It definitely fills up a lot of time, believe me. I'm just about halfway to getting my University, too.

Oh yes I started mine last September, although I only really started playing in March this year. My population is at 688 (actual sims 86), 1 university, 15 households and 7 community lots, most of which I gained from playing only that 'hood for about a month. I'd probably have a larger sim multiplier if I concentrated more on buying community lots than saving for a university, but now that I have one it's time to start building a corporate empire :P

Hehe, funnily enough, I have the same amount of Community lots as you. But seriously... 86 sims in 15 households? That must be a lot of Uni sims then...

I have a few questions, too.

In regards to Sub-hoods...

1. Can I load a Maxis sub-hood, count it towards my multiplier, and also create an empty one that I slowly build up but don't count towards the multiplier?
Example: Load Maxis Downtown. Load empty Downtown. Count Maxis toward multiplier, et cetera. When empty Downtown is a little bit built up with apartments and houses, move any sims into it, and delete old downtown.

In regards to the undead...

2. Since the Undead do not age, therefore don't really need to be synchronised for age with the rest of the neighbourhood, am I able to stick all my zombies (once I begin resurrecting every single Sim) into a big shared household (Not an apartment, more like a dorm) and play them when I feel like it, rather than per week since they don't need to be synchronised. The same goes for any Vampires that are living alone.

I haven't got my Zombies yet, but I'm just trying to clarify what to do.

Kthx.

(My second family that came into Undervale, the Carpenters, has had a wife and a son, and the funniest thing. Andrew Carpenters teenage son Adam has so far been the only Sim in Undervale to be any of the creatures. He's been a werewolf, and I didn't like that, and I'm currently making him into a Good Warlock. He just got Magivestigium.)

The households I've got range from 2 sims to 10 sims (thanks to a larger household hack...and I've got 17, soon to be 18, households, not 15). The two 10-sim lots do make my numbers seem quite unrealistic :P



When you say "play them whenever you feel like", would that mean playing to catch up on lost time (say if you skip them for three weeks, when you go to play the household you play for three weeks straight) or just playing until you got bored? I'd think playing to catch up would be reasonable, the only problem I could see was if you were raising children in the household, too, as their aging would possibly be a bit off compared to all the other households.

Well, since Zombies and Vampires don't Age, I figure that it's unpossible (I meant that) for them to go out of sync with the rest of the Neighbourhood. So if I play three weeks worth of the other households, then want a break, I can play my Zombies and Vampires for a few days, then go back to the other households since the synchronisation is all the same still.
If I wanted any of them in families though, I would move them out to their own properties and have them live with their new families.

You see, once I get a Sim into Paranormal, I plan on resurrecting every single Old Age death in the neighbourhood. Only as Zombies though. Then, I'm going to put all the zombies into shared housing for easy population points!
They can all essentially be my slaves and paint and write restaurant guides and whatnot all day, and then I'll make money. They'll be like moneymakers. It's not even cheating. Easy Universities and Community Lots.
Obviously, the ones that make the most money will be rewarded and they'll be able to move into their own households. They'll be rewarded with families and adopted children and wives that aren't cheating with everybody in the neighbourhood.

I can't really comment on the supernaturals because, to be honest, I generally never play them. I've tried them all, but in the end I found them all boring long-term, precisely because they don't age and their motives are static half the time. Which, for me personally, equals boredom. So, I don't really address them in my set of rules; I just don't use them, personally. The only non-human character types I ever use are aliens, because they aren't really supernatural in the sense of immortality and unnaturally fixed motives. I think I might be OK with Plantsims, but I've never managed to create one and haven't been curious enough about them to cheat one into existence. I'm actually kind of regretting the servos I have because I've discovered they're boring, too. I'd never really used them before starting this 'hood, and now I'm stuck with them, alas. I wonder if a cowplant will eat them...

I guess I just really like the whole natural life cycle thing. Especially now that I've lengthened adulthood and shortened teenhood. I think teens have managed to become my least-favorite life stage, eclipsing the toddlers because at least toddlerhood has the virtue of being short. Fifteen days of teenhood is insane. No one IRL is a teen for half as long as they are an adult. I guess the game was done this way to appeal to the teens at whom the game is perhaps really targeted? I dunno... Whatever the case, I chopped 8 days off of teenhood and added it to adulthood. Am much happier now. Normally, I just send teens to college after they've been a teen for a week, but since I still haven't earned a Uni for this 'hood the (seemingly) endless teenhood was driving me CRAZY! Bad enough I have a teenager in real life and another kid who will become one in a few years; I don't need 'em in my game forever. So, I fixed.

But ANYWAY, putting that rant aside... The "playing each household for the same length of time" thing is designed to keep ages in sync, and since the supernaturals don't age, I don't see anything wrong with playing supernatural households for as long as you want. I actually use the asylum lot in my 'hood similarly. When I need a break, I go let that thing run for a little while. The craziness makes me look forward to the "boring" households again. I do think using supernaturals that way to make money is kind of cheating, though, like breaking the spirit of the law as opposed to the letter of it. But it's your game, so play as you want.

For the Downtown thing, I'm honestly not seeing why you'd want to do that, but I guess you have your reasons. I can't really see anything wrong with it, though, so long as you're only counting one of them.

I'm usually not one to play a massive, super-strict, rule heavy challenge, and even when I do Legacies, I bend the rules to make it more fun for myself, but this sounded too interesting to pass up.

I've always wanted to do *something* along the lines of city building, where there would be several starter sims that everyone else could eventually trace their lineage back to, but I could never figure out how to do it, and it became overwhelming trying to build an entire town from scratch. But I think this breaks it down so that you don't try and do it all at once.

So I started today with my fresh town and single "seed" sim. I gave the town a kind of rural look for now, with only a small urban area, so that as population grows, the city can grow and change as well. I plopped my sim, Goldie Uno, in a plasticbox house and got her started digging holes for money so that she could plant a garden.

Hope it's okay to post a pic of her:



By the time the tomatoes were ready to be picked, she'd gotten knocked up by a townie. I opened up a small produce stand in her front yard, and the poor thing was standing out in the snow, hugely preggo, selling unripe tomotoes for 12 bucks. Shortly after, she gave birth to Kodak Uno, who is really surprizingly cute considering she inherited almost all of her father's bad traits (droopy eyes, huge, crinkled nose). The dad moved in, and now Kodak is a child. So far, I like having them live off the land, and I don't plan on having them try and get jobs. I guess they're some kind of organic-freak hipsters or something.

But yeah, thanks for the great idea. It's loads of fun.

Well, Jonathan Bridger, my founder, has a wife and four children. He and Danielle are both elders, he's a retired Business Tycoon with a Rank 10 home business. His four children (three girls and a boy) are either teens or freshly adult and striking out on their own. It's going well so far. Neither he nor his wife got the life they wanted, but they were happy with the life they got.

I plan to try this challenge once I'm out of school (graduate May 28th wooo :D). I highly doubt I'll follow all the rules but I'll try xD I do have a question though.

What if I don't have Open for Business? Can I not unlock that career, or can I alter the requirement to get that career?

I was in exactly the same boat, which is why this challenge appealed to me also. I always stall on Legacies because the breeding gets utterly boring to me after about five generations. I like to play Prosperity style, because you get multiple starting families, and this challenge/play style combines that aspect with well-defined "urban development" structure, so it really appealed to me.

Goldie is very cute. And I've been in the same produce-selling situation with some of my "seeds", too. Poor things. My founder was a robot-builder, though, which was a bit less pathetic. And assuming you haven't changed the furnishings in that plasticbox house, I'm using that very same house in my 'hood, too. That green sofa and chair are very distinctive.

I'm glad you're having fun with this. I find it really enjoyable, too, and I'm glad that other people are as well.

@ lilliandulciaa: If you don't have OFB, this challenge/play style is very difficult. It's rather centered upon the idea of business ownership. I suppose it COULD be played with all unowned community lots/business, but several of the career-unlocking requirements would have to change. Off the top of my head, you'd have to change not only Business, but also Culinary and Dance and maybe others that I'm not remembering. You also, of course, couldn't have business districts, although I suppose you could add a Downtown (assuming you have Nightlife) and just call it a business district.

So, you could do it, I suppose, but you'd have to alter some things. Not that this isn't doable. It IS doable. But you'd just be playing differently, is all.

But no, don't feel like you have to follow all the rules. It's not like this is a scored challenge or anything. You should play it as you see fit. My opinion is that you should do that no matter what. It's a game; it should be fun, not a chore. I just personally like the structure of the rules because for me it's staving off boredom, although I have admittedly bent a few of them here and there.

I'm going to mix this with one of my favorite sim "stories." The original person will be Grimpregnated, so everyone can trace their lineage back to both her, and to Death, and I'll keep her eternally alive through the water cooler of youth. Coincidentally, does anyone know an easy way to get rid of all townies, or if they're even there when you make a new neighborhood?

When you create a new neighbourhood, you get all the default townies that come with Pleasantview. Some might have slightly different names, but you'll always have white teenager Ivy Copur, and black adult Ivy Copur.

There are plenty of ways to change this.

Go to MATY and get the empty templates. Then if you don't want the hood to generate new random townies, go to MATY again and pick up the no townie regenerator hack.

Thank you very much!

Alright, I'll bite. I really DON'T need another challenge to play, but I guess since this one can incorporate the others...

As for paranormals, I play them genetically. All sims in my neighborhoods have unofficial genetic traits (freckles, glasses, etc.) which I monitor and pass down using a random dice roller.

For instance - say my farmer becomes a plantsim. He could automatically spawn plant babies, of course, but he can also father normal children. So, from that point on any children he has have a 49% chance of becoming a plant sim. When they are born I'll roll for a number between 1 and 100. 49 and below means the child will become a plant sim as soon as the option is available on the mortality adjuster, 50 and above and they stay human. Those human children, however, will pass on a 24% chance of being a plant sim.

I do that for each supernatural except for aliens, as they pass on their physical genetics without my help. I also adjust life spans in a manner that seems appropriate to me:

Adults who become plantsims have their "days till elder" halved.
Elders subtract 5 days from their remaining time.
plant-babies keep maxis defaults
children who inherit the plantsim gene have each life stage halved
human children who carry the trait have each life stage reduced by 1/4

Human children of Vampires and zombies (which are immortal) receive 4 bottles of elixir of life. Each of their human children will receive 2, and their grandchildren will receive 1.

Werewolves, witches/warlocks, and aliens receive 4 bottles of elixir, while their human children get 2 and grandchildren get 1.

I do witches and warlocks a little differently; everyone in the neighborhood has a 1% chance of becoming a witch or warlock...Again, I roll for a number between 1 and 100. I use 99 as my arbitrary number, but you could use anything.

Once someone is a witch or warlock, their children have a 50% chance of being one, as well (a little higher than other categories because I'm taking into account the 1% chance everyone has). The percentage decreases with each generation, just like the other supernaturals. Of course, you may want to start someone off as a witch or warlock, just so that you can get a higher percentage rate into the gene pool.

I decide what KIND of witch/warlock they'll be based on their nice points. o points is "atrociously evil," 1-3 is "evil," (or whatever they call it...can't remember the titles exactly) 4-6 is "neutral," 7-9 is "good" and 10 is whatever they call the nicest witch.

Things get really interesting when your supernaturals interbreed. Obviously, sims of the same "species" will add their percentages together - two plant sims will almost always produce more plant sims (98% chance). But when sims AREN'T of the same species, their species will stack (as much as the game allows, anyway). I haven't played with them enough to have this happen yet, but I imagine it could create some interesting scenarios. For instance, the child of a vampire and a plant-sim unlucky enough to inherit both traits would die a horrible death because their bodies couldn't handle the conflicting needs. Tragic, isn't it?

I know this whole thing sounds terribly, terribly complicated, but it's really not. I just make little notes in each sim's bio, like "Is a werewolf. Children will carry a 49% chance of lycanthropy" make any age adjustments necessary (or put elixir in the inventory) and go about my way. Then, when a child is born, I look at the parent's bios, roll my dice, and update the child's bio. Easy :D.

It makes playing with the supernaturals a LOT more fun. I hardly ever used them before, because there just wasn't much point. Now (especially since I let ACR do my matchmaking) there's just sooo much more to the whole supernatural aspect.

edit - oh, and I don't usually allow "cures." Though, with the ability for witches/warlocks to make cures it's something to consider. One idea I had was to create a player-run store owned by a witch or wizard that sells cures, but with a catch...any sim who uses one becomes fully human (and does not pass along supernatural genes) but their relationships with other supernaturas of the same type suffer. Family members get their relationships set back to 0/0, and all others become enemies. Dunno how that would play out...just an idea I'm toying with.

Gosh, Shorea, I have to say that sounds very interesting! I've always found the supernaturals kind of boring, but this makes me want to go and mess with some of them now. I don't have AL, so I have no witches, but the rest...Hmmmmm... Thank you for the idea!

iCad - I'm glad you liked it . Thank YOU for the awesome job you did of organizing/tweaking the rules and posting them for us! I'm really, really excited to get started now.

I'm uploading the spreadsheets I made for myself...thought someone else might find them helpful. Especially useful, I think, are the multiplier and population calculators. I THINK everything is pretty self-explanatory, but if you need me to explain something, just let me know. All of the fields are blank, with a few exceptions: I personally set caps for each rank of the military career (as listed on the Military sheet) and I listed one single, adult, male sim under the population data so that my percentage fields wouldn't return errors.

All of the reqs. to unlock each career and a slightly condensed version of the Military rules are included in the appropriate sections. The text is all iCad's; I just copied, pasted, and condensed. Link back to the original is on the bottom of the first page.

I've included two versions - the original in 2007 format (.xlsx), and a backward compatible version (.xls). I don't know how much that one differs in formatting, so I'd go with the newer version if you can.

Okay so I am SOOOOOOOOOO excited to play this challenge! I spent quite a while reading the rules and then printed them all out! I can't wait to start playing! I've played the sims 2 since the day it first came out so the game has lost some of its original challenge and edge to it so this will definitely solve those problems! I plan on taking pictures throughout my time playing...perhaps not in full legacy style....but enough that I can post several updates on each family. I CAN'T WAIT! THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS!
-closes Netscape and opens The Sims 2-

Have fun with the challenge, BubbleTeez! VincentAlliath is definitely right, it takes a really long time, but it's really fun if you don't take it too seriously

So you have me convinced, penny. I started on it last night, but no pictures :doh: I will take some laterz.

This is my favorite challenge so far.
OFB is one of my favorite EP along with Seasons and I have a prosperity play style which is more appealing than legacy play style.
I don't aim to reach the final goal as I have no interest in getting a Downtown. I just want to hit a virtual population of 1000 (actual population is 864).
I'm also trying to build my own lots which is quite a challenge since I have no building and landscaping skills.

I started mine last December. I currently have 14 households for 54 sims (2 are in the oven so they don't count yet) and 20 owned businesses (included a custom school). I dislike home businesses with passion.

I earn a university but I only have one graduate so far.
Business, Education, Medicine and Science are unlocked but will require a degree now.
Cooking, Music and Sport are also unlocked.

Shorea, I especially like the way you choose the witches/warlocks path based on personality. Do you mind me borrowing this idea?

One of my sims turned into an evil warlock after his teenage son died. Now all his relatives want him to get cured but the gypsy is not allowed in my hood.
In the household I'm playing now, one of the sim wants to become a witch and I plan her to open a little shop. This is not going to happen during this rotation though.

Essa- please do! I'm glad you liked it. I haven't read about anyone else doing it yet, but I'm sure I'm not the only one to have the idea.

Oh, if anyone decides to use the spreadsheet, I've found a little mistake. you'll need to add "1+" (without the quotes) to the beginning of the formula in the "multiplier" box. I forgot that you get a point just for starting the challenge.

I decided to start with a totally random sim. I used a random name generator for her name, a sim generator for her aspiration and clothing style, and randomized all of her genetics. I rolled to see which face template to use (though I do have defaults) as well as the individual noses, mouths, jaws, etc. Her turn ons and offs and personality were also random, lol.

Meet Serafina Pyotr, my city founder:

For someone who uses default eye and skin replacers, et cetera, you actually manage to make beautiful Sims. Personally, I don't find Sims with custom skin and stuff good looking, but yours are actually very good.

I decided to make the necessary alterations using olliepop's excellent spread sheet (which isn't here anymore after the merge I think? ) which made it sooo easy to do, so thank you!! I think my game will probably be much easier than most peoples (I have only nightlife and university), the careers I don't have I took off and I edited ones that require businesses (they were mainly changed to max ___ and if you reach the top it's unlocked). I'm not sure what I'm going to do to get more multipliers yet but I'll think of something

My population is currently 4.5 (starter sim is pregnant again). They currently have two daughters who, thanks to default face replacements, are absolutely adorable! (If I get a good up close picture I'll edit this post later, I was looking through the pictures and realized I didn't get one after I changed the skin tone) They are basically broke right now.. I bought a tub for the 2nd bathroom and realized I couldn't afford to make a room for the daughter that's a child now.. so she currently has no bed There has been one fire so far, nothing tragic happened thankfully :D
ETA: There was also a burglary Their toddler was so affect by it I think she'll go into the law enforcement career :P


(That's her maternity outfit, I'd have taken it with her normal outfit but she's always pregnant xD)

Thanks, VincentAlliath and lilliandulcia. That's really high praise; your complements mean a lot .

Since the old spreadsheet was lost in the merge, I'm attaching a new one. This is what I use right now, with a few notes added for clarity and credit given to the people who's text or cell formats I stole. It's a little all over the place and it has my numbers in it, but I think it should be pretty easy to understand.

I am certifiable, so my sims all have to pay taxes and fees, and my "city owned" lots as well as social services are all funded from that money, in addition to the university they have to earn, the police/fire stations and hospital they have to build before using those services, and half the cost of the military base before they're allowed to build it. If that sounds vaguely interesting to you, then you'll find lots of useful stuff here...if not, feel free to ignore/delete what you don't need. Major, MAJOR thanks go to iCad and to Apple Valley Sims for most of the ideas and text.