Sim Strategy Discussion

[Avalikia]

Would it weird you out if I randomly asked you to pretty please let me see a copy of your RandomStuff.txt Zazazu?  I keep bumping into posts where you mention bits of it and it sounds much better thought out and detailed than anything I've been able to come up with.  I'm sure that if I could see what you have I'd finally be able to make one for myself that I actually like.  And I could use a break from the perfect utopias I keep creating.  (Even my stone age neighborhood has been boring lately.)

[Zazazu]

Nope. I just got done editing it, actually. Changed the career/career level to one query and to list the text description of the job. I'll be assed if I can remember what level 6 Slacker is off the top of my head.

[cenoura]

Wow, just had a ganders at your file Zazazu, and look at all of those names! Was that some copy+pasta I saw there from several different sites? Did you vet them before you put them into play?

Also, thanks for the tips about the community gardens. I figured it would work something like that, however I wasn't aware of the cheat to get the food ready to harvest, and didn't want to go through five/six straight days of growing only to find that they didn't "stick". The idea there was that my Sims would have a community garden that they'd only visit in the Summer and Autumn to harvest their food.

Some of the ideas in this thread are great. I just wish now that someone would start the "universities in a normal hood" thread, I'm very interested in that too but have no idea how to go about doing it.

[Zazazu]

Names are US Census data, stolen from other's lists in the Random Stuff thread, taken from baby name sites, etc. I may have a few duplicates in there, but I figure that if they are duplicated that means they are more standard names you'd see more often anyways. None of my current sims have the same name yet. I have Rose and her daughter Rosalie, but that's as close as it gets. There are a couple of townies with the same name (I have three Amy ...), and I have a townie named Tucker and a playable child named Tucker. With 37 living playables (2 more currently incubating) and about seventy townies/NPCs, that's not too bad.

I'm fenced regarding community gardens in this 'hood. They did get a fishing hole (literally, lot's on a big slope and there are stairs running down from street level to the pond and bridge; it's about a story and a half down) so everyone can snag their own fish.

[pixiejuice]

You guys all have some great ideas!  I use Random Stuff too, and a deck of cards when needed.  I play to my Sims wants and fears and personalities as closely as I can, and try not to have my own ideas about what I want them to end up doing. 

My ‘hood is huge.  I have 79 playables and a chart where they're all listed by age.  This is how I keep everybody in sync, and I can mark by their names things like who has bad credit, who's currently pregnant, who owes what money, or whatever.  I play everybody 2 days at a time, and I use Inge's agecons, modified so that one day represents one year.  By the time I get through, it really does feel like it's been two years in the hood. 

Nobody gets any free money.  They take out loans with Inge's shrubs for their homes and businesses.  Kids pay a ton of money if they want to go to college.  They can take out student loans if they can't afford it.  My sims have to pay back their loans at 10% of the loan every play-session, which is 2 sim-days.  I'm very strict about this, and if they can't make their payment, after three strikes, I declare them bankrupt for 10 sim-days.  This hardly ever happens though. 

It's so hard to keep these sims poor, without going the all OFB route, which I don't have the patience for.  I only allow skill building if they have a want for it, so that keeps about half of them in pretty low-level jobs.

The only thing I have to add that hasn't been mentioned is that I like to play with random disastrous events in my random file.  Some of them are kind of morbid, but realistic. Things like people dying, losing jobs, being forced to move out of the neighborhood, midlife crisis where they change their aspiration - and some good things too, like inspired to take up a new hobby.  I think someone shared a similar random events file once.  It's really the thing that's kept my game the most interesting for as long as I've been playing.  And the rule is I have to follow through, no matter what.  Even if it's one of my favorites.  And a lot of these things also help me keep the population manageable, because after all, not everybody lives to die at old age, and not everybody lives their whole life in the same town they were born in, you know?  Even so, my population is just about as big as it can be while still being manageable.

Then there are rules like, any time someone is in a bad mood, they MUST argue with the person closest to them, be it parent, spouse, sibling.  It really should be built into the game that you fight with your spouse when you're in a bad mood.  I mean, hello, that's what spouses do!

No exiting without saving rule.  Whatever happens happens, even if I don't like it at the time.  It almost always makes the game more interesting.

Any time someone gets depressed, they MUST roll the random file, and they have a 1 in 20 chance of offing themselves.  Morbid, I know, but it happens, doesn't it?  They have 10 in 20 chance of doing something, anything, to make themselves happy, regardless of the consequences.  And 9 in 20 chance of just moping around.  They have to roll again for every day they're depressed.

So, basically, I like to keep the game surprising me.

[Roux]

darcee, what is your process for rolling random events? I have pondered incorporating this somehow, but could never decide whether to roll per neighborhood, per household, or per sim. Not to mention how often the roll occurs. Every day seemed too much, once a week seemed too little.

[pixiejuice]

darcee, what is your process for rolling random events? I have pondered incorporating this somehow, but could never decide whether to roll per neighborhood, per household, or per sim. Not to mention how often the roll occurs. Every day seemed too much, once a week seemed too little.

I roll four events at the start of every round (who the event happens to is random as well).  But remember I have a huge population, so four events per about 80 sims/ 25-30 households.  That takes me usually a little more than a month to get through.  So I guess that works out to about one event per real-life week.  I don't think my Sims could handle much more devastation than that      

[Avalikia]

Mashes the "thank you" button for Zazazu.

Nearly 50 (at the time I'm posting) people have deemed that file worthy of at least a look-see.  Doesn't that make you feel special?

I quite like the "Build what?" list in particular.  I'm going to have to add some random carnage like darcee though.  If the random neighborhood I'm considering doesn't end up somewhat like the Ghetto challenge in most lots then I'm not doing my job right.

And now for some questions:  I noticed you have every level of every career listed, and I assume that the idea is that they stop at that career level.  How do you keep them from getting promoted past that level?  (Especially in those lowest jobs where no skills and no friends are required?)  What do you do if they're fated to have their LTW fulfilled but their career conflicts with that?  What if their LTW is to get 5 level 10 businesses?  What is "Family donation"?  Exactly what is a newstand in a world where everyone gets a paper everyday for free?

[Zazazu]

LTW supersedes the career roll. So if their LTW is to be Captain Hero and I roll for that to be fulfilled, I don't really worry about the career roll. How it has been working out, though, is that the majority of my sims who get their LTW don't have a career LTW.

As for keeping them at the level, I can usually do so by denying them a skill point needed. Charisma and mechanical points are especially easy to prevent. Now, I do always make a choice for chance cards so they might still luck out. I keep marry-ins who are in a career path in the career they are in (unless I roll to fulfill LTW and it's a career one) and don't try to get them any promotions. However, Julius Lowe was a  Senior Officer on marry-in. He had enough skill points to be promoted to Commander. Then he got two promotions to General through chance cards. Lucky bastard. 

My sims don't study for skill points without a reason to. Toddlers might pick up a few on their toys, or they might spend all their time beating the stuffing out of the teddy bear and stalking their parents. Kids might get a couple logic points from the chess set if they decide to play it, but most of my sim kids are outside playing catch all the time. Teens might study if they want college and their parents can't pay for it...Renwarr is still $20k/student or $5k/year, and Tou Laine is $10k/student or $2.5k/year with a restricted number of available majors and only the one dorm. Other than that, they only get skill points if they need them for promotion to their ordained level.

What if their LTW is to get 5 level 10 businesses?

If they roll to fulfill that one, that's their job. No career. I have them meditate at home to make up for the time they spent at the biz...so let's say they have a bakery open from 10am to 6pm. They leave right before 10am, come back technically at 10am again, but I shove them out of sight meditating until 6pm. So there really isn't any way for them to do the 5 biz want and hold down a normal job.

What is "Family donation"?

Relic from an old 'hood. Theoretically, if a family has enough money saved back, I would roll to see how much money they will give their kids to start out on their own. If the amount rolled is more than what they have, they give all their money to their kids. I haven't really been using that one yet, as I only have one household that could do it financially. Maybe two.

Exactly what is a newstand in a world where everyone gets a paper everyday for free?

It's been a bit since I had a newstand, but when I did, it was a tiny little 1x1 lot with an open-air look selling magazines. I'd probably add Numenor & MaryLou's postcard racks from MTS2. I think I saw that someone had unlocked the FT magazines to be buyable now as well. Those would work well.

Darcee, that's a good idea regarding random events. I have a separate text file for those, but I hadn't found a good way to incorporate them.
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[Roux]

darcee, what is your process for rolling random events? I have pondered incorporating this somehow, but could never decide whether to roll per neighborhood, per household, or per sim. Not to mention how often the roll occurs. Every day seemed too much, once a week seemed too little.

I roll four events at the start of every round (who the event happens to is random as well).  But remember I have a huge population, so four events per about 80 sims/ 25-30 households.  That takes me usually a little more than a month to get through.  So I guess that works out to about one event per real-life week.  I don't think my Sims could handle much more devastation than that      

Thanks - that's really helpful. I think my hood is even larger than yours (100+ playables), and I just had two families give birth to triplets because I didn't realize TwoJeffs changed the method for adjusting Trip/Quad random odds. 

What I am thinking about right now is to have different random event lists for each life stage (each would have a combo of positive and negative events), and then an age-sorted list of playables. Then have the randomizer roll events for each life stage, such as 1 child, 1 teen, 1 YA, 2 adult, and 1 elder. As sims age up, their names get shuffled to the next life stage in the text file and then removed when they die. I don't have your strict method of playing 2-day rounds, so I maybe I'll just roll it once/season.

Time to play! Oh that's right, I'm at work...

[pixiejuice]

What I am thinking about right now is to have different random event lists for each life stage (each would have a combo of positive and negative events), and then an age-sorted list of playables. Then have the randomizer roll events for each life stage, such as 1 child, 1 teen, 1 YA, 2 adult, and 1 elder. As sims age up, their names get shuffled to the next life stage in the text file and then removed when they die. I don't have your strict method of playing 2-day rounds, so I maybe I'll just roll it once/season.

That's a great idea!  I don't think I have many events that apply to the younger life stages.  I'll have to think of some more.  If you have any in mind, I'd love to hear them.

I never thought about putting their names in the random file.  I just roll a random number between 1 and 80, and since I already have a list of them in order by age, I just count.  And then if the Sim chosen doesn't make sense for the event, I reroll.  Hmmm, both ways seem equally complicated

[Avalikia]

If you have any in mind, I'd love to hear them.

Hmm, off the top of my head:
Skip school and/or homework
Get very-own pet
Shiny new useless toy
Death
Victim of sibling rivalry (especially if damage to toys is involved)
Social Worker: 'nuff said
Grounded: No TV, no friends, etc.
1 day running on freewill
Party for no reason
A trip to a kid-friendly community lot (i.e. the park)
Death of beloved pet

Personally I plan to add random events to my list once my neighborhood gets big enough, but they'll be events affecting an entire household instead of an individual.

[Lion]

Kids pay a ton of money if they want to go to college.  They can take out student loans if they can't afford it.

How much is your college tuition? I set $200/day for private gradeschool, $300 for private high school, $500/day for community college, and $7500 total for a university.

Then there are rules like, any time someone is in a bad mood, they MUST argue with the person closest to them, be it parent, spouse, sibling.  It really should be built into the game that you fight with your spouse when you're in a bad mood.  I mean, hello, that's what spouses do!

Actually in my game lately, I was surprised to see sims in very low asp. would provoke (poke, slap, fight) another sim, even BFF and 100/100 relationship. It might be thefightclub. I wonder what it would be like with moarfight in. I also have Squinge's fight anyone anytime. It is good for FT. I haven't really needed to use it yet, but it's nice to have it in. You can provoke in all 4 ways any time you want.

I have them meditate at home to make up for the time they spent at the biz...so let's say they have a bakery open from 10am to 6pm. They leave right before 10am, come back technically at 10am again, but I shove them out of sight meditating until 6pm.

Zazazu, you can use Crammyboy's community time project. They came back from a community lot the time they actually went home. It's working well for FT.

[pixiejuice]

Hmm, off the top of my head:
Skip school and/or homework
Get very-own pet
Shiny new useless toy
Death
Victim of sibling rivalry (especially if damage to toys is involved)
Social Worker: 'nuff said
Grounded: No TV, no friends, etc.
1 day running on freewill
Party for no reason
A trip to a kid-friendly community lot (i.e. the park)
Death of beloved pet

Good ideas!  I'll be stealing a couple of those

How much is your college tuition? I set $200/day for private gradeschool, $300 for private high school, $500/day for community college, and $7500 total for a university.

About the same as yours.  They pay $1000 a semester, for a total of $8000 if they complete their degree.  They also pay rent in the student housing which ranges from $200-$1000 a semester depending on which dorm they want to live in.  I don't have any kind of community college set up, but my uni is in my downtown, so anyone can go there to study. 

Actually in my game lately, I was surprised to see sims in very low asp. would provoke (poke, slap, fight) another sim, even BFF and 100/100 relationship. It might be thefightclub. I wonder what it would be like with moarfight in. I also have Squinge's fight anyone anytime. It is good for FT. I haven't really needed to use it yet, but it's nice to have it in. You can provoke in all 4 ways any time you want.

I have Squinge's fight anytime too.  Love that one!  I would love to see some fighting between sims in 100/100 relationships.  There's just too many happy families going on in my hood.  After all these years, I still have yet to have a teenager run away from home because I've never been able to get the relationships down that low without just completely arranging it myself.

Ha, there's a new random event for us - teenager runs away from home!

[Roux]

Hmm, off the top of my head:
Skip school and/or homework
Get very-own pet
Shiny new useless toy
Death
Victim of sibling rivalry (especially if damage to toys is involved)
Social Worker: 'nuff said
Grounded: No TV, no friends, etc.
1 day running on freewill
Party for no reason
A trip to a kid-friendly community lot (i.e. the park)
Death of beloved pet

Good ideas!  I'll be stealing a couple of those

Ditto. Except, I can't stomach the random death of a child. I am a stupid F. Some other ideas:

Make new friend
Turn on a friend and make him/her an enemy (Yesterday we were BFFs, today we are enemies. AKA, I hate you now!)
Fight with a family member
Satisfy 3 fears in 24 sim hours (even/especially if they are all 'death of family member' fears)

I'll be working on this over the weekend. It may end up being more complicated than I was hoping, but I'll just have to see how it goes.

[Lion]

Ha, there's a new random event for us - teenager runs away from home!

I roll a "when to move out" for teens at their transition, including "Runaway teen". Others are When graduates from college, When finds a job, When in crush, When in love, When becomes an adult, When gets married, When has a child, Runaway teen, When starts a business, When becomes a managers, and Never.  I haven't had a runaway teen yet. I'm thinking either slide down the relationships with family memeber (not preferring), or move the teen into one of the "On the street" lots where only other runaway teens, hobos, bullies, criminals, etc., can visit.

[Zazazu]

Kids pay a ton of money if they want to go to college.  They can take out student loans if they can't afford it.

How much is your college tuition? I set $200/day for private gradeschool, $300 for private high school, $500/day for community college, and $7500 total for a university.

Private school fees are handled by Monique's computer. I have hardergrades (or is it harderhardergrades?) and due to my lacksadaisacal approach to skilling, most of the kids are at C or B level. I have a few smarty-pants ones. So most kids are paying $300-$250/day for private school. For college, I have two colleges.

• Renwarr College - Mascot: Cow, because he's so avant garde! Cost: $5k/year, or $20k/entire education. Majors supported: all. Housing: Three 14-room dorms on 1x3 lots, two four-unit apartment complexes or greek houses on 2x2 lots, six single-sim (can be stretched up to three residents) homes on 1x1 lots. Community lots: quadish thing with diner, gym, and bookstore...classrooms with vanilla skilling objects...two other lot imposter classrooms. Atmosphere: in its own little neighborhood nestled in a valley. Very modern buildings.
• Tou Laine Tech - Mascot: Llama, because he does it for free. Cost: $2.5k/year, or $10k/entire education. Majors supported: Sciences, Math, and Philosophy. Housing: One dorm, split into male and female sections. One. 16 rooms. Just a place to sleep and eat. Community lots: quad/park, large classroom building including bookstore, gym, and classrooms that contain aspiration reward skilling objects relating to the taught majors. Atmosphere: in the middle of a lot imposter urban neighborhood. Brick & drab.

A sim who works for their scholarship can pay for Tou Laine on their own. In fact, I have four on their way to Tou Laine right now because the one's family really can't afford to pay for his schooling (Raul Outlaw; his mother is the daughter of that shack dweller who killed himself, and she and the hubby are still about $40k in debt). The other three kids could be paid through Renwarr (barely), but the twins, Benjamin and Michael Bleu, are Pleasure types who really don't give a crap, just wanting to troll for boy-candy (they are both gay), and their cousin Stone Lowe (also a half-brother, not that they are aware of it) is best friends with Raul and wants to go to college with him.

I have them meditate at home to make up for the time they spent at the biz...so let's say they have a bakery open from 10am to 6pm. They leave right before 10am, come back technically at 10am again, but I shove them out of sight meditating until 6pm.

Zazazu, you can use Crammyboy's community time project. They came back from a community lot the time they actually went home. It's working well for FT.

For everything else, I don't want community lot time consistency. I really, really don't.

[pixiejuice]

In the spirit of sharing, I thought I'd throw my random file out there too, since you all are sharing such great ideas.  I've already added in a couple I stole from this thread, and there are probably a couple more I stole a long time ago from wherever... so have fun!

[J. M. Pescado]

Heh, my only university is STFU.

[Zaleth]

I haven't run a business away from the sims home yet, only did Home Business which work well if you build the business and stock it before you call and make it a home business.  That way you are not losing money from the start.  I had to also make sure my home was the way I want it because after you make a home a business as well everything you purchase is an expense from the business and will make your profit go down. 

I moved all the people out of pleasentville and moved them to the one that came with seasons and moved some of the people in strangetown to the one that came with Freetime.  I play only those two hoods now, I set each one up with all three colleges, and BV spots along with Downtown and Bluewater.  Then I took the time out to redo all the hoods the way I wanted.  Rich section with big expensive houses a shopping area low income ect.  It looks like a real town now and also renamed all houses for the streets they are on.  I did this with college, basic hood, Downtown and Blue water so no matter where they go it looks more real like.  I even made a custom cemetery and moved all the goths and the other graves from Downtown to it.  So when my sims die I send them there.  If sims want to see a ghost at night I go there or if they want to mourn their loved ones.  I saved all the commuinty stuff I did so I could pop it in each hood as needed without having to redo it time and time again. The sims live in the hood or Bluewater and Downtown depending on the sim and where I think they would like to live. 

Goth Family is working on 4th generation, the longest family so far is 6th generation.  I do sent most kids to college even make some flunk out  because not everyone is good at everything!  The biggest challenge for me is running a house with 8 people  ususally two adults and the rest kids without using Max motives.   Mind you I do not use Motherlode and only use kaching for each family to have 2k to purchase clothing only on start up because people have more than one outfit!.   I also play the challenges from TSR though I have not finsished many of them of late.  I do agree that some of them are not worth the time.

I use Monique's computer for my sims to be able to "get a loan" when they need money rather than use the cheats. This way they have to pay it back and that can get out of hand if they borrow to much.  I also use the bank for making sure those that can afford it give thier children a "college fund" and use it to sent them to Private school where it actually takes money out of the funds for them to go.  I also use it for emailing of friends.  So each house hold has one of Monique's and the rest are normal from the game so I do not lose the Freetime functions.  Also if your sims have amassed way to much money you can use it to give it away to charity as well.  I really like the funcition to purchase things online so I don't have to keep leaving the lot just to get a dress or a pair of pants!  Of course if you have maxed out your sewing to gold badge you can sew clothing so that does tend to help as well, but that is a long process!  A last thought about this item, if you run a business it helps if you use it to study stocking, cash registar, and sales before you open up the business.

I will have to try a business away from home and do the life time "own 5 top business" next to see if I can actually pull it off!

One question how do you set your college costs to a higher amount? And do the other things you talk about Darcee? While I am not new to the game, I am new to editing and creating things for it.

[blackvelvet]

So each house hold has one of Monique's and the rest are normal from the game so I do not lose the Freetime functions.

MQ's computer has been updated for FT by modders here.
Chaavik and Alex

[pixiejuice]

One question how do you set your college costs to a higher amount? And do the other things you talk about Darcee? While I am not new to the game, I am new to editing and creating things for it.

As far as I know, no one has made a mod to charge for college costs (though that would be a really cool mod!).  So I use Monique's computer, and you can either donate the money (it just vanishes into space), or my uni has a President who owns all of the campus lots, and through Monique's computer, they can pay their tuition to her so that she can go around building up the campus.

What other things did you want to know about?  There are a ton of different mods and cheats I use for my random events, none of which I made myself  

[Zaleth]

I will download the updated computer tonight! and thanks for what you do for the cost of college I can do that as well! great idea. 

[Avalikia]

There are a ton of different mods and cheats I use for my random events, none of which I made myself  

I'd be absolutely interested in a list when it comes to that.

[pixiejuice]

Well, as this thread isn't TOO old yet, I thought I'd add that I'm trying something new with my hood.  Real-time seasons in each round - each household will be played representing a particular month of the year, so that I can see the seasons progress twice through the year in each round (two-year rounds).  Since my 'hood is so huge, I feel like I've been stuck in the same season forever and I can't wait to get out of fall!  

I don't know if anyone's tried something like this before, but if you want to give it a try in your own neighborhood, I've written up a more detailed post about it in my blog: http://lakesideheights.blogspot.com/2008/07/real-seasons-in-each-round-and-of.html

I also just drew four new random events for the new round I'm playing.

I'd be absolutely interested in a list when it comes to that.

Eeek!  That would take forever!   But I'll tell you about the ones I drew for my most recent round.

- a teenager runs away from home -- I actually have never tried this one before.  I think the relationships just need to be back and then it happens automatically, right?  So I have a fight anytime mod (or something like that) by Squinge (?) which would do the trick.   

- a forced chance card pass! -- testing cheats, the chance card tester thing.

- a deadline to write an article -- Monique's computer has an option to write articles for money.

- DUI! pay a $1000 fine and cannot drive for 10 years! -- I'll use familyfunds for the fine, and as far as not being able to drive, that will just be up to me to enforce.  I'll make a little note by her name on my chart so I remember.

Feel free to ask about any particular events you'd like to know about.