13 years since The Sims Medieval, I'm trying to recreate the glory days with The Sims 4 Castle Estate – or get sent to the stocks for trying

The Sims Medieval is still just as brilliant today as it was 13 years ago. It's one of many vibrant games that spin off EA's long-running life sim, kept in good company by The Urbz and The Sims: Castaway as some of the quirkiest and best alternatives of its era when building houses and creating families felt a little dry in the 00's and early 2010s. 

Taking a more RPG tone, The Sims Medieval sees players creating their own kingdoms and fulfilling royal duties, building churches and medical facilities, and sailing the seven seas in search of new alliances in line with quest specifications. You're still able to change your Sim's clothing, have children, and style your palaces, but the focus in The Sims Medieval is on shaping events in the ever-changing world around you. 

No number of fantasy RPGs or management sims have come close to capturing its essence. The Sims Medieval still stands as one of my favorite PC games ever, despite its age, and I've always longed to see EA bring it in line with its most recent mainline series by re-introducing its quest-directive format. But with The Sims 4's more recent expansions including a Castle Estate kit, a Horse Ranch pack, and a variety of new gameplay mechanics that permit more nuanced storytelling, I'm taking matters into my own hands. It's time to recreate The Sims Medieval in The Sims 4 – or send myself to the stocks for trying.

Throne sweet throne 

My first port of call is deciding where to build my kingdom. I've seen many Sims Medieval fans online suggesting the neighborhood of Windenburg, but the distinctly Tudor-style homes simply won't work for me from an aesthetic perspective.

I consider the likes of Chestnut Ridge – that gigantic 64x64 home lot is calling to me – but the unsightly town center is a huge modern day disaster when I'm trying to create an authentic medieval kingdom. In the end, I settle with Glimmerbrook. Leafy, secluded, and with no garish city lights glaring in the distance, the Realm of Magic neighborhood seems perfect for my experiment. I evict the Charm family, bulldoze every other lot, and get to work creating my monarch.

In Sims Medieval, the monarch typically has a few members of staff to cook, clean, and advise her on day-to-day proceedings. Queen Willow Wilhem, decked out in a tasteful ball gown and a jewelled headpiece I found as part of the Sims 4 Vampires pack, is joined by two faithful servants: a housekeeper named Beatriz McHenry, and her son and stable-boy Jerrod. They will have to do for now, and I make sure to give Beatriz the Wise trait to ensure she's able to give sage advice to Queen Wilhelm.

Once I have my household sorted, my attention turns to their palace. I've never been the best at building in The Sims 4 – admittedly, I'm here for the drama, not the wonders of landscaping and architecture. After a failed attempt that resembles a medieval French prison more than a lavish castle, I turn to the gallery for inspiration. 

I want to get as close to the castle in Sims Medieval as possible, but that doesn't seem like an option without a painstaking number of mods. Instead, I endeavor to make the interiors match, starting with the throne room. Every time I try to seat the Queen on her throne, though, she gets right up again and heads for the kitchen. 

I've given the castle the Off-The-Grid lot challenge, meaning you won't find any electricity in use at Castle Wilhem, but that doesn't stop the ravenous Queen from trying again and again to cook for herself. I turn off Sim autonomy to make sure she stays put, and send Mrs McHenry to the market in Henford-on-Bagley instead.

Royal pains

It's harder than I thought it would be to keep my monarch occupied in her role as a royal. The fact that she has to pull out a phone to carry out even the simplest of tasks makes me irate, so every time she does, I send her off to ride the horses. 

The relatively new mobile phone mechanic really does nothing to immerse me in a medieval fantasy, but it's also an unavoidable one if I want my household to stay fed and functional. It's a shame I can't even use the horses to ride to other neighborhoods, though I still have my characters sit atop them before using their phones to travel so that I can at least pretend.

The pack that turns out to be most helpful to recreate The Sims Medieval is the Cottage Living expansion. Watching Beatriz and Jerrod tend to the animals, gathering eggs, and milking the cows is my favorite thing to do, while my royal turns out to be quite useless in general.

Queen Willow spends most of her time reading or playing chess, and given the lack of neighbors willing to visit the castle, she is rarely able to help work out her loyal subjects' woes. I build a prison in my castle in lieu of the stocks anyway, where I lock some unsuspecting house guests up for the night. Their crime? Helping themselves to the royal plate of cheese without permission. The insolence.

The challenge has been worthy so far, even if I still bristle at the sight of those hideous phones in my love medieval Castle Wilhelm. All in all, it's safe to say that while The Sims 4 has come in leaps and bounds in terms of its comprehensive new packs, it's still not quite there in terms of being on the same level as The Sims Medieval. 

Check out these games like The Sims to try out while we await Life By You.