Zombies/Aliens/Robots versus Humans. Family Feuds. Any sort of Cold War.

Do you have wars or conflicts on a grand scale in your neighborhood?

If so, who are the participants?

Do you play both sides? That is, do you have playables on the opposing side or is the threat something always on the horizon, hiding in plain sight ("Invasion of the Body Snatchers"-style), or invisibly attacking at night (or some other way that's simply left to the imagination)?

How do you rotate between sides? Do you prefer one side over the other? If not, how do you seek balance? For example, do zombies take over a community lot if the humans develop some new technology?

(Yes, I've been playing way too much Rebuild. )

I've been toying with the idea of starting a such a hood. If I don't have a clearly defined distinction (e.g. Robots vs. Humanoids), I'm open to ideas to something along the lines of the certain Sims being distrustful of other Sims, as if there's some great mystery to be solved.

I'm envisioning a hood surrounded by wilderness that must have guards posted at night for fear or monsters or perhaps Bluewater Sims vs. Pleasantview Sims.

I usually play the Monty versus Capp storyline. Which is a total given since already half of it is done i just finish it off. Everyone in any hood has a turnoff of plantsims so any accidental plantsims are highly hated and ostracized.

The one i'm working on now is the first plotline arc of my new uber megahood Sunset Beach (If any of you actually know what i'm talking bout hehe) It's a serial killer murder spree where everyone thinks everyone else is the killer.

When I played the War challenge, I played both aspects (loyal and subversive), and the members of the two families were in conflict with each other while they tried to end the war. However, the interfamily conflict wasn't really the interesting part to me. Which side would win? Interesting. All the risky dice rolls? Interesting. Sims forced to quarrel (unless they had high chemistry, in which case they pursued forbidden romance)...not so interesting to me.

So I'm curious about what players would do to give the conflict meaning? I know with the zombie apocalypse mod, zombies can attack and infect others autonomously, and there's probably a mod where vamps other than the grand vamp can do the same, so I see how interspecies conflict can make for interesting gameplay with the aid of mods. If I follow through on the Monty/Capp feud in my megahood, I basically envision a lot of stolen newspapers and tipped garbage cans, and -- since I visit a lot of community lots -- tons of public brawling and a few spoiled outings when the party contains a Capp and a Monty. (I'm honestly not disparaging people who find fights fun; I just don't get it. I want a consequence after the fight, like an injury or arrest.)

I suppose if you created a jail using Inge's prison system, that would be a way of issuing consequences. Or perhaps as part of your economic system you could fine sims for public disturbance. (Ooo, and you could then devise some rules re: bribery to keep sims out of jail or what-have-you.)

Injuries *would* be really cool, and not just as a result of cosmetics. I wonder if that could be modded, like sickness, only not random. (I would think it's *possible* since the Biotech station can trigger sickness, meaning it can link to an object/event, but no idea how you'd go about adding injury--maybe steal the zombie walk? )

At least it would give the do-nothing sims military something to do.

Thanks for the ideas.

A military base with Inge's prison system could mean captured aliens. Perhaps I'll have peaceful versus hostile aliens with the human military caught in the middle....

I remember accidentally giving two adult siblings modeled after characters from one of my other games conflicting personalities. So instead of behaving like psychically-linked twins, they get into fights, with the girl attacking her brother.

So I am familiar with conflict within my game, but that was a more recent venture.

Years ago, when Jack Thompson was still a lawyer, I made a Sim of him and place him in the world I made with video game characters based on fighting game characters (Dead or Alive, Street Fighter, King of Fighters) and they were merciless in their onslaught. Then again, I guess I wanted to see that.

I've been thinking about this issue again in the context of building non-romantic relationships. (I hope you don't mind, MSD, I'm thinking more about Sim-to-Sim hatred than large scale conflict. Making a second thread about building enemies seemed redundant.)

In addition to friendships, I would like to establish meaningful negative relationships in my neighborhood, based on something other than romantic jealousy. (I have already have a couple of divorced Sims, as well as the Sims who hate other Sims for cheating on their relatives. While those are all meaningful states of hate, I would like more variety.) The challenges I face are the same I mentioned earlier: motivation and consequences. I understand the desire to befriend someone. I don't recognize any triggers in the game -- other than jealousy -- to hate them. Other issues:

1) I don't control my Sims every moment, but I may not allow them enough freedom -- except when they are on community lots out of my control -- to engage autonomously in negative behavior. At least, I rarely see negative behaviors between Sims on my residential lots unless they already hate each other due to romantic rivalry. So I don't really understand if and when the game will push a Sim to be spontaneously mean.
2) Maintaining a negative relationship seems particularly challenging. Sims who hate each other don't accept invitations, so unless they happen to meet on a community lot or they greet the enemy who has dropped by to tip the garbage can, there's really no opportunity to act on the hatred.

So I guess my questions are the same as I would have about building friendships: when do you make enemies in your game? How do you nurture the hatred, and why?

I don't attempt to make enemies, but some of my grouchy sims are prone to picking fights. Brittany Upsnott, one of the original Tri-Var girls, seems to have been trained into it, and one converted townie has a really abrasive personality and if left on her own will spontaneously argue with almost anyone. Other sims get really pissed off if someone pranks them.

I also have one apartment block, the Lofts, where the unselectable tenants are continually interacting on the rooftop public space, in the halls, and out front while I'm playing one of the apartments. I have one long-term playable resident, and it's one of the apartments where I put engaged graduates in for a single day, long enough for them to buy decent clothes, look for work, and have the first-day outing with their friends, and then be available with the phone to be called to their own wedding parties; and it's a rare sim who gets out of there without making one enemy in the building while I'm playing the long-term tenant.

Since the only consequences of enmity in the game seem to be fights, trash-can tipping, and newspaper stealing, if you want feuds to be more meaningful you'll have to do it yourself. The first thing that occurs to me is that when friends fight, their friends wind up having to take sides whether they want to or not, so enmity would spread like a virus. Enemies will Bad Mouth each other to their friends, and at some point that makes sense to you you can have someone intervene and get kicked for it. For instance, if Bobby goes on an outing with Sam and Dean, and Dean pokes Sam repeatedly, Bobby could get fed up with the behavior and Argue with Dean about it, lowering their score and beginning a trend in which Bobby and Sam are both at odds with Dean. If one kid bullies another, the father of the victim may remonstrate with the father of the bully, who refuses to believe that his Little Angel did any such thing. Play them this way every time they encounter each other in any context, and you'll get two feuding families. The more of these negative interactions occur on community lots, the lower each party's reputation score gets, and this also has in-game consequences.

Some of the townies in the Lofts are Contacts, so making enemies with one of them can damage your job prospects, increase costs to buy furniture, and so on. It would be a certain amount of work to get them into a faction, though.

Probably the easiest non-romantic issue to make enemies over is daytime use of the telescope, but since the same people get mad about the telescope over and over that's a bit limited.

You could set up rivalries between people with the same goals, but it seems to me it would take a lot of work. If you make rules limiting the number of people who can occupy a given slot in a professional track - the most obvious being the political track, where you could reasonably make each promotion level increasingly less available, from an infinite number of Campaign Workers to a single Mayor, and a promotion for one sim would mean loss of a job for another if he didn't also get another promotion during the same rotation.

Or you can make the cow mascot into a player character and have him move his obnoxious agenda into the town at large...

I don't see the point of large-scale conflict, either, because the game has such a limited and annoying range of consequences, but if you're interested there are probably hacks for that. If nothing else, isn't there a Fight Club that gives fisticuffs physical consequences?

I don't mind, mangaroo.
I often feel like the Sim Vac is an under-used item. At least, I don't often see it mentioned often in these forums. Depending upon the outcome and context, I can see it as an inventor stealing the idea of a rival inventor or as a spy stealing secrets.

Peni Griffin, yes, I do think MATY has a Fight Club mod, but I haven't fully checked it out yet. While there may not be much of a point in-game for a large-scale conflict, I view it as having a more literary or story-related context/purpose. The hood can become about the lives of those living in a particular environment (e.g. military base, ruined city, etc.). The conflict doesn't necessarily have to be active; it can be passive.

Sometimes, it's better to keep Sims from fully being flagged as enemies. That is, keep the relationship negative but not full-fury enemies. A Sim can loathe someone without swearing an oath of deadly vengeance.

If there's a large-scale societal conflict, like the neighborhood is a military base, occupied city, or border town in wartime, how would you go about modeling some of the day-to-day results of that conflict, like rationing (with its inevitable companion, the black market) and the threat of invasion?

I've had a war going on in my hood for a while and it helped in creating deeper storyline. I have refugees and that gave some place for playables to contribute their $$ to. I am finally wrapping the war up because it has been going on for several RL years. But I did have Sims sent to war who never returned. (by roll of dice) and that also made for some very interesting stories and drama.

One idea I've yet to try out: a brawling hall where two Sims can fight (I do think the Fight Club mod would help out muchly here) and other Sims can bet on the consequences. I would have each Sim put money in the Bookie's account using the wallet controller: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=292893 and whoever wins the bet gets the money and if multiple Sims win, then the money is divided equally. You could really do it up, make a ring, sell food, etc.

The more I think on it the more I find that value from enemy relationships comes from the internal, who the Sims are and their backgrounds, rather than the external (game mechanics and outcomes/consequences). Pretty much the same as Sim friendships - what makes it rich is the stories in my head.

Edited because posts were added while I was typing: I am glad you mentioned the sim-vac, MSD. My Sheriff uses it all the time for punishment for smaller crimes. I agree that it's use is undervalued from what I seen of its mention in the forums. Plus, it is great fun!

An owned OFB community lot or a residential business could possible be used for a black market. It wouldn't be open all the time and, if there is a Ticket Machine or distracting objects, Sims may be less likely to spend much of their time their time shopping. I haven't tried it, but you might could have items behind a locked gate/door which is only unlocked while you perform a "Show item to customer" action.

Some CC and maybe a die roll would also be beneficial. Custom careers can be made for various off-world activities, such as any looting or going into battle. Roll a die to determine things like how much food can be bought (unless you're disciplined enough to always get the same amount), the current threat-level (i.e. to determine what, if any, community lots can be visited), what Sims loses their life for some reason, etc.

Rationing was a big part of my War challenge. Once the war started, my Sims could not take food deliveries and could not buy a "replacement" refrigerator (a loophole I've never exploited, anyway). On Sundays, all adults and teens in the household would make a single group trip to the local grocery, where they would each purchase a grocery basket worth < §100. If someone had to stay home to take care of a baby or toddler, that person's rations were lost. If the grocery store were destroyed in a weekly (randomized) bombing raid, then all residents would be forced to live off their victory gardens.

Owned business lots weren't allowed in that particular challenge, but I see how a passively managed OFB lot with exceptionally high prices on the items would fit into a black market scenario. I would want to inject some risk of discovery, as well. Either the presence of particular Sims (a visit by someone in the law enforcement profession, for example) or a dice roll could trigger legal consequences.



I'm always looking for non-monetary ways to penalize Sims. This is a great suggestion! Now I have to figure a way to get a vac into my community lot courthouse.

I have a mod which makes skilling much slower: http://www.modthesims.info/d/407085 so when a Sim loses a skill, it *really* hurts.

I suppose you could use this: Buyable Aspiration & Career Rewards for Lot Builders?

Hrm, well... I don't usually have a large amount of conflict in my game.. considering it's really hard for any of my sims to hate another sim.
I don't know why though, it could be that most of my sims are always atleast on half nice-points or that they just haven't met their enemies
yet.. So sometimes I use BoolProp to lower their relationship with certain sims who seem to have the opposite personality. I've tried to play
out the Monty vs Capp fued but I just can't seem to keep that hatrid. Hah.. Oh well I guess.
It's interesting to see other simmers play out their wars and such