RKC 3/30/20

Today we visited the Nero family, which is one of two current Noble families.  The Nero line started in CAS with William and Elizabeth.  Typically Noble families have 3 children, however if there is no male heir they'll keep trying until they get one.  William and Elizabeth ended up having 7 daughters in a row!  By then Elizabeth was too old to have any more children, so I made the decision to allow men to divorce their wives if they are unable to produce an heir.  Consequently, William divorced Elizabeth and married the young daughter of the other Noble family (the Nordstroms), who produced a son on the first try.  Poor Elizabeth was sent to the convent to live out the rest of her days.  It wasn't too bad for her though because she had a fair number of her daughters there with her due to there being insufficient marriage partners for so many girls.

In any event, we have now reached a period in time where William has died, leaving his widow Josephine to raise their son Nicholas on her own.  Last round Nicholas left for boarding school, leaving Josephine completely on her own until she was able to procure a new servant from the orphanage.  (The previous servant had died in a tragic fire.)  During this round, new servant Gabriel jumped right in to learn his new duties, not having the benefit of being trained by the previous servant.  He's not a very good cook yet.  Josephine carried on as usual, occupying her time with painting and reading.  She should have enough money to get through until her son returns home and takes a job.  Nicholas will likely need to look for a wife among the Merchant class, as he's too closely related to all the Noble girls.

Next up: the Nordstroms.  Until then, Happy Simming!

RKC 3/29/20

So I decided to play through one round before posting, just to get back into the swing of things, and it's a good thing, because a couple of the households were glitched and I had to move everyone out and back in, re-furnish, the whole thing.  Anyway, I finished the round and am now starting a new round, hopefully with everything under control.

The first household always played in the round is the Royals.  Old King Randall died last round, leaving behind his son King James, daughter Princess Caroline, daughter-in-law Queen Winifred, and grandchildren Prince Arthur and Princess Gwendolyn.  Since Arthur and Gwendolyn are currently at boarding school, it leaves only the other three in residence at the moment, along with their live-in servant of course, whose name is Duncan Pratt.

The Royals pretty much live in luxury with all their needs met by their servant.  Only second sons will take jobs.  Since I don't allow women to marry below their station, it means princesses live in the palace for their entire lives.  I may at some point decide to build a second kingdom, which would give "extra" Royals someone to marry.  So far I haven't had any second sons, but I likely won't let them marry (even though they could marry a Noble) because it would complicate things too much.  If I kept them in the palace, it would eventually get too full and if I moved them out I'd have to determine what role they'd play in society.  Of course, that would allow for the Royal family to intermarry with themselves once the bloodline got far enough apart, so that might be a perk.  I don't know yet I guess.  We'll see how that goes.

As for this round, things were pretty quiet.  On Saturday, they went down to the Royal Hall to hold an audience with their subjects and hear their petitions.  This is (obviously) largely ceremonial as nothing really happens apart from some chatting.  The Royal Hall is primarily used as a means for subjects to pay their taxes.  They visit the Hall and gift the King a gift, which when I play the Royals can either be used or sold.  On Sunday, they attended mass and paid their tithes to the priest.

Next up will be the Nero family, who are Nobles, which I'm looking forward to talking about as they have a pretty interesting history.  Until then, Happy Simming!

Royal Kingdom Challenge 3/8/20

Finally got finished playing Rainbow Falls for now.  I actually thought the challenge would come to an end, but at the last moment it decided to limp along a bit longer.  I'll get back to it eventually, but for now I'm ready to move on to something different:  The Royal Kingdom Challenge.  I've had this challenge going for quite some time and have made some significant changes to the original RKC rules.  Today was mostly spent reacquainting myself with the rules and the families, so I didn't play too much.  I should have a better update within the next few days, once I've gotten into the swing of things again.  Rather than post all the rules (there are many!) now, I'll just explain them as I go along which I hope will make it less tedious.

That's it for now.  Happy Simming!