Will these religions make a comeback in Sims 4? It would be interesting to see Churches and Temples in the game. But I'm sure once we get Peteran and Jacoban religions, we'll get more request for different never before seen sim religions.
I suppose you could use the Holidays from Seasons to give some sense of religion (recreating real holidays, or making up your own, which is what I've done in my game). (Reinforcing the idea that sometimes this game gives you tools and you have to figure out how to make those tools work for you).
There is one holiday ritual that is called Attend Festive Ceremony (or something like that) and the Sim just disappears for a few hours while they attend the service elsewhere.
The downside to that ritual is you can't actually designate a lot to be the lot where the Sim attends the ceremony, so if you build a church or temple, it's not like they're specifically going there but you can pretend they are, I suppose.
Also you can always build a church or temple, and then maybe even make clubs that hangout there and set activities so it looks lively. There aren't a ton of activities for clubs, and even less club activities for doing things that might be considered in the realm of traditional religious/ritualistic activity.
I mean, the game already has Christmas trees, Menorah, and Kinara, so there are bits of religion in there. You can build lots and place religious objects in them.
I think these worked well in a semi-historical background with sims medieval. But I think the modern day environment in sims 4 is too similar to real life to add in made up religions. I think a lot of players have very different views from one another to find a way to implement them for all.
For some it will be too close to real religions while for others it won't be close enough because they want actual existing ones.
If this would ever be added, I think it is unlikely, then it should be a new free pack like the holiday pack so players can choose if they want to use it or avoid it.
Now I feel like playing sims medieval again. Lol. In that game peteran and Jacoban religion fit in very well.
I made up my own Church for the game. Same as I used in TS3, Church of Similius. There is a church-ish building and some sort of a priest, but they focus on the green bars (and admitting the red must exist, too, to make the green more good). No obvious religious symbols, like paintings or sculptures of holy characters etc. There is no name giving and no services on specific weekdays (mainly because I don't play the lot very often). But the richer families (nobility) marry there, and I assume there will be a funeral or two, as well. And they have some annual ceremonies, like the green bars festival. The church runs a café in summer, and a gift shop all year selling anything green. And there is a monastery with a few monks and a Nestor, training the better suited candidate when the Priest needs replacement. I can post links to articles on both church and monastery on my blog, but perhaps this covered most of it
San Myshuno and Lani St. Taz both appear to be places named for saints in colonial times.
Just when the sects of the faith of the Watcher went dormant is an open question. My guess is that Sims didn't care for Jacoban political influence, and they faded away about the same time monarchy did.
San Myshuno and Lani St. Taz both appear to be places named for saints in colonial times.
Just when the sects of the faith of the Watcher went dormant is an open question. My guess is that Sims didn't care for Jacoban political influence, and they faded away about the same time monarchy did.
And what about Peteran? The less politically active religion.
I suppose you could use the Holidays from Seasons to give some sense of religion (recreating real holidays, or making up your own, which is what I've done in my game). (Reinforcing the idea that sometimes this game gives you tools and you have to figure out how to make those tools work for you).
There is one holiday ritual that is called Attend Festive Ceremony (or something like that) and the Sim just disappears for a few hours while they attend the service elsewhere.
The downside to that ritual is you can't actually designate a lot to be the lot where the Sim attends the ceremony, so if you build a church or temple, it's not like they're specifically going there but you can pretend they are, I suppose.
Also you can always build a church or temple, and then maybe even make clubs that hangout there and set activities so it looks lively. There aren't a ton of activities for clubs, and even less club activities for doing things that might be considered in the realm of traditional religious/ritualistic activity.
I mean, the game already has Christmas trees, Menorah, and Kinara, so there are bits of religion in there. You can build lots and place religious objects in them.
In my Victorian save last year I made a church and sent my active households there every Sunday morning, where they would chat a bit with their fellow parishioners then go off lot to attend the ceremony, then come back and chat again. I still have that save but haven't played it since the summer but I will eventually do something similar, but perhaps less regimented, in my current save.
And what about Peteran? The less politically active religion.
I'd say the Peteran ethos just became part and parcel of Sim society - literacy, public schooling, letting people live as they choose.
I'd speculate that St. Taz (whoever they were) was Peteran, simply because while Sulani is clearly post-colonial (pineapples were a plantation crop), the mahu tradition was left alone rather than extirpated. Likewise, island spirits are still venerated, etc.
I have been thinking about this a lot, playing in Henford on Bagley, because of course historically the real-world Cotswolds are full of old stone churches - and ruined, abandoned abbeys.
I have zero desire to discuss the IRL history of religion, in Great Britain or elsewhere, the Dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, the English Civil War, or the merits and flaws of an established national church. But I am certainly aware of them.
And I think I have a more considered answer for what became of the Peteran faith from the Sims Medieval age (which I do play as the historic past of my current Sims 4 play - and also use as fodder for writing Non-Fiction and Fantasy titles in the present). And IRL history provides some insight into where in TS4's culture these forces have gone:
Discover University's town of Britechester is TS4's other England-analog setting - it is plainly, if loosely, based on Cambridge in particular (the background presence of canal houseboats is a giveaway, as is the presence of "Silicon Fen" analog, Foxbury Institute, alongside the more ancient and ivyclad University of Britechester). That's not Harvard and MIT, it's not Cal Tech and UCLA - it's Cambridge. ...-ish.
Now, Cambridge, in its origins, existed by royal warrant for the purpose of training clergy. Likewise, if one looks at the Peteran focus in The Sims Medieval, that is the faith that wants to do things like provide education and promote literacy, and even technology.
So, in my game, Peteran monasteries are ruins, or else museums (I really didn't need a rental property in Henford on Bagley, but did want an historic site), OR for larger foundations, where King Simrey XXIII didn't care to evict hundreds or thousands of Peteran scholars at once, however tired he was of political and even literal infighting between rival sects, became schools and universities.
(To take another dip into IRL history - which I stumbled upon while reading about areas adjacent to the Cotswolds - this is exactly where Worcester College, Oxford came from, originally Gloucester College, a Dominican priory dissolved by Hank 8. Likewise, I have learned that Irish monasteries developed early on into places of general education, where young people could enroll in studies without expectation of becoming monks or priests, then leave again and go have ordinary lives, sometimes returning to the monasteries late in life for the security of an established community, as a sort of retirement home).
The books of the Great Eyebrary were disseminated across Simdom through the marvel of moveable type and became the foundation for the libraries freely available to our sims for their entertainment and self-improvement.
Given how many players, all across the world, play the Sims, and given that they are doubtless of all various faiths, or agnostic, or spiritual but not religious, or atheist, I think trying to portray that in The Sims is best avoided, or left to individual players to include as they see fit, through creative repurposing of existing gameplay and assets, or through mods and CC.
It also raises an interesting philosophical issue of Sims metaphysics, as we on this side of the Fourth Wall have clear evidence supporting the Many Watchers Theory, and even enjoy the means to have each other's sims instantiated in our own Watched games, interacting with the Geoffrey Landgraabs and Don Lotharios and Summer Holidays they know, even as alternate versions of those Sims also exist simultaneously, but separately, across a finite but unknowably vast number of worlds, which influence theirs somewhat, little, or not at all as their Watcher chooses.
I know, personally, that the Watcher does exist for my sims, for I am He. I like to keep my sims guessing, however. And I am only interested in them undertaking metaphysical pursuits relating to their ideas regarding my existence where this furthers their development in Wellness (through meditation and yoga), Logic, Writing, Parenthood values, etc.
And I am content for the hederated cloisters of the ancient halls of Britechester to represent that in my game. Jacobans can be represented by the Political, Legal and Criminal careers, respectively.
I'd love to have tools to create our own religions. Then we could make real, or very made-up, ones as we chose.
The Peteran/Jacoban thing is a little icky to me as it obviously presents a good religion and a bad religion, and the good one appears Protestant Christian while the bad one makes use of too many anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish stereotypes for my comfort level. (I mean, I am a Protestant Christian in real life, but that doesn't make me feel any better about this.)
I'd love to have tools to create our own religions. Then we could make real, or very made-up, ones as we chose.
The Peteran/Jacoban thing is a little icky to me as it obviously presents a good religion and a bad religion, and the good one appears Protestant Christian while the bad one makes use of too many anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish stereotypes for my comfort level. (I mean, I am a Protestant Christian in real life, but that doesn't make me feel any better about this.)
I don't know, I think this is a matter of interpretation. For example, they actually both seemed Catholic to me (which would be more historically accurate, anyway, for a medieval setting), with the Peterans reminding me very strongly of some sort of hybrid of maybe Franciscans and Jesuits? Whereas the Dominicans, IRL, were sometimes referred to as Jacobins at one time, I believe. Other people might identify them more with other orders of the Catholic church, but that was my personal impression. But I definitely did not think it was set up as a Protestant v. Catholic dichotomy.
Well despite religion related things irl giving me the biggest anxiety and the worst vibes all around
I would like to have lot type for graveyard and perhaps church
graveyard perhaps more occult way with ghost zombies etc
but i do think we need lot type where sims will just hang out in silence and exist cause its so annoying sometimes when sims just won't stop interfering with whatever you are doing but also like they need to be there for reasons
I did build church in henford village also with podium and some wedding things but yeah i just wish sims wouldn't be quite so social during ceremonies it irks poor agnes
Actually, The Ancient Omiscan people of the Belomisia Jungle had a religion based on one Watcher who would divide into many (this is actually in-game). Check the latest post in my sig link if you want to read about it.
Check out my 'Simming Tips' for detailed tips and tricks (TS4).
As alluded to above, there already is religion in The Sims 4. The Omiscans worshiped a pantheon, including the player, known as The Watcher. If you read the associated text with many of the BB objects that came with Jungle Adventure, it is pretty thorough. It even gets into fourth wall breaching territory. Check out the death myth section in the link below.
Will these religions make a comeback in Sims 4? It would be interesting to see Churches and Temples in the game. But I'm sure once we get Peteran and Jacoban religions, we'll get more request for different never before seen sim religions.
You could always create your own churches and temples. I am seriously considering creating a new Sim for my Main save. If you can't find appropriate clothing for your cleric, you could do a custom content search on the internet. I've seen lots of interesting items available. Good luck!
I have several churches in the game and some of my households are more religious. They use the club system to gather or sometimes families will just go. I have mostly downloaded and edited lots from the gallery for that. I added different styles in different worlds that are different denominations. I also have several other world religions that are represented among my rotation.
For me this adds more detail to those sims. Some are more religiously observant and some are less so. Religion does influence some gameplay. I guess it is one of their characteristics. About the only thing I don't have is actual services conducted by religious figures. I send my households who want to go and they do their own practices or reflections. Some weddings occur in the religious spaces.
Again my style is varied so I have all different types of households but yes, some religions and denominations are represented.
The Omiscans seem to have had a variant of the Many Watchers Theory, as well. I don't have Jungle Adventures - I am more into residential play than destination worlds - but I have read up on the lore objects.
I do refer to the quarrelling sects of a bygone age in my contemporary Sims 4 play, but I also have things like unqualified sims without actual academic credentials getting facts wildly wrong on speculative woo-woo books like When the Watcher was a Woman or The Peterine Prophecy. I am also specifically sending a sim back to university for a postgraduate History degree, as she untangles the complicated interplay of religious and political forces in pre-modern Henford and environs, and compensating for my Peteran monastery/museum build with an in-town residential lot (formerly a rectory, attached to a workhouse) called Jacobeth Close.
I Doubt they will bring religion to the sims 4, but I’ve downloaded a couple of churches and have a couple parks with church spots. And someone I know used the political career to make a clergyman.( took the organizational route ).
I use the club system and the calendar to make religions in my game if I want them. There’s a tradition on the calendar if you have Seasons called attend holiday ceremony that’s a rabbit hole, there’s also a charitable works rabbit hole on the phone that I think came with Parenthood that I incorporate as well. Then I build churches I set as museums and use those for club hangouts with activities like read books, play organ, sing, give speeches etc. I can set up religious rules through the club forbidden activities and rivalries with other religions using be mean to as a club activity too.
That so reminds me of my Civilization VI game.
It would be so cool to pick any types of faith from the Ancient Times all the way to early 20th Century.
There can be a toggle off for players that don't want that.
I've always enjoyed being able to pick any types of faith in my Civil games. It's fun.
I haven't got a church in the game (but would totally buy an Old Time Religion Stuff Pack that had callbacks to Sims Medieval), but I've put a fair bit of effort into my Honored Dead cemetery in Willow Creek, which has a lovely contemplative motif around the gravestones of sims who made memorable contributions to the world they lived in when they were alive.
I have another graveyard that's more like a landfill, which is far less thought out aesthetically speaking. It's just a place to dump bodies. But the Honored Dead fits into the religious leitmotif of my world.
(he/him)
And remember this above all. Our Roman gods are watching. Make sure they are not ashamed!
My NBA site, Pace and Space
Comments
I suppose you could use the Holidays from Seasons to give some sense of religion (recreating real holidays, or making up your own, which is what I've done in my game). (Reinforcing the idea that sometimes this game gives you tools and you have to figure out how to make those tools work for you).
There is one holiday ritual that is called Attend Festive Ceremony (or something like that) and the Sim just disappears for a few hours while they attend the service elsewhere.
The downside to that ritual is you can't actually designate a lot to be the lot where the Sim attends the ceremony, so if you build a church or temple, it's not like they're specifically going there but you can pretend they are, I suppose.
Also you can always build a church or temple, and then maybe even make clubs that hangout there and set activities so it looks lively. There aren't a ton of activities for clubs, and even less club activities for doing things that might be considered in the realm of traditional religious/ritualistic activity.
I mean, the game already has Christmas trees, Menorah, and Kinara, so there are bits of religion in there. You can build lots and place religious objects in them.
For some it will be too close to real religions while for others it won't be close enough because they want actual existing ones.
If this would ever be added, I think it is unlikely, then it should be a new free pack like the holiday pack so players can choose if they want to use it or avoid it.
Now I feel like playing sims medieval again. Lol. In that game peteran and Jacoban religion fit in very well.
Well, technically, every time, The Sims makes Christmas, Hannukah, Halloween, Easter themed objects, it's introducing religion into the game.
San Myshuno and Lani St. Taz both appear to be places named for saints in colonial times.
Just when the sects of the faith of the Watcher went dormant is an open question. My guess is that Sims didn't care for Jacoban political influence, and they faded away about the same time monarchy did.
And what about Peteran? The less politically active religion.
In my Victorian save last year I made a church and sent my active households there every Sunday morning, where they would chat a bit with their fellow parishioners then go off lot to attend the ceremony, then come back and chat again. I still have that save but haven't played it since the summer but I will eventually do something similar, but perhaps less regimented, in my current save.
I'd say the Peteran ethos just became part and parcel of Sim society - literacy, public schooling, letting people live as they choose.
I'd speculate that St. Taz (whoever they were) was Peteran, simply because while Sulani is clearly post-colonial (pineapples were a plantation crop), the mahu tradition was left alone rather than extirpated. Likewise, island spirits are still venerated, etc.
I have been thinking about this a lot, playing in Henford on Bagley, because of course historically the real-world Cotswolds are full of old stone churches - and ruined, abandoned abbeys.
I have zero desire to discuss the IRL history of religion, in Great Britain or elsewhere, the Dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, the English Civil War, or the merits and flaws of an established national church. But I am certainly aware of them.
And I think I have a more considered answer for what became of the Peteran faith from the Sims Medieval age (which I do play as the historic past of my current Sims 4 play - and also use as fodder for writing Non-Fiction and Fantasy titles in the present). And IRL history provides some insight into where in TS4's culture these forces have gone:
Discover University's town of Britechester is TS4's other England-analog setting - it is plainly, if loosely, based on Cambridge in particular (the background presence of canal houseboats is a giveaway, as is the presence of "Silicon Fen" analog, Foxbury Institute, alongside the more ancient and ivyclad University of Britechester). That's not Harvard and MIT, it's not Cal Tech and UCLA - it's Cambridge. ...-ish.
Now, Cambridge, in its origins, existed by royal warrant for the purpose of training clergy. Likewise, if one looks at the Peteran focus in The Sims Medieval, that is the faith that wants to do things like provide education and promote literacy, and even technology.
So, in my game, Peteran monasteries are ruins, or else museums (I really didn't need a rental property in Henford on Bagley, but did want an historic site), OR for larger foundations, where King Simrey XXIII didn't care to evict hundreds or thousands of Peteran scholars at once, however tired he was of political and even literal infighting between rival sects, became schools and universities.
(To take another dip into IRL history - which I stumbled upon while reading about areas adjacent to the Cotswolds - this is exactly where Worcester College, Oxford came from, originally Gloucester College, a Dominican priory dissolved by Hank 8. Likewise, I have learned that Irish monasteries developed early on into places of general education, where young people could enroll in studies without expectation of becoming monks or priests, then leave again and go have ordinary lives, sometimes returning to the monasteries late in life for the security of an established community, as a sort of retirement home).
The books of the Great Eyebrary were disseminated across Simdom through the marvel of moveable type and became the foundation for the libraries freely available to our sims for their entertainment and self-improvement.
Given how many players, all across the world, play the Sims, and given that they are doubtless of all various faiths, or agnostic, or spiritual but not religious, or atheist, I think trying to portray that in The Sims is best avoided, or left to individual players to include as they see fit, through creative repurposing of existing gameplay and assets, or through mods and CC.
It also raises an interesting philosophical issue of Sims metaphysics, as we on this side of the Fourth Wall have clear evidence supporting the Many Watchers Theory, and even enjoy the means to have each other's sims instantiated in our own Watched games, interacting with the Geoffrey Landgraabs and Don Lotharios and Summer Holidays they know, even as alternate versions of those Sims also exist simultaneously, but separately, across a finite but unknowably vast number of worlds, which influence theirs somewhat, little, or not at all as their Watcher chooses.
I know, personally, that the Watcher does exist for my sims, for I am He. I like to keep my sims guessing, however. And I am only interested in them undertaking metaphysical pursuits relating to their ideas regarding my existence where this furthers their development in Wellness (through meditation and yoga), Logic, Writing, Parenthood values, etc.
And I am content for the hederated cloisters of the ancient halls of Britechester to represent that in my game. Jacobans can be represented by the Political, Legal and Criminal careers, respectively.
The Peteran/Jacoban thing is a little icky to me as it obviously presents a good religion and a bad religion, and the good one appears Protestant Christian while the bad one makes use of too many anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish stereotypes for my comfort level. (I mean, I am a Protestant Christian in real life, but that doesn't make me feel any better about this.)
I don't know, I think this is a matter of interpretation. For example, they actually both seemed Catholic to me (which would be more historically accurate, anyway, for a medieval setting), with the Peterans reminding me very strongly of some sort of hybrid of maybe Franciscans and Jesuits? Whereas the Dominicans, IRL, were sometimes referred to as Jacobins at one time, I believe. Other people might identify them more with other orders of the Catholic church, but that was my personal impression. But I definitely did not think it was set up as a Protestant v. Catholic dichotomy.
I would like to have lot type for graveyard and perhaps church
graveyard perhaps more occult way with ghost zombies etc
but i do think we need lot type where sims will just hang out in silence and exist cause its so annoying sometimes when sims just won't stop interfering with whatever you are doing but also like they need to be there for reasons
I did build church in henford village also with podium and some wedding things but yeah i just wish sims wouldn't be quite so social during ceremonies it irks poor agnes
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https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Selvadoradian_lore
You could always create your own churches and temples. I am seriously considering creating a new Sim for my Main save. If you can't find appropriate clothing for your cleric, you could do a custom content search on the internet. I've seen lots of interesting items available. Good luck!
http://www.getfreeebooks.com/star-trek-original-series-fan-fiction-trilogy/
For me this adds more detail to those sims. Some are more religiously observant and some are less so. Religion does influence some gameplay. I guess it is one of their characteristics. About the only thing I don't have is actual services conducted by religious figures. I send my households who want to go and they do their own practices or reflections. Some weddings occur in the religious spaces.
Again my style is varied so I have all different types of households but yes, some religions and denominations are represented.
I do refer to the quarrelling sects of a bygone age in my contemporary Sims 4 play, but I also have things like unqualified sims without actual academic credentials getting facts wildly wrong on speculative woo-woo books like When the Watcher was a Woman or The Peterine Prophecy. I am also specifically sending a sim back to university for a postgraduate History degree, as she untangles the complicated interplay of religious and political forces in pre-modern Henford and environs, and compensating for my Peteran monastery/museum build with an in-town residential lot (formerly a rectory, attached to a workhouse) called Jacobeth Close.
It would be so cool to pick any types of faith from the Ancient Times all the way to early 20th Century.
There can be a toggle off for players that don't want that.
I've always enjoyed being able to pick any types of faith in my Civil games. It's fun.
I have another graveyard that's more like a landfill, which is far less thought out aesthetically speaking. It's just a place to dump bodies. But the Honored Dead fits into the religious leitmotif of my world.
And remember this above all. Our Roman gods are watching. Make sure they are not ashamed!
My NBA site, Pace and Space