2013 Tournament Finale: The 4x4 Golden Opportunity

[Turoskel]

Congrats Nutella

I struggled with this, started it not long after it opened then gave up and came back to it this weekend but didn't have time to finish it, I didn't really have a strategy but I read the strategies from the previous 4x4 challenge to get some ideas as I never play with opportunities other than for challenges.

So after reading that I had a painter, sculptor, inventor and gardener/photographer, my painter got the top paying op for Painting The City at 376,304, nothing else I got was anywhere near that but my photographer got a couple between 175,000 and 180,000.

There were a couple of ops I read about that led me to have one make nectar and another break space rocks for tiberium but I never got them, maybe if I'd gone the twelve weeks perhaps. I just felt like I was mostly waiting for the phone to ring and to be honest got a little bored at times hence why I took a break from it then realised there was no time left 

I'm interested to know where those big money scores came from though, some of the ones I read from the last challenge involved things banned from this one such as transfiguration and ghosts, obviously there are more ways than those to get bigger payouts.

[Nutella]

Sim #1  (Mona)   

• Human
• ambitious, artistic, loner, hates the outdoor, over emotional
• Painting + Photography (skill booster)

• French Photos  --  $575,200 (photography)
• Interior Decor  --  $86,984 (painting)
• Deliver a Painting to China  --  $152,152 (painting)
• The Business of Decor  --  $1,446,224 (painting)

Sim #2  (Lisa)   

• Human
• ambitious, artistic, loner, loves the outdoor, photographer's eye
• Painting + Photography + Gardening (skill booster)

• The Pyramids  --  $200,040 (photography)
• Deliver a Painting to Egypt  --  $80,800 (painting)
• Al Simhara  --  $191,060 (photography)
• Great Greens  --  $982,900 (gardening)

Sim #3  (Sanaka)   

• Human
• photographer's eye, angler, loner, loves the outdoor, over emotional
• Fishing + Photography

• The Dragon Cave  --  $222,040 (photography)
• The Sphinx  --  $117,660 (photography)
• Photo Contest  --  $220,040 (photography)
• Fresh Fish  --  $1,175,160 (fishing)

Sim #4  (Persephone)   

• Fairy
• savvy sculptor, gatherer, loner, loves the outdoor, supernatural fan
• Gardening + Sculpting + Alchemy + Painting (skill booster)

• Outstanding Tasting Ingredients  --  $122,500 (gardening)
• Painting the City  --  $1,237,784 (painting)
• The Study of Art  --  $79,272 (painting)
• A Just-In-Time Harvest  --  $2,310,060 (gardening)

Here is more info, I have noted down the weeks/days opportunities came in and the original turn-in value.  Summary

The 4 money making opportunites came from these skills:  Painting, Photography, Gardening, and Fishing.  Most of the tips I learned for this challenge is from two old seasoned players, ClayMask and drift9999.

Painting -- Fresco opportunity is good, increase painting value, however the best one to get is "Local Artist Gallery".  After you complete that, you start 30-40 large portraits, all these paintings will have the boosted value.  Also portraits worth more money than regular large paintings.

Photography -- Complete photog and architectural eye skill challenge, for increase value.  I chose not to complete shutter nut, took too long.

Fishing -- two words, death fish.  The more you fish, the more valuable it becomes.  My death fish was worth around $9700 at the end of week 12.

Gardening -- two words again, death fish.  Gardening opps that ask for produce, you can turn in death fish.

Sculpting -- not good at all for me.  My fairy sim did pick up sculpting and she sculpted 10-12 weeks long and only manage to produce 3 masterpiece.  Also the big money sculpting opportunities (6 wood sculptures and 6 topiaries) never did ring for me.  I had high values wood sculptures and topiaries sitting on my lawn, wasn't able to turn in anything.

Alchemy -- this is bread and butter.  My fairy sim picks up alchemy on day 1 and proceed to learn the few important recipes.  Potent invigorating elixirs, keeps everyone energy bars up.  Vial of bliss, keeps social bar up.  Skill booster, so I can learn skills fast, for skills that I don't need to complete skill challenges, just need the opp phone call to ring.  Also being a fairy, she was able to bloom wolfsbane and spotlight mushroom for the potent invigorating elixirs, needed lots of those.

Two celebrity opps, fresh fish and great greens, I held on to them till the last day, so I can turn in the most expensive death fish.  Remember your sim must not be celebrity, or they won't get that phone call.  My gardening fairy sim was suppose to get the great greens opp, but things happen and she became celebrity accidentally, so I had to learn gardening on my painting sim who is not a celebrity yet to get that great greens phone call.

I did purchase a miner from consignment store and had my fairy sim mined up some Tiberium.  She had plenty of free time (didn't have to paint or fish), so she join science center hoping to get the Tiberium opp.  12 weeks went by and still didn't get the opp.

[klop90]

Sim 1:  308256
Sim 2: 3718140
Sim 3: 2588832
Sim 4:  148236

Total:  6763484

My score could better. Opportunities did not show and I made a stupid mistake.

My mistake was delivery 6 fish and forget to remove cheap fish.

Sim 1 John Paint

1. The Study of Art                 $102,272 (painting)
2. Deliver a Painting to Egypt  $83,280 (painting)
3. Deliver a Painting to France $ 70,032 (painting)
4. Deliver painting to restaurant  $ 52,584 (painting)

Sim 2 Ben Fish

1. Deliver 15 fresh fish supermarket $3,518,000 (fishing)
2. Deliver 1 deatfish science center  $176,100 (fishing)
3. Dragon fish 3x                               $15,740  (fishing)
4.  Catch behemoth at the science facility $ 8,000 (fishing)

sim3 Silvia Paint

1. The Business of Decor  $1,522,376 (painting)
2. Painting the City  $1,032,656 (painting)
3. Medium painting  $ 25,720
4. Small painting     $   8,080

sim4 Felicity Fish

1. Deliver a Painting to China  $ 64,976  (painting)
2. Masterpiece sculpture        $  31,720 (sculpting)
3. Valuable sculpture             $  25,820 (sculpting)
4. High quality delivery          $  25,740 (sculpting)

I learned also alot from the tips off ClayMask and Drift9999.
There is a problem with sculpting opportunities they don't show or you must stop your sculpure and answer the phone.
Don't like photography. Don't have Supernaturel.
I choose for 2 painters one fishing and one sculpting and fishing.

Congrats Nutella well done!!!!

[Blackrosea]

Congratulations Nutella on winning the challenge! Great strategy

[Femke82]

I had a lot of fun and I am happy with my score, but it could have been higher as I discovered a few tricks while I was playing my game file that could have helped me getting a better score.

Sim 1: 1659202
Sim 2: 579736
Sim 3: 1833172
Sim 4: 533564

Total:  4605674

I appologise in advance for my English, it is not my native language. I also hope I give the good opportunity as I have to translate into English.

I learned that when doing the art apraiser career (from the expension pack university, you can apply when reaching level 10 in Rebel, wich I did by doing street art), starting level 6 you can apply for a opportunity at the criminal hideout (your workplace) and after completing the three opportunities you can paint painting from every level, a genius painting or a masterpiece painting at will. So after completing this I only painted masterpieces.

What I did wrong was that I spread out my skills to much, so I didn't get the calls for those good opportunities. I also didn't realise that paintings and photographs only appriciated when in inventory or at a wall. I had them put away in alchemy cabinets for a better running game, but my score would have been much higher if I had just left them in the inventory.

I also used Alchemy so my sims never had to sleep and always had fun. And I gave them all the appropriate life time rewards.

Sim 1 (Fairy)
Well timed harvest (15x Death Fish)        $ 1,384,790
Outstanding ingredients (3x Death Fish)  $ 173,660
Collection of the Commandant (8x Nectar, 9x life fruit, 1x pomegranate) $ 96,752
Go on (improve material arts)   $ 4,000

Sim 2 (Witch) She learned logic and photography and then tutored Sim 4 in photography. If I do this challenge again I will just learn photography with skill elixers and be done with it. This Sim did the alchemy, nectar making and sculpting, but I hade her do some photo opportunities to get some paying opps as I didn't always get paid for the sculpting ones.
Foto's of France (5 foto's from France)  $ 295,180
Al Simhara (Photo of Al Simhara)   $ 126,440
The Sfinx (photo of the Sfinx) $ 115,720
Nectar emergency (3x Nectar, 9x lifefruit, 1x pomegranate)  $ 42,396
I had the bad luck that my game crashed and I had to open the file again, before the crash, the opp asked for 7 bottles

Sim 3 (werewolf)
I had him hunting for Tiberium the first week, then used the gem cutter from supernatural to make a small spire cut that grew into a large one. After that he did inventing (wouldn't do that again, to much of work for one opp that pays some). After that I had him fish, boy did I made a mistake of not doing that right away! The death fish he caught (at home) become more and more valuable after time.
Heaps of fresh fish (15x Death Fish)  $ 1,661,460
What is this ... Tiberium?  $ 130,202
Master Invention (Heart-shaped pink diamant)  $ 21,510
Master Invention (10x Life fruit)  $ 20,000

Sim 4 (Human)
He did the painting and photography. He did pick up a few point is sculpting and use a sculpture from Sim 2 to complete it and it did pay him
Deliver 10 painting (I don't know the translation)  $ 372,112
Dragoncave (photo)  $ 89,240
Genius Sculpture  $ 36,308
Deliver painting (must be worth over $1000)   $ 35,904

[Jiske]

I was totally aiming for the Painting opportunities with my Artistic Sim.
For some reason though I never got a single one. All I got were lousy Commissioned Street Art opportunities. Maybe the two maxed skills got borked, I don't know.

It's nice to read others' strategy