Build a City Challenge Chat

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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Lorinsv »

I agree with Riss, Medical is unlocked with a University.

I also agree on 6 openings for Architecture:
3 for your total number of lots (33 divided by 10)
2 for your Universities (1 opening for each Uni)
1 for your Business District (1 opening for each BD)
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Bexx87 »

okay I understood it as 10 lots + a neighbourhood addition equals a position in the architcure career so 10 lots + 1 uni = 1 position so I thought have 3 additions unlocked would mean I would need 30 lots to unlock 3 positions so I think I got confused by the divide total lots by 10 (division is not my strong point nor is percentages which I why I cant do the 5% tax so I just half the funds for the week)

Thanks both

I don't know if using my work around to get 1,000,0000 so easy takes the fun out of it now all I need to get through my rounds quicker so I can add new households

have I failed by over using maxmotives?
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Lorinsv »

Bexx87 wrote:have I failed by over using maxmotives?
I don't think so. The restrictions for this challenge are pretty lax and allow a lot of flexibility on how you choose to play it, and reaching the final goal is a lonnnnnng road no matter how you play. If micromanaging your Sims' motives isn't fun for you, I wouldn't worry about it. We're not in a race to the finish line, we're just trying to get there! :bounce:
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Bexx87 »

true and even with the loop hole that i found im still a long way off
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Pony »

I would failed many times over if maxmotives was barred, though I'm trying to cut back on using it.

I managed to get two updates on this month by the skin of my teeth. I have another two chapters of pictures taken that just need to be put in order so I have what I need to update in February.

I having a little trouble keeping my scores straight. Luckily only on the minor things and not the major things. I need to get better about writing everything down.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Bexx87 »

Yeah I have trouble keeping track on how many sims are in the careers (for example I had too many sims in the business career) I have am slightly worried that I dont have the correct about of positions available but I let that slide and I have now started typing the business rank in the title so i know which are level 10 and ect
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Scribal_Goddess »

I finally caved and started one of these with a frankensteined version of Nepheris and DarkestDawn's rule sets.

The story is that ten recent college grads have been given an opportunity to conduct a social experiment in self-governance for four sim seasons. They were given basic housing and a bit of seed money ($300, literally just for seeds,) for "free," and a mayor, architect, educator, and town medic were appointed. These are the only four that can have jobs until jobs are unlocked. (Educator and medic have to wait to unlock theirs, mayor and architect got to start right away.) Everyone else gets to farm for a living, but they can't sell their stuff into the air, they have to sell it at cheap to the experiment monitor, who is in charge of filming their interactions on community lots for the entertainment and education of the reality show studio that funded this.

Sims were assigned to one of four lots somewhat at random. (Sims that were family members, friends, or crushing by the end of the intro day got moved in together.) I'm using some Plumbbob keep crops just so that I have stuff to sell a little faster, rather than waiting out the tomatoes. So far the orchard has stupid amounts of fruit to offload, and the vineyard has nothing.

So far my architect and my mayor hate each other's guts, and I have no pregnancies despite ACR because I forgot to put down double beds as a basic furniture supply. :)

I have three couples already, so I expect pregnancies soon since I set risky woohoo to high. Right now, if my sims woohoo, I am making the female sim selectable, so sim women can get pregnant on other lots. (Unless that turns out not to work.) I also somehow managed to get only one bi sim with the randomizer, which I think I forgot to change from default settings. Oh well, we'll have new residents soon enough. As soon as someone unlocks a community lot I'm going to have to make a male CAS sim, because my town is 60% female and none of the family girls are paired up. Because ALL of the men rolled pleasure, romance, or knowledge, and one of the knowledge sims is paired with my only fortune sim, the medic. (And neither of the family girls have any bolts with the other knowledge sim, the architect...)

My simself is the project monitor, and she'll be hosting the communtiy get-togethers every season. She's also living the high life, writing novels in her pajamas all day and living on blackberries.
She got the media magnate lifetime want without any interference on my part. :)

I also had my first aspiration failure, because my medic rolled a fear of fire IN THE MIDDLE OF A LIGHTNING STORM. And there's not enough space in basic housing to bring the party inside...
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Lorinsv »

This is a hoot! And an interesting premise for a reality show - I would watch it! (But only with Sims, because I'm sure they'll be more interesting and less scripted than a "real" reality show.) If you post, I'll read :)
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Pony »

i would read too, that sounds like a fun story!

Editing this in so I don't double post.

What does everyone do to help keep ages straight in college?

My teens in Silver Bend are starting to go to college. I was going to split up playing Uni in between the main households like Raebeth does in Willow Valley. The simselves teen casacade down in ages so it's not hard to keep everyone in age order. But the Pokemon teens are at the end of the rotation and the four that need to go to college at the end of the rotation are the same age as the simself teens. My dilemma is do I send them at the first uni 1 rotation to keep the ages straight and have them miss a week of teenhood? Or do I send them after I play them for the week and not worry about keeping ages perfectly straight?
Truthfully I wouldn't mind aging the Pokemon teens faster. Squirtle is the heir and it would be nice to move the legacy along faster. But the inner OCD part of me that I stuff away is poking at my brain about keeping ages.

Edit 2: I feel silly, after overthinking everything I realized my problem will sort itself out it the end without sending the Pokemon kids to college early. But I'm still curious to see how everyone handles sending teens to college.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Lorinsv »

Finished playing my next household, the Homeless family. After being pregnant for four RL years :spit:, Gretchen gave birth to a baby boy named Will, middle name "I always be" :wink:

I extended the Fall season (the only requirement is that there must be one summer and one winter) because I don't know if a toddler can survive the winter without shelter.

Gretchen had moved in the previous week with few skills but a nice nest egg of §14K simoleons, so money has not been an issue, and this week I discovered she is the only Mesa Vista townie moved in with a gold flower arranging badge, so they have a snapdragon on the lot too (only one allowed). I keep waffling back and forth on whether I can beat the challenge, but I'm somewhat more hopeful now.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Seera »

Pony wrote:What does everyone do to help keep ages straight in college?
I play seasonal rotations so my rotations are 5 days long. Teens get sent to college the round before they would age to adult if they don't go to college. I'll play an extra day or one fewer day to keep non-twin siblings not being the same age where possible. I've only had 1 case where that wasn't possible so far.

But I don't try to maintain exact age differences because that's way too tedious.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Scribal_Goddess »

Seera wrote:
Pony wrote:What does everyone do to help keep ages straight in college?
I play seasonal rotations so my rotations are 5 days long. Teens get sent to college the round before they would age to adult if they don't go to college. I'll play an extra day or one fewer day to keep non-twin siblings not being the same age where possible. I've only had 1 case where that wasn't possible so far.

But I don't try to maintain exact age differences because that's way too tedious.
I calibrated my aging mod so that one season is about two years. (So infancy is 3 days, toddlerhood is 6 days because the 3 day infancy plus 6 day toddlerhood means that sims turn "four" after either two seasons exactly or a day less than, etc.)

This means that I run four semesters, or two years, of college for each rotation. I cheat sims who never went to uni one more season of life for their troubles, since the other season represents the two years they were "still" a teenager, being 18 and 19, before going to Uni. (I don't mind that they still go to high school during that time, because I assume they're taking community college classes or finishing their GRE or something.) I shorten semesters to two days, though, and give the college sims the last day of that season to party their brains out, by freezing their next year with the semester clock hack. This means that I play one season per year in the university, but it can't be helped, and I have that neighborhood set up to fall/spring/fall/spring anyway. (No one needs the winter family bonus at Uni, OR the frozen dormies. Summer would be nice, but whatever, being at college boosts the friend formation process nicely anyway.)

So far, this system has been working well, because unmotivated sims can juuuust scrape by with a C going to class and a final, if they already have the skills. But they also have scheduled party time, and in fact can have a 24 hour graduation kegger without their roommates going on to their next class and saying "wait, why the plumbbob are you still on campus?"

I also try to break up my college playing so that I'm not overwhelmed by it all, so I might do 2-3 households for one college "year", then a bit of my regular rotation, and just sprinkle everything in so that college sims get played twice by the end of the rotation, but teen sims also don't either have to go with the "year" ahead of them or the "year" behind, because they can leave for college halfway through their home rotation.

I must note that I haven't done this yet in my current BACC setup, this is how I ran Uni in Riverblossom Hills, when I had a legacy rotation, a system of cheating the premades to the right ages and randomly giving them new skills, and an ambition to clear out all the SSU greeks and make them new downtownies. College goes faster the fewer households you have, which is why dorms work so well. Personally, when I set up a BACC university I'm gonna make it a two building affair (An admin/class building and a dorm) until enough sims have paid tuition / alumni grants to "fund" more buildings. :tongue:
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Lorinsv »

I played another household to completion yesterday. I wanted to do something more with Nora Gainsborough than working on her LTW in the Music career, and I'm trying to move in more townies, so she took her "Aunt Tiffany" (Zarubin of the garden club) on vacation with her (another first, taking an unplayable guest along) and discovered you can stay at a vacation hotel on credit, though food and tours are cash only. Nora had just been promoted and had barely enough for the airfare to Twikkii Island, and I forgot you can't access inventory while on vacation (frustrating!) so digging for treasure there didn't help beyond getting treasure maps. Nora also found a different treasure map on the pirate ship while raiding the captain's cabin that I didn't notice at the time (or even knew existed), so guess she'll be returning to Twikkii for that.

Tiffany stayed with her "niece" for one night before "returning" with her gold gardening badge to her adorable house in St. Hubert, MV's rural farming district.

Then I realized Nora was short almost a thousand simoleons to pay her taxes, so instead of digging in her yard, I sent her to her music venue, Local Yokels Dance Hall, to earn some extra money, which was a lot more fun than digging, let me tell you. :)
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Anne »

Sounds like a fun household, Lorin! That's also a nice backstory for moving in townies - I always struggle a bit with that. Haven't really moved in townies on Blueberry Island (except for marriage, of course), but I might reconsider!

I've been playing again lately as well! At the start of the season I moved Mia and Matt McHero (from my Apocalypse challenge) into town, and I finally got to play them now. They're so much fun. <3 Mia has already found love in a dude named Tyler Yang, who's just moved in with the siblings, and Matt is working hard on his LTW to top Law Enforcement.

I'm also trying to scale back on the picture taking, because my updates are getting so huge lately... I've been implementing a little plot and dialogue here and there, but I think I'm going to leave off doing that in the future, because it only slows down playing and updating.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Bexx87 »

Anne - I love reading about blueberry island :D
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Anne »

Ahw, thanks, that's nice to hear! :D I hope to have another update out this week :)
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Jenn »

I ruined my BACC. Not sure if I'm even going to bother trying to fix it. I might just export some of the families and start over. I redid my downloads folder and I sort of deleted my geneticized skins, so my whole BACC is now whitewashed in S2 with the weird brown eyes that I can't change. I'm worried that the kids are going to be all screwed up if I breed the older ones.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Scribal_Goddess »

I'm on season 2 now, and I have three marriages in the planning stages, a new baby, four more scheduled to be born, and I went and made a randomizer to determine if sims are more or less likely to stay married, long term, because I am now addicted to giving my sims traits that aren't part of the game.

(This could be because it's been too darn long since I played a pen and paper RPG)
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Anne »

Ooh that sounds like an interesting feature! How did you do that? :D Certainly interesting for a BaCC, because I sometimes feel a bit bored with all those happily married couples, but also feel guilty when I tear one apart. :')
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Scribal_Goddess »

Anne wrote:Ooh that sounds like an interesting feature! How did you do that? :D Certainly interesting for a BaCC, because I sometimes feel a bit bored with all those happily married couples, but also feel guilty when I tear one apart. :')
I basically rolled four aspects with dice for each sim. (I used a four sider because I had one.)

Marriage Priority: is whether or not a sim cares about getting married and how important it is to them to stay married. Sims who rolled a 1 will not propose marriage, though they can get married if the other partner proposes, sims who roll a two will propose if the relationship is really good (getting to that in a minute,) sims who roll a three can propose at any time whether or not they have a want, and sims who roll a 4 DESPERATELY want to get married.

Attraction: Sims get a score of 1-4 on whether or not attraction is important to their marriage. A sim's attraction score is their roll minus one, so sims who rolled a 4 have a score of 3 and it is very important to them to get a 3 bolt partner. Sims who roll a 1 will take a partner they have no chemistry with.

Ideal Family Size: I use this one because I also have ACR and I randomize the IDF. I rolled a 1-4, and that number represents the acceptable difference for each sim in the two sims' ideal family size. I'll play a sim who just doesn't want more kids as fighting with their spouse over it.

Interests: Again, I rolled a 1-4 to see how many "major" interests the two sims should share in order to be happy together. (I'm counting any interest with 6/10 points as major.)

So every pair of sims now has a relationship score, which I calculate, which is:
Attraction (one point per bolt) + Interests (one point per shared major interest, up to four points) - difference in ideal family size

Sims with a positive relationship score are more stable pairings, sims with a negative relationship score will be broken up eventually. (I'm thinking of randomizing this too, by having them fight or something, but so far my engaged couples have had positive scores, or been neutral, which can go either way.) Attractances and interests can be adjusted to boost this score, but since I do that the hard way in game, it will take some time.

Individual sims whose partner doesn't meet their criteria are more likely to be unhappy and break up with their partner, though the partner may be fine with how things are going. (I downloaded a hack that allows break up at any time, so I don't have to have sims commit adultery to get a divorce.) Sims for whom being married is more important will be less likely to do this though.

Tentatively, my rules for breaking up are that sims have to argue some first, and that sims with the higher marriage priority will stick it out past when they've lost the love or crush markers on their partners. On the other hand, I may have to turn ACR waaaay down for that, because the relationship boost from "casual" woohoo between partners usually makes all other interactions unnecessary for maintaining their relationship.

I don't have a hard and fast rule because it's more a storytelling/playstyle thing, so I can decide which sims are happy in their marriages and which might be sticking together for the sake of the kids.
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