Zeroes to Heroes

[techiechick]

The last thing for me was to get the 500.000 $ !
Both my sims were level 8 of their careers 4 or 5 days ago, in week 3.

I wonder how it is possible to get 500.000 $ so quickly, with no possibility to add other sims to the household and groups forbidden.
And sure, I wonder too how it is possible to get level 8 of a career in week 2 without the wising well. I can't wait to read yout strategies 

Same here - the 500,000 took me about a week longer than anything else!

Looking forward to hearing the speedy players' strategies 

[Vesper]

I achieved the 500k by adopting newborns once the main couple were married then aging them up right away to YA so they could contribute. I may have over-shot filling the household this way as had nearly 800k by the time I'd completed the career goals

[SueDenim]

The rule I didn't read carefully was that they needed to be level 8 - so I pushed mine to 10.  And still it took less time than earning 500K.  I think I finally figured out a way to do it after I was already 3 weeks in. I'll give it a try next time we need to make money fast.

I did not realize how much I rely on lot traits, clubs, and tiny houses to get skills quickly. Also, the "burnout" thing is going to make everything more cumbersome.  I wonder if the programmers are trying to send a coded message.

[Tipi]

Thanks, @Metro. Wow I cannot believe I won the challenge 😊

My strategy:
Day 1: Ms. Evil and Mr. Good got married and achieved the Soulmate aspiration. The unflirty sim had no trouble flirting when the romantic aura lamp was at hand. With the aspiration points they bought the connections trait and started their job at level four: Mr. Good in the Tech Guru and Ms. Evil in the Criminal career. I chose these careers because they did not have too many days off from level four onward.

Day 2: The happy couple moved to San Sequioa, to Hopewell Hills, 23 Eucalyptus Lane which has lot traits great acoustics and natural light. The latter was important, because I was going to earn the required 500 000 Simoleans by painting. To help with the goal they adopted two babies (adoption was allowed) who were immediately grown into young adults and given the Painter Extraordinaire Aspiration. Rest of the day was spent in San Sequoia Library – fast internet lot trait – leveling up required skills for the parents’ careers.

Rest of the week was quite uneventful: the “kids” were full-time painters. The parents focused on their careers and skills with painting as their pastime. The higher valued paintings were sold from the Street Gallery with 300% profit margin. 500 000 Simoleans was made by the end of week one.

During my several test runs, I noticed two bottlenecks: career progression and creative fog periods. I initially planned to have my sims on the Painter career (different branches of course). I abandoned the idea because time was wasted recovering from creative fog or burnout. With my chosen careers my sims could alternate between creative (painting) and mental (programming) activities so no time was wasted in recovery.

@Vesper was right: atrocious reputation was the key to fast career progression. With 1k bribe to your boss you can increase career performance quite a lot. Unlike hacking, the bribe has no cool down period so you can do this 3-4 times in a row and with 3000-4000 Simoleans you are guaranteed to get a promotion after your next shift. Both my sims made 4-5 enemies – even Mr. Good did this quite easily - and gained the atrocious reputation during day two. They were promoted every workday but one when my tech guru had not reached the required skills. So, the challenge was completed on Monday 10 AM when Ms. Evil came home from work as An0nymous Ghost.

I learned the fact about the atrocious reputation from Petey Plays It YouTube channel – so huge thanks to him. I also searched Carl’s Guide for careers that have the least days off on higher levels. If I remember right, Ms. Evil had one day off while Mr. Good had none so that worked fine.

Thanks also to the challenge team for a fun but also quite challenging challenge 😊.

[Teresa]

For those looking for a fast way to make money, I generally go to the jungle raid the tombs and then sell the high value treasures for 300% markup. I had the money in hand by the beginning of the third week. Then it was just waiting out the promotions because I did not know how to do them any faster.

[Elinoee]

@Vesper , I didn't even think of adopting and aging up babies! When I read "no additions to the household" except babies I even didn't think further...
Yet it made sense!

@Tipi ,such great strategy... you really thought of everything, it's impressive! Congratulations on your victory 
I didn't know about the atrocious reputation, that's very interesting.

@Teresa , you're right, jungle treasures are a fast way to make money. I  didn't remember about the 300% markup on vendor tables or street galleries!

[jesslc]

Congratulations Tipi!

As it turns out I was completely wrong about what you did - I don't have Get Famous or the reputation system so that possibility didn't occur to me. I actually thought you must have used a work from home career like I did. It looks like I have a couple of tips to share since it appears that no one else used my strategy...

(I didn't have City Living when the ruleset came out but since I hadn't bought an pack in ages and it was the next one I was planning to buy, I decided to just get it. Conveniently EA was also having a sale at the time.)

I knew I would only have time to practice the first day or two, so I did a lot of research. Many meal times in the week before I started my file were spent reading Carl's Guide, this forum (oshizu's town guides and past challenge threads) and other Sims guides. My past Sims experience told me that the career requirement was probably going to be the most time consuming part of the challenge so the majority of my research was focused on how to minimise the time needed for that. While I was reading through Carl's careers guides looking for the careers that had the most working days and hours so that promotions would be quicker, I found an absolute gem in his guide to the style influencer career. This formed the cornerstone of my strategy.

Both my sims were given a knowledge aspiration so that they would have the quick learner trait and also many likes - for all the skills they'd be needing and a couple of music ones (for the happy moodlet when the liked music is playing).

First up I had my Sims use their phone to move out of Crick Cabana and into an empty lot. Immediately after moving, both Sims headed over to Darby's Den in Britchester because of the convivial lot trait there. With the two Sims despising each other at the start, I had decided that Chief of Mischief was my best option for quick satisfaction points. For some tasks of the aspiration they had to go elsewhere but mostly they were cornering visiters to Darby's and harassing them with pranks. By 6 pm on day 1, both my Sims were able to buy the connections reward and they promptly joined the style influencer career at level 4. Then I sent them over to Larry's Lagoon for its bonuses to writing & photography. A bit later on when they need charisma for the career we would be back to Darby's Den again.

The main reason I chose the style influencer career is that Sims can increase the work performance off the clock if they publish a successful style column. It's not guaranteed to be accepted (and you can even lose performance for an unsuccessful one) but I was lucky and both of them published a successful style column while at Larry's Lagoon that first night. That put them both at approx 75% of the way to the promotion so I forced them to continue with leveling writing and photography until exhausted. After that, it was back home for 5-6 hrs of sleep before their shifts started. They both went into work rather than working from home on that day and with the help from style column and all the various requirements for promotion met, they were both promoted to level 5 at the end of their first shift on Monday evening.

Their promotions to level 6 were almost done in 1 day too but I didn't quite manage it for either of them so that ended taking 2 days. I'm pretty sure it's possible if you're a bit better organised than I was (and not too unlucky). Level 6 is where the career branches so my good Sim became a stylist and the evil Sim became a trendsetter.

They were working from home all the time now, which in hindsight I think I should have done from the start. After the level 6 promotion good Sim failed at submitting a successful style column 3 times in a row(!) which cost her significantly in work performance but I had her keep trying and thankfully she managed to make that up and still get her next two promotions at the same time as evil Sim.

In between desperately cramming skills for the career promotion requirements I had the two of them gradually work on their friendship. I'd done a very brief practice of the first few days mostly to confirm the style column thing worked as expected, and during that I found that their likes made for safe conversation topics that always had a positive result (unlike the rest of the socials). So my Sims were micromanaged at all times during the early days to avoid any chance of them autonomously deciding to insult each other and every now and then I'd make them briefly enthuse about pop music and enthuse about writing/painting to each other. Then back to their separate sides of our lot to cram skills some more.

Both branches now had Sun/Mon as days off and by the time we got to that point my Sims friendship had improved to the point where other socials were also positive so I could build up their friendship and romance and make them get engaged. This was my first time playing an unflirty Sim but I just made her do the initiating of any romance socials and didn't really have any trouble with it.

I messed up with the money making part a bit and that took me at least a day or two longer than it should have done. Almost all of the time from Sunday week 2 through when we finished that Thursday was nonstop painting, apart from their wedding and just enough work tasks to get paid. The tons of painting they did also completed the painter extraordinaire for both of them. Part way through this time I realised I should have them using the digital sketch pad a lot more rather than alternating it with the easel because paintings are so much faster on the sketchpad. Also I didn't have a chance to practice with the yard sale tables that you get with City Living and don't know if that might have helped my money making. And I know that I also wasted a little time on various other things along the way that I thought might be helpful but weren't.

I'm actually pretty curious about just how fast it could be done if I didn't mess up so I might play this one again unofficially just to see. I believe it should be possible for both Sims to reach level 8 in the style influencer career by the start of their shift on Fri morning week 1 which means the main remaining limit would be with making the money. The strategy of adopting and aging up babies to help with making money is a genius idea though, I wish I'd thought of that!

[Elinoee]

@jesslc , it's a very interesting strategy with the style influencer career! I knew the tip but didn't think it would be so efficient because it sometimes causes loss of work performance. Thanks for sharing 

[Vesper]

@jesslc thanks for sharing your strategy. I've learnt a lot

[Tipi]

Thanks, @jesslc, and thank you for sharing your strategy. I have never played the style influencer career though it has been in the game for five years