Saturday 25 August 2018

Introduction - Dragon Valley Goes Medieval

Well my fellow simmers, this has been a long time in the making! Four days of modding, researching, editing, and tweaking to be precise. I didn't want to just make a world (dragon valley) that looked medieval, but didn't act medieval, so I really hope you all enjoy what I have done! Some features of the world are:


  • Illnesses - The medieval period was rife with disease and death due to poor sanitation, diet and lifestyle. I used Nraas Vector mod to unleash the common cold, simfluenza and dysentery on my poor medieval sims. None of these diseases are fatal, however they do cause a lot of suffering and the fee to cure the illnesses immediately is too expensive for my peasants, so they have to just get on with it. Dysentery in particular near drove me crazy as my poor sims were barely functioning!
  • Miscarriage - Now this was a difficult choice. Considering I have had two miscarriages myself. I did not want the sim babies, toddlers and children to actually die so to represent the fact that nearly 50% of children died in their first years in the middle ages, I decided to use a miscarriage mod. The basis of the mod is to keep your pregnant sim as comfortable, rested and happy as possible. Let her get too tired, or take part in strenuous exercise and she may lose the baby. This is NOT realistic in that real miscarriages are not caused by those reasons. However that is how the mod works and considering the peasants of my sim world live a harsher life, it makes sense that they are more likely to lose their children. 
  • Castes - Castes are a feature of Nraas Story Progression mod. Think of a caste like a rule book for a  group of sims that have something in common. For example, your group of sims are all female. So this would make a female caste rule book stating what ALL female sims can do or not do. I have used the caste function to create Rich, Noble and Peasant Castes. This allows me to control what jobs the sims of my world can take up. It would make no sense for a poor peasant to be at the top of the political career for example! The castes also allow me to control who sims are allowed to flirt with and marry. For example, a peasant sim cannot flirt or marry with a rich sim. I have also made it so those man hungry elder females stop trying to shack up with unsuspecting young adult male sims. 
  • Money/Tax - Using NRaas Money module for Story Progression mod, I have assigned property tax to my peasants and nobles. Each sim week, these two groups of sims need to pay their property tax to the rich of the world. Of course, the peasants pay way more than the nobles! This is to make sure that the poor stay poor and the rich stay, well, rich! 
  • Careers And Home Schooling - I have custom careers in my world, befitting of the medieval ages, with more realistic wages. For example, one of my sims is currently employed as a Forager and earns a massive $20 a shift! In terms of schooling for children, only noble or rich children were given any real education, therefore I have a homeschooling career for peasant children. This means peasant children don't attend school and don't drop grades for the modern day social worker to turn up and take them away! Lets face it, in the medieval era, no one really cared for the children!
  • Ani's Sim Drinks Mod - My medieval sims can get drunk! Water was dirty in the medieval era and milk from cattle did not stay fresh long, so even peasants drank ale and wine. It was watered down for the children. There cannot be a medieval world where all the sims stay sober!
  • Teen Romance and Marriage - In medieval times, it was common for children as young as 10 to be married and having a baby as a teen was a normal occurrence. In the early medieval period, life expectancy was capped at around 35 years old.
  • Car Disabling and Functional Horse and Carriage - Now I do have sims 3 pets, so i could have given all sims horses, however I don't like the horses in sims 3 pets and every new family appearing in town would need to be manually given them. I have disabled as many cars as possible, however the game will still occasionally spawn taxi's or try to give NPC sims Big Lemons. For the most, sims will use the horse and carriage to get around. It is possible to disable all cars completely, however sims will have routing problems crossing bridges or take too long to walk to work. 
  • Church - This is not a mod, but a custom lot. I couldn't find a religious mod sadly. The medieval era was a difficult time for religion. Christianity was gaining popularity and to help it on the way, the pope ordered the persecution of the Jewish people, starting the famous Crusades. Medieval people were deeply religious and to represent this, every in game sunday, my active sims attend church to watch one of them learn magic from the rather blasphemous Lady Ravendancer Goth's Book O'Spells that is a makeshift podium! 
  • Miscellaneous - Mobile phones are clearly not a thing in the middle ages, so I have disabled them as much as possible. There were obviously no computers either so I have a writing pad mod that allows sims to still learn the writing skill and write novels. The Painting skill and subsequent paintings have been replaced with a medieval painting mod. Thought bubbles and speech icons have been replaced with medieval themes. All sims, including NPC's have been outfitted in medieval wear and hair thanks to Nraas Dresser mod. I have some sims 3 store content such as the Chicken Coop, The Cow Shed and Humble Harvest Stands which allow my peasants to sell their harvest items with a fee to the rich. The Duke of Bows Renaissance Faire lot is also placed, so sims can do archery and use the violin. Finally I have searched out a HUGE amount of medieval furniture cc to finish it all off. 
Phew! Some list huh! Absolutely none of these features are made by me and I do not take credit for any of them. So as you can see, this has been a real work in progress and I hope you appreciate the effort made to make my world as medieval as can be with a massive thanks to all the creators out there that made it all happen. 

Now the introduction is out of the way, please join me on my next post, my very first chapter of Eva and Elias. 

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