The Captains Challenge -creating the model city of Newcrest-

[saltpastillen]

I haven't completed my 3rd neighbourhood yet - I haven't had enough time to play lately. Hopefully I will be able to get back to it in march (busy switching jobs at the moment and that takes up a lot of time as it involves moving to a new country).

When I finish I think I will start a new game but move my lots from the library there. I always think a file that has been played for a long time becomes a bit to unstable.

[oshizu]

Awww, getting ready for a move is never fun! But I hope you love your new locale and new job!

I've had lots of issues with my immortal dynasty file. I've been reading various new and old threads in the forum and, as a result, deleted much of my inventories, a retail lot, and a club hangout; then I moved most of my save, tray, and screenshot files to a flash drive. (I'll probably never be able to identify those save files again, lol.)
My game still lags some but it's not crashing or refusing to save anymore. More important, the sims go to work on time and stopped (mostly) standing around hemming and hawing, frozen in place.
A new game is always so great because it's so fast and minimally buggy!

Best wishes to you as you prepare to relocate. 

[saltpastillen]

Thanks!

[oshizu]

Lol, I broke down and started playing your challenge!  Omg, "We are on a budget," indeed!
If I weren't such a terrible builder, I'd like to do a story about this....it's hilarious that when I opened the gym with just the minimum (including four punching bags), every punching bag and yoga mat immediately got taken by a visiting sim. I was so shocked that they would leave their own fab gyms behind and come thronging from Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, and Windenberg to my wall-less one-bathroom excuse for a gym.  And, sadly, my sims ended up not being able to take a yoga class, because of those pesky visitors.
Hmmm, maybe I will start a "highlights only" story.     It's so much fun although being poor is not.

[saltpastillen]

Lol, I broke down and started playing your challenge!  Omg, "We are on a budget," indeed!
If I weren't such a terrible builder, I'd like to do a story about this....it's hilarious that when I opened the gym with just the minimum (including four punching bags), every punching bag and yoga mat immediately got taken by a visiting sim. I was so shocked that they would leave their own fab gyms behind and come thronging from Willow Creek, Oasis Springs, and Windenberg to my wall-less one-bathroom excuse for a gym.  And, sadly, my sims ended up not being able to take a yoga class, because of those pesky visitors.
Hmmm, maybe I will start a "highlights only" story.     It's so much fun although being poor is not.

I'd love a best of!

And I think you will be a better builder by the end of this challenge - I am better at sims 4 style building than when I started.

[saltpastillen]

Some updates to the rules I have been working on.

- The Grilled Cheese Aspiration is now allowed for all sims in all neighbourhoods
- You are free to use the club system any way you wish

In Neighbourhood 1:

-You can now sell all items found when fishing and all items found in trash cans

-You can sell popcorn, ice cream and drinks made on the barista station

-If you are building the Newcrest Community Garden and Foodbank, you now have the option to set the lot to be a café

Neighbourhood 2:

-When building the Newcrest at Night you can now choose lot type between lounge, bar or night club

[BigMud]

This is my favorite sims challenge and I still play it even though I haven't played Sims much recently. My founders opened a nursery and sold plants, produce, and baked goods only. They made pretty good money, but eventually I abandoned the game because there were way too many plants and tending the garden with only two sims took all day and all night.  I have some pics of my builds though, I was pretty happy with them.

Founders' house with adjacent shop:



The nursery (front):



(back - eventually I had all the rows filled with plants in planter boxes):



Inside the shop:



I'm starting again today with new founders, plan to manage things a bit better this time.

[FrancescaFiori]

I just moved into the final neighborhood! It's going to take me forever to finish, but I'm still enjoying it very much. I am so impressed with your nursery BigMud! My founders' store was just a little box! Can't wait to see how your second attempt goes!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[oshizu]

@BigMud   
I love your nursery/bakery store! Is that your founder couple standing in front?

@FrancescaFiori
Oh, you're doing this challenge, too! I had a problem with my game stuttering after building the store and gym, even though I'm using a separate "saves" folder from my dynasty. I think I built/opened the store too early. No pictures Francesca?

[saltpastillen]

Wow, I love how ambitious you were Big Mud! I just had a small cube as well, where I sold some collectibles and cooked foods. It was my first attempt at a store and a huge money pit, it set me back quite a bit, but it was a great learning experience.

I think that in order to be successful in this challenge you need to manage your expectations - especially of the store!

[BigMud]

Lol thanks guys. I really liked building it, but running it was a different story :p. And honestly, I'm okay with the challenge taking a bit longer if my sims can have nice things. The store wasn't actually so bad, money wise. After the first few days we were making money, and it pretty much paid for itself. It was just too challenging to keep up with a garden of that size.

@oshizu yes, those are my founders! They were already elders by the time I thought the shop was nice enough to screenshot, lol. Poor things, I really overworked them.

I'd love to see what others have come up with!!

[oshizu]

@BigMud 
I built a gym for my sims right across the street from their home. This is a screenshot of gym in its second stage. 
In the first stage, it had a foundation with only four punching bags (because of course they're the cheapest) and one toilet/shower room.

In the second stage, I added another toilet/shower room, more gym equipment, and a yoga classroom (still no walls). Once I left build mode, sims from other towns immediately abandoned their own nicely-equipped gyms to come hog the equipment in mine. I realize the photo's hard to see--these sims showed up surprisingly late at night.



After laughing a bit, I briefly entertained the thought of creating another smaller, lockable room for my own sims to level their Fitness.  Maybe make a club with a gym trainer?
Sorry, I didn't have any "good" pictures of my challenge, but I thought this one was funny, athough a very dark shot since my sims couldn't afford to buy lighting for the gym at the time.

[BigMud]

Omg, that gym is too funny! I love how they don't even notice it's night and there are no walls or lights, haha.

Today two of my townies died at the same time while shopping at my store, so I grabbed a pic. It was hilarious but so annoying because it put everyone in a sad mood and no one wanted to buy anything after that. Also, one of the elders who died was just about to be checked out... I was really bummed about losing that sale, LOL.



I had just made an expansion before this. The store was super small before and I wanted to add the bar so my sims could practice mixology for work (one of the daughters is in the culinary career), as well as some extra shelves and such because things were getting really crowded.

[BigMud]

Hey, so I'm ready to move to the next neighborhood and I have a question. In the FAQ it says "switch the active household to the newly made household, and adjust the starting funds as per Neighbourhood Rules." But I can't find anything in the neighborhood rules that specifies starting funds. Does this mean we are to reduce our household funds to 0 before beginning in the new neighborhood? Or can we use the leftover ~20k to start building a house?

[saltpastillen]

Hey, so I'm ready to move to the next neighborhood and I have a question. In the FAQ it says "switch the active household to the newly made household, and adjust the starting funds as per Neighbourhood Rules." But I can't find anything in the neighborhood rules that specifies starting funds. Does this mean we are to reduce our household funds to 0 before beginning in the new neighborhood? Or can we use the leftover ~20k to start building a house?

So sorry about that, I think that line is left over when I was debating different starting budgets for different neighborhoods. You are free to just keep the money they have, or you can switch to 0 if you want. I did that for N2 but not for N3 because it took too long in N2. It's all about how you want to play the game.

Anyways, the key thing is making sure you have as much money in the build fund as possible before you move, because you can take all of the build fund with you. Have fun in your next neighbourhood!