Ahh, I was pushed off from the first place just before the day ended!
Okay, anyway, second place is my best result of 2019 so far, so I’m happy
I created a female Sim with the following initial traits: Cheerful, Loves Outdoors, Insider. I also chose a Knowledge aspiration that gave her the Quick Learner trait. This one was a great help for the whole duration of the challenge.
Before starting, I made a checklist with all possible traits from different sources, fame perks, fame quirks, club perks and business perks of three types (shop/restaurant/vet clinic). It was obvious that all of them could not be obtained at the time given, so it was time to make a choice. I decided not to bother with building & maintaining any type of business at all, so the only thing I did here was to purchase a “vet clinic”, not putting anything on the lot and never actually going there. I only bought the Medicine crafting station and kept doing Lab work for as long as reaching level 10 in Veterinarian skill. Leveling this skill up gives you points for purchasing the perks, so at level 10, I had enough to buy the cheapest 7 of them, which I did.
But the above-mentioned wasn’t actually the very start of the game. The very start was performed by switching to the Leader of the Pack aspiration, joining The Good Timers club, and immediately persuading Bjorn Bjergsen to give the club leadership to me. After that, I added one more member for maximum benefit and started playing around with club activities, always choosing what I’m planning to do next, what can be done by the others in the surrounding area, and what do sims do naturally (usually it was being friendly and being funny). For example, if my club was spending time at the library in Willow Creek, I chose reading, playing chess and playing video games. So I started playing my game, constantly switching between different aspirations. Completed aspirations give you a new trait, as well as a lot of points to spend on trait rewards that can be purchased. Even uncompleted ones give you enough for a couple of cheaper trait rewards.
While you’re working on aspirations, you and your club members keep doing activities, and the club points get accumulated. I was buying skill boosts when I needed them (for example, I bought the veterinarian one for the above-mentioned strategy). I also bought different emotion aura boosts to help with corresponding skills as well. My main strategy was making a Painters club where everyone painted non-stop, so I could sell their paintings and accumulate simoleons, as well as rising my own Fame bar by making paintings. I only managed to get my Fame to 2 stars which allowed me to buy 3 Fame perks, and I got one quirk naturally somewhere in the process (Refined Palate).
I ended up with completing 7 aspirations and partially completing some more. I bought some reward traits in the process of the game when I needed their boosts, and then, just before my sim’s birthday, I spent all the remaining points on the cheapest reward traits, going from the beginning of the list downwards. So, in total, I ended up with 44 traits. Also, before birthday, I spent all the previously unspent club points on the cheapest perks as well, and ended up with a total of 56.
As usual, I didn’t bother with paying attention to whims and micromanagement, because it just makes the game too long, which I can’t stand. If I did, I could have earned quite a lot more. Too bad I didn’t, and most likely never will in any future challenges
Thank you for the challenge, team! The ones of this type are my favorite. Thumbs up!
