Ghetto Superstar Challenge

[Ellatrue]

Poverty sucks. You start out on your ass, homeless and trying to stay alive and out of the cold. No one to help you out with anything. Then a dead-end job and a horde of screaming children in a tiny, condemned shack--never enough space or money for beds or birth control or food and toys for the kids and nothing left for education, so you learn to do without and manage the chaos. You know money doesn't grow on trees. Can your family prosper? The Poverty Challenge: Ghetto Superstar!

Instructions:
This challenge is competitive. Try to get the highest score.

• STEP ONE: Download and install the 2x1 mini lot from MTS2. It is confirmed to be safe as any other sized lot. I asked Pes. :p

               Get them here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=195469
               Or here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=251798

• STEP TWO: Create a CAS Sim to be the founder of your impoverished family.
• STEP THREE: Move the sim onto the 2x1 mini lot. Spend all of your money on terrain smoothing/groundcovers/tile method until you only have 100 simoleans left. Nightlife+ users can use the FamilyFunds cheat to reduce the net worth from the get-go.
• STEP FOUR: Check- are you down to 100 smackers? Okay. The challenge begins here: survive and thrive as best you can. The challenge ends when the youngest child of your first (CAS) sim becomes a teen.

POINT SYSTEM:
  +1 for every thousand simoleans of the family net worth
  +4 points for each child born
  +10 points for each sim that maxes out all skills
   -4 for accidental deaths (by fire, disease, lightning, etc.)
   -1 for each accidental promotion, including chance card promotion
   -4 points for each child that doesn't reach the age of teen—you lose those child points from raising them if they die or move out.
   -20 for each child taken by the social worker
   -1 for each aspiration failure (when the shrink comes)
  +1 for trashed aesthetics, arbitrarily awarded by me.

RULES:

• ONE CRAPPY JOB. Only one sim may be employed at any time. Only entry level jobs.
• NO MOVING IN SIMS.
• NO REWARD OBJECTS
• NO BOOKCASE. Sims may own a single (non-hacked) book for use by the entire family.
• ONLY ONE SKILLING ITEM PER SKILL. For example, with the creativity skill, this means you may have either one easel OR one instrument OR one computer OR one toddler toy, but never all four. For the cooking skill, you would have to choose between the book, the kid's oven or the TV, etc.
• All children must pick the money aspiration, because they had to grow up without. Grandkids may choose anything.
• No private school unless you "shoot-the-moon." See below for details.
• Sims must have at least 4 scholarships to go to college. Once the sim moves out, they may never return.
• NO BORROWING. Items may not be deleted or returned to the catalog at the same price you bought them- they must depreciate first and lose value.
• NO ADOPTION
• NO DIGGING OR SANDCOMBING
• NO SNAPDRAGON.
• SIMS MUST STAY HUMAN. To be human is to suffer and know death. Vampirism/plantsimism/whatever must be cured immediately.
• Servos are allowed. They do not count as children, since they are made, not born.
• Sims may not purchase real estate, or order/sell deeds with OFB.
• Sims may not run or own a business with OFB. So no home businesses.
• Challenge sims may not be hired as employees by another business. They may not visit owned business lots, purchase or be sold anything by another business.
• Challenge families (for those with Seasons) must be played using ALL FOUR SEASONS. You may arrange the seasons in any order, and you may start in any season, but you MUST have a Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.
• The challenge stays on the challenge lot- if a sim moves out, they are no longer considered part of the challenge. This means a sim may not receive an inheritance, or any money or inventory items from off-lot sims. If a sim does receive an inheritance from an off-lot sim, you must get rid of the money. You may not have other playables give gifts to your sims with the "give gift" interaction, or sell them cheap or depreciated items.
  
• NO INHERITANCE from sims that don't live on the lot. If you get an inheritance, you have to get rid of the money.
• There is no limit to the number of sims you may have on the lot.

RULES FOR COMMUNITY LOTS:
   No skilling on community lots. It's cheaty.
   No way to gain energy- no coffee/cocoa/etc
   No ways to earn money on community lots- no bands, bartending, gambling, pool, etc
   No fishing on community lots, and no gardening
   No objects you normally couldn't add to community lots.
   No activities that would not be possible on community lots without hacks- like getting pregnant.
   
I recommend these poverty challenge lots as being legal for the challenge:

• http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=125890
• NEW! SHINY! NO EP! http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=240257

HEADMASTER SHOOT-THE-MOON SCENARIO:
  +2 points for every child that goes to private school, but ONLY IF:
   all children go to private school
   no child goes to public school for more than one day (or more than once)
   the headmaster always says yes the first time
   all children/teens STAY in private school
   all teenagers must have and keep an A grade.
If you FAIL to shoot the moon:
  -3 points for every kid in private school
  -5 if you fail the headmaster scenario

BONUS MINI CHALLENGES:
  +5 points for never visiting a community lot, EVER
  +5 points for playing the entire game without a phone
  +5 for never eating leftovers or storing food in the inventory
  +15 points for never selling date rewards
  +10 points if the sim never gets a job
  +15 for never selling/deleting anything, ever. If you end up with redundant skilling items, you are screwed, sorry.
  +20 for never selling garden produce

ARCHITECTURE:
+ 5 points if the house has only one level (floor).
+ 10 more points if the house has ONLY ONE ROOM
+ 30 more points if the one room is so big, it has NO WALLS AND NO TOILET (a la EMAIL: -80 points if a sim has an accident!)

PREGNANT TEEN (+15 points)
Use the insiminator or other hack to start the challenge with a pregnant teen sim- but no points for the unborn child. You may not use any other functions of the inteenimator for this challenge--the initial pregnancy is the only exception. Teens may not date/flirt with adults, teens may not "woohoo"/"try for baby", teens may not work adult jobs, and teens must go to school. Required flavor paks: Back 2 school, no adult teens. As with the base game, pregnant sims may not visit community lots once they start showing.

ABOUT HACKS AND CUSTOM CONTENT
Hacks and custom content are allowed, but not if they are against the spirit of the challenge.

Sims may not use/buy items cheaper than the cheapest Maxis/EA item of the same type/function. Custom careers may not pay more than 350/day or have sims work more than 5 days/week (so they can't give more money than the best Maxis career at the same level)

Hacks that streamline gameplay, like JM's macrotastics, are okay. Hacks that make aspects of the game easier or allow the sims do stuff you can't make them do (like spongebathing at the sink without hygiene failure) are not. Hacks to make the game HARDER are fine. If you are uncertain, assume the answer is NO.

Moving out must conform to the rules for move-outs in an unmodified game. Teens and younger may move out with an adult, but not alone. Remember, it's -4 points for moving out a sim younger than teen.[/list]

[Ellatrue]

Special Preg 4 All Rules Subset: Only sims with the same gender as the founder are allowed to breed. Sims may only "try for baby" with ONE sex (not both).
This mini-challenge under consideration.

SPACE SAVER:
Sim houses may only have ONE ROOM, on one level/floor. Objects may never be sold back to the catalog, ever, for any reason. Sims may not keep anything in inventory.

If you are going for the no dating rewards money bonus, dating rewards may be placed in the sim's inventory ONLY at the END of the challenge (along with uneaten fish outside the fridge), so they won't be included in the family net worth. If you end up with duplicate skilling items from dating, you will fail the challenge.

Changes, Feb 6th, 2008
Challenge now requires the 2x1 lot from MTS2.
-1 point for aspiration failure.
Fishing is limited to stock-fridge only.
-10 points for each kid taken by the social worker.
Showers on community lots are now okay.
No skilling exception for the toddler toys.
Points awarded for sims gaining skills.
Clarification of the skilling object rule.
Clarified the teen move out/ child points rule- child points lost if they don't make it to teen.
Clarified community lot rules.
Clarified the rule for servos.
Clarified the no businesses rule.
New, shiny "no borrowing stuff" rule- items must depreciate first.
Added guidelines for custom content.
Added architecture mini bonus challenge.
New rules regarding school and university.
Added a bunch of extra point bonuses, for maxing skills, not visiting community lots, not selling date rewards, unemployment, no telephone, no leftovers.
Added the "headmaster shoot-the-moon" rule subset for private school.
University allowed if sim has at least 4 scholarships.
Deleted all male mini challenge, as it'll never happen and just makes things crazy.

I'm not limiting the challenge to pre-approved community lots for now, but they will be provided. I'll probably require them if I ever put the challenge up on the sims2community site.

A link to my original poverty challenge, off of which this one is based:
http://forums.sims2community.com/showthread.php?t=9383

There's a list of other "approved" lots in my second post of the thread.

[Ellatrue]

Okay guys and guyettes, since this is a draft challenge, I could use feedback on a lot of different things--and maybe a few willing playtesters. 

QUESTIONS:

1) Aspiration: should 1st gen children all have the money aspiration (because they have to grow up without), or a random aspiration determined by rolling a die (thus compatible with a legacy challenge)?

2) Gardening. Sims can make an awful lot of money from the garden. On the other hand, it gives the sims something to do while they are unemployed. So I'm thinking of allowing it, but limiting the number of garden plots to something between, say, 5 and 10, and allowing no more than 2 trees. Too much? Too little? Should gardening products be stock only, and never sold? Or what if I just give a bonus for never selling the produce, and rely on space considerations limiting the number of garden plots?

3) Limiting the challenge to pre-approved, uploaded lots. I've been doing this with the poverty challenge on  which Ghetto Superstar is based, so a number of "pre-approved" lots are already available (except for the shower thing). I did this because it helped to keep the challenge under control, limit the actions that sims were able to do on community lots and try to keep things fair for people with different expansion packs. It also makes the challenge kind of fun in that players were all going to the same places in their stories. For the sake of simplicity, should I keep this rule, or just issue guidelines for community lots?

4) Headmaster scenario- worth keeping?
5) How easy is it to get 4 scholarships following these rules?
6) Does the balance of the bonus points seem fair, and, um, balanced?
7) Should I allow vacations?
What about only allowing child-age sims to dig?
9) banning ponds altogether
10)What about shortening the challenge so it ends with the death of the first sim, instead of the aging of the youngest child?

-------
When this challenge is in its final form, I plan on posting it to the sims 2 community forums, with my previous challenge. You can see the other challenge here: http://forums.sims2community.com/showthread.php?t=9383

[kuronue]

I'd remove the toddler toy exception, and in no way, shape, or form allow mood boosters or smart milk. People can make toddlers that nearly max out skills. Stock-only might be decent, but it's fairly easy to get ALL your food from the land, especially with a pond, thus allowing for no need to refill a fridge ever. I'd ban computers - no promotions, maybe, but you can get a higher up job form the computer without noticing.

[Zazazu]

1) Part of the point of this challenge is to have a lot of sims on a squinchy lot. Should I require downloading the tiny 2x2 or 2x1 lots from MTS2? That way, everyone would have the same, super-squinchy lot, no matter what EP they are playing with. Has anyone experienced any game play issues with those?

I wouldn't require it, for the cc-phobic (freaks). I use 1x2's and 1x1's all the time. The only issue is that if you have carpool and schoolbus coming at the same time, whichever arrives first needs to be filled and sent off ASAP as the other can't appear until it's gone. Also, 2x2's came with one of the EP's. Pets, I think.

3) Reward Objects: stick with categorically banning everything, or only these: counterfeit machine, elixer, candy machine, cow plant, money tree, rejuvenator, all modd boosters, and smart milk?

Ban 'em all. There isn't one reward option that doesn't give a bonus that could be turned into cash, except maybe the stupid sunglasses. And who wants to use those?

4) Aspiration: should 1st gen children all have the money aspiration (because they have to grow up without), or a random aspiration determined by rolling a die (thus compatible with a legacy challenge)?

I say let them do a die-toss or all money. Having the money aspiration for a teen doesn't make that much of a difference, even if they have all "buy X" wants. You can still use the buy/sell back method, or fulfill buy wants that more than one sim has for efficiency.

5) Fishing- stock fridge only?

Yup. And, if it's not already up there, no selling craftables from buy mode or selling from the bench. Heck, I'd say no produce or fishing as more filling food means less paying for delivery.

7) No bookcase (or books), period? Impoverished sims don't have access to resources the rest of us take for granted. Is that too limiting? Or would it simply make the game play that much more interesting and difficult?

It would make mechanical nigh impossible to earn to eliminate the bookcase. Plus, you have to have the money to buy the bookcase first, then get a book out and sell it back. So you still have the restriction of not being able to get those book-skills right away.

Banning adoption. Yes or No? Is this rule worth having, or is it just making the challenge rules that much more complicated?

Yes. Must ban. If you give points for having kids, you have to restrict the methods of doing so. Adoption would be a huge loophole. And since I'm lazy...ban computers, too.

10) No community lot showers? Should it be allowed after all, especially since we are allowed to add showers to community lots with just the base game? Does it make the challenge too hard? This partially ties in with my last question.

Meh. You already "pay" for community lot showers by losing lot time and all the load.

11) Limiting the challenge to pre-approved, uploaded lots. I've been doing this with the poverty challenge on  which Ghetto Superstar is based, so a number of "pre-approved" lots are already available (except for the shower thing). I did this because it helped to keep the challenge under control, limit the actions that sims were able to do on community lots and try to keep things fair for people with different expansion packs. It also makes the challenge kind of fun in that players were all going to the same places in their stories. For the sake of simplicity, should I keep this rule, or just issue guidelines for community lots?

Provide examples, but give guidelines. Many people who aren't even anti-cc are anti-downloaded lots. Me included. I have all of two lots in my game that I didn't make, and that's only because I've been building up three 'hoods at once and I wasn't in the mood to build another restaurant or dorm.

Another option is to eliminate the shower rule, and just make all lots for my poverty challenge legal for this challenge as well.

Please no. No showers is just annoying.

[pbox]

POINT SYSTEM:
+ 1 for every thousand simoleans of the family net worth
(...)
-1 for each accidental promotion, including chance card promotion

Wasn't there a loophole with this? I seem to recall from the Poverty Challenge that with some carreers, getting "accidentially" promoted was worth more than 1.000§ .. if this is so, maybe you should make the penalty -2 points instead?

12. No more than one skilling item allowed per skill. For example, with the creativity skill, this means you may           have either one easel, one instrument, or one computer at a time, but never more than one of each or all three together. Exception: toddler toys.

I have difficulties with the wording of this. Do you mean "never more than one of THEM"? "Never more than one of each" implies that 1+1+1 would be ok.

Regarding custom content, how do you feel about super-cheap custom objects (like extra-comfy beds for 50§) ... don't they provide a rather large inital advantage? Maybe a rule like "all CC objects must be at least as expensive as the cheapest Maxis object with the same functionality" would help in that case?

Also, how about a "no borrowing stuff" rule? (No buying a toilet, using and reselling it) I played the Poverty Challenge with that and it adds *greatly* to the realism of the whole thing.

21. Challenge families must be played using ALL FOUR SEASONS. You may arrange the seasons in any order, and you may start in any season, but you MUST have a Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.

You want the challenge to be playable by all users (regardless of EPs), right? I'd add a "For Seasons users" before this rule then -- right now it sounds as if you could *only* play the challenge if you have Seasons.

BONUS: ALL MALE (+15 points)

Honestly, I think this is unnecessary .. I have no abduction reladed hacks and had *one* abduction so far. I play the game since early 2005. I think this rule says "please do cheat" in big bold letters.

1) Part of the point of this challenge is to have a lot of sims on a squinchy lot. Should I require downloading the tiny 2x2 or 2x1 lots from MTS2? That way, everyone would have the same, super-squinchy lot, no matter what EP they are playing with. Has anyone experienced any game play issues with those?

The 2x1 lot would be great for this -- I use it quite a bit and never had any issues. (You do mean the one that's 2 tiles wide (where wide = the direction parallel to the street), yes? 1 tile wide lots can be problematic (but I guess you knew that))

Re. Zazazu's concerns (CC-phobics): the empty Nx1 lots on the lot expander thread are absolutely safe. I'd see an educational benefit in getting people to understand that mts2 is not the exchange =).

3) Reward Objects: stick with categorically banning everything, or only these: counterfeit machine, elixer, candy machine, cow plant, money tree, rejuvenator, all modd boosters, and smart milk?

I say ban all -- it's simpler.

5) Fishing- stock fridge only?

I vote yes, and same for harvesting. Otherwise, all sims will fish all day which turns the whole thing into a rather boring exercise. (I embrace the one-easel-only rule for the same reason)

6) Gardening. Sims can make an awful lot of money from the garden. On the other hand, it gives the sims something to do while they are unemployed. So I'm thinking of allowing it, but limiting the number of garden plots to something between, say, 5 and 10, and allowing no more than 2 trees. Too much? Too little? Should gardening products be stock only, and never sold?

Stock only I'd say. And then I don't think you need to limit the number of garden plots: 100 plots would only lead to a lot of wasted space and an overflowing fridge .. I've had families survive on 12 or so plots just fine, so there's a natural limit I think.
I would like to be able to garden, in any case -- like you say, it gives the sims something to do, and it looks pretty and very appropriate for this.

7) No bookcase (or books), period? Impoverished sims don't have access to resources the rest of us take for granted. Is that too limiting? Or would it simply make the game play that much more interesting and difficult?

Not too limiting: I have an entire subhood of illiterate sims. One book only sounds good as well.

Banning adoption. Yes or No? Is this rule worth having, or is it just making the challenge rules that much more complicated?

Ban it. Adopting = moving in, which isn't allowed, period.

9) What do you think of banning computers?

Not really necessary (unless perhaps you ban electricity) .. the only real big advantage I see is being able to enter a higher job level, which isn't allowed anyway. And you can write novels, which is essentially the same as painting (only with higher initial costs), and that is allowed. Why would you want to ban them? Am I forgetting something?

10) No community lot showers? Should it be allowed after all, especially since we are allowed to add showers to community lots with just the base game? Does it make the challenge too hard?

Not too hard, no -- I played the first installment of the Poverty Challenge without showers on comm lots (because I didn't know they were available there) and my sim hasn't died, so ..
But I don't really have a strong opinion on this -- for some comm lots (public baths for example) it's very realistic to have showers, so this is not a vote for banning then.

11) Limiting the challenge to pre-approved, uploaded lots.

Nooooo! I want to build my own .. and I won't have the time to build any beforehand and get them approved if you start the challenge any sooner than say end of september. On the other hand, "It also makes the challenge kind of fun in that players were all going to the same places in their stories" -- yes I can see that =) and yes I can imagine it's tedious to keep watch over everyone's custom comm lots to make sure they're in line with the rules. So, I guess the advantages are more important than a few people whining about it.

5) Fishing- stock fridge only?

Yup. And, if it's not already up there, no selling craftables from buy mode or selling from the bench.

Seconded.

ETA: Oh, and .. what about Servos? Are they allowed? I never had one, but they're more or less like additional sims aren't they? So if your starter sim never has children but builds servos instead, the challenge would go on forever? (This is pure guesswork, I've no idea how they work / if they can build more servos, but just in case ..)


I wish I could playtest this, but .. gotta get work done.

[msalwaysright]

I finally got in-yea!

I've had the day off and my husband has taken my stepson and his wife, who are visiting from St. Louis, to visit more family in NC.
So, I played this challange all day.

Usually I cheat a lot-I like to build so, I start out with several motherlode cheats just to get my lot the way I want it. But I really want to try this, so I restrained myself, which was not easy. Also, I didn't read the rules thoroughly enough, and started out with too many advantages, so my first sim had to be abandoned.

I considered just removing the skills and relationships she had acquired and restarting with her.
Mainly because I had named her Banoobies Brokeass and it made me laugh every time I saw it pop up. But, I figured a clean slate would be best, so I left her lot and started anew.

On sim day two of my 2nd try, I accidentally killed my test subject, Rayenella Rednecke-I posted my results at the exchangehttp://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=179690(I am too lazy to set up a site or blog, so, yeah, the exchange).

I've started again with a new CAS sim,Plum Busted, with all specs as they should be this time. It was still tough going, but much better. She's been fired three times for poor performance, but since I realized I could buy a phone(go me), I was able to send her to approved community lots and get her mood up enough to find replacement jobs each time.

I have a question, though. I stupidly started in PlasticBox's Baskerville 'hood, which has a totally clean template-leaving me with no townies. I had played the neighborhood with another family and sent a teen off to uni, so I have Dormies. And I attached Bluewater just to get townies, but for some reason, all my townies are young adult and so are my NPC's. The mailmen, delivery people, store clerks.

I have managed to get Plum into a photo booth and she's pregnant by Malcolm Landgrabbe (the younger-I don't remember his roman numerals)
Would I be disqualifying myself if I let her marry him?
I'm halfway through Fall and I'd like to get a roof over her head before winter hits.

Nevermind:

10. NO MOVING IN SIMS. Sims may only join the family by being born into it.

I guess that means no marriage.  Dang this is hard!

[pbox]

OK, curiousity got the better of me and I gave this a try on the weekend .. did I say "get work done"? *ahem*

I'm at the end of week 2 by now, my founder has had one child so far that will turn into a toddler soon. Her current posessions are a double bed, toilet, bathtub, sink, fridge, and the coffee table and phone that she bought at the beginning. It's the first or second day of Fall though, so I'm not sure what will happen once it gets cold .. she has about 200§ at the moment, not nearly enough to build even a tiny shack (I'll probably have to sort-of-cheat and use foundation walls to build one). Right now they still live on the lawn, their only weather protection is a roof supported by 2 pieces of wall.

I was lucky in two respects: the first job offered on day 1 was Security Guard (the best-paying level 1 job that's safe from promotion), and the first born child is a girl.

The biggest problems so far were the heat, and the fact that sims can't sleep in the same room (i.e. outside) with a baby on the floor that's awake 

I left all my hacks installed but I think overall my game is harder, not easier, than the default. Namely:

* Harder relationships (AlexxSomethingorother @ mts2) and the romancemod: it took until Saturday of week 1 for my poor founder to be able to WooHoo someone (and that was a guy she'd met on the first or second day)

* Hide Try For Baby + sound off

* Community Time Project: she really only has 24 hours in the day

* A temperature fix by JMP (not sure what it's called): my founder almost died of heatstroke a couple of times (note to self: buying a bathtub in the middle of summer is a very, very stupid idea), without this I guess she would have exploded in a BFBVFS

* Sleep On Floor: makes it more comfortable to do so (but this only affects teens and up, also the bed was the first thing she bought so the advantage was minimal)

* I'm not sure if it is normally possible to stick community lot hot dogs into your inventory or if it only worked because of a hack I have .. that's what my sim did, in any case, in order to put off the purchase of a fridge (plus lots of dates and outings to keep her needs up).

I've a lot more hacks than that, but off the top of my head I think these are the ones that made a difference so far. I'm running Seasons p2, so I do have crybabies.

Also, I did not borrow (buy-use-sell) anything.

For comm lots I used the public bath and playground from Baskerville (mts2) -- not officially approved but I think they should be compliant .. except perhaps that the bath has showers, which my sim did use.


Regarding promotions: only 4 out of 15 maxis carreers are safe from promotion on level one, which in my eyes makes things a little bit dull? (namely adventurer, athlethic, security (1 body point each), and business (1 charisma)). For sloppy sims, science and medicine might work as well since they require cleaning points .. still, that's only 6 carreers out of 15, not a lot of variety.  Perhaps the entry-level-jobs-only rule could be extended to second or third level? That way, sims could take on a lot more different jobs without having to worry about getting promoted accidentially.

For the founder, we can choose whatever aspiration we want, right? Mine is Pleasure for the record (Neat 0, Outgoing 10, Active 0, Playful 10, Nice 5).

I'll play some more tonight, will let you know how it goes!


Also,

I stupidly started in PlasticBox's Baskerville 'hood, which has a totally clean template-leaving me with no townies.

That is odd -- the game *should* autogenerate townies for you if you start with an empty hood. Not sure what's up with the YAs you're getting as I don't have Uni, but I playtested Baskerville a few times and got more than enough townies ..  are you sure you don't have notownieregen and/or a custom template installed?

[msalwaysright]

are you sure you don't have notownieregen and/or a custom template installed?

You're exactly right & thank you. The only time I played B-ville previous to this challenge, I was playing Uni.
That combined with notownieregen would explain it, wouldn't it?

Baskerville is so suited to this challenge, that rather than start over, I fixed  my abundance of YA's by exiting the challenge lot and aging several townies to adult. I don't feel that in this case it's cheating, since normally I would have gotten adult townies.

Perhaps the entry-level-jobs-only rule could be extended to second or third level? That way, sims could take on a lot more different jobs without having to worry about getting promoted accidentally.

I agree. I've been accidentally promoted due to chance cards two times now. Once on my second startover and again with my current try. Neither sim had any skills and their motives were  really low. I don't think I have any hacks that give easier promotions.

For comm lots I used the public bath and playground from Baskerville (mts2) -- not officially approved but I think they should be compliant .. except perhaps that the bath has showers, which my sim did use.

I've also been using the showers on the approved lots. If it's ultimately decided that that's cheating, I'll take the penalty. It's worth it.

I'm extremely worried about winter, though, with no marriage allowed, at her current income, It's going to take several weeks to get her under some shelter.

[kuronue]

I just realized: you HAVE to start this challenge with a female. Is that intentional?

[eevilcat]

I'm trying this for a break from my Alphabet Challenge and it is certainly NOT easy! I've had several exits without saving due to disasters. I've got seasons and you definitely want to begin with Spring leading into Summer, Autumn, Winter. The game for some reason defaults to Autumn as the first season and I can't see how you'd possibly get enough house built in time. I'm using the Pleasentview 'hood as that has been unplayed to date and still has the townies from the original install. I made Brittany Ghetto, a CAS romance sim, and dumped her in a 3x1 lot. She hooked up with Daniel Pleasant on day 1. She was also very lucky with jobs, science on day 1, military day 2 with a quick shuffle to law enforcement that evening. I saved the game at the point she was pregnant by Daniel, about halfway through her third trimester.
So far:

• In this first run my poor little sim froze solid while the social worker arrived to pick up a well-chilled toddler so I swapped the seasons round to begin with Spring.
• In the second run my sim produced twins thanks to Daniel Pleasant. Damn sadorandomness! She simply couldn't cope as she couldn't afford decent furniture to replenish needs. I exited just as grimmie was about to put in an appearance.
• On the third run I cocked up by having her try for baby a day too soon as I'm working on the principle that you get her into permanent maternity leave as soon as possible. As with the twins scenario I couldn't keep up with the needs.
• The fourth attempt is ongoing and she has a toddler (female) with Daniel and has since got her claws into Goopy and is attempting pregnancy no2 with 2 days remaining of maternity leave and well-timed day off in hand. It was almost disaster with a direct lightning strike on the fridge but fortunately the rain put it out.

So far so good. I've still got my hacks in place but I don't think I have any that make things much easier, except the no friends for promotion which, of course, won't affect my sim who's lacking the magic body point to go up. I also don't use macrotastics as I prefer a much more hands-on approach to playing.
I'm assuming that fishing would make it too easy so I've not got a pond but like the idea of a limited garden. Perhaps max 6 plots and no greenhouse. I'm not sure how much ponds cost to build, if it's expensive then it might be a fair addition, but not an initial build item.  I'm also avoiding smart milk but will go with one of each toddler toy. Books are cheap, electronics are expensive so I'd ban computers/TVs and stick with the one book option. I'd allow a table top radio, but not a stereo.

[J. M. Pescado]

Computers are not expensive. Clearly, if a welfare whale like Kewian can afford a computer, anyone can afford a computer.

[pbox]

Playtested some more; my founder sim is an elder by now. I'm finding this a great improvement over the Poverty Challenge, mainly because of the one easel limit and no moving in rule (my Poverty Challenge was basicallly a painting factory .. I never finished it because it got too boring).

Luckily the first fall was very mild and my sims could put off building a house until winter .. they managed to afford a windowless 4x5 shack by that time, not pretty but I couldn't find any way to warm up the toddler and baby except putting them inside (I too had to exit w/o saving due to frozen kids before that). Meanwhile they have an actual small house -- very empty inside (they still sleep in shifts and are on a gelatin diet), but it has a proper livingroom, bathroom and bedroom and they can finally lock the visitors out from bothering the kids.

Raising the kids only worked the brute force way: lock them into a room and let them scream. Otherwise my founder might very well have died from lack of sleep.

5 garden plots have been enough for my family so far (currently 5 sims: one elder, two teens, a child and a toddler -- I actually wanted her to have 5 kids but messed up the timing a bit); I guess sims eat more the older they get, but now that there's teens in the house who can babysit, someone can always go fishing.

Net family worth is currently 7.166§, accumulated from one security guard job (or rather an endless maternity leave), salvaging the trash, selling paintings, and a lemonade stand. They are completely obsessed with that lemonade stand, everyone's harbouring a fear that someone might smash it and they have wants to sell lemonade every day .. (btw I discovered that adults can use it as well! I always thought it's only for children .. live and learn =).

I guess one of the most important things in this challenge will be to pop out kid 1 as soon as you can and hope for a girl .. if the last child is born just before the founder turns elder, the first one will be able to produce a few grandkids by the time the last one hits teen. I don't think I'll manage that =( my firstborn simply arrived too late.

[eevilcat]

I have almost finished this. My CAS sim has had 5 children and her eldest child has gone on to produce 2 grandchildren. The youngest will automatically age to a teen next evening. The lot value is currently 9,624 (looking in buy/build mode) and the family have 2,118 cash to their name.

1) Part of the point of this challenge is to have a lot of sims on a squinchy lot. Should I require downloading the tiny 2x2 or 2x1 lots from MTS2? That way, everyone would have the same, super-squinchy lot, no matter what EP they are playing with. Has anyone experienced any game play issues with those?

I played on the smallest available 3x1 lot where there was plenty space for the final house and a pond. Please don't limit it to pre-approved downloaded lots.

2) Toddler toy exception? Should it be left in, or eliminated? Should toddler toys count towards the limit for skilling objects (so that, for example, you can't have both an easel and a xylophone toy at the same time)?

I'm actually with the idea of counting them in with other skilling objects, I got by with one Mr Wabbit for increasing charisma. I also had a chess table for logic and easel for creativity.

3) Reward Objects: stick with categorically banning everything, or only these: counterfeit machine, elixer, candy machine, cow plant, money tree, rejuvenator, all modd boosters, and smart milk?

Definitely ban all reward objects. Alternatively you could selectively make them available based perhaps upon sims maxing out individual skills. I had one artist who maxed out creativity, nobody else had more than 5-6 points in any skill though admittedly I wasn't trying that hard.

4) Aspiration: should 1st gen children all have the money aspiration (because they have to grow up without), or a random aspiration determined by rolling a die (thus compatible with a legacy challenge)?

No, I didn't play that and went with the sadorandomness of rolling a di to determine aspiration. Of the teens so far I got 2 family, 1 romance and 1 pleasure.

5) Fishing- stock fridge only?

Definitely yes, once you get a few family members fishing you never need to order groceries again. Interestingly I came across something with this and I'm not sure if it's a bug... I got the wornable fridge and it's stock level is zero but it's happily continuing to produce bottles of milk for the babies/toddlers. Is this a bug? Or by design? I always thought milk cost money too. I've been cooking all the fish on the cheapest barbecue so haven't been doing any serve interactions with the fridge.

6) Gardening. Sims can make an awful lot of money from the garden. On the other hand, it gives the sims something to do while they are unemployed. So I'm thinking of allowing it, but limiting the number of garden plots to something between, say, 5 and 10, and allowing no more than 2 trees. Too much? Too little? Should gardening products be stock only, and never sold?

I didn't bother with a garden, but based upon previous gardening experience I think no greenhouses should be a rule and a limit of 8 plots would seem reasonable. Stock only.

7) No bookcase (or books), period? Impoverished sims don't have access to resources the rest of us take for granted. Is that too limiting? Or would it simply make the game play that much more interesting and difficult?

One book worked just fine. I'm happy as long as teens have a couple of points cooking so as to limit the incendiary effects of their first cooking attempt.

8 ) Banning adoption. Yes or No? Is this rule worth having, or is it just making the challenge rules that much more complicated?

Definitely ban it. I'm not sure if it's what you intended, but in my view the main intention of this challenge is to raise the largest, happiest family possible despite having no resources to begin with. Adoption would make it far too easy and would come too late, given the requisite 3,000 simolean family funds. The fact the breadwinning sim is pregnant about half her adult life makes the challenge much harder and fits in with the dirt poor theme.

9) What do you think of banning computers?

Definitely. Books cost pence (cents) from charity bookshops/boot sales whereas computers cost pounds (dollars) so we are looking at a factor of a 100 or even more in price.

10) No community lot showers? Should it be allowed after all, especially since we are allowed to add showers to community lots with just the base game? Does it make the challenge too hard? This partially ties in with my last question.

I never bother going to the community lot. My sims are happy to accost passing strangers and bring friends back from work/school. A shower was one of my first major purchases as I figured my sim could always wash after her episodes of incontinence, but the hassle of getting to/from a community lot probably balances out the benefit of having a shower there.

11) Limiting the challenge to pre-approved, uploaded lots. I've been doing this with the poverty challenge on  which Ghetto Superstar is based, so a number of "pre-approved" lots are already available (except for the shower thing). I did this because it helped to keep the challenge under control, limit the actions that sims were able to do on community lots and try to keep things fair for people with different expansion packs. It also makes the challenge kind of fun in that players were all going to the same places in their stories. For the sake of simplicity, should I keep this rule, or just issue guidelines for community lots?

I'd say no, but then again I don't bother with community lots so it doesn't affect my gameplay.

Other comments
I've got a major problem with the scoring, specifically the +4 points for each child (points awarded on aging to teen) as this means there is absolutely no point in going onto have grandchildren as they will never reach teenager before the youngest 1st gen does. I only realised this once I had reread the rules. It would make sense to automatically score +4 points on the birth of grandchildren, or for each one at the close of the challenge.

It might be worth scoring +1 for growing up well and say -2 for growing up badly.

My previous comment about season order definitely holds - start with Spring and go through them in normal order otherwise you're unlilkely to have a roof over their heads come winter.

All in all this was a fun little challenge and a nice filler in for a break from Alphabet Legacy. Thanks.

EDIT: I've stuck it up on the exachange. http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/story_detail.php?asset_id=180272

[pbox]

I've got a major problem with the scoring, specifically the +4 points for each child (points awarded on aging to teen) as this means there is absolutely no point in going onto have grandchildren

Um, seconded. Guess I should re-read rules more often =)

Why exactly is it that you only want to award the points when they age to teen? If kids can't move out before that, it's already ensured that they stay on the lot until then .. or am I missing something?

[jolrei]

STEP ONE: Create a CAS Sim to be the founder of your impoverished family.
...The challenge ends when the youngest child of your first (CAS) sim becomes a teen.

This implies that there will be births.  Good so far.

RULES: ENTRY LEVEL JOBS ONLY.

OK, but why bother with skilling then?  Refuse promotions - how?  If they skill and make friends, they get promoted.  Is this OK?

9. NO ADOPTION
10. NO MOVING IN SIMS. Sims may only join the family by being born into it.

You start with one CAS sim.  You can only join family by being born in.  You can't move in anyone?  Not even a spouse?  In that case, unless you specify that your founder must be a female Sim, you are not going to get spawn without cheating.  Are they allowed to move in/marry another sim to get spawn (provided they aren't employed, don't bring in money, etc.)?

Other comments:

Banning Adoption:  not sure why this would be necessary.  Do kids come with money?  If it's just for realism (i.e. normally poverty stricken people aren't allowed to adopt, can't afford it, etc.) then OK.

Banning promotion:  Not sure how to restrict this unless you avoid skilling at all.  In that case, forget any skilling objects, etc. except the book (may as well let the blighters learn to cook so they don't burn down the place).

Ban computer:  At the start, yes.  They should not start with a computer.  However, if you're looking to have a challenge in which the Sim gets out of poverty (original rules give points for each 1000 simoleans) they may be able to afford one as they go along.  In that case, they might also be able to afford skilling objects, gain skills, and get promotions.

There is an inherent contradiction in this draft of the challenge - not allowed to get promotions, but allowed to have skilling objects.  Not allowed to act rich, but allowed to earn money (points gained for simoleans).  If no points for any sort of "success" of your founder (i.e. getting richer, getting out of poverty, getting promoted, etc.) what is the point of the challenge?

My suggestions: 
1. Start with a house with 2 bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and living/dining combination.  Basic fixtures in bath.  1 counter, cheapest fridge and a cheap barbecue in the back yard (no stove, microwave, toaster oven, etc.)

2. They can have a phone, and a book.  No bed, no chairs, no tables, no other skill building items, nothing.

3. Only move in is for marriage (not necessary if your founder is female - she can get spawn without marriage.  Male sims would need a spouse to ensure spawn is part of the family).  No move outs, not even teens (unless they run away).  I think if you rely on alien abduction without some cheat for a male CAS, a level of high improbability of completing the challenge is introduced, especially if skill items (like telescope) are disallowed (and if they're poor, they should be disallowed).

4. Only one sim employed at a time, founder must start with 0 skills and only 100 simoleans.

5. Allow promotions and skilling normally (if they have no skill objects, apart from a book, this could take a long time, but even poor people who gain skills and make friends can get promoted, work out of poverty, etc.)

6. They have to earn and/or buy everything.  This means they can buy baby toys, or anything they like, as long as they can afford it.  This will be difficult since no woohoo will be possible until they can afford a bed, and no spawn will be feasible until they can afford a place to keep a baby (i.e. crib).  No bed is possible until they earn some money/get a job.  No promotions possible without skills which will be hard to get at entry level wages.

7. Ban all reward objects, not that they're likely to get many anyway.

8. Don't understand the question or issue regarding community lot showers.  Not sure this is an issue, if they are allowed to have a bathroom at home.  If they are allowed only an empty house (i.e. no fixtures at all) then I would allow comm lot showers.  If they have a shower at home (cheap one), ban the comm lot showers, sure.

[Zazazu]

Banning Adoption:  not sure why this would be necessary.  Do kids come with money?  If it's just for realism (i.e. normally poverty stricken people aren't allowed to adopt, can't afford it, etc.) then OK.

The issue is that adoption removes two criteria: getting to a love stage with another sim, and the trials and tribulations of pregnancy with no or ineffective comfort/energy objects. Also, you can adopt children. This shortens the raising time, making it possible to cram more kids in a lifetime, plus the amount of "work" each child takes. Restricting to babies keeps the raising time and "work" but still removes the need for making a relationship and pregnancy woes.

There is an inherent contradiction in this draft of the challenge - not allowed to get promotions, but allowed to have skilling objects.  Not allowed to act rich, but allowed to earn money (points gained for simoleans).  If no points for any sort of "success" of your founder (i.e. getting richer, getting out of poverty, getting promoted, etc.) what is the point of the challenge?

Totally agreed. I understand keeping the sim at the entry level (or maybe a glass ceiling of level 2/3, since generally they still make crap money at that stage). Eventually they'll have money, but not much. Entry level jobs bring in approx. $200/day, 6 days a week. In a sim's adult lifetime, we're talking $4,800. Now, if you give them an easel as their creativity tool and they are selling the paintings...well. That would at least double it. Maybe no selling paintings? Was that in there?

My suggestions: 
3. Only move in is for marriage (not necessary if your founder is female - she can get spawn without marriage.  Male sims would need a spouse to ensure spawn is part of the family).  No move outs, not even teens (unless they run away).  I think if you rely on alien abduction without some cheat for a male CAS, a level of high improbability of completing the challenge is introduced, especially if skill items (like telescope) are disallowed (and if they're poor, they should be disallowed).[/quote]Sounds good to me. I hate that you can only start with a female, even though I generally do start my single households with women. But if you marry in, their moneys they bring should be negated, and no job for them.

5. Allow promotions and skilling normally (if they have no skill objects, apart from a book, this could take a long time, but even poor people who gain skills and make friends can get promoted, work out of poverty, etc.)

And this, I think, is where we need a clarification on the goal of the challenge. Is it to see how many kids you can successfully raise while living on almost nothing, or is it to raise yourself above your beginnings. I read it as the former.

8. Don't understand the question or issue regarding community lot showers.  Not sure this is an issue, if they are allowed to have a bathroom at home.  If they are allowed only an empty house (i.e. no fixtures at all) then I would allow comm lot showers.  If they have a shower at home (cheap one), ban the comm lot showers, sure.

Because they have to afford the shower, and hygiene desperation is one of the most annoying and one that isn't "taken care of" at work. It's also a possible turn-off for mates.

[eevilcat]

Although I played out the challenge starting with a female CAS sim, I don't see why you should't be able to it with a male using TJ's pregnancy for all mod. The only restriction I would put there is no bi female founders. They should choose to be straight or gay, otherwise you're doubling the potential breeding partners.

I found it easy to avoid promotion by choosing a job with a skill level requirement and avoiding getting that skill. Perhaps if your sim gets promoted you should be forced to automatically get a different job. After all they shouldn't be 'getting ideas above their station.'  Kids with skill points may get the occasional prize/award from school which is in fact not covered in the rules, but I assumed it was ok as it probably only amounted to 500 simoleans over the whole challenge.

My take on the challenge is that you're trying to raise a family from literally nothing as the bulk of the scoring is based around family oriented success/failure. The net worth is a secondary and really reflects how well you did at providing for the family. At the end of my test I had 20 points for kids and 13 points for net worth (or 12 points if I was meant to round down). I didn't score any negatives but then my gameplay style often revolves around coping with large families, quads don't even faze me anymore!

[jolrei]

And this, I think, is where we need a clarification on the goal of the challenge. Is it to see how many kids you can successfully raise while living on almost nothing, or is it to raise yourself above your beginnings. I read it as the former.

OK, then I would definitely ban adoption and promotion, but by the same token, ban any skilling items (i.e. telescopes, pianos, easels, workout machines, etc.) that poverty stricken sims would not be able to afford anyway.  This would allow them to focus on their inevitable aspiration failures and the need to raise their kids.

I still like the idea of allowing marriage in, with the restriction that you have to negate any funds the spouse brings in.  Shouldn't hurt if only one sim can be employed at any one time.  In fact, it would add to the challenge as the founder would have to support a spouse and any spawnlings.

[Re: why ban showers at comm lots?]Because they have to afford the shower, and hygiene desperation is one of the most annoying and one that isn't "taken care of" at work. It's also a possible turn-off for mates.

OK I can see banning the showers then.  In that case, I would advocate for totally unfurnished house (they have to be able to afford everything including beds and chairs before they get it), including no bathroom fixtures.  They could sponge bath in the sink at a comm lot (do they do this ever?).  I understand that they will pee in the bushes (is this true?) if there is no terlet around.  On the other hand, it has to remain at least remotely possible that they can find a mate to get spawn.

[pbox]

1. Start with a house with 2 bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and living/dining combination.  Basic fixtures in bath.  1 counter, cheapest fridge and a cheap barbecue in the back yard

(..)

3. Only move in is for marriage

(..)

5. Allow promotions and skilling normally

6. (..) they can buy baby toys, or anything they like, as long as they can afford it

Where exactly would be the challenge in that?

[kuronue]

I've got a major problem with the scoring, specifically the +4 points for each child (points awarded on aging to teen) as this means there is absolutely no point in going onto have grandchildren

Um, seconded. Guess I should re-read rules more often =)

Why exactly is it that you only want to award the points when they age to teen? If kids can't move out before that, it's already ensured that they stay on the lot until then .. or am I missing something?

If the points were awarded at birth, you could have a bunch of kids, let the social worker take them away, and keep farming kids for points.

[pbox]

In principle yes, but:

-5 for each child taken by the social worker

.. not sure if that would be a good strategy 

[msalwaysright]

I am phail. But, shall press on.
 I had to start over yet again, because I had in a no freeze or combust ever hack that I didn't remember. Plum Busted had given
birth to twins when winter hit and totally buried the twins in snow .
They're each apparently blaming the other for this indignity.

But nobody died and no social worker came-so, I enjoyed the hilarity of the scene for a minute or two, then I quit the game, removed some hacks, and started over.

I'm on day three with this new attempt and she has yet to get pregnant as I can't seem to get her sufficiently attracted to anyone or vice-versa. I gave her the romance aspiration, but everyone gags at the sight of her-I've never seen that with a romance sim. It can't be the hygiene issue-all other attemptsl had that.

Also, I wasn't sure it there was a CC rule.
Some of the items I'd like to use in order to give the lot a grungy feel, are much cheaper than the Maxis item in the same category.
For instance, at the end of the sofa, in the pic, I used a cooler that was cloned on the refrigerator. All the options and were the same, but it was cheaper.
Any time I did this, I went into build mode and 'terrained' away enough simoleans to make up the cost difference.

[J. M. Pescado]

Romance sims, interestingly, have the shittiest aspirational chemistry compatibility of any other sim. Especially with family sims, which is odd, given how many family/romance pairings that the game ships with...

[pbox]

msalwaysright, thanks for that screenshot it's funny and it made me realise that I've never seen Baskerville in the snow before!


I'm sort of done -- I think so at least: there's one exploit, not sure if that's intentional, in that the youngest kid won't age transition if s/he's asleep (or sitting/lying down?) at 18:00 -- and the rules say "when the youngest child of your first (CAS) sim becomes a teen" I'm currently on the next day 18:30 and still no age transition. I think this is the same phenomenon as with the elders: if they're sitting/lying on every full hour, they won't die. If the kid in question has an A+ on the day they should be transitioning, they can miss school for 3 or 4 days I think? plus a weekend means the timespan can be extended by 5 or 6 days, perhaps more if there's a way to extend the baby/toddler stage in the same fashion. That's what I was about to do, but it felt a little bit cheaty .. and it wouldn't have worked for me anyway because the kid had missed school before and only had a B or something to start with.

Anyhow. As of day 44 (one day past the scheduled age transition), my score is 23 (rounded down) for net value (23.401§) plus 16 for the four kids my founder had -> 39 points (plus possibly 4 extra points for the one grandchild I managed to squeeze in, if it's decided that they do count).

Pretty pictures:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d124/pbox/gstarchallenge/phase01.jpg
This pretty much sums up Phase One .. my founder almost died of the heat. Life's not easy in Seasons with no house and a dumbass user who buys a bathtub in the middle of summer 

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d124/pbox/gstarchallenge/07.jpg
Not sure what those aspiration points are for .. probably not for cleaning the toilet she just puked in while standing knee deep in weeds?

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d124/pbox/gstarchallenge/phase02.jpg
Phase Two: House! This basically just serves to keep the screaming kids locked away (and at room temperature) -- the founder and her firstborn are still sleeping outdoors .. nice and quiet =)

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d124/pbox/gstarchallenge/17.jpg
Phase Twoandahalf: more house. I kept the bathtub outside to avoid privacy issues .. funny how they won't undress in front of their little sister, but with the rest of the neigbourhood they've got no such problem

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d124/pbox/gstarchallenge/phase03.jpg
Phase Three
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d124/pbox/gstarchallenge/22.jpg
Inside view (upstairs are just three more beds and an extra bathroom). I only added the counter on one of the last days to get rid of the fish they had caught the summer before .. up to then, they were still on gelatin diet. The easel was in use pretty much 24/7 and provided most of their income; I guess the income from the lemonade stand also adds up over time. This is on the afternoon of day 43, the youngest kid is asleep upstairs.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d124/pbox/gstarchallenge/20.jpg
Crappiest date gift ever.

Rest of the album here:
http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d124/pbox/gstarchallenge/?action=view&current=01.jpg
but be warned that it's backwards (i.e. press Back, not Next) .. they less-than-enamoured looking guy on picture 05 will be the father of three of her children 


Questions/Suggestions:

Does being retired count as "being employed" or not? I had the oldest child get a job maternity leave when my founder finally used up her vacation days and retired .. is that supposed to be OK?

I used no books at all since skills are pretty much worthless in this challenge .. however, I think it would be a good idea to incorporate them somehow (say, award points for every maxed skill) because otherwise, once 2 or 3 sims have maxed out creativity there's not much for the others to do .. I had the founder (zero neatness) salvage the trash in her spare time, the two oldest kids painted, and one of the others manned the lemonade stand -- leaves at least one sim with nothing to do.

Regarding adoption, in order to minimise the rules (I guess the fewer rules, the better?), perhaps the children points should be given for each child *born* on the lot instead of "each child"? Then adoption wouldn't need to be ruled out -- players who want to adopt can do so, but it doesn't give you a direct advantage in terms of score.