The Sims 3 Immortal Dynasty Challenge

[Piharmonica]

I am on my 4th Immortal Dynasty attempt.  The first three borked due to substandard equipment.  I now have a computer that should be adequate to any challenge (mwa ha ha).

However...  I am in my 3rd generation, and suddenly skills are totally escalating.  My 3rd generation teen went from cooking level 3 to level 10 in the making of one meal.  Gen 1 Immortal had already supermaxed that skill.  Gen 2 went from athletic level 4 to level 10 in a couple of Sim hours.  Is there a fix for this?  I read/skimmed the forum and found only one small reference to this "known glitch," but no cures or workarounds.  My game and my beautiful house are now for naught, but there's no point starting over if this will happen again.

[Trip]

It is a bug that was introduced with patch 1.50, and it is caused by continued saving when sims are in a good mood. The only fix until the developers patch it out (hopefully soon!) is to save when sims are in a bad mood. Get a moodlet manager, flasks of angry bees, bladder flow potions, or whatever sadistic measures you have and unleash them on your sims before you save.

[Piharmonica]

Seriously?!  I just checked and all 5 Sims living in my house are "Elated."  I can't help it; everyone around me just stays happy.  It's my aura...

How miserable do they have to be?  All of them?

Thanks for the help.

[Trip]

I make sure that everyone isn't gaining LTHP from their mood, and if I can make them more miserable, I will. My first dynasty sculptor was almost permanently happy even when he was in critical motive failure, so I took advantage of the -200 moodlet from a flask of angry bees for him.

[Ricalynn]

The other workaround for it is to micromanage your Sims so much and lock rooms.   With a properly locked room and a full action queue, Sims should never learn skills you shouldn't want them to.  While yes this is a family and yes some of us have stories, this is also a challenge and sometimes you have to think of them less as friends and more as slaves. 

And Yeah Trip - I would stop deleting your posts here, please. 

[Shewolf13]

I have a question: in order to pick traits for when the child ages up to a teen, you need at least a B in school correct?  Are there other requirements?  Because in my Dynasty, the child had a B in school (I had some issues with not being able to tutor her, but I've figured out what I did wrong there) and the day she was to age up, they had a snow day so couldn't get the last little bit she needed.  But I was under the impression I should have been able to choose a trait for her and I'm almost positive that in other cases, a B was all I needed. 

If that's the case, and for some reason, the game didn't register, is there something I can do in order to be able to choose her trait and still attain HoF status?

[Trip]

I always have to get my sim-kids to an A in order to pick a trait.

[Shewolf13]

I'm almost positive that in a previous file, the kid had a B in school and I got to pick the trait... that's why I'm so confused with this.

[Ricalynn]

I've tried it recently several times and it was always that they had to have an A for me to pick a trait.   

[Shewolf13]

Ah ok.  Thanks Rica.  Must be outta my mind then heh.

[Ricalynn]

At one point I thought it had been a B, too.  However that must have changed at some point. 

[Shewolf13]

So maybe I'm not so crazy?  Maybe a patch at one point...  It just bugs me now XD I had always thought it was an A anyway, so one time when there were too many snow days in a previous file, the child only had a B but I still got to pick his trait.  I might have to hunt around and see when- or if- it was changed XD  Just because it will bug me otherwise.

[Ricalynn]

Did the other child also have like a maxed afterschool activity?  Maybe that's a contributing factor now, too.

[Shewolf13]

No, though I do know the mood was a heck of a lot better.  One thing about not opting out of the celebrity stuff... she had that 3 day moodlet about being publicly humiliated.  So maybe it's to do with mood AND grade?  That's the only thing I can think of.

[Shirin]

I've always had to have an A to choose traits, regardless of celebrity status.

Also as a reminder, Snow Days just really mean the school bus won't show up. If you get the Snow Day notification, manually click on the "Go To School" option in the school panel, and the kids will bicycle to school. The panel will say "Snow Day!" the entire time, but they'll still get the credit. I was able to save a Life States Dynasty that way.