Well it's actually working the opposite for me- I still have all my TS2 games and should I reinstall them there's enough Egyptian type CC to make the game take 30 mins to lead... but it could be so epic. You guys remind me of all the things I love about TS2 quite frequently.


If you wanted to test this (I think TS2 doesn't remove from family funds, but TS3 does? I'm trying to remember but I know I used to test it out a lot when I played Open For Business) You could cheat to summon a sim to your home business lot and wait for them to buy somehting, send them away and them save the game and run over to their house to see if there's a difference.

But I know I tested it out once, and i swear it just ignored that person's funds for the sake of having them buy something. I used to upsell like crazy and the neighbors never seemed to get poorer.



I stopped using it, but I also had it set to change relationships too quickly. I had a problem where I had a lot of eligible sims and I couldn't play them quickly enough, so if I played with aging on even for a few game days they were getting old faster than I was able to get them out of their houses and married... but I had to age them up so their parents could have more before they got too old. The mod allows for so much change I actually haven't gotten around to tweaking it - but the potential there is amazing, I was able to set up a caste system (NRAAS also has a story progression replacement mod), so within the castes I created a likelihood for sims in higher castes to be less faithful and took away the 'cooldown' period for sims to break up or get together, lowered the threshold for relationship status so that new slave sims could be given away and married off, but it backfired in this way.

On the bright side it also created a lot of boyfriend/ fiance relationships that I didn't know were possible. It was just difficult to set up the caste system, as I had to assign a caste to each household and them select individual sims (like the house slaves) to go back to their caste from within it.. well I don't want to bore anyone but might see what I mean. But normal EA story progression was freezing up when I played with aging on, so I had to cheat somewhere until I got my new computer.

And about the extra junk they all buy- I just sell it when i get to that family again to put the money back into their funds. There have been a few happy accidents when they end up with an expensive book that you'd normally have to buy by travelling or something that fits the theme of the hood (like Jimmy Sprocket and the Chalice of Nectar).


--> How are you all handling the 1,000 Simolean requirements for things slaves own and the salary caps? For example, do you use the salary as what they make per day, or per hour?

I've bought a few items that are a BIT over 1,000 for my slaves, relying on the items to depreciate in value before a member of the Emporer's family stops by- but I've been wondering if I shouldn't have criminally employed or evil slave sims go for broke and buy everything.

---> Sorry for all the long posts, but <--- I just found this in wikipedia, may help you all decide what eras you want to play and when.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_history

I'm heartless at killing sims too. If two of my sims fight, the loser dies, no matter what. Except the one time i killed the winner. But only b/c I needed sims of the losers gender, and because the winner attacked due to low aspiration and had impossible for me to fill wants. But otherwise, I kill the loser. Even if it's little Enb Boretti, who would have been the heir to the Boretti Lot (and gotten to take over next round) had he survived childhood. Now his brother Morv is heir (and has two rounds until his takeover), but only if he can survive teen camp. But even if he doesn't he still has three younger brothers. I have an unwritten rule that if a boy is the last boy in his family, he's immune to death-by-fight. But if he has a younger brother, he's fair game. ~VP

I think I've pleaded for maybe two sims who I've killed because of fights and I cheated to resurrect one boy (I killed the wrong kid so I had to bring him back and kill his brother). The first I pleaded for started crying when grimmy showed up and I took that to mean she tried not to kill the other sim and let her plead, the other was this round in the slave fights. The whole emperor's family ran down to the cript to cry over the loser so I decided they'd try to get him some medical help at the very least and he died. I don't see the point in pleading when my sims fight because they'll just fight again but if anything happens to the Moran children I'm throwing my rules about pleading out the window to make sure at least one survives. I'm a little nicer when it comes to realistic sickness but they still need to make it to grimmy and start crying before I'll let them plead.

I don't have a problem letting my sims die when they fight, refuse to eat, can't leave the cockroaches alone or eat spoiled food. But with ROS I have to impose something on them which they don't have an influence on and then I always feel sorry and try to make it as easy as possible for them. XD And then they survive. But I really start getting a lot of sims and with my own sanity at stake I'm pretty sure I'll manage to be more strict.

Just finished building the slave/plebian home. I will be changing it to apartments soon and adding Inge's hack so the plebian could get the rent money.
Building all these lots makes me want to just jump straight ahead to the Roman era, I have so many ideas and have been writing them down in my notebook lately. Is there a better way to speed up my generations as fast as possible? Here is the lot from the neighborhood view:


Plebian home(I like to decorate later)


Public Bath/Shower(for slaves of course)


Slave houses wth crops(you can see the crops i done.. i kind of overdone it but oh well, and also the apartment doors)


I am not great at building but been looking at home plans for ancient roman times and slowly learning about the different rooms and I have to say I am impressed by how much I could do

There is so much awesome here... LOVE the lot that's going to become apartments! Looks like a little mini village!

I have Apartment Life installed so I had a few witches show up once the Sims could go to community lots. They can make potions. I can't wait to see if your couple actually marry and if as outcasts they actually end up with beautiful children.

Ah, okay, thanks! Unfortunately, I do not have Apartment Life. x/
... ... ...My heart has broken; it broke weeks ago and has not yet healed. The couple did fall in love, but the very next day, the girl was murdered by the boy's sister. T~T A few days later, the boy then killed his sister. Waahhh, it was so sad! I get a heartache every time I reread the chapter/blog post that I wrote about that incident! xD;;

Love the lots, youcrAzy! Makes me excited to start building ancient Greece. If you're using apartments, how are you planning to handle neighbors?

One of my sims, Zuri, had a genie lamp delivered to her today! I decided to let her go for it with the wishes, deciding that the genie could be their god. However, I'm wondering whether to allow resurrection wishes? Her departed husband got into a fight after witnessing her cheat, and would likely immediately fight again, so that's out of the question, but, well, she had a twin sister who died when they were teens. I imagine she'd want to see her sister again! Normally I'd say hell no, but my population is looking pretty low with all my hood's fights and drama, so I'm tempted! If I'm going to resurrect someone though, a male might be more useful demographic-wise. I just don't know!

What do you guys think? Resurrection: yay or nay?

I love the lot youcrAzy, how are you going to deal with those pesky townies moving into the extra apartments?

Palhoncho, I tend to let my sims plead but only under specific circumstances. They have two days, must have the lamp on the lot and must roll a want to ressurect the dead sim and also to make a wish. In my hood I probably wouldn't ressurect her twin sister but if you feel that's what she would do then go for it.

I have empty templates installed in my hood so hopefully they don't move in, however if i have installed a no townie mod just in case.

There's also a mod that prevents that empty apartments are occupied by townies: http://modthesims.info/d/511564 I haven't tried it out though, as I don't really play with apartments.

Let us know what works! I'd love to use apartments, but I have empty templates and noregen mods in place, yet the game always insists on generating apartment residents for me. It's a nightmare!
Edit: That looks like something my game could use, TheFlyingRaccoon! Thanks :D

That would be awesome, *installs* I play so many small, isolated hoods that that is bound to be useful!

Speaking of apartments I'm toying with redoing my Vassal & Serf apartments as well as the houses for my Lords. It's for a silly reason really but I want a clear class division between houses and I'm not finding that my Lords' houses looks any better than the vassal's. This will probably mean rebuilding my apartments on slightly larger lots so there will be space for more one story dwellings.

Isn't it amazing how attached you can get to a Sims character? I know there were quite a few times when I was tempted to cheat when I had to send a favorite Roman to the amphitheatre to die. But it does make the game very interesting, doesn't it.

I've been active on the blog the last days, but now I'm taking another break for at least a week.

I'm feeling a bit sick of the Roman Era, it seems like I'm playing the same thing over and over again right now. I really want the Dark Ages to begin so I can get some change. After I finish this round (not even close right now, but anyway), I estimate that I have 3 more rounds to play, maybe a 4th shorter one. It's not much at all, but I have more than 20 households now so every round takes its time, haha.

It also feels like my boredom with this Era is showing in the blog, which is why I've decided to change the writing style in the next Era to avoid the same happening at the end (I expect to be just as sick of the Dark Ages when it's close to finishing!). I've already planned to separate the households into ~7 countries, and I think I'm switching to making one big update for each kingdom instead of several small for each family.

Does anyone feel the same about the Era they're in and have some tip for how to keep the interest and not get bored? I try to mix playing with building for the next Era, but it kind of just makes me more eager to finally finish, haha. Maybe that's a good thing though...

On a brighter note, my neighborhood officially has more than 100 living sims in it. I can't believe how big it's gotten from those 10 starting sims! :lovestruc

abcbok, I have that same problem! I'm so, so, so sick of looking at these stupid caveman huts! I find I don't even care when my sims die, I'm just like "cool, one less household to play." I was doing the mixing of building and playing, too, but it's just made me really eager to get started with Greece. Maybe I'll try doing shorter blog posts to save time? Mostly pictures, rather than any story? I dunno!

I've thought about shortening my time in each era to keep my interest longer. Maybe only 2-3 generations in each one? Any more than 3 sounds like torture to me, haha.

I don't know about other eras yet, but I've been going through Prehistory introducing new rules/changing them every round (which last a season each), with big changes every generation to avoid getting bored.


For example, in the beginning, sims have no clothes (I use fig leaves for everyone so I won't traumatize myself or whoever might look at the game over my shoulder, though), no shelter, no fire and only harvestables as a source of food (I use those from PlumBob Keep, they're really useful). They're protosims, really, and they must evolve through Prehistory.

To make some of the changes occur more naturally, I've been using what I call Discoveries: before a family can start using this or this technology, they must have done this or that.

Examples (a lot of the Discoveries are centered around Occults because I love playing those and in my mind, they sort of represent exceptionnal people):

-To discover fishing, an adult sim must be a werewolf (either by getting changed into one or as a teen werewolf growing up). After that a pond and pool may be added to the family lot (pond for fishing and pool because they learned to swim along the way)

-To discover agriculture, an adult sim must be a plantsim. After that the family may start gardening (one fruit tree by family is allowed beforehand to allow for a chance of a sim becoming a plantsim).

-To discover fire (and thus ovens and lighting), a sim must be abducted by aliens (I roll a dice (D20) for each sim every night). There's no link between fire and aliens, I know, but that's my way of laughing at those idiots who believe aliens must have built the pyramids because clearly humanity is too stupid to have done so by itself.

-To discover caves (i. e. building rooms), a sim must be a vampire. Because then they would have a very good incentive to go exploring those dark damp places, wouldn't they?

-To discover hunting, a sim must befriend a wolf and get it to move in. (To hunt, I use a system similar to something I read here some time ago, with the hunters going on a walk and then digging for treasure if the hunt turns out to have been successful)

-It takes a witch to show a clan how to use Aspirations points, rewards, etc.

-Once a family knows either agriculture or hunting, they get a sewing machine, and once someone reaches a gold badge that clan can start wearing clothes.

I am currently about two rounds away from Gen02 and each of my five clans have made a Discovery. One knows hunting, three know fire and one knows fishing (thanks to a genie wish that didn't go quite as expected). It makes playing each family a different experience and it's really fun because you never know what they might discover next, and it feels like they're writing an History (well, Prehistory at this point) of their own rather than just mimicking ours.

That's still far away for me, but I'm wondering if everyone will have made all discoveries by the time they reach Antiquity. If not, should I keep the restrictions left, or just say everything has been discovered and be done with it?

Just picture a Patrician family who doesn't know how to build anything, or an Emperor without clothes...
Okay, now I'm definitely keeping whatever restrictions they will have left

@palhoncho I've already shortened all my Eras to two generations, haha. With the amount of households this challenge makes, attempting any more would just be madness to me

I guess I just have to suck it up and enjoy it while it lasts - who knows, maybe the Dark Ages will make me miss the good old Roman days!

@Eldonyx I love the originality! Sounds like at least you won't get bored with the Neanderthal Era, haha.

I too am keeping all eras to 2 generations so I'm nearly done with the roman age. I'm stilll getting a little bored of it tbh I normally play a round fairly quickly (well once I get through the upper classes) and take awhile to start the next round. I think it's something to do with how similar all the households of a particular rank are. It's not so bad with my plebians because I have the one plantsim household, the one household I'm desperately trying to keep alive and the one household that lives in an apartment and has no shop but all the slaves and patricians are so similar to play. That's why I'm thinking of giving each household/region a different income source. Like my vikings will probably hunt or steal food mostly, the vassal & serfs of one lord will fish, another will farm and the last will keep animals or something, hopefully that will add some variety. Once I get serfs not living with the vassal they'll probably take a trade rather than farming or fishing or whatever for income to keep things varied.

@Eldonyx I love how you're using supernatural sims to unlock things. How will you be getting plantsims without a garden though? Perhaps when a sim marries into another group they have a chance of passing on the discoveries of their clan. Say if Fern from Clan A (who know fishing and fire) marries Ash from clan B (who know hunting) she might have a 50% chance of passing on each of her familie's discoveries and pass on how to make fire.

I love the ideas everyone has~!



Welcome to the challenge! Love the idea of different environments- how are you going to manage some snowy and some tropical families etc?


As for me;
The starter lots I began with were 20 x 30 with a pond (and a fish spawner in each pond), a large back yard for crops/ gardening. The house was a rectangle with one bathroom and one community room, and I built a small basement with beds. In neanderthal it was pretty much fishing and farming, but by Gen three I let them into a community garden lot where I planted rare seeds and let them make nectar, and two other community lots opened up; the grocery store (this is a rabbithole in ts3) that I built a fire pit for socializing, and a beach for pick nicks with salt water fish and gemstone spawners. That helped them find mates too by going out a bit.

Into Roman I used family status to change houses and names. Families that did better with fishing minimized their gardens, families that had very successful gardens might eliminate their pond all together. In families where the progenitor was well loved they built a shrine to them (and often got more haunted) etc, where everyone else used the community grave.

Also, anyone who isn't an heir gets to be named by the region of the world their family represents instead of greek names. Heirs are named greek-roman in the hopes that they have a better chance in society. The site 'Behind the name' is great for picking meanings.
In Gen 5 of Roman I've also started introducing a few Christian names to reflect trade routes and expansions.

@abcbok Thank you, I love what you do with your own ToT - I've been reading it religiously almost since you started and it inspires me when I'm out of motivation for my sims.

@lbsgirl24 About plantsims: actually, all sims who are born in my neighbourhood have about 1/20 chances of being born an occult (I have Astiees sparkling skins geneticised among my normal skins and whoever gets born with one of those is automatically an occult), and I roll a dice to know what type - so there's always a chance of someone being born a plantsim. Besides, even before agriculture is discovered, every household has one fruit tree so accidental plantsimisation is possible.

@PlatinumPlumbbob Sounds like you're elaborating something quite intricate for your sims
I'm curious about your criteria for discovering writing - I've thought about it myself, but I havn't come up with something that made sense yet.