More Awesome Than You!

Older Windle (my version of Riverview, set in pre-medieval times) is growing and here I offer you three buildings from it:
The Monastery:
(http://simverses.net/blog/Lists/Pictures/monastery1.jpg)
Built on a big lot, housing 8-10 monks, library, growing veggies, pond, one ghost monk included.

See more pictures and download here:
http://simverses.net/blog/archive/2009/09/28/the-monastery.aspx (http://simverses.net/blog/archive/2009/09/28/the-monastery.aspx)

The farm houses in Older Windle are simple - one big room with fireplaces in each end, beds along the walls, a place to cook and a table for eating. The double bed for the parents is in the loft, where also additional beds can be placed. In the outhouse there are sanitary arrangements.

(http://simverses.net/blog/Lists/Pictures/MediumFarm.jpg)
Medium Farm House with growing veggies
20x25 lot size
(http://simverses.net/blog/Lists/Pictures/SmallFarm.jpg)

Small Farm no landscaping - 16x18 lot size
More pictures and download here:
http://simverses.net/blog/archive/2009/09/29/two-windle-farms-for-download.aspx (http://simverses.net/blog/archive/2009/09/29/two-windle-farms-for-download.aspx)

Thank you so much for sharing these.  I have been wanting to start my own medieval TS3 hood since my TS2 one never got off the ground.  These will provide some much-needed inspiration since building has never been my strong suit.

Awesome designs - I espescially like how you designed the monestary.

Really nice the Monastery. But now i have the Cyclonesue Windows installed as EA Store Stuff :D.
I have installed the Lot via the Launcher, now the Cyclonesue wall some woods and the Windows are ingame marked as Storestuff. And i have no Windows from TSR. Found a Art Deco Chair also.
If only 3Viever could do the same as the Launcher.

Edit: On the Fireplace is a Custom Pattern which is missing.

Hehe, Haveock, I really didn't know it works like that - thats why I put in a link to the window set, I thought a shopping list was needed as in old Sims1-days.. Missing pattern confuses me, I thought patterns were kind of presets when used, and that you didn't need to include the pattern itself, or a link to it. Hmm.

Interesting.  But I would point out that your monastery has little in common with the layout and design of real medieval monasteries.
Typically, the cloister was the heart of the monastery, and other buildings surrounded the cloister.  Of these buildings, the monastic church was the most important.

And of course, there was no such thing as a pre-medieval monastery.  Monastacism was a distinctly medieval institutuion.

But interesting none-the-less, even if it is not historically accurate.  I have been wanting to include a religious cult somewhere in my world.  This cult grows life fruits and has a pond with death fish, and the monks eat ambrosia.  Needless to say, they are all quite very very old, but do not show their age, and seem to never die.

Sort of inspired by Robert Silverberg's "Book of Skulls."

The wood Pattern are included only the stonepattern on the fireplace is missing. I have seen this several times with downloaded lots. Some pattern dont get packed into the lotfile. The base and heart of the Fireplace are bright white and if i try to add a pattern it says there is a corrupt pattern.
For the Meshes i was surprised also, because i use 3Viewer to installl lotfiles only this time i used the launcher and now i have TSR objects as Store content in my Game.

The monastery does not claim to be historically accurate, maybe I should have pointed that out. I know the era is a bit early for this kind of institutions.. even if christianity came to parts of  northern Europe rather early (I recently visited Iceland, where irish monks had settlements as early as in the 800-s).  My reasons for adding a monastery to the village in Windle are the following: its a cool and beautiful environment. I get a place to shove the surplus male offsprings, especially those with some kind of scientific/literary wants. (Monasteries were the place to study stuff, write books ect.) The farming of Sims3 also fit in - as monks often had experimental and important gardens in the old times. Of course the limitations of the game as it is at the moment, makes it hard to create truly accurate buildings ect. In building this I also aimed for playability.
Lets call it a Sims3- "interpretation" of the monastery concept. In my Sims2 hood I had a convent for nuns also, but that will have to wait a bit until we get more proper clothing for them.

Havelock, I will pack up the texture used and put it up for download asap. It was based on a Cyclonesue-pattern, I will give links to that too.

The comments were not really intended as criticism.  However, the actual historical monasteries are far more interesting than anything someone could make up.  Often, truth is stranger than fiction.  But for someone who is content with a dumbed down version of a "monastery" it should do just fine.

An historical monastery also has some great story opportunities.  Think of "The Name of the Rose."  (For those who don't remember or are too young, this was a mystery novel which was made into a very good movie starring Sean Connery.)  Or even the brother Caedfel series.

As a medeivalist, I consider the 800s to be part of the early medieval period, which many refer to as the "Dark Ages."  Pre-Medieval is Roman.  And of course, your had the Carolingian renaissance during this period as well as the Venerable Bede.

As for me, I will hold out for something a lot closer to the prototype -- or eventually build one myself.  As I posted earlier, I really would like to have something resembling the Book of Skulls, but not immediately recongnizable as such.  And it might be better to wait until we have Egypt or a similar desert to place for a "Book of Skulls" type religious house.

Of course the downside of posting here is that you get more honest comments.  At MTS you get all sorts of accolades and everyone exclaiming "Bravo! Bravo!" no matter what you post.  On the exchange, you get almost nothing.

I appreciate your comments, don't think otherwise! Maybe my approach to the era is more Nordic (I am Swedish) and here most people think of the era before 1000-1100 as Viking Era and not really yet medieval. I am not an historian, just very interested in history :).

I really like these. It looks like you have done something with the roads in the neighborhood. Is that possible? I also do not see cars, is that a cheat or clever photo taking?

The cars - thats just clever photography, and also, as I don't have more than two rabbit holes, the food store and tha graveyard, not so many cars and school buses driving around. I would not mind a mod to switch off cars altogether, until w can have nice replacements. The roads - thats a mod, from Bogsims, link: http://www.bogsims.com/sims3/regina/misc/around-town.htm (http://www.bogsims.com/sims3/regina/misc/around-town.htm)

The Viking era, at least in Britain began with the sacking of the Monastery at Lindisfarne.  Charlamagne also had to deal with the Vikings.  As a result, more walls were constructed around monasteries to give them more protection.  Irish monasteries built tall towers to afford some degree of protection.

By the way, for this period, chimneys are anachronistic.  Buildings did not start having chimneys until about the 14th century.  As in our sims games, they have a nasty habit of starting fires.  Typically, having a hole in the roof over the firepit was less likely to result in your building being burnt to the ground.

An interesting Eastern Rite monastery can be found at http://sims.mixei.ru/component/option,com_jdownloads/Itemid,28/task,view.download/cid,480/

It occurred to me that a modern story hook for monasteries can be found in Dan Brown's novels -- particularly the DaVinci Code.  I probably will wait for Worlds of Adventure before doing much with monasteries.  They would be a fine addition to the French segment.

I am aware of the chimney problem - for the rich family in Windle I built a longhouse, more similar to the viking longhouses. I did use chimneys in it, in the middle, even if I know they are not accurate, as we dont have any alternative fire hearths to use. I did put them in though, becuase of the fireplace buff and that an open fire at least was better than just a disguised modern stove. Oh, to have an open fire for the sims to really cook on - the one they roast marshmallows on, feels a bit wrong..

I also have great hopes for the WA expansion bringing some useful stuff. My plan is to take the hood slowly through the "sim medieval" times and then, when we hopefully get more historical clothing, further through the history.

And the Neo coat is not really my fave clothing for monks either. Again, maybe Egypt (and our clever creators of CC) will bring some better options..

You can remove chimneys by using the moveObjects cheat, but I'm not sure if this would cause fires in the game. I did it by accident and promptly clicked the "undo" button.

If there was a nice open-hearth-fire (no surrounding tiles)  I would place that, and remove the chimney, maybe just save the top part that makes the smoke.

Havelock, I now added a fireplace recolor, the rar-file also includes simspacks with the patterns, find them here:
http://simverses.net/blog/archive/2009/09/28/the-monastery.aspx (http://simverses.net/blog/archive/2009/09/28/the-monastery.aspx)

Thx for trying but none of the Packages has worked. The Pattern for StonesDarker is not in the Game so providing a different color would not work we would need the actual pattern itself. The other two styles show fine on the fireplace because the pattern is from EA so we have it in Game there is no need to pack the Color information for them.
Edited for Picture:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/Havelock/MonasteryFireplace-1.png)

Odd.. the pattern for the stones doesnt have a CC or other symbol, I thought it was from game too. I will try to search where I got it from. I hate that we don't have the tooltip-filename options we had in Sims2 CAS, for example..

ETA: I am 99% sure its a pattern from Tammy Traumas stone set, found here:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=370171 (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=370171)

A whole lot of CC doesn't have any CC symbol, and some of it I think claims to be from the Sims Store when it is not.  It's very confusing if you're trying to share something and trying to remember if that content was actually base game or what.

It looks like it was the HanaStones1BarelyThereMortar Pattern from Tammy Traumas stone set.

Question here - do the windows automatically download with the building or not. I no longer buy subscriptions from TSR because of the debacle last year, and that page says subscribers only.

They apparently do.

Ah, I'm happy to see that someone has figured out road modification. I shall have to attempt dirt roads. Thanks for the link.