Cool pic Wups! I hope it does well in the Contest. I'd love to hear some of your stories; sounds like you've got a really interesting take on Warwickshire. Thanks for sharing!

That sounds pretty neat! I would expect lots of strife coming that that kind of situation. If you do it, keep us updated!

@Wups, neat picture! Very spooky

And hello everyone again. My story is starting to get interesting (finally). And I think I finally took a nice picture for my avatar. It's from my latest chapter Poor Tamora though... She's not so pleased with it.

I also like the whole "two countries" idea. Speaking of which, I'm hoping for a TS4 version, even though I don't think that's going to happen...

Hi there,

I'm still in the same rotation as before, but I'm getting closer to the end

There is a small question regarding the point system (which I started as of this round):
- If a sim dies, does the family keep hie/her rfp + cfp or do I need to subtract them?
- How often is "close relationship to children" useable? Once per child, every life-stage?
--> if the relationship changes, do I have to remove the points given?
- How about step-parents and step-children, do they count the same way as adopted children in this regard?

Hi Yvi-Sama

When a sim dies, the rfp/cfp may be transferred to an heir(ess). For myself, I generally only count the close relationships points once, but I think you could do that once per season or life-stage, as long as you're consistent. No--there is no need to go back and subtract points if the relationship changes unless you want to. I think it would be fine to count step-parents if the children live with them and that is the family arrangement, yes.

I just discovered this challenge, and am excited to get started on plotting it out. So far, I have randomly generated the demographics and family members of the neighborhood. However, I am worried about continuing until I'm sure I did it right. Is it okay with you if I either post them to this thread, or PM you the list, and you can let me know if they look right?

I also have a question which I'm sure has been asked somewhere, but for an infant generated in a starting family, should I create them as a toddler and then age them down, or is there a better way to do this?

Thanks for creating such an intriguing and detailed challenge!

EDIT: Sorry, thought of one more question! For starting Sims' Total Health Score, do I need to go down the entire table, or is there a formula you'd suggest for just rolling to get the Sim's current THS?

Oh, someone new, great! :-D

Yes, the challenge is huge and to be honest: I still don't use all the rules. I started with the basics and add a couple of things every round. It makes the rule-set less overwelming and I can concentrate on them and really "know" them before moving on.

As to the families: I played every family before starting the challenge. Some were from a different challenge, others generated for Warwickshire. If you generate every family and start playing, you get pretty much the same scenario in each household (first everyone has babies, than school-kids and everyone needs a spouse at the same time) That's why I played even the new families for a random number of days (rolled a D20 for each). Now I arrange marriages more evenly and don't have huge baby-booms and no-baby-rounds at all.

But that's just how I play.

baba,
Yvi-sama

PS: I calculated each sim as if he/she had been born in-game. The only difference is that I rerolled if (for example) an adult would have died as a child.

I love the idea of playing each for D20 rounds before starting normal rotation to get some varation. I will definitely be doing that.

My King is a toddler at the moment, it turns out! His Uncle is his regent, so it'll be interesting to see if the Uncle ends up being loyal to the king or not. Considering he was the old king's younger brother, and therefore would be crowed King (with his son as heir) were an "unfortunate accident" to happen before the King reaches the age of majority, it could go either way. It will just depend on what kind of person he ends up being. I've also rolled up two noble families (a Duchy and a Barony), three merchant families, three peasant families and two serf families so far. I think that will give a nice variety without being overwhelming to start out with.

I think for THS I am actually just going to start everybody at 85. So the population will start out very healthy, but any born in-game sims will be done normally, and everybody will roll as normal when they age up. And I will not be starting with disease. I want to give them all a bit of time before they start dying off, to build the neighborhood and population.

But before any of that, I have lots of building to do. Time to get to work, I guess!

Hello and Welcome Fizzwizz! I am glad to see you are getting acquainted with Warwickshire. I think Yvi-Sama has the right idea--working your way into the challenge slowly generally works best. It sounds like you've got a great start here so far. As to rolling for infants, I generally just have them born in game after creating the rest of the family in CAS. You can do this with or without cheats, whatever you prefer. As to THS: this past time when I restarted the challenge, I began in the year 1580, twenty years before the official "start" date. That gave me a window of time to play without consequences for health and other issues--these "starter" families were given time to produce the next generation and give a healthy base to the neighborhood. I don't see killing sims from the start because there has to be a good base population to work from. I think disease is mainly useful for a population control mechanism--maybe bring it in around the third or fourth generation, unless you just want to be brutal from the start. :-)

No big updates on 3.0 to give--this semester has been crushing. However, it is still in the works.

EDIT: Just in time for Thanksgiving break! A very shiny, much more complete version of 3.0--this one is 3.3.4, but you may call it Teaser 2.0 for short Teaser 2.0 is quite a bit more finished than the original teaser version. Enjoy!

Ohhh, new teaser! That's great :D

I've finally been working on Wyckeham again. The Royal Court was already finished, but now I've managed to finish one of the two duchies as well. As it stands, Wyckeham now looks like this:

Duchy of Gyfford, which consists of the Royal Court and the Monastery of the Grey Sisters. There's no real income from this Duchy, so the title is mostly ceremonial.

Duchy of Penderholms, which consists of the Duke of Penderholms' estate, some rural lands, and the Barony of Epstein. The Barony consists of the Baron of Epstein's estate and the village of Tidling.

Still to come is the final Duchy of Wyckeham, namely the Duchy of Whitecomb. Whitecomb will consist of the Duke's estate, a university town with monastery, and a Baronetcy (which is just rural lands and the Baronet's estate).

So, the Duchy cost me three evenings to make and I expect the next Duchy to have a little more to it, so, call it five nights. So..I should be able to play before the end of the year.

I LOVE the new content!

The chart showing the educational possibilities was great ( though I wouldn't know you'd possibly need it )

The moral + ethnical section combined with the aspiration: pure brillliance!

Can't read all of the new stuff right now (soo tired ) but really like what I've seen so far. The only thing I don't look forward to is creating new character sheets for ALL my sims...

The new teaser is brilliant! I love how you took the time to tend after the storytellers amongst us and of course the fact you manage to put sublime detail in every update you post. Needless to say I have a lot of work to do on my neighborhood this winter, can't wait to start writing the stories of my neighborhood down in a blog.

Love the new teaser! Absolutely adore the new sections on ethical alignment and how it all plays together with aspiration. I'm also very glad I'm not actually playing the challenge yet, since for me it's a matter of just adding ethical alignment to each of the characters I've already created (some will get random ones, other who already have a storyline will get a handpicked one). And the flowchart for education is awesome!

On that note, I'm in the process of adding the characters that inhabit the duchy I just finished to the site, as well as the duchy itself in Lay of the Land. I'll report here when I get that done.

Also, there's one question I'm still trying to wrap my head around. I asked something similar a while back, but that had to do with cloister positions (which depended on education and clerical favor points). Now I'm trying to wrap my head around a different aspect of cloistered life. You can actually get elevated in rank when climbing the 'career' ladder, as far as I understand. But what happens when a sim decides to leave the cloister? Do they keep their new rank?
To give a concrete example: when entering the cloister, peasants and serfs are elevated to rank 3. I've got a novice, Grace Smith, who's from a poor peasant family. Now that she has entered the cloister, she's elevated to rank 3 from her previous rank 2. Now, should she decide to leave the cloister, would she still have rank 3, or would she go back to having rank 2?

I'm halfway to the copy shop with the new Game-sheets and the teaser What will this tiny shop do if I ever stop playing?!

Aaaaaanyway, I will try to upload my newest creations. Some said they were interested in them a "little while" ago.

(Just ignore the numbers behind the sheets' names, that are just the quantity I want to print each )

I've been worldbuilding, preparing for the challenge. =v=

While reading teaser 3.0, I encountered a perplexing paradox.

This contradicts the new ethical order, in which someone could be a humanitarian virtuous popularity sim or even a RADICAL virtuous popularity sim. Neither humanitarians nor radicals accept their place, both question the hierarchical structure, yet the role of the virtuous popularity sim is to be authoritarian?

So I'm just confused on what to do if someone rolls into being an unorthodox virtuous pop sim.

Well, the way I read that part, an authoritarian virtuous popularity sim would not question their place in the hierarchical structure and believe everything about that structure is defined by Devine providence. The natural order is the right way to do things because it's God's design. Now, the humanitarian virtuous popularity sim still accepts his/her place in the hierarchical structure, but believes that while the origin of the structure is God's design, humans have changed things to suit their own needs. They do not seek to destroy the hierarchical structure, or even change their place in it, but certain unjust (and in their eyes un-Devine) laws should be changed. They work from within the system to affect change. Radical virtuous popularity sims believe that a hierarchical structure is necessary and even good, but the one that's currently in use is rotten to the core. Changing it from within is impossible, so it needs to be broken down completely so a new, correct natural order in which everyone has their rightful place can be build.

So, basically, there's similarities between virtuous popularity sims - they all believe in a natural order in which everyone has their place. But their ethics determine what they think about the current natural order, and if they don't like it what they believe should be done to change it.

But, that's how I read it. I think with the combination of aspiration, alignment and ethics, you get really interesting sims due to how you interpret things. For instance, the radical virtuous popularity sim I described above would probably end up being a terrorist. But you could also say a radical virtuous popularity sim hates the system, but accepts its place in it (doesn't actively seek to change it, you could call it the lazy version of a radical). He'd be the first to cheer on change, but toils away at his work in his place, merely grumbling under his breath and being unhappy. See how that's still the same type of sim, but interpreted differently? That's the fun part of this challenge, plenty of ways to do things within the rules

First, off, let me interject briefly to say--I'm really pleased to see everyone enjoying the new teaser

And now to the important questions ... Samantha_Kathy--you are exactly right in your reading of those passages. The difference absolutely has everything to do with how the person not only views their place within the system, but also what their relationship to that order is--i.e. whether they should seek to change it, or not. A virtuous person could have any of the three ethical alignments--that system works very similarly to the tried and true D&D system, but with its own Warwickshire treatment, to aim at addressing the relationship to the "natural order" rather than to the relationship to a rule of law, i.e. lawful, neutral, chaotic. The distinction is arguably minor, but important in its implications for how you decide to play the game. Humanitarians will seek to effect change from within the system, seeking to use the system to fix itself, just as you say here, while Radicals believe that the system cannot be fixed--and yes, you are so right that the radical virtuous sim would be a terrorist (!)--because they are actually very dangerous in believing that they are not only right, but that they are the only ones who know the truth about what *is* right. So, yes, you nailed this one! The kind of flexibility you're talking about here is absolutely essential to story telling, so I'm really thrilled you see it this way, too.

As to your earlier question above, yes--any sim whose class station rises in a cloister will keep that rise in station when they leave the cloister. So, yes--Grace will still be a level 3 when she leaves the convent. A nice boost, right?

Yvi-Sama--thanks for sharing the character sheets! I know they will be very useful for keeping track of everything.

Yes, a very nice boost. In a related question, women aren't supposed to work outside the home. But I assume they can work as a working class laborer, for instance as a server in a pub, or sell some of their produce if they're a peasant, if there are only women in a household, if they're on their own, or if their (male) children can't yet provide for themselves? Because if Grace decides to leave the convent, she's on her own and will need to make a living somehow. (Also, I've got two women already, one with a home business (selling potions and medicine) and one who makes a living as an artist - both of them live alone, no other relatives).



The new part with the aspiration/alignment/ethics has already slightly changed some storylines I had planned. The new teaser came at at the perfect time, as I'd just populated an entire duchy with people and am now writing their character profiles :D

I had fun reading the part about a self-sufficient economy, especially since I will be playing without any Maxis 'from the sky' involvement. There will be no Maxis jobs. If I have a building that needs building, someone will design it (drafting table) and sell the plans. Someone else will be digging up clay, chopping wood, and even mining for stone (depending on the type of building and which materials are needed) and sell it to a builder. The builder gets paid by whoever wants the building put up. He'll get paid for the supplies and his labor. If there are no buildings put up, no repairs to make - he'll have no work. No work, no pay. Same with doctors, midwives, and other occupations.

Unknowingly, I already planned supply chains before I read that part For instance, I have a peasant (or maybe it's a serf, I forgot) who'll be growing sunflowers (for their "fibers") and tailors will buy those so they can make clothes. The monastery will grow grapes. They'll make alcoholic beverages and sell those to pubs and taverns. A beekeeper will produce honey - a highly priced sweetner that only the rich can pay for - and also beeswax. The beeswax will be bought by the chandlers, who'll make candles from it. If you want light in your home, you'll have to buy candles, that simple. Candles will have a limited life-span. Food is produced by serfs and peasants, who will sell it to a merchant peasant who runs the farmer's market, where it will be sold to the rest of the community. The potions mistress has a home business where she sells medicines. Doctors who want to prescribe those medicines will have to buy them from her - they won't spend their time making them themselves. Some things, like berries, can only be imported. I already have a trader made for that.

And so, I've designed an entire economy. Some things I will have to add later. For instance, I have a crafting station that will allow someone to gather reeds. Then I have the crafting station that will enable someone to weave that reed into furniture. That furniture can then be sold, as well as wooden furniture - "made" from the wood that's chopped and bought - and iron furniture that's "made" by a smith - who bought the iron from a miner...etc. But I'm building things slowly. Currently I've concerned myself with food (vegetables, meat, butter churner, wells for public use (and one pond where water and fish can be gotten by the very poor (and outlaws)), building materials (wood, clay), clothes (tailor and sunflower farmer), light (candlemaker, beekeeper for wax), some entertainment (pubs, with monks growing grapes and making the wine). I have a hospital (run by nuns), with a healer, as well as a potions mistress with her own home business to provide medicines. So the basic supply chains are there. Everything that can't be made within those chains is considered as imported, and thus much more expensive! Once I get going on playing, I'll probably add more things gradually.

Right now, I'm trying to determine what rules to first implement. Health score and how to improve it, basic education (some schools will be set up in-game, as part of the storyline, although the university is there at the start), basic income tax, and adding/subtracting RFP and CFP points due to life events will be implement right from the start. After that...I'm not sure. Idon't want to tackle too many rules at once, because things are quite complex. On the other hand, things are so interconnected, it's hard to take part of the rules and not use all of them. Any suggestions on this?

I really want to do this but this seems so involved and confusing :-/

It's not as confusing as it seems. If you take it step by step, things work out pretty well. Setting up the world - building it, putting in sims, etc. - takes up a lot of time. So if you haven't got an established world set up already, I suggest that you start building yours. Once you have your world, it's a really good idea to implement the rules slowly (say, per chapter, or something), instead of trying to do it all at the same time. There's so much to this challenge, it can get overwhelming if you try to do it all at the same time.

Some helpful tips, that I figured out while getting ready to play this:

• Make your world with the minimum amount of people at the start - too many sims makes it overwhelming.
• Give your sims a random amount of clerical and royal favor points to start with - starting them all off at 0 is not only unrealistic (after all, they're supposed to have been around a while), but also makes it more difficult to play.
• Don't try to build everything at once. For instance, I'm not sweating the school stuff yet. I'll build schools in-game, and until then I'll either have education opportunities limited (which fits my storyline), or if the family is wealthy enough I'd sent their kids to a school in a different kingdom (Maxis school).
• If you're playing and you find you're missing something, then make it (including the sims needed to run it). For instance, if one of your sims gets pregnant and you find out you don't have a midwive, just make one at that time.
• The same thing goes with the rules. I will be using most of the health rules right from the start, due to my storyline. I'm not sweating the courtship/marriage/adultery rules yet. I'm not planning on breaking up families by marrying people off in the first round anyway, so those rules aren't needed yet. I'll look up adultery rules once it becomes necessary (which it will, due to ACR).
• If you're confused about something, just ask here. Everyone knows I do it often enough

Have fun playing! It's worth it, I promise :lovestruc

Huhu,

another question: Regarding the combination of Alignment and Aspiration, when a sims has two aspirations (eg. Neutral Pleasure + Knowledge Sim), does he have two roles ( "The Life of the Party" and "The Scholar") which need to be balanced or does only the first aspiration count?

Baba,
Yvi-sama

I plan on taking a sim's personality by looking at the alignment+ethics+primary aspiration, then augment it with aspects of the personality a sim with the same alignment, ethics, and the secondary aspiration would have. This way, there's a lot of variety in sim personalities. Their secondary aspiration would have some effect on their personality, but their primary aspiration would be, well, primary

As an example, let's say we have a sim called Garreth wiith the following stats: Neutral alignment, Authoritarian ethics, Pleasure primary aspiration and Knowledge secondary aspiration.
Garreth likes indulging when he can (neutral pleasure sim), but in order to indulge you need some money. He could choose the safe path of working on his father’s farm, but he’s always been something of a risk-taker (neutral pleasure sim), so he decides to become a civil servant by pursuing a Royal Appointment (neutral authoritarian). Garreth loves creating order out of chaos (neutral authoritarian) and loves math (neutral knowledge sim), so he studies hard and manages to snag an apprenticeship to the Royal Treasurer with the possibility to succeed his teacher one day. But, Garreth’s always been up for a party (neutral pleasure sim), of which the Royal Court is full. He’s always been a follower (neutral pleasure sim) and quickly falls in with a rather rowdy crowd. As a risk taker (neutral pleasure sim), he likes the somewhat dangerous antics they perform at first. But as their ideas and plans become more radical, Garreth’s belief in the law and order rear their head (neutral authoritarian), and he quickly scuttles back to his studies (neutral knowledge sim). He’s not surprised at all later on when the group he used to hang out with gets arrested for treason after they destroy a trading vessel by way of an explosion in the cargo hold. He’s very glad he’s no longer friends with them and has no problem testifying to their guilt, even following his teacher’s orders to lie and say he heard them make plans when he didn’t (neutral authoritarian). After all, it’s for the best, and will protect innocent lives that could be lost if those responsible get out of their just punishment due to a lack of evidence (neutral authoritarian).

Now, what would have happened if Garreth's primary and secondary aspirations were reversed? Garreth now has the following stats: Neutral alignment, Authoritarian ethics, Knowledge primary aspiration and Pleasure secondary aspiration.
Garreth loves learning, especially mathematics (neutral knowledge sim), but his humble status as a peasant makes it hard. Still, hard work and plenty of perseverance brings him all the way to public boarding school. With that education in his pocket, Garreth applies for a Royal Appointment as a tax collector, hoping to one day be the Treasurer (neutral authoritarian). Garreth loves creating order out of chaos (neutral authoritarian), and starts to tidy up the records of his tax district. He takes the time to study them, for learning something new is always nice (neutral knowledge sim). But, once in a while, Garreth needs to get out and be under the people (neutral pleasure sim). One day, while in the pub, he overhears a conversation between two merchants, one of them is complaining that his business is losing money no matter what he does. He offers to help them check their numbers, for what they are saying could be very serious indeed, as the company is an important and large one, with many people depending on it (neutral knowledge sim, neutral authoritarian). It takes some persuading, but Garreth’s always been good in social situations, so eventually he convinces them to let him look (neutral pleasure sim). Garreth’s forensic accounting uncovers an enormous embezzlement by one of the sons of the owner. Garreth gives the evidence to the owner, who sues his son. But, the son is also betrothed to the daughter of a military man who’s best friends with the Duke. And so, on the day before Garreth is set to testify, the Duke calls him to his manor and orders Garreth to lie in court and so help acquit the embezzler. Garreth is unsure at first, but it is an order…and the Duke even offers him a position as treasurer of the duchy, with a high enough salary he’d be able to do more independent research (neutral knowledge sim). In the end, Garreth decides that with the money returned to the owner, and the embezzler is no longer able to harm the company, there’s really no reason not to follow orders (neutral authoritarian). He lies and gets his dream job.

Of course, in the course of both stories, Garreth makes some decisions that sees a slow slide of his alignment into evil....but that's another story for another day

Ooooo Samantha_Kathy! I love both of these stories. :lovestruc But I think I like the second one more than the first, if possible. It's probably because I'd take my first alignment as knowledge, too. I can't wait to hear more, especially which of these two you decide to play, and also, of course more about that slide into the evil alignment.

meginmd, Welcome! I hope you'll take Samantha_Kathy's suggestions. She's absolutely right: this is a challenge that's best done very slowly over a long time. It lets you build a world and people it with rich characters to write a very textured story line. There is also, of course, a game here to play, but that is one that you need to work into gradually, since it takes time to bring everything together. I have been world building for about a year now, and have been recreating characters from my previous Warwickshire neighborhood. I play with the health tables, the childbirth rules, the education system (but it is still under construction), and also a tax system. I have slowly been working toward using the rules for marriages--but this has to happen after a generation or two when you have established families. I don't use diseases, except when necessary for population control, and I haven't done a great deal yet with the royal appointments, but I want to--I just need to get more things done before I can get what I want to have happen there. I guess what I'm saying is, don't try to do it all at once and you'll find it works out better that way, just like Samantha_Kathy said. Also, always feel free to ask a question--there's a lot of us who're are glad to share what we do, and for more technical questions, I'm glad to clarify--or fix--the challenge as necessary.

I'd love to be able to do a TS4 version of this challenge! Would it be possible for me to try to adapt it to TS4?

PSDuckie, can you pm me regarding your request?