Nuts for Collections

[Teresa]

Thanks @Metropolis Man.  I have found over the years that it is the easiest way for me to track my thought process and approach for all kinds of challenges and legacies.

I have always enjoyed collecting in game, but when put on a short clock I realized that it is a lot easier when you have the whole lifespan or even several generations to get things done.  And of course, I didn't do any practicing, because I 'knew what I was doing".  Ha!

Collections Completed
Postcards - I had Nanabeth make all the pen pal friends and send the letter.  Once they were all ready, she requested a post card from everyone and they all came in the mail the same day.
Microscope Prints - Novaleah was working on this one, and she spent a lot of time here while Nanabeth was working on the rocket.
Space Rocks - Nanabeth ran space missions until she completed this collection.
Geodes - Once she mastered Rocket Science, she made a couple of trips to Sixam to collect these.  The collection completed quickly, and then she made a few more trips for aliens and picked up more duplicates to sell.
Decorative Eggs - The first thing they did was create a holiday for the Egg Hunt, then they went to the park to collect eggs.  Another good one with lots of duplicates to sell.
Voidcritter Cards - I wasn't sure that this one would be completed, as the last few cards can be ornery.  But it was, so that was good.
Holiday Plushies - Nanabeth bought crackers and was able to complete this one also.
Frogs (+Knight) - The one missing frog that they never could find was the Heart.  Literally a common frog and they never, ever, found one.
Elements (+Knight) - I knew pretty early that they weren't going to complete the crystals and metals, but the elements was a possibility.  They sent off all duplicates to be broken into elements and came up one short at the end.
Aliens (+Knight) - Another collection where they were missing just one.  This was from the space missions, and the reason Novaleah was an alien - duplicate dead aliens could be brought back to life.  Unfortunately, they never found the missing alien.

After I submitted my score, I realized that I could have completed three more collections - I limited myself to only completing collections that were missing one item.  I still would have had a positive gain on points if I had completed collections missing two items.  They had enough funds to purchase three more knights, but I thought about this too late so would have had to find duplicates to sell to afford more knights, but whatever. LOL

I started in Sulani on the Oceanic Paradise lot to help with fishing.  It wasn't until late in the process that I realized the lot trait wasn't doing anything for the fishing since they were leaving the lot to fish.

While I had them work on aspirations, I didn't put a lot of pressure on them, having them complete the easier ones only.

@LenaLJ -I loved this challenge and had a lot of fun with it. 

[Sruixan]

After I submitted my score, I realized that I could have completed three more collections - I limited myself to only completing collections that were missing one item.  I still would have had a positive gain on points if I had completed collections missing two items.

Wait... we could do that?! I was working under the apprehension that knights could only replace the last item missing from a collection... and even if I didn't change the bit at the end where Milo blew §10,000+ on Voidcritters in a failed attempt to get Dicoatl and used the cash to buy rare seed packets instead, my fossil collection was at 18/20...

[Teresa]

After I submitted my score, I realized that I could have completed three more collections - I limited myself to only completing collections that were missing one item.  I still would have had a positive gain on points if I had completed collections missing two items.

Wait... we could do that?! I was working under the apprehension that knights could only replace the last item missing from a collection... and even if I didn't change the bit at the end where Milo blew §10,000+ on Voidcritters in a failed attempt to get Dicoatl and used the cash to buy rare seed packets instead, my fossil collection was at 18/20...

Maybe we couldn't.  It was something that I thought of after submitting my score, so I never asked.

[Sruixan]

Though I don't have the time right now to drop strategy deets, I have assembled this summary of my efforts:

Completed Collections
DECORATIVE EGGS - Tuesday Week 1, 12:57am
FROGS - Sunday Week 2, 7:28am
SNOW GLOBES - Sunday Week 2, 4:52pm
MYSIMS TROPHIES - Sunday Week 2, 5:58pm
POSTCARDS - Thursday Week 2, 4:00am
SPACE ROCKS - Thursday Week 2, 6:25am
HOLIDAY CRACKER PLUSHIES -Thursday Week 2, 2:47pm
CRYSTALS - Saturday Week 2, 3:43am
FEATHERS - Saturday Week 2, 7:15pm
EXPERIMENTAL FOOD PHOTOS - Sunday Week 3, 4:02am

Collections Finished With Knights
GEODES (Eye of the Stormbore)
SPACE PRINTS (Saturn Return)
METALS (Furium)
ELEMENTS (Firaxium)
SEASHELLS (Blue Sea Urchin)
MAGIC BEANS (Flirty)
VOIDCRITTERS (Dicoatl)

Others
FOSSILS - 18/20 (Sim Head & 3-Toed Sloth)
GARDENING - 69/73 (Pomegranate, Orchid, UFO & Forbidden Fruit)
ANCIENT OMISCAN ARTEFACTS - 10/16
BURIED TREASURE - 12/18
FISH - 34/51
...plus nine insects, three aliens, a couple of magical artefacts and a sugar skull.

And now, for my first-ever usage of this Highslide thumbnail thingy, the collections in all their (hastily arranged) glory:





(...so, uh, funny story - during challenge play, I arranged my collections on and around the longer wall in the images (though I kept the elements and space prints around for their Focused auras), and though everything was on display the moment the challenge ended, I've just been in the file again to tidy it up for these pics. I waited for a little bit in the hopes that the late-morning shadows wouldn't be quite as dire as they were at the 8am cut-off (they weren't), during which time Eden and Milo's cowplant finally grew. That would have been two more aspiration tiers right there...)

[GlazeyLady]

After I submitted my score, I realized that I could have completed three more collections - I limited myself to only completing collections that were missing one item.  I still would have had a positive gain on points if I had completed collections missing two items.

Wait... we could do that?! I was working under the apprehension that knights could only replace the last item missing from a collection... and even if I didn't change the bit at the end where Milo blew §10,000+ on Voidcritters in a failed attempt to get Dicoatl and used the cash to buy rare seed packets instead, my fossil collection was at 18/20...

Yes, you could use more than one knight on a collection - in fact, the example provided says, ". . .  also bought 2 Knight of the Octagon Table to finish one of the collections".

[Sruixan]

Ah, botherations. I absolutely would have changed my strategy in that case; my assumption was that too much replacement would turn this into a moneymaking challenge as opposed to a collecting one (what would stop you from using four knights to satisfy the Space Rocks, for instance?) and took talk of the "last item" of a collection in the rules to mean precisely that. I'm on my phone right now so I can't provide a proper quote from the initial post, but this is the line I based this interpretation on:

To counter that some people are very unlucky in getting the last item in a collection, you can buy a Knight of the Octagon Table as a replacement, but you have to deduct 5 points for each Knight.

Serves me right for not referring to the scoring example, I suppose...

[Metropolis Man]

After I submitted my score, I realized that I could have completed three more collections - I limited myself to only completing collections that were missing one item.  I still would have had a positive gain on points if I had completed collections missing two items.

Wait... we could do that?! I was working under the apprehension that knights could only replace the last item missing from a collection.

And you are correct...

• To counter that some people are very unlucky in getting the last item in a collection, you can buy a Knight of the Octagon Table as a replacement, but you have to deduct 5 points for each Knight.

Hindsight is always 20/20, so we could have made it more explicit by stating you may only purchase a Knight if you miss one collection item.

[GlazeyLady]

After I submitted my score, I realized that I could have completed three more collections - I limited myself to only completing collections that were missing one item.  I still would have had a positive gain on points if I had completed collections missing two items.

Wait... we could do that?! I was working under the apprehension that knights could only replace the last item missing from a collection.

And you are correct...

• To counter that some people are very unlucky in getting the last item in a collection, you can buy a Knight of the Octagon Table as a replacement, but you have to deduct 5 points for each Knight.

Hindsight is always 20/20, so we could have made it more explicit by stating you may only purchase a Knight if you miss one collection item.

Hey @Metropolis Man, I answered previously (but after the challenge ended) that it was within the rules to use more than 1 Knight for a collection; in fact I did that myself.  I was actually going to ask Lena while I was playing the challenge, but in rereading the rules and scoring, I saw that the example provided indicates that is allowed - the scoring example includes "It's week 3, Day 1, a.m., so it's time to stop playing. At that point, you have completed the Crystals, Elements, Metals, MySimTrophies, and Postcard collections (again, do not mention specific collection names when posting).But also bought 2 Knight of the Octagon Table to finish one of the collections.  You have also finished 3 Nature Aspirations (12 components) and 2 components of the remaining Aspiration."

Also, the spreadsheet provides a place to indicate the number of Knights for each collection.

Maybe @Lena can weigh in on this since it was her challenge, but I feel like the scoring example and the spreadsheet both indicate that multiple Knights could be used on one collection.

[LenaLJ]

My plan was that you could use more than one knight in a collection, that is why i tried to hard to limit the gold income by only gaining from selling duplicate items.

[Elinoee]

Oh,I really thought that we could only replace the last item of a collection,as it is said in the rules.
If I had knew before that we could buy more than one knight of the octagon I could have completed more collections (I had some money left!)
And I would have play with another strategy,too.

[Nikitachi]

Dear challenge team and players, I have a very important message.
While writing my strategy in detail, I found a mistake in my score. Due to the fact that the game highlights a completed collection after you find all the base game items, I wrongly added myself an extra collection - I collected all the base game fossils, but didn't find 3 of 5 Selvadorian ones, but when counting the completed collections, I just counted the highlights, so skipped this fact.
So my real score is only 4,710, and I am not the winner actually.
My deepest apologies to the real winner - @Sruixan - and to @Metropolis Man for having to recalculate the World Ranking now 
Hope it won't take too much time to fix.

And now onto my strategy.

I mostly used @GlazeyLady 's strategy of the '2018 Tournament Finale: That Belongs in a Museum!' event.

First things first: I decided to play with two Spellcasters, for a number of reasons. A - it saves some time for the Purveyor of Potions aspiration (you don't need to spend time turning into a spellcaster, as you already are one). B - the Potion of Plentiful Needs is very easy to make a whole batch of, and it will fulfill all your needs quickly each time you need it. And finally C - the most important one - the brooms let you move much, MUCH faster than walking/running which saves A TON of time when you're running around for dig sites and any other means.

Next, onto the collections. After quite a lot of practice, I decided to give up on Gardening and Fishing collections - I have all extensions installed, so they are now too large and very hard to complete, especially the Fishing one. I could maybe still finish Gardening if I had more simoleons available at the end of the game, but I didn't - my main source of income was growing and harvesting Lilies, but having too many plants on a lot makes my game too laggy - and it only got worse after the September 6 game upgrade (and the funny thing is, I played my whole game on the very last day, which was September 6). Which also brings me to one more point to mention... did they change the work of Flea Market in this upgrade? Before, I could buy all 15 Snowglobes at once, and all MySim trophies - now they displayed only 13 Snowglobes, and also less MySim trophies than usual 

So, what collections did I finish and how did I do it?

• Frogs - gathering them mostly at the home lot, then breeding accordingly.
• MySim trophies - dig sites, Flea Market.
• Metals - dig sites, Flea Market, Selvadorada (two), and used 3 Knights (the funniest thing is that the missing ones were two common and one uncommon).
• Crystals - dig sites, Flea Market, computer, planet Sixam (two), Selvadorada (two).
• Elements - sending extra Crystals and Metals to Geo Council.
• Postcards - computer.
• Aliens - Rocket (spent way too much time trying to find the last one - finally found it, but I should have just used another Knight).
• Meteorites - Rocket (same as above, but still failed to find the rarest one, so wasted time and still had to use a Knight).
• Geodes - Sixam.
• Easter Eggs - made a holiday and searched the bushes in the Willow Creek park.
• Experimental food photos - bought a Chef station and kept hiring a chef to cook them. Took quite a lot of money, since the game was lagging and I usually only managed to get one dish, or two at the very best, from one hiring.
• Voidcritters - buying cards from the computer (again, spent a ton of money trying to find the last one, probably should have just used a Knight).
• Plushies from holiday crackers - bought from computer and opened.
• Magic Beans - rare seed packs from the computer.
• Feathers - didn't adopt any cats, just used a lot trait that attracts cats, placed 6 bushes onto a lot and let the stray cats come and attack them, then just gathered the feathers; after finishing the collection, just removed the lot trait.
• Snowglobes - bought 13 of 15 at the Flea Market and used 2 Knights.

Total: 16 collections, 6 Knights.

And finally, the Aspirations' milestones (both sims completed exactly the same milestones, so multiply by two):

• Outdoor Enthusiast - 3 of 4 (didn't want to spend time sleeping in a tent)
• The Curator - 4 of 4 (this one was the first to be completed for the bonus trait)
• Freelance Botanist - 3 of 4 (failed to evolve 10 Excellent Plants, even with GlazeyLady's guide)
• Eco Innovator Aspiration - 1 of 4 (milestone 2 and above were prohibited due to profit gain)
• Angling Ace - 4 of 4 (straightforward).
• Purveyor of Potions - 3 of 4 (didn't want to waste time on the final one)
• Jungle Explorer - 2 of 4 (failed to defend against 2 natural dangers)

Total: 20x2=40

The picture of my collections will be posted later, thank you for your patience!

[Metropolis Man]

Dear challenge team and players, I have a very important message.
While writing my strategy in detail, I found a mistake in my score. Due to the fact that the game highlights a completed collection after you find all the base game items, I wrongly added myself an extra collection - I collected all the base game fossils, but didn't find 3 of 5 Selvadorian ones, but when counting the completed collections, I just counted the highlights, so skipped this fact.
So my real score is only 4,710, and I am not the winner actually.
My deepest apologies to the real winner - @Sruixan - and to @Metropolis Man for having to recalculate the World Ranking now 
Hope it won't take too much time to fix.

No worries, Nikitachi. Thank you for your honesty.

[Turoskel]

Reading your post Nikitachi makes me sort of glad I only have the base game but the Spellcaster stuff sounds helpful.

I made a married couple, Maria and Walter, and used the empty lot near the Goth house.

Maria was the main collector, each day she ran the circuit around the neighbourhood, and also hopping from one neighbourhood to the next collecting all the dig spots/frogs while Walter worked on handiness at home (it didn't really help him much, it's very slow)

Walter concentrated on gardening and building handiness, they swapped roles briefly only to get some of the aspirations milestones done.

When at home they worked on the prints and plushies, Maria did the postcards, and they both did fishing.

I built the rocket about the middle of week two, I knew what missions I wanted so if it wasn't one of those I just cancelled it.

Comm Alert - Moon Colony - Warn Planet - Get an Alien.

Lost in A Nebula - Forge Forward - If lucky find a Golden Planet and get up to 3 items, if not nothing.

A sighting - the chance of a space rock.

A Lush Planet - Land near ruins - leave artifacts - get a rock.

Accidental bootlegger - hide cargo - this might get you a rock or if lucky a ufo plant which is how I got mine and completed the gardening collection.

Derelict Vessel - Geology Lab/Science Lab - Keep Looking - geology gives a space rock, science gives an alien.

By the middle of week 3 when all I had left to find were some aliens, crystals and elements I made a second rocket and they both started doing missions, mostly on speed 3 which proved a mistake as my cowplant had bugged out and turned into a sprout thanks to the gardening bug, I couldn't see it but apparently Maria could and she ate his invisible cake before I could stop her so that was fun  I put him in family inventory after that just to be safe.

Collections Completed:

Frogs
Gardening
My Sims
Postcards
Fossils
Microscope Prints
Space Prints
Space Rocks
Fish
Plushies
Magic Beans
Crystals ( 4 knights)
Elements (2 Knights)
Aliens (1 Knight)


Aspirations:
 
The Collector - Done
Angling Ace - Done
Freelance Botanist (3 of 4)

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