More Awesome Than You!

I know this is practically a BBS post, but...

I ran the headmaster scenario for the first time with the new neighborhood and Free Time.

At the 2:30 mark I had 47 food points, 43 tour points, and 0 shmooze points for exactly 90.  Which doesn't make sense because normally if you get a lively conversation at the dinner table you get 20ish shmooze points, but never mind.

The headmaster does his usual I'm-done-congratulate-parent routine.  Then I get the "you suck, we don't want you dialog."

WTF?

In the old days we'd get all sorts of sheep posts about pregnant mother, homework undone, grade point too low, but we know that's all bull at this point.  The only thing that matters is that final score.  Yet I failed it anyway, for the first time since the early days with the bug where the headmaster would vanish a few moments after stepping on to the lot.
 
- Gus

Can you replicate it?

All I can think of is if the headmaster had a bad conversation after you saw the 90 points, but before he queued up congratulate, you might have wound up with an 89 or something, but the game had already triggered the end of the scenario. But that's assuming you can get negative schmooze points, which I'm not sure of.

I suppose this is more embarrassing than in the old days, when the headmaster ignored attempts to give him a tour or feed him and instead headed straight for a hot tub, had a damned good time there, then left because you are a crappy family.

Yeah, you can lose shmooze points.  Near as I can tell, it's just the number of daily relationship points you gain or lose with him through ordinary means during his visit.

 - Gus

You can lose schmooze, but can you get negative schmooze? That's what I don't know.

I don't believe it.  It now appears that is is the GPA.

I tried to invite the headmaster the next day, and got a dialog saying "we don't accept students with less tha C averages."  I checked the kid, and sure enough, somehow she'd gotten a C-.  She'd only been to school one day, which I thought meant she'd have a C+, but it's been a long time since I paid close attention to that junk.

Ergo, I deduce that I invited the headmaster before the kid came home on day 1, which meant she had a C average, and she failed the Headmaster scenario because her grade had dropped.

 - Gus

Oooh, bad flashbacks...that strangely make me homesick for the base game?

I thought anything above a D was acceptable.

The C thing has always been around. This is why you must always schedule the headmaster scenario immediately, before the first day of school, which requires careful advance planning to only try for baby between Wed 1800 and Thu 1300 or so. Otherwise you will not be able to do the headmaster scenario. Furthermore, a child that goes to school on the first day (8 days remaining) is heavily penalized and will likely lose grades. Therefore, you must always make sure that the child does not have to attend school until the agemeter reads "7 days remaining" or less. See Wednesday Rule.

I understand what you're saying, but it hardly seems that time critical unless you're really hell-bent on getting in at the first possible moment, or you're playing a challlenge that penalizes any days of public school.  It's not difficult to get to a B average in the first couple of days of school, and that's more than enough.

Under the house rules I play under, I don't have fine control over the timing of Try For Baby.  Essentially, I'll have the Sims do it if at least one Sim has Want Woohoo and one has Want Baby.  This can be the same or different Sims.

 - Gus

It isn't simply an error in code?  >90 rather than >=90?

You can alternatively use either Monique's Computer (I use Chaavik's FT conversion in the Peasantry) or Inge's School Changer doo-hickey from Simlogical. The computer can be set to charge private school fees, which I like. Privilege costs. Inge's has the option to change to Flexi-school, which she made so that you could run your own schools in-game, but which I use to switch non-college-bound teens to not having to go to school their last couple days.

I honestly can't stand the Headmaster scenario. It's boring as all get-up.

And the richer sims can use jfade's "Bribe the Headmaster" aspiration reward to get the kids into private school. 

With those rules, I'd just not bother to have sex on any other day. Doing It Wrong is a MASSIVE penalty.

I'm still not quite getting why a few days delay is a massive penalty.  Is private school really that much better than public?  I haven't paid close attention to the motive decay rates.

 - Gus

The difference between the schools is relatively immaterial, but the game stick with you with a MASSIVE grade penalty for going to school on the same "day" as age-up. You must allow one intervening 1800 after grow-up to pass without going to school to avoid this penalty. This is incidentally why people who play with aging off all the time find their grades stuck. There are only two ways to do this: Either age-up on a weekend, so you do not have to go school, or age-up prematurely and lose a day. The latter is also a heavy penalty. This is the game's way of punishing poor family planning. Just like in real life, your kids will be stupid if you don't do things right.

Eh, but they bounce back in a day or two. Kind of unrealistic....even with hardergrades and a complete lack of attention to skilling my sim children, I'm getting A+ on the second day of school all the time, and typically mine age up midweek.

Is that why zombie teens get stuck with Cs too?  Will raising zombies during the weekend have the same fixing effect?

I hate the headmaster scenario. I think it needs to be tweaked so you can get the kid in via threats, or maybe beating the snot out of Mr.Snotty-Pants.

It would be nice if there were more variation in the headmasters, so that you *could* get into private school by beating up Mr. Masochist Headmaster. But then, Mr. Masochist would probably require altering the globals to introduce a check after a fight that looks for a "masochist" token and gives a social relationship boost if the masochist lost the fight. Then, you'd need something that added that token to a headmaster, possibly a few other random townies.

Am I the only one who ages up asap at every life stage because I just want to get on with the show?

It's not that huge of a deal. Everyone can still end up maxing out all skills etc, during their early lifetime.

No need for so much panic.

I also age babies up as late as possible before 6 p.m. to make them miss most of the first day of toddlerhood because toddlers are more of a pain in the ass than babies.

Their shrieking grates on my weary nerves.

I always age them up when the popup hits cuz I want to see how they'll look and get on with it, indeed. I just figure for it when I adjust the teen and adult age spans and the synching thing...

No. The only time I let my babies wait a bit is if I already have toddlers in the nursery. I just got done with one child, two toddlers, and two babies in one house. I'm not sure about the new twin benefit, but it seems to raise to nearly 100% odds. Otherwise, everyone gets aged up ASAP. There is no elixir use, excepting one special case of a sim who Death got sick of running over to take every night  just to have him beat him at Find the Shiny. He gets to use a bottle of elixir, burn it off, then Death challenges him again.

Well, in Matysdoorp, Emma's baby Gus was born when Joanne had one day of toddlerhood left.  Not buying another crib.  Babies and toddlers sleep quite nicely on the floor, or they can take turns.  It's only for one night.

Hopefully the parents won't ACR on the increasingly-annoying-zebra-couch-of-sadorandom-fertility while Gus is still a baby.  If I get simEmma a job, perhaps she can restrain herself.  ;D

Have not decided whether Joanne will go to private school.  I'll look at parental wants.  I don't mind the Headmaster scenario, especially if I can get some behavioural stupidity.

If the headmaster is a masochist, it defeats the point. No, I want him to admit the kids to the private school out of FEAR. Or maybe greed. I like the flamingos quite a bit.

Or you can do what I do, which is cheat massively. Simlogical's heirloom cake to age them up when I get bored of babyhood or toddler evil, Monique's computer to get them into private school and Merola's painting to give them an A plus immediately. I also like the bribe the headmaster apple if there is an actual want on a parent's part to get them into private school. I haven't bothered with a headmaster since the base game. :P Too darn much work.

Well that's a bit too cheaty-cheat for me. I'd get a guilt complex.

I've had 2 or 3 sims with this benefit, and none of them have had zomg twinz yet.

Ah, then it's sadorandomness. Hopefully it kicks off for pregnancy #4 in the Mayor's house, because while it's a big house, the kids are slated to share one large room that will hold six kids exactly, and Oscar wants six kids exactly to marry off. If they get a seventh, someone has to die.

EDIT: And...not so much. Fourth pregnancy was twins, again, which means a remodel is in order, and I'll have nine sims using three bathrooms. At least the eldest (non-twin) is just five days from adulthood so she should be out of the house when the youngest twins are children. Plus, we know that LotFullofSims is still working. And my gender odds aren't being sadorandom...10 kids born, 1 on the way, and I have 6 girls and 4 boys.