@hazelnut Limiting the expansions is a hassle and half, I had to do
math for this. (Math!) I've had the "no promotion after asking for one" too; it seems to work better if I'm plating as the Sim asking, and have the camera on them? (Or maybe that's just superstition..)
Ah! Glad to know mods are allowed. (Lol, I recently re-read the Haskills, and realized you mentioned mods about forty seven times. My bad.) I tend to avoid playing without them, for the sake of my PC, but if I start to get really buggy I might have to set up Error Trap and Overwatch.
Thanks for the Monte Vista tip!
A Dragon Valley WinterWhen we last left off, Bottle Green had completed her requirements, and semi-officially passed the torch down to the next generation.
(Lulu and Winona both got prom queen. Their crowns hung in their respective rooms.)
Winona got the majority of my focus. I’ve never played with the Heartbreaker LTW, nor have I tried the Daycare career. I found it was alright at the beginning, if deeply micro-managey.
I really got a kick out of Winona. Lulu threw many, many parties in order to meet people and make friends, and if Winona was left on auto pilot, she would try to flirt with everyone in the room. (Disturbingly, she once rolled a wish to “kiss Bottle Green for the first time”. Eep!)
Phlox spent his time working out or playing chess. He had knocked out all the challenges except for Chess Grandmaster (his lifetime wish) and Teacher Extraordinaire, and I wanted to let him focus on chess for a bit. I’ve never tried a logic supermax, nor have I explored chess, (lotta firsts for me,) and it’s...time consuming.
The chess, at least, was easier than I expected. I’ve heard the horror stories about getting opponents who are proprietors/consignment clerks, which is why I opted to do the supermax before I added those things to the game. The biggest struggle I had was a woman named Cara Gallgher, who refused to show up despite constant calls. I ended up having Winona use online dating to friend her, used map view to find where she lived, and have Phlox head right over to challenge her on her own turf.
Phlox’s career took some finagling as well. With Bottle, I had her quit and rejoin the career at level three, which set her back to level 1, which didn’t seem to work. With Phlox, I had him quit at level five, resetting him back to level three, and making my nerves eighteen times worse, since he was already halfway through young adulthood.
Honolulu, meanwhile, grew up into a lovely young woman right as winter rolled around.
It’s funny; that’s my least favorite hairstyle and my least favorite dress, and she manages to pull them both off at the same time.
She and Phlox are close, but she and Winona are closer. The two of them roll a lot of wishes to hug/play games/pillow fight with one another. I think Honolulu is the only person that Winona has never flirted with!
Literally everyone else was fair game, though. Winona spent her weekends meeting people in the park, wishing to go steady, getting her wish, and immediately wishing to meet someone new. Big mood, Winona.
Lulu spent most of her non-work time throwing parties. (She was employed in Politics, in accordance with her new “Leader Of The Free World” LTW. She pursued her career aggressively, and he got a promotion nearly every day.) I’ve never thrown this many Sim parties. They’ve always intimidated me, since I hate parties IRL.
Then, I realized that this was a video game, and I don’t actually have to talk to everyone at the party. I could let Honolulu focus on a few people at a time, and let everyone else just have fun. It wasn’t realt. They didn’t care if she was a good hostess. This was deeply freeing.
Of course, I soon ran into yet another snag. Winona was supposed to work Monday through Thursday, but with Seasons, she had Thursdays off, so she only worked three days a week. Once again, I’ve never played with the Daycare career before, so I didn’t realize how absolutely agonizingly slowly it would move. I maxed out winter in the settings to avoid any more holidays.
Phlox and Winona both became Adults much faster than I would like. Winona still needed four more partners and two more career levels, and Phlox still needed to finalize his LTW, career, and tutoring efforts. (I had heavily slacked on that last one.)
This is where Winona’s daycare came in handy. She invited some of her old charges over for Phlox to tutor, and he invited some of his coworkers over for Winona to seduce.
I’m a genius.
9
Bottle, to my bemusement, was still very much alive and kicking. While her kids pursued lifetime wishes, she mostly puttered around, filling small wishes or helping Winona with her rapidly growing daycare. It got to the point where I just signed her back up for the Pro Sports career just so she would have something to do!
Rest in peace, Bottle Green Binderclip. She was a wonderful mother, and roughly 114 by the time she finally passed, exceeding all my expectations.
The kids reacted accordingly. Winona (autonomously) flirted with Death.
Lulu buckled down and maxed out Charisma.
And Phlox, to my surprise, decided he wanted a boyfriend.
Domingo Irby had been a longtime family friend. I swear, the second Phlox learned Domingo was Family Oriented, he rolled a wish to kiss him for the first time. Very smart man, that Phlox.
Everything was progressing very nicely. Winona and I had “get a partner and dump them” down to a science, and she maxed her Lifetime Wish in one final weekend push.
More thoughts on that at the bottom.
The very, very, very long winter finally ended, and things began to happen very rapidly.
Lulu aged up to an Adult, already at level nine of the political track. Level nine! I think she’s the most career-oriented Sim I’ve ever played. She had locked down most of the Charisma challenges ages ago, but Personable still eluded her. I wanted to avoid buying Observant, since I’m trying to focus on EP related LTRs for heirs, but Honolulu was having absolute rotten luck. Since her move was coming up fast, I had her take a few days off of work and invite various Sims over to try and find skills. She would talk about the cold, (to test for weather related traits,) ask about career, (I’ve seen it trigger Workaholic and Ambitious,) try out some jokes, (to eliminate any humor related traits), enthuse about something, (Excitable, Grumpy,)and then try flirting, to check for Flirty/Unflirty.
Then I would spam “Get to Know”, because my system rarely paid off.
Phlox maxed the Pro Sports career, and become my personal hero.
And in a missed screenshot opportunity, he also became a Chess Legend that very night.
Winona maxed her career the same week, and quit almost immediately.
Phlox’s career, check. Phlox’s LTW, check. Winona’s career, check. Winona’s LTW, check. Logic supermax, check. Winona had already maxed both household skills. The only thing standing in the way from progress was learning a few more traits.
And look! This Sim who’s name I totally remember is a Grump! Thank you, Ms. Grump! That’s Charisma supermaxed!
The kids took a picture for the road….
....and went their separate ways. Winona moved into a delightful one bedroom, Phlox picked a place near the sports center, and Honolulu faced the prospect of having kids.
Gross.
Household Two StatsMick Quinlain (No traits)
-Perfect Mind, Perfect Body
-Maxed Logic
Bottle Green Binderclip (#006A4E) (Athletic, Absent-Minded, Nurturing, Neat, Childish).
-Become A Superstar Athlete
-Cemetary career/Epitaph Writer
-Maxed Charisma
Phlox Binderclip (#DF00FF) (Genius, Clumsy, Lucky, Bookworm, Loves the Cold)
-Supermaxed Logic
-Chess Legend
-Pro Sports (in perhaps the ultimate example of living out your parent’s dreams for them…)
Winona Binderclip (Imaginary Friend) (Her favorite color was orange, and I used #BF530D) (Excitable, Evil, Vegetarian, Heavy Sleeper, Flirty)
-Maxed Logic and Charisma
-Heartbreaker
-Daycare worker
Honolulu Binderclip (#006DB0(Good Sense of Humor, Friendly, Party Animal, Excitable, Vehicle Enthusiast)
-supermaxed Charisma
Unique LTRs; Clone Voucher, Motive Mobile
Building; Tome Traders
Career/LTW to be completed in the next houseHousehold Two ThoughtsWell! This was very much a learning experience for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Let’s go down the list by group.
The Lifetime Wishes were a fun batch this time. I think that “Become A Superstar Athlete” is a pretty easy, standard, LTW. My personal rule of thumb for “What makes a good LTW” is, “Does it take a lifetime?” And yes. This one definitely does. However, it’s linked to a rabbit hole career, and I, personally, find those wishes more boring than others. (Take this with as many grains of salt as you like, it’s very much a subjective opinion.) I’ll give it a 5/10. Dead average.
Heartbreaker and Chess Legend are more in line with the kind of gameplay I enjoy. Maybe it’s because I took my time with these, since I was focused on careers and supermaxes, but I felt like both of these really took a lifetime. They also required a lot more interaction/supervision than the Pro Athlete wish, which appeals to me as a player. (As much interaction as possible, please!) I’m gonna give both of these a 7/10; above average, but not quite top tier. They were certainly interesting, and I think I’ll actually try Heartbreaker again in another file!
Perfect Mind, Perfect Body….eh? It doesn’t hit that standard of “takes a lifetime”. To be fair, I certainly rushed the wish, and used dragons to keep Mick awake the whole time, but it just. I dunno. I’ve never really liked the “max two skills” wishes. They feel bland to me. 4/10. (Again, this is entirely subjective.)
Pro Sports career takes longer than other careers because there’s no “work hard” option. That’s stupid. 4/10, below average.
Cemetery work was….fine? Very standard. 5/10. I can’t find anything to complain about, but I can’t find anything to praise.
The Daycare career….woof. I said I liked interaction in my game, and the Sims curled the monkey paw. This was bonkers. I actually enjoyed most of the career, when Winona was only watching toddlers. Sure, it was a little bit of micro management, but that’s what I like in my game! Excitement! Something to engage me! I never felt overwhelmed, when it was just toddlers. Winona had ten hours a day to watch after and befriend four toddlers, and I found it delightfully difficult.
Then came the children. And oh man. The children.
At level four of the daycare career (and probably level five, but I quit the career as soon as Winona peaked,) you get five younguns to look after. It’s either a combination of two toddlers and three kids, or three toddlers and two kids. Toddlers operate the same as normal, where you watch them from 9 am to about 6:30 pm, (the game says you work till 7, but the game is lying,) but kids show up at about 3:30, and you need to help them get their homework done, and help boost their mood.
I don’t know if any of you have tried to help a child do their homework and also be ecstatically happy within three hours, but it’s near impossible.
This is where I felt overwhelmed, and that’s where I draw the line. I play games to have fun, and when I feel overwhelmed, I’m not having fun. I see why this career is in the game, and I think that for real roleplaying Sims files, it would be a lot of fun, but if I didn’t have other household members, I don’t know how I would have ever maxed the career. Despite the original fun I had, the end made it so uncomfortable that I’m gonna give this a 1/10. I shouldn’t play through a career just to dread the upper levels of it.
Our household skills were Charisma and Logic. I’m gonna start with Logic, because it’s the easier one to talk about.
In my first ever (undocumented) Immortal Dynasty attempt, the second generation attempted to supermax logic. I had owned the game for about a month, got stuck on the chess challenges, and have successfully avoided a supermax ever since.
And like. It wasn’t that bad.
I’m sure part of this is because none of my opponents were proprietors, and two of my opponents were household members, (Phlox had to defeat Lulu and Winona both,) but while I did have trouble tracking down one or two of his opponents, the supermax as a whole was pretty painless. It was mostly a matter of setting Phlox in front of something, and waiting till he did it enough. (Which, hey, could be said for most of the skills.)
As a skill it feels….I dunno. Incomplete, somehow? I feel like there should have been a way to combine the “Science” and “Logic” skills. Logic feels basic, and not in the way that Athletics feels basic, where it feels like it’s elegant in its simplicity; Logic feels like they tried too hard to make ‘Logic’ a thing. (Stop trying to make fetch happen, EA. It’s never going to happen.) Two of the challenges are related to tutoring, just with children vs adults, and one of the challenges was only added with Generations. It feels like a skill they threw in because they wanted to have a “smartness measure” instead of it’s own skill, and on some level, I can understand that; we have things like the Law Enforcement careers, or the Emperor of Evil, where a more science-based skill would make less sense than a deduction (induction?) based one.
But this is my opinion, not a fair and balanced review! I’m gonna call Logic a 5/10. It’s nothing to write home about. It’s definitely base game material. 8/10 as a supermax, though; there’s enough variety here to keep you working for a while. (Though 3/5 challenges are mostly luck based…)
Now. Charisma.
Like I said before, I’ve never played with Charisma before. The list time I really played the Sims was in high school, when I wasn’t a very social person. I did a lot of Dynasty play back then, and I think I got all my Best Friends exclusively through elixirs. Playing with the skill has actually been really eye opening for me, because it’s made me, personally, form a bond with Dragon Valley. Like. I feel connected to this tiny virtual town, and these teeny little pixel people. Somehow, forming relationships (with non-family) just, I dunno, man. It makes it feel much more real. Like, there’s stakes, now.
Again, this is ONLY my opinion, so I’m allowed to wax a little bit
I’m gonna give Charisma a 7/10. It’s a very solid skill, I enjoyed it a lot, and it definitely enhances gameplay, (it also requires much more player interaction than Logic, so perhaps the contrast influenced my opinion,) but I don’t think that the game really rewards you for raising the skill. This is probably just me, (if you disagree, I’d love to hear why,) but “now you can make friends slightly faster” just doesn’t feel like enough of a reward for me. In fairness to EA, I don’t quite know what else a reward would be, but. I dunno. This feels like a lot of work for very little payoff, and as a supermax, I’d call it a 4/10. Those challenges were very, very difficult, and not in the way I like. Leveling the skill also took a million bajillion years, so I can’t say I would recommend it as a supermax. (Though, points for variety in the challenges. It did feel like I had to like, get better at jokes, so that I could make more friends, so that I could make more best friends, so that I could learn more about their traits; it felt like each challenge folded into another, whereas the Logic challenges felt like they didn’t connect at all.)
Anyway! Thank you all for listening to me ramble, and stay tuned for House Number Three!
