I'm thinking of doing an ice age, now that I'm on generation 2. I wonder how my little sims are going actually going to survive, because I'm already having problems with children being taken away from the social worker(I call her the evil spirit) and heat stroke as well. It actually stresses me out sort of but i look forward to any kind of challenge! Anyways, the one thing I worry about is outerwear, because I can barely find any that would suit my era and I think it would just look plain weird if I let them wear a jacket and pants :O

If you're alright with simmies going out into the cold in their normal summer outfits, you could use the Wardrobe Wrangler to set those clothes to also be outerwear by checking the outerwear box and saving. Or you could find warmer looking clothes which don't have to already be called outwear and then set it to outerwear yourself.

youcrAzy - I love the idea of the social worker being an "evil spirit" stealing children away! If I didn't have a no social worker mod I would definitely borrow that idea for Kulo Seeri.

BTW I linked to some fur outfits that would work as outerwear (and do in Kulo Seeri) here on my Simblr, if you're still looking for era-appropriate outerwear.

The main thing I would suggest for an ice age is keeping the fish out of someone's inventory. My first iceage lost most of the sims in the two seasons because a lot of sims died and more often than not those were the sims carting around the lifetime supply of fish. I think that was the time I ended up with like 10 sims going into the Roman era... so good luck but that was also the time I decided to do polygamy without a no jealousy hack... so you can imagine how that went down.

Out of curiosity, how did all of you make your Neanderthal homes? The way I set mine up was I made four tiny rooms, three of them just barely big enough for one double bed each and maybe a crib, and the last one with a sink, counter, fridge, and sofa. Since I think the original rules said no hut at all at first, I thought this was pretty elaborate. xD But now I'm wondering how the rest of you went about it.

I just made two rooms, later divided the second one to keep crying babies and tots away from the rest. One is the living area and the others sleeping quarters.

My neanderthals lived in one room but with a cordoned off baby/toddler area for the kids made with the floor divider fencing. I think my house was 10 x 6 or something.

I'll be doing something like the gold rush and sending sims off to California or on the Yukon trail to seek their fortunes. 50-60s would be cool, like a cold war era? That's also when all the super heros came out in comics books and that, so again there's an angle for some supernatural sims, but I'm not sure what kind? A lot of the occult type sims are more European.

Another thought is to do a general 'expansion' and go found a new kind of country representing anything you haven't played through yet. Asia, the Amazon, Russia- I think anything might be game, then.

But I'm waiting to see how my mood is if I can play up that far.


As for my starter lots, I did a simple rectangle with a bathroom and an everything else. Once they had some capitol I tossed the beds in the basement.They weren't small lots as I wanted my families to grow into them, so I used the standard game size for a good starter home of 20 x 30.

My neaderthal people lived in small huts, but i made each one different, like one will be a small shack while one will just have a set of walls not connected with a straw roof(cc).

Trying to get back into the blogs- Ibsgirl I like the way you've set yours up, and the pictures are so cute! Did you actually get a default replacement for the proposal ring? I think I saw wicker on that. How impressive- you're committed! Also, I hate the death rounds... ugh I guess I have to start a blog of my own now too.

And I'm sorry it was funny to me but it looked like someone just died of burnt pancakes- it was in the Wynn family?



Ah! You named the Farmers kids after fruits and veggies, that's so cute! Love the naming conventions you're using for their occupations etc, accurate to time and easy to remember. Banana is a super cute little toddler, 10% of her weight at birth must have been hair though.



And Faerie your blog is... dramatic. I'll have to sit down and dive in soon. Are there pics up too, and I missed them?

~~In my TOT, Sunlit Tides~~
Someone here had the great idea earlier to just keep a spreadsheet of sims names and once I did that I realized- the wrong family is emperor in my TOT!

But I recall what happened, and it has to do with the color of the rightful heir and the guardianship of the current Empress, Lindsey (I've gotta stop letting my game pick any names). I also realized that Lindsey is only the Empress because she's the eldest of three daughters, there were no sons by her parents, and the nearest rightful heir (a cousin) is the darkest skin possible!

So I'm thinking in a generation or so the cousin might overthrow the ruling family, just for the sake of I like him you know screw historical accuracy. So here's Yafeu and Nadia his mother, the last of who would become slaves (Fahadeen and Edifice families are Slaves) to marry into the Emperor families (Cove).

Celestine Cove married Nadia Fahadeena, had Yafeu and Yafeu found Floriana Saulsoria (a patrician girl) and married her. They were a great match and fell in love instantly. They've just had their son Aesop, who I'm hoping is going to be strong enough to shake the giants of the Cove family out of power in the next generation. I just want a few more babies to happen everywhere first before I risk losing a whole family or two in a bid for power.

---> Also, an unrelated image of my favorite on and off again marriage, Evangelina and Trevor Saulson. They make pretty kids, but she's outgoing and he is shy, it's been a bumpy ride (she's the one that the emperor was cheating with, now everyone's back together with their original spouses. It's amazing that no one has died with all the disagreements there have been, no one fought...)

@Frogsnack - Haha, thank you. xD No, I didn't start my blog until the Neanderthal Age was almost done, so I didn't have any pictures I could share. I'm not really a picture person anyways, though, so I kept the stories to just text even when the writing caught up to where I was in the game. There is one picture of the Emperor's Palace in Book 2, Chapter 1, though. =P (I think that's the one about the Allahs... *not really sure*)

Ahhh, your game sounds so interesting! And wow, yeah, it does seem incredible that no one has attacked anyone with all that drama. xP

Speaking of "making pretty kids," I've been seeing genetics in this challenge unlike anything I've ever experienced with Sims. It's so interesting! One of my founding couples was comprised of a man with red hair and a woman with brown hair. All of their kids had brown hair. Then some of the kids married Sims with black hair, and some of their kids ended up as redheads! Also, one couple (Gen 2) produced a really ugly toddler (Gen 3). Her face looked like it was made up of two different skin tones, like most of her face was skin 1, but the skin around her eyes and forehead looked like skin 2 - like a raccoonish face. o_O She's a child right now, her face is all one color, and she looks like an average Sim, but then her younger brother had the same issue as a toddler too. *not sure what happened*

That might have been me... I've spreadsheeted the hell out of anything I can, as well as using RebaLynn's SimTracker, and I *know* I've mentioned them a time or ten. And mine are full of formulas that count this, and rank that, and average that, all so that I just have to input a minimum of info and it tells me who is in the lead to become emperor. (On the fifth of seven days of Round Five, it's looking like the Giampa family, but only because Anyt just made a ton of friends. Still gotta play four families for day five though...) Dunno what I'm going to do when I change eras and that's no longer important... ~VP

I've recently realized the brilliance of spreadsheets, too. xD I started out with just one to keep track of the marriable Sims and who their grandparents are, so I know if a potential pair is related or not. Now, I have another sheet with a census of all Sims who ever existed in my challenge and any important details (like how they died/if they've ever committed murder), plus another sheet that shows how much each family owes in tax money. =P

@nuidyaforever --BTW I linked to some fur outfits that would work as outerwear (and do in Kulo Seeri) here on my Simblr, if you're still looking for era-appropriate outerwear.


can you show me how you used the wardrobe wrangler? it is showing me error messages

I actually play a medieval hood with tons of cc so when I started my ToT I used a copy of the same cc folder for it so I have a fair few default replacements. I just switch out my cc whenever I play.

Death by burnt pancakes lol that cracked me up. The official cause was probably either starvation (because the Wynns can't manage to eat sometimes) or realistic sickness.

I love how you've thought out the line of sucession, I just picked the richest family, your sims are very pretty. I do have something similar planned for my game to kick off the dark ages but I'll have to wait and see how it turns out. I guess sims 3 sims are really peaceful being caught cheating in my game (hell being caught looking at someone funny in my game) pretty much equals a fight to the death.

I don't use spreadsheets for my ToT because my sims die to often to bother but I love them for my other hoods.

I keep being baffled by those 17,000 simolean boats that every family above slave status seems able to buy and stuff in their inventory- the tax idea is long gone from my game- but I liked it and wanted to try it! The idea to record the sims deeds is good too, but how long does that take you to update it all?



I'm doing something similar with each era, so when I no longer need 50 files of roman items in the next era I can just move the folder out and keep it from slowing down my game.



And actually, yes- there are so many steps to fighting, and I have several sims that 'dislike' another, but having enemy status is harder too. Even the old standby possibility of starvation takes twice as long (48 game hours really) so you'd have to have free will off and be trying to kill them.

I've been bopping from house to house lately checking on all the familes as I've been playing with aging on again, and I saw a newly married sim making out with his neighbor's wife as a 'juiced' interaction (this came with university, it's supposed to be a drunken makeout). Both sims are just acquaintances, and the woman's entire family witnessed it, and while the children all got a moodlet of 'witnessed betrayal' the husband had NO REACTION, and went on walking to talk to some other sim entirely. O_o

Then a few moments later the game posted a notice that she and her husband had an 'eternally faithful' reputation.

--

Oh yeah and update, the alien baby Tekle was seen in public and killed this round. He made it to be a child, though, so there's something.

Update time depends on whether I remember to update as I play or not. Like if I remember to add a Sim's name to the census and marriage sheets right when they're born, it's just a quick few seconds. But if I forget for a household and realize my mistake, I feel the need to go back several households to make sure that was the only one I missed. xD; For taxes, I just calculate everything owed at the beginning of each round. Then, no matter how the families' finances change during the round, they still have to pay the sum I came up with at the start. I highlight each family's sum in green on the spreadsheet once they've paid so I know if I need to dole out punishments later if I forgot to pay or they couldn't afford to pay.

I've actually also integrated tithes into my challenge, which is a lot more difficult than I was expecting it to be. I have to pay attention to each family's income each round, which can be simple during rounds where crops aren't harvested or the income comes from actual jobs. But for the families that fish or harvest crops or own businesses, it's getting to be sort of crazy. Like when my Sims harvest crops, do I give ten percent of the crops to the Church then and there? Or do I wait until they try to make money off of them? It's simpler to do the second, but it makes more sense to do the first in case they want their food for actual food, but then I'll probably forget the next round when they need money that they've already tithed on all their veggies. And when it comes to the Sim-owned businesses, especially the one owned by the Patrician who has hired townies, I can't just keep track of what their finances were before and after the visit to their community lot because they have expenses during that time too. So I have to try to watch the cashier at all times to keep track of the gross income... *facepalm* xD;;

Cool, you play with aliens already!? I have heard that it's easier to get abducted in Sims 3, like you don't need a telescope. Poor thing, though. I assume you played it like he was killed for being so different?

Hmm, what have you tried doing to get to the point where the error message is showing? I can help if you provide more details

Oh my, I'm gone for a short time and all of this happens

Very exciting to see the update to the rules and Eras, I believe I'll stick to the old ones (or my personal version of them) since I'm already more than halfway through the Roman Era... But I really hope someone else plays the new version and blogs about it!

I'm on a break from The Sims right now since my boyfriend and I are moving abroad and we have lots to do. In a few weeks I'm probably pretty much back though

Spreadsheets are awesome!

After a two month break I'm back to my roman sims again. I bearely started the first roman round last time I played and finished the 4th household (from 12, I think >.<) yesterday. With the roman era, I introduced different pregnancy lengths for the different classes (3 days for my royal family and the nobility, 2 days for the plebs and 1 day for slaves) in an attempt to keep my classes well balanced. Well, as you can imagine my slave population is kind of exploding. XD Until the end of the 12th round, I'll definitely stick to it and then I'll see how I continue. I might be rising the slave pregnancy to 2 days, too.

In the first slave family I played, the woman gave birth every other day (total 4 children: 2 single births + 1 pair of twins). The second slave family, actually managed to only get pregnant once and the woman gave birth to a boy. But then my computer crashed and in the second play through, she gave birth to triplets. My first triplets ever at least, but still... XD

I also started using ROS with lots of potentiallly deadly outcomes, but hadn't any dead sims because of it yet. I might need to start being more strict with it. D:

I can't believe you try to keep track of them on community lots- is that when you aren't playing the family who is shopping? How brave!

And yea, 'Tekle' was born with brothers Mene Mene and Parsen (still excited for the bible humor there), and the rule I made for him to be kept when he was born was that he'd have to live his life without being seen by anybody. I mean, what is this the Renaissance?

But he was adorable and I will miss him, actually.




I suck suck suck at killing my sims. I worked so hard to bring them all to life, and honestly most of them 'have a bright future ahead' and I have plans for them that go away with them. I'm sure you'll all find out when I finally kill off like three week's worth of simmies in the Colosseum- the excuse I've been using is that I have to rebuild it in the new hood.

Oh well, here's more pretty sim pics;

Evangelia (previous post) had Sostrate (pictured) and her twin sister Sophus by the Emperor. But- I told ya they made pretty kids! She also spent an afternoon dismissing her lovers (she had four and a fiance besides her husband I was trying to get her back together with)- thanks NRAAS romance mod!

This is why I'm glad for the CAS sims of the last round (The story was they were enslaved during the conquering of their specific homelands) so there are now more African genes, as well as Icelandic, Russian, Chinese, Italian and Irish/ Gaelic in the gene pool that is starting to show up. I let them marry any class and had them be 'trophy spouses' so if they end up divorced they go back to being a slave. This is what happened to Misept Sol, she married Sidhartha Fahadeena (he really needed to have kids but is so insane she was miserable). My romance mod happened to divorce them and I went with it- so she was dismissed and when Amadi Edifica aged up (he's only a few years younger than she), he offered her a place to stay. It turned out they are my favorite couple of the game now because I feel like she got her life back and I know it sounds weird, but I didn't know how pretty she was until she started smiling more. They're a really good match and if sims can actually fall in love outside their program, maybe it happened?

Amadi is- Disciplined, a Bookworm, a Schmoozer, Coward and Athletic.
Misept is- Shy, Natural Cook, Grumpy, Nurturing, and has a Green Thumb.

She nurtures his cowardly side and his schmoozer trait helped her be comfortable and soothes her grumpiness. They are the best match ever! Plus her previous 'husband'- they guy that owned her and was crazy was too much older than her, now she has a young man who plays catch and works out with her. I liked them so much I gave them a proper wedding.

So here's a million pictures (hope you all don't mind). Some of the genetics I was talking about and a few funny moments.

I introduced freckles with Evangelina, so here they are on Sophus with Kale's Irishy hair. I also introduced reddish eyes with my Asian sim Mingus, and his son Ding (I couldn't resist a name like Ding Mingus) now has them along with the blond hair color that his grandparents have and it skipped a generation.

Oh yeah! If anybody here plays TS3 at all and wants one of the sims I've pictured, let me know and I'll put them on the exchange for you. I'm not saving them to bin because I like everyone, I have a few favorites I'm still sad about losing, but the amount of saved sims I would have? Sheesh...

Thanks very much to lbsgirl24 for saying I have pretty sims. :lovestruc That was kind of you and now I'm a bit big headed. :D

Me too! I had so many sims killed in generation one that I felt so bad and never played with the dice again. I will get back into rolling for outcomes when my population gets a little crazy

your game is so rich in gameplay it makes me want to try out the sims 3 with this challenge myself, do you have story progression on? and how do you deal with all the random stuff popping into your sims inventory?


I was just scrolling through the lot and found this......

Yellow UI <3

Frogsnack, your s3 version is also making me want to try it.

O______O Holy cow, I hadn't even thought about keeping track of their income when I buy stuff from them as other families! What have I gotten myself into? xD;

I'm really bad about killing my Sims, too. I had originally tried to do the slave lottery with the Colosseum every round, which is every three or four days in my hood, but it hurt soooo badly the second time I drew a name that I ended up pretending it never happened, and I've decided to do it only once every other round. We'll see if I can make myself stick with that. xD;

I guess the decision is as much practical as it is just me not wanting to be a heartless Sim-killer. xD When I assigned classes for the families at the end of the Neanderthal Age, I divided it up so that there were more families as Slaves than as higher classes. But then when I started playing, I realized that my upper-class families had tons of kids, while many of my Slaves families were more adults just now marrying or teens who had struck out on their own. So my hood is a little top-heavy at the moment, and I need to try to save as many Slaves as possible until they can out-breed the other classes.

But the sudden growth of murders in my hood is throwing me for a loop, too. I only ever saw one fight in the Neanderthal Age. However, my first Roman round, I saw three dust-cloud fights. I forced myself to kill two of the losers, but I came up with a storyline that allowed me to let the third loser win. That victor was a monk, so I played it like, even though he had lost his temper, he still had enough respect for life that he wouldn't have killed, even in self-defense. He was a mean old man, though, getting into poke-wars and insult-battles with several Sims. So when I got to his lot, I made him "pray for greater compassion" - aka, I cheated to make him a nicer Sim. *is a cheater* But in that last fight, the loser was (again) a Slave, and I need them to breed, not die! D8 And then partway through my second Roman round, ANOTHER Sim got murdered! This time a Pleb, but she was going to marry another Sim who now can't get a wife unless a war at some point allows for some new blood to be brought in. He's pretty much related to everyone else. =_= Dex Udki's oldest son and heir is having a similar problem finding a wife.

Ahh, Simmies. Pardon the rant, please, people. xD;

Awww, that love story in your game is sooo sweet, Frogsnack! :lovestruc I don't know if I would like that romance mod you have, though. I freak out enough when Sims get into fights on their own; I couldn't imagine how I would handle actual couple autonomously breaking up! xD

Seeing you all having a hard time killing your sims makes me feel a little heartless - I've been very good at it all challenge xD Oops...

I only ever plead if the dying sim is unmarried and of the gender with the least members (currently boys) too... But to me that's part of what I love about this challenge: that it feels like I'm not in charge, my sims are, and I just love seeing their lives take an unexpected turn

I totally understand you, though. Some tragedies has broken my heart, like the round when half the Callandile family was murdered (including the only son), the execution of Felix Jax who murdered a patrician in self defence, and when the little Nixeira twins had a fight where one died and the survivor later was killed at the Colosseum by their older brother. And Abeni who lost a husband and three children before being murdered herself...

Oh, I miss my game so bad right now haha, maybe you can tell