The Glory of Rome...

...and a few other places too.

I am hard at work redesigning my Roman Challenge with some raiding, trading and conquest in mind. So far I have begun work on the Provincia Romana as my main neighborhood and Terra Celtica; representing, broadly, all Celtic territories the Romans ever "visited". I am planning on adding the eternal city, Roma herself, as my Downtown and I will most likely add both Greece and Egypt as Roman provinces too, and possibly Germania as another Barbarian land.

My point here is that I will be adding self-Sims I collect (and a few Supernatural Sims too) to the various 'hoods, and I was wondering if anyone had a preference as to where they started out their Sim life. Due to the raiding and trading, you may move around a bit as captives or spouses, but cultural origins are your choices.

All that said, I am still hoping to see some more Roman and Celtic stuff pop up for the Sims2. Romans are better off than the Celts, but the stuff is older and all the newer stuff is so much better. The poor Celts have me almost inclined to find a site to download some nude skins and have them be Gaesatae-

Anyone know where you can find a severed head to carry around? I got these miniatures for Christmas too.

In other news, I am thinking of revamping my Ancient Roman UI mod, just a few tweaks, things that kind of bug me during the loading screen now when I see them, and I am planning an ancient Celtic UI mod to switch in for when I play my Celts. Yes, I am that much of a perfectionist that I want everything to set the mood. Celtic names live file may be on the way too, but I may have to play pretty fast and loose with history on that one- there aren't a lot of recorded female names for ancient Gauls or Britons, so I'll probably be forced to substitute in large numbers of early medieval Welsh names.

A few more Gauls...

...and maybe some Britons.

For a guy whose primary neighborhood is Roman, I seem to find myself looking still for more Gallic stuff. I collected a few more pictures from Google to show a little more of what I am looking for, but Gallic stuff is non-existent for the Sims2, as is stuff for the very culturally similar Britons, and the Celts were one of the major groups the Romans interacted with. The Greeks, the Egyptians and various eastern Mediterranean groups and the scary barbarian Germans being the others. There is some Greek stuff out there and some Persian stuff, a bunch of Egyptian stuff, and while I'd have to say the ancient world is a pretty neglected place Sims2-wise, the Celts and Germans come off the worst.

But right now, I am working on the Celts, so here's some more Gallic stuff for inspiration to those who can make Sims2 stuff rather than just NEED Sims2 stuff-

Click on the pictures to embiggen them,  currently I am most interested in the clothes and hair/facial hair, but eventually I'll want some cool shields and weapons and the Carnyx horn and maybe a couple of spirally "tattoo" overlays for them. Incidentally, if anyone can point me towards some pictures of ancient Celtic women on the web, I'd be much obliged. My google-fu has failed me there and I need clothes for the ladies too. Pictures of ancient Celtic warriors are everywhere, ancient Celtic home and village life are tough to find.

Another question, can you just pull the stuff out of other games, like Rome: Total War, for instance and convert them to Sims2 format?

Gauls

These guys are what I am looking for for my sub-hood. Roman stuff is hard to find, Gaulish stuff is nigh impossible.

I like the helmet and the mustache on this guy.

Since he's naked, his facial hair and his gear are pretty much what I am looking for.

Another bad-ass mustache.

Aside from the fact that Total War series guys all look alike, mustache, shield, javelins and trousers are awesome.

Same here, only add in the sword and helmet.

Vercingetorix must have been made king of all the Gauls because of his epic mustache and mane of hair.

Anyone who can find or be so kind as to make some of these items, would have me greatly indebted to them.

Simming the Past

I am beginning to wonder if maybe I shouldn't have stuck with something a little less exotic for my Sims. The Ancient Mediterranean world is not exactly a custom content rich zone and neither is feudal Japan. Both have some really awesome stuff and some really mediocre stuff. Japan at least has the benefit of having some EA content.

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.

Roman Stuff

I have been using a lot of really cool medieval stuff for my Roman Sims, but I just can't shake the feeling that there was more stuff for Romans in the original Sims. Even all of that stuff would not sate my need for cool Roman stuff at this point though. A lot of the Roman stuff for the Sims2 is older and not, sadly, up to the same level of quality that the medieval stuff I am substituting in is. Furthermore, there is just a general lack of certain historically accurate things, women's hairstyles, clothing for everyone, armor for both legionaries/auxiliaries and gladiators, and weapons again for both.

Then there are the neighbors of the Romans- My Sim Roman Empire is a late Republic period, so there's Gauls and Greeks and Egyptians and Numidians and Germans and a plethora of easterners including the Parthians.

Now, I have never done any real modding for the Sims2, but I am wondering if I can snag some models from other games and convert them to use for the Sims2? I have a pretty good collection of Celtic weapons and shields from Neverwinter Nights, I'd have to check the terms of use from the original modelers, but they were free to use and all, so I am hopeful.

I was also curious as to whether or not I could take items like the dueling swords and change the sword models, if it is possible to do that and if it's OK to do it. I think I'd be happier if they were Gladius's and the animations would still be fine. For that matter they'd be cool as Katanas for my feudal Japan neighborhood too.

This is all conjecture at this point, I don't know HOW to do any of this, so I am more curious as to whether or not it can be done.