Wonderful gameplay and strategy, Nutella!Many congratulations to you for winning and to anyone else for participating. Also, my thanks to all the Moderators for inventing and organizing this great event.
I made a spreadsheet of picture values too. I agonised a long time over which collections, and more precisely, how many collections I wanted to go for. I decided to forego Seasons, Collectibles, Pets in Action and Best In Class. I played without University, so that meant 16 collections. This gave me more or less 25 free slots for repeat pictures.
My photographer - Pho' Shot - was a female genie with the following traits: photographer's eye, loves the outdoors, brave, ambitious and adventurous. She remained a genie and alive throughout the challenge. She changed the adventurous trait for 'born saleswoman' near the end.
She invited Stiles McGraw to move in. He shares her LTW of Swimming in Cash. They fulfilled this easily on day 1 after drinking wish enhancement serum for extra happiness points. He became her husband and, in time, her dead spouse. They adopted a girl who eventually became 'ghostly family'. This daughter adopted a baby before she passed away. The little girl made her imaginary friend real and married him.
Pho' maxed both photography and painting on day 2 of the challenge, partly thanks to skill booster elixirs. At level 10 of the painting skill, each picture taken will increase by $50/day. (At level 7 painting a photo will increase by $35/ day and this will remain so, even if the photographer maxes painting later on.)
Every day she removed newly taken pictures from her camera before midnight. She kept them all in her personal inventory, because pictures sometimes 'disappear' when placed on walls. There was one occurrence, where I forgot to remove the pictures from the camera in time. Pho' had taken quite a few that day, and it constituted a considerable loss of $9500.
Pho' completed the Photog Skill Challenge on day 3. Until that point, she tried to take low value pictures only. After that point, she tried for as many high value shots as possible. She did, however, not shoot any pictures belonging to the 'Architecture and Buildings' or 'Around Town' collections.
That same day Buster and Bessie Clavell moved in. Bessie (logic 7) made an Imaginary Friend Transormation potion and several ghost potions. Buster became a mummy, ate the obligatory snack, and then starved himself. He died two days later and provided 'doubly dead'. The whole event whacked me out.
Stiles became a fairy and learned 'bloom' super quick. By day 6 Pho' had everything for the Plants and Flowers collection but the nectar vines, plum and pomegranate tree. They went to France for a day, so Pho could take the necessary pics. Stiles gained visa level 2 and bought a meloire vine. Pho completed the Architectural Eye Skill Challenge with two pics only: the nectary and the French market. Upon return Stiles bloomed the meloire vine. Pho took the picture and quickly completed 'Around Town'. This meant she had completed the Shutternut Skill Challenge too.
I had big hopes, because Shutternut can boost pictures in several collections by 18% : Architecture and Buildings, Travel (monuments) and Paranormal.
It worked well for Travel. She went to Egypt first and had everything completed but for 'lovers in China' and 'the Dragon Cave'.
She took the latter last and it registered at just over $13,000. The repeats were worth $6,592 instead of $5,578. She also got a very nice boost on the last picture in Architecture and Buildings which was 'a Chinese garden' at $5,567.
Now, in testing, this had worked for Paranormal too. But, in an oversight, I forgot to take 'A Serious Ghost Problem'
last to complete the collection. 'Wandering Ghost' got the one time big boost. Fortunately, the repeats of 'A Serious Ghost Problem' still registered at $4,490 as opposed to $3,592.
So what else can I tell you about?
Oh yes... Artie Page!
He had come into the household on the strength of being level 5 in the fortune teller career. He allowed for the 'Fortune Teller' picture at level 6 which was easily done. Pho' took him to Egypt after a midlife crisis whereby he lost the charismatic trait and gained the loser trait. Guess what?
He fought five mummies and did not get cursed once.
I went slightly off the rails after that and felt no regret when he died on vacation after imbibing two 'Age Up' elixirs.
The good thing about Egypt was that Pho' got the Egyptian Statue Set in a matter of hours by using ghost postions in the Abu Simbel.
China proved very slow and I lost an enormous amount of real life time going through the motions. I should have cut the journey short and sent Pho' back to Egypt, much like Nutella did. And this, not only for repeat pictures: Pho' already had 3/4 dangerous creatures and 4/5 canopic jars. Instead, I was silly, and sat it out for repeats of the Dragon Cave.
Pho' had bought the graveyard and by using 'moveobjects on' it was quite easy to get repeats of 'A Serious Ghost Problem'. It worked best, if there was a living Sim in the graveyard. Most of these repeats were taken between 3.00 am and 4.00 am. In my test file, this happened nearly every night. In my official file, it mostly happened every other night, and sometimes it took longer... Pho' started taking daily pictures of the Egyptian Statue Set @ $3,064.
I had grown frustrated and impatient by now.
She reached the maximum of 250 photographes on day 5 of week 3.
I played on full speed from that moment on. But yet again, impatience got the best of me. With all consignment challenges completed, Pho' started selling her pictures on day 4 of week 4... two days too early.
Another stupid thing I did? I had three Ansel Adams Shots left. I should have used these to replace low value pictures with high value repeat pictures.
But hey, I finished in the nick of time, and that is a good thing!
