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Scholar
#101 Old 12th Feb 2010 at 3:03 PM
When the owner of a lot dies, it gets passed on to (I believe) the next oldest, but there is not set way that it transfers, it just transfers to someone in the household. The only way to get it unowned without the whole family dying would be to sell it back, which...I'm not sure is allowed...


BUT! By selling it back to the government, you could consider it an investment of the city. That's what I would do, anyway. Subtract the particular amount that the business is sold for from the city coffers.
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Scholar
#102 Old 14th Feb 2010 at 2:43 AM
Wagh! This challenge looks daunting, but it forces me to make use of the OfB stuff I never use - like... businesses. In all their forms.

So I'm just going to dive right in. If it actually makes it even as far as my Pleasantview challenge (a sort of mutated version of the Neighbourhood Storyline challenge), I'll consider it a success... I have such low expectations of my simmy world.

We start off in the little town of Loch Namara. Well, town is a bit of a stretch, seeing as there's only one person living there. And actually, that's as far as it goes right now. I'm thinking of having my founder sim do what most seem to do: farm. The town is based off an old town map I created a while back, so I have placement of lots already 'allotted', and there's a park I'll probably develop into a lake at some point. When I say 'allotted', this is what I mean:



So my founder is moving into the little 2x2 green square next to the nightclub on the left-hand side of the graph - the closest residental lot to the 'downtown' area.

And while the pic was uploading to photobucket (like the turtle that it is... My fault for saving images as full quality jpegs), I created my founder: Brian Dayraven. So from here on out:

The founder shalt be known as... BRIAN.
Instructor
#103 Old 1st Mar 2010 at 9:54 AM
Hi there Brian... well, Forevercamp,

how great to have someone else start on this challenge! It's really addictive, but then Sims just is.

I'm playing for a while now, closing in on population count 500 and the first grandchild of my founder Sarah is in sight. It really payed off to keep notes: who moved out in which week, how many burglaries and fires happened, how many slots are open in which career and who's filling them. I'm working hard (or my Sims are working hard) at getting their college so the adults stop whining about not going to college.

Do you have a tax system already? I like it to make my Sims life a bit harder, but also to scrounge up the money for a college.

Now, picture spam of my founding family:




Once a week, 10% of the lot worth and 50% of the cash goes down the drain... well, to the resident tax collector.



Strange Night - Sarah's husband Benjamin is fascinated by the night sky. The trouble is, the sky is also fascinated by him.



Strange offsprings - The telescope incident seems to has side-effects. See the gut?



The little son came as something of a shock to Benjamin, but he got over it. The little space spawn got christened Quamar - "Moon".




Synthetic Siblings - Quamar isn't the only rather strange off-spring of the family; Benjamin spent a lot of time at the work bench and one of the results, Talos, is just busy repairing one of his siblings. (In a manner of speaking.)



Sarah is a family Sim, so there's no such thing as too many children for her. As a result, birthdays are rather chasing each other. By the way, the big brother right beside Sarah? Benjamin just can't keep his fingers of the telescope.




No idea who started it, but it became a sort of family hobby to restore old cars. The kids are picking up mechanical skills that way and it's a way to earn some money. Sarah and Benjamin hand 20 000 to every child leaving the household, and that much money doesn't grow on trees. (Okay, it could, but there's be no space left for furniture.)




For once, this is not a daughter of Benjamin but one of Sarah's grandchildren. Good thing she's already used to exotic children!
Lab Assistant
#104 Old 6th Mar 2010 at 3:27 PM
I've decided to give this one a go as well, and I'm having a fantastic time, playing this challenge 'hood (named Badger Bay because I suck at names) pretty much exclusively

I haven't gotten that far yet (generation 2) but my town is starting to take shape already. I've created a weebly as well as it's so easy to keep track of things with it, here it is if you want to check it out: http://badgerbay.weebly.com/

I've also posted my own personal set of rules there. I'd say thanks very much iCad for posting this challenge, as it's the most fun I've had with TS2 in ages
Instructor
#105 Old 29th Mar 2010 at 12:35 PM
Hi Nepheris (what a cool name),

welcome aboard!

Quote: Originally posted by Nepheris
I've also posted my own personal set of rules there. I'd say thanks very much iCad for posting this challenge, as it's the most fun I've had with TS2 in ages


I second that; I like the open game play of S2, but it's a bit too open - I want to have something to work towards. Right now I'm doing pretty well with getting taxes together for a university (I can't stand it anymore, all those adults being so down because they never went to college).

I checked out your site; it looks really good. I like your founding couple and the somewhat "out in the woods" outfits you gave them. (My founder was very much a city dweller and looked like it.) It's such a great idea with the site, I'd love to see updates on kids born, moving out, careers unlocked and so on. That is, if you feel like posting it.

I'm also doing the Royal Kingdom Challenge which is slighty similar to this one, and I have insane ideas about making a cross between them; sort of BaC challenge set in medieval times.

Have fun with your budding city!
Field Researcher
#106 Old 29th Mar 2010 at 3:09 PM
I got a quick question regarding business ownership. I'm doing a dual challenge (Legacy with additional rules and a BACC challenge). I only have 1 residential lot and 1 community lot as of yet. On the residential lot, there are 6 sims. I was wondering, since I already added a community lot, by the rules, can another community lot be added if 1 of my sims own it? Or do I have to wait until I have an additional 2 sims?
Undead Molten Llama
Original Poster
#107 Old 29th Mar 2010 at 9:11 PM
So long as each community lot is Sim-owned, you can have as many as you want, so far as the rules are concerned. I generally limit myself to one business per household, personally, but that's just what I've chosen to do. I've learned from many attempts at this challenge that I do better if the community grows slowly. Otherwise I get overwhelmed. But that's not in the rules. As far as the rules are concerned, it's only if a community lot is going to be unowned that you have to wait until you have four separate households to place it.

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
Muh Simblr! | An index of my downloads on Tumblr.
Lab Assistant
#108 Old 5th Apr 2010 at 2:12 AM
Thought I'd jump back on and update - I've been really busy with my challenge!

Laurie's Lake has 31 households, 7 "city owned" businesses, 28 player owned businesses, a university, a (not yet functional) military base, and 2 shopping districts: one called "The Outlands" (where my supernatural sims and sims with fantasy skins are forced to live by the the rest of society) and another called Acorn Meadows, which will eventually have a rural, small-town feel. I have 73 playable sims, for a total pop. of 2,117! (I still have a bunch of CAS points to use, too. hmm....)

Mixed in with all of that I have several "special" residential lots, which aren't really normal residences. Well, actually, right now I only have the school and the asylum...but I'll be adding a second school (so I can seperate Primary and Secondary school), a hospital, an orphanage, and a police station/jail. Since these lots would be a little awkward if they had to also house an owner/overseer, I have a crazy supernatural (nothing Maxis - just a guy with an Enayla fantasy skin) who "helps" the government secretly. He kidnaps random passerby, then creates a new servo for each one. That person is then forced to activate the servo (so that it takes after them and has their last name) and the Servo gets their first name and asp. I use insim to make the robot look like a regular sim (set the servo to teen, then back to adult) then also use insim to modify their appearance so that they look like the poor sim they're replacing. Finally, the original sim gets fed to the cowplant in the attic, and the new, robotic version goes back out into the community as a permanent service sim. The school has been running very successfully this way, and I've already got the robo-sims for my other "special" lots ready and waiting. It's all very...Stepford.

I've been having lots of fun with my spreadsheet, too. I've added a public school calendar which helps me know what the kids should be studying when, as well as a new grading scale (WITH a complex exam algorithm in place) which keeps me from having nothing but straight A students. I also finally managed to get together a calculator which, by answering a few easy questions, tells me just how much each household should pay in taxes each season. Oh, and I also have random sim and family generators, which ensures that my CAS points don't all go to identical sims.

Oh, and I've been using Apple Valley's rules about degree requirements for jobs; it's made things a lot more interesting, and given me a reason to actually play University. It DOES make it harder to unlock stuff, but at this point there's very little that's not available anyway.

Next up on my agenda is taking apart her spreadsheet, so that I can understand how she made her Random Occurrence generator work. Once I do that, I'll build my own. Then I need to add the degree requirements page, maybe a teen asp. and sec. asp generator, and update my census, and I'll be done with it (for now, lol). It's kind of messy and a def. work in progress, but if any of ya'll are curious about my insanity, I'd be happy to upload the whole thing so that you can see how it works.
Lab Assistant
#109 Old 11th Apr 2010 at 6:35 AM Last edited by Phaenoh : 10th Feb 2014 at 4:02 PM.
Default Build A City: Simple Edition
Intrigued by the idea of playing the Build A City Challenge, but don't want to go through all of the rules and complex point systems and calculations? Or just want a simple way to challenge yourself to build a city? Then the "Build A City: Simple Edition" Challenge is for you.

Preparation:
1. Create an entirely new neighborhood with any template, preferably a large neighborhood.
2. Create a single sim (may have any aspirations, personality looks, etc.) to be your City Founder and move them on to any lot. This will be the last time you are allowed to use CAS in the challenge. All of the sims must either be townies that got moved in via friendship/love with the founder, or are children of the founder.
3. Have some place to keep record (this could be a word document, or a notepad, but make sure you'll have it to hang on to. You will keep track of the number of playable sims you have.
4. For every 4 sims you have you progress to the next level. When you start the challenge you are at level 1. At any time, the maximum number of lots you have in your neighborhood is the same as the level you are on. (Example: During level 1, you can only have 1 lot. When you get to level 2, or 8 sims, you may have up to 2 lots.) Thus population determines the level you are on and the number of lots you may have.
5. At the beginning all careers are locked, to see how to unlock them, look below at the careers section.

Rules:
1. The only cheat allowed is maxmotives which allows all of your sims to remain alive.
2. You must play all of your residential lots equally on a cycle, so that way the city ages equally. You must move sims in the sim bin immediately into a lot and add them to your cycle of played houses.
3. You may not use Create-A-Sim after the initial founder has been created, you may move-in or move-out any townies, or general members of the neighborhood freely as you like.
5. Shopping districts, down-towns, vacations, or any sub-hoods etc. are not allowed in your neighborhood.
6. If you have University, your teen sims must by pass college in order to maintain the flow of the city.

Careers:
Unlocking careers go by levels, which are based on the number of sims. When you hit a certain level, those careers become "unlocked." Until then your sim has to make money by selling paintings, writing novels or whatever misc. jobs they can do. (Disregard the 'unlocked' careers if they are from an expansion that isn't on your game.)

Level 1 (4 Sims): All Careers Locked

Level 2 (8 Sims): Law Enforcement and Military Careers Unlocked!

Level 3 (12 Sims): Politics and Slacker Careers Unlocked!

Level 4 (16 Sims): Medical and Criminal Careers Unlocked!

Level 5 (20 Sims): Business and Gamer Careers Unlocked!

Level 6 (24 Sims): Culinary and Science Careers Unlocked!

Level 7 (28 Sims): Adventurer and Athletic Careers Unlocked!

Level 8 (32 Sims): Education and Journalism Careers Unlocked!

~~

Feel free to ask me any questions, and let me know what you think and whether or not you are going to attempt this version of the challenge!

Disclaimer:
The Build a City Challenge was created by clintcasey85, and can be found here. It was further refined on the Boolprop forum. While this edition is not endorsed by either creators, they deserve much recognition as the challenge was developed by them, and merely simplified by myself.
Test Subject
#110 Old 13th Apr 2010 at 11:22 PM
Default careers
If we cant make our sims go to uni how do you expect us to get the paranormal, show biz, artist or nat science careers?
Test Subject
#111 Old 14th Apr 2010 at 5:52 PM
yeah that dosnt make any sense! i totally agree WJ363636
Lab Assistant
#112 Old 16th Apr 2010 at 1:46 PM
I suppose he'll make an exception if you are only going to put your grad sims in those careers and nothing else.
Lab Assistant
#113 Old 18th Apr 2010 at 3:30 AM
I apologize, I do not have University, and thus didn't fully understand that your sims were required to graduate from University to participate in the paranormal, show biz, artist or natural science careers. It is now updated accordingly.
Scholar
#114 Old 19th Apr 2010 at 3:38 AM
This sounds really great! And simple! I can't wait to try it out. But just to be clear, no subhoods EXCEPT a University? So I guess the second lot should be in the University so that teens can graduate. And bin families - I don't use a clean template, so should I just kill them off and use the lot as the founder's lot? With the gravestones?

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
- Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
tumblr
Scholar
#115 Old 19th Apr 2010 at 7:43 PM
Kailacat, you could simply leave them in the bin - maybe think of them as "townies but off-limits" ie only useful as friends. Any new families get added at the front of the queue so you won't need to go hunting for your official playables.

I'm currently doing the big "build-a-city" challenge, and have marked the "CAS point requirement" for each of the binned families as if I HAD created them myself. When I accumulate enough I have the option of actively making a new sim family or simply choosing an eligible one from the list.

No need to use my full name, "Selly" will do just fine.
Field Researcher
#116 Old 26th Apr 2010 at 5:08 PM
Quick question regarding the Law Enforcement track.

The ways to unlock it are: 1) Population reaches 500 2) Someone reaches to of Criminal Track 3) 3 Burgularies 4) 3 Fires

Can the burgularies and fires be combined (as in a total of 3 for both) in the count or must it be 3 burgularies or 3 fires?
Scholar
#117 Old 27th Apr 2010 at 3:13 AM
Rome Raven: I'd count each separately ie 3 fires OR 3 burglaries COUNT, 2 fires and 1 burglary DO NOT COUNT.
However, I'm using iCad's rules, which state that you only require 1 burglary to open a career slot. Considering my hood has been going for 5 sim weeks in total and so far my sims haven't shown any pyromaniacal tendencies, I was almost glad to see the burglar creep in one night during week 4 and pinch the bookcase!

My hood, Appleby Orchards is currently standing at a population of 22 (11 sims with multiplier of 2) in six households, two of which are currently in the Sim Bin waiting for their turn in the rotation to move in. I also have two women pregnant so my population will increase again before too long!
I also have 4 community lots, three sim-owned. The only one that is even properly up and running is the grocery store specializing in fresh fish. The others are being worked on bit by bit when time, inventoried stock and money permit! My single public lot is the museum, but as it's unfinished I'm not considering the Adventurer career slot to be available yet.

No need to use my full name, "Selly" will do just fine.
Lab Assistant
#118 Old 27th Apr 2010 at 11:36 AM
I'd like to...but I'll have to break one of the rules. Damn 'familyfunds' addiction

What the hell, I'll do it anyway and just disregard rule 1. Don't worry, I'll still play it. Just modified.

Keep you updated on my city-building adventures.

Storyteller and lover of ridiculously overcomplicated plotlines. Very inactive and not especially interested in the Sims anymore (my game's been bugged out for months anyway).
Instructor
#119 Old 1st May 2010 at 10:31 PM
Default Yay! Got my first College!
Thanks to a tax system closely modeled on highway robbery (10% lot worth + 50% of all your cash), around week 12 my Sims managed to scrounge up enough money to get their first college.

The first Sim teen is already there (with about 7 scholarships or so!) and her parents dutifully coughed up another 10 000 fee.

My question: Can I please use those fees to save up for the next college? I'd hate for so much money to be just chucked down the virtual waste basket.
Instructor
#120 Old 5th Jun 2010 at 4:59 PM
Hi everybody,

I just got apartment life and now I'm of course wondering how to fit it into the BAC challenge. I guess a minimum population (500? 1000?) before building the first apartment building would make sense, and that like Sim-owned community lots, the first apartment buildings have to be bought by Sims immediately after placing them. They'd make a nice income source and could be counted like Community Lots, or maybe double considering how expensive they are.

Any other ideas on how to use Apartment Life in this challenge?

regards,

Julia
Lab Assistant
#121 Old 8th Jun 2010 at 12:11 AM
I didn't limit my apartments based on population, because I NEEDED them...with No 20k handout and high taxes, many of my sims were struggling when trying to move out on their own. Instead, I used Inge's apartment hacks and had my wealthy sims buy them up as soon as they were placed (like you suggested). I did count it as a "player owned business," but only once per building.

I've also built a little complex of tiny houses to be my "projects" and counted that as one of my city owned community lots. I took the money for the build out of the town funds, of course, but it's been a real lifesaver for a couple of single moms.

Apartments also give you a really helpful leg up in that they provide more space; you can have four households in one lot...not small thing when you start really running out of room.

The problem I'm running into now, to be honest, is just how massive this thing is. I play each family a season at a time, and am just now finishing up my second winter...after months of playing! Even though the pop. is huge in sim terms, my "city" population is only just now at 3750. I'm afraid my game is going to explode before you know it, but I'm miles and miles away from the target 50k. I've looked over the rules again, trying to see what exactly I'm missing, but I can't see any quick way of upping my multiplier that doesn't feel like cheating. Right now I have a playable pop of 125...to keep a manageable population ( I don't think I can handle a pop of more than 150 playables) I'd need to have a multiplier of 400. To further put that in perspective, my 44 businesses and 4 subhoods have given me only 30 multiplier points.

I guess what I'm getting at is...has anyone ever FINISHED this thing? Is it really, truly, possible? I knew when I started this that it would take a crazy amount of commitment, but I'm beginning to doubt my computer's ability to handle that many businesses and subhoods. I don't want to officially give up, but I really don't think I have a snowball's chance in hell of making it to 50k before my game explodes, and I'm wondering if anyone else has run across that problem yet. Thoughts???
Test Subject
#122 Old 8th Jun 2010 at 9:28 PM
So I've started this challenge 3 times, and I'm finally happy with my neighborhood, msotly because I finally figured out how to run a successful buisness on a community lot. I have 6 households, 19 sims, and a SM of 2. Yeah, I know, I'm not very far. But I've stuck with this challenge for longer than I've stuck with any challenge ever.
I freaking love this challenge. This is everything I love about the sims games. I love building things, especially when my sims have worked hard and earned it. My major issue with the sims 3 was that you couldn't create a new neighborhood. I hate the pre-made suff. I like building EVERYTHING myself.
I've been playing each household for a week at a time.
Yeah, I don't realyl know why i'm writing this, just felt like it.
Does anyone have pictures of their houses or sims' buisnesses?
I might post mine as well.
Instructor
#123 Old 17th Jun 2010 at 9:22 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Olliepop
I didn't limit my apartments based on population, because I NEEDED them...with No 20k handout and high taxes, many of my sims were struggling when trying to move out on their own.


That's great! I like making life hard on my Sims, too. For them to move out their parents have to be able to give them 20k, meaning it's gone and lost. What is your tax system? I'm still at 50% of cash + 10% of lot worth every Sunday, but I allow the parents to have 10 k on a banking account for every child, otherwise they'd never get them to college.

Quote: Originally posted by Olliepop
I've also built a little complex of tiny houses to be my "projects" and counted that as one of my city owned community lots.


Just to check: so any single poor Sims can move in although none of them ever bought the lot, and the lot counts as CL? Very creative idea!

Quote: Originally posted by Olliepop
Apartments also give you a really helpful leg up in that they provide more space
You are right, I never thought of that. But you still count an apartment building with 4 Sim households in it as 4 households, right?


You are probably right about the difficulty of ever finishing this challenge. Anything over 200 Sims sounds impossible to play to me, which means you might end up having more CLs than Sims. I hope iCad might have something useful on that, otherwise we might have to come up with a 1.1 version of the rules ourselves.
Instructor
#124 Old 17th Jun 2010 at 9:26 PM
Quote: Originally posted by kneesocks
So I've started this challenge 3 times, and I'm finally happy with my neighborhood, msotly because I finally figured out how to run a successful buisness on a community lot.


I'd love to get tips on that! I don't have many difficulties racking up the customer stars; just a lot of interaction and making friends with customers. But I really have difficulties turning a good profit; the Community Lots are so expensive and even with the entry fees ridiculously cheap I still have only something like four visitors at a time.

Any tips?

BTW, you probably saw the pictures I posted. I just never thought posting some of my houses which really are pretty boring. But I'm glad you asked; I might post pictures of my Museum of Mediocre Arts.
Lab Assistant
#125 Old 18th Jun 2010 at 6:35 PM
Ugh...all that, and I just had to reformat my hard drive! I lost my city, but I still have my spreadsheet, so IF I manage to reinstall all of the games and my cc, I might start this again.

You about summed it all up, alchemist. I've been looking for ways to allow for more households and businesses without increasing my number of sims...one idea was to build high-rises with more than 4 apartments. If you use Inge's apartment ownership mods, this will both increase the cost of the apartment complex for the person buying it, and provide them income from each apartment, including the ones that have townie tenants. SO, I've thought about counting those tenants for the households (not actual people, but the households). So a 16 apartment tenement would count as 16 households, which would allow my city (if they had the money) to build more businesses, which would make the sims I DO play pack a bigger punch.

With that same idea, I had my wealthiest family expand their empire by "building" the university. When they did, it became a private university which pays THEM and their shareholders all of the tuition, and in exchange for the massive payout on their part I counted each of the pre-existing university shops as a special "donated community" (since they're not ownable) lot. They don't get any income from those, but they can own the dorms through Inge's hack, so that does give them income, and counts as yet another business toward the totals. It sounds very cheaty, until you put it into that 400 multiplier perspective.

As for taxes, I've a fairly complicated system - families are divided into income brackets based on their networth, then their base tax rate is set from there. Then there's a school tax (100 per family, plus 100 for each child). I also tax businesses (tiered, based on the number of businesses the family owns) and vacation homes, as well as a 3% property tax based on the combined value of ALL their property.

To counteract all of that, there are deductions available (just like in real life) for married couples, dependents, and monetary donations. There are, however, one-time fees for moving into the hood, marriage and birth filing fees, business licenses, and the cost of hooking into the power/emergency systems. I assume that the bills they pay are utilities, and that utilities are a public commodity, so every time a sim pays their bills that money goes into the town coffers. In addition, the money paid out for helping to catch a burglar comes out of town funds. 10% of the entire tax income of the community goes to the school system, which has helped me to build both an elementary and a high school. Eventually, that would also fund a "community college" in the hood, as well as a state university.

There's also a bank, which has access to the town funds and can approve loans (through Monique's computer) for families who need/want them. It takes a lot out of the town funds at first, but I've set up a debt ratio that I think is reasonable for a town, so we CAN go in the negative if we need to. Both those who borrow from the city and the city itself are required to pay interest on their debts (6% for the townsfolk, 2% for the city), and earn interest on their investments (6% for the people, 10% for the city). Monique's computer controls the interest on personal accounts, and I manually update the city's accounts on the first of Spring.

It sounds much more complicated than it is; I've developed a table in my spreadsheet with easy to fill in questions (family networth, # children, property value, etc.) which does all the calculations for me. I tax per season, so the first day of the play session I simply plug in the numbers and then deduct it.

I also have a calculator which takes the students' skills, wants, and asp. into account, then determines their grade...which is MUCH better than having them all have A's, lol. I saved it along with my other important files; let me transfer it back to this computer and clean it up a bit, and I'll share it. It has all of iCad's rules, calculators for everything, and guidelines for the tax systems and public school system (as well as when and how extra-curricular activities might be played out). I simply play in windowed mode, and switch to my spreadsheet as needed. I don't know how I ever would have played this challenge without it!
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