The Apocalypse Challenge Support Thread

[JudesSims]

Thank you @oshizu! Your support is appreciated!

[officialghosts]

@Caterina Congratulations! I'd love to hear about your experiences when you come back.

@JudesSims Sorry you've had so much bad luck lately! I hope things get better soon!

@oshizu That is a nice benefit, although I don't know if I'm going to rely on food much when I get it, since, at least with the energized meal, the moodlet only lasts two hours. And in my house, it takes about that long to get it due to how many sims there are. One thing I do miss, however, is birthday cakes, considering I want my kids to become YAs as soon as possible.

Some major things have happened since I posted last! For one,  both my founder and his wife have maxed their careers. Oracle and Management are complete! Soon after I made the last post, my founder got promoted and his schedule changed, and along with the Hack Mainframe interaction, allowed the two of them to get promoted quicker. My founder maxed it on like his first day of adulthood, and his wife about a week later (she still had a few days of YA left due to all the pregnancies).  And speaking of pregnancies...

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I wanted 4 children this generation. And for the first three pregnancies, I wished for twins with no luck. Then I get to the fourth, and guess what happens!  Yep, twins. I even predicted it beforehand. I feel like this is what always happens: we always get twins when we don't want them, never when we do.

So now I have five children, and seven sims. This created a problem, because it meant if I wanted to move in this gen's house when my heir aged to YA, (she was about to become a teen when they were born, a few days before my founder maxed Oracle), they wouldn't be able to have children until one of the parents died or Diamond Agent was completed and somebody moved out. This isn't the end of the world, but the thing is, I'm really impatient. My first generation had kids on the first day, and I'd like to continue on that pace in the future, because the quicker this challenge moves the less likely I'll abandon it. Also, I hate playing with full/large households because of how slow everything is, especially in a challenge like this where you have to micromanage.

All of this made me decided to move in my spouse, who will become a Diamond Agent, early. This will allow me to move out my founder and his wife and the two children who'll max teen careers earlier. (I didn't want to move out the first gen, but they're not needed as much as the space is. And this way, I won't have to deal with their ghosts when they die.) It felt a little weird, since thisI'll create almost an almost a two week age difference between him and the heir, but it doesn't bug me too much.

On the plus side, this allows me to complete an extra career this generation. After some deliberation I think I'm gonna go with Journalist. It was that or Comedian, which lost out because I'm really starting to get tired of all the hand washing.

[JudesSims]

Hmm. I never thought of aging anyone up early; even after the ability to have birthday cakes. Is that legal? Lol. I'll have to read through the rules again.

[Caterina]

Tip:

     Do get the Frugal trait once allowed to help reduce your bills.

Note:

     My Sims maxed their cash on hand...$9,999,999.  Apparently, my investor sim made some good investments.  It seemed like they were getting $499,999 in interest once or twice a day.

     I didn't move any sims out throughout the whole challenge.  It is interesting how we all play a little differently.  I really like reading about everyone's experiences, ideas, and play styles.

     I was wondering what a rotational play Apocalypse Challenge would like.  It might be interesting to see other sims simultaneously struggle and benefit from restrictions/lifting restrictions.  You could start with a fixed number of families or add them as you clear restrictions or bring in a new generation.  (I love my Build-A-City-Challenge challenge which is rotational play.  I was playing 13 families when I left it for a little break.  The founding families were just welcoming grand-babies.  Hmmm...maybe a combined Apocalypse/Build-A-City challenge.  Actually, you could play multiple challenges within one.  One household for the Retirement Challenge, one for the Asylum Challenge, one for the Orphanage Challenge, one for the Brothel Challenge, and etc.)

[oshizu]

@officialghosts
Oh the same thing happened with me except I wanted the founder's spouse to have three children and she ended up having twins her third pregnancy.
It's ironic how we makes careful plans and then something happens and we need to completely rethink our strategy. (thinking of my own experience, too!)
So you liked "Hack work performance" after all? When my Oracle (Nancy Landgraab) used it, her performance didn't move when it succeeded but took a large hit when she failed. Does your job performance bar actually move? Mine never noticeably moved (glitch?), so I stopped using it in favor of Negotiate Bonus which almost always worked if the sim had completed the daily task and was Very Confident.

@Caterina 
I believe your interest payments came from your sims completing the Fabulously Wealth aspiration. The payments are spaced a week apart, based on the time/day that the aspiration was completed, so the almost daily payments mean that your household members must have completed the aspiration on different days.

About move-ins and move-outs, I was just thinking about this and your challenge yesterday, Caterina. You only moved in sims as spouses, otherwise completing the entire challenge with only your Hayes family members, their moved-in spouses, and their offspring. After having played an immortal dynasty, where the founder and heirs live on but the spares all pass away, I like the idea in the Apocalypse Challenge of being able to give sims who have outlived their usefulness their own "happily ever afters."
Also, as usual, I've gotten a bit distracted by "genetic breeding," lol, and need to move sims out to bring in new DNA.

Haha, your rotational play with each household playing a different challenge sounds like a bit of a nightmare to me. I've never gotten very far with rotational play. What's the Brothel Challenge?

[officialghosts]

Aging sims up early isn't legal, but I just wanted to age sims up as soon as the message for their birthday pops up, and not have to wait an entire extra day. I meant it when I said I was impatient!

Thankfully, your sims won't leave work early to age up. Learned this when my founder was set to age up during his shift... at level 9 of his career!  Thank Watcher it doesn't, because I hadn't maxed Management yet.

I can't imagine not moving anyone out! It really is cool to see all the different strategies people use, and things like who they have in the household and in which order they unlock careers. I imagine a rotational apocalypse challenge would be very fun, but also very time consuming and very easy to mess up. So much to keep track of!

[oshizu]

@JudesSims and @officialghosts
In a comment, Pinstar remarked that caking up a sim once their age bar started bubbling was okay (which saves 24 sim-hours of waiting). That's what @officialghosts means, too, since the "rocking birthday party" message triggers the glowing bar...

Here's his comment:

When their age bar is glowing, you may age them up via cake if you’ve unlocked that restriction. You just can’t age them up before that. The main purpose of the rule is that you can’t race through infancy/childhood/teenhood to make a newly born sim instantly able to enter a career.

I had one sim leave work early to age up, actually. His age bar was bubbling when he left for work and he popped back home before his shift was over; didn't even get any credit for working 2/3rds of a shift! But I'd just forgotten and the timing was around 24 hours after his age bar had started bubbling, so that was pure neglect.
I'd already cleared Management, though, so it was just a missed promotion.

[officialghosts]

Strange that your sim left but mine didn't. Maybe because mine was closer to the end of the shift? (Set to age up around 8 AM, shift ended around 9 AM). And it really is crazy how much performance you lose for leaving early. Might as well have not shown up at all!

(Also, my sim is leaving in 30 minutes to complete Babysitter! It's been slow going with 8 sims all at home on the weekend, but I set up a Don't Wake the Llama table which does a great job at keeping people busy and happy all day. I'm considering game tables legal because I don't think there's a rule against them, and otherwise I'd go insane.)

[oshizu]

I really don't see the game tables as being that different from the chess table. I wish I would have thought of that! My founder wrote over a dozen skill books, so my sims had to read for fun (we have the penguin TV now).
But now I remember that you five children.  Just, wow! Is it crazy?

[officialghosts]

It is really crazy, haha. Especially considering 3 of them rolled Social Butterfly  . But the game table helps, and it'll be nice to complete the extra career this generation. I like how they turned out appearance-wise, and I've even gotten lucky with the random traits: my first child rolled Geek and my fourth rolled Active as children, which is good for Startup and Bodybuilder. (Geek would be better for ESports, as you can't play Video Games once you select Startup, but I decided Startup was more important to me early on.)

Just for fun, here's an image of four of the kids playing at the game table. (You can see the second eldest in her Babysitter uniform. The girl next to her is the first born and the heir.)

[JudesSims]

No more playing for a while. I got my apartment. Packing and moving.

[Joria]

I read a lot of "you can't", but not so much on "you can".  I want to build one or more homes for you insane AC players to put in carlsguide hashtag, but am stumbling with what is an ok item or decor to use.  So, no computers, stoves, frig, showers, tubs, tv, radios?, dishwashers?, fire alarms?, lamps?, LR furniture?, rugs? plants?, window restrictions?, door restrictions?, pool restriction?, work out equipment?, work bench for handiness???Easels?, piano or other musical instruments? What about lighting?

What about for children?  What are you actually allowed?  Bed? Desk? Artist table? Chemistry table?  Jungle gym? Teddy bear? (lg. stuffed animal of any sort)  Book case?

My goal is to design two to three houses that give a decent start ranging from making it easier to keep on struggling with three different decors.  Decor one will be destruction chic, (whats left after the blitz), decor two, exterior not so charming inside more so, and decor three, these guys had some class stashed. 

I applaud all of you who are doing this.  Me, I'll stick to building houses, but I need your input to be able to do it.  Thanks for all your inspiration!

[JudesSims]

You can have the cheapest computer but it can only be used for work related stuff. No stoves, refrigerators, showers, tubs, tvs, radios, dishwashers, fire alarms, or swimming pools. Wait.  I take that back. I think you can have an indoor pool if you can find room for one. At least I've seen a couple AC houses with them. All furniture has to be the cheapest available. This includes beds, sofas, bookcases, rugs, etc. no restrictions on plants but think cheap. I don't think there are restrictions on Windows and doors or wall coverings. Kids can have an art table, but not the chemistry table. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong but they can't have potions right away.) Kids also have the cheapest beds, desks. No dressers or mirrors. Jungle gym is okay indoors. Teddy bear is okay. Lighting is the least expensive. I don't know about the workbench. I haven't had to use it. The punching bag is okay. I don't know about the others. I just stick to the one. Plus jogging. I hope this helps!

Edited to add no musical instruments unless that is the restriction being lifted. Only for practice, not fun. Poor sims...lol

[oshizu]

@JudeSims   
* Science table: I allow this from the star. I treat science table potions like bar drinks: can be made for an aspiration but must be thrown out, not consumed. Without a science table, a child could never complete Whiz Kid.

* Musician locks: buying/using radios & stereos (and speakers) are banned but buying/using musical instruments are not, except that you can only do the "practice" interaction.
My house had a violin & piano early on, otherwise a child could never complete the Artistic Prodigy aspiration. I reread the Musician section and there's no ban on musical instruments.

* I did a "Find" search on the Rules just now and found no mention of fire alarms. Why are they banned and how to unlock them?

* Workbench, chess table, easel: no restriction but chess table must be lowest-quality (environment score)

* Pinstar has this to say about walls, floors, and doors. I would extend this ruling to include windows.

Since none of the wall colorings, floor colorings or doors have any “stats” (IE Environment score boosts) they are all available to use even with all the restrictions in place.

Well, this is just how I'm playing. The rules haven't been updated or commented on by the creator for about a year now, so it's impossible to get strict rulings like this forum's IDC.
I really wish his comments underneath the rules would be incorporated into the Rules. Oh well.
So, my comments above are just personal interpretations. Every player will no doubt have different interpretations. No one is judging.

[Joria]

Thank you, ladies!!  This is going to be fun.  I'm going to research the best lots first, already have 3 in mind, and have basic ideas for my 3 "styles" of house and what will or won't be in them. 

@JudeSims:  I haven't forgotten your mansion, but admit, it's been on the back burner along with everything else as I try to do some challenges.  Getting bored with that so will be back at it soon.