I always have 2 neighborhoods going. 1 is the normal hood, the other is a medieval hood/challenge hood. I found a challenge called “the end of the world” a while back and have modified it a bit to fit the medieval theme. I have 2 download folders that I switch around from the modern stuff to the medieval stuff depending on what I want to play that day
I had them all combined at first but then it just got too confusing and the loading time was atrocious.
When I play my normal hood I always give my sims stories in my head and give them skills accordingly with the Skills adjustor (insimenator). So the adult I create never had to spend time “catching up” on skills from the childhood they never really “lived”. Sometimes I use motherlode if I feel like making them a nice house. Otherwise I just go with what they got.
After this I spend my time growing up their kids and trying to make interesting genetic combinations just to see what they look like
I always tend to make black skinned families, Orientals, blonds, red heads etc and mix have their kids grow up and fall in love with each other to see what they will look like. Of course I always have some loners who become aliens or vampires etc as well and a few infamous romance sims to keep things interesting.
And as far as the challenge I do similar things except with the added bonus of the challenge hence no cheating (at least not as much, I will still sometimes change a sims personality traits and things like that). I really like the medieval theme since witches came along mind you