I started with a male YA Alien. Immediately after starting the game, I used Manage Households to add Geeta and Raj Rasoya, Diego Lobo, Octavia Moon and Jesminder Bheeda (pregnant), thus making a 7-slot household, and I left one slot free.
One of my main goals was to get the 'Ambitious' achievement which is given when you complete all the aspirations from the base game. Long story short - I failed because of a super stupid mistake of mine: I forgot to start working on plants for the Freelancer Botanist aspiration ('evolve 10 excellent plants' for milestone 4) right from the start and only realised it on Tuesday of Week 2 when it was too late. If I didn't make this mistake, I would have gotten the achievement, because I completed all the rest of the aspirations. So I'll still continue describing the process of completing them for your reference.
Geeta Rasoya was needed for both of the family aspirations, because she already has a son (Raj) who has a high level in his career. She got Connections and started working on the Doctor career from level 4, but she never managed to get past level 6, and I also didn't meet any higher-level doctors at her workplace. So I also failed to get the 'Patients Are a Virtue' achievement
Raj stayed for the whole game, first completing the Chef career, then the Astronaut one, and also completed a lot of aspirations. Octavia was working on the Writer career and a corresponding aspiration, Diego only needed to get Comedy skill level 10 and completed the Joke Star aspiration, then left the household. Jesminder gave birth to a baby who was meant to get 'The Circle of Life' achievement when she dies, but she was a healthy lady and didn't die in time
She was doing the music aspiration and I decided not to give her a career because I thought she needed a lot of time for the 75 hours of music, but it turned out that she had more than enough time left when she was done, so it was my mistake, again. Jesminder herself joined the Detective career, met a level 10 detective at work and invited her to join our household, but I didn't get the achievement... I'm not sure whether this is a glitch or not. I had to quit the career, then rejoin from level 9 and use the wishing well, but it took ages and she never got a 'white' outcome. In fact, she ended up being fired
Good thing that I had one more level 10 detective acquaintance by that time, so I switched them and gambled with the well again - finally, at the end of week 2, I succeeded. As for Jesminder, after quitting the detective career, she worked on the romance aspirations, mixology-related achievements and 'The Black Widow' one.
Later in the game, some sims were leaving and some were joining. We also had Jacques Villareal (Criminal career), Lily Feng (Business career), Dirk Dreamer (Tech career), Baako Jang (Entertainer career), Oliana Ngata (Athlete career), Anaya Jang (Painter career) and Gerbert Landgraab (Secret Agent career, but he didn't reach max in time, so I missed the 'I, Spy' and the 'Knack of All Trades'
) I also added the Heckings' dog for the three Simstagram achievements, and the Hermit for the 'No Longer Solitary' and the 'Nature’s Couse'.
I'll also add some tricks:
- For the 8 ghosts in the household achievement, you don't need to kill sims. It's achievable by everyone drinking the Ghost Goo serum which the scientist can make. But the 'Ghostly' one can't be achieved this way, you need to literally kill a sim;
- For the 'Double life', an alien needs to propose to a sim, then use the 'Erase memory' ability - both bars will become empty, but the 'Marry' option will remain. After you click it, you get the achievement;
- For the 'Triple game', which is pretty much impossible otherwise, you can use a pet instead of a sim (I discovered it too late, though).
And now onto what I failed, not counting the ones I've already talked about:
- 'Vengeful Diety' - I am still not sure which types of death do count, because overexertion on elders doesn't. And I didn't use Pufferfish Nigiri because I was afraid to lose the sims I need;
- Both the emotion-related ones - I'm still not sure how to trigger 'staying Normal for 48 hours' because sometimes I get it in my games when no one has definitely been Normal for 48 hours without interruption... and for 'Basketcase', which used to seem very easy, I somehow also failed;
- Gathering fruit from 50 wild plants - also started too late.
So, a score over 4,000 is definitely doable. If you're curious, a current potential maximum for the whole game with all expansion packs is 4,875.
