The Apocalypse Challenge Support Thread

[HelenP]

I meant to update this a while back but forgot, sorry. 

Test Marcus died, rejoined the household and was resurrected within 1 sim day.  He rejoined his career 1 level down from where he left it (in his case level 7) and got 10 extra days which was enough to reach level 9.  Repeating this with a 2nd book would have let him max his career.

As it was in the game file he had more than enough time to max his career, coach is son in swimming and mentor his teenage daughter in fitness before Grim finally came for him.

[commasplice]

I managed to clear my first two careers (Culinary-Chef and Tech Guru-eSport Gamer).  My founder, Sansa Stark's eldest child is a teen and her other two kids will be aging up soon.

I have read and reread the rules, but there are things I'm just not clear on. Hoping for some help:

• Paintings - if they complete one, can I hang it? Or does it go into the family inventory?
• Teen careers - once they break the restriction on these, can I have them work in another career after they age up? It's more because it's easier to manage when I've got them out of the house.
• At what point can I move in my heir's spouse? Do I need to wait for the heir to hit young adulthood?
• I've been having them repair stuff on their own. But what do I do with the spare parts they keep getting? Do they go into the family inventory?

[oshizu]

Hi @commasplice and welcome to the forum!

A big congrats on clearing career restrictions with your first generation!

Here are my interpretations of the rules as they pertain to your questions:

1. Paintings: As long as they can be moved around without going into Build mode, I believe paintings are fair game for hanging on walls.

2. Teen Careers: Each household sim can only lift one career restriction, although it seems fine to let join an adult career later. Pinstar had this to say:

Even if you can get them to the top of more than one career in their lifetime, only the first one counts towards completing this challenge. This includes teenage careers.

3. Moving in an Heir's Spouse: There's no restriction on when you can move in your heir's spouse. Unless Entertainer/Comedian is cleared, though, you can only move in one sim per generation.

4. Spare Repair Parts: Yes, you can put them into family inventory. In my own case, I ended up with several 99+ stacks of repair parts in family inventory so I started lining them up in the backyard because large stacks cause my game to lag badly. And Pinstar posted a comment that "Any work-arounds to fix bugs is fine by me."
It's not as if rows of repair parts in the backyard are giving me some gameplay-related strategic advantage, lol.

Other players may interpret the rules differently and, if so, I hope they will also post a reply to your questions.
Best of luck with your Apocalypse Challenge! 

oshizu

[commasplice]

I think I've cleared about half the restrictions. I keep forgetting certain rules, though, and then discovering I could have made things easier because there were features lifted that I just didn't realize. I'm committed to finishing this, but then I am going to do it over and will change the order of what I try to lift.

[oshizu]

@commasplice

Does that mean your Apocalypse household is in its third or fourth generation now?
And yeah, there are a lot of rules and little details to remember. Sounds like you're doing great, though!

You mentioned in your "alien abductions" thread that you're playing in Oasis Springs.
What did you do about the playground equipment for the children's Rambunctious Scamp aspiration?

Best of luck in finishing your Apocalypse Challenge!

[commasplice]

@commasplice

Does that mean your Apocalypse household is in its third or fourth generation now?
And yeah, there are a lot of rules and little details to remember. Sounds like you're doing great, though!

You mentioned in your "alien abductions" thread that you're playing in Oasis Springs.
What did you do about the playground equipment for the children's Rambunctious Scamp aspiration?

Best of luck in finishing your Apocalypse Challenge!

I'm in my 3rd generation.The 4th are children and infants. I had unplanned for triplets and at one point had 8 sims in the house. Was not happy about that. The triplets were obnoxious and I ended up putting one in a teen career because I simply could not stand him. The alien pregnancy derailed some things. The multiple alien abductions kept me from advancing a couple of times--like the sim would be in great shape, probably about to be promoted, and facing 3 days of being off and that night. Bam! Abducted. I broke rules accidentally by using mirrors and painting emotional paintings and in one instance by not firing a sim who was late to work. I did not realize I could use career reward objects until today!

I've had two sims with the rambunctious scamp aspiration and they just didn't complete it. I've got a very narrow pool in the basement. I had opted for Oasis Springs because it looked kind of apocalyptic. The lot I used has access to a couple of fishing spots and some wild plants, but no nearby playground.

Founder: culinary chef
Founder's spouse: tech guru esport gamer
2nd gen heir: writer journalist
2nd gen heir's spouse:astronaut interstellar smuggler
2nd gen spare #1: athlete body builder
2nd gen spare #2: secret agent diamond agent
3rd gen heir: painter patron of the arts
3rd gen heir's spouse: business investor
3rd gen spare #1: teen career retail employee
3rd gen spare #2: business management
3rd gen spare #3: tech guru startup

Right now I have 1 teen, 1 child, and 2 infants (twins) in the 4th gen. I was lucking out with traits until my triplets (glutton, mean, and lazy respectively).

I am going to have Elia Stark (my teen) work on Secret Agent - Villain because I have to get these stupid ghosts out of my house. Also they died in the most inconvenient spots. Glutton #2 is going to be directed at teen career babysitter so I can move him out as soon as possible. Not sure yet on where to put the twins, but I will figure it out.

My thinking when I redo this is to have my founder try and unlock writer journalist and the spouse tech guru startup. I also want to unlock secret agent diamond agent as soon as I can in the 2nd gen because it's simply murder not being able to move out sims. Also, although I had culinary mixologist quite low, I'm going to try and unlock that sooner because every one of my sims has insatiable thirst and are constantly trying to drink water on me.

[oshizu]

@commasplice

Thanks so much for the details on what your household's been up to.
It's infinitely fascinating to me how each player decides to prioritize career unlocks.
Wow, your family produces a lot of kids every generation. The triplets must have been a cruel shock!

Is your founder a Wonder Child? Will you be using a Wonder Child when you restart?
Keep us updated!

[commasplice]

@commasplice

Thanks so much for the details on what your household's been up to.
It's infinitely fascinating to me how each player decides to prioritize career unlocks.
Wow, your family produces a lot of kids every generation. The triplets must have been a cruel shock!

Is your founder a Wonder Child? Will you be using a Wonder Child when you restart?
Keep us updated!

The triplets were horrible. The bassinets plunked down in the worst spots too. They were identical which made me figuring out where I wanted them to skill complicated.

Yeah, I went with a Wonder Child although I have to be honest, I didn't follow that challenge to the letter, partially due to the fact that I had the life spans on the wrong settings. I plan on using a Wonder Child for the next go around too.

When I played Sims 2 and did this, I always went for culinary and medical (which unlocked tubs and baths). It's just so much easier than having to have them wash their hands 20 times. I just prefer to get those out of the way. And then usually I want to be able to move them out because when they die and I get ghosts, it's just awful.

What's your preference for unlocking stuff? And do you use a Wonder Child or a CAS?

[oshizu]

@commasplice

I started with a Wonder Child that I designed, not for high score, but specifically to found an Apocalypse Challenge.

You can see the chronological list of career locks I chose here.
I didn't import any other Wonder Children from the Gallery, but I did import some (mostly unskilled) sims of my own so at one point I switched priorities to Double Diamond Agent, Oracle, and Comedian.

Oh, you're playing your AC very strictly! I placed bassinets in the house in advance and also just moved urns to family inventory whenever someone died.
From mid-second generation, though, I could move household sims out after which they basically enjoyed eternal life.

You're really courageous. I don't think I'd play the Apocalypse Challenge again, lol.

[commasplice]

@commasplice

I started with a Wonder Child that I designed, not for high score, but specifically to found an Apocalypse Challenge.

You can see the chronological list of career locks I chose here.
I didn't import any other Wonder Children from the Gallery, but I did import some (mostly unskilled) sims of my own so at one point I switched priorities to Double Diamond Agent, Oracle, and Comedian.

Oh, you're playing your AC very strictly! I placed bassinets in the house in advance and also just moved urns to family inventory whenever someone died.
From mid-second generation, though, I could move household sims out after which they basically enjoyed eternal life.

You're really courageous. I don't think I'd play the Apocalypse Challenge again, lol.

I had bassinets placed (2), but the triplets came and there was already a baby in the one soooo they just moved around.

After reading what you said about the urns, I've moved those to inventory. Very hopeful that Elia Stark lifts Secret Agent - Villain soon so I can redesign the family home.

[Joria]

@oshizu

 

4. Spare Repair Parts: Yes, you can put them into family inventory. In my own case, I ended up with several 99+ stacks of repair parts in family inventory so I started lining them up in the backyard because large stacks cause my game to lag badly. And Pinstar posted a comment that "Any work-arounds to fix bugs is fine by me."
It's not as if rows of repair parts in the backyard are giving me some gameplay-related strategic advantage, lol.

I thought you weren't allowed to put anything outside the perimeter of the house.  Not even landscaping.  So how could you put the stacks outside?  Why couldn't they just stay in your personal backpack?

[oshizu]

@Joria
Despite the ruling against placing things outside the house, I made an exception for myself to prevent the game from lagging.
I had multiple 99+ stacks of the common repair part after several generations. As you know, having 99+ items in a stack in either personal or family inventory causes game lag.

As Pinstar had commented that workarounds to avoid game bugs were acceptable, I decided to place the repair parts in the backyard.
Doing so didn't give my sims any strategic advantage (like placing a garden or playground equipment would, for example); it did, however, minimize bobbing heads and freezing.

[Joria]

Aha!  Didn't know you could do workarounds like that.  One of the many reasons that, while I'm very interested in this challenge, I probably will never do one.  Too much to remember.

[commasplice]

I finished mine last night. The last career I lifted was Painter- Master of the Real.

I don't feel I did the challenge properly because like I said, I broke the rules more than once. I don't feel so bad about the accidental ones, but there were a few times when there were intentional uh choices of mine. So I plan on doing this again.

Most of the time it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about the game that I didn't already know.

For my next one, I have written out the career restrictions, skill requirements, what they lift, etc. on index cards. This way I can shuffle them around as need be. I think I'm setting the next one in Newcrest and will be starting with a Wonder Child again.

For what it's worth these are my takeaways:

• Pick a lot with access to fishing, playground equipment, wild plants.
• Go with a larger lot so that when you CAN rebuild/expand, you have the room to do it.
• I found very early on that once I had a sim clear a restriction, I was kind of bored with playing that sim. I also don't really care for playing elders. So for the next attempt, I think I want my founder's spouse to clear astronaut interstellar smuggler so I can move these sims out.
• I had a couple of very annoying sims and it was useful to have them clear teen careers so I could move them out as well.
• I made sure I had 1 sim per generation who was skilled enough to repair electrical/kitchen items and like oshizu did, I made the conscious decision to put upgrade parts on my lot. It became a right of passage once athletic--bodybuilder was cleared for that 1 sim to have to go out to the yard and pick up upgrade parts.
• Lastly, sometimes the careers I didn't think were as significant were the ones that I was so relieved to clear (Mixology--every one of my sims had almost uncontrollable urges to drink water and I spent way too much time trying to stop them).

[JudesSims]

Wow! I've just read through this and there are so many good ideas! I have been sick a lot with heart issues so haven't played as much as I like. Now that I'm nearly recovered from my latest illness (pneumonia), I plan to get back to playing and blogging more.

Have a Happy New Year!

Jude