All work and no play...

...makes William a dull and unhappy boy. I have been working simultaneously on my Roman, Japanese and Scottish neighborhoods; and have mostly been in the building stages of them all. I have actually gotten to the point where I dread booting up the Sims2 just because I know that I'll be building instead of playing. I just want to play the MCC, with a couple of add-ons, so I think I am going to go back and retry it with my original English medieval neighborhood again and I'll set it during the high middle ages so I don't have so many content issues, with the exception of some default medieval stuff actually being Tudor/Stuart period.

So, Edo period Japan, 17th-18th century Scottish highlands and Ancient Rome are officially back-burnered and we're moving back to medieval England. I don't have to build as much, because there are plenty of lots available for download that are perfectly period appropriate. I don't have to scrounge the web for content, because there is much more medieval content than Japanese, specifically Scottish or Ancient Roman. As a bonus I can always add a Scottish sub-hood and still use all of the good Scottish stuff I have found.

I don't know if I'll be rebuilding Wessex again, although I kind of like the area. I may narrow it down to Devonshire and be placed firmly in England, but between Cornwall and Wales. I can also now change my icon at the keep to my SCA arms, because it'll match my Sims stuff. I wonder if anyone could make a shield or something with them on it, that would be pretty cool.

 

 

Now I Am Kind of Torn

Since my Sims2 game blew up on me again yesterday and I still really want to do the MCC, do I still want to go all exotic with adapting it to the Roman Empire theme? Particularly considering the lack of Roman stuff I complained about after I started it. Don't get me wrong here, it's a good challenge and I appreciate a good challenge, but it's also a lot of work and I hate making all of these poor sims and watching them poof into non-existence.

The same exact argument can be made, to a slightly lesser extent, for my Japanese neighborhood. Not a great amount of stuff themed particularly to them, although more than the poor Romans, and I get sad watching them disappear; not that this SHOULD be an issue anymore, now that I have sworn off the no-CD hack.

Now, I also get a bit of history oriented ADD from time to time, so I was also thinking of adding a Norse themed neighborhood, just because my daughter Ember has been playing Skyrim again instead of the Sims2 and I got so much cool Viking stuff for her, and I am a big fan of the Vikings.

Or maybe I could do it with medieval Scots? I am Scottish by descent after all- a Highlander actually, only the 3rd generation born in this country (the USA). Now that's what my daughter Ashleigh is doing, but she isn't doing it "right". She has a lot more anachronism and fantasy than I would, plus she's not playing a challenge. I am the only one playing challenges in the house. I guess it's the old wargamer in me.

My wife Mona calls the Sims2 her "virtual dollhouse" and there is some truth to that. She makes pretty lots, peoples them with pretty, well-dressed Sims, and then moves on to another challenge. She rarely plays any of her Sims for very long, but sometimes we can get her to make stuff for us, or at least decorate our houses.

I digress though, I think the MCC would be easiest to play if I did 12-14th century England or France. So much of the medieval content available is best suited to the high middle ages and western Europe. Some of it CAN be adapted to other times and places, and it'll fit in just fine, but a lot of it is just as out of place as the taxi dropping you off at your new house.

Scotland might be easy to do, because it's like England, only poorer and colder with some plaid thrown about for good measure. I worry about the Vikings because really all of their clothing comes down to one mesh, endlessly recolored for the men, and damned little for the ladies. Norse style build sets are pretty much non-existent and there aren't a whole lot of deco items either. Some Skyrim conversion stuff is OK, but mostly it's not really.

Lastly, when it comes to the Scots, would it kill someone who knows how to make meshes to make some realistic Highland menswear instead of the ren-faire stuff that is out there.

Annoyance Strikes Again

I am swearing off the no CD hack, I'll just buy another copy and our computers can trade back and forth. The same thing happened again, necessitating a re-install again. Fortunately, I wasn't terribly far along yet, and now the specter of poor dead Lucius and Gaius' affair with Nubia will be erased. But now I have to reinstall all the CC and start building lots and families again.

It also strikes me that I never mentioned the feudal Japanese UI text file I did, so you can grab it here. I should also probably make this blog a little more feudal Japan friendly looking, without losing too much of the ancient Rome look- I need something that makes it look aesthetically appealing whether I am telling the stories of the trials, tribulations and triumphs of the Romans or the Japanese, that may be a tough call. SimPQR was just too clever a name for a blog about Roman Sims to pass up though, and it was my wife that came up with it.

I considered starting a sister blog just for the Japanese, but this blog has covered all of my Sims2 stuff so far. I need to remember to take more pictures.

I looked at the functional warrior sword and it's terms of use seem pretty liberal, so I am wondering if anyone reading this, if anyone reads this, if we could kind of morph it into a Gladius for Gladiator combats in the Arena and/or a Katana for Samurai duels or executions. I looked at it in SimPE, but I don't understand the program well enough to know whether or not I can just substitute in another model for the sword itself; or if I need some other software to make that remotely possible.

Lastly, I'll be putting up a Viking themed UI Text soon, I am writing it for my daughter's game. But between re-installing M&G today (twice) and looking for hair for the girls, I just haven't gotten around to enough clever stuff to say about the Vikings yet. But soon.

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.