Rags to Riches, A Billionaire Legacy **Edited 6/10/12**
Objective: Build a billionaire legacy starting with nothing but the clothes on your back.
There are two win conditions. The first is to have a home with a furnished value of $500,000. After all, if you're going to be a billionaire, why not? This should be possible, I've built homes worth at least half that and didn't even get to the decor. The second win condition is to have 99.5 million in your possession. (Edit: Max is 99,999,999 so this was altered for net worth.) You must complete both within 20 generations to win. The emphasis of this challenge is on realism- so in advance that's why this one's got some tough guidelines. Alternatively, you may forego the 99.5M in your possession and trade off for the value of owned venues- but you must calculate this yourself.
- Your founder and heirs may be either male or female. If your founder is a male, it is ok to have a female heir and vice versa.
- No cheats allowed except where I've specified below. Build cheats authorized. (moveObjects, constrainfloorelevation, ect.)
- Mods acceptable, such as Awesome mods. Mods should not conflict with the intent behind these rules. Bragging rights to anyone who's founder builds a foundation first, since they did it without a real job.
- Set your game to normal lifespan. You may adjust age sliders, but they must equal out to 90 days. Once set, they cannot be changed.
- You may use lifetime aspiration points any way you wish, however the "No Bills Ever" reward is off limits.
- The "Inheritance" aspiration point reward is off limits until the 3rd generation, and then restricted to one time use each generation thereafter. ( Founding generation, first generation, second generation, third generation, ect.)
- The "Young Again Potion" aspiration point reward may only be used ONCE in the entire challenge.
- No travelling until you have $50,000. (Meaning no WA trips. You can take stay-cations to the beach and such.)
- Once an heir reaches the YA stage, they should be considered your primary character, and you can no longer do anything to assist the previous generation toward promotions.
- You may move as you see fit. Your founding generation must build their home, but if a succeeding generation builds a home, it must meet the minimum specs I've outlined below before you can grant your sims access. (restrict access by purchasing front door last, or the door to additional rooms last.)
Again, note that your founding generation must start on an empty lot.
- No triggering age transitions until the counter reaches "0".
- No celebrity status until you have $1 million net worth. Sometimes you just can't do anything about a co-worker being famous. If you become a 1 star celebrity on accident, then don't intentionally rise higher than 1 star. Any free stuff obtained before achieving a $1m net worth must be deleted.
- No Vampirism. If an heir becomes a vampire, they must be kicked out (upon reaching full vampirism), and the next eldest becomes the new heir.
Exceptions Apply: Heirs may
marry vampires. Heirs are free to attempt to produce normal heirs with vampires. In the event a normal heir cannot be produced after 4 vampire offspring have been produced, you may choose to "cure" the 5th vampire child immediately upon its aging up to young adult. You may continue attempts past the 5th child, however that is the earliest you may opt for a tainted bloodline. These heirs cannot reproduce until cured, and are banned from full time employment indefinitely to offset the advantage of the skill gain rate as a child. These heirs may however be self-employed or hold part-time jobs. Intent is to preserve family line and family dynamics, as play testing results highly favor production of vampire offspring in a normal/vampire couple.
Alternate Gameplay: I call this the "Blood Billionaire" version.
-All other rules apply, only your founder must turn into a vamp. shortly after the first home is built.
-Once a vamp, all heirs must be a vamp. The founder and heirs must NOT reproduce with another vampire. They must reproduce with normals to make it possible that your sims will NOT reproduce a vampire heir. (After all, if lifespan is slowed 5x, you have plenty more time to reproduce, so there has to be a challenge there somewhere!)
-Note that AFTER an heir is produced by a normal/vamp couple, the normal may become a vamp, but they become ineligible to repoduce a new heir if something happens to the first.
-This version must be completed in 7 generations.
- You may have "spares".
- You may use cats or dogs to make money. (Hunting skill)
- Bragging rights to anyone who accomplishes this, and simultaneously monopolizes all the venue's without adding the value of the venues to their net worth. The venues must be at their highest level in order to warrant the bragging rights.
- If you purchase venues (not partner), you may add the "sell" value of the lot to your net worth manually, the old fashioned way with a calculator, pen and paper. The game doesn't do this for you, however in the real world, this would be a factor in your net worth- so I'll allow it and deem it another method to reach the $1B net worth.
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Siblings of an heir must move out when either they, or the designated heir reaches career level 7.
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Siblings must be moved out into a completed home. The idea is to build a family name into prosperity with limited favoritism. You may need to add more affordable homes and lots to your world.
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Elder sims must retire, and if that option is not available, then they must quit working.
About Your Founder
Your founder will be a teen. Yes, a teen. You will need to create your founder with your choice of a YA, adult, or elder tag along. Once you move your founding generation into your first lot, you may dispose of your tag along. (Your tag along may not in anyway contribute to the household income.) Starting your founder as a teen will buy you a little more time to work up some skills, with the curfew offsetting that advantage. You may use a mod to work around needing the tag along.
When you start, pick ANY empty lot to move your founder onto. Remember it's purchase price (jot it on a sticky if you have to)! After you purchase it, set your family funds to "0".
The bigger your starting lot size, the bigger your bragging rights if you accomplish this in 20 generations or less.
Now you quite
literally have nothing but the clothes on your back. You must now begin to find ways to make money
while remaining unemployed. Go fishing, harvest plants (but don't garden/plant on your lot yet!), or do whatever you can think of to make money and fill your needs. The reason for remaining unemployed, is that in the real world, you need an address to get a job. You can't play the game with a sim that is truly homeless, starting on an empty lot is as close as we can get.
Here's why you need to know the purchase price of your lot-
you're going to pay the computer back. Your sim starts with money they didn't earn, kinda like a loan, or a mortgage- whatever. Before you start building on your lot, you must pay all of this money back. In order to pay this money back, save up until you have enough, and then use the familyfunds cheat to reduce your household savings by the purchase price. This need only be done once, as all future lot purchases (if any) will be made with money your sim has made.
-You may purchase any objects and place them on your lot for use before you repay the computer, and before your home is fully built, unless those objects require a wall for placement.
Once you have a home built to my specifications below, your founder may then get a part time job, and your founder is now allowed to garden. (The reason for not being allowed initially, is the part where you can water plants without having access to a faucet. If you figure out how to make a water can appear magically out of your bum, this rule will no longer apply to you
)
The spouse of your
founder cannot be employed officially. Spouses of all successive generations may have any job. (Not to say you HAVE to get married, but it is the ideal situation to leave a parent home with the next heir while the other is working, or provide income from gardening and other skills, unofficially of course.)
Members of the second and all successive generation may have normal jobs- including professions if you so desire.
Here are the minimum specs for every home you build:
- 2 room minimum, one to use as a bathroom/latrine.
- 1 toilet
- 1 shower or tub
- 1 sink
- 1 counter
- 1 window per room (exceptions apply to interior rooms and basements where having a window wouldn't make sense.)
- 1 light per room
- complete floor coverage
- complete interior and exterior wall coverage
- roof
- All rooms must be fully enclosed such as a bathroom. Open floor plans permissible, such as a kitchen/dining room combo.
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Ceiling tiles are optional
Each additional room must have complete floor, complete wall coverings inside and out, 1 window (except for where it wouldn't make sense), 1 light, and be completely covered by the roof before you can grant your sims access to it. Again, it seems easiest to manage access by holding off on the purchase of a door.
The real world has this thing called building codes. I don't know what they are, but, the idea behind these building minimums is to simulate an enforced building code. Would you think it safe to move into a home without water, electricity, all four walls... or grass for a floor? Neither does the Plumbob Builders Association. (Totally made that name up)
As with all other challenges, there is nothing that says you HAVE to play by all of the rules I made up. I'm happy to take suggestions on modifying the rules, and will give credit to used suggestions. However, technically, if you play by a different set of rules than those outlined above, then you really created your own version of my challenge, and aren't really playing my challenge. I welcome the borrowing of these rules for your own challenge, but I want the creative credit for the computer payback rule, as it's the most distinguishing feature of my challenge.
So, do you think you can build a billionaire legacy starting with nothing but the rags on your back?
**Note: Play-testing still in progress. This challenge subject to change based on play-test results.