Completing an Immortal Dynasty Hints and Tips (Not Questions)

[Ricalynn]

Whichever sim you choose to be your painter doesn't need a support person to paint the portrait. If you use still life, and before it goes into the still life mode, position the camera so it's looking at your sim's face, they can paint a self-portrait. 

Doing a self-portrait is against the rules of a dynasty and means you fail to reach HoF status.  The reason for this is because the rules state you must get a portrait of each life stage not a still life.  This means using the "Paint Portrait of..." interaction on the easel.

[Castaras]

Doing a self-portrait is against the rules of a dynasty and means you fail to reach HoF status.  The reason for this is because the rules state you must get a portrait of each life stage not a still life.  This means using the "Paint Portrait of..." interaction on the easel.

Wait, what? I'd read portrait as just being a painting, mostly due to still life's looking 100% better than portraits.

[Ricalynn]

• 8. With the exception of your Founder, each immortal needs to have 6 portraits painted of themselves — one for each of the following life stages: Toddler, Child, Teen, Young Adult, Adult, and Elder. Make sure you are doing the proper interaction and have a painter choose Paint a Portrait Of...and not your immortal choosing Self Portrait. These are the sole items for your Immortals’ Museum. Your Founder needs to have Young Adult, Adult, and Elder portraits added to the museum before eating Ambrosia. Once placed in the museum, paintings cannot be replaced with new paintings of the same immortal.  Optional: Photographs and/or ice sculptures of each immortal at the same life stages may be included in the museum if expansion packs are being used. The subject of the photo needs to correctly register as the immortal (My Spouse, My Child, Superstar, etc) and not something else like a building or object. Each of the stages’ pieces need to be added to the museum before an immortal would age up to the next stage. Only one portrait, photo, and ice sculpture per stage is allowed to be put in the museum. Again, photos and ice sculptures are purely optional.

I quoted this from the actual thread and highlighted the area that states what I already said.  I'm sorry you didn't see that before.  Also I removed the symbols at the bottom of your post because it hinted at swear words and even that is against the rules.

[Castaras]

Yeah, I missed that. Rereading looks like I also missed the thing about photos having to have the subject being my sims... Pity. I liked having still life paintings so that I could have paintings of people playing with toys or reclining on deck chairs.

Eh, c'est la vie. Gives me an excuse to restart when Supernatural comes out round here, and get the story looking better.

[Toni]

I am currently starting my immortal dynasty and find that the first thing you should do is find a spouse. If you do this the money he/she brings in greatly helps you start with your skills and he/she is able to start on photography/sculpting/painting pretty much the first day.

[Ricalynn]

I am currently starting my immortal dynasty and find that the first thing you should do is find a spouse. If you do this the money he/she brings in greatly helps you start with your skills and he/she is able to start on photography/sculpting/painting pretty much the first day.

Actually - it doesn't have to be a spouse you bring in just as long as you bring someone in.  I brought in an entire family once for this purpose and then chose a spouse later. 

[Wiry]

I recommend that if you plan on bringing in Aggie, that your LTW be "Living in the Lap of Luxury" = Instant Fulfillment= Genie to make whomever you really want to be your spouse love you instantly.

[Shirin]

Regarding the genie lamp...if you wind up just blowing LTHP because you ran out of things to buy, the money thing can get really really out of hand.

Between professions, bringing in spouses, and those darn things, my family is currently sitting at over nine million simoleans. The only source of income at the moment are the money trees (which only bring a measly 40k for 100 bags), property/buildings, and generation 8's profession. And some of generation 7's, if I need to clear space.

I feel compelled to spend that money, and I...just...can't.

Also, if you need something to do later on in the generations, you can start working on collections. The bug collection is missing one bug from China, but I'm not risking 20 minute loading times just to go get it. Mounted fish collection is complete. Gem collection is in progress. Gnome collection is missing Troglodyte (but I got 2 Blingaboos). Metal collection is missing two, again I don't want to travel just to get them. Spirit collection is missing one, but I'm just lazy like that.

You'll hit ruts. This is inevitable. Just keep plugging away. It'll pass.

Oh, and final one. Don't be me and ramble late at night after a marathon session.

[cathyknits]

A dog hunting can collect gems from WA locations, and they turn up at the consignment store. So you might still get those last few gems and metals.

Speaking of which - gems and metals from the consignment store or dug up by a dog can provide a nice supplementary income at the outset. Any gem might turn up - I've never seen Tiberium, but I've gotten Soulpeace from a dog hunting. And the gem cutting machine from Supernatural makes gem-cutting free. So yes, go for that heart-shaped blue topaz!

[ratchie]

One of the hardest parts of an immortal dynasty is surviving the boring repatititve skilling up parts. There is only so many hoursthat you can spend watching someobody running on a treadmill before you start to go slightly insane. Filling up a skill free childhood can be a chore too.
You can go from periods where nothing happens and you are praying for a birthday or a death to happen so that you can actually do something. It may seem strange but while the majority of people are really upset by the death of the founders spouse by the time it gets around to generation five you will probably be heaving a sigh of relief when a mortal finally givesup the ghost and passes on. This is where timing and planning comes in you have to think about when to bring in the next generation. I usually try and have a much older spouse especially for later generations love is all very good but generally a spouse is just for breeding purposes towards the end.

Rachel

[Frey]

Not that I have ever succeeded in finishing an Immortal Dynasty  but I totally agree. In my most successful attempt (that actually failed because of the blue screen of death, not because of me failing it) I married my founder to Bennie Dean in Riverview, you know, that elder in the Grandpas Household. He comes with a nice level 6 in cooking and a couple of levels in gardening and fishing so you can just make him find some special seeds and plant them and catch a good couple of death fish before he dies and then gen 1 or 2 can take up gardening for him. You can just make the death fish breed or store a good amount of them and you don't have to worry too much about ambrosia then. The only problem then are the portraits. I solved it somehow, but I don't remember if I moved someone else in with the painting skill or if I just enslaved poor Bennie Dean until someone else took up painting later.

It's actually not necessary to make the founder marry an elder since there's plenty of time for the first spouse to die before the household is full, but I tend to get a little stressed when I have too many sims in the household so I basically want them to die quickly so I can have a little more peace, even if that means that the immortals will have to work a bit more.

[smartburn]

I'm still pretty early in my current dynasty (which will hopefully remain such assuming I did everything right when I reinstalled my game - I just got Pets and my copy of Supernatural arrives next week so it'll be awhile before I plug the saves back into the folder), but one thing I plan on doing with all of my immortals is keeping them employed in rabbit-holes, whether that means keeping their jobs or them taking up a part-time job. No retirement for these folks, unless it's from self-employment, and if that's the case it's hello bookstore/grocery/spa/etc. I get antsy handling more than 4 sims at a time, so this is one way I plan to keep them out of my hair as the family gets bigger.   

[Shirin]

One thing I don't know if it was mentioned, if you plan on using a time machine extensively, travelling to the past gives the chance to have your rabbit-hole employment changed. However, if you are self-employed, it appears to not do so (or the chances are really really small).

Also, I personally don't recommend making cooking a Supermax, but I just get annoyed when my hungry sims go off and try to cook on their own. Then complain they can't. Then try it again.

[ladyaya]

Isn't that what hiding the stoves is for? xD

I haven't started one yet but I was wondering something. Does the treadmill count as jogging or do you have to make your sim jog around the lot fifty billion times?

[Shirin]

I can't hide the stove. I start panicking, thinking I sold it. And fencing off the area (which is what I wound up doing) doesn't work. I'm mildly neurotic that way. (But, I can deal with it, this Dynasty is almost complete, and my next one won't have cooking as a Supermax.)

Treadmill does count as jogging. In order to complete the Athletic skill challenge, my Immortal spent 21 days in China with a treadmill and a weight machine, and a moodlet manager (and I just ran the game on speed level 3, as it wasn't that exciting).