How do you organize your noble mansions?
It seems I like playing nobles more than I expected, in the past I normally preferred poor families in tiny homes ;) These days it's a bad sign for my game that bigger estates pop up in most worlds. I also organized a system of Houses, you know the more formal and tad old fashioned routine where you belong to House of so-and-so. Well, my game has 100+ households and there are about 40-45 Houses, LOL. Recently I noticed that way too many of my sims seem to prefer the Polished dressing style, no wonder why...
I don't play royals, mainly because I don't quite see how I could play a full sized royal castle on rotation. Such big builds probably would deserve focus over several sim weeks, or to be the main household played. But I have 4 dukedoms and a few baronies, plus a bunch of lords and ladies by peerage. The dukedoms have rather spacious estates and a touch of royal "gold & damask", while for the other nobles I try to keep things down a bit when it comes to size and interior. Only half my Houses hold one or more peerages, so the others are only the lower level of aristocracy, mostly with good but regular careers and lives.
However, I do struggle a bit with those greater estates. The buildings feel too big if I add a 3rd floor, especially if I use the taller walls. In the world map their estate looks like a monster build even if it is not really that big. So, I stop myself from giving a great estate to those nobles that I try to keep down a bit. I would like to give them a separate bedroom section of the estate, but they often get only 3-4 bedrooms, and perhaps not all with their own bathroom, even. I'd love to have a grand dining room used for gala dinners, but if it should be spacious it will take up too much space from other features of the house. I want the family to have a separate everyday section, with a smaller dining room to use while the grand room is locked off, but in most bigger estates the family tend to eat their meals in the gala section having guests or not. I'd also like my dukedoms to have their own chapel integrated with their builds, but they more often ends up using a small crypt in the basement to save space, not glamorous at all.
I love planning the servants section in accordance with their daily jobs. My bigger houses have 2 live-in servants, a Butler and a Cook, and for greater events I might place decor servants and other wise hire a maid service etc to make the place look a bit more busy with servants even on a Tuesday. A well planned mansion makes it fun even playing the butler or cook, although I normally need to skip most of the "secret passages for servants", some doors might be locked to everyone but them. Need to keep household members as well as their guests out of certain rooms. I wish we could have a setting per sim, like "never cleans table, mops floor or harvest plants" - if I don't keep my eyes on them constantly, the Duchess will suddenly be cleaning the servants' bathroom while she is actually having a finer lady over for tea...
How about your finer families? Do you go the full scale with 4 stories and a monster of a castle just to get enough rooms for everything even if it seems a tad extreme on the world map? Do you focus on a nice castle garden with additional smaller builds, or do they rather own the park lot next door going there for a morning stroll? Do you use the towers for specific activity? How do you organize servants ? Do you send kids to a boarding school to allow more servants within the 8 sims limit? Do you build secret tunnels in the 2nd level basement? Do you go bananas with golden decor and ceiling frescos or do you modernize the interior a bit?
Would love to learn how you organize your bigger mansions!
I don't play royals, mainly because I don't quite see how I could play a full sized royal castle on rotation. Such big builds probably would deserve focus over several sim weeks, or to be the main household played. But I have 4 dukedoms and a few baronies, plus a bunch of lords and ladies by peerage. The dukedoms have rather spacious estates and a touch of royal "gold & damask", while for the other nobles I try to keep things down a bit when it comes to size and interior. Only half my Houses hold one or more peerages, so the others are only the lower level of aristocracy, mostly with good but regular careers and lives.
However, I do struggle a bit with those greater estates. The buildings feel too big if I add a 3rd floor, especially if I use the taller walls. In the world map their estate looks like a monster build even if it is not really that big. So, I stop myself from giving a great estate to those nobles that I try to keep down a bit. I would like to give them a separate bedroom section of the estate, but they often get only 3-4 bedrooms, and perhaps not all with their own bathroom, even. I'd love to have a grand dining room used for gala dinners, but if it should be spacious it will take up too much space from other features of the house. I want the family to have a separate everyday section, with a smaller dining room to use while the grand room is locked off, but in most bigger estates the family tend to eat their meals in the gala section having guests or not. I'd also like my dukedoms to have their own chapel integrated with their builds, but they more often ends up using a small crypt in the basement to save space, not glamorous at all.
I love planning the servants section in accordance with their daily jobs. My bigger houses have 2 live-in servants, a Butler and a Cook, and for greater events I might place decor servants and other wise hire a maid service etc to make the place look a bit more busy with servants even on a Tuesday. A well planned mansion makes it fun even playing the butler or cook, although I normally need to skip most of the "secret passages for servants", some doors might be locked to everyone but them. Need to keep household members as well as their guests out of certain rooms. I wish we could have a setting per sim, like "never cleans table, mops floor or harvest plants" - if I don't keep my eyes on them constantly, the Duchess will suddenly be cleaning the servants' bathroom while she is actually having a finer lady over for tea...
How about your finer families? Do you go the full scale with 4 stories and a monster of a castle just to get enough rooms for everything even if it seems a tad extreme on the world map? Do you focus on a nice castle garden with additional smaller builds, or do they rather own the park lot next door going there for a morning stroll? Do you use the towers for specific activity? How do you organize servants ? Do you send kids to a boarding school to allow more servants within the 8 sims limit? Do you build secret tunnels in the 2nd level basement? Do you go bananas with golden decor and ceiling frescos or do you modernize the interior a bit?
Would love to learn how you organize your bigger mansions!
