My Playstyle

“My Playstyle” is perhaps too narrow a choice of words for this topic … this is basically where I plan to talk about the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on with my game, only in a general way. If you’re not interested in gameplay and are more into the story, feel free to skip this section. 🙂

Pertinent Info about My Game

Currently, I’m running all expansion packs and stuff packs for The Sims 2, plus I’ve bought some items from The Sims 2 Store. I’m also a custom content (CC) junkie and have begun to experiment with different hacks (more on that later). If you see something in a pic that you like, feel free to ask where I got it, but I make no guarantees that I’ll be able to remember. 🙂

Hacks and Mods

I have a bunch and I won’t attempt to list them all here. However, I will list some that most obviously affect gameplay and storytelling.

TwoJeff’s Autonomous Casual Romance (ACR): Allows Sims to have “casual” romantic interactions (woohoo, kisses, etc.) at much lower relationship levels than the game allows. What can I say, can’t run a brothel without it. It also allows a setting for “risky woohoo,” so Sims might end up with a baby without necessarily trying for one.

Simlogical’s Property Investment & Mortgage Shrubs: These hacks allow Sims to purchase more property than they can technically afford by “borrowing” the money and paying interest until they can afford to pay off the principal. Also, richer Sims can purchase other Sims’ homes/apartments and collect the rent/interest.

Paladin’s Employee Gardening (found under Objects/Businesses Facilitators/Employee Gardening): Lets Sims assign employees to garden on community lots. Without this, the Noble lands just wouldn’t be possible (see below).

Paladin’s Checkbook (found under Objects/Other Objects/Checkbook): Allows Sims to write a check to any other playable Sim in the neighborhood. This is how I have Sims pay taxes (again, see below).

Squinge’s Pregnant Sims Wear Any Outfit: Those Maxis maternity outfits are ugly enough without being completely inaccurate. This mod allows pregnant Sims to wear any outfit as long as it has a pregnancy morph. Or even if it doesn’t, technically — they just won’t have a belly and will walk funny.

Pescado’s Relevant Wages: In the words of El Presidente, “Just like in real life, your degree in underwater basket weaving is completely useless.” Now OFB wages are set according to the badge level of the employee, not badges + skills. Because of this, I’ve eliminated my rules about different wages for Peasants and Merchants: now everybody gets to be fairly paid, but still make squat!

Pescado’s No20KHandout: Eliminates the magical $20,000 that Maxis gives all Sims when they move out of the house. Now Sims take a proportion of the family’s cash on hand. (There is no thread for this hack, so instead I’ve linked to the main hack directory — chose the database that corresponds to your latest expansion pack. 🙂 )

Cyjon’s Edukashun iz Gud: This mod makes it very difficult (theoretically) for Sims without a college education to reach the highest levels of any job. Once a non-graduate Sim hits Level 5 in any career, they only have a 10% chance per attempt to be promoted. So Sims can get up there, it’s just very hard. I use this in conjunction with Pescado’s Harder Jobs to keep even my college-educated Sims from advancing too quickly.

Almighty Hat’s Proportionate Aging Mod: Once upon a time, I manually slowed down my Sims’ aging, kept track of their ages and birthdays in a giant spreadsheet, and basically had a right royal pain of a time trying to keep their aging a) slow enough that I could document their lives and b) making some kind of sense. Then Hat came out with her mod, and now I don’t have to do that! 😉

I’ll add more if/when I think of or add them. 🙂

The Challenge

As you might have noticed from the title bar at the top of the page, this blog is based on a Sims 2 neighborhood, which is in turn based upon EnblithTheFair’s Royal Kingdom Challenge. If you’re not familiar with the challenge, have a look-see at the link and come back when you’re done. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Done already? Wow, that was fast! Now that you have an idea of what I’m trying to do, you must have noticed a few … shall we say, peculiarities about the challenge, such as the fact that the rules only go up to OFB. Well, never fear, I made up my own rules to supplement EnblithTheFair’s! The bad news is that they come to about ten pages long, but I won’t bore you with all of that. I’ll just include some of the important bits here.

Career Changes

One of my first orders of business when I decided to play this challenge was to add to Enblith’s list all of the careers that had come with expansion packs later than OFB — things like the Education career, the Oceanography career, Law, Dance, Musician, etc. Once that was done, my second order of business was to realize that I’d go crazy if my noble, merchant and royal women were confined to the same (small) pool of LTWs. (This happened before I decided to give my Sims custom LTWs.) I didn’t want to have to Max Seven Skills for every woman above the peasant class who happened to roll knowledge — and I certainly didn’t want to Own Five Top Businesses for most of my fortune/popularity women! So I decided to change the rules so that royal and noble women can have jobs. (Married merchant women are still stuck in stay-at-home motherdom.) I also decided that the heads of households for the four main noble families would only be able to pick from four jobs, and that the King would always have to be in Politics. Lastly, I set up different lists for males and females of each class. So without further ado, here is the career list for Albion:

• Royalty
  • Royal Heir: Politics
  • Royal Non-Heirs, Male: Artist, Show Biz, Paranormal, Natural Science, Adventurer, Education, Architecture, Intelligence, Oceanography, Politics, Military, Law, Crime, Athlete, Journalism, Paladin
  • Royal Non-Heirs, Female: Politics, Artist, Show Biz, Paranormal, Natural Science, Oceanography, Education, Architecture, Journalism, Law, Medical, Crime, Musician, Dance
• Nobility
  • Noble Heirs: Politics, Military, Law, Athlete, Crime, Paladin
  • Noble Non-Heirs, Male: Artist, Show Biz, Paranormal, Natural Science, Adventurer, Education, Architecture, Intelligence, Oceanography, Politics, Military, Law, Athlete, Crime, Law Enforcement, Journalism, Paladin
  • Noble Non-Heirs, Female: Artist, Show Biz, Paranormal, Natural Science, Oceanography, Education, Architecture, Journalism, Law, Medical, Crime, Musician, Dance
• Merchants
  • No heir/non-heir limitations
  • Merchant Male, non-college-educated: Business, Medical, Culinary, Architecture, Gamer, Entertainment, Musician, Adventurer, Law Enforcement, Crime, Oceanography, Artist, Paranormal
  • Merchant Male, college-educated: All of the above, plus Politics, Natural Science, Education, Journalism, Law
  • Merchant Female (Single): Medical, Culinary, Education, Entertainment, Journalism, Musician, Dance, Gamer, Crime
    • Single merchant females may also work as courtesans, which means that they make money through dating and date prizes. They may also own a brothel as a home business (though so may peasant women, if they have the money).
  • Merchant Male or Single Female: Business Owner (must own at least one home or community lot business)
• Peasants
  • No heir/non-heir limitations
  • No gender limitations
  • Crime, Medical, Military, Slacker, Culinary, Adventurer, Entertainment, Dance, Music, Law Enforcement, Oceanography, Domestic Service, Business Owner (must own home business)
• Witches and Wizards
  • May take any career available to someone of their age and class status, as well as the Wizard career (see below).
• What do all of these careers “equal” in the medieval world?
  • Totally made this up as I went along. But I figured if I put down what I think these careers are equivalent to, my career list will make more sense. 🙂
  • Adventurer: Pretty much what it says. For Nobles and spare Royals, this can involve knight-errantry. For Merchants, this involves trading voyages and caravans. And for Peasants … well, they’re either along for the ride with Nobles/spare Royals or Merchants, or they’re just wandering over the horizon to see what happens next.
  • Architecture: Self-explanatory.
  • Artist: Also self-explanatory.
  • Athlete: Knighthood (because it pays so well, and because what are knights at a joust if not professional athletes?)
  • Business: Self-explanatory.
  • Business Owner: A custom career by dinhd at MTS. Basically it has no hours, no salary, no nothing — just a placeholding spot so Sims don’t roll up career wants. I’ll be giving most Sims who own at least one home or community lot business this career, because let’s face it, while Sims can have a shop and a full-time job, most people can’t.
  • Criminal: Again, self-explanatory.
  • Culinary: Cooks and workers in taverns, inns and restaurants. I’m using Bethgael’s Cookery default replacement to give it more of a medieval flavor in-game.
  • Dance: Now using my default replacement career! For Nobles and Royals, either patrons of dance or those in the court who can dance the best (you know how in all those Tudor/Elizabethan movies have at least one major court dance? Well, the Nobles & Royals who take this career are the ones really really good at it). For Merchants and below, these are street performers and somewhat classier dancers.
  • Domestic Service: A custom career by bookworm4 at MTS. It’s pretty self-explanatory. And though the descriptions and chance cards are Victorian, I figure emptying chamber pots is emptying chamber pots. 😉
  • Education: Teachers, headmasters and -mistresses of various schools, members of the kingdom’s educational bureaucracy.
  • Entertainment: Low level street performers, jugglers and players. If Merchant, this could also mean that one is the owner of a theater or the leader of a traveling troupe.
  • Gamer: Cunning Artificer, my own Default Replacement for the career. An artificer is a skilled craftsperson; the career and chance card assume more of a tinker/mechanical engineer/D&D type artificer. I plan on using this careers for immortals (Servos & zombies) as well as peasants and merchants who I want to be in some kind of skilled trade, but don’t want to have them work for another Sim/own their own shop.
  • Intelligence: Spies for the Crown.
  • Journalism: Poets, scribes, authors of various stripes. Also (for the Nobility and Royalty) patrons of the written word.
  • Law: For Nobility and Royalty, magistrates and judges. For Merchants, lawyers, clerks, and everyone else that’s needed to keep the court system running.
  • Law Enforcement: Constables, town guards, the brute squad.
  • Medical: Doctors, nurses and midwives.
  • Military: Fairly self-explantory. Nobles who take this career route are still technically knights, but they are in officer positions (i.e. generals). Merchants and below are regular enlisted men, who may or may not rise through the ranks.
  • Music: For Nobles and Royals, either patrons of music or highly skilled bards and instrumentalists (i.e. court entertainment). For everyone else, regular old musicians.
  • Natural Scientist: Think alchemy. Dabbling in the secrets of the unknown, pursing the elusive Laganaphyllis Simnovorii (cowplant) and from it, the Elixer of Life.
  • Oceanography: Sailors and naval officers. I may or may not remove this career from the Sims of the Church/Noble female lists. We’ll see. 🙂
  • Paladin: A custom career by FennShysa at MTS. This career follows a Dungeon & Dragons knighthood path. Basically, I’ll be using this career for noblemen who have already topped the Athletic career, to keep spaces open for other Sims who have the “Become Hall of Famer” LTW.
  • Paranormal: Like Natural Science, a fringe career. For those who want to dabble in the secrets of the unknown, but (for the most part) lack magical powers.
  • Politics: The King is always at the top of this career (’cause he’s the king, duh). Nobles who reach the higher levels of this career are members of the king’s Council. Royal women could either be the Queen or other political confidantes of the king. Merchants are local officials: aldermen, town councilmen, etc.
  • Priest: Yet another custom career from MTS, this one by gk4495. This one is loosely based on the levels of priesthood within the Roman Catholic Church, which, all things considered, works out rather well, since the Wrightian Faith is loosely based on the Catholic Church. This is the career that I’ll be moving most Sims of the Church to after they’ve achieved their LTW career.
  • Science: Once Bethgael finishes it, I’ll be using her default replacement monastery-type career. This career is now closed to Sims who are not Sims of the Church.
  • Show Biz: I have completed a Courtier career for this one. These are the people who are the close confidants of the King and Queen.
  • Slacker: Bethgael is working on a beggar/courtesan career replacement for this. Once it’s done, I’ll only be using this career for Sims whom I want to be beggars or courtesans.
  • Wizard: Another custom career by FennShysa at MTS. This one is D&D again, only it follows the path of a witch or wizard. Obviously, this career will only be open to those Sims who are already AL witches or wizards. (This career predates AL, so this is my rule, not something written into the custom career.)

Expansion Pack Updates

Most of the ten pages of new rules had to do with this. For instance, now that I had pets, how was I to determine who could own which types of pets? And what about Seasons — how would they affect gameplay, especially given the gardening options? Who would get to go on vacation, and where could they go?

I was able to answer most of these questions, but I won’t bore you with the nitty-gritty. Instead, I’ll just list some of the most important additions to the structure of the challenge.

• Gardening
  • All Peasant sims must grow their own food after the initial period of moving into a new house.
  • In addition, each of the four original noble houses purchased a community lot to function as a working farm/food market. Each noble family was also assigned a peasant family as vassals. One of the peasant vassals must work on the noble family’s lands, generally for a pittance.
    • The Royal family, however, gets “hunting grounds” which not only have a working farm, but also have outdoor fun items so they can run the lot as a venue-type business.
  • Merchants are free to garden if they wish, though they can also buy fresh food from community lots. Nobody is allowed to phone out for groceries, though if they pick up some at a community lot (when they are not the controllable Sim) and put the groceries in the fridge before I can stop them … *throws up hands*
  • Nobles and Royals are free to have gardens on their lot; however, they can’t work the garden themselves. A peasant, merchant or Servo has to do that.
• Pets
  • Anyone can have a pet, but which pets a Sim can have is determined by class
    • Royals and Nobles may own large dogs (“hunting dogs”), small dogs, cats, fish and birds
    • Merchant may own cats, large dogs (“security”/”working dogs”) and birds at any time, and small dogs if they qualify as wealthy (net worth, including businesses, of over $150,000)
    • Peasants may own large dogs (“working dogs”) and cats
  • The distinctions between hunting, security and working dogs are purely theoretical — if a Sim is eligible to own a large dog, then they can get a large dog of any breed. Why? Because I can’t tell the difference in the premade dog breeds! 😉
• Apartments
  • Merchants and Peasants can live in apartments for their entire lives, no problem. Nobles and Royals can only stay in an apartment for a few years of their adulthood, barring certain exceptions.
    • For Nobles and Royals, time spent in an apartment as a juvenile (teen or under) doesn’t count against time in an apartment as an adult
    • Nobles and Royals who go into the military can spend their entire lives in apartments with no penalty, so long as these are barracks apartments
    • Nobles and Royals may also live in apartment lots that they own themselves; for instance, if I wanted to set up a working manor as a single lot
    • Additionally, Noble and Royal wives and children may also live in apartments, provided that their head-of-household (i.e. husband or father) is in the military
  • Sims of the Church always live in an apartment, because I thought it would be cool to have a double monastery as an apartment lot. So two households can hold a total of sixteen sims on one lot, yay!
  • Since I have Similogical’s Property Investment hack, Nobles and Royals may purchase entire apartment buildings and charge the peons rent to live there

Extra Classes

I have two extra classes for my Sims. One of them is a category EnblithTheFair created — Sims of the Church. The other is my own creation (more or less), a Gypsies/Supernaturals/Other Undesirables group.

• Sims of the Church
  • Like in Enblith’s rules, these are Sims whom I don’t want to marry off
  • They must remain celibate. Monks can get away with having affairs as long as it’s not right under the abbot’s nose, but for a nun to have an affair and get caught (mostly by getting pregnant) means instant demotion to the Gypsy class
    • Nuns who came from Noble or Royal families may choose to become courtesans; however, they are cut off from all familial assistance … unless story needs dictate otherwise 😉
  • But remaining celibate is no excuse for not caring for children, oh no! The Sims of the Church are responsible for all “orphaned” Sims in the neighborhood. This refers both to Sims who are orphaned the normal way (all teens/adults/elders in the household are dead) and in not-so-normal ways
    • Basically, Sims of the Church are responsible for raising the prostitutes’ kids.
    • The Nuns run a separate orphanage that takes all infants and toddlers. They also care for peasant/prostitute female orphans at the main nunnery lot until they hit teen. Once the girls hit teen, they can either take vows and become a nun, or they are sent to another lot to work as a servant or apprentice. Merchant, Noble and Royal orphans may stay at the nunnery past the child stage without taking vows, leaving only to go to college/get hitched.
    • Monks take male orphans once they hit the child stage. Once the orphans hit teen, the same rules apply to them as to their female counterparts.
  • But wait, there’s more! Monks and Nuns also have their own separate career lists.
    • Monks may take a job in the Priest, Politics, Law, Education, Journalism, Music, Architecture, Artist, Medical, Natural Scientist, Science, or Business Owner* fields.
    • Nuns may enter the Priest, Education, Culinary, Journalism, Musician, Medical, Artist, Science, or Architecture field.
    • *Business Owner is only available to those priests who are running either a cathedral venue lot or a church home business. So far … don’t have any of those yet. But I will! Someday!
  • Non-orphans as young as teens may choose to take vows and enter the monastery or nunnery. Widowed Sims with no dependent children may also take vows. Single Sims with no obvious sexual history (i.e. no out-of-wedlock babies which they are supporting) may also take vows at any time. Those with an obvious sexual history can also take vows, but must prove their penitence by giving a large sum of money to the church (at least $50,000).
• Gypsies, Supernaturals and Other Undesirables
  • The citizens of Albion do not like people who are not human. But rather than burn the lot of them, they have (perhaps sensibly) decided to instead separate them from most of society by creating a special area for them (the “gypsy lot”).
  • The gypsy lot is an apartment-style lot with various “caravans” for the different supernatural Sims. I reserve the right to add another one if I run out of space. Also, gypsy Sims may live in single lots that are theme-appropriate (for instance, this giant tree lot I found for plantsims).
  • Supernatural Sims who are sent to the gypsy lot are aliens and their fathers (until the aliens hit teen, then the father can move back to the main hood), zombies (with some exceptions), vampires of merchant status or below, werewolves and plantsims.
    • Zombie exceptions: If an evil witch or wizard has created a zombie, that zombie “gets” to stay with the evil witch or wizard as a zombie slave. The other exception is Morgan le Fay’s husband Accolon, because they’re just special. 😉
  • Sims who are cured of their supernatural affliction within one sim-week (gametime: A little over a year) can return to the normal ‘hood with no penalties.
  • Sims working in a Brothel are also considered to be part of this class.
  • The Royal family has direct control over all of the above supernatural Sims. As such, one person from each gypsy lot (except brothels) must work on the Royal Hunting Grounds.
  • THE BIG EXCEPTION: Witches & Wizards
    • They’re supernatural, but instead of being undesirable, they’re highly prized! Being a witch or wizard constitutes instant promotion to the Merchant class, unless the Sims is already a member of a higher class.
    • I have a “Magic Academy” lot where, for a fee ($6000/per year [season] of teenhood), an experienced witch and wizard teach the youth of Albion the ins & outs of magic. These teachers may have unlimited Elixer of Life.
    • Magic runs in families — the only way a Sim can receive magical powers is for the to be “passed down” from an older relative (in practice, for an older relative — parent, grandparent, aunt/uncle, older sibling if all of the above are dead — to do “Magus Mutatio” on them).
    • Fae (alien) children are also automatically witches and wizards as well

Mortality, Reproduction and All that Fun Stuff

I know what you’re thinking: Doesn’t the game handle all that automatically? Well, yes, it does, but only if you don’t mess around with it with hacks. Which I have. Allow me to explain.

• Mortality
  • Sims are mortal. But thanks to my lovely collection of hacks, my Sims don’t have to die until I want them to. I’ve got a couple different ways for handling this:
  • Accidental Deaths
    • Yeah, I’m human, so I might screw up and get a Sim killed. I’m not sure what will happen if I do that, though. If I can’t save them in time, plead with the Grim Reaper, or resurrect them without cheating, I’ll add it into the story. If not … well, you may never even hear about it. 😉
  • “Accidental” Deaths
    • Some deaths are not going to be accidents. Story purposes are going to require a few bodies here and there — hopefully not too many, but hey, you never know. Those Sims I’ll kill off in whatever way makes sense/I can get pictures for, and after that, they’ll stay dead. Mostly. 😉
  • “Natural” Deaths
  • All of my Sims have been given a random death age, using the extremely scientific method of using the “randbetween” function in Excel. I did this so that I could have a more realistic spread of death-ages, instead of everybody dying either for plot reasons or at a ripe old age.
• Reproduction
  • Sims reproduce the same way in my game as they always have … except, since I have ACR, with a twist. You’ll want to check out the actual hack for details, but the long and the short of it is that Sims’ fertility decreases as they age; and ACR includes the option for Risky Woohoo.
  • Fertility and Aging
    • Hat’s mod takes care of this: basically, newly-fertile Sims start off less fertile (just like real women), their fertility grows until it hits a peak level in their early 20’s, then it decreases until they hit menopause.
  • Risky Woohoo
    • Challenge rules state that every time Sims Woohoo, they must “Try for Baby” if the option is available. I’m using Risky Woohoo from ACR to approximate that. Exactly how much risk Woohoo carries with it is determined by class. My general way of thinking is that the richer you are, the more likely you’re able to afford/procure some sort of birth control that works. Even if that’s not how it worked in the real world — that’s how it will work in Albion! 😉
    • All values below “count” for the female partner, not the male. So if the two are different classes, they go by the female’s fertility/risky factor.
    • Peasants and most gypsies have 60% risky Woohoo. This doesn’t mean that they’ll get pregnant 60% of the time (God forbid), just that their chances of conceiving are 60% of what they’d be if they were Trying for Baby. So if the woman has a 70% chance of conceiving, it’ll be 60% of that — so a 42% actual chance of ending up pregnant.
    • Whores have 50% risky Woohoo. They may not be that much wealthier than their other peasant/gypsy counterparts, but birth control is also a somewhat higher priority for them: in other words, they spend a little extra and know a few tricks.
    • Merchants have 40% risky Woohoo.
    • Nobles and Royalty have 20% risky Woohoo.
    • Sims of the Church have 100% risky Woohoo. Hey, they’re not supposed to be doing it anyway, so it’s not like anyone ever told them about birth control!
    • Households with a witch or wizard have a 5% risky Woohoo. This is because they have access to special magical birth control that, you know, actually works most of the time. (And the witches and wizards share their birth control with everyone on the lot.)
    • College students can’t have kids (don’t have that hack), so naturally they have 0% risky Woohoo. Lucky them.
    • If I’m trying to get a particular Sim pregnant, then naturally I’ll just click “Try for Baby” and all of the above values go out the window. 😉

Financials

I can hear your question now — what do financial things have to do with the Sims? Quite a bit, in fact, and no, I’m not just talking about expansion packs at $30 a pop. Financials (other than the normal work-get-paid-buy-things-pay-bills that come with the game) come under three main headings in my game: Taxes, Dowries and Miscellaneous.

• Taxes
  • Yes, the citizens of Albion get to pay taxes — but don’t worry, even the king has to pony up. Amounts vary by class and are based on a Sim family’s net worth (value of house + businesses).
  • Taxes are evaluated every Sunday, payable through Friday.
  • Gypsies/Supernaturals/Other Undesirables
    • 30% to the Royal family
  • Indentured Peasants
    • 40% to their liege lords (i.e. the Noble family they’re assigned to), 10% to the Royal family
      • If the Noble family to which they are assigned has offshoots or cadet branches, 20% goes to the original Noble family with the remaining 20% split equally among the cadets (or 30% to the noble family and 10% to the cadets if there’s only one cadet branch)
      • If a member of the household is working at the Noble family’s lands, the taxes to the Noble family are cut in half
      • Peasants with a Level 10 home business also get the Thriving Business Deduction (see below)
  • Free Peasants
    • 10% to each of the four original Noble houses (de Ganis, du Lac, Gwynedd, Orkney — total 40%), 10% to the Royal family
      • If/when I ever get my main hood split into sub-hoods that function as “estates,” Free Peasants may only pay the lord on whose estate they live.
  • Merchants
    • 2.5% to each original Noble family (total 10%), 10% to the Royal family, 10% to the Church (5% to the Monastery, 5% to the nunnery — this goes for everybody)
      • Thriving Business Deduction: For every Level 10 business a Merchant family owns, $50,000 is knocked off their net worth for tax purposes.
  • Nobles
    • 10% to the Royal family, 10% to the Church, 2% to every cadet branch
      • Nobles (and Royals too) are not directly taxed on vacation homes or rental properties, though they are taxed on income from rental properties
      • No Thriving Business Deduction
  • Royalty
    • 10% to the Church, 2% to every cadet branch
  • Sims of the Church
    • 1% of the total net worth of the Monastery & Nunnery to each Peasant or Gypsy household, the baby/toddler orphanage, and any churches set up in sub-hoods. If there’s an odd number, the Monastery takes the one left over since the Nuns are raising all those babies and toddlers.
• Dowries
  • Women about to be married get a dowry from their families. The dowry is put into their inventory in the form of goods or property deeds. How much is based on the family’s net worth and class status.
    • Net worth is calculated for Merchants, Nobles and Royals at the beginning of the female’s senior year of college, or a year before she ages up to adult/gets hitched, so Papa has time to come up with the cash.
  • Peasants & Gypsies/Supernaturals
    • Don’t actually get a hard-and-fast percentage of the family’s net worth, but rather useful items such as homemade clothing/craftables, a nice marriage bed, a share of the last harvest, etc.
  • Merchants
    • 10% per daughter, payable in goods or cash only.
  • Nobles
    • 15% to the first daughter, 10% to each subsequent daughter. Dowry must include some real property (i.e., a vacation or business lot).
  • Royalty
    • 20% to the first daughter, 15% to each subsequent daughter. Dowry must include some real property.
  • Sims of the Church
    • Ladies entering the nunnery get half the usual dowry to donate to the church.
• Miscellaneous
  • School fees
    • I used to not have school fees at all, then I downloaded these nifty carpool replacements and realized that they glitch up the headmaster. Since I still want my Merchants & up to go to private school, I downloaded Inge’s School Changer. I’m combining this with the option on Monique’s Computer to pay private school fees in order to “make up” for the lack of headmaster challenge.
    • Boarding school fees
      • Teens of the upper classes may, instead of learning at home, attend some sort of boarding school (like the Magic Academy). However, this isn’t free! Schedule of fees are as follows:
      • Magic Academy: $6000/year (season) of teenhood. Half of money goes straight to the crown. Private school fees included.
      • Finishing School: $4000/year of teenhood. Noble and Royal girls only. Private school fees included.
      • Knight’s Training: $5000/year of teenhood. Noble and Royal boys only. Private school fees included.
      • Note: The only school set up as of this writing (10/31/09) is the Magic Academy.
  • Rent
    • I have Simlogical’s Property Investment hack and mortgage bushes. So wealthier Sims (i.e. Nobles & Royalty) can buy lots and charge poorer Sims to live in them. Pretty much self-explanatory from there.

Whew … I think that’s everything. If you’ve hung on for this long, congratulations! Now feel free to look around elsewhere. 🙂

Author’s Bill of Rights