The Sims 3 Immortal Dynasty Challenge

[Ricalynn]

Somewhat long question about my game file and HoF here:

So, when asked if I was having some trouble with bugs, I responded as follows:

"Despite the fact that I spent a large portion of the day resolving a problem that had partly to do with my laptop and partly with the game file (finally got it to work again though!), it hasn't been too bad. Traveling is buggy, so I don't do that. And every once and a while the game freezes for about ten seconds. What I found to be very helpful today is to go into your save file and delete the TravelDB.package file and the China/Egypt/France.nhd files. My save had gotten so massive that the laptop couldn't load it, but that resolved the issue because those files get so large. Apparently it works like clearing your cache files."

My understanding was that deleting these files worked like deleting cache files, that the game re-generates them the next time it loads up. However, someone suggested:

"Deleting those files causes you to lose the vacation world data. Rhoxi, I think you may need to talk to the challenge team about this - I suspect that it breaks the challenge rules, though I don't think there's been a test case yet."

So I figured I should check here and see whether this ruins HoF status. For what it's worth, I have barely traveled in my game except for one brief trip to China for martial arts equipment and one brief trip to France to get nectar makers. I do not own a vacation home. I have no plans to use traveling again. The only way deleting these files could affect my world is by changing slightly what tourists do or do not visit, since I guess deleting them generates a fresh copy of the travel world. I can't think of any other way Moonlight Falls would be affected.

It never occurred to me that deleting extra, useless game data could damage my HoF status, but since someone pointed out that it might, I figured I should double check here.

This is something new and I'm not sure what the ins and outs are yet.   We will need to have a discussion between us before we can get back to you on this.

[Rhoxi]

Thanks for your swift reply, as always, even if you don't have an answer just yet. As you can imagine, I'm fairly anxious about this. For what it's worth, again, resetting travel files has almost no influence on my game, as I will not travel again and barely traveled at all to begin with. If it's a problem, I do have a save from just a few days before, although I'd have to go back to troubleshooting to figure out how else to make it work again. I spent all day trying to make my files work again, and this is what I found that could fix it. The problem seemed to be that my computer would shut down if it took too long to load the game. So, I researched ways to make the load time shorter. It turns out that the travel files are huge, and, if you don't plan on traveling, pretty much useless. I deleted them and was able to load the game again.

[Chuckles_82]

Can you get the Fresco Fest and the other painting opportunity that increases the value of your next painting more than once for an individual sim?

[Seabody]

Can you get the Fresco Fest and the other painting opportunity that increases the value of your next painting more than once for an individual sim?

I don't think it's possible to get the same opportunity twice for a Sim. I might be wrong though, four generations is the max I've ever played and I've never seen a duplicate in any of those four.

[Chuckles_82]

Ok. I think I found what determines that. It's the code line <RepeatLevel>Always</RepeatLevel>. The Fresco Fest doesn't have it, but the other one does. In the base game alone, there are 166 repeatable opportunities.

[cathyknits]

I believe there are some repeatable opportunities (I know the instrument skills have those - and they do count more than once towards the "Star" challenges, and I think the Celebrity opportunities can be repeated), some one-per-sim opportunities, and some one-per-household opportunities. Not knowing what opportunities are what type, I've stopped allowing anyone other than heirs to do opportunities at all; the heir gets their six black ops and then stops, except in special cases (my Gardening sim doesn't have the Omni Plant opportunities at all yet).

[Rhoxi]

Well, having freaked out over my dynasty file, I went back to the drawing board of finding solutions to make it work again without deleting those files. It just never occurred to me that deleting content I wasn't using could be problematic, but I forgot that, yes, it would affect my world in the form of tourists. What can I say? Bang your head against a desk all day trying to fix technical problems and you get desperate! Anyway, I (tentatively) think I've found another solution to get my unaltered files up and running again, and I am requesting permission to use the unaltered save from a few days prior if I can get it working again.

[Chuckles_82]

I haven't followed this thread for a while, but since I'm having a go at another immortal dynasty (trying to relax my perfectionism this time though) I'm back again, but there's far too much reading to catch up on. Anyways, do we have a thread specifically for dynasty tips (not legacies)?

I was wondering if anyone else has tried storing food (ie, ambrosia) in the alchemy cabinet? I've put some ambrosia in there, and so far it is holding out fine, and not spoiling after a couple of days.

[Seabody]

I haven't followed this thread for a while, but since I'm having a go at another immortal dynasty (trying to relax my perfectionism this time though) I'm back again, but there's far too much reading to catch up on. Anyways, do we have a thread specifically for dynasty tips (not legacies)?

Yes, there is.

[heather3.0]

I'm new here so forgive me if this is a stupid question, but is the Immortal Dynasty challenge still going?

[Ricalynn]

I'm new here so forgive me if this is a stupid question, but is the Immortal Dynasty challenge still going?

Welcome to the forum!  The dynasty challenges are not a part of the tournament and will be ongoing until the forum is taken down probably.  There's no time limit.

[heather3.0]

Awesome! Thanks for responding! I'm inspired to try this after reading the stories!

[Deklitch]

Welcome to the forum, Heather. I hope you enjoy your time here. If you have questions about the dynasty challenges please ask.

Edit (So to avoid double posting)

So I have a question that I have been wondering about.

I know you can't age up with cake until its your sim's actual birthday, however, are we able to age up as soon as the age bar shows there are 0 days to go until next birthday, or do you have to wait for the actual reminder message that today is your sim's next birthday, why not buy a cake and throw a party?

I haven't had any sleepless nights about it or anything , but I was wondering about it.

Thanks

[Shirin]

If it's 0 days, wouldn't that make it your sim's birthday, regardless of if the party is at 3am or 3pm?

Though, I'm not sure why you'd want to party at 1am, when it takes a good 2-4 hours or so to have the birthday celebrant stand around, laugh like a lunatic and clap for 30 minutes; the rest of the household to assemble from wherever they are, doing whatever they were doing, to complain about traffic in the doorway, around the cake/celebrant, wave their arms and tap their feet, just to blow those irritating noisemakers and bend over in such a fashion to look like they're "blowing hot air" from both ends; the birthday sparkles to decide that NOW is a good time to do the completely fake pirouette; and then everyone to complain about traffic to the cake, to the table/chair, put the cake slice down, complain more, then raid the fridge. And then at the end, complain about lack of routing back to wherever they were, doing whatever they were doing.

 

(Can't you tell I dislike birthday cakes?)

[cathyknits]

You're allowed to cake up as soon as the age bar shows 0 days, definitely. (Useful for aging infants into toddlers, or to get a head start on that Elder portrait so maybe it'll be done before that best friend dies, or other circumstances...)