I clean forgot about the wish enhancing serum. I was almost in the same mindset as last year, only I didn't worry about getting level 3 visa, because the travel days were set, and the umbrella was the key, not the doorbells.
If I had remembered the wish enhancing serum, I may have saved a small amount of time. I made my sim a vampire, so that she got wishes to go inside for every hour she was outside; and regular wishes to drink plasma juice (which she never finished all at once - a tip I gleaned from last year or the year before).
I figured the difference this year between the top competitors was going to be the time in between upgrades, and time wasted on non-upgrading activities. So I made sure of little things
- travelling the direction that put the car on the same side of the road as my sim, so that she didn't have to run across the road when she got out;
- putting my inside umbrella and my outside umbrella as close together as possible without route tantrums, and as close to the side-walk as possible;
- taking lots of half-drunk plasma juice with me on my trips;
- getting the prepared traveller LTR meant less hours wasted from travel, since you arrive at 8am, you could waste 24hrs if you didn't have it;
- working on the same umbrella for as long as possible, saving on walking time.
As for wishes to get the food replicator and the teleporter, I have started to learn about what wishes get triggered for what sims, and when. I made sure I got my sim's funds down below $5k to start with (by buying upgradable items with unique upgrades), because that meant that she would later get the wish to have $5k (swimming in cash LTW). Once you complete that, the 10k, 20k, and 30k wishes fire, so making sure not to overdo it each time ensures that you get to fulfil all those wishes. If you end up with more cash than you need, it's easy to buy something and put it in family inventory and then sell it after you've locked in the next wish. Next, buying a property helped, too. After that, they get the following 'own 3 venues', 'own 5 venues' and 'own 7 venues' (and I think maybe 'own 9 venues') wishes at regular intervals in the game. Cancelling wishes that appear that you have no intention of promising also helps to ensure that the ones you do want come up. Keeping my sim perfectly elated was pretty easy - making the upgrade area beautifully decorated for a +40 with dragon vases (free store content), loves the outdoors and loner traits, and the beautiful vista bonus.
As Rica already mentioned, the 100% was not, unfortunately achievable. When I realised that theoretically it could work if I did a reinstall without seasons (since the karaoke machine had the same time as the umbrella), I checked an old version of the game code to see if the new upgrades weren't on there. They weren't, but, I hadn't accounted for the patch, which adds the new ones. As it was, it wasn't worth the wasted time, because the karaoke machine is not portable, and you can't interact with the karaoke machine in the private venue (placed in holiday worlds) once it closes (I tried - I locked my sim in there by placing lots of gnomes in the way, dragged from inventory). So basically you waste all those hours until it opens again. Not only that, the only place to put it in China is miles from the road, and it took my sim hours to run to the road and back. So, I nixed that idea, and kept with the 94% - even though, as a completionist, it killed me.
