I was dreaming quite a bit about the British Colonies in America then I thought hey why don't we replicate it on the Sims 3.
Here's how it goes.

1.Get rid of all the houses, community lots(the park grocery store the office buildings theater restaurants and school (make a colonial based school - two story colony like school with old fashioned furniture) and if possible get rid of the roads. But leave places like Crystal Springs and fishing places

2. Create a couple of sim families (one man, one woman two children, one boy and girl)

3. Build a houses based of of colonial times and move the families in them.
(the houses must not take up all of the lot) You may use motherlode a few times to build the house.

4. Collect seeds, and plant them around the lot, do not take up all the lot with the plants, keep the plants close together but have space inbetween the house and plants.

But before you do any of that read this! This is a MUST read.

Basic Guidelines:

All of the families must be dressed in old fashioned clothing, even formal wear and pajamas, athletic wear, swim wear, EVEN UNDERWEAR!

No cars, no use of cellphones or televisions or computers or taxis or school buses, bikes are allowed
For entertainment you must read a book or play chess which is allowed, easels are also allowed, as so are fishbowls but guitars are disallowed.

No pools, but ponds are allowed, I don't recommend putting one on the home lots.

No showers but bathtubs are allowed but they must fit the theme of colonial times. Toliets are allowed, it must fit the theme of the colonial era,

The colonial schools must be within walking distance of the houses, there may be more than one school in the town.

There may be no hospital but there may be a small bookstore you may download the bookstore but it must match the theme of colonial times.

You may have a church in the town but that is optional.

Basically everything must fit with the colonial time theme, even the furniture!

Some Basic Rules(sick of the rules? I know but let me stress this some more)

Everything must match the theme.

The first born heir either a boy or girl must inherit the land of their families (boy heirs are reccomended, I'm a girl though, this is just a reccomendation) unless something happens.

If the heir dies, its okay, the land goes to the second in line child.

The heir of a family must marry and keep the families last name and live on the land.

A sim who is not a heir marries outside the family it must take on the last name of the family it is marrying into.

Fishing, painting, logic, gardening are the main skills, and the money is generated by mainly this.

Servants, slaves are earned by how much money is generated by selling fish and produce and paintings. Every 3k earned means you get 2 slaves/servants, they must be of opposite gender. The 3k cannot be earned by moving in servants or any another means by what is listed. But you may only get 4 servants this method other servants must be either be children of existing servants.

Servants cannot move out and must marry other servants on that lot, and their children must work on the lot.

The families, servants and slaves must be of all skin tones to avoid racism.

Life span settings must be set on medium, aging must be enabled.

Storyline progression must be turned on.

Writing is banned but if there's a way of writing a book without a computer it is welcomed.

Servants and Slaves must live on the lot, a small house must be built to accompany all of your slaves/servants. The house staff must all live in the same hut so build it nicely.

So now that I'm done with all the rules and all of that, the goal of this challenge is to have each family earn 650,000 simeleons, not in one generation but after how many generations it takes to earn money via those ways. This is counted in networth, not how many simeleons they have on them.

And could you post pictures of your colony towns if you participate.

If this challenge is stupid or great just tell me, I can take the truth.(hopefully)
Edit: I will update the rules and if you did something before the rules were updated it is okay just adjust gameplay to obey the new rules.

I dont really like building lots, is there a place where we can download the colonial type lots/houses for owr families? I like this challenge btw.

Yeah, I built a colonial school but I need to check to see if it works, Ill search for places for colonial-like lots, and if my colonial school works I'll upload it and link the pages to the thread.
Well the school didnt work as planned(The rabbithole was in the basement while the actual school I wanted them to attend was above but Ill just add stairs to give access to the basement....

Interesting challenge... but maybe you could post some places where folks can find "themed" clothing, lots, objects, etc to comply with the rules.

I know thats what I was doing last night then I got frustrated then I went on the Sims 3 site forums and ranted.....
I'm going to upload some of my own for others to download, at least for lots and housing....

And you can use the women long skirts that look old fashioned and find a top that would go and recolor it. I'll do this as I go along with this challenge too.

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=360346

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=360173

Both links above are of colonial like skirts.

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=374639 This would go well into the wardrobe of colonial women.

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=369345 I would suggest this for colonial girls.

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=367211 Some clothes that would go well with the theme.

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=365587 I dont really approve of the outfit of the first picture but the other ones in this download are fine

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=359811 The first dress is fine, the second isnt

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=359206 Toddlers

Yeah, some may not meet the theme entirely right off the back but if you recolor them into darker colors it will.
Download

I may try this challenge when CAW comes out. =D

You might also want to look at bogsims institute for some dirt roads.

I have seen more themed stuff but I don't have links however I will post some soon

I really like the idea of this challenge, and if I can find some more themed objects will definately give it a try. Oh, would some fo the steampunk items count, such as the ones from the EA store, or would they be too advanced for the period?

Yeah I guess that would count, I will count the set from the EA store only because there is barely any custom content that is colonial day compatable.

I only got the telescope, phonogram and a few outfits for the guys, seeing as it is practically impossible to find any custom men clothes even close to the period.

I know, thats what makes it so difficult, all the men custom clothing is like all skinny jeans and crud like that. Why does everybody think everybody wants stuff like that? I'd rather some historical clothing or video game cosplays :P

This looks really fun, and I think I'll try it. But one question: how do you delete the school and make your own one? Wouldn't it just be a house or radom commity lot that you'll have to send the kids to? Is there a way to make a lot a commity lot like a school?

You would need rabbit hole signs

All About Style do some amazing clothing. I am currently building a period Town and downloaded some gorgeous Victorian clothes from there. http://www.all-about-style.com/categories_hist.html
There is so much to think about. I'm learning how to make custom careers and have had to build everything from scratch using rabbit hole signs. I have even used the victorian gas lamps and wash stands from the sims store. Will upload when completed.

This will probably be a much easier challenge to do once the next EP comes out and the architect career is supposed to allow players to alter the town's buildings.

Why must a "family" be a father, mother, boy child, girl child? Let people design their own kind of families.

@Pythona
But you can already alter the towns buildings??

I think it's because of inheritance. But I could be wrong.

Is this stuff for the Sims 3?

yes that particular link should be - don't use the nav bar at the top though as that will take you to sims 2 items.

Ok. That must be what I did cause all I saw was sims 2, but now I figured it out. Thanks!

@Robodl

Same can, some can't. I tried to use the rabbit hole signs, but my sims could never actually get to the jobs/stores so I removed it from my mods.

It's a question of moving them about. It's best to have a clear tile space around them, more near a door or stairs as they can block off the door so Sims can't get in or out but they do definitely work. I was hoping to get all my western lots/world etc together and put them on my little site all at once but if it helps anyone with this challenge I have posted a 2 storey wooden school house on there today. It does have guitars in which you'd need to remove for this challenge. Plus it has a sandy base and a weathered wooden appearance which you may want to change too. But the mat definitely works where it is. You can find it HERE.