Round 4 - The Colosseum

The moment everyone has been waiting for has arrived - the Colosseum event. As you might already know, this round's event is different from the standard event.

Emperor Varius and his brother, which makes the Emperor's family as he's still unmarried, has gathered at their balcony. Today, they won't be witnessing a slave fight, but the fight of Caecilius Callarai's life, former Head of the Callarai family. He's convicted of murdering the Callandile wife Abeni with several witnesses, among them the Emperor himself. After the fight, which will determine if Caecilius will live or die, a trial is being held for Felix Jax, suspected of murdering the Callandile heir, Tarquinius. It has been a devastating round for the Callandile family.

The mood in the cell isn't the brightest. Caecilius took dirty measures to increase the chance of him winning this fight - no proofs have been discovered, but it's pretty certain that he paid off a criminal to steal the workout equipment from the gladiators house to keep them from gaining skill points for fighting.

Caecilius makes an attempt at appearing dangerous. The gladiator he's facing is Septimius Zima.

They begin with some light struggling, such as slaps.

Caecilius soon breaks down and cries. May it be that he's finally regretting all the douchy behavior that led him here?

A storm approaches to set the mood for the match, while the Emperor's family cheerfully discusses death.

Finally, the actual fight breaks out. Will Caecilius masterplan have saved him, or is his reign of terror in this neighborhood over?

It seems it is. Septimius is the champion, killing Caecilius as he wins. Caecilius was very close to his brothers, Hortensius and Manlius, and we'll see if any tension develops between them and the Emperor.

Felix Jax, waiting in his cell, doesn't seem too eager to get this started. He's an extremely nice but poor boy, who got attacked by Tarquinius, and accidentally killed him in self-defence. Unfortunately, another Patrician boy was witness to only the ending of the fight, and the reports he made to Tarquinius father wasn't in Felix favor.

When Felix arrives to face his judges, the Emperor's family, he's expecting a fair trial. However, he soon discovers that what he recieves is a mock-trial where he's barely allowed to utter a word before they sentence him to death and send the hungry lions up to eat him, claiming that he'll make a nice meal because of him being fat.
Felix dies.

I have to say this was a very eventful round. The neighborhood has more families than ever - a total of fifteen households. Five patrician (counting the Emperor's family), three plebeian and seven slave households. Not quite balanced yet, but there are a lot of plebeian boys waiting to grow up and I think it'll be more pyramid-like soon.
Round 4 statistics:
Births: 12 (new record!)
Weddings: 6 (new record!)
Deaths: 5 (not sure whether this is a new record too, but it might be - or else it's close)
As you can see, the neighborhood grew by a lot this round. With round 4/16 (Roman/total) completed, we now head for number 5/17.

Round 4 - Gladiators

As usual, the gladiators are the last household of the round, right before the normally dreaded Colosseum event, where one of them participate. However, this round's event is a little different, as Head of the Callarai family, Caecilius, will be fighting one of these gladiators as a punishment for the murder he committed of Abeni Callandile, wife of her family's Head. Felix Jax will also be having a trial at the Colosseum for the murder of Tarquinus Callandile, son of the previous mentioned victim.
Row 1: Marianus Nixeira (unmarried), Tacitus Nixeira (father of Nixitus children), Septimius Zima (father of Zimius children).
Since last round, Tacitus moved in to take the spot as the third and final gladiator.

You might have noticed that Tacitus was an adult already on the group picture, but honestly as I entered the household I saw he was ripe for aging and did it straight away.

He wasn't too pleased when he grew up, and had a breakdown in his way too modern outfit.

Once back up on his feet and made over, this is how he turned out. Not the most flattering haircut, but otherwise a bit handsome.

Who's surpised? No one? It isn't really strange that they hate each other after fighting each other in the pit last round. They managed to become enemies now...

Tacitus is so strong he can put his hand through the wall. For real! By the way, this is still how all of them spend their days, working on their physics skill. Still no one managed to max it.

They had this cute (and surprisingly smart) little visitor.

I believe Caecilius must have paid someone off to go break in at the gladiators house - the thief only stole the three barres, making it impossible for them to gain more skill for fighting! A masterplan only Caecilius can be the brain behind.

And what did the mighty gladiators do as the thief ran off with their precious barres? ...

They recovered from the terribly traumatic break-in and headed to the Baths, where Drusa thought it was a good idea to tease her gladiator uncle...

The brother's of course kept fighting. Princess Marcellina doesn't seem to like the smell of Tacitus too much.

While the others fought, Septimius took his stink and flies to the tub and relaxed some.

One might think that only teasing her gladiator uncle was stupid enough, but no, Drusa decides to attack him as well. Roman version of suicide?

Big surprise, he kills her, as Marcellina still complains about the stink. My firstborn generation 4... Luckily her twin sister is the same age but still...

Tacitus is such a loner he'd rather sit alone in a tub than join the one with other people in it.

Round 4 - Nixitus

This is the little Nixitus family, another one where the father is a gladiator, not living in the household with his family.
Row 1: Martina Nixitus (Head of the family, standing); holding: Paula Nixitus (daughter)

Martina is a family sim, so being alone is no problem for her as long as she has her little daughter.

Some hours after the round started, Martina's belly grew. Her funny walk in this picture is supposed to represent that, haha.

It wasn't long until Paula had her birthday, neither.

Here's the little girl, with the typical Nixeria eyes and the lower face of her mother, it seems.

Big big belly!

Martina spends so much time playing and cuddling with her daughter I'm in constant fear of her miscarrying since she doesn't seem to care about her own needs.

But she makes it through the whole pregnancy!

And has a little son, named Domitianus.

Tacitus comes over to work on their third child, and the couple fall in love while attempting. He then leaves without even introducing himself to either of his children...

Of course, Martina is just as in love with this baby as she is with Paula.

The girl has time for her second birthday as well this round.

Here she is! As you can see, all the playing made her a happy toddler even though she didn't learn how to do anything.

Tacitus only had to make one visit before another seed was planted in Martina's belly, and the next day, her belly starts growing again.

At the Baths, Martina isn't too pleased to discover her daughter isn't playing very nicely.

Once back home, little brother Domitianus has his birthday too.

Round ends with showing how the little boy looks. Pretty much just like his sister.

Round 4 - Nixsana

This little family is finally going through some changes, after not much happening the last rounds.
Row 1: Cassian Nixsana (Head of the family, sitting), Prisca Nixsana (wife, sitting)
Changes from last round are the move in of Prisca, who's marrying Cassian, and the move out of Otho, Cassian's little brother. Otho is now working for one of the Patrician families.

I don't know if I would want to marry Cassian, with him murdering his brother and being the most creepy sim in the neighborhood, but at least he seems to be quite happy. His little wife, who used to have the name Prisca Nixeira, is now called Prisca Nixsana.

There was actually a full three days between the wedding and her birthday, but nothing interesting happened. No bumps or anything. And I guess you see what I mean about Cassian being creepy...

Here's our Prisca. There were a lot of slave girls marrying Plebeian boys this round because of the lack of girls this generation has in the upper classes, but Prisca wasn't one of them. Hopefully she'll be happy anyway...

After some time of daily tries for babies, the couple even manage to fall in love.

Cassian, who seems to be making faces, has even taken a job in the criminal career to support his wife and (hopefully) future family.

They finally had a visitor. Prisca doesn't seem to appreciate Tatianus lack of throwing skills, though. "Seriously?"

Although Cassian has a creepy exterior, he's a nice guy and has left the anger-issues of his youth behind him. He gets along well with Prisca, although they don't seem to be very fertile. The whole season pass without a single belly bump. (And now I realize I forgot to take them to the Baths... Brain, why do you fail me?)