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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 7th Sep 2011 at 3:33 AM Last edited by JC<3ME : 10th Jun 2012 at 5:13 AM.
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.

- Siblings of an heir must move out when either they, or the designated heir reaches career level 7.

- 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.

- 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.
- 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.
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Test Subject
#2 Old 19th Sep 2011 at 3:25 AM
Default :)
Want to try this soon!
Test Subject
#3 Old 20th Sep 2011 at 10:25 PM
Started playing, it's fun! And haaaard. Took me a long time to qualify for the part time job.
Space Pony
#4 Old 23rd Sep 2011 at 3:44 AM
Created a male sim Mitsu Aoyama and used testingCheatsEnabled to delete his tag along. Moved him to an empty lot and set about on him to earn money to buy stuff from harvesting, fishing, and so forth. He's going to buy a guitar when he gets 600 dollars to his name. Napping on park benches are interesting since the cops catch him for breaking curfew...
Test Subject
#5 Old 24th Sep 2011 at 11:57 PM
paid off my debt... now to build a house1
Test Subject
#6 Old 26th Sep 2011 at 7:20 AM
This seems interesting. I might try it soon.
Test Subject
#7 Old 4th Oct 2011 at 4:12 PM
I have done this challenge and i liked it a lot.
Space Pony
#8 Old 7th Oct 2011 at 1:13 AM
can the house be used even if it only has at least flooring, walling, roofing, and a light?
Test Subject
#9 Old 7th Oct 2011 at 4:48 AM
I just started, its AWESOME sauce
Test Subject
#10 Old 12th Nov 2011 at 5:10 AM
I'm going to try this.
Scholar
#11 Old 12th Nov 2011 at 6:17 AM
Starting now. It's nice to see a challenge that's actually a challenge. Awesomemod permitted with this, I assume?
Lab Assistant
#12 Old 12th Nov 2011 at 10:16 PM
Yesss, thanks for this, it is truly challenging. I made a couple tweaks to my legacy - I'm going to push my founder sim to win before his future heir ages to YA, or at least before the third generation is born. Also, I had my sim purchase a tent, since the police in Appaloosa Plains circle around curfew-breakers like vultures. I added 500 to his 'debt' to make up for it.

Managed to get a rather tragic seeming screencap of the founder making friends with the unicorn just before getting dragged away for breaking curfew (the very first night of playing, too!), but the upload is not being nice to me. I'll try to post it later if anyone wants to see.
Lab Assistant
#13 Old 21st Nov 2011 at 4:54 AM
One question : Since the founder is a teenager, are they required to go to school?

*Signature Under Construction*
Field Researcher
#14 Old 24th Nov 2011 at 8:14 AM
gonna try this one, after my royal family legacy
Test Subject
#15 Old 4th Dec 2011 at 7:35 PM
awesome, does the teenager have to go to school? Or is that optional?
Scholar
#16 Old 5th Dec 2011 at 6:04 PM Last edited by kewpie : 5th Dec 2011 at 6:44 PM.
I have AM installed, and I've removed the very few features I think would give an advantage in the game. The only one that looked a bit unfair was "Books Are Not Magic Scrolls" I think AM can make everything else fair or harder. One feature of AM is that you can start your game with a child with no parents -- so I am doing that.

Oh I just thought about it. To be on a totally level playing field, I should probably turn off the no psychic helicopter police feature. Since everyone else has to deal with that.

I just started. I didn't realize that children curfew themselves. They automatically go home and refuse to leave the lot. Teens don't seem to do this. Luckily, my founder had fished JUST enough to buy the cheapest bed from Ambitions. I CAST it so it looked like it was salvaged from the junkyard and set it back to look like she was trying to hide it. She is squatting.
Scholar
#17 Old 5th Dec 2011 at 6:38 PM
Kewpie:

"Starting your founder as a teen will buy you a little more time to work up some skills, with the curfew offsetting that advantage."

I turned off the no psychic police because of that line. If the police aren't working, the curfew's hardly a disadvantage.

I love the no parents feature of AM, though. I've repeatedly played children alone. And you can bet if I figure out how to get a toddler to reach the microwave I'd play them by themselves too, lol.
Scholar
#18 Old 5th Dec 2011 at 6:52 PM Last edited by kewpie : 5th Dec 2011 at 7:10 PM.
I would love to play a toddler alone! Ha! Well, I put the police in place even though it seems that kids police themselves. My founder's name is Rags Ritchie and I did my best to make her look as scruffy as I could. I am modeling her after some of the kids I would see whose parents would just drop them off at the library all day because they couldn't afford sitters. Her traits are

Ambitious - because she dreams of starting this empire and being filthy rich.
Frugal - because even as a kid she knows she's going to have to save and scrimp to see her dream come true.
Mooch - Because the library kids are constantly begging for food and money -- I feel sorry for them because they are there all day and many times their parents don't give them anything to eat and barely enough money to buy any food. My sim hasn't actually mooched anything, but it's a nice touch to me.

So far, she's been fishing for money, making muffins and robbing picnic baskets for food and taking care of bathing at the gym.

I most likely overextended myself. I picked Sunset so that I could buy that huge 14.7k lot. I also added the requirement of a foundation -- as I just don't like houses without them.
Scholar
#19 Old 6th Dec 2011 at 7:26 PM
I've wussed out on this one. I liked funding to zero and I like not going indoors until building requirements are met, but I'm skipping the earnback requirement. And I'll probably just go to a 500k house and not 1B (or the EA max of cash) I just don't think I could push through.
Scholar
#20 Old 6th Dec 2011 at 8:28 PM
The funding to zero/paying back the computer is a great idea, it should be used in more challenges.
Test Subject
#21 Old 7th Dec 2011 at 4:14 PM
This challenge sounds interesting so I've started it. Meet Antoinette Lamb:



Antoinette's traits are Brave, Hopeless Romantic, Loves the Outdoors and Unlucky.

Antoinette Lamb is the orphan of Tamara Lamb. Tamara left her abusive husband only to die of starvation leaving Antoinette with nothing but a debt of 1800 Simoleons. Antoinette began hiding out on a vacant lot in Hidden Springs. Where she soon learned to dislike the local law enforcement who frown upon her sleeping on park benches. She began scrounging for whatever she could lay her hand upon to put food in her mouth. After finding a rare turtle that she was able to sell for a nice sum she bought an outdoor swinging bench to rest on.

At school she enjoyed the free lunches and signed up for art classes. The teacher let her know about an easel at the Redwood Peak Viewing Area. On the way up there Antoinette noticed a couple of shiny rocks that she sent off to be cut. What came back from the cutters was a diamond and a pink diamond that paid off her debt. Then and there Antoinette decided that she would one day live in the lap of luxury. In the meantime she tells her friends that the bus picks her up at the gym because she works out before school and not that there is a free shower there.



My evil inventor sim with the monster maker ambition is on her 3rd young adult life stage after mastering fishing, cooking, gardening, inventing, and handiness. She's eaten two servings of ambrosia and still has not found a single pink diamond.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#22 Old 25th May 2012 at 6:07 AM Last edited by JC<3ME : 26th May 2012 at 11:57 PM.
Default Mass Post Reply to Questions
I apologize, I've been busy with school and such that I encountered the tragedy of not being able to sim for a while, in the process I forgot to keep tabs on my challenge! So with many apologies, I'm getting to your questions now:

Quote: Originally posted by Zokugai
Starting now. It's nice to see a challenge that's actually a challenge. Awesomemod permitted with this, I assume?


Go for it! There is no restriction to the lot size you have to start with, though it's faster to pay back on a $1,200 lot than say a 64x64. (I'm not super familiar with Awesomemod, but I assume you're meaning the one that let's you create custom lot sizes and such?? Generally, all mods are acceptable unless you know that their effect will significantly alter the balance of advantage/disadvantage the rules create. If this is the case, as long as you can come up with a reasonable limitation or rule that adds a reasonable disadvantage to the use of the mod, then I'll consider it within the limits of the rules.

Quote: Originally posted by Ryanhas2dogs
One question : Since the founder is a teenager, are they required to go to school?


I suppose not, but it would be good to have them go frequently enough to keep their social meter up, get a free meal, use a bathroom- and generally take advantage of some of the automation. Oh yeah, something bad happens if the grades fall TOO low if I remember right.
_______________________

I'm editing the challenge description to clear a few more details up. Thanks for the feedback everyone, consider me a happy Test Subject :P
Test Subject
Original Poster
#23 Old 25th May 2012 at 8:05 AM
Quote: Originally posted by kewpie
I've wussed out on this one. I liked funding to zero and I like not going indoors until building requirements are met, but I'm skipping the earnback requirement. And I'll probably just go to a 500k house and not 1B (or the EA max of cash) I just don't think I could push through.


During my early play testing, I tried starting with the big expensive lot, and I got overwhelmed too, too much to see it through. I suggest that you give a go at the opposite extreme, and maybe try placing a 10x10 lot with the world editor (or generally just try something that doesn't cost so much). The starting size lot doesn't really matter, because the trade off is that at a future point you will have to either move or move and build in order to have enough space for 500k home. I designed this challenge so that it would be tough for even the most hardcore simmer. Most legacies are 10 generations long, this one is 20- just keep in mind this wasn't meant to be done quickly!
Test Subject
#24 Old 3rd Jun 2012 at 1:03 AM
Starting this now. Looks like fun!
Test Subject
#25 Old 3rd Jun 2012 at 3:14 PM
Kinda wish I had set a rule for myself of no rummaging, even though it makes perfect sense to rummage if you are homeless. Found a stone valuable enough on the first day to pay back my property price.
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