Yes, one per Subject Sim. I'm not 100% sure of other memory examples. I'd have to look them up.

Excuse me, I have seen sims with two cooking points win contests! A lot depends on what the other sims bring to the table. You don't need to do any fancy tricks, and are more likely to spoil a fancy dish than a plain one. Personally if I were a judge I'd want to take points off for using CFE - it always seems to make a lot harder to play, and playability is what I care about in a build, myself.

Also, you don't think much of your building skills because you do the same thing over and over. But that should mean that you're really, really good at doing those same things! And nobody else sees how samey your buildings are, so you may well have a good chance with an audience to whom your routine builds are novel.

Also also - when you get to the contest and you look around at what other people do and see their ideas, you'll be going: "oh, that's a good idea except they overlooked this -" and suddenly you have a new idea of your own!

Also also also - winning is not the only reason to be in a contest. Those who don't win will not have wasted their time. Not at all. You can have your own criteria for winning. Sometimes you do something just to have an experience or prove to yourself that you can do it. As the marathon runner still half a mile from the finish line when the crowds started to dispersed said: Last place is still a place! And there were still people who recognized that around to cheer them on - just finishing a marathon is a triumph. And you'll have a contest's worth of community lots in your bin, ready when you need them.

If you actively don't want to do something because it doesn't sound fun or you're too tired or the challenge doesn't interest you, fine. But "I'm not good enough" is not a valid reason to stop yourself from doing anything.

If you get decision paralysis, you can limit your choices independent of the contest. Go CC free even though it's not required - presumably that'll also remove some of your favorites and force you to choose an alternate you had previously overlooked.

This is exactly why I entered the contest. I am a horrible builder (as anyone who has seen the outside of my contest entry can tell ), but I figured I'd try it anway. It looks pretty lame compared to the other entries but I'm happy with it. It's more about me trying to push out of my comfort zone than actually trying to win.

I see you solved that one Thank you for entering!

Yeah I had to get a special community unlock version as I built on a community lot. Cos well... it's supposed to be a business. I couldn't figure out where it was supposed to go either, as the thread said it had to be in the bin folder. But that didn't work.

Something I was trying to archive in my entry to the small business building contest was a frieze on top of the build. But the cheat PlaceFriezes doesn't work for Sims 2 and no matter how hard I looked I couldn't find the Sims 2 cheat to accomplish it. Anyone know what it is? I have already submitted my build but it could be useful to know in the future.

@Craft90 I have never heard of a cheat called "PlaceFrieze", what exactly are you trying to do? (It's also okay to ask short questions on the build contest thread)
If you mean you want a short wall on top of your roof? You can build a wall and use CFE to lower it to 4 clicks high, or you can use stage tool or a fence.

If you feel like this might be a longer Question (which this might be if you have not used CFE before) there is also a help section.

Wait until you try Sims 3. Just building a bathroom takes me about a year. First, you pick a wall covering. What type? Wallpaper? Wood? Stone? Oh, I know- tiles! Now, which one? With a trim, without a trim, single coloured, multi coloured... Oh, let's have checkerboard! Great. Now, what texture and colour should the grout be? First, pick a pattern. Floral? Geometric? Metallic? Fabric? I'll choose stone. Now, it has three colour channels! One for the base, one for shadows, one for highlights. Pick a colour! Any colour at all. Any! #RRGGBB hex. So 16,777,216 possible colours! And I have to do that for each channel. [Sometime later..] Great! I finished the grout. Now, what texture and colour should the first tile be? [Three days later] Okay, floor and wall finished! Now, which toilet should I choose? And should I match it to the tiles?


There is a stage tool for Sims 2 (in the same place as you find the foundations) which allows you to put an extra layer on the foundation or roof. Use shift to build a double storey foundation or deck.

I get stuck with brown tiles in the kitchen most of the time like regazzo terazzo and such because 1) I have brown tiles, and 2) it looks like luxury wood, and 3) most of them are like that or grey like my gym in HTDC.

OMG! They did it:



Thank you, Tashiketh/MTS team (or whoever added it)!

Turns out PlaceFriezes is a Sims 3 cheat. But someone pointed out that I could use the stage tool. I'll keep that in mind for the future.

I have never used CFE before... what is it?

Constrain Floor Elevation. It's how people get arched bridges, stair landings at places other than stage-height and the different floors, etc. It looks great in pictures, and dedicated builders can create wonderful effects with it, but in play it drives me wiggy because I can never tell what floor I'm supposed to be on and you have to use the cheat to edit the house. I have some downloaded starter homes in one of my hoods that used it (and a technique called "dummy floors") to do moderately attractive things with the roofs, but when I want to expand them into a second story I can't just go up a story, take the roof off, and get on with it, I have to enter the cheat and figure out what they did and it's all massively counterintuitive for me. Not worth it, IMHO, but a lot of people swear by it.

If I wanted a frieze on a building, I'd use fences, half-walls, things from the architectural tab, or a combination thereof, myself. Half-walls are great on flat-roofed stucco buildings, as you can wallpaper them to match the main facade and there's already that rim on the top. If you want something a little fancier, move_objects and shifting can add wall deco. Half of building and decorating is just poking through the catalog and trying things out.

(Although perhaps you don't want advice from someone who comes dead last in contests and is fine with that...)

Thanks for pointing that out! I actually didn't see it... So now one of these days I'll have to get the Radio Station Fix I made a couple years ago moved to that new downloads section. Someday... of course.

@Craft90
Constrain Floor Elevation.It allows you to lower walls, bend walls, build things like a an arched bridge or a garage attached to a house on a foundation.

here is a quick comparison I did between half walls, CFE wall and stage tool.
Like Peni said, CFE can be annoying when playing but that depends what it is. A wall on top of a build should give no issue.

Half wall means you only have 1 height and the top that it comes with.It is slightly taller than the CFE wall. Easy to do.

CFE means more work but it has a variety of heights and you can top it with whatever fence you want. This is a very easy type of CFE build but still can be confusing until you have done it yourself.

Stage will always be wide and low. It can be painted and have fence put on top (paint must be added before fence)

You could also forgo wall or stage and just trim the edge of your roof with fence.

Adding a CFE tutorial by Ani Bats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1EDX7Gvgm4

If it's just that an item isn't community enabled, you can also just changing zoning long enough to grab the item, then change back as needed.

I think it has been proven in this thread that one can learn a lot during a building contest

How can I adjust the game difficulty in The Sims 2 using mods from Mod The Sims?

Now, if only the Sims Stories forum isn't as buried deep in the site...

https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?ti...Fracking_Idiots

I am hoping they'll re-release those too- not that I want them messed up like Sims 2 is a bit at the moment (at least they are patching things), but because there are a whole generation of Sims 2 players who probably don't know about them. And they were really good! (Except for the fighting! )

I can't build either. XD I end up with boxes.



What was wrong with the fighting?

Castaway Stories rerelase would be interesting. But I just don't trust EA anymore to deliver a top-quality product. TS4, and this rerelease of TS2 make me wary of giving them money. They'd have to really impress me by making a product that actually works... which is rather odd (and disgusting) that people these days can't even expect the product they paid for to function properly.

But I suppose that's what happens when an industry gets popular and lets its quality standard go to the way-side for the sake of the dollar.

In Sims 1 & 2 fighting is something that your sims don't have to do- but Sims LifeStories was marketed at younger players with lower end computers (i.e, teens) and yet you had to beat up rivals to progress the story. My daughter was young at the time and wanted to play it, and I thought it was sending a bad moral lesson. But I'm all for a bit of conflict in my games!

@simsample It's complicated, from my childhood perspective I just wanted more violence and adult things. xD I guess since I was little I was passionate about storytelling. But from a mother's perspective it makes sense to not want the game to get too dark. XD How would you consider my neighborhoods then? In my opinion they are focused on teenagers and adults, and although they touch on dark themes, it is done with the intention of creating in the player a feeling of seeking justice, or at least I think so. xd

Ah, Life Stories is the only one I didn't play.