But there is a ton of really excellent medieval European custom content out there, even if you discount the fantasy stuff and narrow your time period focus you can do pretty well. I was doing this with my Wessex neighborhood until it crashed and then the game refused to start up again until I reinstalled M&G. I am told it was the no-CD hack that caused this, but with three out of five computers here running the game and only one CD it seemed like a reasonable choice. Wessex died because I didn't think to back it up before uninstalling and reinstalling M&G, which was too bad because I was started pretty good there.
My Roman "Province" neighborhood is doing OK, but it kind of bums me out to play there. I am not done populating the place yet, and I haven't made any default replacement NPCs, but my upper class families have at least one slave living with them as a room-mate. I did my Patrician family first, and, aside from the slaves (a mother and child), they had a real resemblance to my family- Husband, Wife, two teen-aged daughters and a teen-aged son.
So, whenever I make a new family, I play them for a day or two to start them off right and make sure they've got everything in order. I aged the one daughter up to adult, so she'd be like my oldest daughter. Then tragedy struck as the son, Lucius, went outside to stargaze and was killed by a satellite. On day one. I was busy with the dad, Gaius, trying to find a job when it happened, so I missed the whole thing. I have never seen that animation, and when Gaius got up and ran all the way back there the Grim Reaper was already gone.
Then matters got worse. Gaius started having an affair with the slave woman Nubia, and was promptly discovered by both his wife Marca and his older daughter Gaia. Only young Vibia and Nubia's daughter Secunda were left unaware. So, that household stopped being fun to play. The guy I thought of as myself is a total cad and my son Sim was killed in a freak accident while trying to raise his logic skill, which was my idea.
I have a small Legionary fort there too, and it has eight Legionaries that are designed to fill the role of Monks in the MCC. I am still trying to come up with a female equivalent that is NOT a brothel or a temple of Vesta. I have a couple of "Equestrian" type families, they are taking the place of the Yeomanry of the MCC, although I am still working out how to make them work. I am a little unsure about how to approach the "Peasant/Serf" class from the MCC for an Ancient Rome challenge. Should they just be free men who are poor? Or should they be tenant slaves?
At this point, the moral implications of Sim slavery are probably starting to bother some of you, if anyone is reading this, but I am a history nerd and I aim for as much historical accuracy as a game like the Sims2 can give me. That's why I decided that slaves were in at the get go, a Roman was only truly considered poor if he couldn't afford at least one slave. Now, for most of the servant type NPCs I am going to assume they are slaves- Maids, Gardeners, Butlers, Bartenders, whatever I might be forgetting. The non-servants, like the Police and Firemen are probably going to be Vigiles.
I work slow, and I am new to modding stuff in the Sims2, so I figure it'll be a month before I have this neighborhood really up and running. Japan's Mura neighborhood will take easily that long too unless someone wants to point me to some MCC compatible lots in the feudal Japanese style.
Japan is actually harder because I feel like I have to make all the Townies and Downtownies over so they not only dress in the proper style, but look Asian. Mura currently only has one family in residence, the Samurai in charge of the Village; the Okumas, Hiroki and his younger brother Matsuo. I haven't redone any default replacement NPCs there yet either, but at least they won't be slaves. Just as an aside, someone really needs to make some totally kick-ass Samurai armor, maybe different Japanese armor types or pieces of armor? I looked into making some conversions today and that is way beyond my skill level.
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