The Legacy Help, Tips, and Strategies Thread

[Deklitch]

I'm ridiculous OCD about organizing things.

I'm pleased I'm not the only one.

[Execution]

Random Legacy Tips and Strategies:
1. If you're doing a not-so-hard Legacy, you can afford to wait to have children. Seriously, don't have 3 pregnancies in a row on the first generation. Paying for the nursery + furniture will result in much frustration from your adult Sims who can only afford the cheapest bed, toilet, and fridge. Give it another Sim week or two - you still have the entire Young Adult and Adult lifestages ahead.
2. In my experience alone, it's best to have your first Generation's founder have a rabbit-hole career and your spouse have a self-employment career.
3. Adding to the above tip: If I was setting a legacy up for success, I would have a Scientist and a Painter. Why? Well, my Scientist would have oodles of Handiness to upgrade my Toilets, Showers, and Stoves (which I'll end up keeping around until Gen10). They'll also have lots of Gardening and Fishing skill, which means great ingredients and great moods for the entire household (and good moods are not plenty during the first few Gens). Plus, they'll never burn anything on that stove that they just upgraded. Plus, all three skills can be learned on the tablet if you've bought it from the store, which can be bought with enough Simoleans provided your Sims sleep at the fire station. The Painter makes money from the first day they buy their easel (which at 300 Simoleans is not a big purchase), and if for whatever reason you don't sell that painting, you can hang it in your house for a nice mood boost. Plus, the painter never leaves the home unlike some other self-employment careers, which means they can easily care for the little nooboos.
4. In most legacies, you're allowed to keep all the spares you want in your house. In Gens 2-4, I usually have a ton of spares running around and making me money (in one legacy, I reached the 100,000 Simolean milestone at the beginning of Gen 3).
5. Boarding school is less expensive than a child's bed, furniture, and skilling items in most cases.

[Kaye]

I think #1 is what I did with both of my legacies. In my 1st, the founder and spouse had one baby and didn't have another (twins) until the heir was a teenager. With my 2nd, the founder and spouse didn't have a second child until the heir was in the child stage.

I might end up using boarding school sometime, but I usually prefer them to be around. The spares are good for childcare or just making the story more interesting in my opinion, but if it gets to be too much, I'll send one of them off.

[Markram]

Hi I am new to the forum (nice forum btw    )
I would like some help but I am not sure If I am supposed to ask here
Will the sims 3 run on these specs ??
Operating System
   MS Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
CPU
   AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+   41 °C
   Brisbane 65nm Technology
RAM
   2.00 GB Single-Channel DDR2 @ 201MHz (3-4-4-12)
Motherboard
   ALiveNF6P-VSTA (CPUSocket)   35 °C
Graphics
   Generic Non-PnP Monitor (1024x768@60Hz)
   256MB GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 (ASRock)
Hard Drives
   149GB ExcelSto r Technology SCSI Disk Device (ATA)
Optical Drives
   Optiarc DVD RW AD-5200A ATA Device
Audio
   Realtek High Definition Audio
Thanks a lot to those that can help me 

[Shirin]

Hi I am new to the forum (nice forum btw    )
I would like some help but I am not sure If I am supposed to ask here
Will the sims 3 run on these specs ??
Operating System
   MS Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
CPU
   AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+   41 °C
   Brisbane 65nm Technology
RAM
   2.00 GB Single-Channel DDR2 @ 201MHz (3-4-4-12)
Motherboard
   ALiveNF6P-VSTA (CPUSocket)   35 °C
Graphics
   Generic Non-PnP Monitor (1024x768@60Hz)
   256MB GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 (ASRock)
Hard Drives
   149GB ExcelSto r Technology SCSI Disk Device (ATA)
Optical Drives
   Optiarc DVD RW AD-5200A ATA Device
Audio
   Realtek High Definition Audio
Thanks a lot to those that can help me 

Welcome to the forum!

In answer to your question, this thread is not the best place to ask. You may find an answer in this section of the forum with more tech minded people.

[Dreamweaver]

I'm testing the Homeless Legacy Challenge I created and ran into a problem. I'm playing on 90 days and my founder has made it to 100. Normally I age transition them but is this acceptable in legacy play?

[Pam]

I'm testing the Homeless Legacy Challenge I created and ran into a problem. I'm playing on 90 days and my founder has made it to 100. Normally I age transition them but is this acceptable in legacy play?

I wouldn't think so.  Legacies are supposed to be played without cheating and using an age transition, especially for death, is cheating.  In my opinion. 

[Dreamweaver]

I wouldn't think so.  Legacies are supposed to be played without cheating and using an age transition, especially for death, is cheating.  In my opinion. 

So if she doesn't die then what? I could keep her alive because her points were tallied at 90 days per my rules so anything she does doesn't count towards my score but how would this be handled in a regular legacy?

[Seabody]

She'll die. The game operates on a "sim x has y chance to die today" philosophy, so for the last 10 days, they've just fallen outside those chances.

[Deklitch]

I think some sims have gone up to 110 days or so, some have in dynasty stories, anyway. I don't know about legacy stories, because I normally focus more on the dynasty stories. However, as Seabody says, she'll die, eventually, you'll just need to wait. Maybe we should have a Guinessum Book of Records or something to track the longest living sims etc.

[Chuckles_82]

I don't know if anyone has added this yet, but if you're tired of your sims leaving work (and consequently narrowly missing a promotion) because their vampire workmate passed out, invite them over before work and throw a vampiric sunscreen potion at them

[Alyse]

Wow! I just read all the pages to this thread. That took hours. Pam, and LlamaMama, you guys are amazing thank you for all your advice and for bringing up such good points.

I haven't played the Sims since TS2. I have never played a legacy, though I have started many households with the plans on playing them. For the last week I've been playing the Sekemoto (I forgot to keep my family name on marriage) Legacy. It seems I didn't fully understand the rules, because I have cheated a little, I've been using Life Fruit to keep my founder at a YA age! I want to keep her alive throughout the whole thing. I think it will be funny to have 9th gen be elders and she's just young and spry as ever. Oh well, I didn't even know people tallied points, so I'm not playing for points any way.

My founder is a gardener with the 8 perfect plants LTW, and she luckily likes the outdoors. She married Leighton, and darnit was that a difficult marriage. I use NRaas Story Progression Mod so he always kept chatting up other women and getting into relationships. I had to have him dump two girlfriends before he agreed to move in with my founder - but only as friends. Well, once I had control of him, marriage was inevitable. He got trapped! The reason I was so adamant was because I wanted to play with my own "arranged marriage" rule that I thought up. Where my founder and heirs would marry the first opposite-sex sim that they met as a teen. Sims they knew before don't count. Well, I think I might change that rule, because my heir brought home a very ugly friend yesterday...

Leighton's LTW is to have 5 teenagers. He already had a son by some other woman (... I don't know how crazy this makes me, but I get jealous when my Sim-husband chats up the ladies) so I only have to pop out four babies for him. My family now has a teen girl, Scarlet. A teen boy, Jakear (named after my husband's Everquest character, lol). A child boy, Johnathan, who I plan to get a turtle collection for, because of his name. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMNry4PE93Y! And my founder is pregnant with a girl (I gave her a bunch of watermelon) and hopefully it's not twins (Leighton had a fertility treatment in a panic, regardless of the fact that his wife will always be a YA)...

I noticed a lot of forum-lurkers take the rules seriously, and a lot of bloggers throw the rules out the window in favor of nice houses, and cuter husbands (inserting custom sims into the hood to marry them) ... Is this a trend any one else has noticed, and which way do you think is more right to play?

Also I have a couple of other question. Before I played I went through town and filled up all the empty lots. I placed a couple high rises where there are good views, I had to move the equestrian center because it was on my lot (in SV) and I placed a couple of houses... I just hate to have empty lots in town because I know I will never be able to play them so I might as well put something there. Is this against PinStar's official rules?

I saw the link someone posted with all the variations. I plan on reading through those and picking one to play after I finish this Loose-acy, and decide to take a game seriously. I'm really interested in the Immortal Dynasty, however it sounds so difficult. What other challenges has Metro made up that could be easier for a first-time Legacy player?

[Pam]

Welcome to our Forum, Alyse.

When Pinstar's rules were written, there were no expansion packs, so he didn't address the issue of adding other buildings at all.  He also has not kept the rules updated and instead chose to let players make whatever adjustments they wish.  On one hand, this makes it easier to play because you don't have to follow a strict set of rules.  On the other hand, there is no real help for players from the author of the challenge.  We try to help some, but we are not an authority and we just make suggestions.

The Immortal Dynasty Challenge is a difficult challenge, for sure.  But it's a great deal of fun and many of our members write a story to go along with it.  The link to my own Immortal Dynasty story is in my signature below.  It may give you an idea of how the whole thing works.  The huge benefit of this challenge, however, is you have not only the author available, but an entire Forum of people who are very happy to give you some help if you get stuck or have questions.  It's also kept up to date with each Expansion Pack, so there's no question about what you should be doing.

We also have a Townie DecaDynasty Challenge.  Personally, I think it's a little easier than the Immortal Dynasty because the entire household can help with some of the challenge requirements.  It doesn't have to be done by just the one Sim who is the heir.  My story for this one is also linked in my signature.  I'm almost halfway through it.

The most recent is the Life States Dynasty Challenge.  It was just released last month and requires the Supernatural Expansion Pack to play.  I haven't started this challenge yet, but I know it's going to be great fun.

And, lastly, we have a challenge tournament every year.  This year's tournament is winding down, but a brand new one will start in January.  These are nothing like the Dynasty challenges.  Metropolis Man writes them, but they cover all kinds of different things so there's a lot of variety for players.  We also keep a scoreboard for these challenges, which is also different from the Dynasty challenges.  You might find something you enjoy there.

[Alyse]

If the challenge tournament sounds interesting, I assume it wouldn't be frowned upon to play it late, for fun, right?

I went to the board and saw the list of challenges past and present, and I have  alot of reading to do tonight at work! Hopefully my physics exam gets studied for too. Haha.

I put a ton of pictures of my family on a flash drive and I think I will document this first legacy. I hate telling stories, and making up the same "parents died so she moved to town," story everyone else makes, so I'm just going to say things how they are, from my point of view, playing a game and getting way too intersted in what the sims are doing. Haha.

I really really like the Life States Dynasty! WOW! I need to get Supernatural! My birthday came and went this week. Although my husband fed into many of my other habits, Sims was not one of them. Haha.

Thank you so much, Pam, for replying! Once again, you are very helpful!

[Pam]

If the challenge tournament sounds interesting, I assume it wouldn't be frowned upon to play it late, for fun, right?

You can definitely play them for your own enjoyment.  We just won't be able to put up a score for you on the ones that have expired.