More Awesome Than You!

Hi everyone,
I feel a little bad that my first post is asking for people to help play test a challenge, but I do need feedback in the worst way to get this ready for "publication", if you will.

Anyway, a brief bit about the challenge so you can tell if it's something that might interest you:
1) There are VERY little rules concerning your individual families
2) The goal is to build up a good-sized "Sim town".  Community buildings are "unlocked" based upon your Sims' careers and the levels they've reached in their career.
3) This is a challenge for people who either like to build custom lots or at the very least spend time downloading custom lots.

If you're interested and willing to put a little time into it, I really need people to offer feedback and help me knock the kinks out of it.  I've got a group set up at:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/citybuildingchallenge (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/citybuildingchallenge)

There are some links to resources as well as the rules, and at this point only 22 messages to wade through :-)

Thanks very much in advance.

Arki

You'd get more feedback on the rules if it were easier to find them.

'Tis true. Not many will want to go through the hassle of joining a yahoo group, and then having to wade through the bizarre layouts. Post the useful bits here and we'll look at them. As is, you're asking us to join a group 'blind'.

That is true :-)  Mainly I just didn't want to post the whole thing if nobody was interested.  But, as you both make an excellent point (and come to think of it, I probably wouldn't do either if I didn't know me ;-) )  Here you go.  They're long, but I appreciate anyone's input.

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Town Building Challenge
by
Arkali
(with HEAVY inspiration from the LegacyLand Minionettes' Real Life Challenge)

INTRODUCTION
Those who are tired of "this sim must do this, this other sim must do that" challenges but would still like some direction may enjoy this.  It's focused on building up your community into a prosperous town.  Whether or not it's prosperous will be judged by how many buildings offer services and products.

THE GOAL
The goal is to build up your community.  Will it be a hamlet, a village, a town, or a city?  That's up to you, but the fun is in getting there!

Please read the entire rule set in its entirety before beginning.  Some things may be a little confusing at first, but should be clear once you've read everything.  If you have any questions, please ask!  The only stupid question is the one you don't ask, and if you're think it, so is someone else 

SOME STARTING TIPS AND HINTS
This Challenge is less about what your individual households are doing and more about what your town is looking like.  Therefore, you are not required to follow any rules when making your starting families.  You can choose any number of sims per family, any mix of genders and ages, any personality and any aspiration combination that you want.  I WOULD, however, recommend that you give yourself a good variety of aspirations and personalities.  You'll see why in a bit 
You may build your lots yourself, or download and install lots - your choice.
Your neighborhood should not have any buildings in it that you have not "installed" yourself.  This eliminates confusion as to what buildings are able to be scored and also gives you a sense of satisfaction as you see your little town grow.
Don't forget your free/starting buildings:
City Hall
Taxi depot
Newspaper office - this could even be a little house if you want to say that your town paper is a small publication such as a Penny Saver or Thrifty Nickel.
School
Utility Station
Country Market or a Convenience Store for groceries
Installing your families:  if you wish to build your family's home, drop them on the lot and give them 1 wall or end table and a phone.  If, on the other hand, you want to put them in a pre-constructed home, put your home down first, then move in the family.  Make sure they have a phone on the lot, then save and exit.
Your initial steps should be:
1.Set up a BLANK neighborhood with no buildings, decorate as you want.
2.Install your "freebie" buildings.
3.Roll your starting number of families.
4.Create your families and install them on lots with a phone.
5.Start playing!


STARTING YOUR HOOD
To start your hood, roll 1 six-sided die and add 1 (1d6+1).  This is your starting number of families.  Feel free to make your Sims however you like them.  Select any personality/zodiac/aspiration combination you choose.  I would suggest selecting a variety of aspirations and personalities, as that will help in selecting careers.  After creating your families, place each one on a lot and install them a phone.  Create a play-list.

THE RULES FOR FAMILES/INDIVIDUAL SIMS/GENERAL PLAY
The neighborhood will be played Prosperity-style.  For those who are not familiar with this challenge, you make a list of each playable household, playing each in order for a set amount of time.  It is recommended that you play each family for a Sim-week, saving the household at the same time on the same day for each one before moving on to the next family on the list.  Midnight on Monday is my personal choice.  As Sims move out or go to college, they will be added to the end of the play list and rotated in.  University may be added once or twice to your play list.  If you add it once, you may play either 2 years or 4, your choice, but it must be consistent each time you play University.  If you choose to add it to your list twice, you should put it once in the middle of your list (you may change its placement so that it's in the "middle" each time you start the beginning of your list again) and once at the end.  You would then play that round for either 1 year or 2 Sim years.  My personal preference is to add it to my play list twice and play it for two years each time.
No cheating.  Especially no money, aging off, or mood boosters.  Cheating with move objects, etc. is fine as long as it is used to fix a glitch or for building purposes.
Hacks are acceptable, within reason.  If it's a hack such as the college clock or phone hack, that's fine.  What is not fine is a hack that bypasses the no cheating rule.  If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck - it's a duck.  You know if a hack is "too good to be true".  That said, no one but you will know if you cheat, so do as you will 
Aspirations will not be rolled when Sims reach teen-hood - you may choose them freely.  However, you should select an aspiration that "makes sense" for your Sim.  Violet Kitty used to have an excellent tutorial on this, but I didn't see it on her SimPage anymore.  I did, however, find this short list of tips in one of her other tutorials:

In closing, childhood is mainly about succeeding in school and determining the best life aspiration for your child. Helene is very outgoing, so Popularity really is a great aspiration for her. Kade is very shy, so being a bookworm suits him. The wants the children display often (but not always) go along with their personality.
Knowledge: To do homework right away after getting home from school. Earn any non-specific skill.
Popularity/Romance: To become best friends with specific Sims outside of the family. Should not fear parties.
Family: To interact and raise relationship with family members. Earn Cooking and Cleaning skills.
Fortune: Buy stuff...especially pricey stuff. Earn Creativity and Body Skills.
Thanks to Violet Kitty for letting me quote her tutorial.  For her wonderful tutorials, check out her SimPage: http://thesims2.ea.com/mysimpage/mysimpage.php?user_id=80050
You may use the ReNuYu Senso Orb without penalty if you have a Sim that just refuses to fit the aspiration "mold".  For instance, if you knowledge Sim has wants to get engaged, get married, etc. feel free to have her switch to family.
Careers are not rolled, either, but rather should be selected based on the Sim's aspiration and personality.  For instance, a playful, lazy romance Sim would not be likely to go into the business career.  He would, however, be well suited to being a slacker.  If he had a decent activity level, he might also go into law enforcement (the better to hit on the single women who call the police department).  Feel free to download custom careers.  http://www.modthesims2.com has a wonderful selection.  Some of the custom careers that caught my eye are in the links section of the Yahoo Group (see link at end of rules).
Aspiration rewards:  You may only use one bottle of aging elixir per Sim.  Other than that, though, go crazy with your aspiration rewards.  You earned them, so feel free to use them. 
Marriage and offspring:  There are no rules regarding whom you can marry or breed with.  The only restriction is that you don't marry or move in a Sim purely to use them as a cash injection or a free maid/nanny.  Try to get away from "power playing" in this challenge.
Death and Resurrection:  There are no points for collecting ghosts or platinum gravestones, so there's not really any point to killing your Sims off unless they are just standing on your last nerve. While it's not forbidden to kill a Sim, it's not encouraged, either.
Nasty things happening to your Sim:  As with death and dying, it's not recommended that you torture Sims.  If it makes sense for a particular Sim to have them be a philanderer, fine, but I wouldn't really recommend it just to break their spouse's heart.
No ignoring chance cards. 
Visiting other lots.  Community lots are not available for visitation unless/until they are "staffed" (see the next section).  Delivery options are not available until you have a level 2 building of the appropriate type (restaurant, groceries, etc.)

THE RULES FOR ADDING BUILDINGS / CAREERS
Okay, here's the challenge part!  I will try to explain this in some detail, so bear with me.
Buildings are ranked in four levels:
1Small - barely there: 
This would be along the lines of a convenience store for retail, fast food/greasy spoon for restaurants, etc.
2Lower middle, but nice:
These are the restaurants along the lines of El Chico, Shoney's, etc.  A guideline is that a couple could eat here for @ $25.00 if they did not order alcohol, appetizers or dessert.  Retail stores, this would be a Wal-Mart.  This is the level where delivery and emergency services become available, if you have a staffed building.
3Upper middle:
This is the Outback range.  A couple could eat here for @ $50.00 if they did not order alcohol, appetizers, or dessert.  Retail stores: Sears, JC Penney, and The Gap.
4Exclusive, posh:
This is the cream of the crop.  If we're talking restaurants, expect to pay @ $100 for two people. Retail, we're talking Neiman Marcus - yeah, they sell a pack of gold colored plastic spoons dipped in chocolate for $50.00 per package of 8.
These "rankings" apply to all classes of building - service, retail, restaurant and community infrastructure (utilities, schools, police, fire departments, etc.).
Building the first type of building in a class is a "freebie" - there is no requirement to build it or utilize it, although it is not "staffed and active" until you have at least one Sim employed there.
Similar to the buildings, careers also have four levels:
1Level 1 = level 1-3 of the building.  For example: Team Mascot, Minor Leaguer, and Rookie in the Athletic career track are level 1 for the purposes of building.
2Level 2 = Career levels level 4-6.
3Level 3 = Career levels 7-9.
4Level 4 = Career levels 10.
In order to build higher levels of buildings, you must have a Sim at a high enough Career Level to qualify for that level building.  For example, in order to build a level 2 restaurant, you must have at least 1 Sim that is either a Host/Hostess, Waiter/Waitress or a Prep Cook.
IMPORTANT:  In order for a building to be considered staffed and active, it must have a Sim of the appropriate level working there, AND lower level buildings must ALSO be staffed in order to have an unbroken "chain".  So, if your convenience store (level 1) clerk gets promoted, you cannot count his level 2 place of employment (the video store) until you have another slacker of appropriate level to work at the convenience store.  Unstaffed buildings are NOT available for use by your neighborhood.
IMPORTANT:  No changing a building's rank for a certain career path midway through the challenge.  Similarly, once you've decided that a convenience store will serve as your level 1 building for both your slackers and business Sims, it will always need those levels of employees to stay operational.
IMPORTANT:  Delivery services and emergency services become available once you have a corresponding level 2 building.  While a pizza place would be a level 1 building, the Powers That Be will not think your town is large enough to offer delivery service until you've grown enough to build a level 2 restaurant.  Police and firemen are employable at your City Hall, but until they will "work" from 8-5 Monday through Friday until your town is big enough to build a Police Station or Fire Station.  In game terms, this means no alarms (fire, burglar or car) and no food or grocery delivery until you have the appropriate level 2 buildings.
IMPORTANT:  Sims can't hold down multiple positions.  Your Convenience Store Clerk (level 3 on the career track, so works at a level 1 building as a slacker) cannot fill the position at your Coffee House AND your Video Store.  You must have two Sims to staff and "activate" both buildings.
Building types correspond to careers of your Sims, and similarly you may not utilize NPC's or services that you do not have infrastructure for.  A Sim may not work in a career track if there is nowhere available for him to work, nor can he be promoted if there is not a building of sufficient quality for his new position.  In game terms, this means that you must build the appropriate building as soon as possible upon receiving a promotion.  You must also try to ensure that there is another Sim available to take the job vacancy that will be left by the promoted Sim as soon as possible.
Services such as the maid, nanny, gardener and exterminator are an exception.  You may assume, for game purposes, that these are the following levels:
Level 1: These aspiring entrepreneurs do not have a "brick and mortar" location.  Instead, they have a cell phone, a truck and handle all of their own scheduling.  A level 2 service business may have up to five clients.
 Level 2:  Services may be handled via a "temp" agency.  A temp agency my have up to ten clients.
Level 3:  No longer able to handle all of their own business needs, a level 3 service business requires a "headquarters".  Each individual type of service requires its own building - ie. A nursery for the gardener, a Maid Service for the maid, a Daycare for Nannies, etc.
City infrastructure:  Use your imagination with your building types.   These buildings will provide your police, fire fighters, social workers, and politics career track buildings.   A suggestion would be something along these lines:
5City Hall
6Emergency Services
7Courthouse
8Police Jury/Town Council building
You may NOT use/call for the police or fire department until you have a level 2 city infrastructure building, nor may you install alarms.
There are some required buildings:
1Newspaper office -will count as a level 1 building if you have downloaded a journalism / writer career or you use it for a business Sim, perhaps.
2Taxi Depot - will count as a level 1 building if using it as a "freebie" so you can have transportation to community lots.  It can be advanced for a slacker or perhaps a different career.
3Grocery Store - Again, a freebie if you don't want it to count for scoring, but you need it in order for your Sims to have food.  If you'd like it to count for scoring, you could possibly link it to the slacker or business careers, or have a Sim open an OFB business.
4Post office
5School House - this is required regardless of whether you have the teacher career path.
6Utilities.  You may use the windmills/water tower/silo type neighborhood decorations if you want, though this type of arrangement can never be higher than Level 1.  An upgrade would be to make an actual utility company, and that could also do double duty for the business career, for instance.
Education:  I would strongly recommend downloading a teacher career from a site such as http://www.modthesims2.com. If you do, here is an optional rule.  School levels are: Elementary School, Middle School, High School and College.  You may not send teens to college until you have built a college - ie. Have at least one teacher at the top of the career track.
It's possible to have buildings do double duty.  For example, you might have a level 2 restaurant count for both your Level 2 Career locations for the culinary career and also the criminal career (think of how you always see the "Family" meeting in restaurants in shows such as The Sopranos.
You may score a single building multiple times.  NOTE:  Don't lie to yourself, here.  While a large grocery store may serving to employ your Career Level 2 Business Sim and your Level 2 Slacker, and possibly even your Culinary Sim may be working in the deli.  I don't think your military Sim, athlete and criminal will ALSO be there, though 
Sub-neighborhoods.  While it's possible to use sub-neighborhoods to house Sims and businesses, it can get confusing.  The Downtown area would make a nice area for businesses, though, just make sure to keep track of which ones are "operational".  An easy way to solve the confusion issue would be to make your sub-neighborhoods "blank" with no buildings to start out with.

OPTIONAL RULES
An optional rule would be to attach these price levels to stores and not allow your Sims to buy anything from a higher price value than what you have built and staffed shops for.  To do this, look at the items in the Build or Buy Catalog.  Subtract the lowest price point item from the highest price point item.  Divide the total by four and plus the cheapest item's price to get your first level. 
Example:
Let's say chairs run from $80 to $1,000.  You may either simplify and make a table like this:
Simplified price chart for chairs:
1.$0-250.00
2.$250-500.00
3.$500-750.00
4.$750-1,000.00


Or you may subtract 80 from 1,000.  This gives you $920.00.  $920 divided by 4 is $230. Your table would then look like this:
Super detailed price chart for the perfectionists among us:
1.$80-310.00
2.$311-540.00
3.$541-770.00
4.$771-1,000.00

If you choose to use this option, I'd recommend building a furniture store and a hardware store.  You could either level up your stores OR have a large store such a Home Depot.  If you choose to have an "emporium" type building, you need 1 Simployee per store level.  For instance, a Level 4 Home Depot might have 1 business Sim, 1 law enforcement Sim (for security) and 2 slacker Sims.

SCORING
1 point per level of business reached, with the following exceptions:
Home businesses may count for a maximum of two points. 
Level 1-7 = 1 point
Level 8-10 = 2 points
OFB businesses that are on a community lot are scored normally and may also count for another Sim's workplace.
Only count level 2 or higher buildings
Only count "active" buildings.  In other words, if you have a level 2 restaurant with a Host/Hostess employed, but your fast food restaurant has no worker (Dishwasher, Drive Through Clerk or Fast Food Manager) you would NOT be able to claim the 2 points for your restaurant.

0-50 points:  Hamlet
50-100:  Village
100-150:  Town
150-200:  City
200 plus:  Major Metropolis


SUGGESTED BUILDINGS PER LEVEL / CAREER TYPE:
These are only suggestions and I'm only including some of the base careers to give you ideas. Use your imagination!

Athletic:  The high school track could do double duty here for your level 1 athletic building.  Level 2 could be a seedy gym or a martial arts studio, level 3 could be a nicer gym, and level 4 could be a professional team's stadium.
Business:  Level 1 could be practically any level 1 business you have available - they all need managers.  Level 2 could be a business owned by another playable Sim, Level 3 a bank or utility company, and Level 4 a large corporation.
Criminal:  Many of these will probably double up with other buildings.  It's not as though criminals have a storefront for said activities.  Well - not a blatant storefront, anyway.  So Level 1 could be the alley behind the convenience store or a pawn shop, Level 2 could be the back room of a restaurant or a bar, level 3 could be a jewelry store that sells some of your stolen goods, and level 4 could be the home of the criminal or the golf course!


Yahoo! Group for the challenge:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/citybuildingchallenge/

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Thank you again :-)

I assume that when they are employed by a community lot, it is merely symbolic.  ???

Yepper.  They have whatever job it is that they have and take the carpool and so forth.

I also attached a word doc of the rules (just figured out I could do that) if you'd like a copy that's formatted nicely.  Again, thanks!

Wow, I'm a bit overwhelmed. This would probably require even more note-taking than the apocalypse challenge  :o

I'm not trying to be mean, but I seriously don't get the point of this challenge. It's just to play some families in rotation and not have community lots for a couple days????

No problem - and no, that's not mean :-)  The point is to realistically build up a realistic Sim-town.  I'm not sure if you've ever lived in a small town, but there's not much of anything to do.  For instance, where I live there's a post office, a pizza place (no delivery), 3 gas stations/convenience stores, an elementary school, a middle school (no high school, though - kids get bussed about 20 minutes away).  There's also 2 restaurants (they'd be level 1 greasy spoons by this challenge's standards) and a handful of shops.  That's it.  Oh - the nearest grocery store is also a 20 minute drive.   There is a city about 15-20 minutes away, so it's not that bad :-)

Anyway - I thought it might be fun for people to see how much they can build their town up.  It may end up sucking - who knows?  I have a feeling people will either love it or hate it, though, depending on personality type :-)

Thanks for the comment, by the way.  I should probably clarify that the next time I revise the rules.