The past week I really dived deep, exploring the past of my Region 12. My year count is currently at Year 222, so I went right back to Year 0 - I imagine this was when the community transferred from TS1 to TS2 and time was no longer static. They started a new and needed to define a top level of society, to control community but also handle politics and wars. There was established an organization called the Royal Chamber, with the power to approve the best man for each peerage. Many families claimed a noble background from TS1, but brought no proofs. Hardly anything could be verified.
The Royal Chamber introduced the King of SimNation, Baltazar II of the De Froux family. This family had a Coat of arms already that could actually be verified, and left no doubt about high nobility (pictured). But for the rest?
The community structure depended on trusted men to control and represent the various districts (worlds), and who would also support the King at future wars. King Baltazar II made a plan with high noble titles (Dukes and high Barons) to become his men. Now the Royal Chamber had to fill all those positions, that came with a title but also certain duties and privileges. Many men applied, and I've now been busy creating their coat of arms. Further on these high nobility Dukes and Barons could introduce nobles ranked lower than themselves, ie the Duke of Meadows introduced Baron of Zeddlemore (later to become Fashion District of San Myshuno). In the future, the Baron of Zeddlemore might introduce a Lord.
Anyone right under the King were seen as high nobility, while those further down the hierarchy were low nobility. Therefore there existed both high Barons and low Barons, while Dukes were always high nobles. There were also a few Lords introduced by the King, meaning they belonged to the high nobility. Only the King, Dukes and high Barons had a crown, and most of them lived in castles, while the others had finer estates. This far back some of the districts had a very sparse population, and as it grew, the high nobles got power over more people, but owned less land - because the land had to be assigned for various community purposes and even be sold to cover the high nobility family's hefty costs.
Well, right now I'm creating each noble family's genealogy, seeing how they all fared. I use a dice to decide events like birth, death, gender, success and catastrophes, so it's quite entertaining as I really don't decide the outcome. Sometimes their oldest son dies just before getting old enough to secure the next generation, I imagine he got killed at war. In the very first era only sons could inherit the title, and in some cases it was impossible to find heirs because families had not yet spread widely. Some families lost their nobility status, and other families took over the peerage. I might publish more articles on this later, after all there is a Historical Society in my game, and they will have an important role in my video series As Sims Go By.
It's like laying out a huge puzzle, where I don't know the final picture. I don't know how the various noble families will develop. The goal is that there will be only a few of my sims that will still be aware of their finer background, perhaps a couple families in addition to the existing Duke de Cavalier. Perhaps even more important, is that I along the road learn how each district (world) developed, and I get a much richer understanding of the region. I set a time line for major events both regionally and locally. It's a lot of fun if you are into these things. This will also result in (CC) content for my Museums - I can't believe that my Willow Creek Museum is still as it came with the base game back in 2014! They will of course display some of the old families' coat of arms, and I might need to create a few passed sims and dress them up in historical CC attire, in order to secure a limited number of old paintings. I imagine that if a castle had a "big housefire event" minimum 3 times, most painting would get lost, but a few old portraits should have survived. Finally my museums can focus on true regional history, rather than random art!
At one point (Year 120) the political structure of the nobility was replaced with a Council of Politicians. I was followed by a long period with no royal family, and it's been several generations since the Royal Chamber or any of the high nobilities introduced a new peerage. I think there should be a few surviving noble families just out of novelty, with limited duties and privileges beyond the title and a higher social status, possibly. I don't know yet who they are, but I can't wait to find out who of my current sims might be of noble heritage!
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