The Evil Twin Challenge

[Quinctia]

Pre-FT.  She's my first that I can remember that NEVER rolled one.  Usually, they'll have at least one on age-up.

I wasn't ever fulfilling any wants, because her parents were too busy (drinking and banging each other) to pay any attention to her.  And she wanted their specific attention.

I just wonder if it was sado-randomness or parents ignoring her at the baby stage that did it.  The latter, you could possibly rig it for the challenge.

[sloppyhousewife]

I just wonder if it was sado-randomness or parents ignoring her at the baby stage that did it.  The latter, you could possibly rig it for the challenge.

It's certainly not the latter. I always ignore babies as I find that stage extremely boring, but still, only some of my toddlers are needy little whiners, whereas others are happy skilling machines. Maybe it depends on the personality.

[Gus Smedstad]

Babies are boring, but I had the impression that playing / cuddling adds personality points to playfulness and niceness respectively.  Of course, you may not want that, depending on how you play.  And there's always the possibility I could be mistaken about that - it's been a while since I ran a proper test on it.

 - Gus

[Zazazu]

I've always found that the personality a baby has when I make them selectable matches what they have as a toddler. The only way to change a personality (barring werewolfism or zombiism) is to encourage traits, IIRC, and that's only possible with children & teens.

[J. M. Pescado]

Babies are boring, but I had the impression that playing / cuddling adds personality points to playfulness and niceness respectively.

Pure and utter bollocks. Doesn't happen.

[talysman]

I haven't tested ways #1 and #2 with visitors yet, but it *might* work. They're both versions of the Cask of Amontillado, but without any "removing a door in build mode" chicanery. Include a room in your house with the dormie door in it, pointing *inwards*. Claim the door, call over another sim, then lock the door. The door owner can leave, but not the other sim. This makes deliberate murder by starvation possible.

I believe sims which have decided to go home and leave are able to pass through locked doors on their way out, so no.

I'll reveal the secrets to #3 and #4 when I've tested them, different modes of death, and one of them may or may not need the dormie door, but it's a similar idea: the murderous sim does something that the victim is unable to escape from.

Tricks which depend on the target sim subsequently doing something on its own don't count: the death has to be directly caused by the sim.

Who said? Who's writing the challenge, anyways?

The idea is to cause the death of the visitor without using cheats, the magic hand, or hacked items. Everything must be accomplished using actions and objects available in the game + expansions. The "call over/lock door/leave visitor inside" sequence is a perfectly valid way to cause a death. No special memories gained, but then EAxis didn't intend murder to be an in-game goal.

I avoided responding to this until I could actually test it with a visitors. And now... SUCCESS! Goopy bites it!






I used a test household here, not one of the evil twin households. And of course, this might be fixed in later expansion packs, or might not work with other locked doors. (Do the other locked doors even have locking animations?) But Charlie Closet offed Goopy, without hacks, cheats, or my moving stuff around for him. Didn't need to move Goopy in, make him selectable, or for that matter even make friends with him; just greeted him, called him over, locked the door, and left him there. It was a little harsher than killing off Charlie's brother, because Goopy seemed to bawl more. Also, he paced. Edward just stood in one spot until he passed out.

Speaking of later expansions, jemjie reminded me that I need to explore how the later stuff affects the challenge. Maybe this is why toddler skilling seems so easy for you guys; maybe I need add a rule about which season to start in, as well as a "free will must be on" rule. I'm thinking it should start in spring or summer, but until I try Seasons, I can't be sure.

I still need to test the other death possibilities as well. There's a certain amount of randomness involved in those, but they may become easier with later expansions.

[talysman]

Another update: I had tried Pescado's method of training the evil twin first, then locking it in a room with just a radio so that its aspiration would decay. I delayed reporting on it until I tried Gus's method as well: training the evil twin *almost* all the way on all three skills, then finishing them off on the last day when the toddler rolls nothing but social wants.

Gus's method worked, Pescado's didn't. Here's the breakdown:

The Pescado "shuttered room" method had one immediately apparent flaw: it was impossible to train all three toddler skills before the first sleep cycle, and if the toddler gets no sleep, you can't train it anymore after that because of the bad mood. This may be because of the pre-OFB status of my game; maybe if you have Seasons and select the season that boosts skilling (fall?) or make use of other late-expansion pack items I am unaware of, you can do it. There was a second flaw in that the toddler won't stay in the room if there's just a radio; you need a crib, too. Otherwise, the toddler tries to sleep, wakes up because of the noise, and gets a tiny energy boost that lets it crawl out of the room. And I discovered that the only pre-OFB door lock available, the dormie door, doesn't seem to stop a toddler. It *might* stop the toddler if it's turned the other way, facing inwards: it's thinking about this that enabled me to adapt the shuttered room technique to killing visitors.

Gus's method did work, although properly speaking, I *did* go ahead and train the evil twin to walk on the first day and didn't wait completely until the last day, so I sort of combined Pescado's *original* suggestion, part way, with Gus's. I also did a couple other tricks: not always letting the toddler sleep the full amount, for example, and not buying a dining table and chair so that the parent ate standing up instead of falling asleep in her food, when she was almost drained. It's mainly a matter of interrupting things, not letting the parent get fully rested, not taking a full shower. And when the evil twin was obviously going to get potty trained on Day 3, triggering that want, I canceled the potty at the last second. To build up social for the evil twin, I used the family kiss, which *never* rolls a want, as well as the standard bathing action. I did have to trigger the "buy a toy" want after teaching the evil twin to walk, though, so that the kid had a way to keep Fun up without being played with.

End result:




All three toddler skills, Grow Up Well for the good twin, Grow Up Badly for the evil twin, and three charisma each.

[J. M. Pescado]

The Pescado "shuttered room" method had one immediately apparent flaw: it was impossible to train all three toddler skills before the first sleep cycle, and if the toddler gets no sleep, you can't train it anymore after that because of the bad mood.

1: No one said it was necessary to make it so the toddler NEVER gets any sleep.
2: Unless this was changed recently, train to talk is energy-ignoring like the Medical Dummy, so you can keep forcing them to skill even when their energy has bottomed out.

This may be because of the pre-OFB status of my game; maybe if you have Seasons and select the season that boosts skilling (fall?) or make use of other late-expansion pack items I am unaware of, you can do it. There was a second flaw in that the toddler won't stay in the room if there's just a radio; you need a crib, too. Otherwise, the toddler tries to sleep, wakes up because of the noise, and gets a tiny energy boost that lets it crawl out of the room.

Why would it crawl out of the room? Sims don't move significantly unless ordered to do so by a queued action. Since you're not queuing any actions, the toddler will only perform static shuffle, which does not generally leave the room unless the room is exceptionally tiny. No door lock is required.

[talysman]

The Pescado "shuttered room" method had one immediately apparent flaw: it was impossible to train all three toddler skills before the first sleep cycle, and if the toddler gets no sleep, you can't train it anymore after that because of the bad mood.

1: No one said it was necessary to make it so the toddler NEVER gets any sleep.
2: Unless this was changed recently, train to talk is energy-ignoring like the Medical Dummy, so you can keep forcing them to skill even when their energy has bottomed out.

I didn't check carefully, but I keep having all three skilling activities interrupted unless I was careful about moods. So, train to talk might ignore energy, but it doesn't seem to ignore the mood drop from low energy.

At least it seems to ignore the nanny, unlike potty training, which is interrupted by absolutely any queued action.

This may be because of the pre-OFB status of my game; maybe if you have Seasons and select the season that boosts skilling (fall?) or make use of other late-expansion pack items I am unaware of, you can do it. There was a second flaw in that the toddler won't stay in the room if there's just a radio; you need a crib, too. Otherwise, the toddler tries to sleep, wakes up because of the noise, and gets a tiny energy boost that lets it crawl out of the room.

Why would it crawl out of the room? Sims don't move significantly unless ordered to do so by a queued action. Since you're not queuing any actions, the toddler will only perform static shuffle, which does not generally leave the room unless the room is exceptionally tiny. No door lock is required.

I don't know why they crawl out of the room, but Lolita Whately certainly crawled out repeatedly. Specific autonomous actions were play with toy, play with toilet, ask for attention, ask to be read to, and suck on old horrible rotten baby bottle. Didn't see "Follow" on that run at all, but I'm sure it would do it, too.

The crib stops it, though... but then you have the annoying problem with nannies mixing up the babies. Caffeinating wasn't working out very well, so I kept having to hire nannies just to give the parent a break. As an aside, the latest evil twin, David Dopple, somehow got out of his crib once. It must have been a glitch, because I couldn't repeat it.

But the most important part of that experiment was: keeping the kid awake did not drain aspiration fast enough. Avoiding fulfilling any wants other than "buy a toy" worked better than fulfilling a big want early and trying to bleed off the aspiration.

But, now that this part seems pretty doable, I'm rethinking the challenge. I don't want that much nickle-and-diming, so I may add a few flat-out restrictions instead. But I would prefer a set of restrictions that cause interesting things to happen, as opposed to a mere set of barriers to find the most efficient pathway through. I do think I need to add a "-1 every time the parent has a fear fulfilled" though. The whole point of requiring the parent to be Family is to force an interaction between trying to raise one child badly and trying to keep the parent from suffering. This is why there's an aspiration failure penalty: not for the twins, for the parent. But the parent's not failing completely, so I should probably change that to -1 for every day the parent is in the red and ignore aspiration level for the twins. Combined with the penalty per fear, that should make it a little trickier.

[cenoura]

As an aside, the latest evil twin, David Dopple, somehow got out of his crib once. It must have been a glitch, because I couldn't repeat it.

Toddlers that have learned to walk are able to get themselves out of the crib if their energy bar is in the green.

[J. M. Pescado]

I don't know why they crawl out of the room, but Lolita Whately certainly crawled out repeatedly. Specific autonomous actions were play with toy, play with toilet, ask for attention, ask to be read to, and suck on old horrible rotten baby bottle. Didn't see "Follow" on that run at all, but I'm sure it would do it, too.

Stop letting your sims do things. No wonder you can't manage to accomplish anything. If you expect to beat anything, you have to TAKE COMMAND. BE IN CHARGE.

The crib stops it, though... but then you have the annoying problem with nannies mixing up the babies.

I suggest not hiring them. They are counterproductive.

Caffeinating wasn't working out very well, so I kept having to hire nannies just to give the parent a break. As an aside, the latest evil twin, David Dopple, somehow got out of his crib once. It must have been a glitch, because I couldn't repeat it.

You suck at this, you know.

But the most important part of that experiment was: keeping the kid awake did not drain aspiration fast enough. Avoiding fulfilling any wants other than "buy a toy" worked better than fulfilling a big want early and trying to bleed off the aspiration.

Consider this to be a two-pronged attack. Focus on trying to do both, but not necessarily to the exclusion of the other. Don't, however, waffle.

But, now that this part seems pretty doable, I'm rethinking the challenge. I don't want that much nickle-and-diming, so I may add a few flat-out restrictions instead. But I would prefer a set of restrictions that cause interesting things to happen, as opposed to a mere set of barriers to find the most efficient pathway through.

ALL challenges are a set of barriers to find the most efficient pathway through. That is the essence of LIFE. LIFE is a series of obstacles, the objective of which is to find the most efficient pathway through. Life exists to be solved. There is no way to create a challenge that you can actually play that does not involve this, because this is how REAL LIFE works. The only way to do this is to create an unplayable challenge where the player does not actually participate in the challenge. And that's just stupid, because it defeats the point of having a game and turns your "challenge" into a brute force statistical attack. Without human involvement in gameplay, the challenge is nothing more than installing it on a few hundred computers and running the results over and over until you get maximum score. How is that fun? Good challenges are puzzles to be solved. Puzzles like "How can you keep Emma from pissing herself in a house with NO BATHROOM?". Yet you have to be careful not to restrict TOO many options or you've created a railroad.

I do think I need to add a "-1 every time the parent has a fear fulfilled" though. The whole point of requiring the parent to be Family is to force an interaction between trying to raise one child badly and trying to keep the parent from suffering.

Definitely nickel and dime material. You can't often even tell if a parent has a fear fulfilled if the fear does not produce an immediately obvious response in the form of a large ASP hit. 500-point things like "Bad Conversation" are rarely even visible unless you are specifically watching for it. Also, aspiration trees are entirely manipulable, so this is not a real challenge. If you know how to manipulate the tree seedings, you can easily make the trees bend to your will when necessary. I generally don't bother because I don't *CARE* if they suffer, but if you're going to make it point-rewarding, I DO know how to do this.

[Gus Smedstad]

The crib stops it, though... but then you have the annoying problem with nannies mixing up the babies.

I suggest not hiring them. They are counterproductive.

I wouldn't suggest that until you've actually tried to do the toddler part of this challenge.

It's true that Nannies are very inefficient.  But "counterproductive" is an exaggeration.  They do certain time-consuming actions such as bathing the toddlers and some less time-consuming ones like feeding them.  Getting all three toddler skills on both toddlers is close enough to the edge with just a single adult that the nannies can make a difference.  The aspiration issues are irrelevant, it's simply the amount of time required absent time savers like the smart milk or helmet or energy boosters like the Energizer.

 - Gus

[kuronue]

The crib stops it, though... but then you have the annoying problem with nannies mixing up the babies.

I suggest not hiring them. They are counterproductive.

I wouldn't suggest that until you've actually tried to do the toddler part of this challenge.

You say that like Pescado's a newb who's never raised toddlers in-game.

[Gus Smedstad]

I say that like I think Pescado hasn't actually tried to raise two toddlers with a single parent and none of the common shortcuts.  I was hardly a newbie at Sim child raising either, and it proved more difficult than I thought.

 - Gus

[Ellatrue]

Babies are boring, but I had the impression that playing / cuddling adds personality points to playfulness and niceness respectively.

Pure and utter bollocks. Doesn't happen.

This supposedly happened in Sims 1, which could be the source of the confusion. Playing with them was supposed to give the baby playful points, but there was nothing for nice.

[Zazazu]

I say that like I think Pescado hasn't actually tried to raise two toddlers with a single parent and none of the common shortcuts.  I was hardly a newbie at Sim child raising either, and it proved more difficult than I thought.

 - Gus

You say that like Pescado doesn't love to sneak cheesecake to all his pregnant sims.

[kuronue]

A safe assumption is that if it can be done, Pescado knows how to do it better and more efficiently than you've even imagined, and if it sucks, Pescado has an unreleased shiny to fix it.

[Quinctia]

Considering there's a challenge out there with one adult raising seven or six toddlers that people have completed successfully, the prevalence of the trips and quads mod, and the fact that a lot of people manage 10+ sim households, one adult with two toddlers isn't exceptionally hard in itself.  You just have to actually pay attention to them a bit.

[Gus Smedstad]

I disagree, after having actually done it.

One adult raising 6-7 toddlers - sure, if he doesn't have to teach them any skills.  One adult teaching 6-7 toddlers all three toddler skills - only possible with major cheatage.  I.e. smart milk combined with the teaching cap and the energizer.

10+ sim households doesn't mean 1 sim with 9 toddlers.  Or, generally, even having more than 1 toddler per adult.  Even having 2 adults in the household gives you some economies of scale, because you can offload some things like cooking on to just one of the adults.

If you haven't actually tried raising 2 toddlers with all 3 skills with one CAS adult on no shortcuts, don't speculate about how easy it is to do without nannies until you have.

 - Gus

[kuronue]

Because one adult for two toddlers with all skills is harder than one adult with seven toddlers, or two adults with four toddlers 

I'll take you up on that in the morning when I have some time.

[Emma]

I say that like I think Pescado hasn't actually tried to raise two toddlers with a single parent and none of the common shortcuts.  I was hardly a newbie at Sim child raising either, and it proved more difficult than I thought.

 - Gus

You say that like Pescado doesn't love to sneak cheesecake to all his pregnant sims.

It isn't Pescado! It's that darned, sneaky Mrs Pescado.

[Quinctia]

I just did it.  Not too hard--finished early Thursday afternoon, without changing my style of play one bit, being nice and waking the parent back up to get screaming toddlers, cleaning up after the mess, etc.  Came up with all sorts of ways to streamline things as well.  For one, I left way too big of a "nest egg."  We weren't hardly getting any bills, and I could probably near raise the children completely without getting parent a job the entire time.

My twins rolled up strange wants, so I'm wondering how to finangle the one twin not getting any asp.  Ironically, the "evil" twin had toddler skill wants way before the "good" twin did. XD

It's still not as bad as having a couple of twin kids who need to be kept on their homework and off the podiums while I've got triplet toddlers to train up, even if I had two parents then.  I mean come on, I just fed mommy gelatin, no one needs to cook here.

[J. M. Pescado]

You say that like Pescado doesn't love to sneak cheesecake to all his pregnant sims.

Not all of them. Just EMMA.

[Gus Smedstad]

I just did it.

So, no nannies, but the adult ate jello exclusively?

EDIT: I forgot to ask, what about Free Time and Seasons effects?  Did you purchase reduced motivation decay with lifetime acheivement points, or set the challenge in Autumn?

It's still not as bad as having a couple of twin kids who need to be kept on their homework and off the podiums while I've got triplet toddlers to train up, even if I had two parents then.

That doesn't make any sense at all to me.  Since when does keeping children on homework or off podiums require any effort at all on the part on an adult Sim?  Sure, it requires more pausing and clicking on the part of the player, but the adults should be able to completely neglect the children beyond leaving out food platters with no penalties.

[Quinctia]

She ate a sandwich once or twice by getting to the fridge before I could do it myself, but she mostly ate jello.  I probably didn't need to buy her the stove, expensive counter and fire detector, but it's not like we were strapped for cash.  I put them down in one of my hoods that is ONLY summer, so there was no fall skilling bonus or anything.

It's harder to have multiple kids AND multiple toddlers ecause it takes some micromanagement on the player's part to handle multiples.  Therefore it's harder for ME to have sets of kids--especially since, in my last example, mom was pregnant again when I had the triplet toddlers.  I don't doubt the adult caretakers in my case were a little happier, being in an established household and leaving occasionally to go to work, but that doesn't make it less difficult for me.

Unlike most people around here (who are probably smarter for it), I don't use the macrotastics hacks or the baby controller.  I don't lobotomize my nannies because I very very rarely use them.  (And when I do, they are really only "allowed" to mess with infants--a potty trained toddler is oddly self-sufficient.)  A nanny is just going to lead to more stinky bottles lying around, can't get them food or in and out of bed anywhere near as efficiently as a sim under my control, and "bathing" is a moot point because that only NEEDS to be done once or twice in an entire toddlerhood, if you keep them out of the toilet.

Even though kids can get their own food to a certain extent, they've got a "skill" like the toddlers, since teaching them how to study is never an option in my game and must be done as soon as possible.

...I should've given the toddlers separate sleeping rooms so they didn't wake each other up, though.  Damn, I don't know what I was thinking.

I have pictures, but they are terribly boring and I was an idiot and took most of them in camerman mode so they look nice, but don't tell you what the exact time was, because no UI.