The Evil Twin Challenge

[talysman]

I've got a couple ideas for challenges, and I've been testing this one lately. Comments would be appreciated! Did I leave any gaping loopholes that lets people rack up high scores without effort?

The Evil Twin Challenge

It's a standard sitcom trope. It's a standard scenario in the Sims 1. So why not try it in the Sims 2?

The Concept: A single parent is raising twins, but has no idea that one twin is destined to be good, the other evil.

The Challenge: Raise the twins such that both are as successful as possible, but one is good, the other evil. In other words, the good twin must "grow up well" at each life stage, while the evil twin must "grow up badly", without either twin suffering total aspiration failure. The challenge ends when both twins go to college, both become adults, or one twin dies or othwerwise leaves the house for good.

The Setup: Create a family of three sims in CAS. One is the adult, which can be of either gender and can have any mix of personality or turn-ons, but must have Family Aspiration. The other two are twin toddlers, although they do not need to look identical. (TIP: start building each twin in the adult stage to set how you want the child to look, then change the age in CAS to "toddler" for finishing up and setting the family relationships. Also, try using middle names to mark which twin is good and which is evil.)

The good twin must have 10 Nice and 10 Neat. The evil twin must have the opposite (0 Neat, 0 Nice -- maximum sloppiness and grumpiness.) The remaining points may be distributed as you see fit. Aspiration doesn't matter at the CAS stage, because they're toddlers; when they become teens, however, you can choose any Aspiration or select randomly, but both twins must be the same Aspiration.

The House: You get the standard $20,000 and can select any lot. None of the sims can leave the household (move out,) nor can any other sim move in. You cannot use any money cheats or receive money from another family; all money must be earned through normal gameplay.

The Restrictions:

1. No hacks that change gameplay. Bug fixes and macros are allowed, as long as they do not change gameplay. Clones or recolored objects are allowed if they do not make things easier than objects already in the game, but hacked objects that are significantly better than normal objects are banned. THIS INCULDES OBJECTS HACKED TO MAKE THEM CHEAPER THAN NORMAL, or to prevent/enable use by visitors, children, NPCs, and so on.

2. Cheats, including debug mode and MoveObjects, and items such as the lot debugger are only allowed to fix something that's broken (reset a stuck object, clear a corrupt memory, and so on.) No aging cheats, except via the elixer of life (but see the next rule.)

3. NO SAVING AND RELOADING UNLESS A BUG OCCURS.

4. Rewards, if earned, are allowed. However, there is a penalty every time they are used. See the scoring section. Items that affect other actions while under their influence, like the noodle soother, skill helmet, hot tub, or cool shades, count every action under their influence as "one use".

5. No off-lot skilling or improvement is allowed. Sims are allowed to visit community lots for other purposes.

The Scoring:

PENALTIES:

• -20 For each visit from the social worker, assessed upon arrival.
• -10 For each death (or undeath) in the family. Resurrecting a zombie counts twice. Becoming a vampire counts once.
• -10 For each Aspiration Failure/bottomed-out Aspiration Bar
• -5 Every time the good twin grows up badly or the evil twin grows up well, assessed at beginning of child, teen, and adult/young adult stages.
• -5 For each zero-level skill, each twin that doesn't Learn to Study, or each twin that fails to learn any toddler skills (walk/talk/potty.)
• -5 For failing to enter private school, and for each time the headmaster rejects the family.
• -5 For each demotion, firing, or failing grade in school, applied when returning home.
• -5 For each time a teen runs away.
• -1 For each use of an Aspiration or Career Reward object.

BONUSES:

• +1 For each maxed-out skill, or for each twin's first A+ grade.
• +1 For each scholarship earned.
• +1 For reaching the top of a teen career.
• +2 For reaching the top of the adult career (only applies to parent.)
• +2 For each twin that learns all three toddler skills.
• +5 For never having anyone pass out on the lot.
• +5 For never having anyone wet themselves on the lot.
• +5 If the parent grows up well.
• +5 For each LTW fulfilled.

GOOD TWIN BONUSES:

• +1 For each best friend outside the family.

EVIL TWIN BONUSES:

• +1 For each enemy outside the family.

AUTOMATIC LOSS CONDITIONS:
Automatically lose if everyone dies or is removed from play before twins reach adulthood/go to college.
Automatically lose if you violate one of the restrictions, or fail to follow the setup procedure.

CHAMPION:
You are a champion if you finish the challenge without taking any penalties (currently seems impossible.)

[kuronue]

PENALTIES:

• -20 For each visit from the social worker, assessed upon arrival.
• -10 For each death (or undeath) in the family. Resurrecting a zombie counts twice. Becoming a vampire counts once.
• -10 For each Aspiration Failure/bottomed-out Aspiration Bar
• -5 Every time the good twin grows up badly or the evil twin grows up well, assessed at beginning of child, teen, and adult/young adult stages.
• -5 For each zero-level skill, each twin that doesn't Learn to Study, or each twin that fails to learn any toddler skills (walk/talk/potty.)
• -5 For failing to enter private school, and for each time the headmaster rejects the family.
• -5 For each demotion, firing, or failing grade in school, applied when returning home.
• -5 For each time a teen runs away.
• -1 For each use of an Aspiration or Career Reward object.

. . .

CHAMPION:
You are a champion if you finish the challenge without taking any penalties (currently seems impossible.)

impossible? Hardly. Difficult, perhaps, because with the evil twin you have to walk a thin line where you grow up badly without actually bottoming out, and of course you have to teach them their skills so you then have to target one's fears without affecting the other, but after you get that worked out it's a cakewalk. there's no reason the social worker should come, careful managing avoids the next few penalties, and normal gameplay easily avoids firings, demotions, rejections, and the like.

I suspect this challenge is too easy, upon first reading it.

[talysman]

CHAMPION:
You are a champion if you finish the challenge without taking any penalties (currently seems impossible.)

impossible? Hardly. Difficult, perhaps, because with the evil twin you have to walk a thin line where you grow up badly without actually bottoming out, and of course you have to teach them their skills so you then have to target one's fears without affecting the other, but after you get that worked out it's a cakewalk. there's no reason the social worker should come, careful managing avoids the next few penalties, and normal gameplay easily avoids firings, demotions, rejections, and the like.

I suspect this challenge is too easy, upon first reading it.

Maybe too easy to get positive points, but I think you're underestimating the Champion requirements. To be a Champion, you can't just get a positive score; you have to have NO PENALTIES. The difficulty lies in the toddler stage: it doesn't seem to be possible for a toddler to grow up badly without taking some other kind of penalty.

EDIT: fixed broken quote.

[J. M. Pescado]

Too easy. You don't even need to hit any fears, just don't hit any wants, which is easy enough to do. However, there's an huge point exploit where you can milk some 30000 points out of the "friends" thing if you really wanted to. You need to cap all your stackable point awards to prevent this.

[talysman]

Too easy. You don't even need to hit any fears, just don't hit any wants, which is easy enough to do. However, there's an huge point exploit where you can milk some 30000 points out of the "friends" thing if you really wanted to. You need to cap all your stackable point awards to prevent this.

I dunno. Those toddlers seem to always have lingering "Learn to Talk/Walk/Use Potty" wants that are hard to avoid. That's what keeps biting me in the ass: it's easy to get the good toddler to platinum and learn all three toddler skills, but in my latest attempt, Evil Twin held on to all three wants for a couple days. And the fears were always unfulfillable stuff, like "Parent Dies". I eventually had to fulfill one of the toddler skill wants, to avoid the penalty for not getting any toddler skills at all.

Twins are in childhood now and it should be smooth sailing from there, but I'm currently at a -4 penalty. The +2 for Good Twin learning all three toddler skills was balanced out by using the skill helmet twice. Also, I only let the Good Twin get the A+, because so far Evil Twin keeps having "Get an A+" show up, as well as "Do Homework" (I sidestepped that by having Good Twin do Evil Twin's homework once, but I had to let her ask for homework help once in order to get "Learned to Study".)

I can up the penalty for not getting any toddler skills at all, and make the deaths/transformations/permanent removals automatic failures instead of penalties. I can also change the best friend/enemy bonuses to +1 per 10 best friends/10 enemies, max +5 total. Other possibilities would be to turn some of the bonuses into penalties: instead of +1 for reaching the top of the teen career, make it -1 for NOT reaching the top. Probably good to do that with A+ grades and maxed-out skills, too.

Any other suggestions?

[Gus Smedstad]

[Those toddlers seem to always have lingering "Learn to Talk/Walk/Use Potty" wants that are hard to avoid.

I haven't found that to be true at all.  Rather, toddlers tend to roll "be held / played with / etc." wants when they wake up, which roll over to "Learn" wants once you've fulfilled one of them.  If you studiously avoid fulfilling one of the socialization wants, you should never get the "learn" wants.  You can help this along a bit by locking one of the socialization wants, particularly "be read to" which you'll never fulfill accidentally.

 - Gus

[J. M. Pescado]

I dunno. Those toddlers seem to always have lingering "Learn to Talk/Walk/Use Potty" wants that are hard to avoid. That's what keeps biting me in the ass: it's easy to get the good toddler to platinum and learn all three toddler skills, but in my latest attempt, Evil Twin held on to all three wants for a couple days. And the fears were always unfulfillable stuff, like "Parent Dies". I eventually had to fulfill one of the toddler skill wants, to avoid the penalty for not getting any toddler skills at all.

Just do those right away. It doesn't matter if it satisfies a want or not. Even at full platinum, they will decay back into the red given 3 days of nothing else. Since the one you want to grow up badly isn't going to be doing anything anyway, you can tackle that first.

[talysman]

OK, this is going to require rigorous testing, so I'm now proposing a mini-challenge:

The Evil Twin Toddler Mini-Challenge

Raise two toddlers and have the good twin grow up well and the evil twin grow up badly, without any deaths or social worker appearances.

Setup and Restrictions: As for the longer challenge, but we'll relax the "don't save and reload" restriction for the purpose of testing. No need to make multiple families, just one parent and two toddlers will do.

AUTOMATIC FAILURE if:

• You break any restriction on the full challenge, except for the "no save and reload" restriction (for testing.)
• Any sim in the family dies, transforms into a vampire or other abnormal form, or leaves the lot or is taken away.
• Any new sim moves into the lot.
• The evil toddler grows up well, or the good toddler grows up badly.
• You claim the challenge is beatable without actually trying, or claim a positive score without posting your strategy and score breakdown. Come on, the toddler challenge can be played in only a couple hours...

REVISEED SCORING:

• -1 For each missing toddler skill (Talk/Walk/Potty,) per toddler.
• -5 For each toddler that fails to learn any toddler skills at all.
• -1 For each toddler with zero-level Charisma, Logic, or Creativity (max -6.)
• -1 For each use of an Aspiration or Career Reward object. See previous challenge for note on skill helmet and smart milk.
• +1 For not fulfilling any Fears.
• +1 If no sim on the lot passes out, toddlers included.

[talysman]

[Those toddlers seem to always have lingering "Learn to Talk/Walk/Use Potty" wants that are hard to avoid.

Turn-about is fair play. I just tested under the mini-challenge rules to verify whether this was correct, or whether Gus is correct when he says:

I haven't found that to be true at all.  Rather, toddlers tend to roll "be held / played with / etc." wants when they wake up, which roll over to "Learn" wants once you've fulfilled one of them.  If you studiously avoid fulfilling one of the socialization wants, you should never get the "learn" wants.  You can help this along a bit by locking one of the socialization wants, particularly "be read to" which you'll never fulfill accidentally.

... and I also checked to see if Pescado's strategy of training the evil twin first would work. Would their aspiration level decay enough that they wouldn't grow up well?

It's proper to test, because after all, maybe I did something stupid, fulfilled a social want, and that's what makes the toddlers grow up well.

But as it turns out, there may be a couple more things going on. First, I may have been playing a different way than Gus usually plays. Because check this out:



Tina "Evil" Twiddler wants to buy a toy when they first move in. So does Theresa "Good" Twiddler. That means neither can play with the xylophone, logic puzzle, or rabbit head, since I can't buy the toys until, as Gus suggests, Tina sleeps and rerolls wants when she wakes up.

So maybe Gus was moving people into furnished homes, or otherwise bought the toddler toys before the toddlers arrived. I, on the other hand, started buying items after move in, which almost always fulfills the evil toddler's want and forces a reroll. This may actually make a good additional restriction then: LOT MUST BE UNFURNISHED ON MOVE-IN. No Buy Mode objects may be purchased until after the wants and fears have been rolled.

So what happened was, I delayed buying the toys and started immediately teaching the evil twin how to talk (potty training takes longer, and I didn't want her walking around and getting into trouble right away. Pescado's strategy would have worked, if Gus had been right. However, when Tina woke up, she had both Learn to Walk and Potty Train in her wants, and hung onto them, even though I had locked a lowly social want to avoid. I had to wait until Tina was in the red before I felt I could risk fulfilling even one of the wants, and the aspiration still went platinum and didn't decay enough, even without fulfilling the remaining want. The result?





Both twins grow up well. TOTAL FAILURE. There does not seem to be a way to make a toddler grow up badly while still training them. If I had skipped the other two toddler skills for Tina Evil, my score on the mini-challenge would have been 0. Breakdown:

• -1 for Tina not learning to walk
• -1 for not being potty trained
• +1 for no one passing out
• +1 for not fulfilling any fears

The only ways to get a toddler to grow up badly is either to not fulfill all the toddler skills or find some way to fulfill their fears. And that ain't easy: witness an earlier attempt to fulfill a fear of fire:




Veronica Evil didn't even *care* until I cancelled her skilling on the logic blocks. Then she panicked and thrased around for a while, until the fireman put out the fire and completely left the lot. But it didn't count as a fear; she still grew up well.

[Gus Smedstad]

You're right about the "Buy a Toy" want, and yes, I generally wait until transition to toddler before buying toys.  If for no other reason to get the free boost, which is somewhat significant for toddlers.

On the other hand, I wouldn't shy away from fulfilling any wants at all.  The points from the toy would decay soon enough, so I'd just suck it up and go straight for training.  And if you don't socialize, pretty often you only have one of the Learn wants up, so you can just concentrate on the other two until the toddler gets tired.

I guess I should really take a stab at doing this.  It seems like it should be easy, but I haven't actually tried it.  Currently I'm still in the process of re-building my neighborhood before actual play.  I had a BBFVFS about 6 months back, and I shelved the Sims until recently I felt like unearthing it again.  Free Time is in the mail, but just creating custom townies and dormies and designing a custom dorm have kept me busy.

 - Gus

[J. M. Pescado]

So what happened was, I delayed buying the toys and started immediately teaching the evil twin how to talk (potty training takes longer, and I didn't want her walking around and getting into trouble right away. Pescado's strategy would have worked, if Gus had been right. However, when Tina woke up, she had both Learn to Walk and Potty Train in her wants, and hung onto them, even though I had locked a lowly social want to avoid. I had to wait until Tina was in the red before I felt I could risk fulfilling even one of the wants, and the aspiration still went platinum and didn't decay enough, even without fulfilling the remaining want. The result?

You made a HUGE mistake. You *WAITED*. DO NOT WAIT. Do them FIRST, buying all the toys you need, etc, *EVEN* if it fills the wants. Yes, they will go platinum. Who cares? You're not penalized for this, and if you do this early, it will burn off.

After that, you just abandon it alone in a room with a radio, occasionally feeding it to stave off the SS. Let it be stinky and smell like crap: Washing it will restore social without satisfying any wants. Without the ability to sleep, it will rapidly bleed ASP, since sleep locks decay. Once properly reddinated, grow up.

Childhood: Massive skillgrinding time. Make sure you grind the wrong ones that don't coincide with a want, at least past the first days. Between the child and teen stages, it should be easy enough to max out all skills for scholarshipdom. Children naturally go red even if you do nothing special anyway, at least in my game. The only thing which satisfies them is violence through Moar Fight, so this is easy. Children have relatively few and predictable fears, invariably to the effect of passing out and pissing themselves, so this isn't too much help. You can't do either without penalty on the lot, and children can't leave the lot. But since they naturally want to go red anyway, this should be easy.

[Gus Smedstad]

So I gave it a quick shot... and I suck.  I failed massively.  Leaving aside the point of the challenge, I couldn't manage to train two toddlers fully with just one adult.  John Conjoined bottomed out his Fun motive early and never got it back, didn't have a job, and was constantly either doing things for the twins or taking care of his own basic needs like eating... and yet neither twin learned to talk, and Jesus didn't learn to walk either.  Both Satan and Jesus managed to get potty trained.

Despite that, Satan grew up well.  The aspiration meter just doesn't drain very quickly once it's in the low greens.  I discovered that the "throw up" fear doesn't actually work, even though it's easy to set up.  "See a Ghost" is pretty much impossible, and "fire" isn't easy to do at will, unless of course you use Buyable Fire.  If you're lucky the evil twin will roll the "Have Party" fear, but you can't count on that.

I think the biggest difference between this and my normal play for want-rolling is a single parent.  With two parents, I had toddlers rolling a lot of social Wants instead of learning Wants.  With just one, there are fewer social wants to roll, so they don't end up clogging the Want bar.

First problem: not enough adult time.  I'm not sure coffee is the answer.  John Conjoined did have the best single bed.  The Nanny might help, since basic stuff like feeding and washing ate a lot of time.  Though I have the "more expensive hirelings" mod installed, so there may not be enough left over for an unemployed single parent to pay the nanny for 3.5 days.

Second problem: slow apsiration decay.  Keeping the evil twin awake with the radio might work, though it violates the "pass out" rule, since the toddler will pass out repeatedly.  It seems like an exploit, but it may be the only answer, given how toddler fears seem impossible to fulfill.

 - Gus

[talysman]

So what happened was, I delayed buying the toys and started immediately teaching the evil twin how to talk (potty training takes longer, and I didn't want her walking around and getting into trouble right away. Pescado's strategy would have worked, if Gus had been right. However, when Tina woke up, she had both Learn to Walk and Potty Train in her wants, and hung onto them, even though I had locked a lowly social want to avoid. I had to wait until Tina was in the red before I felt I could risk fulfilling even one of the wants, and the aspiration still went platinum and didn't decay enough, even without fulfilling the remaining want. The result?

You made a HUGE mistake. You *WAITED*. DO NOT WAIT. Do them FIRST, buying all the toys you need, etc, *EVEN* if it fills the wants. Yes, they will go platinum. Who cares? You're not penalized for this, and if you do this early, it will burn off.

But it doesn't burn off enough, is the problem. It seems like if there's any non-red color in the Aspiration Bar, you get "Grow Up Well". And I haven't seen one dip into red yet.

After that, you just abandon it alone in a room with a radio, occasionally feeding it to stave off the SS. Let it be stinky and smell like crap: Washing it will restore social without satisfying any wants. Without the ability to sleep, it will rapidly bleed ASP, since sleep locks decay. Once properly reddinated, grow up.

Now, I haven't tried keeping the kid awake. But then, there are a couple problems with this: first, the kid's mood will be too bad, so you won't be able to teach the toddler skills. That's a -5, with an additional -3 if we're just talking about the mini-challenge. Second, you're going to need a door lock, or find some way to get sleep and food for the parent without hiring the nanny. Third, assuming this works, won't the kid bottom out completely on red? That's "-10 For each Aspiration Failure/bottomed-out Aspiration Bar". So for the main challenge, we're talking about taking a -5 penalty for growing up well in the toddler stage or for not learning all toddler skills, versus teaching how to talk (to avoid a -5) then tossing the kid in the room with the radio and taking a -10 for bottoming out.

But since we're trying to make this hard... one of the changes I could make is a -1 penalty for each unlearned toddler skill. Just to add insult to injury.

Childhood: Massive skillgrinding time. Make sure you grind the wrong ones that don't coincide with a want, at least past the first days. Between the child and teen stages, it should be easy enough to max out all skills for scholarshipdom. Children naturally go red even if you do nothing special anyway, at least in my game. The only thing which satisfies them is violence through Moar Fight, so this is easy. Children have relatively few and predictable fears, invariably to the effect of passing out and pissing themselves, so this isn't too much help. You can't do either without penalty on the lot, and children can't leave the lot. But since they naturally want to go red anyway, this should be easy.

There's no penalty for peeing/passing out. There's just no bonus if it happens. But I guess you're trying to make up for that -10?

The strategy for this stage looks otherwise reasonable, except I think you're underestimating trying to avoid wants for the evil twin while fulfilling wants for the good one. For example, if you start with just a counter, you're going to get the want "Eat Cereal". Buy a toaster over, they get "Eat Toaster Pasteries". Once the parent gets high enough cooking and gets a job so you can buy a stove, you have some options of feeding the kid whatever it doesn't want at the moment. But you still have to worry about keeping the kid happy enough to keep skilling. Plus, you need to sneak that A+ in there, to avoid a -5 penalty, without having the kid fulfill that huge "Get A+" want. Since child stage is longer than toddler, your aspiration decay suggestion might work at this point: fulfill the A+ early, keep waking the kid up so it only gets enough sleep to not have a red mood so it will keep skilling. Keeping grades from failing should be easy if, like in my game, the good twin keeps rolling the want to Do Homework after she's already done her homework: free boost for the good twin.

Hmmm... so, to make it harder for you, I think I could add a couple penalties, even though you're racking up a few already. -5 for every "friend" the evil twin brings home from school that you don't actually become friends with? -1 for every day the parent doesn't work? (Should I be nice and add "excluding days off"?)

I still stand by my assertion that the champion title for this challenge is impossible. No way to complete this challenge with no penalties at all, as opposed to a mere positive score.

[talysman]

So I gave it a quick shot... and I suck.  I failed massively.  Leaving aside the point of the challenge, I couldn't manage to train two toddlers fully with just one adult.  John Conjoined bottomed out his Fun motive early and never got it back, didn't have a job, and was constantly either doing things for the twins or taking care of his own basic needs like eating... and yet neither twin learned to talk, and Jesus didn't learn to walk either.  Both Satan and Jesus managed to get potty trained.

How could you bottom out the parent's fun motive? At the very least, you can just keep tickling the good twin or tossing him in the air. I always put one painting in the house, too. I save the flamingos for when the kids start school.

Job doesn't matter. I get the parent a job when the toddlers age to children. The parent just barely hangs on, but there's no nanny penalty, and even without a nanny, he can sleep, eat, pee and shower while the kids are skilling. Occasionally, the nanny serves a meal, or fixes a meal for herself and abandons it, so you can sometimes even cut out some time. I can consistently raise two toddlers with a single parent and an occasional nanny, getting all three toddler skills for the good twin and two for the evil twin, but the parent rarely gets enough Aspiration points to afford either smart milk or skill helmet, assuming I want to take the -3 penalty and speed up one of the twins. And the real problem, as you can see, is that you just can't raise the evil twin badly without skipping the toddler skills completely.

Despite that, Satan grew up well.  The aspiration meter just doesn't drain very quickly once it's in the low greens.  I discovered that the "throw up" fear doesn't actually work, even though it's easy to set up.  "See a Ghost" is pretty much impossible, and "fire" isn't easy to do at will, unless of course you use Buyable Fire.  If you're lucky the evil twin will roll the "Have Party" fear, but you can't count on that.

Not only that, but "Have Party" doesn't seem to work, any more than "Fire" does. Vera and Veronica Twin had a party when Veronica had the party fear, and all that happened was Vera got a "had a disasterous party" memory. No aspiration penalties for either one. I think you can only fulfill the "Have Party" fear if you throw the party yourself, which is DUMB for a toddler to fear, since toddlers can't use phones. I bet that's what's wrong with fire, too. And yeah, Throw Up doesn't even seem possible to achieve; If a parent had enough influence to encourage strangers to toss the evil twin in the air, I think throwing up is the the toddler equivalent of rejecting a play attempt. I don't think I've ever seen a toddler fear you can fulfill deliberately.

I think the biggest difference between this and my normal play for want-rolling is a single parent.  With two parents, I had toddlers rolling a lot of social Wants instead of learning Wants.  With just one, there are fewer social wants to roll, so they don't end up clogging the Want bar.

First problem: not enough adult time.  I'm not sure coffee is the answer.  John Conjoined did have the best single bed.  The Nanny might help, since basic stuff like feeding and washing ate a lot of time.  Though I have the "more expensive hirelings" mod installed, so there may not be enough left over for an unemployed single parent to pay the nanny for 3.5 days.

Second problem: slow apsiration decay.  Keeping the evil twin awake with the radio might work, though it violates the "pass out" rule, since the toddler will pass out repeatedly.  It seems like an exploit, but it may be the only answer, given how toddler fears seem impossible to fulfill.

There's no pass out rule, though, so Pescado's plan works as far as that goes. He just racks up negatives a different way. If NO sim passes out or pees itself, there's a bonus. No penalty for accidents.

The adult time is hard, but doable with the nanny. I suspect you don't have enough money because you're spending too much. I save about $1,200 to $1,500 after purchasing necessary items. This was my set-up for the Twin family:




... which was actually too spacious, maybe. I didn't get a coffee maker until later, and didn't buy the toaster oven until I decided to try to fulfill that Fire fear. Also, I was thinking ahead for the headmaster scenario and spent more on flooring and wall covering for the entryway, living room, and kitchen, because I didn't want to have to redecorate later. TV was sort of a waste, since only the nanny used it before the toddlers grew up to children.

The Twiddler family house layout was similar:



I only bought the bookcase to fulfill the parent's want, because he seemed to have less opportunity to fulfill wants. I took a -2 penalty for using the skill helmet to train two toddler skills in the Twin family, but the Twiddler family never even got enough for the smart milk machine.

So I guess the final conclusion is: the toddler stage is hard, but it's still fairly simple to get a positive score on the full challenge. I need to think of ways to make it harder.

[Gus Smedstad]

I managed it on the second pass.  The only Want I fulfilled for Satan was the Toy want at 8 AM on the first day.  By 7pm on day four - the final day of toddlerhood - Satan went negative, and Grew Up Badly.

I managed the parent time problem by hiring the Nanny 3 times, which cost me a grand total of $1900.  With the Expensive Hirelings hack, nannies are $50 + $90 / hour.

The key thing was noticing the first time around that on the final day, toddlers won't roll Learning wants.  So what I did was prime Satan with almost finishing Walk and Talk early on, and similarly holding off on the last little bit of potty training, though that was trickier.  Then after Satan dumped his Learn wants on day 4, I finished all three skills within a couple of Sim hours.

Thus, final score was +2, + 1 for not passing out, and +1 for not fulfilling fears (which seems to be neigh impossible anyway).

I still stand by my assertion that the champion title for this challenge is impossible. No way to complete this challenge with no penalties at all, as opposed to a mere positive score.

Eh.  Let's look at those penalties:

-20 For each visit from the social worker, assessed upon arrival. - you have to be an idiot to get the social worker.
-10 For each death (or undeath) in the family. - accidental deaths are very sloppy play as well.
-10 For each Aspiration Failure/bottomed-out Aspiration Bar - if you're just letting the bar decay, rather that using Fears, it's easy enough to stave this off with minor Wants.
-5 Every time the good twin grows up badly or the evil twin grows up well, assessed at beginning of child, teen, and adult/young adult stages. - Toddler -> Child is the only difficult one.
-5 For each zero-level skill, each twin that doesn't Learn to Study, or each twin that fails to learn any toddler skills (walk/talk/potty.) Getting all the toddler skills is rough with one parent.  But Learn to Study and getting 1 point in every skill is trivial.
-5 For failing to enter private school, and for each time the headmaster rejects the family. - mildly difficult with a family that has very little money for a fancy home, and probably low cooking skills, but extensive shmoozing can make up for this.  Probably challenging but hardly impossible.
-5 For each demotion, firing, or failing grade in school, applied when returning home. - unless you use chance cards, the odds of any of these are zero.
-5 For each time a teen runs away. - Doesn't this rely on relationship levels, not aspiration?  It's easy enough to maintain good relationships while still staying in the red for aspiration.
-1 For each use of an Aspiration or Career Reward object. - I never use those anyway.  Though the Smart Milk is tempting with two toddlers and one adult.

So, I'm thinking that if you can get past toddler, "champion" is nearly a slam-dunk.  Children can do most everything they need themselves except cook.

 - Gus

[talysman]

Eh.  Let's look at those penalties:

-20 For each visit from the social worker, assessed upon arrival. - you have to be an idiot to get the social worker.
-10 For each death (or undeath) in the family. - accidental deaths are very sloppy play as well.
-10 For each Aspiration Failure/bottomed-out Aspiration Bar - if you're just letting the bar decay, rather that using Fears, it's easy enough to stave this off with minor Wants.
-5 Every time the good twin grows up badly or the evil twin grows up well, assessed at beginning of child, teen, and adult/young adult stages. - Toddler -> Child is the only difficult one.
-5 For each zero-level skill, each twin that doesn't Learn to Study, or each twin that fails to learn any toddler skills (walk/talk/potty.) Getting all the toddler skills is rough with one parent.  But Learn to Study and getting 1 point in every skill is trivial.
-5 For failing to enter private school, and for each time the headmaster rejects the family. - mildly difficult with a family that has very little money for a fancy home, and probably low cooking skills, but extensive shmoozing can make up for this.  Probably challenging but hardly impossible.
-5 For each demotion, firing, or failing grade in school, applied when returning home. - unless you use chance cards, the odds of any of these are zero.
-5 For each time a teen runs away. - Doesn't this rely on relationship levels, not aspiration?  It's easy enough to maintain good relationships while still staying in the red for aspiration.
-1 For each use of an Aspiration or Career Reward object. - I never use those anyway.  Though the Smart Milk is tempting with two toddlers and one adult.

So, I'm thinking that if you can get past toddler, "champion" is nearly a slam-dunk.  Children can do most everything they need themselves except cook.

Some of those penalties are just to direct you on what to do. Like social worker and death issues. They could easily be changed to restrictions. Likewise with the headmaster penalty: it's actually not hard to get into private school; both the Twins and the Twiddlers did it on the first try.

"Run away" is just there just in case. I've never seen a teen run away, so I don't know what causes it.

1 point in every skill is trivial only if you keep the moods up. Learn to Study isn't trivial, because you have to avoid the "Ask for Homework Help" want. Probably the best point for the evil twin to learn to study is at the beginning of teen years, to give maximum decay time.

Firing and failing grades, however, are possible without the chance card, by missing work/school. This is possible with low moods. Not too hard, but not completely trivial, either. I could toughen this up with a penalty for each day of work or school missed (work is only required for the parent.) Also, instead of a bonus for an A+, I should make it a penalty: -5 for each twin that fails to get an A+ in both the child and teen stages.

I'm thinking about lowering the pee/pass out bonuses to +1 each and changing skill/grade bonuses to penalties:

• -1 for each non-maxed-out skill (cumulative with 0-point skills.)
• -1 for each missing toddler skill (cumulative with the "no toddler skills" penalty.)
• -5 for each twin that does not get an A+ as a child, or a second A+ as a teen.

Change the death/social worker penalties to a restriction: challenge ends when any sim is removed from the lot. Charge a -10 penalty for each twin that fails to reach child, teen, and young adult/adulthood (cumulative.) Other proposed penalties:

• -1 for each twin that doesn't go to work at least one day.
• -1 for each twin that has no friends outside the family, per lifestage (toddler, child, teen -- different friend for each stage.)
• -1 for each twin that doesn't have first kiss, go out on a date, or go steady (-3 max per teen.)
• -5 if the evil twin fails to make any enemies, per lifestage (child and teen; I don't think toddlers can make enemies.)

I think I also missed a good restriction to have: after buying an object and entering live mode, that object cannot be moved with the hand cursor, except if it causes a bug. All object movement after initial placement must be by the sims themselves. I didn't follow this restriction for the Twin or Twiddler family, but I think it will make it trickier; you have to place the object right the first time.

I'll have to try out your approach. I'll also give Pescado's "shuttered room" strategy a try, to see if it's doable. I will need to use the dorm door for the shuttered room, following that new restriction; otherwise, the evil twin will just go somewhere there isn't a radio and pass out.

Incidentally, what is up with the "Be Lectured" fear? It also seems very difficult to fulfill. I've seen it happen by accident, but I had my evil twin turn the TV on and off repeatedly, and wouldn't you know it, the damn thing won't break when I want it too... so she made a prank call, because I thought maybe it could trigger a lecture. Nope. Neighbor showed up and yelled at the GOOD twin, whom he was friends with. They are now furious at each other, and the evil twin got away scot-free. Which fits with the concept, I suppose.

[Ellatrue]

I think this would be better if they were actively trying to kill each other.

I'm not sure gameplay in TS2 can really support this as a challenge... there isn't a lot you can tie the idea to for the narrative to really work, but it's a neat idea.

[Gus Smedstad]

I probably overestimated the difficulty of private school because I typically get all the points I need just from the house and the food.  I'm a little fuzzy on how hard it is to get the points just by talking.

I've never had a runaway either, but AFAIK it's caused by the teen disliking (having a negative relationship score) with all family members.  Possibly including siblings, I haven't tested it.

You mention several times things being easy "only if you keep their moods up," but there's absolutely nothing in the rules that requires the Evil twin be unhappy.  You can keep the Evil Twin's mood as high as you like as long as the aspiration meter is red.  And you don't even have to keep that negative all the time, only when they Grow Up.

You don't really need to avoid the "Learn to Study" want, since childhood is long enough that it will definitely decay before becoming a Teenager.  Historically, my Sims have almost always Learned To Study on the first day of school, often the first day of childhood, because it cuts the homework time in half.

Requiring maxed-out skills at transition to adulthood adds more of a challenge, but I don't know that it's all that much fun or really in keeping with the theme.  I don't really know how hard it is personally, because I find the result boring enough that I've never pursued it.  But I understand other players here have done it on a regular basis.

A+ is trivial to acheive unless you screw up the kid's mood for some reason, and there's no reason to do so in the rules.

I think I also missed a good restriction to have: after buying an object and entering live mode, that object cannot be moved with the hand cursor, except if it causes a bug.

That would have caught me on the toddler section.  Normally I play that way for trash, but I ended up with a lot of rotten bottles and dishes that I didn't feel I had time to clear, so I moved them outside the house manually.  Not that environment is terribly important, but a big red environment score can lower the parent's mood enough to prevent teaching.

On the other hand, I'm not very fond of this rule as it applies to purchased objects, because you're screwing with user friendliness for little real gain in difficulty.  99% I don't move purchased objects unless I discover an error in my original placement, or I'm remodeling a house.  About the only exploit I can think of that centers on object movement is selling full potties to avoid the time required to empty them.

The challenge really needs more themed challenge in the child and teen stages.  Toddler is rough mainly because two toddlers is really more than a single adult can handle, hence the nanny-assist.  You need more reason to actively try and fulfill the Evil Twin's fears, rather than just avoid Wants, which is neither difficult or very interesting in play.  Requiring low relationship scores might be a good idea as well.  It's hardly Evil if the twin just never gets what he wants in life while remaining friends with everyone around him.  That's more Luckless Loser than Evil.

 - Gus

[talysman]

I think this would be better if they were actively trying to kill each other.

I'm not sure gameplay in TS2 can really support this as a challenge... there isn't a lot you can tie the idea to for the narrative to really work, but it's a neat idea.

Don't know about killing, but it might be truer to the concept if there were "no fighting" penalty: "-5 points for every week of childhood and teen years that the evil twin does not get in a fight." If we broaden "fight" to include slapping and poking, it should be -1 per day.

Gus has got some good points, too. The idea behind the challenge is to make two successful adults who had the same opportunities as children and teens, but one turns out just plain wrong. You need to have at least one childhood friend and one teen friend, to prove that the evil teen really isn't a luckless loser, but there needs to be more "bad seed" kind of stuff. Maybe all the current positives should be rephrased as negatives, a few of them culled, and then add a tiny number of bonuses for stuff like number of pranks pulled.

[talysman]

Oh, and I should post pics of that funny moment...



Tina "Evil" Twiddler prank calls the father of the other evil twin family, then nonchalantly starts a conversation with a visitor. Virgil Twin (the bald guy with the huge eyebrows) runs over, bursts in the house, and chews out Tine "Good" Twiddler, who didn't do anything. Amusing part was that she started walking away before he started yelling, and he's poking the air like he's yelling at an invisible person his own height.

I have no idea why he's yelling something about college. He certainly didn't go to college, and his kids aren't even teens yet. Maybe he's threatening the poor kid.




Poor Tina "Good" Twiddler starts bawling. She was actually friends with Virgil. Now they're furious with each other. And her good-for-nothing cowboy daddy just sat on the couch like nothing happened.

[Charamei]

I've never had a runaway either, but AFAIK it's caused by the teen disliking (having a negative relationship score) with all family members.  Possibly including siblings, I haven't tested it.

Yeah, it includes siblings. They have to have a negative relationship with everyone in the house - that, or not know them at all. The only runaway I've had occurred while I was seeding a playable boarding school, and didn't get my one ex-Townie student on speaking terms with her teacher quickly enough. Even a simple 1/0 was enough to kill it.

A good yardstick is that Lilith Pleasant starts play primed to Run Away

[Kyna]

As well as negative relationships with everyone in the household, Run Away also requires free will to be on.  If free will is off, a teen won't run away.

[Gus Smedstad]

I kept meaning to bring up Lillith and Angela Pleasant.  They fit right into this, with Angela being "good" and Lillith "evil."  IIRC, they are indeed identical twins, though Lillith's hairstyle, makeup, and clothing hide that fact.

 - Gus

[J. M. Pescado]

Now, I haven't tried keeping the kid awake. But then, there are a couple problems with this: first, the kid's mood will be too bad, so you won't be able to teach the toddler skills.

Do that FIRST, idiot! How many times do I have to say that?!?

So for the main challenge, we're talking about taking a -5 penalty for growing up well in the toddler stage or for not learning all toddler skills, versus teaching how to talk (to avoid a -5) then tossing the kid in the room with the radio and taking a -10 for bottoming out.

Toddlers and children cannot aspirationally fail, and there is no way to determine when they have actually bottomed out. Also, it is impossible to do so by natural decay. Natural decay will halt short of the minimum value, just as sims cannot go crackers and have a therapist visit without satisfying an actual fear (which, for a toddler with no relatives to kill, is basically impossible).

But since we're trying to make this hard... one of the changes I could make is a -1 penalty for each unlearned toddler skill. Just to add insult to injury.

There's no penalty for peeing/passing out. There's just no bonus if it happens. But I guess you're trying to make up for that -10?

I don't have a -10. You're stupid and you suck. Also, "no bonus" is the same as "penalty". The fact that you can't see this clearly indicates you truly do not understand how games work. And the wording of the original text is that you were only penalized for it if it occured on the lot, regardless of who did it. Off the lot, there is no rule. Besides, peeing is just one of many options you can exercise, mostly unnecessary. I'm just saying that the rule contains a loophole you can exploit if you want to utilize peeing.

The strategy for this stage looks otherwise reasonable, except I think you're underestimating trying to avoid wants for the evil twin while fulfilling wants for the good one. For example, if you start with just a counter, you're going to get the want "Eat Cereal". Buy a toaster over, they get "Eat Toaster Pasteries".

Children cannot make food. And I know EXACTLY how easy it is to make a child go red, because unless you go OUT OF YOUR WAY TO AVOID IT, they generally do it on their own! Children never want anything useful, so it is only by contrivance that you would ever fulfill any want other than the A+.

But you still have to worry about keeping the kid happy enough to keep skilling. Plus, you need to sneak that A+ in there, to avoid a -5 penalty, without having the kid fulfill that huge "Get A+" want.

So fill it. So what? I think you underestimate how easily children bleed ASP.

Since child stage is longer than toddler, your aspiration decay suggestion might work at this point: fulfill the A+ early, keep waking the kid up so it only gets enough sleep to not have a red mood so it will keep skilling.

Torturing children with the sleep trick is counterproductive because they are capable of passing out even in the presence of noise, whereas toddlers can't pass out, period, they just go to sleep. Toddlers don't have accidents or pass out.

Hmmm... so, to make it harder for you, I think I could add a couple penalties, even though you're racking up a few already.

I haven't racked up any. I'm describing the strategy for the cleanrun, perfect score, no penalties, all bonii. Your inept failure to implement the strategy correctly sounds like a personal problem to me, soldier.

-5 for every "friend" the evil twin brings home from school that you don't actually become friends with? -1 for every day the parent doesn't work? (Should I be nice and add "excluding days off"?)

Work is irrelevant, anyway. It has no effect on the meat of the challenge, since working or not working is entirely superfluous to the challenge. And is the evil twin supposed to even HAVE friends? I thought it was about enemies. Besides, the "friends" thing is strictly controllable, if you know how to manipulate the neighborhood composition.

I still stand by my assertion that the champion title for this challenge is impossible. No way to complete this challenge with no penalties at all, as opposed to a mere positive score.

Pssh. You just suck. Not only is it entirely possible, it doesn't even really represent a major deviation from standard gameplay! You should see what I do with Kewhale.

[talysman]

Now, I haven't tried keeping the kid awake. But then, there are a couple problems with this: first, the kid's mood will be too bad, so you won't be able to teach the toddler skills.

Do that FIRST, idiot! How many times do I have to say that?!?

You said it once, and then, when I talked about waiting to buy the toys to avoid fulfilling *that* want and instead doing the evil toddler training first, LIKE YOU SAID, you said "You made a HUGE mistake. You *WAITED*. DO NOT WAIT. Do them FIRST, buying all the toys you need, etc, *EVEN* if it fills the wants. Yes, they will go platinum. Who cares? You're not penalized for this, and if you do this early, it will burn off."

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE "FIRST"!

Toddlers and children cannot aspirationally fail, and there is no way to determine when they have actually bottomed out.

If a bar is filled completely with red, I call that "bottoming out". However, I can't prove that this can actually happen by natural decay, so I'll take your word for it and consider alternate penalties/scoring for aspiration failure, maybe just setting a restriction "no sim can go into aspiration failure" or setting that as an end state.

There's no penalty for peeing/passing out. There's just no bonus if it happens. But I guess you're trying to make up for that -10?

I don't have a -10. You're stupid and you suck. Also, "no bonus" is the same as "penalty". The fact that you can't see this clearly indicates you truly do not understand how games work. And the wording of the original text is that you were only penalized for it if it occured on the lot, regardless of who did it. Off the lot, there is no rule. Besides, peeing is just one of many options you can exercise, mostly unnecessary. I'm just saying that the rule contains a loophole you can exploit if you want to utilize peeing.

I may suck (at least, at sucking,) but where do you get this crazy idea that "no bonus" is the same as a penalty?

If there were two short, stupid, nearly identical challenges, something like "play a single adult sim for three days", and the only difference was that one said "-1 every time anyone on the lot makes or serves a meal" and the other had no bonus or penalty for that at all, you'd play them both the same way?

NO BONUS means IGNORE. It's a waste of time doing it or preventing it. PENALTY means AVOID, if possible. And, for the record, BONUS means CONSIDER TRYING, unless it's risky.

The strategy for this stage looks otherwise reasonable, except I think you're underestimating trying to avoid wants for the evil twin while fulfilling wants for the good one. For example, if you start with just a counter, you're going to get the want "Eat Cereal". Buy a toaster over, they get "Eat Toaster Pasteries".

Children cannot make food. And I know EXACTLY how easy it is to make a child go red, because unless you go OUT OF YOUR WAY TO AVOID IT, they generally do it on their own! Children never want anything useful, so it is only by contrivance that you would ever fulfill any want other than the A+.

I don't know why you're going on about children making food. That wasn't at issue. But as far as children's wants, the ones that pop up a lot are the social ones, usually when they need it, wants to eat specific food items, Learn to Study, earn a skill point, Do Homework, Get A+. Plus a couple easy-to-avoid stuff, like buying things. If you translate your toddler tactic of doing the high-payoff wants to the childhood stage and fulfill Learn to Study/Get A+ first, the aspiration bleed may work. The only real problem is the occasional matching wants for both twins on common stuff, like "eat [specific food item]", or when they get one of the really broad generic wants, like "Play With" and no specific person listed, or "Talk to Relative". Gotta watch'em more carefully then, or keep them busy. Besides, I've found one childhood fear that's easy to fulfill and has a decent penalty, so it's looking much easier at the childhood stage. This means it needs toughening up.

Since child stage is longer than toddler, your aspiration decay suggestion might work at this point: fulfill the A+ early, keep waking the kid up so it only gets enough sleep to not have a red mood so it will keep skilling.

Torturing children with the sleep trick is counterproductive because they are capable of passing out even in the presence of noise, whereas toddlers can't pass out, period, they just go to sleep. Toddlers don't have accidents or pass out.

I'm not talking about sleep torture. Notice I said "gets enough sleep". In childhood, you don't want the kid to pass out, you just want to keep the mood hovering in the green so they keep doing what you want, but won't get a good grade. Although it turns out to be much easier to do this: (a) skip homework when evil twin gets home from school, fill needs and jump on couch/bed or in puddles until bedtime. (b) wake up evil twin at 6, eat if necessary, then work out until schoolbus arrives. Twin goes to school slightly stinky and with diminished fun, grade isn't so great. (c) if grade drops too close to D, have good twin do evil twin's homework first, to fulfill the inevitable "Do Homework" want. (d) have evil twin stay home from school at least once (-1000 aspiration.)

That's pretty easy, so in theory it should be restricted... but it's too in-keeping with the theme of the challenge, so I'd probably want a different penalty/restriction that's merely at cross-purposes to this.

Hmmm... so, to make it harder for you, I think I could add a couple penalties, even though you're racking up a few already.

I haven't racked up any. I'm describing the strategy for the cleanrun, perfect score, no penalties, all bonii. Your inept failure to implement the strategy correctly sounds like a personal problem to me, soldier.

Calm your ass down, I'm not saying you're lying. I'm just slightly unconvinced. I'll test it myself and see if you can get all three toddler skills for the evil twin on the first day without aspiration rewards. I'll try Gus' method, too, and see which wins. If it turns out to be possible, I'll harded things up.

-5 for every "friend" the evil twin brings home from school that you don't actually become friends with? -1 for every day the parent doesn't work? (Should I be nice and add "excluding days off"?)

Work is irrelevant, anyway. It has no effect on the meat of the challenge, since working or not working is entirely superfluous to the challenge. And is the evil twin supposed to even HAVE friends? I thought it was about enemies. Besides, the "friends" thing is strictly controllable, if you know how to manipulate the neighborhood composition.

Actually, I've rethought the enemies thing and think the friends thing is MUCH more important to the concept. Evil twins do not get enemies. Normal people get enemies: everyone has at least one. But what makes evil twins so evil is that they get away with it. So the evil twin should have at least one friend in each lifestage and no enemies, but should be required to prank, annoy, and irritate people. There should be a penalty for every negative relationship an evil twin ends with; they have to trick people into thinking they are sweetness and light.

I still stand by my assertion that the champion title for this challenge is impossible. No way to complete this challenge with no penalties at all, as opposed to a mere positive score.

Pssh. You just suck. Not only is it entirely possible, it doesn't even really represent a major deviation from standard gameplay! You should see what I do with Kewhale.

Is it recorded in the Awesomehood chronicles? I've started going through those from the beginning. Funny!

But back to re-writing the challenge:

Given that want/fear mongering is kind of boring and makes Pescados whine, Ella and Gus raise some good points about remaining true to the core concept, and I want the challenge to be harder without too much bookkeeping. I'm going to have to re-think some of the scoring. Definitely need to move some things into flat-out restrictions or end-states instead of bonuses/penalties. Get rid of the max skill bonus completely, just have a penalty for no scholarships and one for less than three scholarships, to encourage skilling. Evil twin does not need to be perfect, but needs to have all the same breaks as good twin; that's the whole point of the concept: they're the same, but the evil twin somehow turned out *wrong*.

There should probably be less nickel-and-diming on the bonuses/penalties and in fact fewer bonuses. There should definitely be more *comparisons*, like:

• -5 if evil twin has fewer scholarships than good twin
• -5 if evil twin has fewer skill points than good twin
• -5 if evil twin has fewer friends than good twin

And so on. Still haven't tried OFB+, so I'm not sure how badges work, but I'm sure the same concept applies. The evil twin has to be at least as good as the good twin, on any criteria. There should probably be a +1 bonus for every criteria in which the evil twin is *better* than the good twin. But the evil twin still has to be evil/grow up badly.

Any other suggestions on making this harder and closer to the concept?