The County Set – A Short Immortal Dynasty

[CeresIn]

Congrats for the second immortal!! You're tempting me to do this but I don't have time, although I'll put it on my to do sim-list.

Ross' toddler painting is beautiful no matter what the game says.

[hazelnut]

Congratulations!  Seems like Kerry was certainly a roller coaster of an heiress for you!  I always panic about the honor roll.  I had an heir once who never got the notice that he'd made honor roll, but both parents had the wish to see him make honor roll and those wishes both got cashed in on his final day of returning from school. 
Glad Kerry managed to get so much done in such a short time.  Kudos!

Thanks .  Getting on to the honour roll isn't too likely on this speed.  It should be just about possible for teenagers, with a lot of tutoring and if there are no weekends in the way.  There's no chance of children making it, since childhood is only two days.  (Irritatingly, the baby stage is the same length as child and toddler.)

Oh my goodness, a second immortal! Congratulations!

 

The first generation wasn't actually faster at all in my time.  I'm hoping that will change as I get further through - and that the short lifespan will wipe out the boredom that tends to set in near the end of a normal-speed immortal dynasty.  It was also fun to plan.  I often find that I enjoy planning games as much as playing them; sometimes more.  Working out what careers and supermaxed skills I was reasonably confident of getting through in the time and then combining them was interesting and I'm hoping that the time pressure will mean that the game itself is just as absorbing.  So far, it's working out that way.

I'm surprised the first gen wasn't faster, is it because they're typically a rush in the beginning?

I'm also really big on planning, more than playing at times. I've been planning a dynasty for far longer than I probably should, or testing out certain strategies/founders instead of just starting it. I love reading stories and seeing how they're approached, and I'm still amazed at how much you've managed to accomplish in so little time!

Thank you .  I think the first generation took a long time because I was playing so many Sims, all of them with tasks to perform.  I've started several normal-speed immortal dynasties and completed one.  Another got to generation six before I messed up terminally by letting a spouse help with the gardening and forgetting to check his inventory for deathflowers.  (I nearly blew the successful one at the same stage and have now developed a bit of a complex about gen 6.)  All but one of the previous dynasties were started with just the founder and spouse - and I gave up on the other one because I didn't like having to manage so many Sims at the start.  That was only two couples, while this household was up to seven Sims when Kerry arrived.

Congrats for the second immortal!! You're tempting me to do this but I don't have time, although I'll put it on my to do sim-list.

Ross' toddler painting is beautiful no matter what the game says.

Ah, the to-do Sim list.  I know it well   .

And thank you .

[hazelnut]

Coming Up Roses

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Maybe it was his lucky trait.  Or maybe the random numbers just rolled that way.  Whatever the reason was, Ross sailed through life.  He became a self-employed gardener while he was still at school and joined Devon in the garden full-time as soon as he grew up.

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By the end of young adulthood, he was pretty much set up for immortality, with his career maxed, lifetime wish completed (I missed the screenshot again  ), the gardening skill almost supermaxed and four opportunities completed.  Plenty of time to think about the future of the dynasty.  This was probably just as well, since finding a wife might be tricky.  The original townies were dying out, as predicted.  The humans were long gone, of course, and Beppe Bianchi, the last of the werewolves, had just died of old age.  That left a few fairies and vampires – with one obvious leading candidate to become Mrs County.  I sent Ross over to the Sengs' house to make friends with Kannitha.  He invited her back home, threw one of his mother’s Potent Cures and invited her to move in.

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Grrr!  On her last day of adulthood.  Sorry, Chan.  Your genes aren’t getting into the family after all.

Plan B was to visit Clare’s old friends the Almerias – but if Kannitha was too old, her fellow fairy Adora must be too, however young she still looked.  That left her daughter Marta.

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Marta might not have inherited her mother’s prettiness but she had lovely traits – and Ross was delighted to discover that she was also eco-friendly.  At last, someone who appreciated the importance of really good compost!

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He invited her over, cured her vampirism and asked her to move in.

Yes!  It wasn’t yet her elder birthday.  On the other hand, tomorrow would be.  And it was already late afternoon.  Time for some serious flirting…

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…and more.

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Chimes first time!  OK, Marta, you can have a makeover now.

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Of course, she only wore her new clothes for a few hours, but never mind.

At about this point, I noticed that all of the stockpiled deathflowers had disappeared from the attic.  Ross grabbed the collection helper from Clare’s inventory and spent two days chasing around town and gathering another batch of special seeds, before embarking on some intensive planting and fertilising.  Fortunately, three of them grew into deathflowers.

Naturally, Angus was born in the bedroom corridor  …

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…and his parents got married immediately afterwards.

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He aged up to toddler and proved to have inherited Marta’s hair and eye colour along with Ross’ skin.

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Although logic is a free skill in this dynasty, Angus was the first heir who was allowed to learn it from the beginning.  He loved his pegbox.

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Kannitha had spent most of her time in the dynasty house reading through their entire library and playing computer games and Gnubb but had also kept up her part-time job at the bookshop.  She’d just finished a shift when Grim caught up with her.

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It was another of his days for two-for-one offers.  Almost immediately afterwards, Devon started sparkling.

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Rest in peace, Devon.  Thank you for keeping the garden going until Ross could take over.

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Devon County made it to 30 days.  He had points in a number of skills, was close to supermaxing gardening and had completed the omniplant opportunity chain.  He was also an expert trampolinist and Gnubb player.

The trampoline was new since Grim’s previous visit.  He hung around for a while trying it out.

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Ross aged up to elder, sat (well, stood) for his final portrait and ate his first ambrosia.

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Ross County

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                                                                                      (All portraits painted by Clare)

Traits: loves the outdoors, heavy sleeper, eco-friendly, green thumb, lucky

Lifetime wish: Perfect Garden
Career: Gardener
Skill: Gardening

Building: Tasty Treats and Tomes
Property: Aleister's Elixirs and Sundries

Unique lifetime rewards: Super Green Thumb, Food Replicator, Flying Vacuum

Unique best friends

• Kerry County
• Cipriana Costa
• Mandie Meyers
• Feisal Rooney
• Renae Rooney
• Chrissie Jorgenson

(He was also best friends with Marta but Clare had claimed her already.)

Unique opportunities

• Stinky Bugs
• Work/School Learning Project
• Save the Herding
• Best Food in Town
• Perfect Produce
• Uncommonly Good

Clare had been carrying all of the urns around in her personal inventory but it was starting to get rather full, so I moved them all to the family inventory instead.  Except for Alessandra’s.  Something odd happened to hers during the transfer.  I’m not sure whether it’s stuck in a wall or the ground somewhere or has just become invisible.  Either way, it can’t be interacted with or moved and Alessandra’s ghost is now a regular visitor.

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[PeregrineTook]

Wow, you are flying through this!  I'm also planning on using the head start approach on gardening in my decadynasty.  An heir can't be bothered with silly things like starting a garden!  Their  time is better investing in tending an already thriving garden  :=)
Marta looks really good in that hairstyle!  Kudos on the makeover!  Ross, of course, simply swam out of a really attractive gene pool.

[Ausette]

You're mad, hazelnut . Really enjoying this so far. You've got efficiency down to an art form.

It's always sad when the original townies die out. Let's hope their genes stick around at least. As cute as he is, I'm almost disappointed Angus takes so strongly after Ross; Marta's quite a lovely-looking Sim in my opinion and I'd have loved to see her features on the heir.

[CeresIn]

Congratulation to Ross! His face makes me remember someone, an actor maybe but I'm not good with names.

[hazelnut]

Wow, you are flying through this!  I'm also planning on using the head start approach on gardening in my decadynasty.  An heir can't be bothered with silly things like starting a garden!  Their  time is better investing in tending an already thriving garden  :=)
Marta looks really good in that hairstyle!  Kudos on the makeover!  Ross, of course, simply swam out of a really attractive gene pool.

Thanks!

Of course, I know from doing the Apocalypse Challenge that it’s perfectly possible to supermax gardening from a cold start but I far prefer doing it this way.  And anyway, I liked Devon.

You're mad, hazelnut .

I know!   

As cute as he is, I'm almost disappointed Angus takes so strongly after Ross; Marta's quite a lovely-looking Sim in my opinion and I'd have loved to see her features on the heir.

Angus isn’t a total Ross clone.  Apart from the hair and eye colours, there’s something of Marta in the shape of his face and ears.  And maybe her genes will surface more strongly in the next generation.

Congratulation to Ross! His face makes me remember someone, an actor maybe but I'm not good with names.

He also reminds me of someone (maybe the same someone), although exactly who it might be is eluding me.


Emergency Repairs

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As a genius, Angus found schoolwork easy – although he had to turn down the two school opportunities he was offered.  I wonder how “I can’t clean out the bugs because my dad did that when he was at school” went down with his teacher?

He was the first child of the dynasty to grow up entirely surrounded by elders, most of whom would be around forever.  His father had achieved immortality while he was still a toddler; sadly, the person Angus was closest to was his mother, who wasn’t allowed to eat ambrosia.

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Marta was another mortal who only just made it to the end of the short lifespan.  An hour or so before her son was due to become a teenager, she got up from the rocking chair and was overtaken by sparkles.

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Like Antonio, she was content to go with Grim.  She’d also started the game as a toddler, after all.

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Nobody felt much like celebrating Angus’s birthday after that.

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At high school, he was asked to read Demand Excellence… and report back.  He’d have been happy to have a new book to read but it was a Friday and he was due to age up on the Sunday, so he refused.

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Instead, he spent Saturday playing chess and had birthday cake for breakfast on Sunday.

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Immediately afterwards, he walked next door and signed up as a firefighter.

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He returned to find that the customary collection of blocked toilets had appeared in the front of the house.  (In fact, he didn’t have to repair all of them, since half of the indoor plumbing decided to break while he was in the middle of fixing the old stuff.)

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Then he moved on to broken appliances…

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…and upgrades.

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By his adult birthday, he’d supermaxed handiness.

Because of the small-fire bugs, he made it to assistant fire chief without putting out a single blaze, although he did deal with an infestation of angry gnomes.

Kerry became a five-star chef and retired.

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My previous Immortal Dynasty chefs have carried on working until the end of the game but there was too much going on in this one.  The second chef’s fridge went into the heir’s room.

Monte Vista had become a ghost town by this point.  There was never anyone around on the community lots around town and when I sent Clare and Ross out on a scouting mission, it turned out that only three houses were inhabited: apart from Adora Almeria, who, incongruously enough, was still an adult, there were only a few elderly townies.  Angus was going to have to look elsewhere for a wife.  So he took the university aptitude test.

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I was only going to send him for a day or two to find a spouse, and then buy him an honorary science/medicine degree and stick him into the medical career, with all of its opportunities.  Then he got 18 credits towards a technology degree and I was reminded that a tech degree counts towards the law enforcement career.  So I changed my plans: Angus would attend uni for a full two weeks and complete his degree.  It would be quite nice to only have one Sim to watch for a while.  On the other hand, I still wanted to keep to the spirit of the challenge I’d set myself, so I’d only let him study or work on his athletic skill while he was there – completing his lifetime wish would have to wait until he returned home.

In the meantime, he had to reach the top of his first career.  It was a weekend, so he maintained the engine and alarm and then worked out until he hit level ten.

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Then he made a quick phone call…

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…and returned home briefly to say goodbye to the family.

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[Ausette]

Aww, that last screenshot with everyone coming out to say hello is just adorable.

Is Adora Almeria too old to marry in? Related? Just out of curiosity. I'm very excited to see who Angus meets at uni.

[hazelnut]

Is Adora Almeria too old to marry in? Related?

Adora is Marta's widowed mother.  Even though she's a fairy, I'm pretty sure she ought to be an elder by now.


The Odd Couple

At the Meet and Greet, Angus met Bettie Franklin and was instantly smitten.

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Over the next two weeks, I made sure he met almost every female on campus but none of them could compete with Bettie.

(I think I missed an opportunity here, by the way.  On the middle weekend, Angus was asked to do a whiteboard presentation for extra credit.  It appeared in the job slot but I was so convinced that uni opportunities wouldn’t count that I didn’t record it in the official list even though he completed it.  It was only when I saw Trip commenting in the immortal dynasty thread about valid opportunities for science & medical students that I realised I’d probably missed a trick.  There was a second one a day or two later involving lecturing but he turned that one down that one because I was afraid that it might unlock charisma.)

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After a pretty uneventful couple of weeks, Angus completed his degree with an A grade.  I don’t know why he was so surprised – he’d been on the dean’s list for the past week.

The family turned up to watch him graduate.

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It was chaos outside the sports hall.  Whether it was the fuss surrounding the arrival of the celebrities from Monte Vista or just a general lack of organisation, getting everyone into their gowns and through the doors was taking ages.  Angus eventually gave up and went in by another door without bothering to change.

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I think he was pleased with his new diploma .

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As soon as he was home again, he phoned Bettie and invited her to visit.  There seemed to be some travel problems and it took a few more days and another two calls before she finally arrived.  At least it gave Angus time to get established in his new career.

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Erm, Angus dear, I’m not sure that talking about flies is the best approach to adopt here. On the other hand, maybe she should know about your dirt-eating habits.

Apparently, he knew Bettie better than I did.  Immediately after the fly conversation, she agreed to move in.

Oh!  She’s insane.  That explains it.

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She ran indoors for a change of hairstyle and some new outfits.  I left her everyday clothes as they were: I like the way her jacket matches her eyes.

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After softening her up with his grandmother’s amazing food, Angus decided it was time to move their relationship on.

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Well, I wasn’t expecting that.  She said no.  And then rolled a wish to marry him.

Maybe she just wanted to be the one to propose.

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Angus thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

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And then they kissed and made up.

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Pretty successfully.

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All too soon, Angus had his final birthday.

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The noise woke Bettie, who’d been napping in the rocking chair.  She’d been feeling oddly tired recently.  Shortly afterwards she found out why.

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Now that she was expecting his child, would Bettie be more willing to accept a proposal from Angus?

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Apparently she would.

Angus’ requirements were almost complete.  He stopped off at the library after work the following day to read a logic book and finish off his lifetime wish.

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While he was there, he rolled a wish to marry Bettie.  He teleported home and went to look for his fiancée.  He found her in the basement, admiring his newly completed portrait collection.  It seemed as good a place as any to get married.

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He was still short of three best friends,  The police career might be great for quick progression and job opportunities but it is a bit lacking in co-workers.  And now he was on leave anyway.

Help came from an unexpected direction.  I’d been assuming that going to uni and joining a different career would mean that Angus would have to forfeit his key to the city.  It seemed not.  On the day after his wedding he was summoned to City Hall.

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The crowd this time was even sparser than for Clare’s presentation.  In fact, nobody else attended.

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Maybe they knew that the mayor was a crook.  That box was empty – or, at least, nothing ever arrived in Angus’ inventory.

There were people in the main square, though.  Angus threw some elixirs.

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And that was it.  Requirements done.  He went home and replicated a plate of ambrosia.

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Angus County

Traits: brave, athletic, genius, handy, daredevil, heavy sleeper (degree)

Lifetime wish: The Tinkerer
Career: Firefighter
Skill: Handiness

Building: Flying V’s Coffeehouse
Property: Venice Beach

Unique lifetime rewards: Professional Slacker, Philosopher’s Stone, Efficient Inventor*

*Actually, on this speed, I’m not at all sure he’ll ever get enough free time (or enough of my attention as a former heir) to do any inventing at all.  On the other hand, it’s absolutely certain that no-one else will do any.

Unique best friends

• Bettie County
• Clare County
• Callie Duvall (his police partner)
• Roderick Barakat
• Venkat Gossett
• Augustine Cronin

Unique opportunities

• Puzzle Panic
• Fixing the Books
• Make-A-Dream
• Enroll in University
• Substitute Instructor
• Working the Late Shift

[Trip]

In my defense, I swear I've given out the science/medicine degree ops tip before.

I haven't commented yet but this short run is pretty insane. It's technically not Hall of Fame eligible but I might have to make a special mention if you succeed.

[hazelnut]

In my defense, I swear I've given out the science/medicine degree ops tip before.

You probably have.  I've not been following the dynasty threads recently.

I haven't commented yet but this short run is pretty insane. It's technically not Hall of Fame eligible but I might have to make a special mention if you succeed.

It's excluded on 'current patch' grounds as well.  My computer does not get on at all with 1.69.  It's not just Sims 3 that crashes all the time - we're talking complete train wreck territory.  I've gone back to 1.67, with Origin competely disabled.  Pretty infuriating, since I had three downloaded stuff packs: I've bought Town Life on disk as well but am doing without the other two.

A special mention would be nice, though .

[Nimrod Mikkusu]

Well. I'm on 1.67 too. 

Then anyways, I propably would'nt make a strict Dinasty. A legacy challenge with helpers, maybe.

[hazelnut]

Well. I'm on 1.67 too. 

Then anyways, I propably would'nt make a strict Dinasty. A legacy challenge with helpers, maybe.

Those are fun too


Gen 5 Is the New Gen 6

Amazingly, Bettie didn’t have her baby in the bedroom corridor.  She chose a spot right in front of the replicator and dishwasher instead.  It was just as well that the immortals had eaten their ambrosia a few hours before.

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And it’s a purpleboo!  I thought that Bettie’s pale skintone might shift the colour away from the greeny-yellows if the baby was another rainboo but I wasn’t expecting such a dramatic difference  .

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When little Gwynedd aged up to toddler, she proved to have inherited Bettie’s hair colour.  I’m not sure where those greyish eyes came from, though.  I’d been hoping that the baby would inherit her mother’s startling green eyes but grey probably works better with that skin tone.

With Clare and Kerry eager to share the childcare duties, Bettie took up a new hobby.

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Since my computer always seems to spit out numbers at the high end of the range for the number of sculptures required for opportunities like An Old Ruse and Delivering the Green, I was getting the family inventory stocked up in advance. I also did this in the 4x4 – rather pointlessly as it turned out, since Mike didn’t get any of those opportunities.  Either my computer is spiteful or it’s cleverer than I am  .  Or it could just be random chance, of course.  I used the same strategy successfully with Clare at the beginning of this game –  she used Chan’s paintings for some of her opportunities.  It would have been even more helpful if she’d been self-employed or had had one of the ops to deliver a large number of paintings.

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Gwynnie had another birthday.

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Clare began tutoring her for school and I discovered that I’d started on the traditional gen 6 mess-ups a generation early.

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Gwynedd had managed to unlock logic as a toddler, presumably by playing in either the walker or the playpen.  I really should have stuck to the traditional methods of teaching walking and talking.  Not a fatal mistake but irritating when I’d intended her to be a single-skill Sim.

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Two days later, Gwynnie was old enough to start sculpting and I knocked through the wall between the two skilling rooms to make space for another sculpting station.

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By her YA birthday, she’d reached level 8 of the sculpting skill and level 5 of the career (and level 5 in logic).

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(I think that must be her self-employed sculptor’s work outfit.)

She chose Living in the Lap of Luxury as her lifetime wish and got it so fast that I missed the screenshot.  Yeah, another one .

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Gwynedd grew up pretty, although the tendency to revert to neutral features seems to be kicking in, despite the lack of clone-faced spouses.

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Of course, the first few opportunities she was offered were either celebrity ops that had already been claimed or logic ones that her dad had done.  I came very, very close to failing at this point – because of a few days’ break in playing, combined with tiredness that turned out to be the incubation period of the bug that’s going around here at the moment, I lost concentration and accepted Fixing the Books, which was one of Angus’ Black Ops.  Gwynedd was already on her way to the business office when I did a paranoid double-check and had to cancel the cue in a hurry.  My spreadsheet now has an extra sheet, with an alphabetical list of the opportunities that everyone has done.

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At last, the first sculpting opportunity arrived.  Bettie posed for an ice sculpture and Gwynedd delivered it to the police station.  Shortly afterwards, she maxed the skill.

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Two days before her adult birthday, Gwynnie retrieved her father’s philosopher’s stone from the family inventory…

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…and bound Octavius Capp to the household.  They hit it off immediately.

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One thing led to another…

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…and. within a day, Gwynedd was both engaged and pregnant.

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[hazelnut]

Choosing Octavius as the next spouse was probably another mistake.  He’s nice-looking, youngish and has good traits – but one of them is natural cook.  He quickly showed that he was keen to finish off half-made dishes and was rapidly building his cooking skill.  And, as a ghost, he would be perfectly capable of reaching that bowl of half-made ambrosia in the loft.  On the next Ambrosia Day, I sent Octavius out fishing and retrieved the bowl.   By now they had three replicators, although one was only half upgraded.  Nevertheless, I told Kerry to load all three and then to finish cooking the ambrosia and eat it.

In my normal-speed dynasties, I’ve kept an eye on the immortals and fed them ambrosia individually when their age bars were getting full.  This time, with ambrosia needed every fifth day, I’m keeping them all on the same schedule, with non-immortals kept busy or off the lot until they’ve finished topping up their immortality.  So far, it’s working pretty well.  Ross (yes, the supposedly lucky one) has had to use one deathflower, even though he was only 26 days old and should have been OK for at least another day, but everyone else has been fine.


Bettie nearly lived long enough to see her grandchild.  Shortly before Gwynedd was due to go into labour, her gazing at Clare’s painting certificate was rudely interrupted.

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The labour pains hit while Gwynedd was sculpting, of course.

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In a complete break with tradition, she insisted on having the baby in hospital.  I suppose I could have locked her in the house but I wasn’t that fussed.

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And he’s pink!  Welcome to the dynasty, Leicester.

Gwynedd and Octavius had a private wedding the following morning.

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I hadn’t noticed until then that ghosts don’t cast a shadow.  Logical enough, I suppose, but it looks rather odd when hugging and kissing with a normal Sim .

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That evening, Gwynedd had her adult birthday and, minutes later, became an Ice Personality by carving her first masterpiece.

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Leicester became a toddler.

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I love that every (potential) immortal so far has a different hair colour, although they’re all dark.

Leicester was universally adored.  He was constantly pursued by a line of foot-tapping elders, all keen to attend to his every need.

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He was taught his toddler skills by the time-honoured, adult-intensive methods and then turned to other things.  Musical skills are technically free in this dynasty.  Clare keeps rolling wishes to learn the guitar but, quite frankly, she’s far too busy, so Leicester’s likely to have a monopoly.  He started off by reaching level 3 in the xylophone skill…

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…but still somehow had plenty of free time to play with other toys.

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Meanwhile, his mother, who had been shamefully neglected in recent screenshots, finished her supermax.

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She’d maxed the sculpting career some time before, so now went into business, purely for the opportunities.  She didn’t get any but she did make some new friends – and, after a worrying pause, the sculpting and celebrity ops started appearing again.

Ross won the fight to take Leicester to his next birthday cake.

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Ambrosia Day arrived again – with a minor disaster.  Ross was on his way to replicate the first plateful when he stopped and looked blank.  I tried to get him to carry on but found that he could no longer interact with the replicator.  In fact, all three had suddenly lost their memories.

Clare gave Kerry one of the deathfish from her inventory and Kerry refilled the replicators, then carried on cooking and ate the original plateful herself.  Everyone else successfully ate replicated copies, while Octavius, who had been messing around learning various skills, felt a sudden compulsion to concentrate full-time on fishing, aided by potent invigorating elixirs.

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Les aged up again…

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…and started working on his supermax.

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Gwynedd had her final birthday.

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After all of the recent crises, it was quite a surprise to find that all of her requirements apart from her final portrait were already in place.  Less than a day later, she was ready to eat ambrosia for the first time.

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Gwynedd County

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Traits: artistic, couch potato, perfectionist, savvy sculptor, avant garde

Lifetime wish: Living in the Lap of Luxury
Career: Sculptor
Skill: Sculpting

Building: Slanciato Spa
Property: Sunbather’s Retreat

Unique lifetime rewards: Artisan Crafter, Dirt Defiant, Speedy Cleaner

Unique best friends

• Octavius County
• Leicester County
• Angus County
• Sherita Pool
• Wade Coffey*
• Cora Wade*

*Was the game beginning to run short of names?  She also had a boss called Devon Something-or-other.

Unique opportunities

• A Fishy Science Project
• Sims on Ice
• Larger Than Necessary Doorstop
• Authorised Biography
• An Old Ruse**
• Business Model

**Only four wooden sculptures were needed this time but Bettie’s preparatory work was still useful - Gwynedd was able to sell almost everything she sculpted.

[Ausette]

Congratulations hazelnut! Gwynedd's requirements sound like a nightmare. Opportunities and ambrosia days are fiddly at the best of times, let alone with so little time on your hands. I'm glad you made it through for now (with such a colourful family as a bonus!).

Shame about the bug. Hope you feel better soon. <3