More Awesome Than You!

So all those challenges out there are stupid and suck. Here's a meta-challenge:

Create a challenge subject to the following:
1. All scoring elements of the challenge must be treated as deterministic: Any random elements are treated as always proceed according to the optimal case (since a suboptimal start would automatically fail the optimal run test of the challenge anyway).
2. The challenge must be playable by a single player.
3. The challenge must terminate: A challenge that simply runs in an endless loop until the hypothetical player gets sick of playing does not terminate.
4. The challenge must be playable. A challenge where the player does not have any input or where the rules are contradictory in a way that makes compliance physically impossible is nonplayable.
5. The challenge must be coherent: It must model some known theme, not simply be an arbitrary collection of meaningless rules.

Such that:
1. The challenge cannot be solved (maximum or infinite score cannot be achieved) by a trivial process. If the challenge can be solved such that a hypothetical player can adhere to a strict script and achieve maximum score, the challenge is too trivial.

*Emma goes away to think.

Oh btw, what do we win? Anything?

Free month's subscription?

Okay, here's my entry - something I've wanted to try for ages. I'm afraid it's too trivial, though :P

The "Popularity Sucks" Challenge

The goal: Have 20 enemies.

Create an adult in CAS as you like, the only restriction: He or she must be a popularity sim and have at least 6 nice points. Let him/her move into an unoccupied lot.

It's not allowed to use cheats or to change the sim's aspiration during the challenge. You may not raise your sim's aspiration meter by artificial means (juice, SimVac etc.).

Scoring:

+5 points for each enemy (once per sim - so losing and re-gaining the enemy status will not earn additional 5 points)
- 1 point for each friend (includes critters and household members)
- 2 points for each best friend (accumulative to above)
- 1 point for each date that scores okay or better
- 5 points for each lost enemy status
- 5 points for each aspiration failure caused by an enemy fear
+2 bonus points if you antagonised everyone in your relationship panel

The challenge ends, when your sim has 20 enemies (duh), the maximum score is 102.

Hmmm, here's one that I've recently started test playing on my own. I suspect you'll find it much too easy though, Pes. I have yet to thoroughly playtest it, though, so it may be subject to tweaking in case it's too hard/easy.

The Optimize Your Earning Potential Challenge
aka Being Able to Retire in Financial Security

This will require the use of Inge's $10,000 mortgage shrubs (http://simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_MovingHouse.htm) on Simlogical. If you can't (or won't) use it, you can still play this, but you'll have to remember when to deduct funds, how much to remove and to do it precisely at the correct time.

• Start this challenge with as many Sims as you want. You may even use pre-existing Sims if you like, but you would be required to use whatever means possible to randomize their skill levels, and none must start any higher than 3. Also, they cannot be Uni graduates. No two Sims may have the same aspiration, and they must be randomly chosen. The only exception is if you're starting with more than 6 Sims, but then no more than 2 may share the same one. If you start with 3 Sims and both Sim 1 and 3 roll romance, you must roll again to change Sim 3's aspiration until it's something other than a duplicate.
• Each Sim is required to have four $10,000 mortgage shrub on the lot. 1 Sim = 4 shrubs, 4 Sims = 16 shrubs, etc. This will deduct 400 simoleans from the household per day per Sim.
• Any additional Sim that moves in adds 4 shrubs to the household, regardless of how many shrubs each other Sim has left. Hence, the time of day they're moved in will be relevant. Only spouses may be moved in from the townie pool (one spouse per Sim), and no teens that achieve permaplat status in Uni may be moved back in.
• You may start in a pre-made lot, but once you begin, the funds on hand  must be set to 0. Funds permitting, you may remove one shrub per Sim every 7 days (if you have 4 Sims, you remove 4 shrubs on Monday at 8 am). If you can only afford to remove a few (example: if you have 4 Sims but you only have 35,000 simoleans on hand at 8 am on the 7th day), you may remove none and have to wait for the next week where you can still only remove 1 shrub per Sim. If you can afford to remove the required number of shrubs, you must do so, no matter how broke it makes you.
• If there are children born into the household, you must add the requisite 4 shrubs to the lot the next time 8 am comes around after they become teens. They are subject to the same rules as stated earlier. However, if said teen(s) leave(s) for Uni before 8 am the next day, the additional shrubs are not added.
• The goal is to have every Sim on the lot (from teen and up) achieve their LTW before all the shrubs are removed.
• You must select an option for every chance card.
• No fancy tricks in achieving LTWs. Examples include (but are not limited to):
  - Sims may not consume eggplant juice or use the aspiration reward that sucks skills from other Sims to Max SKills; all skill points must be earned. Smart Milk usage is not allowed.
  - Sims with the Woohoo 20 Different Sims LTW may not be permitted to Woohoo 10 Sims in one area and then Woohoo with them all in a public place to earn an unjust achievement; they have to woohoo 20 different Sims.
  - Sims may not achieve the Earn 100,000 Simoleans want by buying/reselling community lots, etc.
  - Sims may not achieve the Have 5 Top-Level Businesses LTW by bringing one up to 10 and then sabotaging it to 9 just to bring ti back to 10 again.
• You may not reroll the LTWs your Sims start out with, with the following exceptions: you're using a previously created Sim (and you may only reroll once), or you rolled an LTW that you'd sooner bite your own leg off than have to try to achieve (I'm looking at you, Have 20 Pet Best Friends).
• No use of the Elixir of Life or anything that extends life span.
• Any skill-building object with a fun value of 8 or more is not permitted. Career Reward Objects are usable only by the Sims that earned them.
  

• No two Sims may have the same job at the same time.
• No part-time jobs or earning money by any means other than jobs, chance cards, paintings, novels, or moving in Sims.
  
• None of the starting Sims nor anyone that still has active shrubs on the lot may move out before the end of the challenge.
• No selling items in the household just to get the minimum amount of funds when shrub pruning is due. The only reason you may sell items is when you're upgrading (or downgrading) or when you've received them as a date gift. Of course, you may also sell paintings.
  
• If any of the starting Sims dies before the completion of this challenge, you have failed. You achieved 0 points and have earned opnly a thorough P&Ling from all of those around you.
  
  • You may not change aspirations once the challenge has started, but you may choose the aspirations of any children that transition in the household.
  
  Once the final shrubs are removed, tally up your score.
  +0.5 for every Sim over 1 that you began the challenge with.
  +1 if all Sims achieved their LTWs (children and under excepted, of course). If only 3/4 achieved it, score 3/4 of a point, etc.
  +1 for each starting Sim that is not an elder when the challenge ends.
  +5 if none of the starting Sims are elders.
  +2 for each second LTW any Sim on the lot managed to achieve, +3 for each 3rd LTW they achieved, etc. These points are stackable.
  -1 for each death before the end of the challenge.
  -1 every time the household funds dip below 0 (I'm not sure if this is possible with the shrubs, but I assume it is).
  -1 for every Sim that retires before the end of the challenge without having achieved an LTW.
  
  Addendums:
  
  - Pets in the household (either starting or added later) require you to add 1 shrub and one shrub only per pet. This shrub can be removed at the specified day of the week when shrub removal is done. Any pets born into the family add 1 shrub each when they become adults.
  - I suppose you don't have to use these shrubs to play this challenge, but I find it would be immensely easier.
  - If you want to be complicated, I suppose you could simply say that no two Sims can have the same job at the same level at the same time (i.e. you can have an intern and a doctor in the household, but not 2 doctors). This Sim 'hood ain't big enough for two of the same position.

Well, so far, it seems an arbitrary collection of rules that don't correlate to much of anything, as the rules seem unrelated to the stated theme. Also, it's non-terminating, since there's nothing which forces you to ever end the challenge, as one can intentionally under-earn and thus never remove all the shrubs, and thus never end the challenge. Therefore, the challenge is nonterminating and the maximum score is infinite.

I suppose I could add a rule like:

- If any of the starting Sims die before the completion of the challenge, you have failed. You earn 0 points and win only a thorough P&Ling from everyone around you.

Thus, the challenge would not be infinite or non-terminating, as any attempt to prevent aging (or death by old age) is already disallowed by the rules. The end is quite firmly declared to be upon the death of one of the starting Sims, and the maximum length of time would be 29 days (the adult life span) plus whatever the elder stage gave them. I don't imagine the average player would be willing (or able) to play a Sim long enough to obtain 4 or more LTWs. However, just in case, maybe a 'No changing Aspirations' rule would be a benefit.

Doesn't help. It's possible for a sim to live forever even without any elixirs, vampirism, or other forms of immortality. Under certain conditions that occur naturally in gameplay, the Grim Reaper simply doesn't show up.

Really? How does that happen?

I had this happen in a game just this week, where I wasn't trying to do it.  As a result, the sim got his LTW after running 4 businesses.



Does this mean that any children created with the family in CAS can't be sent off to uni and then return?  Any sim going off to uni, then coming back is going to be able to achieve a job-based LTW on their first day of work (or maybe second day, depending on their moods).

Actually, that brings up the possibility of me removing harderjobs, anyLTW and LTWvariety, then making them all knowledge.  Which means that teens have a 1 in 4 chance of rolling up max all skills, which they are 1 cleaning skillpoint away from in my game at transition to teen.  They are then perma plat, and can continue cycling through the other 3 LTWs for repeated fast LTWs, starting at level 8 or 9 every time (as long as nobody else in the house is in the career).


Does this include smart milk?


Does this rule allow for adults to use a career reward to skill up a child?  E.g. on the medical career reward the adult uses it, while the child watches.  The child does not actually use the object in this case.

What happens with scoring if the sim achieved his first LTW at Uni (e.g. 20 best friends, 20 loves/woohoos, max all skills, 5 businesses, earn $100K)?

The Poor Paris Challenge

This challenge is inspired by the recent news that Paris Hilton won't inherit as much as she thought, because her parents SPENT their money.  ::)


Goal:  
Make ‘Poor Paris' inherit as little as possible when she moves out, and test her creativity in providing for her own spawn.

Set up:
1. Create a family in CAS - parents plus one toddler. Genders are up to you. For the purposes of the challenge, I will refer to our subject sim as ‘Poor Paris'.
2. Using whatever cheats you prefer, build the family's initial wealth to §320,000.
3. Move them into a lot costing LESS THAN §100,000.

Cheats, Hacks and Fixes Required:
-No20KHandout
- jfade's ownablecarcostsmoney

Cheats, Hacks and Fixes Not Allowed:
-Any financial boosters (except for the one used to create the initial wealth
-Customer mood boosters (including snapdragons)
-Money tree
-Money order (Paladin has one, I think Inge has something similar?)
-Intentionally high return-on-investment items (like the investment silver from MTS2)
-Mortgage shrubs and other loan systems
-Landlord/rent system


Game play:

Stage One:
The parents are to spend as much money as possible on objects (except crafting stations), entertainment, renovations, clothing, and vacations so that when Poor Paris moves out, she has as little money as possible. However, she must have enough money to at least buy a lot, so there is a penalty for leaving Poor Paris with less than §1000. When Poor Paris becomes a teen, make her/his aspiration Fortune (just to drive her/him crazy.)

Zazazu''s Spiled Brat Option: Do not allow Poor Paris to get any skills, particularly in cleaning, mechanical and cooking. Do not allow Poor Paris to garden, clean, cook, repair etc. After all, Poor Paris is a spoiled brat and should have to suffer when booted out on her/his own. As Zazazu says, "Poor Paris may be poor, but she's a spoiled talentless brat."

Stage One restrictions:
-No further spawn. Poor Paris is an only child.
-No member of this household is to get a job.
-No member of this household can purchase a business.
-No member of this household is to start a home business.
-No member of this household can purchase a vacation home.
-No further cheats affecting financial status are allowed.
-Neither parent can move out, no matter how much they hate each other.

Stage One ending:
Once Poor Paris graduates from high school (and is now an adult), do NOT move her/him to University. Move Poor Paris out of the household using "find own place". At this point, Poor Paris should bring one third of the total available cash with her; if you have cheats in place to prevent this, remove them for the challenge.

Stage One scoring:
Poor Paris's inheritance (cash on hand in the sim bin):
§50K or more: -5 points
§40,000 - 49,999: 1 point
§30,000 - 39,999: 2 points
§20,000 - 29,999: 3 points
§10,000 - 19,999: 4 points
§5,000 - 9,999: 5 points
§2,500 - 4,999: 6 points
§1,000 - 2,499: 7 points
Less than §1000: -10 points



Stage Two:
Poor Paris doesn't want her spawn to face the same crisis of cash she/he has had to endure, thus she/he is to use ALMOST any means necessary to provide a nest egg for her child. Poor Paris can start a home business, buy a business, choose a well-paying career path, sell paintings and novels, even dig for treasure - whatever helps Poor Paris accumulate wealth. However, she/he has to earn it, not get it for free; there are penalties for marrying rich sims. She/he also can't have a job that pays thousands per day right off the bat; hence, there is a career choice restriction.

No Love For Paris Option: If Poor Paris is a female, do not let her marry; let her get pregnant from some risky woohoo (and get the video...sell it to the tabloids and make YOURSELF some bucks at the expense of a no-talent celeb.  ;D ) and have to raise the kid herself. NO OTHER SIM may move in, even if he is the baby daddy. (If this option is chosen, do not use the child support hack from MTS2.)
 
Stage Two restrictions:
-Poor Paris cannot move into a lot with anyone else.
-No cheats affecting financial status are allowed.
-No one can move into the household EXCEPT Poor Paris's spouse.
-Upon marriage, Poor Paris's partner must be the one to move in.
-Poor Paris and her spouse must have EAxian careers only.
-Poor Paris must have only one child; use whatever cheats necessary to ensure no multiples. Poor Paris's spawn must also have the -Fortune aspiration.

Stage Two ending:
Once Poor Paris's child graduates from high school, to NOT move her/him to University. Move the child out of the household using "find own place." Thus endeth the challenge.

Stage Two scoring:
1. Spawn's inheritance (cash on hand in the sim bin):
§50K or more: 10 points
§40,000 - 49,999: 7 points
§30,000 - 39,999: 6 points
§20,000 - 29,999: 5 points
§10,000 - 19,999: 4 points
§5,000 - 9,999: 3 points
§2,500 - 4,999: 2 points
§1,000 - 2,499: 1 point
Less than §1000: -10 points

2. Amount of cash Poor Paris's mate brought into the household:
§75K or more: -10 points
§50,000 - 74,999: -7 points
§40,000 - 49,999: -5 points
§30,000 - 39,999: -3 points
§20,000 - 29,999: -1 point
§10,000 - 19,999: 1 point
§5,000 - 9,999: 3 points
§2,500 - 4,999: 5 points
§1,000 - 2,499: 7 points
Less than §1000: 10 points

Playing the "No Love for Paris" option: 10 points (a reward for your evil ways)


General Penalties:
-Use of financial cheats other than those explicitly required in the setup: -10 points per use
-Multiple spawn: -10 points per additional birth (exception: alien babies are only a five point penalty... because they're cool)
-Poor Paris, parents, mate, or spawn are/become plant sim/vampire/zombie/werewolf/immortal: -10 points per change
-Death of a parent, partner, or Poor Paris herself before the end of Stage Two: -5 points per death

Final scoring:  
Add totals; anything in the positive is, well, a positive. Scores over 20 are terrific. Scores below 0 is mean but funny, especially if Poor Paris actually looks like Paris Hilton.


Edited to add no20Khandout requirement and Zazazu's spoiled brat option. And to fix typos.
Further edited to close the Kutto Loophole and add the "No Love for Paris" option. Also added requirement for jfade's ownablecarcostsmoney hack, as it sucks cash.

Infinite score exploit: Make the family all vampires and pump out alien babies.

Good point. I'll add a 'No permaplat Sims may move back into the household from Uni' rule.


Another excellent point. Adding the 'Must randomize Aspirations at the beginning' rule.


Yes.


No, adults may not teach children with Career rewards items.

Re: Poor Paris
Add no immortals to the restrictions. Or no fantasy sims.

I'd also suggest that Poor Paris cannot have any skill points before leaving the house, nor should she gain any skill points that don't directly result from job requirements or painting for money. She also should never do any housework of any kind. No cleaning. No gardening. No repairing. Poor Paris may be poor, but she's a spoiled talentless brat.

Simplest challenge ever.

Run 'Em Into The Ground

Create two adult sims in CAS. Put them on any lot. Make them have a baby.

The baby is the challenge sim. It has exactly 50 days from birth to the end of the challenge.

From the moment of birth, your score is determined thus:

-1 for every green memory
+1 for every red memory

Do not count duplicate memories. Example: 50 disastrous dates count as just +1 point, 10 woohoos only count as -1, 5 $subjects died counts as only +1. Only one instance of each unique type of memory counts. You are not trying to accumulate negative memories by spamming "became enemies" or any such nonsense. If you meet 100 sims and get 100 "Met X" memories, that's still only -1. Yes, you do count ALL memories, even the garbage ones.

ADDED: Being burglarized and getting a red memory for it means a +1. Even if "Met Burglar" is your only "Met X" memory, you still don't lose a point.

Nothing is forbidden that can be done in the game.
CLARIFICATION: You may not use blatant cheats, for goodness sake! Aging a baby straight to adulthood using a hack is just retarded. Why even bother playing a challenge if you're going to use InSim every ten seconds? I'm seriously not going to bother making extra rules that specify every little thing like "don't debug-mode an alien abduction...".

I'm not at all bothered by the use of game-changing hacks, like Triplets/Quads, increased odds of abduction, blah blah blah. Use them all you like... you only get one lousy point for any memory, you know. Getting abducted easier might give you a slight advantage, but it's still just one point and I'm not interested in nitpicking.

The challenge ends 50 days from the challenge sim's birth, regardless of the sim's age or any other factors.
CLARIFICATION: 50 days means 50 days. You may not use hacks to re-live a day or give yourself extra days, since that's clearly dishonest.

The object is obviously to see whether it's possible to make a sim's life more negative than positive. This is harder than it first appears.

CLARIFICATION FOR ALL PESCADOS: Since memories are the object of the challenge, no, you may not wipe them out using hacked objects! Silly Pescado!

The trick in winning this challenge is hitting all the possible negative memories that exist in the game, within the time constraints.

Unfortunately score comparisons only work between players running the same EP configuration.



Edited to clarify, because Pescado was confuzzled.

Oh, you're evil! ::::applauds wildly::::

Small point of clarification.  Since there is no multi-player TS2 that I am aware of, this requirement means playable by one character?  As in, only one sim is the target of the challenge requirements and scoring?

I hope not; otherwise, mine is completely out of the running.

Even if you did make Poor Paris a vamp, she can only "pump out" one alien baby, as it states that there can only be one offspring. And that's ignoring the fact that the challenge ends when Paris' heir reaches their teens.

If you wanted to have the most time possible, don't get Paris knocked up until 3 or 4 days til she's an elder.

A way to make the challenge harder: >ake Paris a female, DO NOT allow her to get married or move in any sims, and make sure she gets knocked up by some random sim that's visiting.

Multiple spawn normally do have a penalty, HOWEVER, each alien baby is worth +5 points, as they are "cool". Also, the challenge ends when the heir "graduates from high school", which I took to mean when he or she reaches adulthood. Teens can be vampires, and thus immortal, so you would eventually just have a crapload of alien vampires. Since Hec did not ban household enlarging mods, it is certainly legal.

Some people have invented strange ideas in which the neighborhood file is passed around. This rule stipulates that the challenge must be playable by just one player, and must not involve any such shenanigans.

I'm afraid kutto has won this round.

Except the scoring is still based on First Born's financial gain upon graduation. Wouldn't it be less if you've got a house full of spawn when First Born leaves Paris's roost?

If not - I will change the challenge to avoid this loophole.

Um, okay.  I would never have guessed.

I have a prototype challenge drawn up, and will be play-testing it over the next few days, as time allows.  After a bit of testing and tweaking, I will submit it for proper mocking and burnination.   

See the Boolprop forum. Actually, this thread  (http://www.forums.boolprop.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1319) for the idea. It goes against all my beliefs, as no one is allowed to touch my toys.

I'm going to try SaraMK's challenge. Sounds fun :)

There are two options I can see that would fix the problem:

1. Remove the bonus for alien children; just make them exempt from the multiple spawn penalty.

2. Specify that each sim made into a supernatural is a 10 point penalty; the way I read it now is that it is a one time penalty. The ten point penalty would easily compensate for the alien bonus, thus making my strategy go into negative points rather than infinite.

Ah, good, Kutto. I think I meant to impose a penalty per instance of additional spawn, but didn't state it explicitly. I've edited the challenge to reflect this, plus that great "no love for Paris" option, suggested by Jelenedra.

You have earned your laurels today, Senator!

NOTHING is forbidden? For instance, does "trash" like "Met X" count, given that the Lot Debugger's clear-trash functionality automatically wipes this(Also, there are ways to get sims to meet that bypass the memory normally, anyway)? What about cheats? Are those forbidden? The time constraint is basically irrelevant. Other than that, it's trivial, because there's an easily calculated optimum path, which differs for any EP configuration, but can be readily assessed.

Oh, come on. You outlined the optimal path liine-by-line! How is this a challenge again?

The College Daze Challenge (University and Nightlife Required, Dude!)

The basic object here is to party your sim through college without going to class and graduating with perfect GPA.  Not so hard, you think, but since this is a challenge there are certain requirements.

Basic startup:

You need one teen sim with two parents and no skills.  Your student can be played as teen as long as you like, but no skilling until college.  This obviously means no skill scholarships, but any others are fine.  Both parents must be best friends of your student before moving him or her away to college. This challenge can be played on any livable University lot of your choosing:  Dorm, Private Residence, Greek House, or evolving combination of two or less moves.  The choice is yours. 


Major Prohibitions:

1.  No going to class except finals!  Your main concern in college life is parties and outings.  If your sim goes to class that is not a final, you fail!
2.  No romancing professors!  That is just wrong, dude.  Don't do it.  They may be invited to parties and outings, though.  Professors that are not in your major are exempt from this, you sicko.
3.  No day goes by without a party!  If at least one party is not completed per day then the challenge is failed.
4.  No doing homework, studying, or term papers during parties or outings!  Influence is okay, but if your student does his own work during a party or outing, you fail!
5.  No pause button!  The fast pace of college life goes on, no stopping the clock!  Okay, you can stop the clock if real world issues are pressing or to save game for later.  Also Build and Buy mode can be used for build and buy only.  No cheating!  In addition, stopping the clock by taking a trip off-campus is forbidden.  Time must march on!
6.  No changing majors!  Your major is not important, and since there is no 'Party' major, why would you change it?
7.  No moving in and out!  Only one move in allowed per University lot type:  Dorm, Private, and Greek.  If you move out of any type of lot, you must move into a different type.
 

Minor Prohibitions:

1.  No day goes by without an outing!  Home is only good for parties, everything else is about going out.  Qualified outings must be scored and go to University lots, to keep the time flowing.
2.  No lame parties!  Not all parties have to raise the roof, but none can leave a negative (red) memory.
3.  No lame outings!  All outings must be scored and must be enjoyable for the group.
4.  No skilling during outings or parties!  Well, coincidental skilling that keeps the theme, such as in playing guitar at a party or swimming on an outing, is acceptable, but just barely. 
5.  No sleeping!  Sleeping is for pencil-necked losers who go to class and do not party!  Passing out is normal, and can even earn some points, but your passed out student must be awakened as soon as possible.
6.  No cooking!  Pizza and Chinese take-out are the only appropriate foods for hard-partying college dudes and dudettes at home!  No eating that slop a Dorm Chef prepares either.  Influence and dining out at a restaurant during an outing is acceptable.
7.  No parents at required parties or outings!  That is not cool.  Graduation party is exception.
8.  No aspiration rewards!  This basically means no energizers and no skilling rewards.  Use sunglasses rack if you want, no one cares.


Basic Requirements:

1.  Minimum one party and one scored outing per calendar day.  Extra parties and outings get extra points but no carryover credit towards the next day.  Note:  Parties and outings count for the day in which they are initiated, if they happen to extend into the next day.
2.  Parties and Outings must include the maximum possible number of guests.  This should be eight by default, but if your system can not handle it, or if other unforeseen or unknown environmental factors restrict the number, you may scale the scoring accordingly.
3.  Big (so and so) on Campus by graduation should be a given, but it is a requirement nonetheless, unless you think you are a Party Ninja.
4.  Must keep up best friend status with both parents.  You need to keep up good relations with the parents since realistically you would constantly be calling home for money to keep up your high-flying lifestyle.


Primary Requirements:

1.  Graduate with a GPA 4.0.
2.  Move back to reality with a great graduation party and platinum aspiration.  This is the only required party that your parents can attend, in fact, both must be invited.
3.  Finish challenge with a score above zero.


Sub-Plots:

A.  Drink up dudes and dudettes!  Hard partying is all about hard drinking, and you must drink enough to float a small fleet of whaling vessels around!  A juice bar and/or a pineapple keg is required fixture at home.

Drinking rules: 

1.  Minimum one drink per party, one per outing, and one per day that is not during a party or outing.  None of these can be fulfilling any other drink requirement.
2.  One drink for every invited guest who fails or refuses to show up to a party or outing, and one for every open guest slot not filled during the invitation.
3.  Initiate a negative social interaction? (Rejection!)  You must immediately take a drink!
4.  Pass out from too much high life?  Proceed immediately to take a drink after regaining consciousness.
5.  Have an accident during a party or outing?  You need another drink!
6.  Feel like engaging in some romantic interactions?  Better take a drink first!  Just one beforehand, not between every separate action.  Doing anything else, including simple non-romantic interactions resets the drink requirement, though.  Similarly, you will need that drink before asking another sim on a date, whether in person or over the phone.
7.  Score woohoo with some lucky dude or dudette?  No sleep for you, you need a drink!  Proceed directly to take a drink.
8.  Want to get in a fight or just give someone some abusive treatment?  Better have that drink first!  Like romance, just one before will do.  Breaking the chain of abuse means another drink before resuming the punishment, however.
9.  Want to use influence on another sim?  Not without taking a drink first!
10.  Get caught slacking by the Coach?  You need a drink if he/she sets a workout action in your queue.
11.  Your professor stops by for a visit unannounced?  You definitely need a drink!  Also need a drink if you answer the phone and it is one of your professors calling.  Drink before and after deliberately calling any professor, because you need to.
12.  Calling the parents?  You will need a drink before and after.  Answering the phone and it is a parent calling means needing a drink immediately after hanging up.
13.  Going to finals?  You will need to cancel every automatic 'Go to final' action, take a drink, then go to finals.  Take another one as soon as you get back also.


B.  Get lucky!  Hard partying college life would be sort of pointless if you can not get some action!  All woohoo conquests during parties/outings worth points towards final score.  At minimum get some action every semester or suffer the penalty.  See scoring for details.



Scoring:

Challenge ends with move back to home neighborhood.

Breaking any Major Prohibition means failure;  Go directly to Fail!  Do not pass Go, do not collect $200!  All Primary Requirements must also be met to win.


-10 points for each instance of breaking any Minor Prohibition.
-5 points for every bladder accident at a party or outing.
-5 points for not getting lucky during a semester.
-1 point for canceling any drinking action from the queue.  Also, an aborted drink does not count as fulfilling any drink requirement.
-1 point for each rejected woohoo proposal during any party or outing.
-1 point for any rejected date proposal.
-1 point for losing best friend status with a parent, each infraction.
-1 point for losing friend status with a parent, each occurrence.
-1 point for every guest shortfall during any party or outing if you just don't invite them.  (i.e.  You could have invited more, but you did not.  If you just don't know enough people, that is still failure.)
-1 point for every guest absent to a party or outing that refuses or fails to attend.
-1 point for not drinking when required to do so, each infraction.
-1 point for answering any phone call and it is a parent or a professor.


+10 points for every extra party or University lot outing over the base requirement.  (Combined with the Minor prohibition penalty, this essentially means you can swap outings for parties freely, but you will need a third occurrence during any day to get the extra 10 points.)
+1 point for each new woohoo conquest during any party or outing.(First time memory)
+1 point for any other new woohoo memory icon acquired during any party or outing.
+1 point for every drink that does not fulfill any of the drinking guideline specifications.
+1 point for passing out to the ground, or taking a face plant in your food.  Maximum total points in this category equals the number of parties/outings you throw.   
+1 point for any party that is a roof raiser, or outing that is rockin'.
+1 point for every dream date.  Must not be during a party.

Special score:  -100 points for not achieving Big (so and so) on campus.  +100 points for not getting Big (so and so) memory, yet finishing challenge with Secret Society and no penalties to final score!  (You are Party Ninja!)


Use of cheats, hacks, and mods permitted, provided that they do not break the challenge or make it significantly easier.  Use your judgment, you know if you are cheating.

Currently in play testing mode.  Seems okay, but further tweaks may be required.


Extra-Super-Awesome College Daze Challenge:

You drink whenever your challenge sim must drink!


Super-Duper-Extra-Awesome-Mission-Impossible College Daze Challenge:

Drink when your challenge sim must drink and get lucky when your sim gets lucky!

So, it's okay to Talk About Major?

Would be fun with that hacked beer keg that makes your sim act crazy after drinking.

This is not fair, as people with crappy computers have fewer slots than those folks with grunty machines. I say there should be a requirement to use the "intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims #" to set the amount of slots to a certain number such as nine or something, because 2 guests is not a party.

Cheats won't actually make a huge difference as far as I can tell. The only thing I can think of is using weekday/time changing cheats to give yourself more than 50 days. However, doing that is a blatant violation of the rules, which state clearly that you have 50 sim days. You cannot go and re-live Monday ten times and still call it one sim day, without breaking the 50 day limit which is a core rule.

Can you give me an example of a cheat that will make a big difference to the score? They might save time, I guess, such as if you force an alien abduction instead of trying for it the natural way, but since you can't spam abduction memories, you still only get +1 for your effort.

The 50 day limit is not trivial when you consider the time lost to baby, tot, child, teen, etc. stages.

But, fine, I'll add a clarification that blatant cheats are not allowed and you can't age sims up using methods not normally possible in the game (sending a teen straight to college would still be allowed under this restriction, while using InSim is forbidden).

We don't care about "Met X" and other garbage. It makes no difference. You can meet 100 sims and get 100 green memories for meeting them, but because duplicate memories don't count, those 100 memories are still only worth -1.

Um... I think it's sort of assumed that if memories are the object of the challenge, it's not cool to wipe out memories using hacked objects. I'm not writing a challenge for retards, you know. I assume people have a teeny bit of common sense.

Of course the path to winning is easily assessed. It's the journey that matters. You have to pick and choose which memories you will go for, and how, to best use the time you have. I still don't believe the time limit is irrelevant.

Actually, it does. The -1 automatically makes your score suboptimal and therefore you lose.

Well, this does bring up a potential exploit that I had not considered thoroughly.  I will say definitely yes, you can, but now I can see that I need to edit the challenge to prohibit changing majors.  Good eye.




Indeed, and it does not sound like that item would violate the challenge rules.



Yes, this is a problem that I considered, but was unsure how to handle.  In the end, I left it to the player to scale the penalties associated with this problem.  Thus, for instance, if you can have only two guests, and you fail to invite one or one does not show, then you should lose 7 points, not just one.  Not an ideal solution, but I did not want to craft this challenge around the limits of a sub-standard system.  Your suggestion, while interesting, may not be practical.  If the game limits the visitors to two because of weak hardware capability or performance, and someone forces more visitors with a cheat, the game might not run properly.  (I don't know, my system allows eight normally)

Infinite score loop: You receive points for outings, dream dates and drinking, but you have infinite time in which you can perform this with NL installed.

But you can't play this challege and not get a single negative point. Everyone is going to lose a point for meeting another sim, therefore it does not make your score suboptimal.

I was certain I had stipulated somewhere that outings must go to University lots, to keep the time flowing.  I see that this will need to be made clearer.  I was not overly concerned about the date point issue, since you only get one per dream date, but it is better to just restrict them to University lots as well.  Good point. 

Untrue. It's possible to meet sims without receiving a memory, as long the meeting occurs without social contact: You do not receive a memory for meeting a sim that is added by household merging.

Okay, yeah, you did. Doesn't change anything, though:

Infinite time exploit: Using the "evolving combination" of residences, time is reset everytime you move, resulting in infinite time.

Aargh!...Of course you are correct.  I certainly had no expectation or intention of people playing that way.  I was aware of this 'feature' and had included it as an emergency restart if someone realized it, but the 'evolving combination' was meant as a sort of one way street.  Going back to what was before or retuning to the same place is not really quite evolving.  Will amend to be clearer and squash this exploit.

Then what are you complaining about? A baby doesn't get memories of meeting its parents, does it? So it will start out with nothing, and if you can manage to not meet any sims, you'll keep your perfect score.

What about acquaintances that are forced on you - school friends for example, or the burglar? Perhaps you could bypass the latter by just not installing a security system, but bringing friends from school is a random event you cannot avoid unless you use hacks (which would be cheating). You would lose a point for something that's out of your control. Perhaps "Met X" could be regarded as a "neutral" memory?

Hmm, well, if you have the burglar, I think that this would be a net-zero, because you can't get Burglar without meeting him, AFAIK, but Burglar is red. However, if you meet anyone, then you NEED Burglar to cancel it out, as no other red memory I know of specifically requires Met X.

What about the repoman? I've never had one, but I've been wondering if he also triggers the Met X memory?

No, the Repo Man is nonsociable and does not get met.

The Genetic Legacy Challenge

Pick a book, TV show, etc - anything with characters who have clearly definable genetics. Even real people will work if you like, although then you're working with face structures as well. I'm doing this with Harry Potter at the moment, because the Black Family Tree provides a handy reference point.

Your aim is to breed the main characters (as Generation 10 or later) without genetic manipulation. Example: one of my win conditions is that Harry Potter must be born, as a Gen 11 Sim, with black hair, green eyes and pale skin. I'm not aiming for any great resemblance to Daniel Radcliffe, as I dislike the films intensely, but other people may want to try the 'breed Actor X' angle, so meh.

Setup:
1) Start a clean neighbourhood: you may use premade lots, but no Sims. In particular, make sure that the Pleasantview Townies will not show up, as they provide too much of a constant.
2) Create your Hood Controller Sim. This Sim may never be added to the gene pool: its sole function is to do neighbourhood maintenance. Move the Controller into a lot.
3) Using the EAxis Townie maker, randomly create your Townies.
4) Lay down a Legacy-sized lot, or several if you prefer (I'm using three).
5) Enter CAS and create your Founder(s) as normal. Choose every genetic trait at your leisure.
6) You have ten generations to achieve optimal genetics for your characters. The challenge ends when all your main characters have been born.

Rules/Restrictions:

• You may look at Sims' genetics in SimPE, for example to find out what their recessive genes are, but not edit them.
• If you run out of eligible Townies, new ones must be created at random.
• If for some reason it becomes necessary to introduce new CAS Sims, what CAS rolls when you enter it is what you get. You may change gender, fitness and personality, but no genetic traits: I'm discounting personality form the list because it's very easy to alter in-game.
• You may have more than one Genetic Legacy going at a time, and the spawn may interbreed. However, families may not interbreed with any family which is not living under the same rules as them.
• You may only breed with Townies and other Genetic Legacy Sims.
• If you're playing through something where history is known or important, and you want to get it right, you may create 'canon' Sims as Founders later in the challenge and thus 'reset' the gene pool a little. But see scoring.
• Using the Lot Debugger, the Sim Generator must be properly randomised for every birth. No clone Sims!
• For 'known' Sims (those who are the object of the challenge, i.e. Gen 10), you may reload births to get the correct gender/genetic combination. By this point, the genes should be available naturally, so repeatedly trying until the right combination comes up is fair. Same goes for forcetwins if your setup demands them.
• You may use default replacement face templates, as long as they are installed before you create your Townies and remain in the game until the challenge ends. No introducing new face templates just to sadorandomly generate some convenient-looking CAS Sims, then taking them out again.
• Aging must be on, and Elixir of Life or similar cheats may not be used on adult females to prolong their fertile period. Nor may it be used on teen females if you like to murder kittens. Elder females, who are no longer fertile, may prolong their lifespans as much as you wish.
• Similarly, you may not use InSIM etc to speed up pregnancies and thus pop out more babies.

Scoring:
-5 points every time you forget or fail to rerandomise the generator. Yes, even if the resulting Sims are genetically unsuitable.
-10 points every time a 'gene pool reset' occurs.
-5 points for each final Gen Sim who cannot be born naturally with the correct genetics.
-5 points for every set of non-geneticised custom content used.

+20 points for every Sim who is born with the correct genetic markers. Maximum score therefore varies depending on how many Sims you're trying to breed: mine would be quite high, as my win condition is 4 Marauders (Gen 10) + Harry + 7 Weasley children + Draco Malfoy (all Gen 11).

Problem: Challenge is not deterministically scored, as scoring rules are undefined because your target is undefined.

Chalk it up to terrible luck. Life happens. You are not guaranteed a perfect game where nothing goes wrong to ruin your score, you know.

Look at it this way: if you CHOOSE to go to school or work, in the hopes of picking up a red memory from it (why else would you do it?), then you can't complain when your plan is thwarted and you get a green memory instead.

Plus, there are work-arounds for both school and work, so nothing is requiring you to attend either one. I'm not going to make a rule about something that a player can already avoid. For example, to prevent a child from bringing home another child, you could just not have any other children in the neighborhood. If you choose to have children in the neighborhood, I say that's you taking a chance that your score will get messed up.

Burglar is, again, a random bad luck thing. However, that's a good point that a perfectly good red memory is being wasted. I'll add in a stipulation that a "met burglar" memory does not lose a point.

The whole point of the challenge is trying to avoid green memories while racking up red ones. Why would we want to make some memories void just because they're more difficult to avoid?

Hmm, true. How about a simple pass/fail, would that work better? Not as if points-farming is really an option here anyway :P

There is a way to avoid attending school? Work is a no-no anyway, as finding a job is a green memory.
I thought that some memories aren't difficult, but impossible to avoid, like the school friends thing. But as you pointed out, it's easy by just not having children in the hood (I never use clean templates, so I didn't think of that). My bad.

Of course you can't get all red memories without getting green ones before (you cannot be fired without having a job first), I've just been wondering whether the challenge can be done without one single green memory.

Work is a net gain, as you can both be demoted and fired, which is 2 red memories for a green one. However, you must not be promoted, and must not actually earn money, as earning money is green.

Since I know everyone loves Uni ::) I think a dorm challenge is in order. Hopefully, the scoring keeps this from being too trivial:

EDIT: Added C4 and C5.

So, maximize All Skills and Keep a 4.0 In 3 Semesters. No problem. I notice you did not outlaw werewolves. Intentional or oversight? It's not even possible for a YA to become a plantsim.

Add in
"No influence" and you've created an impossible challenge

Not really. The kicker is no sim-vac and no dates.

That's not too hard. With the influence options, you can make people do your homework and term paper until your edumacation bar is full. Then, it's all skilling from there.

Heh. Talk is cheap. Try beating my test run of 62, then you can say whether it's easy.  ;D

So, lemme clarify: Three semesters = first half of sophmore year or Three semesters = End of junior year.

Three semesters is a year and a half (i.e. till the middle of the sophomore year).

Ouch. *laughs*

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. You call that a test run, I call that STANDARD PLAY. So that'd be +70 for 70 skillpoints, +35 for 7 skills maxed, and +3 for 3 Dean's Lists, total 108. This is the STANDARD score! Accept no Kewian-based substitutes!

There does not appear to be a rule outlawing either. Aspiration rewards must be earned, and you can't play your sim out of the dorm, but dates are entirely legal, not that you'll have time for that, and Simvac isn't outlawed, but you have to earn it. Still, there are plenty of options. In fact, for the ultimate time cram, you will want to utilize both dates AND the Simvac: Farm dates for ASP to buy SimVacs to drain the expensive high-end skillpoints. Crack that whip! Even if vampirism were legal, it would be counterproductive, anyway. A vampire gets maybe 12-13 productive hours in a day, compared to the baseline of about 16-18 for a regular sim. It's WEREWOLVES that's where the action is: A werewolf has maybe 20-21 productive hours per day, as their energy bar receives a full refresh at 2000, and dorms provide free food to refuel their tanks, and bonus slobbiness to enhance the speed at which they inhale food.

That's what I meant. Removing the option for influence, sim-vac, and dates would make it quite hard. I wouldn't even use influence. I'd make a knowledge sim. First things first, chat up a likely mate and date to enough points for a sim vac and a skilling cap. Use the skilling cap to get your first five or so points in each skill. Then vac the rest. Date, then use the mood boost to do your term paper and an assignment. Very doable.

I have to change the clothing of all the sims at Prospect University since I finally got those things done, so maybe I'll try this. Should be quick.

+70 for all SP, +35 for maxed SP, +15 (+5 for each Dean's List) = 120 points absolute max.

Now that I think about it, I really should include rules to exclude the unfair advantages from NL and Pets.

Can I submit a pre-existing challenge?

Can I submit the Challenge Challenge?

I was talking about submitting a challenge of MINE, asshat.

The House of the Future Challenge
requires OFB


Rules:

-Start with a fresh CAS adult sim. No uni-upgrade.  This is your challenge sim.
-You can only marry/ask-to-move-in NPCs.  No marrying rich sims.
-No leaving the lot. (unless you're moving to a bigger lot for a bigger house..but no going downtown, shopping district, vacation, etc..time marches on)
-Only the challenge sim may be employed.
-You may have an in-home business, but only the challenge sim is allowed to run/work/whatever it, although you can hire employees.  (exception: once the servo is created, he/she may help with the business)
-NO BUSINESS RUNS YOU (I know, I love it, too...but it'd make this too easy)
-No off-site businesses
-No selling crafted or grown items unless products are sold via business. (no selling via pie or buy catalog)
-No painting.  This adds to house worth without spending.
-No bandatrons. No business or gardening macros.  You have to earn your living.  Power Idle is acceptable.
-No custom content
-No money cheats.
-No artificial prolonging of challenge sim's life. (no vamps, no elixirs, no zombies etc)



Requirements:

-Must have at least one of each utility robot and a Servo.  This is the house of the future, afterall.
-no more than one of each utility robot per floor.
-no more than one servo.
-The house must be aesthetically pleasing.  (No floor full of plasma TVs or other such silliness)

Challenge ends when challenge sim dies

House worth is found by the difference in funds during gameplay and family worth on the neighborhood screen (if there's an easier way to find it, lemme know!)

Scoring:

-1 for each day that passes.
-1 for every 5 identical items (not counting recolors of paintings and such)
-1 for each utility robot above maximum (overkill is bad)
-5 for each class of utility robot not in house at end of challenge
-5 for each additional servo (no slavery!  Robots have rights, too!)
-10 for no servo at end of challenge
+1 for every $5,000 in house worth
+5 for each utility robot (below maximum)
+10 for Servo

Breaking the rules is automatic failure.  Ugly houses will be mocked.

It sounds like you've misunderstood what business macros do. They don't do anything "for" you. Your sim still has to do it, it just means you don't break your mouse repeatedly clicking on him to do it.

There's no such item in the game, 32767 is the maximum price on an item as dictated by 16-bit integers.

So, your challenge requires that I have a kajillion pieces of $32767 one-tile CC junk, and fill the house with 32767 objects, choking the life from my computer to achieve maximum physically possible house worth. I'm going to disqualify you on the grounds that this is not playable, since maximum score requires that you utterly choke the life from your computer.

No, no...I mean you, the player has to do it.  Where's the challenge in sipping tea while your sim macros the money?  If it wasn't that it'd make it ridiculously impossible, I'd ban careers, too.


Eh, I didn't know what the most expensive item was, I just guessed.  Basically, I didn't want anyone putting down one or two items and maxing the score.


So ban CC and get rid of the silly, facetious 1 million dollar score...?  I really don't expect anyone to be able to achieve the ultimate maximum score without cheating.

Except that doesn't change anything. Since I wrote the macros because I already solved the problem.

That just changes the maximum score to the highest-tile-density object, since there is an indefinite yield per $5000. Therefore, you just stack that score until the game crashes.

without forcing the player to play, there's not really a challenge...it just becomes a game of wait for money and spend it on stuff.


See, the problem I'm having is quantifying aesthetics.  Yes, according to the rules, you could stack identical items ad infinitum taking a -1 for every 5 items, but a +1 for every 5k....  But where's the fun and creativity in that?  So how do I make a scoring system that rewards artistic expression?


Fine, my challenge is dumb.  I give up.   :'(

It is pointless to create a "challenge" that simply involves the player repeatedly performing the same grind. If the procedure can be committed to a script, that aspect of the challenge has moved to a higher level. Since the script performs the exact same actions the player would, there is no point in forcing the player to do it manually.

You can't. Aesthetics is a matter of opinion and cannot be quantified. You can penalize stacking "identical" items, but it still turns into a simple hodgepodge quest to assemble the most junk. And honestly, you wouldn't even do it until scoring time, or else you'd lose money and lag the crap out of your computer when you flood it with 30000 objects for points.

Yes, this is true. Your challenge is dumb, just like you.

It lost on these two lines:
All houses with just Maxis content are ugly, and hence will be mocked.

This challenge would be adored  on the BBS.

Harder poverty type thing.

Start the game by moving a CAS sim into the 3x1 lot. You must start in Winter. After purchase of the lot, the sim may have no more than 100 simoleans left.

-3 for every day after day one in which the sim is not pregnant, until they hit the last 5 days before elder. You have 24 hours. GO!
-3 for each accident
-3 for aspiration failure
-3 for every sprog not potty trained
-3 for every child that gets rejected from private school. If they are kicked out of private school for any reason, this counts as a rejection.
-3 if the child is not accepted into private school on the day it ages to child or the next day. (so no more than 1 day of public school)
+1 for each grandchild born.
+1 for twins.
-5 for accidental deaths or a visit from the social worker
-3 for each day your sim ACTUALLY GOES TO WORK.
+1 for each sim that maxes all skills
+5 if you combine with email
+1 for every 10,000 simoleans of family net worth at the end of the challenge.
+2 for ETERNAL WINTER, and no other season.
-1 for stupid, cheaty questions that piss me off, or blatantly violating the spirit if the challenge and rules

No moving in sims.
No reward objects.
No leftovers, or storing of food in inventory/OFB cases.
You may only use half the area of the lot. Pretend the other half is not there, you can't use it to store stuff or garden or anything.
Dwelling may only have one floor/level. Basements and attics count as cheating, even for storing stuff.
Only entry level jobs. Don't get promoted.
All sprog must have either the money aspiration, or a random one from rolling a die.
See the ghetto superstar challenge for rules for community lots/ custom content/ "borrowing" items. Except you may get knocked up on community lots, since apparently I was wrong about that.
Only one skilling item per skill. See ghetto superstar if you have questions.
Only one book is allowed, no bookcases. Buy a bookcase, grab a single book, delete it.
No reward objects.
Sims may not sell date rewards, fish, or items from digging/sandcombing.
Challenge stays on challenge lot- no inheritances or gifts from non challenge sims or cheating by using non challenge sims to sell them stuff for cheap, or skill at their place, or what have you. They may not be hired by an OFB business, either.

Sims may not attend college unless they earn at least 5 scholarships.If a sim moves out, it can never come back.
Spawn may not be moved out before the age of teen.
Sims must remain human and mortal. No vampires/werewolves/zombies/plant sims/whatever.

Sims don't have to be showing to count as pregnant.
Sims may not purchase/own/run a business or purchase/sell real estate.
No limit to the number of sims on the lot. You may use a hack or a cheat to increase the game limit past 8, since 8 is lame.
Challenge ends when the founder sim dies.
Move_objects on and snapobjectstogridfalse are considered illegal cheats. Keep it in mind.
Clarification: Sims must become pregnant again within 24 hours of giving birth.
Clarification: If you have seasons, you must play with all 4 of them. Unless they are all Winter.

ETA: fixed the 5 day thing. Clarified hackiness. Removed pointless adoption rule. Added 4 seasons clarification and winter thing.

Bugs: Technically, your sim can't be pregnant for *5* days before Elder. Also, you can't become pregnant once you have filled your lot with 8 sims, which will occur after 7 babies.

Meh. I kind of expect people to move some of them out, or use the cheat/hack to allow more than that number of sims on the lot. Kind of implied in "there is no limit to the number of sims you may have on the lot." May also require a computer with actual rams.

Will fix the 5 day thing. Couldn't remember the number.

Anything else? Or just the positive points?  :D

ETA: fixed. Added plus 2 for eternal winter.

7 babies should take about 21 days+ since sims have the gestation of a whale and it takes 3 days to incubate. I think that should be enough for the eldest sprog to move out.
Let's see... infant 3, toddler, 2, kid, 6? How long are they teenagers?

They're teenagers for 15 days IIRC.

There is basically no way you're going to be able to move anyone out. The enormously long teen stage is rigged so that no sim can be born and reach adulthood before their parents become elders. At 3 (preg) + 2 (baby) + 3 (toddler) + 7 (child) + 14(teen), assuming you're doing age-up immediately on T-1, it will be 29 days to grow a sim from conception to adulthood, which happens to be the maximum length of the standard adult stage. It does not happen.

Even with all limits hacked out and the beefiest computer imagineable, a maximum of 16 babies will bring the computer to its knees anyway.

I tried it on my friend's computer with about 20 babies, aged them up to the appropriate ages and a built shack for them, extrapolating from the other challenges. It still ran just great, although speed 3 was a little choppy on occasion. I think it probably helps that there were so few objects per sim and only a single floor in a tiny lot. And it was still WAY faster than my own computer. So I guess it's all relative. It was hardly "bringing a computer to its knees."

Problem is, there wasn't much for all 20 of them to do. I wonder if I should allow another book or more skilling items, maybe increasing it for every 8 sims or something? And forget the grandchildren thing, and just have the challenge end when the sim hits elder, and go back to giving 1 point per child instead of insisting on constant pregnancy. Maybe it's enough just to have them never go to work. And require eternal winter to take care of the gardening/fishing thing. There's also the problem, perhaps, of people keeping objects in the inventory until they are needed. Not fun.

Huh? What is this 16 baby limit you speak of? Are you meaning 16 in baby stage, or sixteen children on lot of varying ages? I had more in a lot before my upgrade. It was a three-story house on a 2x3. 2gb ram and approximately 2 gigs of CC. Play went slow, but just because I was directing 19 sims (minus two babies) at a time and had to pause. Otherwise, time ran normally.

It would have to be of varying ages, assuming the sim keeps having twins until she can't get pregnant anymore.

An heir must be a male (england is the exeption) so you must get her knocked up until she has a male baby. Is that you mean by 'Heir?'

No. Unless you are specifically playing a particular way, the heir can be any sex.

In sims terms, it usually means the sprog you chose to keep on a legacy lot or use in mutli-generational challenges. It doesn't have to be the first born or anything like that. I believe Rohina used to hold votes to let other people choose the heir in her legacies.

can i choose pictures people drew?

subject #1=> 1 teen Sim

C.A.S.--->Teen w/1 or 2 parents and kill/delete them

all cheats/hacks illegal---> if you use one at anytime after starting up the Sims you must not use any cheats immediate failure if you open up the cheat box

rewards are illegal---> if you get a reward you lose

challenge ends when---> target Sim gets to level 10 in the culinary career or target sim dies

you must only allow the Sim to get promoted without the chance card, you immediately fail if you use the first chance card (doing research on this concept right now; if impossible then I will remove this restriction)

you can only export/lose the parent Sim/s

no Sim/s can join lot except for your Sim's mate if s/he's a Maxis created Sim

Pointing System

-5 points for every time target Sim is demotion
+5 points for every time target Sim is promoted (if Sim gets fired or demoted Sim doesn't get points until the Sim gets back to the level it was at before the firing or demotion)
-10 points for every time target Sim is fired
+10 points when Sim fulfills their starting L.T.W.
-15 points every time Sim misses work
+15 points if Sim doesn't get their first kiss (the wedding kiss does not count as the first kiss nor does greeting kisses
-20 points every time Sim burns food or starts a house fire
+20 points if Sim grows up well
-25 points if Sim has premarital Woo-Hoo
+25 points if Sim gets Woo-Hoo on their wedding night.
-30 points if Sim uses buffet table or gets delivery
+30 points if Sim buys fridge food from a local store

What kind of challenge is this? You can get endless amounts of 30 points each time you buy food from a community lot... so... infinite points as long as you have money.

Plus, it's not even remotely difficult... call the BBS, I think a stray escaped  ::)

I don't even think it's a stray. It had be explained what an "Heir" was.

And what's with the penalties for "premarital woohoo?" Seems rather pointless. Also, what do you have against kissing? So woohoo within marriage is fine, but kissing (whether premarital or not) is not? You're a weirdo, you know that?

Where's the challenge in that?  Reach the top of a career without using chance cards?  Big deal, I often ignore chance cards, and yet my CAS adults manage to hit the top of several careers - with harder jobs in my game.  And this sim starts as a teen, so has more time to skill up for this one career.

It's also missing a point for the points, which is what Pescado wanted. Reading comprehension, people!

Fine. If you want a harder one I'll put the ORIGINAL one up on this site. It's got way more restrictions, point values, and 3 parts to it.

Just remember, this is not the BBS. See Ellatrue's Ghetto Fabulous Challenge or Pescado's Email Challenge for an example of the difficulty expected here. Your challenge is basically "have a teen orphan reach level 10 in a base career without using a chance card and without letting them do the hibbity". That's extremely simple. We also expect some semblance of grammar*.

*Your last post is fine, it's the formatting of the actual challenge you posted that is pretty sad.

And did YOU write the challenge? Or are you plagerising it?

Before you put up the other two parts of this challenge, I thought it might be helpful for you if this one was analysed so that you can see exactly what we think is wrong with it.

  Why not use the age sims cheat? Create an adult sim in CAS, then turn the age sims cheat on, and age the target sim down to teen.  Healthier for your neighbourhood than creating useless, unneccessary character files.  Deleting sims is a VERY BAD THING to do - this is a great way to stuff up your neighbourhood.
  OK, so I'll take out harder jobs.  That makes this challenge easier than my normal gameplay.
  The culinary reward is useless anyway, and the only asp reward I routinely use is the smart milk, so no difference to my normal gameplay here.
  I can't even remember the last time I had an accidental death, so challenge will end when sim hits the top of the career.  Short challenge.
  Not hard.
  Or create without parent sims, using the age sims cheat.
  Most people I know create a custom neighbourhood for challenges, and many people at this site use clean neighbourhood templates, so that the only townies in the neighbourhood are those we created ourselves.  Are you saying I need to replace my clean templates with the original templates just for this short challenge, just so that I have Maxis-created fugly townies for the target sim to marry?
  Is it even possible to get demoted without using chance cards?  I've never seen it, and I've been playing the game since before Uni was released.
  So a guaranteed +45 points for the 9 promotions (less if I send teen to uni, or get the job from the computer)
  See my response to the demotion point loss.  Never going to happen without chance cards.
Easy.  My CAS sims fill several lifetime wants, even with harder jobs in my game.  Since I can't reroll the LTW (no hacks allowed), the only risky aspiration would be Romance with the possibility of woohoo LTWs - although pre-marital woohoo is banned, but not extramarital woohoo, so not so risky after all.
  Well, in the unlikely event that the sim misses the carpool, there's always the car.
So no kissing, not even after they get married.  Weird way to have a relationship, but it doesn't affect the outcome of the challenge.
  Finally a penalty that might actually apply.
  It's not easy to have a sim grow up badly, on the few times it's happened in my game without me deliberately trying for it, it's because a grandparent has died right before the aging up - which won't happen in this game.  So here's a guaranteed +40 points (grow up well going to uni plus growing up well graduating from uni)
  Easy enough to avoid if I don't have ACR in my game.
  Well, duh.  Of course I'd make this one happen.
  Easy enough to avoid this penalty.
  A bonus that can be exploited endlessly.

So most of your penalties are extremely unlikely to apply.  You have an exploitable bonus for basically infinite points.  There are no restrictions on things that should be restricted (such as choice of seasons, or going to community lots for socialising, or if jobs can be acquired from the computer, or any restrictions at all on uni).

If I were playing this, I'd set the seasons to permanent autumn for fast skilling and daily promotions, with Downtown at permanent summer for socialising.  I'd send the teen to uni (permanent autumn again), get them in the right degree for culinary, visit downtown a lot to make enough friends for their career while still a YA, max out their skills (I'd make them knowledge so this may be their LTW), graduate Summa Cum Laude, then send them back home to get married, get laid, and get a job at level 9 culinary as soon as the job is on the computer.  If their LTW career comes up before culinary on the computer I'd take the LTW career first for an extra LTW point bonus.

In aguawaterhesjing's defense, this can also happen if the sim misses work, has no vacation days, and has a low job performance. There are some random situations that might cause this, but they're somewhat easy to avoid. And sims might refuse to go to work if they have low mood (or was that just Sims 1? I don't remember.)

Still, these situations are fairly easy to avoid, so you're unlikely to get this penalty. And pretty much everything else you criticized about the challenge is dead-on, too.

But here's even more criticism! I know this isn't part of Pescado's criteria, but I find challenges with too many scoring options, or too much accounting, annoying. I haven't tried E-Mail Challenge yet, but I will eventually, and one of the reasons why is because it's not annoying to score. For example, instead of nickel-and-diming you on +5 per skill point, the challenge just penalizes you for every skill not maxed out. Simple, and makes it clear what to do. This challenge isn't too bad on the quantity of scoring categories (fewer than Pescado's!) but forces you to count a bunch of petty things.

Also, I'm not much interested in any challenge unless it meets one of these criteria:

• it's a puzzle; how do you solve it most efficiently?
• it's entertaining; it forces amusing situations that could potentially get out of control.

Most challenges seem to avoid these two criteria and instead go for some kind of grind under difficult circumstances. That's not a challenge, that's an exercise in patience. Where's the fun in that?

Ahem!

Yeah, but you can avoid all the penalties, so you don't even need to consider counting them.  Even the burning food/fire penalty can be avoided if your sim lives on chef's salad and/or gelatin.  But on the whole you're right, counting those multiple trips to a community lot to buy food is a petty task that will get repetitive and tedious.

I agree with your point about accounting and grinding making challenges boring.  I enjoyed the original Apocalypse challenge, even with the tedious selling & rebuying everything before Crime is lifted, and played it through several times.  But with all the extended rules for later EPs it really feels like a grind now, not all the restrictions make sense (I ignored the Pets rules on my last playthrough, even though Seasons was my latest EP at the time), and by the time you're about halfway through and have lifted the critical restrictions, as well as some that aren't critical but are nice to have lifted, you're just coasting along waiting for the last generation to grow to teens to be packed off to uni to finish the rest of the challenge.

 :D

I was just going to post-it's not mine! I can't think of a good/hard enough challenge, and I've tried lots of scenarios. Each EP adds to the 'easy' factor.

It's corrected. I have Emma on the brain since I was working on photographing my SC4 conversion lots and had staged this tiny, tiny duplex to show Emma (who apparently is shocked by small lots) that it was playable.

Yes, I wrote it my self. This is just one version of the original one I wrote up on a piece of paper. I'll set that challenge up instead if you'd like.

Keep in mind the following things:

1. We do not like challenges that requires us to do VBTs, such as deleting sims.  Creating pointless, unneccessary sims just to kill them off immediately is also not very popular here.  Especially when there's a cheat that will allow us to turn an adult into a teen.

2. We want hard challenges.  As has already been suggested, take a look at Pescado's Email challenge, or his Ethiopian challenge.  Both of those challenges were broken by OFB (as that EP & subsequent EPs made them too easy), so try to imagine playing them before OFB and the later EPs were released.  For something easier, take a look at the Ghetto Superstar challenge.

3. We want challenges with meaningful penalties that are not trivially easy to avoid.

4. We want challenges & restrictions that make sense.  No challenges like: "the idea is to reach the top of this career, and one of the restrictions is that you can't have premarital woohoo".  There's no connection between the goal and the restriction, it simply doesn't make sense.

5. We like challenges that test our game knowledge, and that force us to explore obscure nooks and crannies of gameplay.  I have to wonder if your game knowledge is up to testing ours, given that you didn't even know if it was possible to become a Celebrity Chef without chance cards.

6. We don't want too much accounting, particularly of petty stuff (like counting trips to community lots to buy groceries).  We want the points system to make sense too, with high value point bonuses and penalties being for the really meaningful stuff rather than for petty stuff.

7.  Prying us away from our hacks - particularly the critical ones that fix game-breaking EAxis bugs - isn't going to be easy.  Take a look at the rules regarding hacks used by other challenges in this forum, and you'll note that they ban cheaty hacks that make the game easier but allow other hacks.  Keep in mind that many of the hacks here don't make the game easier (such as the macrotastics set which simply saves us a lot of clicking), and that some of the hacks at this site actually make the game harder (such as harder jobs and no 20K handouts).

8.  We don't like EAxis pre-made fugly sims.  Many of us use clean templates and make our own townies to avoid having the EAxis townies in our neighbourhoods.  Your challenge will not be well-received here if one of the requirements is marrying an EAxis made sim.

The only way a restriction on premartial sex would make sense is if it was something that was supposed to be "in-character." Like how in the Ethopian Challenge, you're too poor to afford birth control so EVERY woohoo must be  "Try for Baby." Think of something like, "OH HAI I R A QUAKER! I NO LIKE SEX OR ELECTRONICS!!1 kthxbai!"

Well, now that I've thought about it, perhaps she meant that there was to be no sleeping their way to the top. You know, seducing the boss and whatnot. I've seen a popup where a Sim has 'pulled some strings' to get another Sim promoted. Maybe that's what the restriction was meant to have you avoid. Not likely, but there's a tiny chance.

And maybe by EAxis-created Sim she actually meant a townie/NPC and not a playable (which would mean you could still keep your semi-attractive Sims to marry).

I'm more intrigued than shocked :D

They are in the Peasantry.

Those "pulled some strings" promotions happen after your sim has had a successful outing and one of the outing members is a sim who is higher up in the same career.  I've had a sim have multiple "pulled strings" promotions from one successful outing, and in the case I'm thinking of, both the sims were straight males.  It's not about seducing the boss.  But the "rewards" restriction could refer to outing/date rewards rather than aspiration or career rewards - or could refer to all 3 types of rewards.

If she actually meant a townie/NPC, then she should have stated that.  Her words were "a Maxis created sim" and she didn't state that it had to a non-playable.  Her words are open to interpretation, and could mean your sim is allowed to marry a Maxis-made playable.

I think they also happen if you marry someone into the family? Or maybe the stepdad was on a date when he married in, I don't remember anymore, it was so long ago.

I have a harder version with many restrictions and other stuff...Do you want me to put that one up?

How many times are you going to ask before you put it up?

I suspect that s/h/it doesn't really have a harder version, and is delaying until it has the chance to make one. That, or hoping we'll get annoyed and tell it to fuck off. Not sure which.

As long as they're in colour. No point if they're not.

You can put it up if you want, if you think it meets MATY standards.  Be warned that we're not very nice people here, and we will point and laugh at you if it doesn't.

Several of us have explained what we thought was wrong with your previous challenge and you've had some constructive feedback on what we expect from a MATY challenge, so you should be able to decide for yourself whether you want to post it here or if you'd prefer to post it to a site that likes easier challenges.

Yeah, gonna grab them all when I set up my new hood. ;D

A career-based challenge which is harder: Disadvantaged Background.

Your sim has had an unfortunate start in life. He or she never really paid attention in school and grew up with awful social skills. When they grew up, they begged, borrowed, stole, won or saved §20,000 (Your sim - you decide) which was just enough to get them out of the neighbourhood that brought them nothing and into their own place.

Goal: Reach the top of a career.

Start off with one adult CAS sim, male or female. She or he may have any personality and aspiration you like, except for he/she may only have a maximum of 2 points in Outgoing, making him/her shy. For added funnies, make them a chav/trailer trash/stupid celebrity.

No hacks/cheats which might make the challenge easier. No aspiration rewards. No business perks or Free time benefits. No career rewards. No rerolling of wants or lifetime wants, even if you get one which the challenge renders impossible.

If you have Seasons, you can have any combination of Seasons you like but Autumn must only appear once in the rotation.


Skill points:
Move the sim into an empty lot, and build/buy/furnish the house however you like except you cannot buy or make, at any point:
Anything which can be used to build skills
Anything which affects mood without requiring interaction (e.g. Snapdragons)

Exception is made for the computer and stereo.

Your sim may gain skill points by doing things around the house, for example cleaning or cooking.


Making friends:
You may not move anyone in, marry, or move in with any other sim. Your sim likes his/her private space too much.

You may not visit a community lot at any time. Your sim does not like being in the vicinity of so many people at once. You may not go on vacation.

Your sim is allowed to get pregnant and have children. In fact, your sim missed sex ed in school and doesn't know how to use birth control - therefore any woohoo must be "Try for baby."


Getting a job:
Since your sim has no qualifications, whether they get a particular job or not will depend on how they perform in interview and what enthusiasm they have for the job. So job requirements are as follows:

Base Game Jobs:
Athletic - At least 7 interest in Sport
Business - At least 7 interest in Money
Culinary - At least 7 interest in Food
Law Enforcement - A maximum of 3 interest in Crime
Life of Crime - At least 7 interest in Crime
Medical - At least 7 interest in Health
Military - At least 7 interest in Weather
Politics - At least 7 interest in Politics
Science - At least 7 interest in Sci-Fi
Slacker - A maximum of 3 interest in Work

Seasons Jobs:
Adventurer - At least 7 interest in Travel.
Education - At least 7 interest in School.
Gamer - A maximum of 3 interest in Weather
Journalism - At least 7 interest in Culture
Law - A maximum of 3 interest in Sci-Fi
Music - At least 7 interest in Entertainment

Free Time Jobs:
Will be added later unless someone wants to suggest interests for them before I do.

Note: You don't actually have to have an interview, but sims can only take jobs which they meet the required interest level for.

Your sim may not have a custom job, only an EAxis one.

You may not ignore chance cards.

When you get to level 10, you must go to work for at least 1 day, and then retire to complete the challenge. You may not retire before this point.


Scoring:
The challenge ends when your sim has retired; or when your sim dies.

If you get to level 10, go to work for at least one day, and then retire, YOU WIN!

If your sim dies before this happens, YOU LOSE.

Now, calculate your score.

-2 for every day your sim is unemployed.
-1 for every day you call in sick, take a vacation day or miss work because of pregnancy. A day missed due to pregnancy which would have been a day off anyway does not count.
-5 if you get fired for any reason.
+5 for every pregnancy.
-3 for every child taken by the social worker.
+2 for every skill point gained by the end of the challenge.

Notes/Questions:
I don't have Pets, BV or Freetime, so please point out anything in those EPs I haven't mentioned which I should have.
How much should the bonus for playing with harderjobs be?
Should there be a bonus for fulfilling a sim's LTW?

Since you don't have FT, I thought I'd mention this:  FT makes it easier to train mechanical without a bookcase.  You tinker with stuff (such as the shower or electronic equipment) until it breaks, then you can repair it.

I have a question for you: is doing the crossword in the paper permitted?

Buggery, I thought tinker might have something to do with mechanical skills. Hmm.

Yes, the crossword is allowed.

Tinker itself doesn't appear to train mechanical.  But repairing the broken item does.  If I send a sim with no mechanical skill to tinker with a shower, it's guaranteed to break almost immediately.  Repair, rinse & repeat, tend to the sim's needs, tinker again, etc, and a sim will easily gain several mechanical points from the repairing.

It's also handy if you are trying to get an "accidental" death by electrocution.  Send a sim with no mechanical skill to tinker with a computer, tv, or exercise machine, and then get them to repair it when it breaks.

I haven't played with tinker a lot, but I assume that the higher the mechanical skill, the longer it will take for a tinkering sim to break the item.

That does seem to be the case, Kyna, it always ends with them breaking it, but they take longer to do it.  :P

Is eggplant juice permitted?

I had forgotten that too - yes, why not. Although perhaps I ought to change the rules about seasons so every season has to appear once so that you can't grow eggplants all year round - or the rest of the fruits/veggies.

I ought to ban tinkering too, as long as that's the only thing I'm going to have to ban. I don't want it to end up like the apocalypse challenge where you have to have a huge list of stuff you aren't allowed to do because it's impossible to remember them all.

Why should tinkering be banned? That's how *I* learned *MY* mechanical skills. I messed with stuff until it broke! Destroying household furniture is no more wrong than cleaning things is for cleaning points. Besides, you don't need tinkering to break an item. If you want to destroy an object, just hit "use" repeatedly until it breaks. Items are damaged per-use, and break per-use, not based on how heavily used they are. Which is why computers break when you simply step away from them, not when you turn them off, like real computers.

I know you don't need it, I just thought from the earlier comments that it would make it easier or quicker to break things than just using them all the time. If that's not the case, there is no real need to ban it.

Ban eggplants completely, or it gets ridiculously easy. It's no problem whatsoever to gain a silver gardening badge and raise enough eggplants to max all skills within two seasons. Who needs community lots? Befriend every idiot strolling by. If there's not enough walkbys, have blind dates, order grocery, pizza etc. Find a suitable job. Reach top of career. End of story.

It's just not interesting to just reach the top of a career. Even without eggplant juice, it's no challenge, just tedious.

Eggplants can be grown all year regardless of reasons. Winter makes it slightly less friendly if they are exposed to actual snow, but it becomes a nonissue if they're grown in a basement with lamps or in a greenhouse. Still, eggplantery is normally the slow-boat-to-nowhere approach of skillgaining. 2 Seasons (10D) to max all skills? Normally, SLOOOOOW.

Oh yes, it IS slow. But still faster than building logic skills with only crosswords or cleaning skills by mopping puddles. You could of course avoid jobs that require logic or cleaning, in which case you could reach the top of the career before the harvest, if you're lucky with the working days/hours.

By the way - what about charisma? Is there a way to gain charisma skill points without a "skill building" object? Quite obviously, mirrors are banned, too.

Not by using any kind of object, there isn't.  ;D

I don't use eggplants ususally, I didn't realise the skill increase was that much.

Aspiration rewards and career rewards are banned. Dates give cleaning points. There aren't social interactions that give charisma, are there? I think schmooze is based on number of skill points already gained, and doesn't give a chance of adding them? I'm at a loss as to what you're referring to, especially as you don't BV (vacation bonuses upon returning?).

I don't know if it is normally possible for a pregnant sim to go to work. The carpool just doesn't show.

You kinda have to use your own cars. Stupid EAxis and their dumb idea that some fat cow should just lie there being bloated in my sight all day. BEGONE! Also, moar Ellatrue torture in next Awesomeland. Show up and contribute to the plot! Or I'll throw you in a vat of boiling sharks.

Boiling sharks?  :D

Much of this challenge depends on chance. Does that help?

I tend to ignore that I have Pets installed (apart from the nifty floor dividers), but isn't it possible to train charisma by talking to one of the caged pets?  Is a caged pet a skill building object?

Talking to caged birds gives charisma, yes.

Digging for treasure and then filling in the holes gives you cleaning points.

It is - one eggplant juice gives you one random skill point, no matter how high the target skill is.

One question about the retiring thing: Do we actually have to wait until the sim becomes an elder?

Gaining cleaning skills: Tinker with shower until it breaks, then mop up puddles for hours.

Yes.

Also, non-FT strategy: Make sim zero-neat-points, add cheap shower, mop up puddles for hours.

Heh. I know that you can only retire as an elder. I've just been wondering how it adds to the challenge if you have to wait until elderhood before ending the challenge (in case you reach the top of the career while still an adult, that is). The goal is "Reach the top of a career", after all.


Perhaps you should add "receive as a gift" to the bold part, or add a rule that the challenge sim must not be invited by another household ever. Otherwise, you have a big, fat loophole.

Yeah, I suppose there is no need to make them be an elder by the end of the challenge, it just prolongs it if you managed to get to the top before you got to elder. Instead I could always add a time bonus: 1 point for each day left until age transition (and ageing would have to be turned on, evidently.)

sloppyhousewife: (For the part about recieving objects as gifts etc.)
I think your suggestion makes sense. I haven't played with nightlife very long so I forgot about date/outing rewards etc. So any rewards recieved should be sold immediately.
ETA: Just realised you meant give as a gift, which means the inviting part makes sense now, too. So I should add to that list "be given as a gift" since you could play another family, hang around on a community lot, and wait for your challenge sim to show up (or show up as a walkby) and give him or her the gift that way without inviting them over.

Right, so eggplant juice should be banned. Caged birds should really be classed as a skill building object, even though they are not an object as such.

Ellatrue:
You could also only time woohoo so that your pregnant sim has their normal "weekend" as their maternity leave so they don't incur any penalties. However, having children isn't a requirement, more a points bonus as they make the challenge harder.

The thing I was hinting at earlier is that it's possible to gain skills by random chance card outcomes. It is also possible to be promoted by chance card even if you do not have the required skills or friends.

The community lot restriction was not intended to make it difficult to meet people, more to stop the time machine effect.

If this post sounds arsey, it's not meant to, I am about to fall asleep.

How about pulling strings? Find a sim who's high-level in your sim's chosen career, and have a date with them. That could get you a fair few promotions.

Yep, that's what I meant - or just invite the challenge sim over and stuff his/her inventory with skill building items.

One question about the computer and stereo exception: Does it mean that the challenge sim is actually allowed to build skills with them, or that s/he may *have* them, but not use them to gain creativity/body points?

Yes, they are allowed to build skills with them.

Pulling strings? I thought that was a myth? Although judging by the effect of sleeping with your professor in Uni... I wouldn't put it past them. :D

A promotion by getting strings pulled has happened to me ONCE, but then, I don't do many outings, and my sims don't usually date people in the same career as them soo....

I see that skill-building objects are banned, but what about skill-building build mode stuff? Specifically, swimming pools.

How can you build charisma without skill building objects or caged pets?

With difficulty. (There are some career tracks that have Charisma gains as rewards for the chance cards.)

Not that you necessarily need Charisma: it has little on-lot use, and it is not required for all careers - Culinary, Medical, Criminal, Law Enforcement and Science are the original career tracks that do not need it.

um...this is not the original one i wrote up...that's the one I'm gonna post up...so yeah...it was pointless for you to type all that stuff.

She was offering advice. Y'know... explaining why the first one you posted was bad. You're supposed to read it... and go... "Oh. Okay, I'll avoid this in the one I rewrite." Don't be an asshat. Just post your remixed challenge instead of talking about it.

I suggest starting your own thread for your challenge.

I'm gonna give the negative memory one a shot.  I tried the insane asylum one, didn't finish it but i'll go back to it.

I have no patience for a lot of the macro stuff now... I used to be able to play for hours straight, but now even half an hour makes me wince.

Lets see if I can make it 50 days without killing my sims *too* badly...

So I was starting a new eXtreme Legacy Challenge (I don't intend to follow the rules rigorously, but it should provide some much-needed structure for my too-infrequent play), when I hit on the following idea.

Stop me if this has been done before, or, more likely, when you find the loophole. The golden path for winning this challenge is not obvious to me, even after a few minutes of thinking about it. I'm sure you challenge addicts can find it, though.

The Making Do With Less Challenge

The goal of the challenge is to raise a child from birth to death on a single lot... a lot with as few objects or buildings on it as possible.

Rules:
Create an adult sim in CAS, any way you like. Move this sim into a 5x6 "Huge" lot, leaving the poor bastard with only $1500 to his or her name. (The lot size isn't important at all, just the starting money; if you like, you can achieve this condition using a smaller lot and your choice of cheats).

The parent Sim must, sometime prior to their death, spawn a child. The child Sim must never leave the lot he or she is born on, except to attend school or work. The child must not attend college. The challenge ends with the death of the child. If the child dies before reaching Elder, you automatically fail. Neither the parent nor the child may leave the lot except to attend work or school; in particular, they must never visit a community lot and raise skills or motives.

You may move in as many additional Sims as you like, so long as you wait no less than 5 days between move-ins, and each move-in contributes at most $1000 to the family's funds. You may have as many additional children as you like. If either the parent or child Sim attains permanent platinum mood, you must use the Lot Debugger to remove such immediately after gaining it. Failure to do so will forfeit the Challenge.

Scoring:

• +10 points if the child attains platinum aspiration level as a toddler and never dips back into gold
• +5 points if the child attains gold aspiration level as a toddler and never dips below gold (does not stack with +10 for platinum)
• +2 points if the child is admitted to private school
• +1 point if the parent dies a platinum death
• -1 point if the child does not die a platinum death

• -1 point for every hour the parent spends at least partly in red (i.e., below 0) mood
• -5 points for every hour the parent spends at least partly at red aspiration level
• -10 points for every time the parent enters aspiration failure
• -2 points for every hour the child spends at least partly in red (i.e., below 0) mood
• -10 points for every hour the child spends at least partly at red aspiration level
• -20 points for every time the child enters aspiration failure

• -2 points for every object on the lot at the end of the challenge
• -10 points for every object that you acquire and later get rid of
• -5 points for every linear stretch of wall or halfwall on the lot (no matter what its length; a normal rectangular room, composed of 4 sides (as most rectangles are), would then be -20 points)
• -5 points for every tile fully enclosed by walls or halfwalls (a 4x4 rectangular room would therefore suffer -20 + 16*-5 = -100 points total; by dividing it in half down the center, you lose another 5 points for the wall, but as you enclose the same number of tiles, it's only -105 points total)
• -20 points for every item on the lot whose function is entirely duplicated by another item (except purely decorative/no-use items... which you shouldn't be buying anyway!) (Examples: having both a cheap and an expensive telescope is -40 because either telescope could replace the other; having a stove and a toaster oven is -20, because the stove could replace the toaster oven; having a television and a bookcase is -0, since even though both can teach cooking, they have functions the other does not)

Scoring Exceptions:
The Lot Debugger and other pure-hack items that provide no direct benefit to Sims' motives, finances, or relationships do not count against the number of items on the lot. Use your own discretion. If an item is delivered to your lot by a Sim not under your control (date flowers, for example), you take no penalties if you burninate the item immediately after it arrives on your lot. If the item is Rod Humble's computer, you automatically lose the challenge (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/samples/ffs/ft/images/donotwant.jpg) for not being awesome enough. Expired aspiration rewards and similar do not count as having "duplicate functionality;" a burnt-out Energizer is good for nothing, but a charged Energizer obviously still has some use. You just take the usual penalty of -2 per object for each one you've got, or -10 each if you sell them.

Custom Content:
All Awesome hacks are allowed. No custom content that provides functionality not available with regular TS2 Maxis objects is allowed (example: the porta-potty salvaged from one of the Stories games is forbidden). It should be pretty obvious if custom content provides functionality advantageous to this Challenge; if so, it's banned. Money cheats are not allowed; building cheats are (if you'd like to run your score into the ground, who am I to stop you?).

All too easy. Here's the solve:
Install your parent sim on an empty lot. Never buy an actual object. As the parent sim is not obligated to stay on the lot, according to the rules as given, the parent may freely leave the lot and pursue any community lot functionality. Do so. Gain all skills, become a plantsim. Now spawn, but do so normally, as you will miss the private school points otherwise. Use the Knowledge aspiraton perk "impart knowledge" to gain the skills needed to meditate. Use the Plantsim Happy Spores ability to restore child motives. Once child becomes a teen, meditate when not at school until dead (no points are given for any other achievements, and money is not needed when living on an empty lot, as the repo man cannot repossess objects with no objects on lot). Incidentally, the +10 for platinum-as-toddler-and-never-gold is a mathematically impossible goal, since the change in aspiration bar fill size at age transition automatically drops you back to gold because max toddler ASP is only gold child ASP. Assuming you disregard bar-loss due to age-up, then this is still easy.

So, optrun:
+10/+5 for plat/gold.
+2 for private school.
No negative points due to mood restorer spores and no objects ever.

Final score: 12 or 7, depending on ruling for age-up ASPbar expansion.
Difficulty: Low.

Ah, but you are wrong about the restrictions on the parent sim:

Well, a community lot is not required for Pescado's approach, it just makes it easier.  The parent and the child (once it's old enough) could gain enough logic to meditate from the newspaper.  And the parent could become a plant sim from one tree.  So all they need is a chair (to sit on to do the crossword) and a fruit tree.  Before the parent becomes a plant sim they could date a lot at home to keep moods up, and then sell the date rewards with no penalty.

I'm not awesome enough to try Pescado's approach.  For us lesser mortals, I note there are penalties on walls & half-walls.  But there are none on floor dividers, nor on floor tiles that are fully enclosed by floor dividers.  Was that a deliberate loophole?

Bah. They get to start with $1500, and the parent gets to LIVE? All you need is an easel, foundation walls for the house plus free roof, and a fridge. Challenge is pointless. See MINE. Plus, you allow other sims to move in. The bottom third of the scoring is interesting, though. I like it.

The problem is that you lose if you buy any objects or walls, because having an object or wall gives you negative points, and even more if you actually get rid of it later for some sadistic reason. Since you cannot have objects, money is therefore meaningless. As there are no open score loops, negative points mean automatic defeat.

So I see. It's in a different section. Changes nothing. The work or school loophole covers this case.

I don't like this scoring, it's bean-counting. The aspiration failure penalties are bearable, but just barely. But you have to note the times each sim enters and exits a mood level?

The object and wall penalties are pretty annoying, too. For the walls, I'd recommend a flat penalty for every enclosed room, if anything. Then, at the end of the challenge, deduct the original cost of the lot from the final cost of the lot to get your penalty. Much easier.

Also, you should define "on the lot". Otherwise, there's an enormous loophole via the Inventory. Buy anything you desire, use it, put it in your inventory. As written, object is not on the lot and you didn't sell it, so no penalty. I thought of this when I considered Kyna's suggestion of dating to boost moods. You have to call up your date, unless you are just dating walk-bys (there's a name for that kind of dating...) Cell Phone, assuming you can get one, is stored in inventory.

P.S. Pescado: since the parent can't leave the lot, the only way to gain logic is via the crossword puzzle, which requires buying a chair, and the only way to try for baby is to buy a bed or other woo-hoo object. That's either -4 or -20, depending on whether you sell them off when done. Or no penalty, if that inventory loophole applies.

Does a tree on the lot count as an object?

Objects, there is a restriction on. Garden plots there is not. Put down lots of garden plots. Plant eggplants! Sufficiently many eggplants should allow you to max skills out, no problem.

EDIT: Oh expletive, that requires a juicer and something to put it on. Hmmm, another -4 there. (Or 0 with the inventory cheat.)

well that's an easy fix - ban special sims. No plantsim = no happy spores = need for objects to keep the baby/toddler/child happy. Also count garden trees as objects and garden plots as floor tiles?

Only walls are penalized, not floors (are they more comfortable to pass out on than bare ground?), though as Jack Rudd pointed out, the juicer is needed to make use of anything grown. I would ban inventory cheating... and if you manage to get a cell phone (gifted from another playable?) count it as an object. Making due with less means no calling friends on demand!

Someone should make a challenge more challenging than sustaining yourself over a long period of time by dating and meditating.

Challenges like this are especially hard to design, I think, because the game just throws money and motive boosting stuff at the sims. Especially if someone has all the EP's, the number of housekeeping rules you have to make to keep the challenge from breaking gets ridiculous. In addition, banning/limiting stuff can limit the range of actions available to the player, and sometimes make the gameplay less interesting. I'm not sure how best to resolve this, other than trying to balance the challenge toward more interesting options, and awarding bonus points for a few extra challengy things to allow it to be played in multiple ways.

How does freetime affect poverty/spartan type challenges? Hmm. There's one: the Sparta Challenge.

floors aren't penalized unless they're enclosed by walls, I would add the number of garden plots on the lot total up and count that as though it were enclosed by walls.

also, count things in the inventory as though they were on the lot, that fixes that loophole.

And, no meditating? No, a better way is to reward the act of doing things. Or penalize the lack of doing things - maybe for every day you don't earn a skill point, -1 point? ooh, then you'd have to pace yourself and shit...

You're not thinking out of the box, then. The rules explicitly permit leaving the lot for work/school.

Community lots are banned.  What about business lots?  Can the parent own a business that is not on the home lot?

Does the parent's job have to be a standard career?  Or can they be employed by another playable?  I could see the parent being employed at a farming lot, where they could become a plant sim.

And they also explicitly state "no community lots or skilling off lot." Technically, a business lot that isn't a home lot is a community lot. I suppose it's a question of whether the rules are saying "don't leave the lot except through the go to work/go to school action" or "don't visit another lot at all, only leave the lot via the normal career carpool or the school bus".

Will we get a ruling on that, and on the Inventory loophole?

Oh, and since I haven't installed OFB yet, I'm wondering: is there a way to get a job on an OFB lot without a phone? As I understood it, it's certainly not possible to start a business without either a phone or a computer.

Yes, it is possible to get a job on an OFB lot without a phone.  The playable sim that owns the lot could hire the challenge sim in person.  Play the business owner for long enough and the challenge sim will turn up, either as a walkby at home, as a customer in the business, or while the business owner is visiting a comm lot.

You don't need a chair to do the crossword, or to read a book, IIRC. Sims will do the crossword standing or sit on the ground to read.

I'm working on a similar challenge anyway about doing with less/poverty etc, but could use some more input as I'm kind of stuck on certain issues. Perhaps you'd rather take a look at that thread instead, and apply your thoughts there?

[BLATANT PLUG] The challenge is here:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,9325.0.html
PLZ GIV FEEDBAK K?

Thank you, we appreciate your business. You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming, made possible by VIEWERS LIKE YOU.

And a business lot that IS a home lot is not. So it's allowed to hire the challenge sim if you run a home business. You don't even have to wait until you bump into him/her if you have the network(?) perk that allows you to call everyone in the neighborhood.


Not true. They only state that you're not allowed to skill on community lots:


Otherwise, you weren't even allowed to eat at work (if you have a "workpool" job), as this does happen off lot, obviously.

If the challenge sim doesn't have a phone, then the owner of the home business would have to wait until they bumped into the challenge sim.  Even with the networking perk, they couldn't call a sim without a phone.

Does a sim actually have to have a phone to be part of the hire pool you can call the "service" to access?

You're right, of course. Silly me :D.

The sim does not have to have a phone to be part of the hireable pool. There are also multiple ways to manipulate the neighborhood itself to force physical appearance. In fact, in a a stock game, it'd be nigh impossible to PREVENT it from happening.

Thanks for all the comments everyone; I'll try to address all them below (hopefully I don't miss any). Sorry it took me so long to get back to this thread (work got busy last week...).

Yeah, the bottom third is the core of the challenge. The other crap is just there to give it a little more structure, and so you can't just let the little bastards spend their lives in misery. Anyone can do that--but keeping them happy when they have nothing is a little harder. Especially if they're greedy, materialistic Fortune sims.

The scoring is bean-counting, but I couldn't think of any better way to enforce the condition "you can't just let the little bastards spend their lives in misery." These rules are quantitative and objective, at least. If anyone has suggestions to make this part less beancounter-y, I'm all ears.

I agree completely, and I've added some new rules below to reflect this. I'm very open to better ideas than just flat-out, boring penalties, but there's nothing that strikes me as relevant to the core idea of the Challenge and at the same time worthy of daily reinforcement. "Don't buy shit" is a pretty simple, straightforward maxim, and so explicitly bringing in other stuff like skilling dilutes the flavor, I think. Oh well.

Your challenge is pretty much more interesting on every level than mine. But this one's mine, damn it, and I came up with it on my own! You can pry it from my cold, dead hands, and if you're going to be prying stuff from dead people's hands, you may as well start with Charlton Heston's guns. Because, you know, they're guns, and guns are useful. Challenges are not.

Now for some general responses and clarifications to the Making Do With Less Challenge:

• An "object" is any non-transient thing (i.e., not a Sim, or a dinner plate, etc.) on the lot. That includes trees, and just about everything else. A quick rule of thumb: if it sells for more than $0, it's an object. If Sims can interact with it, it's an object.
• Anything in the Inventory counts exactly as if it were on the lot; this was a big loophole I just forgot to mention. Cell phones in the Inventory are almost the same as regular phones, except that you don't need someplace to put them. But having one for each Sim incurs the duplicate object penalty....
• Businesses are, as far as I'm concerned, "community lots." Jobs (and schooling) must be at a Maxis-style career where the Sim just up and vanishes for the day, and should not be at hacked careers that pay out ten times the usual rate, etc.
• Now for the big one, plantsims and their ilk. Damn plantsims. I've never played with them, and have no desire to, so I'm not at all surprised that I've totally missed the way they blow this challenge wide open. I suppose the best way to deal with this is just to ban the damn things, along with werewolves and Bigfoot (I don't even know what they do; having encountered something else I do not understand, I shall do the American thing and just ban the hell out of it). Servos aren't really Sims, and so were never allowed. Zombies may as well be allowed, since I don't think they provide any benefit; vampires are also OK, since if you can manage to become a vampire and not die, you deserve your reward. Plus they're blood-sucking monsters, which are always fun.

Anyway, it's obvious that, like most of my brilliant ideas, this one doesn't really pan out as BEST CHALLENEGE EVAR, so I don't think I'll be going through and updating the rules in response to further criticism, unless someone comes up with something terribly insightful and/or destructive to the Challenge, or if people actually play the Challenge and find it interesting, or something like that. As Ella said, the game just makes it too easy for you, throwing money and free motive boosts at you, and most of them just have to be flat-out banned. That tends to be boring and smacks of a poorly-designed challenge. A good challenge should be simple, elegant, obvious, and Pure Evil™.

---

The revised rules, in full:

The Making Do With Less Challenge

The goal of the challenge is to raise a child from birth to death on a single lot... a lot with as few objects or buildings on it as possible.

Rules:
Create an adult sim in CAS, any way you like. Move this sim into a 5x6 "Huge" lot, leaving the poor bastard with only $1500 to his or her name. (The lot size isn't important at all, just the starting money; if you like, you can achieve this condition using a smaller lot and your choice of cheats).

The parent Sim must, sometime prior to their death, spawn a child. The child Sim must never leave the lot he or she is born on. The child must not attend college. The challenge ends with the death of the child. If the child dies before reaching Elder, you automatically fail. Neither the parent nor the child may leave the lot except to attend work at a standard Maxis career (i.e., not a player-owned business) or school; in particular, they must never visit a community lot and raise skills or motives.

You may move in as many additional Sims as you like, so long as you wait no less than 5 days between move-ins, and each move-in contributes at most $1000 to the family's funds. You may have as many additional children as you like. If either the parent or child Sim attains permanent platinum mood, you must use the Lot Debugger to remove such immediately after gaining it. Failure to do so will forfeit the Challenge. Neither the parent Sim nor the child Sim may ever become Plantsims, werewolves, or Bigfoot. Failure to cure them immediately will also forfeit the Challenge.

Garden plots must be built inside a greenhouse.

Scoring:

• +10 points if the child attains platinum aspiration level as a toddler and never dips back into gold (except once at each age transition)
• +5 points if the child attains gold aspiration level as a toddler and never dips below gold (except once at each age transition; does not stack with +10 for platinum)
• +2 points if the child is admitted to private school
• +1 point if the parent dies a platinum death
• -1 point if the child does not die a platinum death

• -1 point for every hour the parent spends at least partly in red (i.e., below 0) mood
• -5 points for every hour the parent spends at least partly at red aspiration level
• -10 points for every time the parent enters aspiration failure
• -2 points for every hour the child spends at least partly in red (i.e., below 0) mood
• -10 points for every hour the child spends at least partly at red aspiration level
• -20 points for every time the child enters aspiration failure
• -1 point for every 4 hours either the parent or child spends meditating, totalled over their entire pathetic lifespans. Round up!
• +4 points if neither the parent nor child ever meditate (+2 if only one mediates)
• -2 points for every date either the parent or child ever goes on
• +4 points if neither the parent nor child ever date (+2 if only one dates)

• -2 points for every object on the lot* at the end of the challenge
• -10 points for every object that you acquire and later get rid of
• -5 points for every linear stretch of wall, halfwall, greenhouse wall, or floor divider on the lot (no matter what its length; a normal rectangular room, composed of 4 sides (as most rectangles are), would then be -20 points)
• -5 points for every tile fully enclosed by walls, et cetera (a 4x4 rectangular room would therefore suffer -20 + 16*-5 = -100 points total; by dividing it in half down the center, you lose another 5 points for the wall, but as you enclose the same number of tiles, it's only -105 points total)
• -20 points for every item on the lot* whose function is entirely duplicated by another item (except purely decorative/no-use items... which you shouldn't be buying anyway!) (Examples: having both a cheap and an expensive telescope is -40 because either telescope could replace the other; having a stove and a toaster oven is -20, because the stove could replace the toaster oven; having a television and a bookcase is -0, since even though both can teach cooking, they have functions the other does not)

*Note that items held in Inventory are still considered "on the lot"!

Scoring Exceptions:
The Lot Debugger and other pure-hack items that provide no direct benefit to Sims' motives, finances, or relationships do not count against the number of items on the lot. Use your own discretion. If an item is delivered to your lot by a Sim not under your control (date flowers, for example), you take no penalties if you burninate the item immediately after it arrives on your lot. If the item is Rod Humble's computer, you automatically lose the challenge (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/samples/ffs/ft/images/donotwant.jpg) for not being awesome enough. Expired aspiration rewards and similar do not count as having "duplicate functionality;" a burnt-out Energizer is good for nothing, but a charged Energizer obviously still has some use. You just take the usual penalty of -2 per object for each one you've got, or -10 each if you sell them.

The definition of "object": An "object" is any non-transient thing (i.e., not a Sim) on the lot. That includes trees, and just about everything else. Dinner plates, books, and other things spawned indefinitely by other objects in the course of normal usage do not count as objects separate from the one that spawned them. A quick rule of thumb: if it sells for more than $0, it's an object. If Sims can interact with it, it's an object. This should be pretty clear, if not from the letter of the rules, then at least from their spirit.

Custom Content:
All Awesome hacks are allowed. No custom content that provides functionality not available with regular TS2 Maxis objects is allowed (example: the porta-potty salvaged from one of the Stories games is forbidden). It should be pretty obvious if custom content provides functionality advantageous to this Challenge; if so, it's banned. Money cheats are not allowed; building cheats are (if you'd like to run your score into the ground, who am I to stop you?).[/list]

You are still leaving the plantsim loophole wide open.  Additional sims can be moved in, and you have not restricted these.  You could move in a plantsim who goes around shedding spores of happiness to keep the moods of your parent & child up.  You could even move in multiple plantsims, if you wanted to.

Here is the ORIGINAL one I drew up:

Culinary Career Challenge

C.A.S.---> teen w/2 parents
Illegal Cheats---> aging on/off

3 Part Challenge
Your Goal: Getting all members of the family to the top of the Culinary Career

Part :1:
Goals:

Get all members into the Culinary Career path
Keep Teen's grades between C- to B+
Keep all members from getting fired from their jobs

Part :2:
Goals:

Get all members to lvl 3
Get Teen into Private School
Keep Teen's grades between A- to A+
Keep all members from getting fired

Part :3:
Goals:

Get 2 members to lvl 10
Get Teen to grow up well or go to college with no less than 4 scholar ships
Keep all members from getting fired

Pointing System:

Part :1:

-10 points for every day a Sim doesn't get a job [-20 points if you go back in time]
+10 points for every grade above C- when finished
-5 points for every time a Sim gets fired
+5 points for every time a Sim gets a Promotion (up to 5x for adults) (up to 3x for teen)
-10 points for every time a Sim ages or dies
+10 points every time a best friend is made by any Sim (up to 5x)

Part :2:

+10 points for every grade above A- when finished
-5 points for every time a Sim gets fired
+5 points for every time a Sim gets a Promotion (up to 5x for adults) [or if teen gets into private school (is not stackable)]
-10 points for every time a Sim ages or dies
+10 points every time a best friend is made by any Sim (up to 5x)
-10 points every time acceptance is denied [this includes getting kicked out]

Part :3:

+5 points for every time a Sim gets a Promotion (up to 5x for adults)
+10 points for every other scholarship after the third scholarship
-5 points for every time a Sim gets fired

Overall Points:

-1 point for every non-Sim day passes
-10 points if cheats are used to get the jobs
-15 points for using computer to acquire jobs
+15 points if the paper is used to acquire jobs

It took you 4 months to "improve" your challenge, even with all the feedback you were given on how it wasn't hard or challenging.  And it's still not challenging.

There's no indication of how you move between the stages, so I'm assuming that all the other requirements of stage 1 have to be met before the teen is allowed to earn a grade higher than B+.  Keeping their grade below A until they can move on to stage 2 is the only way your challenge varies from standard gameplay.

My teens regularly get 9+ scholarships, I find it hard to keep sims from hitting the top of their career or getting A+ grades, the headmaster scenario is easy even when sims live in cheap barely-furnished lots, and I don't think I've ever had a sim fired apart from a bad chance card (and in the culinary career it's always possible to avoid the possibility of a "fired" answer on the chance cards).

I'm not seeing a challenge in this.  What is supposed to be hard - the luck factor of when culinary comes up in the newspaper?

From a scoring point of view (for someone with Uni, Seasons & FT and their extra careers) it's probably best to just cheat your way into culinary the first day if the job isn't in the paper, forgo the +15 from getting the job from the newspaper, and take the -10 penalty for cheating - which I note is less than the penalty for getting a job from the computer.  That way you don't get -10 for every day they don't have a job.  Given the daily penalty for not having a job, the only way to get a better score would be if culinary came up in the paper on the first or second day which is unlikely when you have all the career-adding EPs.

Take a look at what we consider to be a challenge (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,11.0.html).  Then take your "challenge" to some site where they think hitting the top of a career is hard.

...or getting anything more than failing grades. Points for grades over a C-? Please. Before hardergrades, all my sims had A+ grades. Now, most of them sit around the C or B level because I don't skill except for promotions or Knowledge sims. Still, a sim with less than a vanilla C is rare.

Go play the "challenges" at TSR and enjoy the inevitable game breaking.