Dunne&Ias' Sims 2 Stuff

So they told their users very explicitly what NOT to do to still be able to use it. It's very detailed. They tell us not to do it.

First draft.

Thoughts so far is,

Mountain on Forrest Hill needs to be a little bit bigger and stretch out onto the flatter area

All of the islands need some sort of hill or it won't make geological sense for them to be islands at all

The height of the flat areas on all islands seem appropriate and usable for beach lots but I don't know for sure yet

The unknown islands might be too small to be used for stuff

Pelehan island seems a little big actually, and so does town center island.

I need names for the town center island and the farm land island.

The Lighthouse will look really cool but might need room for a beach lot if I want to have a fisher on the island.

Moving forward, I drew Six of hearts which is this card:

This is actually one where I think some input might be fun, so which of these two questions are the most interesting to answer for this hood?

Remember, both Education and food are still Scarcities here, which will affect these demographics in different ways.

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Next card drawn was 7 of hearts:

I'm not so interested in answering the first question for this card, so I'm going with the second one.

Forrest Hill has plenty of wolves in the woods. These wolves have so far not made it over to the other islands, but what it means practically, is that this island is not a safe place for lifestock at all. Any residential lot on Forrest Hill must have at least one trap on the lot at all times and if they want to get a chicken they'll have to move.

All these restrictions may be lifted if a sim declares themselves a hunter or trapper. I currently have no plans to have a hunter as a main source of employment, but someone else may end up married to one. I don't know that yet. Still have 24 sims to create.

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Alright, so the game has started for real, and the first card I pulled was this one:

I'm going for the first question.

While eventually this hood may have nobility, so far, the highest status in the community is held by the landowner. He or she owns ALL the land in used by the original 25 sims I'm going to make and divide into families.

A member of the merchant class may become a part of this group if they can save up 250K simoleons, and if the conditions are unlocked for a new subhood. If so, they become the landlord of that subhood where they may build themselves a proper country seat and collect taxes and debts from anyone else living in the subhood, which may have other resources in abundance.

The random name generator I use says the landowner's last name is Pellehan and is male. So, he's going to be Terrence Pelehan. 24 sims left to figure out. Terence may have a partner, or siblings, or children, but I don't know about that yet.

This also means the third island on the map is now called Pelehan Island and I will build a really awesome manor house on there while, somehow, not make it so big that it's a pain to play.

Ending the poll a couple of hours early because I have Time(tm) and time is the most valuable resource of all.

The Archipelago won the hood idea poll, so that's where the starting hood is going to be. I drew up a rough sketch during my lunch break today and then made it bigger when I got home.

Some initials features were allowed to be added right away along with some resources to be in abundance of scarcity. I won't be making the map in sc4 quite yet.

Pink lines on the map refer to rough placement of the initial roads. Circles indicate height. The main island, marked 1 has a low mountain in the middle that will have a mine. The mine will have some iron ore, but not much else. Play-wise this means only iron and coal may be mined on the base hood. If someone is a miner, they may mine for other things ONE day out of the season if they so choose. The main island is also covered in wood, because lumber is a resource in abundance. Every lot will have some trees they may use to chop down for logs which they can either save until they have enough for a house expansion, use to make furniture, or sell. For this reason, the first island is now named Forest Hill. For now at least. Maybe the hood is called Arbor Isles? I don't know yet, and it's not important yet either.

Island marked number 2 will contain the town centre such as it is. This is where any merchant would live along with any tradesmen who don't need to live close to their resource. I'm making a square and going from there. More roads can always be added later because the hood replacer is a thing, bless Mootilda.

Island marked 3 will be the seat of whoever the landed gentry will turn out to be.

Island marked 4 is yellow because it has a bunch of farmland. Food is a scarcity at the moment, but the opportunities for farming are there. It's just that playing farmers is kinda boring in the long run, so one or two is more than enough.

Island marked 5 so far has a lighthouse. I imagine any fisher might live here too.

Islands 6 and 7 are so far empty. We'll see where the game will take us with those islands.

I haven't named any except the first one, but I have drawn a crude flag that I might put on some CC eventually.

So far:

Abundancies: Wood

It is NOT a historical hood. It's just fun. There will be absolutely zero attempts to make anything historically accurate. What it is though, it's a system based on a very strict social hierarchy, similar to older feudal systems. At the top of the hierarchy is a member of the landed gentry who basically owns everything, every bit of land and all the resources and everyone else in the hood has to perform services for this person, like deliver resources every season. Most people also owe this person debts.

The exact numbers would probably be boring to you all, but let's just say I have them and I might have to tweak them. I've very specifically attempted to make it hard to achieve upwards social mobility and not meeting the target quotas is going to be cause for great concerns.

(The truth is, I'm insanely good at this game. No that's not a brag, it's actually a problem for my enjoyment. I know how to play efficiently, and I can play huuuge households, and my sims make a lot of money. So I'm doing this to give myself another shot at a challenge. It's basically going to be a BACC, but with extra flavour. Over the years I've become very accustomed to what restrictions I need in-game and which I can track in a spreadsheet without feeling overwhelmed)

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But before I get to creating sims, I'm going to do some incredibly fun.

I'm going to play an RPG with myself (and you guys, because I'll be posting a bunch of polls and you can answer them to direct to RPG. It's called The Quiet Year, and you can read more about it here:

You can also listen to the Ethersea season of The Adventure Zone and hear them play it in order to create the world they're going to use for their campaign. It's a lot of fun and there is no need to hear the earlier arcs they've done to enjoy it.

So I'm going to play through this game and use it to come up with interesting quirks for the neighbourhood I'm going to create. Specifically, the map, but I also hope some characters will reveal themselves eventually.

I'm playing the pdf-version, which means I'll use a regular deck of cards and some dice. I've also got my regular DnD dice if I ever need them.

I'm starting with a count of 25 sims, but at this point, they have neither jobs, names, nor social classes. This number may increase of decrease as the game goes along.

Anyway, I'll be posting some stuff as I go along, and if you don't want to see it, I'll use TQYTS2 as a tag so you can block it.

Similar to Pescado's money order, but actual resources?

Setting up a new hood maybe, and I'd like the sims to be able to own shares in each others' farms etc that would allow them to get some veg. Stuff like that.

I'm watching Friends, and it's season 8 and Rachel is pregnant and EVERYONE is making suuuuuch a big deal about her and Ross not being married.

It was the late 90s/early 00s at this point. I mean, I know the US is very prudish as a whole, but come on, right? This can't have been such a big deal? It's just the writers wanting to make consistently bad jokes, right? Or they were all young in the 50s and didn't understand times had changed.

Bring is notorious for not actually delivering things, just drive by and pretend they tried, so now my excitement has turned into major anxiety instead.

Her name is Broomhilda.

She cost 90% of my tax rebate. But she's worth it and she's mine now.