M3: I'll try to share pics! I honestly have no idea what I'm doing, haha!

Yup, that's pretty much right With a Success of 3 and Intelligence 1, his base points are 3, same as his wife. So that gives them a total of six. Subtract 5 for Gregory's motivation, and add 4 for his wife, leaving the family a total of 5 Resource Points. For a farmer I'd implement that by giving the family only 5 garden squares, but another idea is to keep the 20 plots and only let the family care for the garden a set amount of time each day.

In the past I've only tested the system with a couple of households, never a full neighbourhood, so I am totally open to any suggestions you might have for improvement

So another question. If a royal were to fall in love and marry a noble, SHE would take HER husband's status, right?
Like if Royal A married Lord B, she'd lose her status as queen and become Lady B, right?
What would be the punishment? I looked at the rules, but I'm having a slow moment and I don't see anything regarding it.

There is no punishment, if all is sanctioned and aboveboard. And yes, a princess would become a duchess if she married a duke. But that might be exactly what would be right--there are usually not enough princes to go round for all those princesses

I've decided that I'll put her in the lower end of the gentry.

Huhu^.^

I actually used a lower marriage as punishment for one of the princess' She was actually going to marry her royal cousin but then slept with a member of the gentry. The man's luck was that he was like a brother to the king (princess' half-brother) who didn't like her very much End of story: Princess had to go to convent and marry the gentry member, while her fiance-to-be married her sister

I feel like such a low marriage is - story-wise- punishment enough. Just imagine the humiliation and loss of prestige and comfort

PS: the routation is almost finished And I decided to run my own finishing schools and universities within the neighborhood. Never really liked the university add-on I wrote down which skillpoints they'd need and play accordingly. There was just too much mixup with the ages last time

Edit: I started the next round and came across several interesting situations: First I dislike royal healers, just no fun if there is not the smallest chance of a negative outcome... well, personal opinon.

Then I played a serf family... Wow! First one of my fav (and oldest) sim of the hood died His son (Joseph) lost his wife the same day (stroke loved her too) and he arranged a marriage for his son (Brian). Just after the first child was born Joseph started an affair with Brian's wife Now the son hates his father and wants to divorce his wife, but Joseph wont allow it. Now the girl (Sarina) will spent one season in a convent and Brian the same time in a monastry Maybe the hate between all parties will calm down. The person I feel most sad for is Lizzy, Joseph's mother. She lost her husband, her daughter-in-law, hates her son, her grandson and his wife... All happened within one round and is pretty hard for a family sim

I can't wait to play this family again I think Brian will divorce Sarina even if it'sagainst his father's wishes and thenwill be disowned as heir I am evil

Awesome
I should have my first chapter up sometime today.

OMG How did I miss this post Yvi-Sama? This is too, too amazing. Wow. I love the family drama and your perspective on it. It would be awesome to have a photo essay of this with your comments thrown in. I laughed out loud just reading about it.
On another note, I'm kinda with you on the Royal Physicians. After seeing several documentaries on royal and hereditary diseases, I'm starting to think those royal physicians are a bit too skilled. Mayhap there should be some things they do have trouble with ... and also, some practices that do not ride so easy on their patients (devilish plotting ....), but that will have to wait. I think, however, it would be interesting to add a few "mystery" diseases, i.e. ones we know about now, but that puzzled doctors in the past. In one of the docu's I saw, there has been quite a lot of research into King George's "madness" and now scientists believe he probably had undiagnosed porphyria, and was not insane at all. His doctors just literally drove him crazy with all the stuff they did which did NOT help. Poor guy. Poor docs.

Meginmd, sounds great! Looking forward to seeing your first chapter.

M3: How hard and fast are these rules? For example, thanks to ACR, I now have a storyline I didn't see myself having. When something similar happened in the 16th century, the fallout wasn't bad; just hurt feelings and anger. Can I "use" punishment as I see fit?

There are all sorts of ways to work out what happens ... what do you mean? which rules?

Okay, here is my first chapter :-/

http://wws-royalty23.livejournal.com/549.html

Hey there! ^^ Guess who's back! I know I've been absent for the past 3 months, but now that I've finally got two weeks to myself (well, they're not exactly leisure time, because I still have to study a lot for the partials; guess what XD med-school isn't exatly easy and it's practically eating my life) I really want to play&write some more. I have three or so new chapters already written, but I do have to play and take the pictures.
As for everybody that's new here, I would like to say that it's great that this thread is so active again and ... welcome here! ^^ I can't wait to read your stories.

Lady Scarlet! ......****GLOMPHH*** Hugs! Glad to see you and can't wait to hear more stories!

Meginmd, what a great start to a legacy. Looks like things are set to really start heating up. (where's the devilish grin smilie when you need it??)

Hi everyone, I've been lurking on this thread a while and decided to finally take the plunge and try this challenge.
I'm going to attempt to implement the parts of the challenge a chapter at a time as suggested - however I'm currently just doing all the set-up and rolling for all my starting families. How many households is the minimum amount for each class? In my understanding there should be:
Royal court - Royal household
Each feif - 1x Noble/gentry family, rolled for number of bourgeoisie/commoners.
And is the township size applied to the sub-neighbourhood or each fief? If it's applied to the sub-neighbourhood, how do you distribute the families among each fief?

Is this right? Sorry if it's a dumb question or it's been asked before!

I usually have the Royal Household, 1 Noble/gentry family per fief, 1-6 bourgeoisie (rolled with a d6, so it's never more than 6, but usually 1-3) per Duchy (not per fief!), 5 peasants per Duchy, 5 serfs per Duchy.

In the setting-up part, in part 2, you roll for the type of sub-neighborhoods.

Roll 1, 4: 1 Rural Subnh; 1 Town/Commercial Subnh; 1 Uni Subnh
Roll 2, 5: 1 Rural Subnh; 1 Town/Commercial Subnh; 1 Vacation Subnh
Roll 3, 6: 1 combined Rural/Commercial Subnh; 1 Uni Subnh; 1 Vacation Subnh

For now, don't worry about the Uni and Vacation subnh. You can attach a vacation hood if you roll it that's premade. Changes can always be made later on. I like to play with a university in the main neighborhood, but if you don't, you can add a previously made uni hood and change it later, or build one yourself. Either way, don't worry about size for those two.

For the rest, this is how I interpret them (considering 1 subneighborhood is 1 Duchy):

Rural subneighborhood - no townships at all. Everything is rural.

Town/Commercial subneighborhood - there are no rural areas, so everything must be either an estate (for the nobles/gentry) or live in a township. Since you start with very few bourgoisie, I usually group everyone (except for some serfs that are on the estates) in a township. I roll for which type of township they are, which is the upper limit they can grow to without having to pay to upgrade. Of course, the township must be at least the minimum size to have the peasants + bourgoisie you've created.

The combined rural.commercial hood has at least 1 township + several peasants and/or serfs living in a rural area (as in, not in a township and not on an estate). Once again, I roll for the type of township.

I hope that helped and that I actually answered your questions with that.

This is very very helpful, thank you! So in a rural/commercial combined sub-hood, you would have the fiefs occupied by only the nobles/gentry, the township with the merchant families and the rural with the peasants/serfs?

No, the township would be part of a fief. For instance, in one of my Duchies, I have a village. The village is part of the barony (a fief), and the barony lays within the duchy (the larger fief). The estate of the baronet (whose barony it is), also lies within the barony, but not within the village. The estate of the duke (whose duchy it is) lies within the duchy, but not inside the borders of the barony. The houses dotted around the duchy (in this case, all outside of the barony), which are not part of the village, are rural area.

You can check this page: http://wyckeham.wordpress.com/lay-o...om-of-wyckeham/ for a visual. Under the heading 'Duchy of Penderholms' you can see a picture with the different borders drawn in.

Welcome KitKatcml! It's always such a pleasure to meet new players

Samantha_Kathy--didn't realize you beat me to this--your answer ROCKS! (Below is my two cents, for what it's worth )

The short answer to your question is: go for balance. In the beginning, you'll be happier if you don't have too many families to worry about. I generally add new families as I need them to fill in a gap. No tutors? Make one. Need a tax collector? Get to CAS! It is virtually impossible to make all of the people you'll need in the beginning, so it is better not to try. The outlines for creating characters on p. 5 give you a general idea of how to keep the balance between classes, which is the most important thing to consider, especially in the beginning. The main thing is not to fall into the situation where you have a King and a bunch of peasants, because that just doesn't work very well. And it's no fun. Really. (Been there, hated it.)

So, yea, you figure on needing a Royal Court:
1. this starts with the Royal Family
2. and probably some apartments or other residences for your nobles who will be visiting court ... you might even make a noble family for this subnh, if you want to
3. Now what? The realm is next. Create up three more sub-neighborhoods (see p. 3): for each of these subnh's you will want at least one fief, with a ruling noble (i.e. a county with an earl, or a duchy with a duke). That is, of course, at least one--fiefs can be nested inside each other, so later you can add new fiefs and nobles to make a denser world. That's up to you, but don't go overboard early on, or you'll just overwhelm yourself.
4. Create the Noble family who are the fief-holding lords. Again. You can have more than one fief in a subnh, but keep it simple in the beginning.
5. Create up to three Gentry class families. These are going to be the professionals in your neighborhood, i.e. the teachers, doctors, etc
6. Create up to three merchant families.
7. Then your peasants.
8. And finally your serfs & freemen

Keep in mind that you will want to think about your own play style. If you don't like long rotations, create fewer families. Maybe only one subnh to start with and then add new ones as your realm grows. Right now, I am in the process (still ...) of rebuilding my last Warwickshire nh. This thing is huge, with five subnhs. And lots of families. Lots. It's kinda ridiculous. But I like the grand scale of it all.

Anyone else want to weigh in on this? How many families did you start with? How did you distribute them?

Oh, yes--township sizes are applied only to the towns themselves. Which means simply that a fief can have more than one town in it. A county could have three towns of varying size in it, for example. Or it could be nothing but farmlands, and no towns anywhere. It is entirely up to you how to distribute the families. It should suit the world you are trying to build. Hope this helps! And enjoy setting up your new world--hope you'll share pix with us!

I see, thank you very much for your replies. The visual has made things much more clear.

Thank you for your extremely comprehensive reply. I'm finding the concept a little overwhelming to start with but I'm excited to really get into the depths of the challenge. I am sure there will be more questions and I'll be sure to keep you updated on my progress! I am in awe at how much thought and effort you have put into this challenge.

KitKatcml, you can also take a look at the fiefs on my website here . The maps show borders of fiefs, and you will see towns where they are.

I'm glad you're enjoying the challenge so far Just let us know if you have questions--there are plenty of people here who can help you!

M3: When rolling to see if Child A survives each life stage, anything about a 12 means "I survived", correct?

Well today I have spent about 5 hours (love the Xmas holidays) building my castle, keep and royal family. I'm just starting on my Duchy.

Can I clarify on the lot sizes and estate sizes please?
- For a noble man, the minimum residential lot size is 20. Does this mean a 5x4 lot?
- For each of the fief sizes, how are plot squares calculated? As in a 5x4 lot has 20 plot squares?

Thanks in advance!

Meginmd, are you using 3.0? those age rolls are no longer used ... there is a health system in 3.0. If you are using 2.0, then, yes, I think that sounds right.

KitKatcml, yep--you got it!

In terms of apprenticeships, it was my understanding from that section in the rules that one must be a master of the field to have apprentices (requirement of owning 5 businesses in that field), however in the social class table under middle bourgeoisie it states that you can have 2 apprentices for the first community business owned. Am I misunderstanding or can a craftsman take on an apprentice before holding 5 businesses?