I'm happy to have won this one, seeing as the Consignment Store is one of the frequent hangouts for my Sims! Heh, I thought my strategy was fairly optimal already, but I missed something (LenaLJ's and Nutella's 3rd highest sub-scores are 600k-ish but mine's only 500k-ish; or maybe I didn't figure something correctly about one of the skills I threw out). Anyway, I'll basically split my analysis of this challenge into three parts:
- Selecting the Item Types.
- Maximising Item Values.
- Maximising Profit at the Consignment Store.
The items I sold were, in sequence: Week 9 - Photographs (485,297), Week 10 - Paintings (837,218), Week 11 - Fish (506,424), Week 12 - Sculptures (1,411,571).
My four starting Sims were:
- Russell East - Savvy Sculptor, Ambitious, Artistic, Photographer's Eye, Loves the Outdoors
- Samuel East - Savvy Sculptor, Ambitious, Artistic, Photographer's Eye, Loves the Outdoors
- Christopher East - Ambitious, Photographer's Eye, Born Salesman, Angler, Kleptomaniac
- Jonas East - Ambitious, Artistic, Perfectionist, Photographer's Eye, Adventurous
Everyone had Ambitious and Swimming in Cash as their LTW, as this facilitates very quick unlocking of rewards. Russell and Samuel are basically sculptors, Christopher is the angler and consignment store liaison officer, and Jonas is a painter. Everyone has Photographer's Eye and Chris has Kleptomaniac because of the photography strategy (as you'll see later). Jonas has Adventurous so that he can earn a visa in Egypt as quickly as possible (explained later as well). Loves the Outdoors on Russell and Samuel was actually cause I didn't think I'd need any other traits.
At the start of the game, I immediately killed Jonas (painting is easier to learn than sculpting) and had Christopher hold off starting fishing to ensure a quick Oh My Ghost! opportunity. I moved in Agnes for her car, then got a Motive Mobile. Once I had the opportunity, I moved Agnes out, resurrected Jonas, and promptly killed off Russell and Samuel and resurrected them.
(1) Selecting Item TypesI did some testing on the various item types in the game and made up a list, from highest to lowest valued per item:
- Sculptures - 20,000 plus, the most natural choice.
- Paintings - About 12 to 13,000.
- Photographs - Get shots of the Pyramid, Abu Simbel and "A Serious Ghost Problem", about 7,500.
- Fish - About 7-8,000. I think during week 11 when I sold them the best I had was about 8,600.
- Nectar - About 6 to 7,000 per bottle. Getting Pomegranates is troublesome, though. Good thing Display Table is banned - or this suddenly becomes 250k + per bottle!
- Inventions - Mastered Time Machines are only just over 2,000.
- Books - Masterpieces are barely 1,000 from what I saw.
- Vegetables - Perfect Life Fruit is worth just 100.
I'm not sure if I fully optimised this though, especially for nectar-making or photography.
(2) Maximising Item ValuesPhotographyThere are three critical shots we are aiming for, which are
A Pyramid (value 9,452),
Abu Simbel (value 7,903) and
A Serious Ghost Problem (value 7,114). These values were calculated for a level 10 photographer who has the Photographer's Eye trait, Architectural Eye (the Skill Challenge), Photog taking Classic Vignette Panoramas with the Hikon camera for the first time for each subject.
Each of the four starting Sims can shoot each of these three photos once each, for 12. To fill out the remaining 16 photos, you need to find a way to, as quickly as possible, move in a Sim, raise his skills to 10, ensure he has completed the relevant challenges and has the Photographer's Eye trait. Then he can shoot
ONE A Serious Ghost Problem shot for 7,114. Christopher went on a grave-robbing extravaganza for this.
Then you kill him (Tree of Prosperity + pool works wonders). Repeat 16 times. Note that your family size must not become higher than 4 at any point. By around the middle of week 7, I didn't need Jonas', Russell's or Samuel's services so much so I moved them out, and raised groups of adopted children three at a time to get the photos. With a LTW of Swimming in Cash, Mid-Life Crisis to get the photographer's eye trait is easily obtained. (I would buy the fighter jet statue before their YA birthday and sell it immediately after to knock out everyone's LTW).
It seems that Panoramas don't appreciate except for death of the photographer, but Large Portraits do - not sure if what I did, just going with panoramas, was the right strategy for this part. In any case, since my panoramas weren't going to appreciate, I sold them off in week 9. I could probably have picked up at least another few thousand here as I didn't bother to kill and resurrect Christopher (the difference would have been 930 x 3 x 2.35 = 6556).
PaintingThere's
a little trick to this that I learnt from ClayMask during last year's Finale. Of course, make sure your painter is level 10 and has completed the Painting Skill Challenges; the Extra Creative LTW and/or Perfectionist trait isn't compulsory but would be helpful (I gave Jonas both). The painter should learn ONLY Painting, to maximise the possibility of getting the [Fresco Fest] opportunity, which boosts the value of all paintings.
That's good, but you'll also want to get [Local Artists' Gallery] after that one. This boosts the value of your next painting.
However, if you start many, many paintings and
then finish them, the bonus will apply to all. I plopped down 56 easels on the lot and had Jonas start 56 portraits (portraits are worth more) and then finish them.
Jonas' best painting was just over 15,000 by the time it came to sell it on Week 10, Day 1. Since large paintings painted by a level 10 painter appreciate at a flat rate of 20/day, the most expensive should be sold first. I wasn't able to sell everything, actually - according to my records there were 8 days where I only sold 3/4 items.
Sometime in week 9, after I was done with the Photography child-raising shenanigans I had everyone move back in to take their vacations and finish off their 3 photos. I had Jonas go first as by this time, all the paintings had been painted. To maximise the number of vacation days, I gave everyone Prepared Traveller and gave Jonas Opportunistic as well. The point of this is to get a level 3 Visa in Egypt as quickly as possible, so that you can buy a vacation home and set out the paintings and sculptures to appreciate. I also had Russell, Christopher and Samuel continue their work with a sculpting station and a self-stocked deathfish pond. Jonas had the level three visa by Day 4 of 6, and after that everyone went for 6 days.
FishingI'm not sure there's any trick to this. Cheese > Alley Catfish > Angelfish > Deathfish is basically what you'll want to do after you get the Amateur Icthyologist skill challenge done. Christopher fished all day, all night (taking motive mobile breaks where necessary). The value of your deathfish will go up over time; my best were around 8,500 by the end.
Christopher skilled up in gardening as well so that he could grow the Omni Plant (before the photo business, he had only Gardening and Fishing). The opportunity requirements can be cheated by making one of the guys who had more free time (I usually used Jonas) become a singer, and another one go to his show and throw him perfect produce.
SculptingI devoted two Sims to sculpting, as masterpieces are quite rare. Russell and Samuel had Savvy Sculptor (obviously) and I got the Artisan Crafter lifetime happiness reward when I could.
Basically, you'll want to pick a sculpture type and specialise in it; I just used whatever their very first clay sculpture was. Russell's was one of the display pedestals and Samuel's was A Show of Force. Complete the challenges - except for metal and topiary, just use that same type, and then after that go into stone. You can get an approximate idea of the value of a sculpture a Sim is sculpting by going MOO and trying to pick up the sculpting station in buy mode.
Sculptures made by a dead (or ghostly) scupltor appreciate by 2,500 at first, and also 4% of the base value per day - I used a spreadsheet to calculate what the value of a given sculpture would be come Week 12, Day 1 and kept the high-valued ones.
By the time Week 12 rolled around, Russell's best sculpture was worth just over 25,000.
(3) Maximising Profit at the Consignment StoreHave one liaison officer with the store who has the Born Salesman trait - I used Christopher. Early in the challenge, before the store was restricted, I bought several hundred apples, lettuces and small produce items from the supermarket and resold them at the consignment store, to clear the skill challenges. You'll also want to pick up Suave Seller when you can as that boosts profits by 25%, I think.
When selling the items, in the early weeks where things appreciate at a flat rate or not at all, I sold the most valuable items first. Week 12 was trickier as the items appreciate by variable amounts. I aimed to sell the highest-valued ones on Day 5, to protect against the risk of an item not being sold. In total, I sold 4/4 items 20 days and 3/4 on 8 days.
Quite lucky not to have had too many bugs on this one, especially not during the 'critical' last four weeks of game-time. Sometimes, clearing all items from the consigned list and returning to the main menu before going back to the game seems to have helped for me; this doesn't work all the time though.
Brief summary: Week 9 photos, week 10 paintings, week 11 fish, week 12 sculptures. Kill Sims and resurrect them to take advantage of faster appreciation rates for dead craftsmen. Get vacation home for appreciation during vacations. Take advantage of the first shot bonus in photography. [Fresco Fest] + [Local Artists' Gallery] is a winning combination for paintings. Use Deathfish and an Omni Plant for fishing. Have more than one Sculptor as top-quality work is rare.
