Ghetto Superstar Challenge

[cenoura]

I've just completed this challenge tonight, it ended when my CAS sim was ~62 days old. While it wasn't easy, it was certianly a nice break from my usual simming, and I'll now be rewarding my poor sim with the marriage she's wanted since setting foot in her new lot!

Jobs. My sim started in the law enforcement track, eventually got fired, landed a job in the politics track, got fired and managed to go back to the law enforcement again. She seemed to have trouble with "Try for Baby", so pregnancies weren't as planned as they should've been, resulting in getting the sack when she refused to go to work to look after the toddlers. The income gave us ~£300 per day, less a couple of days where she refused getting a new job.

Skills. I didn't pay too much attention to skills but there was an easel for extra income and, in the end, a mirror purely because I hated my five female sims all sporting the same hairstyle. I think had there been more incentive to work on skills I would have done, however bad moods were rife in the beginning days. Overview of skils earned, bearing in mind that I didn't even try:

Brittany (CAS sim): 1/1/0/0/0/9/2 (co/me/ch/bo/lo/cr/cl)
Belle (1st born, became adult on last day): 1/1/0/0/0/2/2
Beth (2nd born, ended as a teen): No skills
Bobbi (3rd born, became teen on last day): 0/0/0/0/0/1/2
Brandi( 4th born, became teen on last day): 0/0/0/0/0/0/1 

It's worth noting that they picked up a lot of cleaning points from mopping up puddles off of the bare floor, which you can't direct them to do in game (I think my founder, to my mistake, was a neat 8 sim)

Family. My Sim headed downtown everynight, sometimes having dates to improve motives, often stealing food Ethiopian style until she met a nice young man. It took her a long time to get pregnant the first time, I think she was already half way through her adult life. She had four girls in total, the last couple being *OMG!TWINZ!!!11*. Looking after her while pregnant was a pain in the ass, but by that time she had brought a fridge. The next major expense was some wall and a toilet, a shower then being the next purchase. By the time the twins were born she had a one room shack in which the toilet, TV and cots were kept. (It's worth noting that I don't have Seasons, and I figure the EP would have really had a effect on my playing of this challenge). There was one fire through-out the challenge, caused by a Sim who had never seen a cooker before trying to cook pancakes the first morning they had a stove.

Points. By my reckoning, I have 21 points: 5pts (£5155 Net Value) + 4x4 pts for four children all reaching teen. I had no teen run-aways, and out of the 13 age transitions I only had two that had "Grew up badly" memories. There were two instances of A+ report cards and one instance of Aspirational Failure. I even had one fight brought on by two rival siblings making full use of the newly installed fight club. It was fun.

I think that's about it. I found this challenge a refreshing change, and the first that has actually challenged me.

[notveryawesome]

I haven't actually installed Seasons yet, so I don't know if this is even possible, but couldn't the founder just catch fish and harvest produce on a community lot that contains a pond and fruit-trees or crops, thus eliminating the need to build a pond or buy trees/crops on the sim's property? In theory, you could just send your sim to a community lot that has a pond or trees/crops, a photobooth, a grill, a toilet and shower, and some sort of caffeination station, park her there indefinitely, and have her eat, caffeinate, and procreate whilst catching fish and harvesting produce (and I presume storing these things in inventory). With Dizzy's community time hack, her pregnancy would, I assume, progress as normal, even on a community lot. Perhaps you should add a rule to restrict such behaviour, as it would make things way too easy.

To me, the community lot mooching is actually quite realistic for a ghetto theme, since most inner-city residences wouldn't have ponds and gardens. Just a thought.

I also wanted to mention that the 'primp' and 'gussy up' interactions boost hygiene by small amounts, so if you get desperate, you can always order your sims to primp many, many times. Primping is free, after all.

[Ellatrue]

That's supposed to be covered in the rules. They aren't allowed to caffeinate, procreate (since this is only possible with a hack, and therefore cheating), fish or earn money on community lots. They also shouldn't be able to add things to their inventory on a community lot. The gardening is definitely a loophole I hadn't thought of, though, since it wouldn't be a problem on pre-made lots and it didn't occur to me that you could do that.

[Kyna]

On the subject of community garden lots:

I live in a suburb where there is a lot of government housing, which is mostly occupied by welfare recipients and people on low incomes.  There is a community garden project in the suburb, where locals can go and grow vegetables if they want, and learn from others at the project how to garden.

If the time factor was accounted for (either by meditating for the duration of the absence when the sim gets home, or by using Dizzy's community time hack) then where would be the problem of a community garden?  They occur in real life in low income areas, so why not in the game?

[eevilcat]

We have those in the UK as well, but they are called allotments. The origins are somewhere back in the 19th century and were then driven by the move away from the countryside to city/town living. Most modern allotments can be traced back to the two world wars where people were encouraged to grow their own food as part of the war effort. Nowadays allotments have become a very middle class preserve and are extremely popular; some have 10 year waiting lists. I was lucky and got one a couple of years ago so am now in the middle of the usual courgette (zucchini) glut.

Back to the challenge... Seasons' gardening/fishing does make it much easier but I think this is balanced out by the weather effects that force house construction to be priority number one. I would ban crops from community lots, ponds are so low cost it doesn't really matter. Thinking about it, can you even plant crops on a community lot? I imagine you could do it on an owned lot and you can definitely do it on a home business as Pescado produced a fix so that the lot owner gets the produce.

[Ellatrue]

I think someone could play a residential lot until the crops are ready for harvest, then kill the farmer sim and use changelotzoning to make it a pick-your-own kind of place, so that sims visiting the lot could harvest the crops right away. Otherwise you are running into the time (or at any rate, annoyance) limit for challenge sims to stay on community lots past the point at which their energy meter is empty.

[Zazazu]

Thinking about it, can you even plant crops on a community lot?

Yes. Urban Paradise has two 1x1 community gardens I set up. You have to have a sim own it. Then you visit the lot and direct them to plant. Then activate boolprop and pause. Shift-click on plants and choose "Make Harvestable". Queue up a bunch of them. Then quickly unpause/pause and repeat. This makes everything tasty and bug-free. Now, as soon as everything is harvestable you need to high-tail it off the lot before bugs set in (unless you built a greenhouse...mine are open-air). Then sell the lot back to the community. Now visitors can come and harvest the top-quality crops for free.

I haven't done that with my challenge, though, as even though it wasn't explicitly in the rules it seemed very much contrary to the spirit of the challenge. I've actually added my own restrictions to keep her relatively poor and uneducated and am going the baby/date gift route for points. She's currently incubating #8 (or #8 & #9) and should complete the challenge having only worked one day. Putting the kids on fishing duty has helped her to survive back-to-back pregnancies, and Rylie and Cory are now helping with the youngest now that they are teens. Most of this challenge, for me, has been figuring how to fix borked genetics in sims and keeping the ugly from passing on. The way Rylie was going to look as an adult....gag. Huge lips, huge bumpy nose....words can't even describe. I've fixed her successfully to transition into a proper version of her teen look instead of a freak.

[notveryawesome]

That's supposed to be covered in the rules. They aren't allowed to caffeinate, procreate (since this is only possible with a hack, and therefore cheating), fish or earn money on community lots. They also shouldn't be able to add things to their inventory on a community lot.

Obviously, I didn't read the rules closely enough. Oops! I like the idea of a community garden. It seems very realistic.

[Lana B]

I had a brief attempt with up to OFB. I had to cheat to save her as she was fired on Thursday without sufficient money for a fridge. I had bought a sofa, basin and one piece of wall and Thursday's pay would have been enough for a mini-fridge (just in time as she had Friday off). I had to alternate the basin and fridge to revive her enough to get another job. I did keep going, but obviously suck as her two eldest are teens and she only has one room.
I might give it another go in a bit.

[Ellatrue]

PHAIL! Who needs a fridge? 

[Lana B]

That would be my sucky play style.  I don't do comm lots and she wasn't interested in the rubbish.

[Zazazu]

Pizza's a good cheap alternative. Get pizza, eat to full, put in inventory.

[Ellatrue]

Okay, here are my proposed changes to the rules at this point.

Make the aspiration of the children either money or random (chosen with a die).

No more toddler toy exception.

Proposed point bonuses to make things more interesting:
plus 2 points for each sim that maxes out all of their skills.
plus 2 for every sim with over 300,000 aspiration points
plus 3 points for never moving any sims out. You may use a mod to allow more than 8 sims.
plus 5 points if your sims never get a job.
plus 3 points if your sims never visit a community lot
plus 5 points if you play the entire game without a phone
plus 5 points for keeping all date rewards in inventory forever, and neither using nor selling them

Child Points
minus 4 points for each sim that moves out before reaching adulthood

Child points are awarded at birth, but are lost if the sim is moved out before reaching adulthood. Sims that are not adults may not move out alone, since this is only possible in a hacked game.

Custom careers are allowed, provided the entry level of that career pays no more than 350 simoleans a day, and the sim works no more than 5 days a week.

Custom content is allowed. You may not use custom content which increases in value after you buy it (beside art objects which appreciate normally). You may not use any items cheaper than the cheapest maxis item (exception walls and floors).

Playing with a male pregnancy mod or pregnancy for all is allowed, but ONLY under these conditions: sims may be gay or straight, but NOT bi. Sims are only allowed to date/woohoo with a sims of a single sex. They may not date/woohoo sims of both sexes. In addition, sims may only date/romance/woohoo with sims of the correct age group, as defined by maxis behavior in an unmodified game. This means that teens may date teens but no other ages, YA's may date adults, adults may date YAs and elders, and elders may romanticate with other elders and adults. You may not use a hack or a mod to impregnate the sim artificially. Is this language clear enough?


PROPOSED CHANGES TO LANGUAGE
Rule 12, re-phrased.

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, one toddler xylophone, or one computer, but never all three at the same time. If you have a book (cooking, cleaning, mechanical), you may not have the children's play oven (cooking). Learning skills from "experience" is okay: if you own a book, you are still allowed to own a shower, repair it when it breaks and clean it when it gets dirty.

CLARIFICATION:
Servos do not count as children. They are allowed, but players won't get any points for them.

CAVEATS:
Adding too many bonuses and new rules may make the challenge too complicated. I don't want the rules to be difficult to remember. Keep in mind that I'm ultimately posting this for the 12-year-olds on the sims 2 community site (because I promised  ). And I want things to be somewhat intuitive, so people don't have to print out the rules to keep track of them.

I'm concerned that allowing additional hacks to be used (even only under specific circumstances) will lead to more stupid "may I use this obviously cheaty hack?" questions.

Should I just leave the move-out rules as they are, to be more like the poverty challenge? Or is it more intuitive to simply not allow move-outs until the kids are adults, as suggested?

[Lana B]

Pizza's a good cheap alternative. Get pizza, eat to full, put in inventory.

I haven't had OFB long and that didn't occur to me. *feels dumb*

[Zazazu]

plus 5 points for keeping all date rewards in inventory forever, and neither using nor selling them

This is completely negated by the benefits of dating. Blythe has stopped getting date rewards herself (5 boyfriends, and none are putting out as they've caught on) but she raked in approximately 10,250 in date rewards. Her children are now toying with the populace's affections, and between the six teens I've gotten 10,750 in rewards in three nights. Honestly, I've stopped doing dates for money anymore as the house is as big as I'd like it to get, they have all the furniture they need, and all I'd be spending it on is clutter. I'm just using dates as a way to keep perpetually disappointed fortune sims who really want a job and to go to college from killing each other. Anyways, that's 21 points for money less 5 for not putting the rewards in inventory. I'd still clear 16.

And drat you for that never-move-out bonus! I was planning on moving the kids out as they age to adult due to the fact that I'll have at least 12 sims in the house + dog at the end and it keeps getting slower and slower (me playing, not my system).

Child points are awarded at birth, but are lost if the sim is moved out before reaching adulthood. Sims that are not adults may not move out alone, since this is only possible in a hacked game.

Yay/boo. On one hand, this is an incentive to get the kids to making grandkids, as it's not possible to have a teen grandkid before the last kid has reached teen (barring elixir, which is outlawed). On the other hand, that means more freaking sims to have to wade through on my UI!

[Ellatrue]

I'm just using dates as a way to keep perpetually disappointed fortune sims who really want a job and to go to college from killing each other. Anyways, that's 21 points for money less 5 for not putting the rewards in inventory. I'd still clear 16.

And drat you for that never-move-out bonus! I was planning on moving the kids out as they age to adult due to the fact that I'll have at least 12 sims in the house + dog at the end and it keeps getting slower and slower (me playing, not my system).

You won't *lose* five points for not selling the dating awards--you just won't be able to add any. The idea is to at least offer a small incentive for people who might want to play that way. If you chose to go for that bonus, you'd be getting no points from the dating rewards but gain 5 for never selling them. I don't know that I want to make the incentive much stronger, because that kind of forces the issue. Do you think I should make it worth more? There's also the issue that not everyone necessarily likes to play with that many dates, so I don't know that people will normally be raking in that much. So it's hard to figure out how to balance it. Maybe make it ten points instead?

Same thing with the never-move-out... I tried to make it worth it to compensate, but not so high that people with slow computers would feel compelled to do it and have to put up with the lag. But if it's just a matter of managing chaos... hehehe, that's the idea.

By the way, has anyone tried playing this yet following the no book/bookcase rule? What about with no restrictions on gardening or by just limiting the number of garden plots (instead of playing stock-only). I like the idea of the sims making as much money as they can, in any way they can aside from working, but I'm concerned that too much success (or success too quickly) might make the challenge stop being fun. Anyone got a read on this?

Hmm... what about plus 2 for starting in Winter?

[Zazazu]

First, I are stupid and don't read. Doi, it wouldn't be 5 points off, just no additional 5 points.

Same thing with the never-move-out... I tried to make it worth it to compensate, but not so high that people with slow computers would feel compelled to do it and have to put up with the lag. But if it's just a matter of managing chaos... hehehe, that's the idea.

People with slower computers would probably focus on different things. Skilling, for one. I haven't focused on skilling at all. Except for their toddler skills, and some points from bowling and gaining body skill (yes, I have community lot skilling hacks, but no one is going to max, so I won't be claiming those points) mine are unskilled losers. My main annoyance is not really family size...with all needed objects, they mostly take care of themselves. It's their propensity to stay outside running around *cough*noogies*cough* in the middle of the winter, until the two children go popsicle and I have to rush them inside. I tell them to go inside and sit for a bit, and sure enough one of them runs outside to play with the dog and all the rest follow.

Oh, plus, lack of bathrooms is an issue. I have five...three shower and toilets on the lawn and two bathrooms on the third floor off the kids' room (babies/toddlers/Blythe are on smaller second floor) but with eleven currently using them, it's getting to be difficult to coordinate. Will have to whore the kids out some more for money for a fourth floor. I've added my own personal rule that no more than $100 can be left in the coffers at 6am, so expansions still take planning....and the house is getting filled with crappity crap crap.

By the way, has anyone tried playing this yet following the no book/bookcase rule? What about with no restrictions on gardening or by just limiting the number of garden plots (instead of playing stock-only). I like the idea of the sims making as much money as they can, in any way they can aside from working, but I'm concerned that too much success (or success too quickly) might make the challenge stop being fun. Anyone got a read on this?

I got a book but never used it. It's not too much of an issue as I had my founder making sandwiches and cereal for her first couple cooking skill points, then used the sports channel-yummy channel exploit to get her to gain cooking skill the fun way when she was pissy, plus sat the kids in front of the yummy channel for a couple cooking points so they don't burn the house down too much. No gardening used in my game. No space for it...the yard is a dump. I don't think it's a major problem to allow selling...you won't be able to afford a greenhouse or ladybug houses for awhile, so crops will be hard to care for...especially while pregnant with ankle-biters. I used fishing exclusively for food once the low-level fridge ran out of food. Put the kids on fishing the last day before frost so they had ten in inventory, then set Blythe to mass-cooking them all and putting them in the fridge so they could pull out leftovers as needed.

[pbox]

You won't *lose* five points for not selling the dating awards--you just won't be able to add any. The idea is to at least offer a small incentive for people who might want to play that way. If you chose to go for that bonus, you'd be getting no points from the dating rewards but gain 5 for never selling them. I don't know that I want to make the incentive much stronger, because that kind of forces the issue. Do you think I should make it worth more? There's also the issue that not everyone necessarily likes to play with that many dates, so I don't know that people will normally be raking in that much. So it's hard to figure out how to balance it. Maybe make it ten points instead?

At least ten, I would say! When I playtested, I didn't realise that selling date rewards was allowed at all -- I only had my sim go on dates in order to fulfill her wants, but even so I got at least 10K worth of date rewards .. without even trying. She was a pleasure sim, so she had date wants quite often, but still -- it's not only about the monetary value, it also gives you an enormous advantage to sell a date gift early on and being able to build a shed or buy a fridge, etc. Non-date-reward-sellers don't get that kind of head start.

By the way, has anyone tried playing this yet following the no book/bookcase rule?

Not sure what rule you mean, but I played entirely without books. Was not particularly difficult in my eyes (then again, I'm used to it; I have a whole subood of "illiterate" sims in my regular game).

What about with no restrictions on gardening or by just limiting the number of garden plots (instead of playing stock-only). I like the idea of the sims making as much money as they can, in any way they can aside from working, but I'm concerned that too much success (or success too quickly) might make the challenge stop being fun. Anyone got a read on this?

Unlimited gardening/fishing for money might make it too easy, I think. Then again, I don't know what the profit is when you sell the ripe plants directly? I've only ever sold crops through stores in my game (to other sims I mean, via an ofb business), not with the "sell this plant" option. While I agree that it makes the challenge more fun when there's lots of different ways to make money, I believe if you allow gardening you should limit the number of plots so that they don't become cucumber tycoons overnight .. that would also be an incentive to make your sims earn badges, so that they can plant more profitable crops on the limited space they have? Provide an additional goal, in other words.


Also:

Playing with a male pregnancy mod (..) Is this language clear enough?

In principle yes, but:

"(..) sims may be gay or straight, but NOT bi. Sims are only allowed to date/woohoo with a sims of a single sex. They may not date/woohoo sims of both sexes" -- I believe you can kick out the latter 2 sentences: I would pretty much define "bi" as "dating/woohooing more than one sex", so the "only one single sex, which means not both sexes" elaboration is a bit redundant in my eyes?

"YA's may date adults, adults may date YAs and elders" -- dunno about YA's (don't have Uni), but adults surely may date YA's, adults, and elders?

Rule 12: "you may have either one easel, one instrument, one toddler xylophone, or one computer, but never all three at the same time"

Four, not three -- and I think what you mean is "never more than one of those"/"one of them" (not sure which is better), because two at the same time would be just as illegal as 3 or 4 or 17. The most idiotproof wording, in my eyes, would be "you may have either one easel OR one instrument OR one toddler xylophone OR one computer" with no additional buts and ands.

I have a proofreading tic (it's part of my job), hope I'm not getting on your nerves

[pioupiou]

then used the sports channel-yummy channel exploit to get her to gain cooking skill the fun way when she was pissy

what do you mean by sports channel-yummy channel exploit please explain

[Zazazu]

then used the sports channel-yummy channel exploit to get her to gain cooking skill the fun way when she was pissy

what do you mean by sports channel-yummy channel exploit please explain

Most sims will refuse to watch the Yummy Channel when at a low fun level due to educational programming being decidedly unfun. So you turn the tv onto a channel they enjoy (default for adults/teens/elders being the Sports Channel) until you see the fun start to increase. Immediately change to the Yummy Channel and they will continue watching, enjoying the same increase rate as they do on the Sports Channel. Plop a teen with a bottomed-out fun bar in front of the tv right after school, perform trickery, and they are almost maxed and ready to study in an hour.

[pioupiou]

woaw I had never noticed that ! (I mean, I know the adult don't like the yummy channel that much, but I never noticed you can change the channel and still have the old fun raise rate... Thanks

[Ellatrue]

No, plasticbox, your "proofreading tic" is very helpful!

I can't believe I didn't notice the three/four thing. 

[Zeljka]

ETA... can I suggest putting all rules and proposed rules in the first post? I almost missed that preg for all can be used...Hooray!

I started with a pregnant teen - wow, an incredibly hard start, so much so that I started a second with an adult just for a break!
Starting with an adult was incredibly easy by comparison because she wasn't pregnant.  Plus, she only had drag her sorry ass to work, versus the school and work my poor teen struggled through. 

Currently playing my 'Pregnant teen' lot and the poor thing has been reduced to a breeding sow. She hasn't been to work in eons and after spawning her 7th child, her vac has hit 16 days. Her firstborn is an adult now and seeing as she can't get a job, has decided to begin her own spawn cycle.
Limiting myself to one approved community lots (it bites) and tiny residential lot (2x1?) with 2 pregnant adult females, 2 teen boys, 2 children, a toddler and a baby, it's become more challenging to keep everyone entertained with the 'one of each' rule, heh heh.  I like and am following all the Proposed changes, including the no toddler toy exception, though it makes things so much harder, I think it's a good rule. (think max skills should be worth more than 2 because with no smart milk/thinking caps and only one of each skill builder, that'd be damn near impossible)

Because I'm going to see exactly how many sims I can cram on this lot, I am thrilled with the Proposed preg for all.
My teen boys are dating, and I want them to enjoy the same risks as everyone else in my game when they reach adulthood. I'm playing in a clean neighbourhood with 30 freshly generated townies and they come in all ages so the pool is shallow. So far, one teen prefers his own gender, but with my founder following her firstborn (daughter) with 4 sons in a predominantly male neighbourhood, there will likely be more.

By the way, I'm playing without Seasons and OFB, so there's no inventory-ing pizza, leftovers, gardening, fish or lemonade stands. It makes things more challenging but I'm not sure they would have been able to do it without selling date rewards.

[Ellatrue]

Hmm, that's obviously a flaw in the preg 4 all thing that I haven't thought of. You may not have sims of both sexes breeding, you have to pick one sex that is allowed to breed and stick with it. Either that or only use the hack with the CAS sim. I thought I would allow it in order to allow gay couples or starting the challenge with a man, but making it so that every sim is allowed to breed really throws a wrench in the works, and makes it really unfair for those without the hack. Hmm. Maybe I'll just scrap it altogether.

As far as the other rules go, I will update the first post when they are finalized.

[Zeljka]

Hmm, that's obviously a flaw in the preg 4 all thing that I haven't thought of. You may not have sims of both sexes breeding, you have to pick one sex that is allowed to breed and stick with it. Either that or only use the hack with the CAS sim. I thought I would allow it in order to allow gay couples or starting the challenge with a man, but making it so that every sim is allowed to breed really throws a wrench in the works, and makes it really unfair for those without the hack. Hmm. Maybe I'll just scrap it altogether.

As far as the other rules go, I will update the first post when they are finalized.

I wouldn't consider it a flaw, perhaps just something that needed clarification.
I'm not sure how much of a disadvantage it would be to people without the hack, as they can always start with a female (which they would do anyway)
I think with a rule that only Sims of the same gender as your founder are allowed to breed, it's fine.

I'm glad I asked well before he reached adulthood.