You've just bought the shell of a house in the middle of nowhere, and realised that not only do you want to raise a family here, but you need some basic businesses too! Guess you'll be building more than a home here...


Qualification to host - Site member since 2007, and participant in 'Build A Business'


Concept - There will be 6 rounds, with the intention of building up the basics of a small willage or hamlet. Round one will involve a residential lot, rounds 2-5 will be a mixture of residential or community lots, with a pool of themes to choose from. Every contestant will build or decorate 6 lots. Template lots will be provided for every round, none larger than 2x3 so that people with older/slower computers won't have issues.


Some rounds will be CC-free, some will be decor-based, and some will be build-based - the idea behind this contest is to cover a wide area of ground, so that people with different skill sets can all show off what they are best at =]

There must be a minimum of 10 contestants, and a maximum of 20.


Requirements - Nightlife is required, as I cannot get my AGS to run a base-only game. If you do not have NL but have another EP, please let me know, and I can make an alternate version of the lots. People of all skills and levels are more than welcome. Familiarity with taking good screenshots would be helpful, as would a basic level of experience with smaller lots.

Rules -

- This contest is for TS2 only
- CC-wall paint and flooring is allowed in any round - this is the ONLY EXCEPTION.
- Free CC only, in CC-inclusive rounds
- CC-Free rounds are exactly that - use of any CC (other than walls) during these rounds will result in points being docked.
- All images must meet MTS guidelines .
- All but the first image should be under [SPOILER] tags. For clarification, as I am an idiot and forgot to put it in the main post, you can have UP TO 8 images for each round, including one floor plan, and one front-on shot. In rounds with more than one storey, an additional floor plan may be added for each floor.
- In rounds where a building shell is provided, ONLY interior walls may be built/altered.
- Any requirements for the lot may be inside or out, where appropriate
- Have fun! MANDATED FUN FOR ALL.


Judges - I would prefer to have 4 judges for this (this didn't happen, but we still have 3 and that's A-OK!) - I will judge, as it is my contest and I am power-mad wanting things to go smoothly, so that leaves three slots. I would like to have an emergency judge as well, although if that doesn't happen, it's fine. If you would like to judge, please post 1 shot of a lot you yourself have built, and one shot of a room you have decorated (these do not have to be the same lot).

JUDGES ARE - myself, ekrubynaffit, and AdonisPluto

Points will be awarded as such, with each judge awarding the following to give a potential 75 points per round -

LOT THEME - up to 5 points

BUILD SKILL - up to 5 points

PLAYABILITY - up to 5 points

OVERAL THEME - for the village as a whole. up to 5 points

REQUIREMENTS - up to 5 points

Contestants!

Contestant	Totals	R 1	Score	R 2	Score	R 3	Score	R4	Score	R5	Score	R6	Score
HugeLunatic	445	entry	73	entry	73.5	entry	74	entry	75	entry	74.5	entry	75
joandsarah77	429.5	entry	71	entry	70	entry	71.5	entry	73.5	entry	71.5	entry	72.5
gagafanu	354.5	entry	63	entry	56.5	entry	52.5	entry	63.5	entry	64	entry	55
Hencing	437.5	entry	74.5	entry	69.5	entry	70	entry	74.5	entry	74.5	entry	74.5
Jones7659	433.5	entry	71.5	entry	71	entry	72.5	entry	72	entry	72.5	entry	74
CatherineTCJD	435.5	entry	73	entry	74.5	entry	70	entry	72	entry	73	entry	72.5
abel1980	429	entry	72	entry	69	entry	70	entry	72	entry	72	entry	74
klaartje68	426	entry	68	entry	66.5	entry	70.5	entry	72.5	entry	74.5	entry	73.5

No longer competing

Contestant	Totals	R 1	Score	R 2	Score	R 3	Score	R4	Score	R5	Score
sugar50 (WITHDRAWN)	71	entry	70.5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
karen_lorraine (JUDGE)	146.5	entry	73	entry	73.5	playalong	-	playalong	-	-	-
Cyshix(LOST IN SPACEWITHDRAWN)	136.5	entry	67	entry	69.5	playalong	-	-	-	-	-
VioletPadfoot(WITHDRAWN)	194	entry	67	entry	64.5	entry	62.5	-	-	-	-
leefish(WITHDRAWN)	290	entry	72.5	entry	72	entry	73.5	entry	72	entry	-

ROUND ONE OBJECTIVES - Build, decorate and renovate your home! You will be provided with a basic foundation, and your task is to build a home onto this - whether this is a single-storey home is up to you in this round. The steps must stay in the same places, but can be switched out for nicer-looking ones. The following rooms MUST be included - 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 kitchen. It'd be a good idea to leave space for an extension some day...

This is a CC-free round, by which I mean the rules apply - CC walls and floor are allowed, but nothing else is.


ROUND 2 OBJECTIVES - Decorate and renovate this shell of a building, using ONE theme from the 'community' listing below. NO walls can be altered, and you CANNOT use the roof-top areas as anything other than roofs. A balcony may be added (it should be self-explanatory where this can be added, but if not please ask.) Points will be docked if the MUST HAVE items for your chosen theme are not used, one per missing item. This round will close in 3 weeks time, at MIDNIGHT GMT on Monday 23rd September. CC is allowed in this round, as long as it meets the rules (free only)


ROUND 3 OBJECTIVES - Decorate and complete this derelict building, using ONE theme from the 'residential' listing below. Seems easy, huh? Sadly, renovating this house becomes a little trickier when Town Planning gets in touch with you and tells you this is a listed building, with an architecturally important staircase made by Sir Hristopher Simmington that can't be moved, redesigned or painted, and built in such a (ridiculous) way that all walls are supporting walls, and therefore can't be moved. Lucky for you, the original roof was destroyed in a storm and no-one knows quite what it looked like, so any roof is permitted as long as it is in keeping with the local style. Points will be docked if the MUST HAVE items for your chosen theme are not used, one per missing item. This round will close on an EXTENDED DATE OF MIDNIGHT GMT on Monday 21th October. CC is allowed in this round, as long as it meets the rules (free only)


ROUND 4 OBJECTIVES - Decorate and renovate this shell of a building, using ONE theme from the 'community' listing below. NO walls can be altered, but additional floors may be added and rooftops can be used. Overhanging areas are allowed. Points will be docked if the MUST HAVE items for your chosen theme are not used, one per missing item. This round will close in 2 weeks time, at MIDNIGHT GMT on Monday 4th November. CC is NOT allowed in this round. LotAdjuster is NOT allowed to add extra details or to add walls/overhang nearer to the edges of the lot.


ROUND 5 OBJECTIVES - An empty plot has finally become available in your village, and you've been given planning permission to build on it. Sadly, you were so excited at the prospect of building somewhere from the ground-up, you didn't read the details of the land correctly, and now are the somewhat bashful owner of a small plot complete with a large, beautiful tree - a large, beautiful tree with a Tree Preservation order on it. Build and decorate any ONE theme from the 'residential' listing below that you have not yet used, without moving or changing in any way the tree in the lot. This round will close in 2 weeks time, at MIDNIGHT GMT on Monday 25th November. CC is NOT allowed in this round.
NO LOT ADJUSTER

ROUND 6 OBJECTIVES
An empty plot has become available in your village, but you are only allowed to build a community lot on it because it has been designated as community land. You are not allowed to change the bridge OR in any way or to change the water depth or shape of the river in any way unless you are adding the pond as part of the 'Perfect park'. So change river? Yes with pond in Perfect park. Change bridge? No.
EXTENDED DATE
So build and decorate any ONE theme from the ‘community’ listing below that you have not yet used. The round will finish at MIDNIGHT GMT on Monday 23rd December. Only build CC is allowed in this round.


Rounds 2-6 are a little bit multiple choice - you will be picking from these themes, so pick carefully! You will build 2 further residential homes, and 3 community/business lots, and there are separate themes for each. Choose carefully, because you can only use a theme once, and there will be points given for good use of the theme. Please note - 'CAN INCLUDE' items are (usually) EP-specific items, and are therefore not necessary items as that wouldn't be fair on everyone.







Applications will be accepted until all 20 slots are filled, or until the end of the application round, 2 weeks after this post goes live, at midnight (GMT) on Monday 2nd September.

CONTESTANTS -














ALSO, I nearly forgot to add - there will be prizes in this contest! FIRST PLACE will get both 1 residential and 1 community lot, built to your specifications, by me. SECOND PLACE and THIRD PLACE will get either 1 residential or 1 community lot, built to your specifications, by me.

Contest Approved

• Do not post replies and/or contest applications before the contest host has checked in on this thread, or your post will be deleted.
• DO NOT WRITE USELESS POSTS like "Hey cool contest, I think I might join." Reserve type posts and useless posts about coming back with an application will be deleted.

Checking in! Let's get this thing on the road =D

This looks fun, a nice mixture of residential and commercial and smallish lots.

I would like to participate.

Ooh what fun! More contests, looks like I'm gonna be kinda busy

This looks fun Loaf-and just as I was starting think it was breather time between contests. Can't miss this though! How long do we have? I haven't finished my round 4 lot in Build a Buisness yet.

I'd like to apply for being a judge, outside pic of the last house I built



And pic of a room from a bps contest

I think I can squeeze this in.

As to no cc: Does that mean I can't use my texture defaults for EA objects?

I have finished my house - should I upload the pictures?

Moment of panic. My house has no theme - but it does not have to for the first round right? Or does it?

Leefish, Karen_Lorraine, joandsarah77, HugeLunatic, welcome on board!

To answer questions in order -

joandsarah77 - applications close at the latest at midnight GMT on Monday the 2nd of September, 2 weeks from yesterday's date. If there are 20 slots filled before then, the application will close then but entries can be accepted until the 2nd.

HugeLunatic, I'd prefer if the CC-free rounds were free of everything but wall and floor decor, to try and keep things on an even keel, but I am aware that a lot of people have default replacements and not everyone uses an AGS config to go CC-free, so I will have a think on this and get back to you.

Leefish - it's ok, don't panic (find a towel). The round one lot is your house - I can't tell you what to put in there! Just the rooms you need to have =]

ALSO, please welcome judge number 2, after myself - ekrubynaffit!

For clarification, as I am an idiot and forgot to put it in the main post, you can have UP TO 8 images for each round, including one floor plan, and one front-on shot. In rounds with more than one storey, an additional floor plan may be added for each floor. I will edit this into the main post for future reference!

I would like to be a judge, and so am applying to be one.

This looks cool! Talk about coincidence, literally four days after I decide to spend the last of my birthdaymoney on The Sims 2 and a nice contest pops up, great way to get familiar with the game. Which brings me to my question though, in the first post it says that some building and picturetaking skills might come in handy, obv I haven't built much in TS2 yet... Is it quite different from building for TS3? Not sure whether I should join or not, it sounds like so much fun but I don't want to be that person that drops out after a couple of days... Also, any price-limitations on the houses or can we do whatever we want?

Welcome to the Sims 2 Klaartje68! It's different to me, although I find it easier to build in sims 2 because I have trouble seeing the grid in sims 3. I think most sims 3 builders would find sims 2 building, especially the roofs more limiting, but the cheats are the same and much of it is the same.

Leefish, you are already finished! Oh gosh I have to get my skates on. Hopefully I will get round 4 of the build a business finished today and can then start on this.

Thank you joandsarah Oh well, guess there's only one way to find out! *downloads foundation*

Brilliant! Good luck!

@Klaartje - taking screenshots in sims2 is pretty easy - the only real difference from Sims3 is dont use the ingame camera. Use Fraps or Gadwin or just good old print to screen and copy paste into your image editor (I use photoshop 7, but it works with GIMP etc as well).

This does look interesting, a nice mix. I keep saying to myself no more contests, but this looks too tempting

Klaartje68 and Hencing, lovely to have you guys join!

Klaartje68, there is no limit on how much the lot is worth in this round, just keep the no cc rule in mind =]

AdonisPluto, It'll be lovely to have you on-board as a judge - just need one more now!

Just a quick note for you guys - I'll mainly be posting in the evenings (GMT) due to work commitments, but I will try and check in on how things are going during the day via my phone, so if there is anything urgent you need to ask, either post here or send me a PM.

I hope this is getting enough publicity as it's a great concept for a contest. I have my house mostly built now. I'm also posting after searching through my own replies to posts as I could hardly find this thread, so yes it's also a bump.

What happens if we have maxis items defaulted? Like my curtains are defaulted as are my roof edges.

I wish I had built this in AGS now. :/

I think i shall Join in here in this Contest

Here is my entry Let me know if I have to change anything.

As I'm not too sure on some of the rulings on defaults I left off curtains. My white roof edge default is still there. I also have many of my bedding's defaulted-although it's hard to remember what exactly-but I'm fairly sure those are maxis ones. I built this with a slightly older couple in mind as I didn't see any theme or age given. I only noticed up the top later. A country loving younger couple can still raise a small family here. Also because this is two story I am assuming I get at least one more shot for the top floor If it's still 8 I will take one out.

My entry

I use some bedding defaults from HP - I am unsure if these are defaults in the pics. That's it, apart from wall and floor cc. I love Shasta's LondonArches wall paints. I am using those all the time at the moment.

This is my Round 1 Home. I tryed to go witha clour theme like the entrance has Green Theme. I suck at building

gagafanu it looks nice, but you are going to have to do your pictures like ours. Screenshots with all but the front under a spoiler. Otherwise the judges can't judge.They also require floor plans (top down) and usually the back as well. You only have 6 and there has to be at least 8 pictures. Hopefully Loaf will be back soon and tell us if it's 9 or 10 with the second story.

How do a do the spolier and i add the Floor plan soon