So, I visited Warwick Castle today. It was overly hot, full of screaming children, the food was rubbish and there were huge queues for everything. But it has inspired me to have another go at setting up a medieval neighbourhood! :-) I prefer to play with the premade sims, so my current plan is to use Pleasantview, Veronaville and Widespot, with a few other households added.

So, my question is this - simplifying things greatly, in historical times people belonged to a specific class and had a specific role in society. People could be part of the nobility, they could be merchants, peasants, part of the Church. What ideas do people have for where different premade sims/households would fit into a medieval society?

For example, the Goths are going to be my royal family. King Mortimer rules SimNation, with support from his wife, Queen Bella. They hope to marry their only daughter, Princess Cassandra, off to someone more suitable than Dr Donald Lothario (though Bella does have a bit of a soft spot for him). And, though he is still young, Crown Prince Alexander will become king one day.

I have decided on a few noble households - I will change the Capps to a patriarchal family, so I will have Duke Consort Capp, Duke Patrizio Monty and Baron Hamilton Beech as my nobles. Oh, and Countess Dina Bachelor, childless widow of Earl Michael Bachelor, the late brother of the Queen.

Each noble household will have one or more knights (who also have spouses/families) - Sir Cornwall Dane and Sir Albany Norman serve Duke Consort, Sir John Burb and Sir Cord Wood serve Duke Patrizio and Sir Valentine Hart serves Baron Hamilton. Sir Daniel Pleasant is the protector/champion of Countess Dina.

There are a few merchants - Darren Dreamer, Chester Gieke, Malcolm Landgraab IV, Rich Mann and Trent Traveller, each of whom specialises in certain products.

And then there are the peasants! So far I have the Brokes, the Gavigans, Gordon King, the Lands, Kaylynn Langerak, the Larsons and the Wilkies, but I need more!

Does anyone have any suggestions for suitable peasant families (they can be any premade sims, from any 'hood)? Who would/do you have as nobles/knights/merchants/peasants etc? How would/have you set up your medieval 'hood using premade sims? I would love to hear everyone's ideas! :-)

I have not attempted any medieval Sims2; not sure if I will.
but other members have; might try the search function at this site/forum.

How about all those bin families? You can use those as peasants since they're all just hanging around.

I love your ideas. I haven't anything to add. You will have loads of fun downloading heaps of CC!

Funny, I was thinking of doing something similar in Veronaville. I was going to set up a four class system: farmers/fishers, service sims, merchants, and landowners. The Capps would be matriarchal landowners. I think that fits with their history because they seem to have a bunch of money and a grand estate without actually doing anything, since Consort Capp didn't earn a lump sum and is only a CEO. The Montys, on the other hand were going to be my patriarchal merchants since I remember them having a history of loving cooking and going into the restaurant business. They'll start with a tavern/bar and move on from there. With Antonio being a chef, they seem like the type of family to get everyone involved in the family businesses. And as AliaD85 suggested, I was going to split the bin families into my two lowest classes the farmers and service sims (which is actually the lowest class. They can work for other sims in player run businesses but mostly they'll be responsible for the cleaning, gardening, and repairing).

The Ottomas seem like a good peasant family to me. There's a lot of sims to help run a family farm (something I did in my bacc test hood). Newsons would be good for that too. The Summerdreams would be perfect for any artisan career you're planning (for me, I think I'd use them to introduce supernaturals to the hood, particularly witches. All my supernaturals have a different set of rules ). Puck, though, would probably make a good knight. Leod McGreggor is already a farmer, so you could make him a peasant and the Roths would make a great rival for the Goths. Perhaps distant relatives, also nobles, vying for the throne? Olive Specter or Ophelia could be merchants--both strike me as sims who'd run an occult shop but you could make them more religious considering their graveyard home. Perhaps they live in a convent and care for the town graveyard? Picasos and Grunts could be knights, considering their military background and the Travellers could be merchants considering their name. As for Bluewater, Florence could be a farmer or marry into another family. Jacquets and Ramirez could be merchants since they actually own businesses and the Tinkers could be a lower class, but I'd want to make them blacksmiths or something. Not sure what rank that'd fall into. And Malcolm Landgraab would be a perfect entitled noble--he could even marry Cassandra. It'd be a great way to bring extra wealth to the crown and you'd have money to set up a lot of philanthropic services for your hood. You're right about Don, though; I don't think he's all that suitable for Cassandra (I almost always break them up), especially if she's the royal heir. I don't know if I buy him as a doctor, either. He seems more like the type to run an underground brothel, but, eh, that's my headcanon.

So those are my ideas, hope that helps. But before I finish, I must plead on Dustin Broke's behalf for you to consider a knight/military program that underprivileged sims could do. Sims from poorer families could give kids away to the crown or other noble families to become servants or knights (perhaps as a way to settle debt or pay off taxes or maybe just as an apprenticeship) and, after a lengthy period of service, the kid is allowed to move up a class or are knighted because they serve the crown, etc. Dustin is an extremely industrious sim; he just needs a little direction. He'd make somebody a great page/squire. (Perhaps Daniel? There is that star-crossed romance between him and Angela after all. The pair would have to keep their relationship secret, not to mention that Dustin's duties and Angela's family pressure to marry well would cause stress on the relationship, to the point where Angela would have to decide whether she should wait for Dustin to finish his training and save up money so they can get married or dump him.) Anyway Dustin's my favorite premade so had to try and convince you not to leave him squalor.

A idea in a Uber Megahood that I had was had make each neighborhood a duchy and have the nobles be as follows: The Royal Goth family for Pleasantview,The Grunt family for Strangetown, The Capp family for the west of Veronaville and the Monty family for the East Veronaville,The Roth family for Riverblossom Hills,The Aspir family for Desiderata Valley,The DeBateau family for Belladonna Cove and Malcolm Landgraab for Bluewater Village. In Downtown I guess you could either ressurt the Tricou family or elevate one of the six teens to noble status.

There are some default careers over at PBK that would greatly enhance the idea: Careers and there are a few here as well:Medieval Careers

They have between the two of them, more than enough careers defaulted to please any Medieval town..

Let's go through the family bin:
Ottomai, probably peasants, though since Peter, Samantha, and Dora all have professions you could make a case for them being artisans or merchants.
Ramaswamis would make good minor nobility.
Newsons - The obvious thing is for them to be beggars or peasants, but they actually start with a fair amount of money. What if the late Gloria was a noble, and her adopted children are now Wards of the King?
Goodies - Artisans or merchant class, I think. If they're nobility, the fact that they haven't produced an heir may be a problem.
Cyd Roseland would make a good monk. Julian Cooke can be one, too, and they can have a monastery that specializes in helping benighted travelers. Julian provides meals and Cyd trains rescue dogs!

You don't mention what you plan for the Weisses. I'm sure you have a plan, though, because I know how fond you are of Skye. Whatever else he is, he's a scholar. Perhaps he's the Royal Tutor?

I actually had an idea for a Medieval mega hood (Pleasantview, Strangetown, Bluewater Village) ages ago, but it failed because of the amounts of CC it would need and the fact that the game took too long to load with all that Medieval CC.

It was even a quite elaborate plan that involved some backstory. It would have taken Pleasantview and Bluewater Village as one kingdom and Strangetown as the other. Just before the game starts there would have been a magical war between witches and elves(Aliens) that would have devastated the kingdom based on Strangetown (turned it into a desert) and would have been responsible for the disappearance of the Sorcerer-Queen Bella.

The Goths would have been the royal family of Pleasantview/Bluewater with King Mortimer, Princess Cassandra and Prince Alexander (the dauphin). The Ladies Caliente (Nina and Dina) would have lived at the royal court, Dina as Mortimer's betrothed and Nina as Cassandra's lady-in-waiting. Same with Mary-Sue (Maria-Susanna) Pleasant who would have tried to use her influence over the Princess to gather political power. Don Lothario would also have lived at court as Alexander's tutor, still trying to woo Cassandra.

Then there would have been several Ducal families:

The Pleasants under Duke Daniel. Since the Duchess lives at court, he would have been largely left alone to pursue Kaylynn Langerak, the tutor of his daughters, the Ladies Angela and Lillith. Daniel would have been responsible for the death of the last duke, Skipp Broke and had ursuped the title. In accordance with that, Duke Broke's sons, Dustin and Beau would have lived in his household as hostages.

Duke Darren Dreamer would be one of Princess Cassandra's suitors, the Tinkers would have lived at his court as his castellans.

Duke Malcolm Landgraab IV would have been another suitor of Cassandra, his household would have consisted of two knights (Sir Jason Larson and Sir Gilbert Jaquet), a wizard (Chester the Red[Gieke]) as well as two ladies in relation to the knights; Sir Jason's sister, the Lady Jodie and Sir Gilbert's elderly mother, Lady Denise). There would have been some ancient feud between the houses Goth and Landgraab, with the Lnadgraabs conspiring to take the throne for generations.

and some lesser noble families:

Lord Herb and Lady Coral Oldie would have lived in a remote castle and would have been given Duke Skipp's widow, Lady Brandie, as a servant.

Lord John and Lady Jennifer Broke, together with their daughter Lady Lucy would have just returned from a long expedition into unknown lands and would have been given a piece of land devastated in the magic war in order to restore it to its former glory. There would have been bad blood between Duke Daniel and Lord John, because the Duke thought that his sister had married blow her station.

The Ramirez family would have been Lords of a rich, trading city with Florence Delarosa living in their household as Eliza's lady-in-waiting.

The Kingdom of Strangetown, meanwhile, would have been a place devastated by wild magic.

The Ruling Queen of Strangetown would have been Jenny Smith with an enchanted woodland palace, created by her Elf husband (PT) where'd they live with their children Prince Johnny and Princess Jill as well as Jenny's handmaidens; Lady Erin Beaker, Lady Kirsten Loste and the King's illegitimate daughters (and the Queen's half-sisters) the Ladies Lola and Chloe Curious. Also at the court would have been a mysterious highborn lady in a red dress, without any memories.

Buzz Grunt would have been a knight who had been sent by King Mortimer to survey the damage the magic war had dealt to Strange Town and had found himself trapped in the enchanted/cursed desert. His court would have consisted of himself, his sons and another knight, Sir Ajay Loner.

And the other three families (the Curious Brothers, the Beakers, and Olive Specter) would have been wizards/witches that had come to Strangetown to investigate the wild magic in the area.



I had also sorted the families into some (ASoiaF/Game of Thrones inspired) "cultures", separated by dress style and architecture.

The Goths and Oldies (and technically the Newbies) would have been "First Men" with a very austere and dark sense of style. Very serious, melancholic and somewhat behind the times.
The Pleasants, Brokes, Burbs, Landgraabs, Larsons, Giekes and Jaquets would have been "Andals" with a more ornate and romantic sense of style. Very artistic and welcoming, but also ruthless.
The Dreamers and Tinkers would have been "Sea People" and vaguely Greco-Roman. Freedom loving, inventive and avid traders/explorers.
The Calientes, Lotharios Delarosas and Ramirez (and technically Bella's family, the Bachelors) would have been "Rhoynar" with very colourful and revealing style. They would have treated women as full equals and have strong connection to magic.

The People of Strangetown would be so fragmented that each noble family/wizard circle would have their individual culture.

It would have been fun, but I couldn't sit through like 15 minutes of loading screen...>_>

I have all townies and bin sims in my medieval game, I used the bin sims as peasant farmers.

Veronaville would be a good choice of neighbourhood, because of all the old tudor style houses.

I think you may have that the wrong way round, at least according to the Maxis canon. The description for Veronaville Market says that it's where Eastside Veronaville Sims do their grocery shopping. The Market is right in the heart of Capp territory; Chorus Court, the road that leads to the Market, starts just across the road from Capp Manor. I know that part of Veronaville very well because my friend Andrew Jones lives with his mum Gloria in the little house at the end of the road, opposite to the Market (19 Chorus Court). Andrew is studying the Market for a school history project. He understands that, though the present building dates largely from the 16th century, there has been a market on the site since the early middle ages, and some parts of the present structure pre-date the 16th century. He would appreciate any available details about the history of the Market.

Our thoroughly modern Veronaville is a democratically controlled, constitutional Grand Duchy, ruled not by a Grand Duke, but by a Grand Duchess. This hereditary title is belongs to the head of the Capp family, who, due to the family's rule of matrilineal succession, is nearly always female. The current Grand Duchess is none other than Juliette Capp, with Consort only acting for her only until she reaches her maturity.

hmm i'll list some random families:
singles-ladies in waiting to queen circe loki;erin is only there as she wants a modest lifestyle and has no need for castle life
-daniel pleasant will be a knight to king mortimer and his wife and daughters will be ladies in waiting to princess cassandra
-after skips death the brokes are the lowest of the low in class
-the summerdreams are lords and ladies which means it is suitable for their kids to marry the capps
-i cannot think of anymore