The overall picture - Part III: Tinn -- The Notes
The Notes
Names
I have this big file with ALL NAMES. Personal names, pet names, alien names, street names, male names, female names, last names, medieval names, modern names, village names, forest names, community lot names, I have collected them all. Actually, I collected everything and had just sorted it out and a few weeks later my pc crashed.. I'd forgotten to back the Names.rtf up and I had to start all over again. Bummer! (That was the very same crash that cost me all my medieval CC last january. But because of that, the medieval folder is now very neatly organized. :))
The file is a reference book whenever a new Sim is born or created. It lists all my favourite names, and I also italicized the names that, according to some sites who would know, were the most common ones in the Middle Ages. It's incredibly useful.
Family trees
Ingeli (who is a wonderful inspiration anyway!) has this great system that lists all of the Sims in Windlebridge, and it is great to browse because it lists on last name, and you can click from one to another Sim that you find in their description and that is somehow related to them. You can see the family trees and also some pictures. Ingeli has, where appropriate, included pictures of various lifestages. You can include a lot more information such as where they work, where they live, how they got married, where they were born, and a thousand other things, including your own labels. It's a family tree program called GenoPro.
I looked this nifty little program up and built the families of Tinn. In the program itself you can also see the family tree (the program can make you some html pages for every person, which is what Ingeli used, but the standard view is the family tree) and you can switch the icons and lines around which makes it incredibly identifiable and graphical. (Which made me realize that all the families will be related to each other through inter-marrying within two generations, with these marriage plans. But hey, that's what the townies are for!)
This is the standard view. The Chandler family is my 'main' family, the family the story is about. As you can see the families all have different colours. For example, Robyn Chandler is a Chandler by birth, so the line above her name is light green, but she is an Appleseed by marriage (she recently married Frank Appleseed who's coming to live in the Chandler's cottage) so the line under her name and her marriage line (from which her children will sprout) is a darker green.
The dotted lines are from engaged couples. The strong lines are from married couples. The name above the lines is the family name, the last name from the husband.
Noah Meadowsweet also recently married, but he's not heir, so he and Thalia have to find themselves a new home. I haven't named it yet, so that's why there's no residence name above his name.
Oh, and Dorus Chandler has been banned from the village and it is unknown where he went...
The community of Ambleside was also very easy to set up this way, and there I also created little boxes which represented various communal services like a lot of shops and the Greek House. And I also created my own family tree, based on the people I knew.
Marriages
The standard view of my little paper folder lying on my RL desk is the paper I folded around the other little scraps. It has all of the pairings of the second generation on them, complete with green dot for the heirs (so I know the ones without will be needing a new home), symbols for classes (earl = crown, noble merchant = necklace, merchant = baguette, peasant = pitchfork, and I still need to design a symbol for the townsfolk - ideas?), and future occupation behind their names, written in green. A lot of occupations are still undecided.
Spreadsheets:
- List of ages
A brilliant idea I have to credit Leiela for (the link takes you directly to the post in question). Mine is roughly the same, but I have enhanced it with coloured and named seasons inbetween the birth year and the age, differently coloured names for people from different families, and lines for the Turning to child, teen, adult and elder, the marriageable age (20) and the "beginning of the reign of Quinten Optima".
I had to decide on dates for this (and for GenoPro too) but it's really not historically correct at all, it could be anywhere in the Middle Ages and it's still a lot off anyway. (For the record, the current year, at the end of the Second Summer r. Q., is 1321. To give an idea.)
- Calendar
This brings me to the calendar which happens to be the next sheet, but I need to explain a little first:
1 Simday = 1 "year", although I don't really count in years - but the ages that come forth from this correspond with our ages counted in years. I count in Simdays. It's game logic. So a season also lasts five Simdays. One season = one round, although I play whomever I feel like playing and hasn't hit the end of the round yet. The Sims themselves count also in seasons, they call them the First, Second, etc Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. (This idea comes from Ingeli who even incorporated it into her GenoPro file, which I haven't succeeded in - it desperately needed a number.) And then they add a "r. Q." which stands for "of the reign of Quinten". So you'd get this: The second day of the Second Summer r. Q. (which corresponds with the 'year' 1318). I think I will keep the r. Q. even when Quinten's son Emerald mounts the throne, because it looks and sounds pretty. :) It could also mean "of the reign of Quinten's family", after all.
Anyway, my sheet named "Calendar" was created because of all the upcoming weddings and me not keeping track of who could marry when and whom. This solves all those problems and gives a great overview. It looks much like a regular calendar (as you can see, I'm practically living at the Church at the moment where all the weddings happen):
The marriage of John and Emma has already taken place and Sophia also turned, but Maria has yet to die and therefore not all of the events in 1318 are complete and the cell is not yet greyed out.
- Happenings
Then I also have a sheet called Happenings, which is quite the same as the calendar, only it is sorted by family, lists also the taxes, is written down after it happened, and also lists the smaller things that happened in each family, like Sims moving in and out, having kittens, meeting significant other Sims, getting promotions (for the few Sims that still have maxis jobs) and also birthdays.
It looks like the picture of the calendar above, but the days in the top row have been replaced by family names and the taxes are kept in the coloured cells of the dates.
I used to write this all down, for one family per round, and it would look like this:
-Paral -> pregnant -> daughter: Robyn. Dorus job in law enf. Pregnant again!
-Wissi -> pregnant. Friends with Paral. Sander job in medical. Promotion!
It would also list when Sims had a birthday, got an A grade, when they adopted a cat or got burgled.
This Happenings sheet was meant for this purpose, but a little bit fancier. Combined with the little paper for calculating the taxes.
Well, that was about all concerning the notes I keep! :)
Names
I have this big file with ALL NAMES. Personal names, pet names, alien names, street names, male names, female names, last names, medieval names, modern names, village names, forest names, community lot names, I have collected them all. Actually, I collected everything and had just sorted it out and a few weeks later my pc crashed.. I'd forgotten to back the Names.rtf up and I had to start all over again. Bummer! (That was the very same crash that cost me all my medieval CC last january. But because of that, the medieval folder is now very neatly organized. :))
The file is a reference book whenever a new Sim is born or created. It lists all my favourite names, and I also italicized the names that, according to some sites who would know, were the most common ones in the Middle Ages. It's incredibly useful.
Family trees
Ingeli (who is a wonderful inspiration anyway!) has this great system that lists all of the Sims in Windlebridge, and it is great to browse because it lists on last name, and you can click from one to another Sim that you find in their description and that is somehow related to them. You can see the family trees and also some pictures. Ingeli has, where appropriate, included pictures of various lifestages. You can include a lot more information such as where they work, where they live, how they got married, where they were born, and a thousand other things, including your own labels. It's a family tree program called GenoPro.
I looked this nifty little program up and built the families of Tinn. In the program itself you can also see the family tree (the program can make you some html pages for every person, which is what Ingeli used, but the standard view is the family tree) and you can switch the icons and lines around which makes it incredibly identifiable and graphical. (Which made me realize that all the families will be related to each other through inter-marrying within two generations, with these marriage plans. But hey, that's what the townies are for!)
This is the standard view. The Chandler family is my 'main' family, the family the story is about. As you can see the families all have different colours. For example, Robyn Chandler is a Chandler by birth, so the line above her name is light green, but she is an Appleseed by marriage (she recently married Frank Appleseed who's coming to live in the Chandler's cottage) so the line under her name and her marriage line (from which her children will sprout) is a darker green.
The dotted lines are from engaged couples. The strong lines are from married couples. The name above the lines is the family name, the last name from the husband.
Noah Meadowsweet also recently married, but he's not heir, so he and Thalia have to find themselves a new home. I haven't named it yet, so that's why there's no residence name above his name.
Oh, and Dorus Chandler has been banned from the village and it is unknown where he went...
The community of Ambleside was also very easy to set up this way, and there I also created little boxes which represented various communal services like a lot of shops and the Greek House. And I also created my own family tree, based on the people I knew.
Marriages
The standard view of my little paper folder lying on my RL desk is the paper I folded around the other little scraps. It has all of the pairings of the second generation on them, complete with green dot for the heirs (so I know the ones without will be needing a new home), symbols for classes (earl = crown, noble merchant = necklace, merchant = baguette, peasant = pitchfork, and I still need to design a symbol for the townsfolk - ideas?), and future occupation behind their names, written in green. A lot of occupations are still undecided.
Spreadsheets:
- List of ages
A brilliant idea I have to credit Leiela for (the link takes you directly to the post in question). Mine is roughly the same, but I have enhanced it with coloured and named seasons inbetween the birth year and the age, differently coloured names for people from different families, and lines for the Turning to child, teen, adult and elder, the marriageable age (20) and the "beginning of the reign of Quinten Optima".
I had to decide on dates for this (and for GenoPro too) but it's really not historically correct at all, it could be anywhere in the Middle Ages and it's still a lot off anyway. (For the record, the current year, at the end of the Second Summer r. Q., is 1321. To give an idea.)
- Calendar
This brings me to the calendar which happens to be the next sheet, but I need to explain a little first:
1 Simday = 1 "year", although I don't really count in years - but the ages that come forth from this correspond with our ages counted in years. I count in Simdays. It's game logic. So a season also lasts five Simdays. One season = one round, although I play whomever I feel like playing and hasn't hit the end of the round yet. The Sims themselves count also in seasons, they call them the First, Second, etc Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. (This idea comes from Ingeli who even incorporated it into her GenoPro file, which I haven't succeeded in - it desperately needed a number.) And then they add a "r. Q." which stands for "of the reign of Quinten". So you'd get this: The second day of the Second Summer r. Q. (which corresponds with the 'year' 1318). I think I will keep the r. Q. even when Quinten's son Emerald mounts the throne, because it looks and sounds pretty. :) It could also mean "of the reign of Quinten's family", after all.
Anyway, my sheet named "Calendar" was created because of all the upcoming weddings and me not keeping track of who could marry when and whom. This solves all those problems and gives a great overview. It looks much like a regular calendar (as you can see, I'm practically living at the Church at the moment where all the weddings happen):
The marriage of John and Emma has already taken place and Sophia also turned, but Maria has yet to die and therefore not all of the events in 1318 are complete and the cell is not yet greyed out.
- Happenings
Then I also have a sheet called Happenings, which is quite the same as the calendar, only it is sorted by family, lists also the taxes, is written down after it happened, and also lists the smaller things that happened in each family, like Sims moving in and out, having kittens, meeting significant other Sims, getting promotions (for the few Sims that still have maxis jobs) and also birthdays.
It looks like the picture of the calendar above, but the days in the top row have been replaced by family names and the taxes are kept in the coloured cells of the dates.
I used to write this all down, for one family per round, and it would look like this:
-Paral -> pregnant -> daughter: Robyn. Dorus job in law enf. Pregnant again!
-Wissi -> pregnant. Friends with Paral. Sander job in medical. Promotion!
It would also list when Sims had a birthday, got an A grade, when they adopted a cat or got burgled.
This Happenings sheet was meant for this purpose, but a little bit fancier. Combined with the little paper for calculating the taxes.
Well, that was about all concerning the notes I keep! :)