2011 TournamentBishop Takes Head Kick: Grandmaster Quan’s Grandmaster Challenge, February 13Participants: 76
Champion: winnow
Though the Grandmaster Challenge was actually the 2nd event of the 2011 season, it was the first event to close. The concept was very simple — have your Sim attain Grandmaster rank in chess and martial arts.
The short 3-week Mini event set a new record for participation, 76 players. winnow, a 50-year-old Bay Area, CA resident topped the enormous field. Norma (her real name) has been playing Sims since the franchise began 10 years ago.
“I really didn't expect to win. There are so many good players here and I've learned so much from them that until I saw Metro’s PM, I assumed someone would beat my time. I immediately bought two chess tables and comfortable chairs, some decorations, and quick transportation. I bought two tables because in my tests, other Sims would use a single chess table (e.g., by not leaving after I'd defeated them) and slow down my progress. The comfortable chairs and decorations were important for moodlets since you need to be at the top of the bubble to skill quickly. I didn't use the fast car as much in Riverview as I had in my tests because I didn't need to stalk any of my opponents, but it was helpful to cut down the time needed to go to places like the consignment shop or grocery store and it was very helpful in China.”
“I skilled logic and chess by playing chess. I checked my needs and moodlets after every match. If I didn't think I'd have a full mood bar for the next 3 or so hours, I took care of my needs or generated some positive moodlets (e.g., by fulfilling a wish). I usually took care of my needs and moodlets after I called the opponent. When my opponent was unavailable, I played chess, worked out, or read the martial arts book.”
“The consignment shop and the Late Night wishes and moodlets were very helpful—I became a celebrity without really trying and got quite a few positive moodlets from discounts and being recognized. This was especially helpful in China where I couldn't control the environment like I could on my home lot. I was very lucky in not having to track any of my chess opponents down. I had all three Grandpas in Riverview so that helped my score a lot. I took Fast Learner first, then Prepared Traveler before I left for China. I took Steel Bladder after winning some sparring matches in China.”
“My main concern was becoming the martial arts grandmaster in six days so I'd only need one trip to China. In my tests, I had problems meeting some opponents, even when using Alexandria's excellent suggestion of going to the opponent's home. Other opponents became unavailable or took a long time to fight because of routing problems, e.g., being stuck in a sofa, especially because other Sims seemed to show up at my opponent's house at the same time I did. Those problems could easily make me need more than six days. I stayed in Riverview after becoming grandmaster in logic so I could finish reading the martial arts book (from the consignment store) and increase my athletic skill. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any non-paparazzi Chinese tourists so I couldn't increase my martial arts skill beyond level 3 in Riverview.”
“In China, I went to the Academy and trained until I got to level 4. Then I called an opponent. I used the Academy to shower between opponents and keep my other moodlets up. I stayed at the Academy until my third opponent, Liu Pei, who defeated me, refused a rematch and went home. I went to the store and bought several showers in the can, the large tent, and some dried food, then slept in the empty lot across from Liu's house, where I camped for my entire trip.”
“Liu refused a rematch at 6 AM the next day but I quickly went to his house and met him on his way out. I called all my opponents that day from the Pei's yard. It worked well because it's centrally located and I didn't have the routing problems that often plague the Sims, especially when they're sparring indoors.”
“After each match, I checked my needs and moodlets to make sure I'd be fairly high in the bubble throughout my next match. I ate fruit and dried food and used showers in the can. I slept in my tent for a couple of hours in the middle of the day to keep my mood bar up and avoid the fatigued moodlet. High-quality dried food, nectar, fighting outdoors, contemplating my surroundings, and being a celebrity were helpful in keeping my moodlets up. After I called my opponent and took care of my needs and moodlets, I meditated until my opponent was near the house, then greeted her/him as soon as (s)he got to the lot. Besides drawing good opponents, which I think was the biggest factor, I think the keys to my win were training in Riverview before going to China, calling my sparring opponents from residential lots, camping on the empty lot, and constantly monitoring my moodlet bar.”
Very excellent tips, Norma. Congratulations on your induction into the Challenge Hall of Fame!
My Garden of Eatin’ Smells Fishy, March 13Participants: 95
Champion: Ziinia
95 forum members joined together to fish, garden and cook in the first Major event of the 2011 Tournament season—
My Garden of Eatin’ Smells Fishy. This was a reworking of last year’s
Perfectly Happy Challenge. Basically the goal was simple: make as much money as possible, but your income was restricted to cooking/culinary career, fishing, and gardening activities. A multiplier was then thrown in depending on how many opportunities were completed as well as how many perfect fish, plants, and recipes a player could rack up. It was a great test of skill on many levels.
Largo The Stampede was on top of the leaderboard for basically the entire event, but 18-year-old Eileen (forumer Ziinia) decided to upset the apple cart on the last day and topped Largo. Grandmaster Quan Champ, winnow, also posted an 11th hour result, and ended up in 2nd place.
So, let’s meet the Champ...
“I will be 19 years old in April, a girl who is haunted by the song “Come on Eileen.” I have roots in Poland, Germany and Sweden. I’m currently studying in my senior year of school, including some psychology. People are careful around me, thinking I will read their minds. My teacher loves this kind of logic. Still looking for Mr. Perfect, but it seems he is taking a long detour. I’m planning to go to uni to study computer games design.”
“I enjoy almost everything to do with computers. I love RPG games, and have produced a small game for my friend’s birthday using RPG Maker XP. I enjoy playing tennis and squash. I absolutely love animals. The cuddly ones, not insects or worms. I have a crazy cocker spaniel, who has gone nuts after her older companion (a SharPei) died, but she is still lovely, even if a bit crazy. I’m addicted to my iPhone and can’t be away from it for longer than 30 min, even in my sleep. I enjoy cooking, but not cleaning the mess afterwards
. I like to dye my hair. My most stunning colour was bright, neon orange. Everyone used to say that the sun is coming out when I walk into the room.”
“I started playing the Sims as a little kid, just when the first series came out. I still have them, even though they don’t work anymore. I bought all of the series, excluding the stuff packs. I was falling in and out with the game. I can play it for 3 months and then put it away for 6. It depends on the mood. I love sometimes to torture my sims, do some experiments, or play out a story.”
“My strategy for the challenge kind of ignored the cooking skill at first. I started with the following traits: Angler, Green Thumb, Workaholic, Born Salesman and Excitable. I went off to fishing and gardening, though it was kind of hard and my Sim actually almost starved a few times. I somehow managed to get the opportunities for eggs and cheese, steaks and burgers quite quickly.”
“That was about when I started to fish for angelfish for bait for death fish, started to fish death fish around level 8/9 and that’s how I mastered my fishing skill. I’ve grown perfect cheese to fish for perfect Alley Catfish, and started getting perfect angelfish. Then I went to each location (3-day holiday each) to get seeds and books (culinary and fishing). I read what I could at that moment, fished a little and returned home. Afterwards I continued to fish for death fish which were approaching perfect and in the spare time I was getting my plants up to perfect as well. After getting each plant to perfect, except for money tree and Omni Plant, I returned to each location for another 3-day holiday and got each of the fish at a perfect quality. That was about week 5.”
“I was mainly selling death fish at the consignment store, but I also sold a lot of them to the normal grocery shop, as people got bored with my produce (that’s what the popup actually told me). I populated a small lake I made with death fish, so I was actually able to fish them all day long. I was making around… 20+ Death fish a day, sometimes 30+, if the Omni Plants bloomed. I was then putting them into the store in the morning, leaving the 3 most expensive death fish and feeding them back to the Omni plants. Then I went fishing. Then around 17:00 I was waiting in the store to take out everything that wasn’t sold and sold the cheaper half at the normal store.”
“With 2 weeks left I changed my traits to get better quality recipes to: Angler, Natural Cook, Workaholic, Born Salesman and Perfectionist. I actually think I managed to cook all of the recipes in maybe 3-4 days.
At the end of the challenge I had 7 money trees and my fish were selling for about 9k at the consignment store.”
Thanks for sharing, Eileen, and congratulations on your induction into the Challenge Hall of Fame.
Stop the Presses! Write Here, Write Now, April 24Participants: 76
Champion: ClayMask
Well, she finally won one. Yes, I’m talking about Rebecca, 50% of the “Dynamic Duo” — Largo the Stampede and ClayMask. Not surprisingly, the feared husband and wife team finished 1st and 2nd, and both earned nearly 24 million simoleans with their writers. Amazing. So, allow me to turn things over to the champ, so she can break down how she approached this writing challenge. But, first, a little info on who she is...
“My name is Rebecca. I'm 29 years old and I live Santa Clarita, CA, with my husband Cameron (Largo the Stampede). We've lived in the area since the beginning of this February, and just moved into a condo last week. For most of the five years prior to this we lived in San Diego, where my husband was stationed in the navy, and I worked in the biotech field. Since then, I have stayed at home and am loving it. I've played all the Sims games on and off for many years now, but usually only for a couple months at a time. Because of the Sims 3 challenges on this site, I've stayed interested in Sims 3 since May of 2010, with only a short break towards the end of last year after having completed the challenges for the tournament.”
“I'm pretty excited about finally winning an event. I began my actual attempt at this event using a Sim, Dr. Seuss, with the following traits: bookworm, childish, family oriented, artistic, and neurotic. I read online that choosing the childish, artistic and family oriented traits increased the value of children's books, which was the only genre that my Sim would ever write. Childish also gave the benefit of being able to learn the first three skill points of writing and painting effortlessly, since the toddler books are something that my sim would want to read anyway. I chose bookworm because of the increased reading and writing speeds, as well as wishes to read books. Neurotic was probably my Sim's most important trait, since this allowed my sim to freak out, which caused both a positive moodlet for 8 hours and prevented my sim from becoming stressed while writing. This way he could just focus on his writing, and not have to worry about having fun.”
“After moving to Twinbrook, the first thing my Sim did, after buying a few lettuce to be used for direct consumption, was to read books. This was mostly to get the increased writing speed bonus for reading 50 books. I think this may also cause the books written to be more successful. My Sim read most of the non skill books in the library, including the toddler books, with the exception of the really long books. He also kept an eye out for a vampire, which he found after two days or so. He had the vampire bite him and transformed at almost the exact same time that he ran out of books to read in the library. I had him earn his fourth point in painting, which he finished all while working on a single painting, due to being a vampire. I had him buy a laptop and portable stereo and go on a vacation to China at this point. While in China he "borrowed" the books from the base camp bookshelf, so that he could buy some nice things to surround himself with for his long hours writing at home. I also bought the incense from the general store for its moodlet and increased rate of learning benefits. I had him bring this with him everywhere to place near him while he was writing. The last thing he bought while in China was a few showers in a can and plasma fruits. He didn't end up using either of these much, for several reasons. He didn't get stinky or hungry very quickly once he had the dirt defiant and hardly hungry traits, and I mostly just had him bite his girlfriend for food and ignore his hygiene bar. While in China he worked on writing his first children's books. I ended his China trip after only one day. Most of his future trips would also end after only one day, so that he could go on vacation whenever he had an opportunity to turn in a book in a foreign country. I found an additional benefit of vacations were that if I sent him on vacation at around 7 AM, which was towards the end of his day, he would have his needs reset upon return. This was even more beneficial if he was hungry, dirty, and with low social needs when he was sent on vacation. He would leave when his needs were low, and come back with them much higher.”
“After this, all that was left was for him to go home and write. Before getting hardly hungry, he would invite his girlfriend over every day for a quick bite. He would hunt her first to get a better moodlet for the bite and not have his hunger bar decay for the first several hours. After getting hardly hungry he only had to invite her over every other day. He would also do a few quick romantic socials in order to fill up his social bar. Once he had written 10 books or so, I had him read them in order to finish taking his total books read count to 50. I also had him take his next two vacations soon after the China one, in order to get the incense from France and Egypt, so that he could be in a better mood wherever he was writing.”
“I made sure that he used up all but one of his vacation days during the first 7 weeks, so that he would get full royalties for any book written while on vacation. Even though I sent him on vacation whenever he had an opportunity to deliver a book to a foreign country during this time, he still had to take a three day vacation to China at the end of it, in order to use up extra days. After he had enough money, I had him buy cars to speed up his transportation while returning from vacation, as well as any around town transportation he did while there. I also had him buy most of the books in foreign countries (all except the 400+ page ones), so that he could eventually read these in addition to the books he wrote. This included the foreign recipes. Once he had the happiness points for it he also bought a teleporter, so that he could speed up his returns from vacation even more, and his eventual trips to the library.”
“During my practice for this challenge I determined that 18 days was how much was required in order for him to read the books he had written, as well as most of the foreign books, cooking skill books, and recipes, all while in the library. So 18 days before the end of the challenge he started doing his reading. I ended up having him reach level 7 cooking, which gave him credit for three books from the skill books alone, and many more from both foreign and at home recipes. He read all 537 books he had written, but didn't quite finish all the foreign books he had bought, when the challenge ended.”
Great tips, Rebecca. Congratulations on winning your first event and your induction into the Challenge Hall of Fame. You and Cameron make quite the team and are fantastic Sims 3 competitors.
Ghost Hunter Bingo! May 8Participants: 63
Champion: Largo The Stampede
The Ghost Hunter event was quite unique. I remember looking at Carl’s Guide at all the available types and ages and thinking his table looked like a bingo card. That’s how the idea for this event came about — to basically find as many spirits as you can and complete various bingos for points.
Largo The Stampede is always a threat, so let’s find out exactly what the champ did — “I finally got a win in this year's Tournament. My Sim, Dr. Egon Spengler, had the traits Loner, Genius, Slob, Ambitious, and Loves the Outdoors. Two of these were picked to help mitigate the interactions that the sim would need to do throughout the challenge not directly related to the primary objective of catching spirits. Loner - So he wouldn't have to socialize more than once a week; Slob - So he would never have to take a shower; Genius - So he can learn logic quickly; Ambitious - So that hopefully he would increase his work experience bar quickly and to give more happiness for wishes; Loves the Outdoors - Just because he would be outside a lot.”
“My plan for LTRs was to pick up Professional Simoleon Booster, Opportunistic, Multitasker, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Steel Bladder, and Meditative Trance Sleep. I just picked these up as they were most necessary.”
“As soon as I started my scoring file I purchased an empty lot, Sleep Slave bed, a portable radio, and the Yomoshoto Evasion. That would be all that he would ever own that wasn't given to him for free. After that he joined the Ghost Hunter profession and commenced learning logic in the library, only pausing to either take care of needs or take on Ghost Hunter jobs. In this fashion he was level 10 logic by Wednesday of the first week and level 10 Ghost Hunter by 9pm Thursday. When he cappedf logic he wandered the streets scanning for hidden spirits. Once he was level 10 it was much easier to find them. With the help of the car he bought and the equipment he gained it was easy to keep the spirit population in the town of Twinbrook to a minimum. Each weekend I actually ran out of spirits to catch.”
“I feel like I had a really lucky run with the opportunities that I received. Some days I picked up 2 opportunities in a day, and it seemed like most days I had a Ghost Hunter related opportunity. Most of the time I made at least 2k from them, some as high as 3k. I always had the expensive spirits ready to turn in for an opportunity because even though the spirits depreciate each night at midnight, they do not seem to while they are in the family inventory. So every night before midnight I placed all of the spirits I caught for the day in the family inventory along with my bed because I really didn't want any thieves stealing it while I was away.”
Good job, Largo, and thanks for sharing your tips.
