@Tigerskin Thanks for helping oshizu out, haha. You're correct, they are career rewards. Prose n' Pop and postcards are both nice, but also time consuming to obtain, at least relative to career rewards.
Wow, it’s been a while! Sorry about that. I got a good part of the way through this post, but then exams started approaching, and they’ve been pretty much holding me hostage for the last month. But the worst of it has passed, so hopefully I can start getting these done!
Chapter 3: Industry vs. Inferiority
Philappa is immediately aged up. I could've had her earlier and left her as a baby for a while, but it would probably waste more time than it saved. Here she is as a child, looking quite serious about the task in front of her. Like her parents before her, she aged up to
Love the Outdoors. Her first aspiration is to be a
Whiz Kid, but we'll be switching so much between them in the early days that it's not important.
You see, I had a little issue on my hands. Obviously I wanted the parents to start assisting Philippa on her mission right away, but I also wanted Paisley to get pregnant and give birth to a spare as soon as possible (I'll explain why when they're actually born. Which may be this update! SPOILER ALERT FROM THE FUTURE: It is not this update.) So I switched to
Social Butterfly, and had to finagle Philappa's actions in such a way that she didn't interrupt her parent's babymaking. Emotional scarring (or an Embarrassed moodlet) is
not part of this Wonder Child strategy.
(At this point I tried again to use adding people to the club to meet my goals, but if I remember correctly, Philappa became acquainted to the people in the club but wasn't registered as meeting them under the aspiration. Boo.)
Ah, Social Butterfly. The dread of sims players everywhere. I don’t know whether the jury’s out on this or Whiz Kid being the most difficult child aspiration, but I tend to lean towards this one. Mostly because things like Incredibly Friendly and a lot of the more powerful interactions that make the adult social aspirations easier aren’t really accessible. Also, because I tend to have my sims be total recluses unless they’re aiming to complete one of these aspirations. At least this isn’t the Sims 3. I still have no clue how making friends works in that game.
While it can still be a force to be reckoned with, Social Butterfly isn’t nearly as threatening now, thanks to the use of, you guessed it, clubs. The purchase of Popular Club and Friendly Bonus made friend making much easier, and Popular Club seems to be just as powerful as Incredibly Friendly. Not only that, but I get very lucky and actually had people around for Philappa to befriend. Often when trying to complete this aspiration, I have to scramble around the neighborhood to find people to talk to. Especially the children, as school always seems to interrupt the process and I have to look for stragglers. But not this time, as it was the evening, and not one, or two, or even three, no,
four kids walked by the Piaget residence, eagerly snatched up by Philappa’s (friendly) claws.
And so, about 7 or so hours after becoming a child, Philappa completed Social Butterfly. I was amazed. I had known the clubs were powerful, but I hadn't realized just how effective they were. With a start like this, I couldn't wait to see what the rest of the challenge would be like.
Philappa was switched back to Whiz Kid, and immediately sat down for a few games of chess. With another bun successfully placed in the oven, Petre was glad to be her opponent. He had around the same Logic level that Philappa had (meaning none), so he was perfect for the job. Paisley provided a keen eye over the proceedings, mentoring her daughter in a game she herself had never played. Her advice seemed to be sound, though, as Philappa's
Mental skill shot up with remarkable speed.
After her chess games were done, Paisley sat down and read to Philappa, then assisted her with her homework. Then it was back to chess until school was about to start, at which point I started to pile on the happiness moodlets to assist in keeping Philappa Very Focused throughout the school day. I won't go through the trouble of listing all of the moodlets she was packing (some clubs, needs, and rewards related ones), but I will talk about some of the less obvious ones.
The first is the fairly well known Brighten Day. It's a quick, easily accessible interaction that builds both relationship and charisma quite decently. It only provides a +1 moodlet, and only for 4 hours, but don't underestimate it, as sometimes that one extra moodlet is the difference from a normal emotion and a "Very" emotion. Another +1 4 hr moodlet I used was Reveal Deep Secret. It's another quick one that's unlocked when the sims are good friends.
Other than that, I had Philappa re-become best friends with Paisley, which gave a nice “New Best Friend” +2 bonus for 10 hours. Not the most powerful, but that time frame should cover most work periods (I think the only one it doesn’t is the higher levels of Diamond Agent, but it may also not cover the Villain branch or some levels of the Astronaut career.) If you have at least three sims in a household, it’s a nice idea to keep them at a high relationship so they can switch around being BFFS and get the boost. One thing to note, however; I’m pretty sure if you have two people become best friends, then have one of them become best friends with a different person in the 10 hour period, the one who no longer has a best friend will lose the moodlet, no matter how much time was left. Just something to keep in mind if you try this strategy.
Philappa returned home from her first day of school as a B Student. This is a good sign, though not too exciting as of yet. Even without the clubs I could get kids very close to getting from a C to B on the first day, so I’m not surprised the clubs could cover that minute a difference. It’s still nice, though.
As you can see in the image above, I also had Paisley and Petre start building a rocket while Philappa was at school. This won’t be important until her teen years. In retrospect, I should’ve continued to level their Rocket Science skills after they finished. My failure to do so will come back to bite me in the butt later.
Philappa quickly completed her homework and extra credit in the hopes of getting an A the next day. After that, she’s switched over to
Rambunctious Scamp. She joked around with Paisley for a while to get Playful, sat on the playground for about 2 minutes, and then hopped over to the computer to practice typing and play Keyboard Commander. Because nothing says “Motor Skill” like sitting around at a computer all day.
I feel like I should point out the $10,000 or so painting above her head. I’m pretty sure it’s an instant +3 environmental boost, but it’s been a while since I played. I also have one of the incenses from Spa Day by her side for the extra Energized moodlet, although it’s hard to see with the chair blocking it. While they’re kind of risky, what with the fire and everything, I find them quite useful for pushing someone into the “Very” version of an emotion. This is especially true of
Energized, which can be difficult to build up due to most of the sources being very circumstantial, time-consuming, or unreliable.
The rest of the night was spent working on Rambunctious Scamp, with great success. Only one incense fire! As morning (and thus class) drew nearer, Philappa gets close to maxing
Motor. She’s then moved over to the monkey bars once more, and, with one hour left before school, maxed Motor and completed Rambunctious Scamp. She then went through the same process she did the morning before…
...and came home an A Student. Which I don't actually have a picture of. Welp. Here's spoilers for next time?
With 11 days left until aging up, Philappa had
- Gotten an A
- Completed Social Butterfly and Rambunctious Scamp
- Gotten to the last stage of Whiz Kid and reached level 7 of Mental
The power of clubs, everybody.
And with that, I think I should leave it off here. Will the next eleven days of Philappa’s childhood be as successful as the first two? We shall see, and hopefully we won't have to wait three months to do so. Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
