The Challenge Challenge!

[Zazazu]

It lost on these two lines:

-No custom content
...Ugly houses will be mocked.

All houses with just Maxis content are ugly, and hence will be mocked.

[SaraMK]

This challenge would be adored  on the BBS.

[Ellatrue]

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.

[J. M. Pescado]

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.

[Ellatrue]

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? 

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?

[sloppyhousewife]

Let's see... infant 3, toddler, 2, kid, 6? How long are they teenagers?

They're teenagers for 15 days IIRC.

[J. M. Pescado]

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.

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.

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

[Ellatrue]

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.

[Zazazu]

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.

[Ellatrue]

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

[aguawaterhesjing]

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.

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?'

[Jelenedra]

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.

[aguawaterhesjing]

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.

can i choose pictures people drew?

[aguawaterhesjing]

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

[Jelenedra]

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.

[kuronue]

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

[Jelenedra]

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

[Aggie]

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?

[Kyna]

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.

[Zazazu]

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

[aguawaterhesjing]

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.

[Zazazu]

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.

[Jelenedra]

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

[Kyna]

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.

subject #1=> 1 teen Sim
C.A.S.--->Teen w/1 or 2 parents and kill/delete them

  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.

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

  OK, so I'll take out harder jobs.  That makes this challenge easier than my normal gameplay.

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

  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.

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

  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.

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)

  Not hard.

you can only export/lose the parent Sim/s

  Or create without parent sims, using the age sims cheat.

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

  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?

Pointing System
-5 points for every time target Sim is demotion

  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.

+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)

  So a guaranteed +45 points for the 9 promotions (less if I send teen to uni, or get the job from the computer)

-10 points for every time target Sim is fired

  See my response to the demotion point loss.  Never going to happen without chance cards.

+10 points when Sim fulfills their starting L.T.W.

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.

-15 points every time Sim misses work

  Well, in the unlikely event that the sim misses the carpool, there's always the car.

+15 points if Sim doesn't get their first kiss (the wedding kiss does not count as the first kiss nor does greeting kisses

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.

-20 points every time Sim burns food or starts a house fire

  Finally a penalty that might actually apply.

+20 points if Sim grows up well

  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)

-25 points if Sim has premarital Woo-Hoo

  Easy enough to avoid if I don't have ACR in my game.

+25 points if Sim gets Woo-Hoo on their wedding night.

  Well, duh.  Of course I'd make this one happen.

-30 points if Sim uses buffet table or gets delivery

  Easy enough to avoid this penalty.

+30 points if Sim buys fridge food from a local store

  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.

[talysman]

-10 points for every time target Sim is fired

See my response to the demotion point loss.  Never going to happen without chance cards.

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?