Bienvenue Redux (A Build A City Challenge): With Six You Get Eggroll 11 July

[reggikko]

Residents
The Founders and an intro of sorts.



Chapters
Round 1.1
Round 1.2
The New Neighbor
Six Toddlers, Two Romances, and a Wedding
With Six You Get Eggroll

[reggikko]

Gameplay Notes

Notes on Regions and Travel

[reggikko]

Reserved

[reggikko]

Reserved

[reggikko]

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[reggikko]

Reserved.

[reggikko]

Bienvenue! Well, I am a notorious re-starter. My plan is for Bienvenue to become a save that I play for a long time. I made some decisions in the set-up that I wasn't fully satisfied with--I can get impulsive and that always comes back to bite me--and it kept nagging at me so I decided it was better to restart early on than to continue on dissatisfied. So, I made a couple of small changes and, most importantly, I'm taking things even slower and thinking about how I want my Sims' stories to play out. I'm also going to try to do a better job with storytelling so that maybe I can enjoy the posting aspect, as well.

I'm still figuring out some player-imposed rules for my game and at some point I'll use one of my reserved posts to keep those all in one place. In game, I am in the middle of Round 2 so there will likely be a flurry of posts over the next week or so and then things should settle down a bit.

Now, let me introduce our founders!

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First, of course we have Rosa Lynx. She is still the de facto "leader" of the settlement.
Primary goals: Complete Friend of the World and Fabulously Wealthy. Reach the top of the Politics Career (Charity Organizer). Contribute Masterpiece paintings to the Museum. Max skills as needed to help open up careers.

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This time around, Rosa has a sister, Valerie Lynx. She might look familiar to some of you as she was the child Catalina adopted in my Power of 10 Dynasty. Alec isn't among our founders this time, but he is a townie and he just might come into play at some point.
Primary Goals: Complete Bestselling Author and Mansion Baron. Max Writing to open a spot in that career and Wellness to unlock the Spa.

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Juan Ramos is back, but his role is different.
Primary Goals: Complete Freelance Botanist to unlock Sulani, Max Gardening to unlock the Park, and Max Handiness to supply the Museum sculptures and unlock electricity.

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Gloria Ramos.
Primary Goals: Max Cooking and Gourmet Cooking to open a spot in the Culinary Career (Chef branch). Reach the top of the Culinary career to unlock restaurants. Max Baking to unlock the Cafe.

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Remy Chastain.
Primary goals: Max Charisma to open up a spot in the entertainer career. Reach the top of the Musician branch to unlock the Nightclub. Max Fishing to open a spot in the Science career.

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Sylvia Chastain.
Primary goals: Max painting to open a slot in the Painter career. Contribute Masterpiece paintings to the Museum.

[oshizu]

Best wishes with your newly-born Bienvenue!
I'm sorry to see Alec disappear from the founders' ranks but cross my fingers that he will become a bonafide settler in the near future.
It's actually a great time to restart because you can easily incorporate Evergreen Harbor into your gameplay next month.

I envy your sleek, streamline restart!  I shall, however, bumble along with my over-bloated Belmondo simverse.
But I'm taking a break to start my new households in Evergreen Harbor.  Part of me want to continue with Round 1.  Lol, I'm hopeless!

I'm excited by your mention of "a flurry of updates."  Your update standards are so high! (Mine are just favorite screenshots with silly comments....)
Looking forward to more about your new and improved Binevenue!

[MarianT]

Looking forward to more of this. I'm glad to see that Rosa is still running the show.

[reggikko]

Round 1 - Lynx

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Rosa and Valerie moved into the Tiny Haus lot by LenaMars_18. The house must have been built before Tiny Living and was too big for a true tiny house, so I did some slight modifications to the structure to turn it into a Tier 2 house. This time each starting family began on their own lots. I didn't find that there was much advantage to starting them together. Rosa was able to meet and befriend the others as they walked past the lot.

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Rosa and Valerie got started on their skills right away. Valerie is working on writing with the journal. I had her switch to reading skill books because it seemed faster and has the advantage of not having to be queued up constantly like the journal does. We need electricity before Valerie can have a computer.

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Rosa and Valerie get to work on throwing 5 gold medal parties which will unlock Townies. Since Rosa's primary aspiration is Friend of the World, she'll need to be able to interact with Townies to meet the friend requirement.

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For now, she works on making good friends with the other settlers. The resulting Pristine Reputation makes Gold medal parties a breeze.

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Night after night, party after party.

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Between the parties, there was lots of skilling.

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And yet more parties. Actually, I must have lost count at some point and they threw 6 parties in total: House, Incognito, Dinner, Spooky, Kava, and Keg.

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I always intended to split this household at some point after the first week. Toward the end of the week, Valerie developed a plan to move that process along when she saw Dela Ostrow walking by.

Valerie: Hi. Um. I really like your hair.
Dela: I really like your face. Maybe my hair and your face should get together sometime?

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Valerie: I'd like that. A lot. I'll call you.
Dela: You do that, gorgeous.


Summary:
Skills maxed: Charisma (Rosa), Painting (Rosa), and Wellness (Valerie).
Unlocks: Townies (5 Gold medal parties), Spa (Maxed Wellness), 1 position in Politics career for Rosa, 2 new CAS Sims (maxed charisma and unlocking a Community Lot).

Dela Ostrow created by Maxis. I put a lot of the Sims created for trailers and so forth into the game as Townies.

[oshizu]

Rosa and Valerie had such a productive week!  Way to go, ladies!
What a great house choice for that lot!  Love the patio views! (Hehe, their watcher truly loves that Adobe Agave lot.

Which trailer is Dela Ostrow from?  Her jacket looks rather Moschino, hah!
Looking forward to meeting the other two households!

[reggikko]

The Sims Wiki says Dela was part of the updated cover art, so I guess she wasn't in a trailer.

Rosa and Valerie started on on the Affluista Mansion lot, but then I moved them to Agave Abode. Yes, I love small lots!

[reggikko]

Some notes on travel and how I like to deal with the very different worlds.

Although I like having all of the games' worlds connected, there are times when it bugs me. Going to the StrangerVille bar and seeing Bella Goth there just doesn't seem right. There's not a whole lot I can do about Sims showing up far from home, but I've come up with a plan and I think not having the premades in this save will help.

First, I've divided the worlds into distinct regions, as follows:

Desert Region
Oasis Springs
StrangerVille
Del Sol Valley

River Region
Willow Creek
Newcrest
Magnolia Promenade

Harbor Region
Brindleton Bay
Evergreen Harbor

Old World Region
Windenburg
Forgotten Hollow
Glimmerbrook

Island Region
Sulani

University Region
Britechester

Capital Region
San Myshuno (Which includes Windenburg Modern District)

Sims may travel freely in their own region. Travel to other regions will have destination fees:
$1500 for the first Sim/$500 for each additional Sim, teen and older.
Children and toddlers travel free with an adult.
Hardship cases and elders may apply for reduced fees.

Overnight accomodations:
Campground: free for all Sims
Hotel: $500-$1000 per night per room.

Sims may elect to stay with family or friends if the other family can accommodate them. *Must be at least Good Friends or Sweethearts.
Sims may also elect to "buy" a vacation home (generic community lot). They must pay property taxes on both residences. If Sims own a vacation home, they may lend or rent it out to other Sims.

Some additional rules concerning walkbys. A Sim may only interact with a Sim from another region if on a Community lot, or when visiting the other Sim's region. Example: Don Lothario lives in Oasis Springs. One day he sees Bella Goth walk by his home. He cannot go and introduce himself. If he sees her at the gym, it is assumed she is vacationing in Oasis Springs and Don is free to chat her up. If Don is the playable Sim and he is visiting Willow Creek, he can meet Bella anywhere except he cannot just go and knock on her door. That's just creepy. Additionally, if Don and Bella both find themselves in San Myshuno at the Spice Festival, they are free to meet. Of course, if they want to visit each other later, the above travel restrictions apply.

[oshizu]

What a fascinating, complex system!
Can't wait to see how it plays out in Bienvenue!
I secretly hope Evergreen Harbor's weather is warmer than that of Brindleton Bay...

[reggikko]

Round 1.2

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Juan and Gloria Ramos moved into the Mojito Starter by jenba (silrosse on the Gallery).

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In no time at all, Gloria had big news to share.

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Juan gets started on his garden. He'll also be working on Handiness to unlock electricity.

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And Gloria works on her cooking skill. She will be entering the Culinary career.

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Little Diego (v.2) became a Silly toddler.

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Since the Lynxes are the only family living in a tiny house, the neighbors sometimes take advantage of the skill boost there.

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It may look like Remy is just doing what he likes best, but he's actually working hard to max his Charisma skill. Valerie approves.

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Since Rosa has already maxed the Painting skill, she mentors Sylvia. Foreshadowing alert: Who's that walking by?

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See how much Rosa enjoys mentoring? And it appears that Gloria wasn't the only one with big news.

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I'll leave off with this. Who is the mysterious new neighbor with the quirky decorating style? Find out in the next installment.
The lot is a modified version of Container 1 by oshizu.