I have not ever played a prehistoric sim but I have played an ice age one. It was as spur of the moment thing no forward planing at all, I know enough about that time to give it a shot. First I changed the weather on a global scale to one season of summer followed by three winters. There was no autumn or spring in the ice age. I used all his money on a large lot and filled it with trees and of course a lake. There were certain things I had to allow to match what was around then. I had to have a fridge so I gave him the one on here that looks like a cave. The one thing those guys had in abundance was the ability to keep things cold and frozen. They cooked using hot stones buried with the food wrapped in mud or leaves (slow cooker) or over a fire; I used a grill as I was stuck on the slow cooker. I had Marvin's shower, wish I'd had the bush toilet. He lived in a hut ( due to lack of ability to build a cave) with a bed that I had to use my imagination with, it may not have been a straw mattress covered with furs, which was probably comfortable and warm, but I did have a couple of throws that had a fur texture which looked ok. The obvious, no job, phone etc. He walked to a community lot (trading post) to meet with other sims or he would have gone nuts. They had to have contact with others for safety and to keep the gene pool fresh so I did take him out a lot.
It was incredibly hard, the water froze for most of the time so he couldn't fish (the only food he could hunt therefore eat) and plants didn't grow, not that he could garden well, they were not farmers, just hunter gatherers but I had to let that slide a little. He did survive, I have no idea how as I couldn't meet his wants of jobs and other things, but he was very fit and after thawing out at least twice, healthy. I have a few more bits that would fit this scenario now so maybe I will give it another try. This thread reminded me that is was fun a well as a real challenge. I wish you luck with your guys.

Freeasabird, somewhere on MTS there is actually a "build your own cave" download *sorry I don't have the link at the moment*.
In regards to the gardening bit, prehistoric/ice age people were gatherers so what I'd do is have a garden plot or two hidden in the wooded part of a lot to symbolize the gathering. Yeah a sim will have to do some work to cultivate the veg but as far as symbolizing the lifestyle it could work.

I like to place some of these harvestable mushrooms somewhere in amongst trees, so my sims can go and gather them there. For me that's more harvesty than growing Seasons crops. The other harvestable crops, by Echo, and the ones on TSR would also work. But I'm a big fan of the mushrooms! :-)

What a great and fun, creative idea. My CC is too spread out and a lot of it uncategorized or unorganized, so I prefer to do sci-fi if I out of period, it's a lot easier. And you can always make one of those silly, pseudo-medieval Star Trek: The Next Generation planets where everybody is nice and quiet but believe in something Clearly Wrong until Captain Picard arrives to enlighten them.

Thank you, I will have to do some searching tomorrow to find it. Yes that is what I did, the poor guy couldn't live on fish alone and they did of course eat wild roots and stuff. Because the summer was so short it made it a bit more realistic because it took ages for him to master the garden. It was fun, I think I may have a neighbourhood dedicated to this that I can swap in and out to keep the download folder under some sort control.
Edit I forgot I have a bee hive that I may be able to recolour for my own use, that can't be cheating.

I can never use any of the harvestable objects for food except for the castaway trees. Sims pick them and the basket always glitches out if they try and put it into the fridge. I thought it was the download itself but maybe it doesn't like something else in my game. I've only ever been able to sell the items. I haven't tried those mushrooms though.

I've not ever tried to store the castaway trees items, in fact I took them out because I wasn't using them. Nor have I tried the mushrooms, although I'd like too. I do use the bee hive from PCsims (I think) and have had no worries either eating or storing the honey. I am wondering perhaps if the fridge you had needed an update? I have only just done all of mine after being away from the game and community for a while and then realising some of mine were not playing the game so to speak.

I tried maxis fridges as well. Thought I would re-download just the basket and try again but it didn't help they still just put the basket down on the bench or ground.Maybe it's clashing with something else.

What I'm doing with wolf tribe is to just buy and slaughter one pig as needed so I get no NPC glitching. It gives them a large raw pig leg which the serve up and eat raw. Kind of ick looking but quire realistic.

The catsaway trees work well and have fun animations, but they don't suit the area the wolf tribe live.

Can I ask what harvestable items you mean? I'd like to give it shot and see if they work with what I have. I do have the simsfarm chickens, cows and pigs. My maxis fridge reverted back to an earlier state (no check food supplies) while having all of these on one particular lot. I had a quick panic and took out some totally unrelated stuff, )read blonde moment) before I gave the animals a thought. I had stored the milk just before the fridge not only lost the option but reverted from a downloaded one to a maxis one? I'm still not sure what caused this but eventually it restored the option and I emptied it and replaced it with the most expensive one and its fine now.
I like the idea of the pigs a lot! They would have hunted wild boar towards the end of that period. I think on the new install I'll try Becks pigs as I have a personal niggle with the others at the moment. I do like the castway trees I just got too lazy to use them.

Enki's and Heimlichbourger's ideas are also really inventive, I hadn't thought to use the magic in that type of lot at all and yet it does sort of fit with what they may have believed, the same goes for wolves, although I have those and strays banned due to lag on the modern hoods. I'm really enjoying reading the ideas and updates here. I had a castaway hermit once (Edward something from Uni). He lived on a huge beach lot with the CW trees in a hut, dug on the beach, swam, played and generally enjoyed himself without any help from me at all. It was the most relaxing lot I had ever played. I did give him a computer for social but hey I had to bend the rules a little. I sealed the lot from burglars by putting water across the whole of the front of the lot, so no-one in or out and a lifetime supply of fish.

@freeasabird , I posted links to all the harvestable items I knew of previously in another thread. I'm lazy so I'll just copy and paste it.


There are actually quite a few other harvestables available , unfortunately as iCad mentioned , most don't work quite the same as the Seasons ones and most are tropical. Echo's are here http://www.modthesims.info/d/124003 , bluetexasbonnie has these http://www.modthesims.info/d/435176 , bienchen83 these http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=162336 , simslice has some (pay) http://www.simslice.com/thesims2/ts2objects.htm or (free) http://paysites.mustbedestroyed.org...nts_and_garden/ , Simaddict99 has some http://www.thesimsresource.com/down...ch/harvestable/ or here http://paysites.mustbedestroyed.org...sr/simaddict99/ fireflies http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=214354 , Gwenke http://sims2artists.com/index.php?t...053.0;topicseen ( also a real cool beehive here) http://sims2artists.com/index.php?topic=3094.0 , XPTL made some , maybe here? http://sims2graveyard.com/ . There is also some extracted castaway stuff at MATY and there was a pretty big set at Insim , but I think that one's gone. Rebecah has harvestable corn here http://www.affinitysims.com/IPB/ind...rvestable-corn/ . That's all that I'm aware of for other harvestables.

Gwenke's linked beehive is an updated version of the old PCSims (Katy76/HopeBayler) one. Beck's newer animals are all at the Affinitysims link. I've seen Beck state that hers aren't compatible with the Sims2Farm ones , I'm not sure if that means not compatible at all , or just in replicating the same animal from both sources ( and sources is used really dubiously as in I'm giving Sims2Farm the stink eye).

Eta , it looks like half those links are redirecting in the 9-10 months since I posted that , sorry.

I've got from the booty a set of 'grummite eggs and melons" that Pandora Sims had-3 different types-they fulfill hunger, and they don't require cooking. No waste, either. I've found them incredibly good for those who don't know how to cook food without burning the cave down! I think they're probably as realistic as you can get for a prehistoric time frame.If I set up a historical hood such as "Cavemen", this is going to be my main food source.

Pictures of said eggs and melons:
Fantasy Set

I don't know which set I found them in, but here's a link anyway:
Pandora Fantasy sets

I think the Wiki has some resources, but I'm also sure they could use updating too.

I have echo's set which is the base for all of them, the harvestable super set off the Booty and all the harvestables off here, But anything that uses echos basket I can't put in the fridge only sell. I'm trying to think back as I'm sure echos stuff worked when I first got it.

Make sure you know to never pull Becks animals from your download file. They make NPC files so they must be kept. If I keep the pigs on the lot I end up with the ugly NPC standing in the middle which creeps me out. I'm going to add to the hunt realism by having my leader take one of the wolves for a walk and yes I picked the pigs to represent wild boars. I like the chickens but they slowed my lot to a crawl and they keep spontaneously combusting.

I haven't had any trouble with my fridges. It's such a pain when content clashes. At some point I'll have to do another 50/50 as i have a few other issues, but I just can't be bothered.

I found that at least the Cro rely too much on their shamaness, so I decided to make access to magic harder in the future. Now the shaman-to-be must die and (hopefully) return (succesfull pleading or probably even the genie lamp) before they can recieve spells. I also run the non-magical teens through coming of age tests with the risk of being exiled for failure, but shamans have more to gain, so the risks they take must be greater, I suppose.

Mine get off easy. Bear Tribe ruler will pass the magic and his mask down to his eldest son on his marriage day, no death or anything needed. I did think of doing it once the boy turned teen but that did seem too easy. I think by the time he is ready to get married the older leader would be wanting the younger one to take over. I decided to stop paper and bill delivery and with Bear Tribe and gardening I decided each badge shows learning so on bronze they will receive the knowledge of compost and on silver the knowledge of using ladybugs. They both have silver but are so poor they can't afford the ladybug houses anyway. The only thing they have is their tomato crop which has had to be used mostly for food. I started everyone with the pantry fridge from DJ Sims which makes the food situation quite tense except for Sand Tribe who have plenty of food and money from the fish they catch.

I´m gonna steal... er copy that idea for my Obed tribe They have one year before them before the new ice age hits and their civilisation probably crumbles, so they gotta make it count. If I don´t tire of the ´hood someday their decendants will find the ruins left behind by the founders and go "this was made by the gods, there´s no way our primitve foreparents could have created such wonders"
How much progress do you all allow your tribes within one generation, by the way? Because Sharga Obed has the Silver Sewing Badge and could make colorful clothing (instead of just brown, grey and beige), but I think I´ll restrict color to formal clothing to represent lack of ressources.

I hadn't thought too much about that as this is my first go at a test of Time Challenge. What I thought was that when a female married a male from another tribe she would then become that tribe and must follow their rules, while boys coming into a tribe could bring there own tribal traditions and enlarge the tribes knowledge. TOT rules say 3 generations to start with but as i have a longer aging mod two will do for me.

Apart from that I have also done a cave man legacy where I allowed each generation something new. Plus I also have my own challenge which can be found by going to my LJ page and following the link on the side to Desirable Discourses. One of these days when I have time I plan to polish the rules and post it here, but what with paper work, kids to look after and school I don't have much time, and when I do have time I'd rather relax and play my game. But the rules are there and about complete up to Victorian times. After that it's a bit muddled and needs tweaking.

Actually, Jo, a lot of human progress comes from the distaff side. Horticulture - women. Cooking - women. Basic chemistry and pharmacy - women. Tailored clothing - women. Cordage - women. Ceramics - women.

Basically, if it's essential to daily living, women developed it. If it's a specialized and a bit luxurious, men took it on,

Us ladies do tend towards improving the practical, but for ease of play this is a patriarchal and sexist sim society. Maybe next time I should switch it to women rule.

You could just make it the oldest child inherits etc., male or female. Even the royal family is doing it now lol.

It's cool to see this thread turning to some talk about gender politics in our sim prehistoric cultures and in real prehistory, very interesting stuff, and certainly very prominent in my mind as I play my current hood. I'm finally reading Sex at Dawn and a lot of the ideas in there blew my previous notions about relationships between early men and early women out of the water, and confirmed some of what Peni Griffin said. For example, it looks like in a lot of societies the women brought in a steady stream of food through gathering, and that was what everyday survival depended on, while the men would kill an animal less frequently, but bring in some much-needed protein when they did.

The recurrent thing I've found in lots of sources is that the key factor in how matriarchal/patriarchal/egalitarian a given society becomes is the climate, i.e. whether hunting or gathering brings in the most food, since men tended to hunt while women tended to gather. I've tried to reflect that in my tribes. One subhood (Umberwold) has a very harsh climate and the local tribe depends on hunting (I've taken to letting them buy food equal to the income from their pets' jobs), meaning that they're highly patriarchal, while another has a much milder climate and depends on gathering, making them a lot more matriarchal, with women who own the big orchards and write the myths and men as interlopers that move between them depending on whether or not they're in favor with those matriarchs.

Agriculture tends to make societies more closely resemble what we usually call patriarchy, since you get property that can be passed on between generations, meaning the need to establish parentage, which leads to thing like monogamous marriage and virginity being socially valuable. The tribe that will eventually give Heimlichbourg its name, the Hamlek, are agricultural, so they're quite patriarchal and also authoritarian.

Another thing I've been delighted to see is the idea of progress taking place over generations. I've found that very useful too, and especially satisfying because it tends to make the relative dominance of tribes follow history. In the first generation, my hunting and gathering tribes were dominant, but the more badge levels and so forth were unlocked, the more dominant the Hamlek farmers became. The way is allow progress is based on generations, i.e. you cross a threshold every time a new generation of a tribe reaches adulthood, as follows:

Hunting: Each tier is another pet job promotion unlocked.
Fishing: Each tier is another lure unlocked.
Farming/gathering: Each tier is another crop/tree type unlocked (this one is a bit of an outlier, because once Moonwatcher, the alien-abducted messiah, is born, one of the key things he will do is introduce new agricultural technology.

Over the last few days I've been playing my prehistoric hood a lot and also keeping tabs on all the great conversation on this thread, and it's been a real pleasure

I thought about playing by gender rolls when I first started and I think it could work when the tribes end up with extended families, but I started off with just couples, some who get pregnant Every.single.Season <_< *looking at you Sand Tribe* it just wasn't happening. Sand tribe currently have a toddler girl one day away from child, twin boy toddlers 4 days away from turning child and a newly turned toddler 8 days away from turning child. This is the first season the mother hasn't become pregnant. As part of my own rules for them they must try for a baby once per season. because their regular leaf beds are singles and have no options they have to try on a hammock and I was beginning to think it was a guarantee, as one time he only looked at her and they had a baby jingle.
Then Bear Tribes wife is such a bad pregnant sim, that left to her they would have starved to death by now. She's pregnant for a third time and is mostly in bed or eating what he cooks, so the guys are doing it all. Only Wolf Tribe are so far infertile. They woohoo all the time but risky woohoo never gets them. his LTW is for 50 dream dates so it's probably just as well... The only gender roll is he is the one to take a wolf for a walk to catch a wild bore. As far as the men being leaders and eldest son inherits that doesn't bother me and I'm not looking to change it this play through.

Heimlichbourger, property bringing on patriarchy can easily be avoided by using matrilineal kinship lines. There's never any dispute about maternity in mammals, after all. (It can be a problem for birds...)

I try to be diverse in respect to gender roles. Three of my tribes are different races of the same species, so they can interbreed. Mixed union children take after the tribe their hair color denotes. I won´t cover the astronauts and proto-elves here, only the humans.

Cromagnon Tribe (brown):
Like bonobo they use sex to ease tension and confirm the group bond. They have no concept of partnership or jealousy. This tribe used to have gender roles when it was larger (pre-game backstory), but now every skilled hand is needed exactly where it will prove most useful. Gender roles are a luxury they cannot afford right now. Under normal conditions males would be hunters and females firemakers, spiritual guides and warriors. The idea behind this is that Cro women are serious, practical builders/creators who will aggressively protect what they have made. Men are more playful, more willing to try out things just for the sake of finding out what happens instead of actual need. Overtly it might look like Cro women are passive (except when angered) and men active, but it´s more a case of the females dealing with the inside world and the males with the outside.
The tribe is let by the shaman (usually female) who raises her own successor (not required to ny a blood relative) and the chief, which is the best hunter. A chief may be challenged anytime and the winner becomes the new chief. Depending on how he deals with his defeat a former chief may still be respected as a good hunter or he may exile himself. Cro readily kill other species, even other races, but hurting a tribemember except during their ritualized combat/tests is anathema.

Neander tribe (red and blond):
I try to keep them as gender neutral as possible. I have established that they have low sex drive and need to date each other before they can woohoo. All through the year they can cuddle innocently and be very close without anything stirring between them, but winter is the season to mate. They find themselves in pairs and try for baby then. The whole tribe will parent the children, even though Neander tend to be loners. Neander do not require coming of age rituals of any kind. They go for quality instead of quantity, so they have a) no need to weed out the infirm and b) couldn´t afford it anyway with their small population.
Neander have no concepts of parenthood or leadership. The best in each task is always the "leader" when it comes to that task. They have a position of "farspeaker" (ambassador, trader). In this generation a female fills the role and I think it´ll be most often a female, though there are no rules against male farspeakers.

Obed tribe (black):
Stricly patriarchic. Males are priests and potters, Females cook, clean, weave and sew. Gardening is open to (and required for) both genders. They are also theocratic. There will be a half astronaut/half Obed toddler boy transfered from the astronauts to the Obed village this summer and I think they´ll raise him as a slave. In the old days (pregame again) there was no "high" and "low" work, only men´s and women´s, but that has changed. The current high priest feels that giving them another caste to look down upon will keep his female population content.
I have yet to decide how inheritance will be handled in this tribe. Slaves are temple property, and I´m inclined to rule that no-living tools (including the land they live on) are, too.
Priests may teach their sons to follow into their footsteps and choose their mothers carefully for exactly this purpose. Obed have strict wooing and monogamy rules, but priests may be excluded from those rules.

If I ever create a custom hood in TS2, I'll have to remember to name the first two Sims Adam and Eve, and make them look like gorillas. Either that, or make gorillas who have babies named Adam and Eve, and have Adam and Eve wear the fig leaves.

In principle you're right of course, but you'd also need to give the men a way to ensure that the people who inherit the fruits of their labor are their genetic offspring, otherwise they wouldn't be likely to accept the system. Or is there a workaround for that?

Another interesting issue with progress over the course of generations I've noticed: In my prehistoric hoods, my sims aren't allowed to study skills using the bookshelf (libraries of technical manuals weren't a luxury our early human ancestors had!). This makes the "impart knowledge" aspiration reward very useful, since the skill points older sims gained in their daily lives through cooking, cleaning, basic repairs etc. can be passed on, representing oral traditions and knowledge being passed from parent to child. That's what I like about "making the game harder" using stuff like the prehistoric playstyle, there are lots of tools I never used when playing traditionally that come into their own