Flip the Crick

[Metropolis Man]

Eva, fantastic info. Thank you so much. Ugh, so it's surrealism paintings, huh? And I thought it was abstract that gave the highest value. No wonder my paintings never broke 10k.

[thekatie0409]

If you are looking for total value from painting, abstract is the highest income earner. The surrealism paintings have the highest variance in value of any painting type. On this challenge that means the outliers on the upper side are going to give the highest painting values. The downside is that you get far more masterpieces worth practically nothing. My 5 highest painting values ended up being 11995, 13069,14337, 14801, 21693 using the surrealism paintings!
The last post in this thread has a great breakdown on the best painting type for each situation  http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=21257.25

[Deveroux]

Yeah, I used surreal too. I think I saw the same study lol 

Looking at Eva's strategy, mine was similar, though the pure aspiration gathering lasted 1 day, and I would separate my skill gathering phase from production.

I started with a married couple and gave them both the Creative Visionary aspiration so that they would fill their fun need off of painting. Traits were Perfectionist, Art Lover, and Creative.

I had them join Good Timers (very original idea, definitely not grabbed from half of the winner strategies last year) and maintained a constant meeting with romantic and friendly socials as the activities. While they were chatting it up and racking up points, I had my Sims finish the Soulmate aspiration.

For the club, I bought the painting bonus so they could get that up quickly, then the +2 comradery bonus (eventually bought +3) to plunge my Sims into the "Very" zone.

Then I started painting. I actually ignored woodworking for the first bit of the challenge since I figured painting would be the biggest determiner (which I still think it was).

I went to the art studio in the city and painted there instead of at home (more decoration, instant very inspired vibes while painting, less distraction by them wanting to shower). In my practice run I was also woodworking there and it was awful because everyone was trying to use the table and I had to kick them out and--ugh.

Basically I just racked up both of their painting and fabulously wealthy aspirations, maxed their skills, bought a focused club vibe and used it for a tiny bit so they could draw mathematical diagrams

Bought things in this priority:

Night Owl
Morning Sim
Marketable - Figured this wouldn't come into play until they maxed their skill anyway, so I prioritized skill gain speed
Creative Visionary
Need-type

Anyway, once they had all the target traits and maxed painting skill and my club had enough points for the handiness bonus, I bought Connections for my woodworker and joined the painter career to get the easel for my house. Also got some nice inspired stuff, so now I could match the effectiveness of the art studio. Went to my house and had the woodworker actually woodwork while the painter painted. That was more or less rinse and repeat, club people were kinda distracting so I wish I locked them out, but oh well. Just completely ignored their hygiene need but was otherwise full and able to keep them at Very Inspired or Focused.

I based what I was making in woodworking on how far my current creation was from the max price (the 3x multiplier or whatever marketable gives you). I tried mass producing bathtubs since I thought they had higher potential, but then I made a few mascot sculptures and those consistently gave me higher $4k+ values, so I just used those instead. I was looser about my requirements for the lower price furniture since they had less potential, but I made sure they hit 2.5x the original value. Once I did that for all my furniture, I sent him back to painting.

Painter lady just kept going and I had two $12k, two $14k, and one glorious $18,113 painting, bless my luck.

From the moment I bought connections, I was actually sending the woodworker to work because I wanted the fancy easel, but I ended up not making it so it was an unfortunate waste of time. Ah well, despite that, I did pretty dang well.

[Elinoee]

It's so interesting to read all your strategies!
I did approximately the same with traits,strategy,woodworking,etc...
What made a big difference was the paintings values: I never managed to get so high values with mines. They were approximately §4000,even with the "creative visionary" and "marketable" traits,and painting skill level 10.
I didn't know that surrealism was the worthy,it's really interesting to know that,thanks 

§18113,that's incredible! 

[coolsim9999999]

My Flip the Crick Strategy:
Lot traits:
Homey, Natural Light, Private Dwelling
Under options:
Summer for 28 days does not affect Sims
Opt out of fame
their traits and reward traits:
Claudia Monet
Aspiration and traits:
Painter Extraordinaire aspiration, Creative, Art Lover and Loner
Reward Traits:
Creative Visionary, Morning Sim, Night Owl, Marketable
Charles Carpenter
Aspiration and traits:
Nerd Brain Aspiration
Genius Perfectionist and Loner
Reward traits
None

My painter and woodworker were married in CAS before I ever left CAS. 

My painter finished the painting aspiration, and my woodworker never worked on his aspiration.
She went to the museum in Oasis Springs to view 3 paintings, as part of her aspiration.  That was the only time that either of them left the house ( I locked the door.) Besides, they were both loners, so they didn't want to meet strangers, anyway.

My painter was able to paint mostly 10K paintings --- all surrealism because a long time ago, I read that post about which painting type is worth the most.  My woodworker produced all excellent quality work. My painter maxed the painting skill, and my woodworker maxed the handiness skill. 

I also always take screenshots during any practice runs that I do, so I looked at  my 13 screenshots to see if I took pictures of anything I didn't write down in my word document for my scoring file.

[coolsim9999999]

Congratulations for winning this challenge, Lena

Awesome strategies, everyone!

[LenaLJ]

My strategy going into this challenge was quiet different than what I have been doing for years.
I am allowed to think all I want about a challenge, but this year I am not allowing myself practice runs.
So this challenge was fun in a new way (been playing since we started making the tournaments, so always fun to push myself a bit)

The two sims I created in CAS I created as married sims. I gave the male (Woodworker) one of the Knowledge aspirations to gain benefit from the "Quick Learner" trait, and the female (Painter) a Creative aspiration for the "Muser" trait.
When starting the game I switched them both to Soulmate though, to rack up the aspiration points fast. This was to get the "Market Able" reward trait for both, and "Connections" and "Creative Visionary" for the Painter.
At the beginning of the game I also created a club for the benefits like "Rally the troops", I find it easier to make my own club when I have more than one sim, so that I dont have to deal with other members.

After completing Soulmate for both sims I invited over a Repairman, the woodworker befriended her, so that she could mentor him in Handiness. The painter joined the painting career, because I wanted the best easel for their home, which also worked out.

The most of the first week the two sims spent their time in the Art district in San Mushyno. Having both an easel and a woodworking bench there is very beneficial.

Regarding the scoring items, it was about to get as much as possible out of replacing the home lot items, here the bathtub was a very high hitter.
The sculptures the woodworker placed was Camping Mascots, with the lowest value of 4175.
The painting painted where all surrealism paintings, the average of these types of paintings is lower than other types, but the single value can be alot higher. I got a nice output in mine resulting in these values 15342, 16160, 16305, 11994, 12049.

This all resultet in a score of 117533

[coolsim9999999]

Great strategy, Lena !

[Ravencloud999]

I'm amazed that you can get such a good score without even practicing. I did two practice runs and still got only $50k.

[LenaLJ]

I'm amazed that you can get such a good score without even practicing. I did two practice runs and still got only $50k.

I have 9 years of training. And believe me when I say I dont expect myself to hit that high all year. We will get challenges that are totally new, where I cant really pull on what we did before. So it will be interesting.