing calculator at home, this is the time.

I think you may use the (points earned / points possible) x 100 = percentage % equation to any part of the challenge that requires the use of percentages to be used in probabilities.

Another method would be making several tables in several tables. Each factor (as mentioned above) would have a table. These tables (that describe the behaviour of each factor's function, that is, the relationship between independent and dependent variables), similar to the ones shown here: http://www.teacherschoice.com.au/ma...tion_values.htm

You may plot the points as coordinates on a cartesian graph. By the way, the cartesian graph was invented by Rene Descartes. Then draw a best fit line. Now, if you can't see a relationship between your points, then there is no correlation or a very weak, if not negligible correlation. However, if you want a correlation, you may want to sharpen the strength of the relationship. If you see a curved line, then try to draw the curved line and then measure it. A graphing calculator will be very helpful, and in addition, the calculator may give you the best-fit curve that fits the data.

Now, that table will only define ONE factor. You need more tables to define the other factors. Do the same thing for all of them. The tables and graphs may help you visualise the behaviours of the functions or relationships.

Now, let's return to making the numerator of the said equation. The numerator may be the sum of all the possible factors you want to take into account. The denominator may be the sum of the "worst case scenario". Points will be added up to the "worst case scenario". Of course, not everybody will have the "worst case scenario", so the real probability value will be somewhat less than 100%, unless your simmy is really unlucky! The numerator may also have what I call "bonus points". Bonus points may be added or subtracted from the numerator, but they won't really alter the denominator. In real life, instructors/educators will denote the status of bonus points as 5/0 for "extra five bonus points". It is important to note that "bonus points" do not mean "divide by zero". You can divide by a number approaching 0, but I think the behaviour of such a function will most likely increase infinitely. It makes sense, because 5/.01 would mean 5/(1/100), which means 5*100=500. As you may have guessed, it's going to increase to infinity at an exponential rate. In the end, you will get what you want: the percentage. The percentage means the disparity between the hypothetical "worst case scenario" from the "actual scenario".

As for rolling the dice, I think you should forget about using a six-sided die. You may need a 100-number generator that generates any number (even fractions or decimals) from 0 to 100.

Finally, you may also want to take into account, if you plan on using fractions. If fractions are used, then you may want to consider whether you should round up or round down or find a random number generator that outputs fractions to the hundredths place or the thousandths place.

I'm staying out of this conversation since I have not a clue with most of the terms. I will admit that the math problems in the challenge are way over my head. All the A + B etc. I'm just not an academically inclined person. However, that doesn't keep me from enjoying this challenge.

So the Queen Regent finally had her baby... and it was yet another girl!

As a little solution to my household issue, I created two separate apartment complexes that look like they merge into one on the NH screen. I also moved in two noble families to the castle, and created a wing where the noble girls can go to finishing school (and that way my little queen gets to stay in the actual castle!)

I'm worried that there won't be enough men to marry to my noble women! They certainly can't marry below their station (the highest teen boy is gentry... oh jeez). I might have to have a few "foreign" diplomats and their older boys move in... who knows! I'm sure I'll balance it out.

And I do agree with Starla... the math is above my head. Not that I won't try to understand it!

Oh brother, here we go again -- Extensa? Is that you? Your mother is calling you, dear.

Kirrie and Starla, don't worry too much about the math -- stick with the intent of the challenge and use your imagination with your family stories and you will have a blast with the Warwickshire Challenge -- it's fun!

My thoughts exactly!

I swear before long we shall be finishing each other's sentences!


Kirrie, Starla13, proceed ... you're doing great.

And Kirrie, I'm loving that you're going to need some foreign diplomats soon! I can just imagine the swarthy princes you'll have to make in CAS. Please post pics of the handsome hunks you come up with! :D

I'm sorry. But who are you talking about?

Anyway, I just wanted to point out what Heloise wanted. Heloise previously asked me which part of the challenge I was referring to or how I got my way of thinking. Well, I pointed it out to Heloise in the former post. I didn't understand what the "chances of success" meant, and Heloise was kind enough to show me what that part meant in post #305. I also suggested that maybe Heloise could explain why she(?) chose those set of equations. Later, Heloise seemed to ask for help for the equations, which I didn't really expect. I would expect that a person who devised such an equation would know why the functions and operations are arranged a certain way. The answer that I gave was really based on 17th century mathematics (or earlier), or in simpler terms, basic algebra and geometry. Heloise didn't really explain what the equations meant, so that led me astray and wondering what they meant or how they worked.

In any case, I am going to start a new neighbourhood in my game. It's called Spherorotundus, and the main neighbourhood is divided into four parts: the royal court, the rural/commercial district, the vacation district, and the university district. The rural/commercial district is the county of Sandwich, and it has two minor fiefs, the viscounty of ______________ and the baron of ________________ (sorry, forgot the name). It will start with 1 royal family, 3 noble families, 6 merchant families, and 0 peasant families. Actually, I will declare the non-playable characters and townies as "peasants" or "foreigners" or "public servants". I think I am jumping back to Warwickshire again. I really like the character creation process and the neighbourhood building process, and I have downloaded the required CC. So, I'm ready to go.

Okay I finished the prologue for my hood. You can find it here http://sims2foryou.wordpress.com/wa...hire-challenge/ There are no pictures in the two posts but there will be in the next one.

Anonymous - I thought you decided not to do historical hoods anymore? Also I'm not sure you can call that a warwickshire hood since the main goal is for a serf to rise up in status to a duke in ten generations whether being evil or virtuous. If you have no serf / peasants how would that be possible?

You know it, Heloise!

Kirrie I also love :lovestruc the idea of foreign diplomats -- I think I'm going to file it away to use in an opportune moment in my game later on . . . Kirrie I like how you solved your crashing castle problem and I'd love to see a pic of your two apartment complexes which look like one from the NH view -- any chance of a pic?

Starla I enjoyed reading your two part prologue for the challenge -- wow! What a mesmerizing tale of love, jealousy, murder and mayhem! Awesome backstory to begin, and I look forward to more!

It's not really. But I do like the character creation process and the neighbourhood creation process. So in reality, it's a borrow of those two things.

The Warwickshire Challenge is very similar to the Legacy challenge... but since the Legacy challenge is so much simpler, I think I would do a Legacy challenge instead with a random creation process in the beginning.

Actually, the Warwickshire Challenge is nothing like the Legacy Challenge, since it assumes a full neighborhood from the start. The Legacy Challenge assumes a purely democratic equal start for the founder created--there are no structural obstacles to the building of the legacy, just the player's patience and ingenuity in completing the tasks set before them, which work like a basic checklist: have a portrait of your founder painted, stay in the same house, etc, etc. The goal of the Warwickshire Challenge is radically different, since it requires you to struggle from the beginning. Because it starts from a full nh at the beginning, your challenge families have to work up through an existing system, and have to struggle against a system that is already in place and does not generally work in their favor. The Legacy Challenge opens from a different premise--that your founder will build a legacy which you will record over ten generations. As I am sure you are already aware of them, I won't belabor the details, but suffice it say the Legacy Challenge does not require your founder to progress up through a series of hierarchical classes, nor does it entail random scenarios built from behaviors & outcomes. Warwickshire is a storytelling game--it does something entirely different than the Legacy Challenge. Both are interesting and worthwhile games, but are entirely different in starting premise, purpose, and overall feel/texture of play. To say that they are similar is to miss the point of Warwickshire entirely.

Wow. Can I say that the Warwickshire challenge is a lengthened, extensive, and rigidly hierarchal version of the Legacy challenge then? I could see one similarity: that both involve 10 generations.

Also, have my suggestions in the previous post helped you in any way? Maybe give you a little bit of insight?

You did say that you really like my original planning of Warwickshire or something like that, but never really elaborated on the details. I am not sure what is it that you "really like" about it. All I did was imagine myself in Stuart England and created a pretend society. The royal family, as I recall, was losing power, because the king had no male heir. The duke's family quickly wanted to seize the throne by marrying off his son to the princess. Then there are the lower nobles and gentlemen and the merchants and peasants and serfs. The conflict between the duke's family and the royal family at the time was supposed to be the center of the plotline, which was why I indicated that "Hamilton" was well-bred and well-read and et cetera and questioned whether or not this civilisation could support itself indefinitely, especially when there's a rival family who is just gaining power at the expense of the royal family. Perhaps, you were paying more attention to the court case scenario I recommended for my game. Not sure. Hard to tell.

Anonymous10, please keep this discussion on track and be nice to everyone. If you don't enjoy this challenge, just don't participate in it and let everyone else enjoy it.

You can't hide from mods Extensa5420, even with such a clever nickname So please do not return to your previous habits which can lead you to another ban.

Thank you for stopping by.