What's Next? Kind of confused.

[Joria]

Ok, I finished, (again), the starter Ambition.  Sent my knight off to be king of a new kingdom.  Obviously I can't play the old kingdom anymore except in free play.  Right?  So, with my new king I do all the stuff all over again.  Right?  Are there different quests or is it same old/same old?  Once I've done with this guy, then what?  I've heard folks talking about their new ambitions but I guess I just don't have all the terminology down pat yet. 

1.  When my current king, (new guy from first go around), makes it to the end of this round, (is it called "Ambition"?), then what?

2.  Has anyone gone through these steps past doing two of the unlocked spots?  If so, are they all the same?

3.  Those special things that pop up every so often, (like the Dead Sim Walking, or whatever it was called where you have wussy guys and yet managed to finish everything), what are they called and can you just try to achieve them? 

4.  If you just want to go for those achievements, how do you do it?  I've gotten lots of them but it's purely accidental.

5.  Can you complete those achievements in Free Play?

Now, something that seems off kilter to me is a lot of those achievements I got from the very first time I played.  Then I've started again and again and again mostly to try different things and learn more.  Yet, even when I delete games, those achievements remain for all the different "countries" I've played.  It doesn't make sense to me that you can have those keep adding up yet you can't do anything further with your first or favorite kingdom except free play. 

[Schipperke]

Joria, I can answer some of your questions.

1.  Once you've completed the first Ambition, you have a choice of two new Ambitions to tackle:  Imperial Domination or No Quest for the Weary.  Completing those Ambitions in turns opens up other Ambitions you can do.  As far as I know, the same quests are available.  I've done No Quest for the Weary and am slowly working my way through the Hard Workers ambition.

2. As for the Achievments, you can open the achievement list (whatever it's called) to see what all the achievements are.  Completing various achievements increases your Watcher level, which I believe unlocks various outfits and buy mode items.  Like you, I got my first achievements by accident.  But I've also set out deliberately to get some achievements, like having all 10 heroes with the Whale ate my Parents trait, or all Gluttons and Drunkards.  I do think it adds interest to the game play if I'm trying to gain various achievements in addition to doing quests.

[Ondaderthad]

I know it's kind of confusing. Achievements, Quest Points, Aspect, Resources points, Ambitions, etc..

The best place to start is by reading The Sims Medieval Core Concepts from Carl's Guide.

[mtglady]

Joria, The different Ambitions such as Imperial Domination, No Quest for the Weary, Hard Worker etc generally have the same quests involved but you need to finish that particular Ambition in a certain way.  There are goals set you have to meet to unlock the next Ambition.  There are some quests that only will come up if another quest has been completed first, so there are some variations.

The starter Ambition, New Beginnings, basically has you building your town.  You finish by placing as many buildings as you can.  Imperial Domination is the Ambition where you need to annex all of the foreign countries by completing certain quests.  Those quests only appear if you spent RP to make that country your ally.  Your goal is to annex as many foreign territories as you can.

In No Quest for the Weary you choose the quests and try to complete all 16 with the highest performance - I only received a gold overall as I messed up on my last quest I was completing and didn't receive a platinum rating. 

Thoughts and Prayers Ambition is fairly easy in that your goal is to maximize the Knowledge and Culture aspects whereas the Safe and Sound ambition is the opposite where your goal is to maximize your Security and Well-being aspects.

I am now doing the Hard Worker Ambition so my goal is to level up all of my Heroes to a level 10.  I need to at least level up five Heroes to a level 5 or better to receive a Bronze placing and to unlock the next Ambition. 

I believe when you end your first quest, if you choose Free Time quest, you just play as you want with no responsibilities or quests.  If you choose the Brave New World quest, then you can select one Hero to be the new Monarch.  I think XP gain and earning Achievements are suspended on both of these quests.

I have saved my Sim Heroes to the save bin and keep picking them for the next Ambition I unlock and decide to play.  I have to start from level one each Ambition, but that is part of the fun of it - at least for me.  I sometimes change the traits just to see if they help or hinder me. 

[Rangermanlv]

I think one way to think of it is in account layers. When you first start the game you are in your main one and only account for the game, if you switch to a different windows login account I do not know if that will assign you a new game account or not, have not tried this yet but it seems feasible so that a different user on the same computer could have their own tracking of Watcher level and how many <?>exp points they have earned on their own personal Watcher level. In any case whenever you run the game you are already in your one and only account layer for your Watcher level. Ambitions you select and complete give you a certain amount of exp points twords your Watcher level based on how well you complete the Ambition using the quests the game offers you, some of the quests are static based on the Ambition you have selected to try, others are drawn from a random pool of quests to use for any Ambition.

Achievements are different goals that you can have occur while you are playing any Ambition and any quest in the game. They are only dependent on factors that occur in the game while playing it, as far as I can tell from looking at the list, but many of them are only completable over the span of several quests, possibly occurring while playing thru one Ambition, and some look to me to only be achievable playing thru the quests of several Ambitions. When you complete any of these Achievements you earn some exp points twords your Watcher level also, but the Achievements are only completable once unless you start a whole new game from what I can see, which makes sense from the point of view of being used to add to exp for your Watcher level. And as stated previously, a higher Watcher level unlocks certain other things in the game while you are playing, weather in the Ambition/Quest mode or in the Free Play mode.

Also take all of this with a grain of salt as not all of it is from my actual personal experience playing the game but garnered from logical assumption and posts I've seen from other people. And my particular explanation of the way the game is organized may or may not be helpful to any particular person I just felt like adding my 2 cents.

It's a REALLY confusing system for most people not of the "left-brain anal retentive thought process" type like me I can see how it adds some interest in the game, but I can also see how it imposes some limitations to the traditional Sims game we've all come to know and love. First and foremost it seems to bother many people that they can't simply keep all their hero sims as they are in the same world and move on to the next Ambition once they have finished one. I can understand this frustration, but also since I have much experience playing leveling/experience type games I can understand how this would make achieving subsequent Ambitions far too easy in the game and drop the total playtime of the game for the average person dramatically.

It's interesting to see EA take this approach to The Sims in an attempt to interest the leveling/questing group of gamers to play The Sims, but I'm VERY glad this IS NOT REPLACING the traditional approach to The Sims style of play, as I have heard there is a new expansion pack being worked on for The Sims 3.

[Joria]

Hmmmm.   Ok.  *scratches head*  It was pretty much as I thought and I thank you all for all the clarifications presented in so many different ways.  I was hoping by the third time around something would be different but looks like it will have to be trying achieve those extra things to keep it really full of vinegar and spice.

Right now I'm doing No Quest for the Weary.  I brought my knight over to be my new king.  I do save all my favorite "builds" so my Peteran priest is still going to be the same, (but with different traits), but some characters I have changed.  Forinstance, my bard is female this time around and quite beautiful.  She's a drunkard so no problems there!  DUH!  She not only lives in the tavern, she married the inn keeper who can't seem to keep his hands off her.  They are quite the loving couple and have a daughter who is always around them.  I think the trick with keeping nooboos as part of the family unit, (even if they never grow up to adults), is to really give them a TON of attention while in the cradle and then befriend them the second they turn child.  This married couple has been the most fun as a couple since they do already live in the same building.  They really are cute, billing and cooing all over the place.

My blacksmith is also female and also very pretty.  Not sure how I feel about a female blacksmith which is why I did this one that way.  You know, getting over the stereotypes. 

I'm currently on the dire chinchilla quest since I had very low defense/military.  That one is always fun with that idiot knight leaping into the pit and having the monarch put in the stocks.  He was NOT amused.  I don't like having all those robbers around so hope this quest will take care of that problem.

My game before this one, the one that unlocked this game, I had all the nations as allies and had four of them annexed, two came with the game, one I married into, and the other was annexed by choosing the next head of the Jacoban church.  I was playing my merchant quite heavily that time around and having a blast with her, so it was kind of disappointing to run out of time playing her.  I tried to play the lowest level quests to keep it going longer but in the end I had only higher ones left.  It would really be interesting to get ALL the nations annexed but not sure it's doable.  It really makes a huge difference in trading.  Five of my characters were level 10.  (I cheated.  I jumped into the pit a lot!)

Since there is so much of this game that is the same,  it just might be incentive to get me back on track with my dynasty and challenges in S3!   Thanks again you guys.

[RunAmokSims]

I think this was part of your original question. In the Prima guide I counted a total of 65 different quests. Each quest can have different paths depending on what you choose when you are given options and who you choose to do the quest. This is a lot of redundancy though and it's one reason I got bored pretty quickly.

[athena]

I was just three days into the game and I was bored already. So I went back to TS3 free play where I get to do my own story, build, do some adventures, and interact with the children. I got tired of playing the rabbit hole quests, like go to the forest and kill the bear (where you don't really kill the bear on screen, you don't really get to see the action). I got tired of the duties that I need to do otherwise I will get negative buffs that last for days. So I'm back playing TS3, I don't mean to whine, I know EA aimed for this game to play differently and I appreciate it as an alternate game for when one gets tired of TS3 every now and then. I guess I'm not cut of to be a monarch, LOL! 

[Chuckles_82]

Achieving Acheivements

If you go into kingdom mode, and check out the list of acheivements, you can get an idea of which ones you want to attain short-term, and which ones you need to work on long-term. If you specifically set out to attain specific achievements, for example, Eggcellet (throw 150 eggs at people in the stocks), you should choose a quest where you are playing your monarch. Then, while you are not doing quest related tasks or daily requirements, you can send a sim to the stocks, then stand there and throw eggs at them until the guy lets him out again. (Before he has a chance to head home, JUST as he gets out of the stocks, send him again to repeat the process). Do this until you are getting behind on your quest, or need to do your daily requirements again. I keep a tally so I know where I'm up to and how much I can fit in. To have more free time inbetween quest activities, annex Ticktop. You can work on one or two of the achievements at a time.

Or alternatively, you could work on as many as can be completed by one hero, and go for a balanced approach; that is, (if you are the monarch again), throw 5 eggs, throw 5 tomatoes, have a couple of games of Kingball, have a couple of swordfights, hear some petitions. Try to pass an edict every day and you won't have too much trouble getting edict addict, or enough edicts. Do a little bit of everything every day.

If you want to start fresh and do the achievements again, you can move the Medieval Sims folder OUT of the Electronic Arts folder (in My Documents) and put it somewhere else (this will keep your current saves). When you run the game again, it will create a new folder, and a brand new game. If you want your old saves back, move the new folder out, and move the old one back in.

[AriaGirl77]

If you're looking to switch things up my best advice is to build your buildings in a different order than you did the first time.  I've decided to do that and it's changed my game A LOT!  It seems like the heroes that gain the most exp are the ones that you start the game with, plus you get different quests because you have different heroes.

Another thought, while I'm doing this I'm also focusing on different achievements as a result of my different heroes.  It's impossible to complete the Peteran Priest achievements if that's the last hero you get.  But if you get that hero first then that changes the game dramatically.

Anyway, hope that helps! 

[Pam]

I just finished the New Beginnings Ambition and got started on No Quest for the Weary.  At first I was terribly disappointed that my "new" country was the exact same as the country I just left.  And it's completely empty again!  I decided that I'll just have to play it from the beginning again and that I'd use what I learned the first time around to do better (even though I got platinum for New Beginnings).  I didn't play my Heroes right the first time.  Many of them only reached the mid levels in their professions.  On fact, my Monarch was the only one to reach level 10 because I played her too much and didn't pay enough attention to the other Heroes.  This will be alright for my second Ambition, but it will probably grow old by the time I'm near the end of the ambitions.

[Audren]

My "solution" is to either do quests I had not done, (such as the annexing quests) or do new approaches to old quests (such as both Monarch and Bard for the book burnings)

[Joria]

I just finished the New Beginnings Ambition and got started on No Quest for the Weary.  At first I was terribly disappointed that my "new" country was the exact same as the country I just left.  And it's completely empty again!  I decided that I'll just have to play it from the beginning again and that I'd use what I learned the first time around to do better (even though I got platinum for New Beginnings).  I didn't play my Heroes right the first time.  Many of them only reached the mid levels in their professions.  On fact, my Monarch was the only one to reach level 10 because I played her too much and didn't pay enough attention to the other Heroes.  This will be alright for my second Ambition, but it will probably grow old by the time I'm near the end of the ambitions.

Pam, I managed to make my second Ambition a bit more interesting following Audren's play and choosing different quest approaches etc.  Now I'm on the third one and it's pretty much a matter of forcing myself to go on.  I know where all the plants are, I know where all the minerals are, I know what all the countries offer.  There really doesn't seem to be much more to do even with changing how I approach things.  I told myself I was going to go through each and every ambition just to see if ANYTHING changes but so far it's same old, same old and it's really getting to be a chore to carry on.

[RunAmokSims]

Pam, I managed to make my second Ambition a bit more interesting following Audren's play and choosing different quest approaches etc.  Now I'm on the third one and it's pretty much a matter of forcing myself to go on.  I know where all the plants are, I know where all the minerals are, I know what all the countries offer.  There really doesn't seem to be much more to do even with changing how I approach things.  I told myself I was going to go through each and every ambition just to see if ANYTHING changes but so far it's same old, same old and it's really getting to be a chore to carry on.

I gave it two weeks. A full two weeks. I'm now back with TS3. I'll probably only play TSM when I am in that very bored period right before a new TS3 EP comes out. I sincerely doubt that I would spend money on TSM EPs.

[mtglady]

I'm still playing Medieval and rather enjoy it.  I was unsure of purchasing since it was not The Sims persay and actually went to the store and bought the game rather than pre-order like I have always done.  I have completed 5 Ambitions and am almost done with my 6Th.  I have looked at the quest list and there are still many that I have not yet played.  I also discovered that the quest may take a different turn depending on how you may answer a question.

Last night I finished the quest 'Heir to the Throne' and it was the first time that quest appeared.  My Monarch ended up choosing the Blacksmith to father her child.  When they married I had a choice of having them live in the castle or the blacksmith's home.  I chose the castle thinking that when this game was over, the blacksmith would be back to living in his own house. 

My couple was so excited after they wed, that they consummated the marriage and music played before the quest tracker said to Woo-hoo!  So Princess Genevieve was born.  I had to follow the quest tracker or fail the quest, so of course I directed them to officially consummate the marriage and music played again!  Now my Monarch has a son named Lil' Richard Blacksmith . 

I was definitely wrong about the smithy because he was the hero in the next quest and I started with him, in the castle, playing with his baby son.  I had a hard time directing him to his home and not just clicking the 'go home' button.  If I hit the 'go home' button, he would head to the castle.

I was playing TS3 for hours at a time and not really taking as many breaks as I should have. With TSM I am breaking after each completed quest.  So I guess what I am trying to say is that I discovered that this game was fun, is good for me and is giving me a much needed break from TS3, but I will be back to TS3 full-time when Generations is released !