The Sims Medieval: Omnious Tides
Well, the votes have been counted (and with the time it's been since the latest, it's safe to say everyone with any amount of interest has voted) and France just barely wins out, being the only sim with three votes! He will be our resident Bard, in charge of writing plays, singing and other arty stuff.
Would you look at those garish clothes! Who wants to bet he's been sleeping with a few countesses on the side? Now, when I first played the game, Austria was actually my first pick for the Bard because all I heard was "music", then my mind was made up. But after playing a few quests with him, I've actually started to think France is a better fit for the position. Why? Because more than one of the Bard's quests involves woohooing. In fact, the bard is the only one I can think of that does any woohooing in his quests besides the Monarch (and a special quest, but 1) it's available to all heroes so it doesn't count and 2) it's optional, depending on which path you take). And solving his problems with marriages aside, I think we all agree France is more suited for that "duty" than Austria.
Now, France takes after Rome very much indeed, by which I mean that he shares Rome's fatal flaw, Licentious. For those of you who have forgotten what these do, it basically means that he gets grumpy when he hasn't had woohooed with or kissed someone in a while. Luckily, the Bard lives in the tavern, which lots of people come to, and everyone in this game seem to be bisexual so that shouldn't be TOO difficult to fix (famous last words). His traits are his own, though, and those traits are Creative Cook and Entitled.
Creative Cook: Spice is the variety of life, and your Sim's got plenty of it! Meals made by Sims with the Creative Cook trait taste better and take less time to prepare.
Entitled: While your Sim doesn’t make as much money in their profession when they are Entitled, receiving an allowance via the Messenger Post is an option. They also get along well with other Sims that have the same trait or with other Tredonian nobles. However, Sims without these traits are not as compatible, and your Sim’s relationships with them develop more slowly.
Because France is pretty much born to be a noble. But, for all my talking about him we will not play as him for now! Do you remember that war between the pirates and the nobles? I don't blame you if you don't! It's time to get the ball that leads to that rolling with Ominous Tides!
Emperor Romulus was nearing the end of another long day of royal duties such as repaying a farmer for his cabbage, which had been eaten by pigs, prononcing another farmer marquise (she had asked so nicely, and she swore to only use the title to order her friends around). One of his royal guards neared the throne, bowed deeply and then got back up to lay out what would have to be the last request of the day.
"O great ruler, the equipment we use to test witches is considered outdated and barbaric. I ask you to fund some upgrades so that our equipment can be modern and barbaric," he said in his most respectful voice.
Well, Romulus had always thought that sexy or not, those witches were dangerous and untrustworthy (unless they specifically worked for the kingdom), and they were crafty too, so better ways to find them was always a good thing! As he gave the guard the funds for pointier poles and sharper scrapers, a messenger ran up to him.
"Your highness!" he called out. "There has been a shipwreck on the beach, and one of the sailors is still alive! The royal adviser is asking you to come to the beach as soon as possible!"
So off he went to investigate. If he was lucky, this wouldn't take long and he'd had a chance woohoo that pretty Tredonian delegate he had seduced earlier.
As he was arrived, his advisor stopped talking to the guards and turned to Romulus.
"Your Highness," he said. "The guards have searched the wreckage and can give you more detailed information if you'd like. The sailor is alive but hasn't woken up yet. What do you want me to do?"
"Well..." Romulus mused. He wanted to take care of the interesting stuff like exploring the wreckage. And giving the sailor the kiss of life, he added when he realised the sailor was a woman.
"Go back to the castle and summon our scouts."
His advisor nodded. "It's nice to see you're giving me a reasonable request instead of something idiotic like getting you wine."
"Oh, yeah!" Romulus brightened up. Some wine was just what he needed, now that he thought about it. "Get me some of that too!"
"...Yes, Your Highness," his advisor said, grumbling something sounding a bit like "simpleton" on the way back to the castle. That's when Romulus heard a groaning.
The sailor was slowly making her way up on two legs, mumbling "Durrrr... Ugh... Where am I...? Am I dead?"
"Look!" One of the guards yelled. "The sailor's waking up!"
"We can see that," another pointed out in a dry voice, much to the first guard's embarassment.
A bit disappointed he couldn't give her the kiss of life, Romulus rushed over to the sailor. But that didn't change all the questions he had for her.
"Who attacked you?! Can I fight them?! Did you have a boyfriend on that ship?! And where is the ship, all I can see is a lifeboat and some debris!"
"I'm alive? Praise be to the Keeper! I didn't see our attackers clearly... they struck in the middle of the night. Before I knew it, I was thrown into the cold, black water and our ship was set on fire. We had 30 men on board... You have to sail out and look for survivors, I beg you!" she said, rambling slightly and ignoring Romulus' most important questions.
Well, if Romulus was going to find any survivors (and have a chance to get laid), he'd better sail off right then. So he sent the guard out to find the crew for the ship right away and set sail to look for the ship itself.
Not long after they set sail, Romulus and his crew ended up in a thick fog.
"Slowly and surely forward! Look for the wreckage!" the captain cried to his crew.
The fog swept into the ship, and all eyes were directed towards the water while the chilly fog's suffocating blanket made it impossible to determine the direction.
"Wreck on starboard side!"
A gruesome sight emerged from the mist: shark-bitten bodies clung to the scattered wreckage that marked Bright Destiny's watery grave.
"There are no survivors here, sir. Let us sail back to Hetalia."
The wind began to pick up and the fog lifted when they turned back to port. Suddenly, the sound of a cannon was heard and a giant water cascade came up beside the ship Romulus was on.
"Enemy ship in sight! Set sail and man the cannons in case she tries to pursue us!"
After another cannon volley and a bare miss, the enemy ship reefed her sails and remained hidden in the fog. Romulus and the crew returned to Hetalia, wondering to who this mysterious ship could belong.
As Romulus returned home, it was getting close to midnight and he was so tired he didn't even want to any woohooing before going to bed. He'd have to tell the sailor about the crew and his royal advisor about the enemy ship the next day.
After a good night of sleep, some morning fun with his Tredonian ladyfriend and some boar soup for breakfast, he felt ready to take on the mystery again so he could find whoever attacked the ship and beat them up in a fair fight!
On his way back to the beach, he thought about the hard choice in front of him. On one hand, he could lie and say there was a chance the sailor's crew was still alive. That might make her happy enough to woohoo him. But then again, he didn't really feel good lying to her, and if she found out, she would not be happy with him. If he told her the truth, maybe she'd be thankful for his honesty and woohoo him later, once she had gotten over it a bit.
As he got close to the beach, she noticed him coming.
"How'd it go? Did you find any of my shipmates?" she asked, worry in her eyes.
"Yeah..." Romulus trailed off. It was a lot harder to talk to her when he wasn't asking her for woohoo. "We found your crew. There were no survivors."
The sailor woman's face fell. "I was afraid so... Thanks for everything," she mumbled before walking off.
'I'll need to talk to her later,' Romulus thought. But first, he needed to talk to his advisor about that ship that attacked him, so back to the castle he went.
"You know when I was looking for survivors? We got kind of attacked by an enemy ship, but before I could fight them and make them bow before the mighty Romulus, they ran away! Do you know any cowards who do that?" he told his advisor, making grand gestures to prove his point on how great he was.
"Your ship was attacked?! Come to the tactics map and show me where you were attacked," his advisor replied, completely ignoring Romulus' little note about how great he was as usual.
Since all his ship figurines were being polished, he used a horse to mark the spot instead. He could've sworn he'd seen a hippocampus on the way anyway.
"We weren't far from shore, just a bit south of here. They attacked us after we found the wreckage of the other ship," Romulus said. His advisor rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"That's odd, those waters are not known to be particularly dangerous," he said, looking over a few maps. "They are located near Tredony's trade routes and sometimes attract pirates from Aarbyville, but they usually don't draw other kingdoms into their conflicts." He sighed. "I have called on our scouts, talk to them while I think. Hopefully they can put some light on the situation. We must ensure that Hetalia is ready if things get worse."
Considering both the scouts happened to be attractive young women and his advisor was offering to take care of boring strategy work, Romulus couldn't say he minded this.
He found the scouts, Frida and Eya, nearby and waved Eya over.
"So did you find anything out about Aarbyville? They're pirates, so they gotta have good fighters, right?!"
"Your Majesty, there has been a sudden increase in pirate activity in Aarbyville," the scout said, looking a bit taken aback by some reason. "It's rumoured that Captain Clarisa Blackriver has called a tribunal meeting and that the red and black fleets have gotten a mass influx in recruits. We should proceed with caution."
Romulus had never been interested in politics stuff, but that sounded a lot like it could mean violence later so he didn't mind at all.
"That's perfect!" he said with a big smile on his face and turned to ask scout Frida about Tredony. Luckily, she had heard everything, so he didn't even need to ask her.
"Your Grace," she said. "Tredony's guild syndicate has had an emergency meeting with Admiral Horus Alruna of the Tredonian navy to discuss countermeasures against any form of attack. I've never seen things heat up like this in Tredony before. The admiral ordains a broad front attack against the pirates."
More fighting talk. While Romulus really liked the way this was going, the other people on the court probably didn't. And while he was ready to take them both on at once if he could, others weren't, so he should probably make sure things were safe in Hetalia so no important officials (or beautiful ladies) would get hurt. If nothing else, his advisor would yell at him again. He sent the scouts away with a wink and turned to his Lieutenant.
"Make sure our forces are ready, Lieutenant le Grant," he told her. "Just because I, I mean we, didn't get a fight this time, we might get one later. And if I'm going to take these people on, I want the rest of the soldiers to be ready too!" He loved the thought of a good battle so much, so he took out his sword and held it high! His Lieutenant ignored the new cut on her cheek and nodded seriously, walking off to fulfill his orders.
Romulus grinned to himself. The future was stormy, and he would conquer that storm and get some nice fights while he was doing it!
Well, the quest chain has started and we will get that nobles vs. pirates war! I know this quest was a bit boring, and I'm not very good at playing Rome, but hopefully things will get more entertaining later on. For now, though, I have two polls for you! One is for which hero we will make next, as usual, and the other for which side we will support in the upcoming war! Will we go for the pirates, the nobles or will we go neutral? It's up to you!
Edit: The polls are now closed, thank you for voting!
Would you look at those garish clothes! Who wants to bet he's been sleeping with a few countesses on the side? Now, when I first played the game, Austria was actually my first pick for the Bard because all I heard was "music", then my mind was made up. But after playing a few quests with him, I've actually started to think France is a better fit for the position. Why? Because more than one of the Bard's quests involves woohooing. In fact, the bard is the only one I can think of that does any woohooing in his quests besides the Monarch (and a special quest, but 1) it's available to all heroes so it doesn't count and 2) it's optional, depending on which path you take). And solving his problems with marriages aside, I think we all agree France is more suited for that "duty" than Austria.
Now, France takes after Rome very much indeed, by which I mean that he shares Rome's fatal flaw, Licentious. For those of you who have forgotten what these do, it basically means that he gets grumpy when he hasn't had woohooed with or kissed someone in a while. Luckily, the Bard lives in the tavern, which lots of people come to, and everyone in this game seem to be bisexual so that shouldn't be TOO difficult to fix (famous last words). His traits are his own, though, and those traits are Creative Cook and Entitled.
Creative Cook: Spice is the variety of life, and your Sim's got plenty of it! Meals made by Sims with the Creative Cook trait taste better and take less time to prepare.
Entitled: While your Sim doesn’t make as much money in their profession when they are Entitled, receiving an allowance via the Messenger Post is an option. They also get along well with other Sims that have the same trait or with other Tredonian nobles. However, Sims without these traits are not as compatible, and your Sim’s relationships with them develop more slowly.
Because France is pretty much born to be a noble. But, for all my talking about him we will not play as him for now! Do you remember that war between the pirates and the nobles? I don't blame you if you don't! It's time to get the ball that leads to that rolling with Ominous Tides!
Emperor Romulus was nearing the end of another long day of royal duties such as repaying a farmer for his cabbage, which had been eaten by pigs, prononcing another farmer marquise (she had asked so nicely, and she swore to only use the title to order her friends around). One of his royal guards neared the throne, bowed deeply and then got back up to lay out what would have to be the last request of the day.
"O great ruler, the equipment we use to test witches is considered outdated and barbaric. I ask you to fund some upgrades so that our equipment can be modern and barbaric," he said in his most respectful voice.
Well, Romulus had always thought that sexy or not, those witches were dangerous and untrustworthy (unless they specifically worked for the kingdom), and they were crafty too, so better ways to find them was always a good thing! As he gave the guard the funds for pointier poles and sharper scrapers, a messenger ran up to him.
"Your highness!" he called out. "There has been a shipwreck on the beach, and one of the sailors is still alive! The royal adviser is asking you to come to the beach as soon as possible!"
So off he went to investigate. If he was lucky, this wouldn't take long and he'd had a chance woohoo that pretty Tredonian delegate he had seduced earlier.
As he was arrived, his advisor stopped talking to the guards and turned to Romulus.
"Your Highness," he said. "The guards have searched the wreckage and can give you more detailed information if you'd like. The sailor is alive but hasn't woken up yet. What do you want me to do?"
"Well..." Romulus mused. He wanted to take care of the interesting stuff like exploring the wreckage. And giving the sailor the kiss of life, he added when he realised the sailor was a woman.
"Go back to the castle and summon our scouts."
His advisor nodded. "It's nice to see you're giving me a reasonable request instead of something idiotic like getting you wine."
"Oh, yeah!" Romulus brightened up. Some wine was just what he needed, now that he thought about it. "Get me some of that too!"
"...Yes, Your Highness," his advisor said, grumbling something sounding a bit like "simpleton" on the way back to the castle. That's when Romulus heard a groaning.
The sailor was slowly making her way up on two legs, mumbling "Durrrr... Ugh... Where am I...? Am I dead?"
"Look!" One of the guards yelled. "The sailor's waking up!"
"We can see that," another pointed out in a dry voice, much to the first guard's embarassment.
A bit disappointed he couldn't give her the kiss of life, Romulus rushed over to the sailor. But that didn't change all the questions he had for her.
"Who attacked you?! Can I fight them?! Did you have a boyfriend on that ship?! And where is the ship, all I can see is a lifeboat and some debris!"
"I'm alive? Praise be to the Keeper! I didn't see our attackers clearly... they struck in the middle of the night. Before I knew it, I was thrown into the cold, black water and our ship was set on fire. We had 30 men on board... You have to sail out and look for survivors, I beg you!" she said, rambling slightly and ignoring Romulus' most important questions.
Well, if Romulus was going to find any survivors (and have a chance to get laid), he'd better sail off right then. So he sent the guard out to find the crew for the ship right away and set sail to look for the ship itself.
Not long after they set sail, Romulus and his crew ended up in a thick fog.
"Slowly and surely forward! Look for the wreckage!" the captain cried to his crew.
The fog swept into the ship, and all eyes were directed towards the water while the chilly fog's suffocating blanket made it impossible to determine the direction.
"Wreck on starboard side!"
A gruesome sight emerged from the mist: shark-bitten bodies clung to the scattered wreckage that marked Bright Destiny's watery grave.
"There are no survivors here, sir. Let us sail back to Hetalia."
The wind began to pick up and the fog lifted when they turned back to port. Suddenly, the sound of a cannon was heard and a giant water cascade came up beside the ship Romulus was on.
"Enemy ship in sight! Set sail and man the cannons in case she tries to pursue us!"
After another cannon volley and a bare miss, the enemy ship reefed her sails and remained hidden in the fog. Romulus and the crew returned to Hetalia, wondering to who this mysterious ship could belong.
As Romulus returned home, it was getting close to midnight and he was so tired he didn't even want to any woohooing before going to bed. He'd have to tell the sailor about the crew and his royal advisor about the enemy ship the next day.
After a good night of sleep, some morning fun with his Tredonian ladyfriend and some boar soup for breakfast, he felt ready to take on the mystery again so he could find whoever attacked the ship and beat them up in a fair fight!
On his way back to the beach, he thought about the hard choice in front of him. On one hand, he could lie and say there was a chance the sailor's crew was still alive. That might make her happy enough to woohoo him. But then again, he didn't really feel good lying to her, and if she found out, she would not be happy with him. If he told her the truth, maybe she'd be thankful for his honesty and woohoo him later, once she had gotten over it a bit.
As he got close to the beach, she noticed him coming.
"How'd it go? Did you find any of my shipmates?" she asked, worry in her eyes.
"Yeah..." Romulus trailed off. It was a lot harder to talk to her when he wasn't asking her for woohoo. "We found your crew. There were no survivors."
The sailor woman's face fell. "I was afraid so... Thanks for everything," she mumbled before walking off.
'I'll need to talk to her later,' Romulus thought. But first, he needed to talk to his advisor about that ship that attacked him, so back to the castle he went.
"You know when I was looking for survivors? We got kind of attacked by an enemy ship, but before I could fight them and make them bow before the mighty Romulus, they ran away! Do you know any cowards who do that?" he told his advisor, making grand gestures to prove his point on how great he was.
"Your ship was attacked?! Come to the tactics map and show me where you were attacked," his advisor replied, completely ignoring Romulus' little note about how great he was as usual.
Since all his ship figurines were being polished, he used a horse to mark the spot instead. He could've sworn he'd seen a hippocampus on the way anyway.
"We weren't far from shore, just a bit south of here. They attacked us after we found the wreckage of the other ship," Romulus said. His advisor rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"That's odd, those waters are not known to be particularly dangerous," he said, looking over a few maps. "They are located near Tredony's trade routes and sometimes attract pirates from Aarbyville, but they usually don't draw other kingdoms into their conflicts." He sighed. "I have called on our scouts, talk to them while I think. Hopefully they can put some light on the situation. We must ensure that Hetalia is ready if things get worse."
Considering both the scouts happened to be attractive young women and his advisor was offering to take care of boring strategy work, Romulus couldn't say he minded this.
He found the scouts, Frida and Eya, nearby and waved Eya over.
"So did you find anything out about Aarbyville? They're pirates, so they gotta have good fighters, right?!"
"Your Majesty, there has been a sudden increase in pirate activity in Aarbyville," the scout said, looking a bit taken aback by some reason. "It's rumoured that Captain Clarisa Blackriver has called a tribunal meeting and that the red and black fleets have gotten a mass influx in recruits. We should proceed with caution."
Romulus had never been interested in politics stuff, but that sounded a lot like it could mean violence later so he didn't mind at all.
"That's perfect!" he said with a big smile on his face and turned to ask scout Frida about Tredony. Luckily, she had heard everything, so he didn't even need to ask her.
"Your Grace," she said. "Tredony's guild syndicate has had an emergency meeting with Admiral Horus Alruna of the Tredonian navy to discuss countermeasures against any form of attack. I've never seen things heat up like this in Tredony before. The admiral ordains a broad front attack against the pirates."
More fighting talk. While Romulus really liked the way this was going, the other people on the court probably didn't. And while he was ready to take them both on at once if he could, others weren't, so he should probably make sure things were safe in Hetalia so no important officials (or beautiful ladies) would get hurt. If nothing else, his advisor would yell at him again. He sent the scouts away with a wink and turned to his Lieutenant.
"Make sure our forces are ready, Lieutenant le Grant," he told her. "Just because I, I mean we, didn't get a fight this time, we might get one later. And if I'm going to take these people on, I want the rest of the soldiers to be ready too!" He loved the thought of a good battle so much, so he took out his sword and held it high! His Lieutenant ignored the new cut on her cheek and nodded seriously, walking off to fulfill his orders.
Romulus grinned to himself. The future was stormy, and he would conquer that storm and get some nice fights while he was doing it!
Well, the quest chain has started and we will get that nobles vs. pirates war! I know this quest was a bit boring, and I'm not very good at playing Rome, but hopefully things will get more entertaining later on. For now, though, I have two polls for you! One is for which hero we will make next, as usual, and the other for which side we will support in the upcoming war! Will we go for the pirates, the nobles or will we go neutral? It's up to you!
Edit: The polls are now closed, thank you for voting!