Lately, I’ve been feeling nostalgic for some older gems in The Sims series and have once again fallen down the rabbit hole of The Sims Medieval. In my personal opinion, The Sims Medieval is the best Sims spinoff ever made (yes, including Castaway and Bustin’ Out). It was a work of art and did not receive the admiration it deserved. I was very sad that such a promising game led such a short life.
I’m not the only one who’s been rediscovering their love of this game, either. There have been a lot of The Sims Medieval posts circulating around the community which makes my heart happy. Of course with new players comes new challenges; I’ve seen a lot of people saying they have a hard time figuring out the mechanics of The Sims Medieval. They can’t keep their Heroes’ focus high enough to do well in quests.
I’m here to help with that! I’ve spent probably hundreds if not thousands of hours playing this game over the years. I pretty much know all the little hacks and things that add up to make the game easier. I’ll be outlining some tips that help me finish every single quest at Platinum level, no matter which Hero I’m playing.
Focus, Focus, Focus!
Unlike your Sims’ moods in The Sims 3, focus in The Sims Medieval is essential for success. Everything depends on having a high focus. High focus will boost quest performance and make your Heroes more likely to succeed at their jobs and quest steps. Low focus will tank quest performance and can even get your Heroes killed if they attempt to do something dangerous with low focus (like hunting or fighting).
Always always always maintain your Heroes’ focus. You always want it in the green, but the higher, the better.
Easy Ways to Boost Focus
- Stay well rested and full. Simple enough. Energy and Hunger are the only two motives your Sims need to take care of, so it’s not hard to keep these motives satisfied.
- DON’T TOUCH THAT GRUEL! Sims can cook gruel without needing any ingredients but it slaps them with a negative focus buff. Eating literally anything else will provide a positive focus buff, instead. The more complex meals requiring lots of rare ingredients provide the best focus buffs but your Sims don’t always have time to cook such an elaborate spread. Instead, hit up the local merchant’s stalls, or head to the Village Shoppe to purchase some basic cooking ingredients. Pigeon, turnips, and onions are all cheap ingredients that can be used in the easiest recipes. Your focus meter will thank you for not eating gruel.
- A little TLC goes a long way. While your Sims don’t have a Hygiene or Bladder motive, taking baths, using the chamber pot, and washing up in the wash basin still give your Heroes positive buffs that increase focus. Warming your hands at a cooking fire and gussying up in a mirror also provide small focus boosts. Don’t overlook these little tasks when your Heroes get up in the morning. They all add up!
- Don’t neglect your responsibilities. Finishing your daily responsibilities is the easiest way to give your Heroes a huge focus boost. Finishing both responsibilities will add +40 focus. Add that with all the tips mentioned above and your Heroes will have maxed out focus meters for most of the day with little trouble. Neglecting Responsibilities will saddle your Heroes with big negative focus penalties which you want to avoid at all costs.
- Don’t be afraid to stray off the quest path sometimes. Things like making friends, courting a new love, getting married, and having children provide Heroes with massive focus boosts! Just having a baby will add +80 to your focus alone. It pays to take a break from questing now and then to live a little.
- Play to your Heroes’ strengths. Every Hero has two traits and a fatal flaw. This means every Hero is different and excels in different areas. If you have an Unkempt Hero, keep them away from wash basins and baths. The more disgusting they smell, the happier they are which will boost their focus. If your Sim is Solitary or a Misanthrope, try to have them avoid other people as much as possible. They’re only happy and focused when being left alone. If your Hero is a Drunkard, consider stocking up on barley as well as cheap food ingredients. They’ll have to drink a lot to stay focused, so they might as well get an extra positive buff from drinking barley ale instead of the musty basic ale that requires no ingredients.
- Match up professions and traits. A Merchant probably shouldn’t have the Misanthrope fatal flaw because they’ll need to be around people constantly to sell their merchandise. A knight shouldn’t have the Puny or Weak Constitution fatal flaws, either. Make sure you’re setting your Heroes up for success by giving them the right traits for their profession.
Getting Platinum Every Time
There’s really only one trick to this and it might be shocking to hear because it sounds counter-intuitive, but… finish your quests as slowly as you possibly can.
No, I’m not kidding.
When you plough your way through quests really fast, the performance meter has less time to fill up, which means you’ll miss out on the chance to finish a quest at platinum. Yes, there is a penalty for falling behind on your quests and you don’t want that, either. It’s a balancing act. Here’s how I platinum every quest:
- When you first start a quest, ignore it. Instead, work on building and maintaining high focus. This strategy only works if your focus meter is high enough to keep your quest performance improving. Ideally, you want to be at gold level before you start the quest at all, but that might not always be possible.
- Keep an eye on your buffs. When you get the Falling Behind on Quest buff with an icon of a trophy and one X, that’s when you need to start the quest. Do one quest step to get rid of that buff.
- Then derp around maintaining your focus and ignoring the quest until you see that same buff again, then do another quest step.
- Repeat this process of doing just enough quest steps to get rid of the Falling Behind on Quest buff, then ignoring the quest in favour of focus-boosting activities until you see the buff again.
- Keep up this cycle until you hit Platinum. Once you’re at Platinum, then you can rush through the rest of the quest as fast as possible. You want to finish it fast before the quest performance has a chance to degrade if your focus drops for whatever reason.
- Ta-da! Platinum level quest completion!
Profession-Specific Tips
Each Hero’s profession provides them with their own set of perks/drawbacks. It’s beneficial to know how to make the most of each Hero’s profession. I won’t be going over every profession here, as some are more straight forward to play than others, but here are a few handy tips I’ve picked up for some of the professions:
- Your Physician will often get the Responsibility to craft and deliver Citrus Infusions and Rum Tonics. These require ingredients from the Village Shoppe. It can be really time consuming having to run to the village every day to get these ingredients on a time crunch. It’s a good idea to visit the Village Shoppe once a day even when you don’t have to so you can stock up on citrus fruit, honey, and apples. That way, you’ll have them on-hand when you actually need them to craft your tonics. If you have a Merchant Hero in your kingdom, check there first. It’s not as long a walk and the Merchant sometimes has those ingredients for cheaper.
- The Merchant has some of the most time-consuming Responsibilities out of all the professions. They often have to travel to foreign lands with cargo to trade. This can easily take up an entire day. They also need to investigate the day’s hot items at the Village Shoppe, buy them, then sell them at a higher price in their own market stall. To save time, buy barley and mushrooms in bulk. Crafthole trades wood for mushrooms, and Tredony trades gems for barley. It’ll save you a trip to the Village Shoppe when you need to sail abroad. On days when you need to buy and resell hot items, don’t go overboard. Buy only 1 or 2 of the most expensive hot item and a maximum of 3-5 of the cheaper items. You need to resell your stock that day to make a good profit, so don’t buy more than what you’re confident you can sell that same day.
- Wondering why the Wizard doesn’t have a bed in their tower? The Wizard doesn’t need to sleep! They meditate to recover energy, instead! Just click on your Wizard and select Meditate whenever they need a rest.
- Peteran Priests and Jacoban Priests get focus boosts from Praying and Reflecting on the Watcher! It’s an easy way to keep your Priest’s focus meter in the green when you’re strapped for time. All professions that can harvest from plants get small focus boosts from successfully gathering herbs/plants as well.
And that’s it for now! Go forth and get medieval!
If you’re wondering where you can get The Sims Medieval, you can purchase it on Origin for $19.99 USD! This bundle includes the Pirates & Nobles expansion pack! Happy medieval Simming!
