Cool, people are still following the thread. Just didn't want to write it all out if no one wandered by anymore. Lol.
So the Road to Fame = Riches Plan.
Traits I chose: charismatic, friendly, star quality, born salesman/saleswoman (will help churn a little more profit early on out of the consignment store, but would probably use Ambitious were I to do it again, for the boost in Lifetime Happiness Points), and the key trait that winds up this little engine... virtuoso. Yup, virtuoso.
And no, not a playing for tips exploit. It is a full-on fame exploit.
For Lifetime Wish, I chose to give him Super Popular (having 20 friends, at least I think it is 20, might be 25).
I chose Bridgeport for the test because that is the town that came with the EP that gave us fame. I also let the game install the consignment and elixir consignment shops on start up.
Phase one:
1. Buy the guitar just in case you end up spending too much of your cash at the elixir shop a bit later.
2. Head to the elixir shop and queue up the buy interactions.
a. Buy everything they have. This makes the store's stock reset completely each time through, so you are likely to get what you want to keep more often.
b. Hold onto any of the following that you get: any kind of Invigoration elixirs, Wish Enhancing Serums, any kind of Skill Booster, and wolfsbane.
c. After each "buy" interaction, pause the game and sell back immediately any elixirs you don't want to keep and any books. You will turn an immediate profit on any of the books. You may or may not turn an immediate profit on the elixirs that you sell back. You can also sell back the gem dust, metals and other ingredients you get, but you generally lose money on them, so I save them for consigning right back to the store once I have a good supply of things listed in 'b' to keep.
d. When you run out of money, consign all the extra gem dust and ingredients back to the store.
e. Depending on how many Invigoration elixirs you got in the above steps (I didn't get many at all, but got loads of wolfsbane) head over to the alchemy bench they have in the shop and research alchemy. The basic Invigoration elixir is usually one of the first you learn, but it is governed a bit by luck. I think it was the third I learned in my test. Use your wolfsbane and make a decent stock of basic potions. If you did happen to get plenty of elixirs from the shop in steps 'a' through 'd' above, this step is pretty easy to skip. Either way, when you have a decent supply of Invigoration potions, time for the next phase.
Phase two:
1. Start playing that guitar. Will explain why it is so key to the strategy later on.
2. Get your first level in guitar. You could also go take a class in it to if you have enough money left, or if the consignment shop sells enough of your stuff from phase one.
3. I usually play the guitar until I have first three levels or so in the skill, because they go fairly fast.
4. If you collected any Skill Booster elixirs, now is a good time to see if you get lucky with them and they boost your guitar skill. I went 2 for 6 in my test and had only two of them boost the skill, but they both were the Potent Skill Booster variety and I was already just a bit below level 5.
5. I tried to find some good public place to "play for tips". Not for the money's sake, but because people that watch you long enough become known to you. Hitting the magical "known by 25 sims" from the charisma skill award is also a critical part of the strategy.
6. Somewhere along in here, hit the library, or take a class, and learn the first level of Charisma. I have never had the rewards from the skill fire, unless my sim knows at least the first level. Could be wrong, but I don't think it will.
7. Keep practicing, playing, performing, playing for tips, whatever until your guitar skill hits the magical number of level 6.
Phase three:
1. Time to go introducing yourself properly with the townies.
2. After introductions, you "Enthuse About Music" with everyone.
a. It is either in the Friendly conversation tree, or in the Special ~~> Virtuoso tree.
b. Once you are level six, no one will EVER react negatively to it. It is quick, gives you two little plusses towards friendship, and you can mash it as I have NEVER had any townie sim think it gets boring once I have reached level six for my sim.
3. You will fly up the friendship scale with anyone in very short period of time compared to other conversation.
4. I usually save my Wish Enhancing Serums for this time. My game almost always gives me the wishes to be so-and-so's friend while I am talking with them about music. It also more often than not rolls wishes for my sim at the good friend and best friend stages as well. With the Wish Enhancing Serum's buff, you can really rack up some points.
5. The first Life Time Reward I save up for is "Attractive". It gives a 25% boost to the relationship when you meet someone.
6. Once I have that reward, I focus less on making best friends with sims and instead start just introducing my sim to everyone I saw. This is to get the "known by 25 local sims" Charisma reward. This also gives you another 25% relationship boost.
7. You have probably met several already for your sim, but now is the time to start meeting those celebs. Every new sim you even interact with now for your sim (with the two relationship boosts) will be instantly friends. The game is kinda weird in this stage sometimes when you have these boosts but are not a celeb yourself yet. Sometimes it still makes you try to impress them, other times it doesn't it. If it makes you try, you can use your sims guitar skill to do so.
a. There is often a little sweet spot in here when you first direct your sim to interact with a celeb, but when the initial interaction hasn't run its course yet, where you will get a wish to "Impress So-and-So". Watch for them and be ready to pause, so you can lock them in and keep getting those Lifetime Happiness Points.
8. It really doesn't take too long at all to start climbing the celebrity star level. You get a boost for each relationship level you pass through with them. Also of note, you also get a good boost by becoming a romantic interest with a celeb. Another good boost when you ask them to go steady, etc. Breaking up with them also boosts your celeb points. You can even use then moodlet manager on them to then try to clear their break up moodlet so you can cycle through the whole romantic interest, steady, ex cycle again.
9. Also, sometime in this process the Lifetime Wish should fire with you becoming friends with everyone just by saying "Hi, my name is Active Sim." Lol. I definitely recommend steel bladder, moodlet manager and keeping track when it will fire so that you can have a Wish Enhancing Serum buff active. A note about moodlet manager and alchemy buffs though: using it usually knocks off any buff from alchemy that I have active, so be careful.
Phase Four:
1. You are probably somewhere in Day 5 (Friday) when you get the fifth celeb star.
2. Head over to the bookstore with whatever amount of simoleans you have in your pockets.
3. Queue up "Shop For Books" interactions.
4. Spend all you can afford. I usually work from the most expensive end of the list for less clicking.
5. After you buy them, the books drop in value (15% I think, but might be 20% if my memory is off), however....
6. As a 5-star celeb, I have found, my sim gets a discount 5-6 times out of 8 on average. That discount is usually somewhere between 30-60% once you are spending decent amounts of cash on the books.
7. The above steps are odds any blackjack player would LOVE in Vegas or Atlantic City. When you get a discount, you are up usually somewhere between 20-40% on your money, and you get discounts as a 5-star celeb a majority of the time. It is an easy math problem.
8. I have noticed I seem to get more discounts for my celeb sims when I have a full queue lined up behind the actions. Might be my imagination, but it seems to play out that way.
9. It won't be very long until you are buying 100 Ambrosia books and 100 of the two next most expensive titles, and you are easily a millionaire after a good buy-for-discount-then-sell cycle. You could keep up with this cycle all the way to max if you want, but it gets a bit boring and there are exploity ways to speed up the process considerably. Which brings us to the next phase....
Phase five:
1. Pull out your sims cell phone and have them "Check Real Estate".
2. Buy any of the lots that are listed as "Property". "Building" or "Residential" are not the ones we are after.
3. If you want less building time on your hands, pick a lot that already has counters and a decent amount of space free or easily cleared.
4. After buying, go to either map view, or click on the wall of your new venue, and then choose the option to "Edit in Build Mode."
5. I bought 12 of the nectar racks, but the number you choose is up to you. Put the racks in your venue.
6. Go to the community objects section of build mode, and grab the nectary register and put it on one of the empty counters that has access from both sides.
7. Hold down shift+control and click on one of the nectar racks and chose "Make Buyable". At least I think that is the wordage, but will be something similar if not that one. Then do the same shift+control click on the rack and chose "Set Treasure Component ~~~> Set Regular Treasure Info". Again my wordage might be a little off, just don't choose the one for a one-time setting. This makes the items in the nectar rack tie in with the register and the level you choose for recurring treasure.
8. From the list: "Amazing Nectar" gives nectar value somewhere between 4000 and 6999 in my game.
"(!!!)" gives value somewhere around 70-90k.
"(!!) gives value somewhere around 30-50k.
set the number of racks to the values you want. Bigger numbers will get you there quicker, but I like having a range so that I can make sure I spend all the cash possible each time.
9. When you go back to live mode, the game will assign a nectar merchant and you can go buy either directly from the nectar racks or from the merchant at the register. The values won't be high at first though.
10. I always have to wait until night cycles, (I think it happens at either midnight or 1 a.m. in game if my memory is right, but might be at 3 a.m.), then the nectar racks will reset their pricing to what I just chose.
11. Then do the same buying process you did at the bookstore with the nectar merchant. You also have the ability to buy directly from the racks and not lose the value of the nectar, and sometimes the discount given is actually a free bottle. But this process is much more time consuming that buying in quantity from the register/merchant. When buying from the merchant, the game will let you choose five different types of nectar that you can increase the quantity all the way up to 100. This lets you be a lot more time efficient than buying singles from the nectar racks. The price of the nectar bought from the merchant drops in value immediately, but not the same percentage as it was with books. So the process goes quickly.
12. Easily within a day, you should be able to use the geometric growth of this to max your money. Exploity to be sure!!!
13. Sometimes you will have several buys in a row where your celeb sim doesn't get the discount and you will be temporarily losing money. Just stay the course though, the averages will average out and you will eventually make money, a lot of money.
Sorry if there are too many typos in this, but I am out the door for a bar-b-que this afternoon. Will come back and try to edit if I messed up too much.
