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Completing the Mansion Baron Aspiration in The Sims 4
This is a enjoyable Aspiration that lets the creative juices of a player flow via building a large estate. And yes, the violin on the bathroom floor was the final object needed to push home value to 350k.
Overview and Set Up
As I stated in the Fabulously Wealthy Aspiration, the two Fortune Aspirations are nice bookends to each other - first you need to make a large amount of money with Fabulously Wealthy, and then the fun begins with Mansion Baron where you can spend that money and create valuable home. Of course there are other ways to approach Mansion Baron such as purchasing an existing home and then expanding/shaping it as needed to complete the Aspiration. You could also move in rich Sims to acquire their money to fund your large estate building needs.
-->I had my painter from the Fabulously Wealthy Aspiration start with a clean slate for fun - he moved from his lowly Bargain Bend to the enormous 50X50 lot at Oakenstead. I bulldozed the lot as well and sold all furniture I had on my previous lot to truly start from scratch. This was going to be a blast as I typically play challenge files or just create Sims who play host for a Guide article and most of them do the "bear in the woods" no walls type of approach. By the way, check out Carl's excellent Guide on Moving.
Oakenstead - this is about as "blank slate" as you can get!
Milestone I - Estate of the Art
I took advantage of a new feature previously not available in the Sims franchise - Styled Rooms. This is absolutely perfect for a player like me who wants to build a house, but have others help him - the room choices are all perfect and you can rotate them, etc. however you wish and fine tune them once you plop them down. All the rooms except the common bathroom were the top of the line Styled Rooms and cost 10k each. Many had existing art objects in them as is, so plopping down the room advanced the art portion of the first Milestone.
I purchased a bedroom, the art room you unlock when you cap the Painter Career (Master of the Real), a Master Bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, and a common bathroom. But, I had these big squares sitting on my huge lot with no connection or organization. Somehow I had to make these big puzzle pieces fit together. It was not too bad - I arranged all the rooms with entrances facing a large common area in the middle of the house. Then I needed to make a connecting wall in the back of the house between the dining room and the kitchen. This is what I put together...
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Styled Rooms are great and make things easy on you if you do not wish to completely start from scratch with your building. Fun Fact: Downton Abbey's Robert Crawley just got a First WooHoo moodlet.
No, I will not win any design awards, but let me tell you I had way too much fun with this. Building is quite enjoyable. So, now I needed to add one more piece of art to finish the first Milestone as well as bring some sense to the main middle common area and finish it off. I put a painting on the studio wall (the 15th piece of art) to finish the first Milestone.
Milestone II - The Great Landscaper
Each Milestone for Mansion Baron has you needing your home to be worth more and more money - sort of like with Fabulously Wealthy where you needed to earn more and more money. The nice thing here with Mansion Baron is the 2nd component is different for each Milestone. So, after you focus on making a basic house and getting 15 pieces of art for Milestone I, then you shift gears and address your landscaping around the home. When the 2nd Milestone fired the home was already worth $100,000 so it was just a matter of adding some trees, flowers, shrubs, etc. to the barren front of the home to give it a bit more curb appeal.
Milestone III - Home Renovator
To go from a 100,000 home to a 200,000 home is a steep jump but was not too difficult. I added a smaller guest house towards the back of the lot, and then addressed the windows portion of the Milestone. When I originally pieced together the Styled rooms they all had different types of windows so if you're looking at the home from the outside it looked terrible with no common theme. I chose a nice, expensive window style to add value to the home and bring a sense of continuity to everything...
Milestone IV - Mansion Baron
20 columns? Wow, that's a lot of columns. How was I going to tackle this, plus nearly doubling the value of the home? I honestly did not want columns outside as they typically are because I thought I had done a decent job with the outside design and would have to redo everything. I did not want a 2nd floor. So the simplest solution seemed to be to put stairs in the large central walkway area that would go down to a luxurious basement that would house art and a music room. So, the columns could be down in the basement and act as house supports which makes sense.
Paintings and violins from Buy Mode were my go to method to finally raise home value to 350k. One thing that almost seems like a bug is if you hang an expensive painting made via the Painting skill on a wall, then the game takes into account the value of the painting and your taxes will shoot up accordingly. But, value is not added instantly the way a person might expect. For players taking this one on in the future, know that entering and exiting buy mode will allow them to properly add to the property value (Thanks, ClayMask!)
The Thifty Reward Trait
After completing the Aspiration your Sim will get a 10% rebate off all Build Mode purchases. Only the Sim doing the purchasing will allow your Household to receive the rebate. Overall, it's a solid Reward, but it would have been nice to get the rebate instantly as opposed to waiting for the money to arrive. However, once you've built such a massive mansion, it's not likely you'll see huge use of this reward.
We now have a Youtube Channel with over 50 guides in video format to go along with the huge site I've already created. Check it out and consider subscribing if you like my style.
The Sims 4 Seasons expansion now has options! Want to disable weather or make plants in season year-round? You can do so with my new Seasons Tuner Mod
The past month, I've spent every day tinkering The Sims 4, making quality of life improvements, gameplay changes, and new difficulty settings for the game. If you'd like to learn more about my project, visit the post on Patreon where you can download it now.
Cottage Living Guide! Here is my guide to new features in the Sims 4 Cottage Living Expansion
You can also find handy Cottage Living Cheats
I have much more to come, since you can actually write a few guides about this pack!
Blender has been incredibly useful in video production, so I made my own Physics and Simulation Improvement Addon that lumps a ton of unique tools into one compact interface.
Snowy Escape Cheats
Lifestyles in Snowy Escape
Climb Mt. Komorebi
Sentiments in Snowy Escape
Rock Climbing
Skiing Skill
Snowboarding Skill
I've released a guide to Sentiments in The Sims 4 & Snowy Escape.
There is a new platform tool in The Sims 4. There's also a new Sentiments system, but it'll take some time to create a guide to that. Players can also use rental lots in any world now by changing lot types of builds in manage worlds.
I've created a massive List of The Best Mods in The Sims 4 that should be very helpful to new players and those who have not yet explored modding and how much it can do for your gameplay.
New - Secrets I have a new guide to secrets in the game. If you prefer, you can also watch a video about secrets in Sims 4.
Nifty Knitting is now available. Learn all about the stuff pack on my guide page here.
NEW - Nifty Knitting CheatsNew features in the Sims 4 June 2020
The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle Guide
Eco Footprint: How it Works
Neighborhood Action Plans
How to Cheat in Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle
Civil Designer Career
Insect Farms & Bio Fuel
Fabrication Skill in Eco Lifestyle
Juice Fizzing NEW
Traits and Aspirations in DLC
Gameplay Ideas for Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle
Updated
Trait Cheats Updated
Traits List Updated
Aspirations List Updated
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This is inspired by a new series in which I start at toddler and gradually take on the major bonuses. Here's a link to the full playlist!
I now have a guide page to Tiny Living Stuff where you can learn about Murphy Beds, the new death, as well as the lot bonuses you'll receive if you manage to keep the size of your lot down with this new pack's Tiny Home Lot Type.
New I now have a guide to Making Super Sims in The Sims 4. Look for a text version within the next 72h. It won't have THAT much more info but it will help out as a checklist.
This was inspired by a series, "Let's Play a Super Sim" in which I start at toddler and gradually take on the major bonuses. Here's a link to each part for people who are interested. You can also see the Let's Play as a Playlist on Youtube.
The Sims 4 Discover University has been announced for November 15 for PC/Mac and December 17 for Xbox and Playstation 4 consoles. Click to learn more about the pack, see my summary of the livestream or read our FAQs below.
Other Guides to Discover University:
New Lot Traits: Study Spot and University Student Hang Out
New: Discover University FAQ: Gameplay Features
New Video The Sims 4 Discover University Gameplay Tips Video
More videos coming soon!
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Comments (4)
A trick I came across in the forums, and I thought I'd share here. If you've covered all the other requirements for Mansion Baron, and just need to inflate the value of the house: In Miscellaneous storage, there's a vault you can place for 3,000. Now go back to Live mode, and click on it. You can put Simoleans in it. Fill it up, go back to Build/Buy and back to Live. The Simoleans sitting in your vault inflate the value of the property, and will count for the aspiration! And now that you've completed Mansion Baron, you can take the money back out. Go to BB and back to Live once more, and now your weekly bills won't be based on a 350k house.
Especially useful now that with Tiny Living, you can upgrade beds. So your beds don't have to be expensive to be comfortable. Also no need to buy all Schmapple appliances just because they're expensive.
I've also discovered that shuffling your simoleans between your account and the vault counts as "Having made" that much money, so your newly aged up teens can instantly wrap up BOTH wealth aspirations with this trick!
Hey, great tips. Just wanted to say thanks for posting them and coming back to update us.
I’m having trouble with this one, specifically the columns part. I have bought 20 columns and it’s stuck on 1/20 columns.