I don’t have a strict set of rules, it just doesn’t fit well with the way my brain works, and the most important thing for me when playing is to enjoy myself. If something is too tedious, complicated or simply not interesting, I might even cheat...
That said, I take a lot of inspiration and information from the original challenge, and later versions and adaptations. I also do general research for each era, which is part of the fun for me. I find information from books, Wikipedia, sims groups and Discord-channels or wherever I can find it.
I prefer the rotational play style, not only for this challenge, but in general. I have one main family (the heir), but I also play the other families in the same neighbourhood, unless they are NPC’s. Sometimes I even have families outside the neighbourhood, especially when I’ve played the save for a long time. I find it helpful to have a spreadsheet where I keep track of my sims names, their partners, children, carrier, address and so on. Nothing too complicated! 😃 For the History Challenge I also have a health score. (You can download the spreadsheet here and adapt it for your own use)
I use random traits and ambitions, either from the game directly or from the James Turner Random traits generator. For the ambitions I might have to hit several times to get something era appropriate, but for the traits I usually just use whatever comes up, as long as I can see the logic in it. Example; the Bookworm trait wouldn’t really fit any era before Gutenberg (1450), since there were no books. But I’ve used it even in Stone Age era, thinking that a sim interested in symbols and rock carvings could have that trait.
I use a random number generator (any would do) for my health score system. This is how I count:
- A baby is born with +/- 40. Since you can’t kill a baby, they get a new chance when becoming toddler, where +/- 30 is added to the score. If the sum is less than 0, they will not survive. I add +/- 30 for each age transition, except adult to elder where I use +/- 40.
- When a baby is born I also give extra score to the parents; +2/-8 for the mother, and +2/-4 for the father.
- (I will probably adjust the scores a bit, to cover for the development of medicine, and/or special periods like the Black Death, or use a mod.)
- When a NPC or a new adult sim is added to the household they get a basic score of 20.
- To kill a sim (and a lot of other purposes) I use the MCCC mod, but you could also just remove the sim from the family in CAS with the cheat ‘cas.fulleditmode’. The disadvantage with that is that removed sims won’t show up in the in-game family tree.
- Cats and dogs have no score.
I don’t keep general scores or follow any point system, but I do try to fulfill any ambition my sims have. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes not. 😏 If you want to play with a score system, I recommend the original challenge, which you can find here.
I also like to see the development of my sims, especially if they are part of my story. As a family tree with the Plum Tree App now replaced with Family Echo, and as individuals through my Character presentation blog.
Unlike the original challenge, I will progress to a new era when the heir is about to become a Young Adult, not when a new generation is born. This works better for the story, I think, and I also think it makes sense realistically speaking. Every new and young generation bring technology, art, ideas, politics etc forward.
Edit 03.09.23: I decided to make some adjustments to the health score system, because I really hate to kill sims, especially when they are not adults, and the family tree filled up with dead sims, and I don't find it enjoyable playwise. So until they reach childhood I don't kill them when they get a negative score, but give them (imaginary) health problems. Some are visual (with mods), like blindness, burns, scars, some not. There are mods/traits to make health issues more realistic, but my game is so complicated already, so I didn't add it at this point. From teens and up I'm thinking of letting them live if they have -10 to 0, but with some disadvantage. I will also give mass negative points every now and then, to mimic epidemics or war.
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