Family History 1.0.3b, Patreon Preview

The Family History mod provides a way for your sim to research their imagined genealogy. It doesn’t try to account for their near-past genealogy, such as grandparents, but rather their ancestors in the more distant past many generations ago, such as their 4th great grandparents. Sims can learn what regions their ancestors were from, whether they have any notable ancestors, and finally whether they are descended from any legendary figures, such as kings, wizards or infamous pirates.

These ancestors, implemented as traits, will provide your sims with various bonuses based on who they were, the idea being that if your sim is descended from a notable Doctor, they might have a natural ability to be a better Doctor than usual, and so on, as if it were the family business.

Once a sim learns some ancestral traits, they can teach them to other members of their family, who then also get those traits. They can also write a family history book that allows related sims to read and gain the traits, as well as pass it down from one generation to another.

There are 33 notable ancestors, and 24 legendary ancestors, each with names, backstories and family portraits. Also 24 ancestral region traits, each with an associated landscape portrait.

Ancestral Traits

There are three types of ancestral traits

Ancestral Regions: These indicate that some of your sim’s ancestral lines come from this region. Every sim will have multiple ancestral regions, representing different ancestral family lines. You usually need to find a few of your sim’s ancestral regions before you can find any ancestors.

Notable Ancestors: Notable Ancestors are ancestors who were famous due to their professional skill, such as Doctors, Entertainers or Athletes. Knowing about notable ancestors gives your sim bonuses related to the profession of their ancestor, as well as material benefits like scholarships and investment funds.

Legendary Ancestors: Legendary Ancestors are ancestors who were famous due to legendary occult abilities or having been involved in large scale events. These include Spellcasters, Adventurers, Royalty, Knights, and so on. In addition to buff bonuses relating to the legendary ancestor, discovery of some types of ancestors provides a family gift of the ancestor’s journals. Reading these can provide bonus traits and abilities based on your ancestor’s exploits.

Many of these ancestors have non-profit foundations that provide scholarships, investment funds and other benefits to their descendants. If you find a connection to a notable scholar, for example, your sim will get a full scholarship, and by passing the trait down to their children by teaching them about it, all of them (and their children, etc) will also get free college.

When you discover any of these ancestors or ancestral regions, you will get a painting of the region or portrait of the ancestors. You can view these paintings and get various positive buffs.

Family Lore Skill

The Family Lore skill represents what your sims knows about their own family, and as well as how well they know how to do genealogical research. In addition, I added a Research Progress mechanic very similar to Scientific Breakthroughs from the Get to Work Scientist career. Your sim can research their genealogy, and once they get to a certain point they'll have a breakthrough and learn something new about their background.

Finding Ancestral Traits

Finding Ancestral Traits is handled using a hidden Research Progress statistic that represents how close you are to your next genealogical discovery.

Research Progress is gained on a curve, so that the more ancestral traits you've found for a sim, the harder the next trait is to discover.

Your sim can research by

• Researching Genealogy on a computer

• Reading certain historical books in the library: SimCity Census Records, SimCity Picayune Archives, SimCity City Directory

• Searching for Rare Documents in a library

• Searching for and analyzing family memorabilia in the attic decoration box on your sim’s lot

• Analyzing Memorabilia found in the Sim Historical Society Annex cabinets. Must be in a region your sim's ancestors came from.

• Using the metal detector to find buried memorabilia and analyzing it. Must be in a region your sim's ancestors came from.

• Talking to other sims in regions that your sim's ancestors came from. Must be in a region your sim's ancestors came from.

• Analyzing gravestones. Must be in a region your sim's ancestors came from.

• Visiting Mediums (click on your sim and choose Goto Seance under Family History).

• Asking sims in one of your Ancestral Regions about local families in the area.

• Discussing family backgrounds with another sim.

• Can 'Research Birth Certificates' on any computer on the Hospital lot

• Can 'Research Legal Documents' on any computer on the Police Station lot

Research Tools

SimCity Records Archive

There is a SimCity Records Archive object (pictured top left above) that acts as a bookshelf with several genealogy-related books automatically included. This is best placed in a library (where it will add the books to all of the bookshelves) or some other 'public' type location. The Gnome's Arms pub in Hensford-on-Bagley is a good place for one of these, for example, as are Community Centers (if lacking a library in the region).

If you are in one of your ancestral regions, you can Rummage Through Memorabilia on this to find objects that will provide genealogical research progress if you analyze them. You can also purchase a Simsco Metal Detector from the cabinet to use in one of your ancestral regions to find dig piles that contain memorabilia to analyze.

Simsco Metal Detector

The metal detector can be used to find dig piles anywhere. However, if you are in one of your ancestral regions, the dig piles will contain genealogical memorabilia that you can study for research progress.

You can also purchase the metal detector on a computer, under Order -> Genealogical Supplies.

Analyzing Gravestones

Once you gain a certain Family Lore skill level, you can analyze gravestones in your ancestral regions for genealogical research progress. They don't have to be 'in use' (assigned to a dead sim), so you can just build a graveyard 'park' lot somewhere for Sims to do research.

Passing the Knowledge On

Once your sim learns about some of their history, they can teach relatives about it so that they will get the benefits of those traits as well, eg, a grandparent teaching a grandchild their family history will result in the child acquiring all of the ancestral traits that the grandparent has.

Once you reach level 8 in Family History, you can Teach Family History to your immediate relatives. This will copy all of your ancestral traits to the family members.

Your sim can also create a Family History book that will keep track of their ancestral traits, and allow family members who read it to also have those traits. Once you reach level 9 in Family Lore, you can write a Family History book on the computer.

Distant Relatives

There's a chance that you will find distant relatives that have some of the same notable or legendary ancestors as you. I'm keeping track of this, but haven't entirely decided what to do with it yet. It provides a small bonus to friendship.

To compare your family backgrounds with another sim, select Discuss Family Backgrounds.  You can learn about people in your Ancestral Regions by asking sims in that region about local families.

Sims with a common ancestral region have some additional social interactions under the Family History menu, including talking about regional politics, sports and history.

Ancestral Recipes

Each region has an ancestral recipe that can be found and unlocked. It's meant to be a 'home-style' or local variant of an existing dish, like the signature dish for that region. You can find them by searching for memorabilia in either the records cabinet or the attic decoration box. You will only find recipes for regions that are your sim's ancestral regions.

If your sim has ancestors from a region, eating an ancestral recipe from that region will give you a special buff for a few hours.  Both cooking ancestral recipes and eating them provide ancestral favor bonuses. They've all been made available at cooking level 2, since it's meant to be something average sims made at home.

You can both teach ancestral recipes to others, as well as ask others to teach you the ones they know, whether either of you is from the associated regions or not.

Finally, all bars in a given region will include that region's ancestral recipe in it's Order Food menu. You can also add any of them to custom restaurant menus. Your sims will get the same buffs for eating them as if they made them themselves.

Ancestral Recipe List

Stove

• Willow Creek Gumbo

• Chestnut Soup

• Brindleton Clam Chowdah

• Britechester College Cake

• Copperdale Chicken

• Asparagus Del Sol

• Evergreen Free-Range Tofurkey

• Straud Salad

• Glimmerbrook Faerie Cake

• Granite Stew

• Bagley Beef

• Noodles Promenade

• Komorebi-Style Yakisoba

• Cocotte de Thon a la Newcrest

• Oasis Hotdish

• San Myshuno Cheesecake

• San Sequoia Salmon

• Empanadas del Omiscan

• Tartosian Family-Style Spaghetti

• Cordelia's Crown Roast

Grill

• Lumberjack Steak

• Strangerville-Style Ribs

BBQ Pit

• Royal Sulani Pork

Club Interaction Groups and Holiday Goals

There are club requirements for each ancestral region, so if you want to create clubs based on common regional ancestors, you can. For club activities, I've added:

• Talk About The Old  Country

• Research Genealogy

• Tell Family Stories

There have been a few social interactions added for those with common ancestral regions:

• Talk about (Region) Politics

• Talk about (Region) Sports

• Talk about (Region) History

These are available on sims who share an ancestral region.

For holiday goals, I've added

• Eat Ancestral Food

• Honor Ancestors

• Tell Family Stories

Achievements

There are currently 8 ancestor-related Achievements available. More as I come up with them

• Extremely Multicultural - 5 or more Ancestral Regions

• Notable Ancestor - 1 or more Notable Ancestor

• Legendary Ancestor - 1 or more Legendary Ancestor

• Cops And Robbers - Both Notable Criminal and Law Enforcement Ancestors

• Family Bidness - Both Legendary Pirate and Notable Criminal Ancestors

• Famous Family - 5 or more Notable or Legendary Ancestors

• Bridging The Divide - Both Legendary Werewolf and Vampire ancestors

• The Aristocrats! - 2 or more Legendary Royal Ancestors

Mediums and Seances

Mediums have an easier time finding their ancestors, since they can just talk to them. There’s an additional interaction on the seance table called ‘Talk To Ancestors’, that will find ancestral traits for your Medium.

Mediums can hold a Seance Party, a goaled event where the goal is to find your partygoers ancestors.

Finally, any sim can go to a rabbit-hole Seance and find out where they are from, find ancestors and talk to them, for a fee. The more your sim knows about their background, the more luck they’ll have at the Seance.

Ancestral Spirits

If you have a Notable or Legendary Ancestor, you can summon them to commune and give you positive buffs. In order for them to show up, you need to honor your ancestors periodically using an incense burner. This increases a hidden ancestral favor statistic. A high ancestral favor statistic will help you find notable and legendary ancestors as well.

Ancestral favor begins to have a large impact on how easily you discover new ancestral traits the more traits you discover (since it becomes more difficult).

You can honor your sim's ancestors and earn Ancestral favor by burning incense, horning them at a gravestone or Simto Shrime, or making an offering at a body of water or into a fire.

In addition, I've gone through the notable ancestor traits and tried to add ancestral favor bonuses when you perform interactions related to the ancestor. In other words, painting makes your painter ancestors happy, etc. Still refining how this works, as there are a lot of diverse things to capture and score.

When you earn Ancestral Favor, you will see an icon/indicator appear over your sim's head (borrowed from the Family-Oriented trait) for moment.

Ancestry Generation Details

Since the premise of the mod is that your sim already descends from the ancestors that they find, I tried to find ways of influencing ancestor finds based on who your sim is so that they ‘fit’.

I started with some assumptions:

• Most people in the world live in the area that they grew up in or that some of their family lived in.

• Professions tend to run in families. If your family is full of plumbers, there’s a good chance you will grow up to be a plumber.

• Some professions are more common in some areas than others.

• While you might not know about your ancestors, learning about them changes how you might look at yourself.

So a scientist from Oasis Springs is more likely to have ancestors from Oasis Springs, and also a higher chance of having an ancestor who was a scientist. Most of these ancestor traits also provide bonuses useful for pursuing the trade of the ancestor they derive from.

This does let you ‘engineer’ a sim’s background if you’d like. If you want a sim that’s more likely to have a Legendary Spellcaster ancestor, make them a spellcaster living in Glimmerbrook. Or you could just assign the ancestral traits using cheats to set them up to fit a storyline you have in mind. Nothing wrong with that, lol.

Ancestral Regions

I didn't add too many bonuses on specific regions. Just fishing on two, and Selvadoradan culture on one. The Weighted values mean that if your sim has those characteristic (now), they are more likely to have ancestors from those regions (back then).

Brindleton

• Bonuses: Fishing

Britechester

Chestnut Ridge

• Bonuses: Equestrian Skill

Copperdale

Del Sol Valley

Evergreen Harbor

Forgotten Hollow

• Weighted: Vampire

Glimmerbrook

• Weighted: Spellcaster, Spellcaster bloodlines

Granite Falls

Hensford-on-Bagley

Magnolia Promenade

Moonwood Mill

• Weighted: Werewolf

Mt Komorebi

Newcrest

Oasis Springs

San Myshuno

San Sequoia

Selvadorada

• Bonus: Selvadoradan Culture

Sixam

Strangerville

Sulani

• Weighted: Mermaid, Child of the Ocean, Island Ancestors

• Bonuses: Fishing

Tartosa

Willow Creek

Windenberg

Notable Ancestors

There are 3 ancestors of each type available to be found. Each specific ancestor comes from a specific region, which means that your sim needs to have that ancestral region trait before they have a chance of finding a connection to them. Most of these ancestral connections provide career and skill related bonuses. Many of these also provide scholarships, and most provide some sort of monetary bonus.

Artist

• Required Ancestral Regions: Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, or Mt Komorebi

• Skill Bonuses: Painting, Photography, Creativity

• Scholarship: Yes

• Other: Fame bonus, job offers

Athlete

• Required Ancestral Regions: Sulani, Newcrest, or San Sequoia

• Skill Bonuses: Fitness, Throwing, Motor

• Career Bonuses: Athlete

• Scholarship: Yes

• Other: Fame bonus, job offers

Business

• Required Ancestral Regions: San Myshuno, Evergreen Harbor, or Mt Komorebi

• Skill Bonuses: Entrepreneur, Mental

• Career Bonuses: Business, Criminal, Retail

• Other: Investment Fund, large Simoleon inheritance

Criminal

• Required Ancestral Regions: San Myshuno, or Oasis Springs

• Skill Bonuses: Mischief

• Career Bonuses: Criminal, Business, Secret Agent

• Other: Valuable Package

Doctor

• Required Ancestral Regions: Brindleton Bay, San Myshuno, or Selvadorada

• Skill Bonuses: Veterinarian, Logic, Mental

• Career Bonuses: Doctor

• Scholarship: Yes

Entertainer

• Required Ancestral Regions: Del Sol Valley, Willow Creek, or Selvadorada

• Skill Bonuses: Comedy, Guitar, Piano, Violin, Acting, Pipe Organ, Singing, Dancing, Social

• Career Bonuses: Entertainer, Drama Club

• Other: Legacy Royalties, Simoleon inheritance, fame bonus, job offers

Police

• Required Ancestral Regions: San Myshuno, Copperdale, or Chestnut Ridge

• Skill Bonuses: Logic

• Career Bonuses: Detective, Law

• Other: Pension Disbursement, Simoleon inheritance

Politician

• Required Ancestral Regions: San Myshuno, Magnolia Promenade, or Tartosa

• Skill Bonuses: Research/Debate, Social

• Career Bonuses: Activist (all branches), Law

• Scholarship: Yes

Scholar

• Required Ancestral Regions: Britechester, Windenberg, or Hensford-on-Bagley

• Skill Bonuses: Research/Debate, Writing, Mental

• Career Bonuses: Education, Grade School, High School, University

• Scholarship: Yes

Scientist

• Required Ancestral Regions: Evergreen Harbor, Strangerville, or Magnolia Promenade

• Skill Bonuses: Rocket Science, Logic, Mental

• Career Bonuses: Scientist

• Scholarship: Yes

Writer

• Required Ancestral Regions: Brindleton Bay, Granite Falls, or Windenberg

• Skill Bonuses: Writing, Creativity

• Career Bonuses: Writer, Critic, Social Media

• Other: Legacy Royalties, Simoleon inheritance

Legendary Ancestors

There are 3 ancestors of each type available to be found. Each type of ancestor was more likely to come from certain regions, meaning that if your sim has those ancestral regions, they are more likely to find a legendary ancestor of that type.

Some types of legendary have required ancestral regions, meaning that in order to find a legendary ancestor of that type, you need to have at least one of the require regions for that type. For example, you can't be descended from a legendary Mermaid unless you have ancestors from Sulani. Many of these have more unusual benefits, such as reward traits and so on.

Adventurer

• Required Ancestral Regions: Selvadorada, Granite Falls, or Mt Komorebi

• Weighted Traits/Ancestral Regions: Adventurous, OneWithNature, Survivalist, LovesOutdoors,TreasureHunter

• Bonuses: rock climbing, snowboarding, skiing, archaeology

• Gift of an Expedition Journal: Reading it can grant additional bonus traits: Treasure Hunter, Heat Acclimation, Cold Acclimation, Storm Chaser, Waterproof, Survivalist,Survival Instinct. Note that you don't get them all in one reading of the book.

Knight

• Required Ancestral Regions: Windenberg or Mt Komorebi

• Weighted Traits/Ancestral Regions: Proper, Brave, SelfAssured,Good, Loyal

• Bonuses: Fitness, Less Scared, More Confident

• Gift of a Knights Diary: Reading it can grant additional bonus traits: Brave, One with Nature, Club President, Heroic Presence (Batuu), Supreme Authority (Batuu). Note that you don't get them all in one reading of the book.

Mermaid

• Required Ancestral Regions: Sulani

• Weighted Traits/Ancestral Regions: Mermaid, Child of the Ocean, Island Ancestors

• Bonuses: Fitness, Fishing, slower dehydration

Pirate

• Required Ancestral Regions: Tartosa or Brindleton Bay

• Weighted Traits/Ancestral Regions: Sulani

• Bonuses: Mischief, Criminal and Business careers

• Gift of a Captain’s Log Book: Reading it can grant additional bonus traits: Appraiser, Sleight of Hand (Batuu), Prepared Voyager (Batuu), Dauntless. Note that you don't get them all in one reading of the book.

Royalty

• Required Ancestral Regions: Windenberg or Mt Komorebi

• Weighted Traits/Ancestral Regions: Materialistic, Self Absorbed

• Bonuses: Charisma, Confidence, Fame bonus, Club President trait, 50 influence bucks, Simoleons, enrollment in Royal Investment Fund.

Spellcaster

• Required Ancestral Regions: Glimmerbrook or Mt Komorebi

• Weighted Traits/Ancestral Regions: Spellcaster

• Bonuses: Spellcaster XP, Slower Charge buildup

Vampire

• Required Ancestral Regions: Forgotten Hollow or Willow Creek

• Weighted Traits/Ancestral Regions: Vampire, Night Owl

• Bonuses: Vampire XP, Vampire Lore, Vampire Power

Werewolf

• Required Ancestral Regions: Moonwood Mill or Willow Creek

• Weighted Traits/Ancestral Regions: Werewolf, Impulsive, Self Assured

• Bonuses: Werewolf progression, Fitness

Still To Do

The Paranormal integrations are kind of basic, and could use some fleshing out. Same goes for Ancestral Spirits.

I don't like all of the portraits yet, but realized that I could probably spend years working with them them before they were 'perfect'.

I liked almost all of the suggestions I've gotten from you all, and I'm making some decisions about what is going to make it in the first public release, and what I will add in a later release. I'm probably not going to add any more large features to this before the public release at this point, but keep making suggestions, as I might add them later (or maybe sooner, if they're easy to implement)!

As always, your suggestions are very welcome (especially in a prerelease like this). Thanks again for your support!

Change Log

• 1.0.0b, Initial Patreon Preview Prerelease

• 1.0.1b, Patreon Prerelease, bug fixes, ancestral region interactions, recipes, club and holiday features

• 1.0.2b, Patreon Release Candidate 1, bug fixes, scholarship redesign (more integrated into existing scholarship functionality)

• 1.0.3b, Patreon Release Candidate 2, bug fixes, refactoring notable and legendary ancestors to have home regions, rewrite of all notable and legendary biographies to be more individualized, more bug fixes, additional interactions