So, first of all, I started by assembling an Excel spreadsheet with all the careers and their levels, and counted the amount of awards each level gives. Then I made a pivot table to see the totals and arranged it by descending order. My goal was 2 full careers for each sim, plus a few more levels for each of them where possible. It was quite a surprise to learn that some careers give zero ‘physical’ rewards or only a couple. Most of the careers give six to thirteen… but the amazing one is the Detective career which gives (drumroll) 54!!! Too bad that it’s an ‘active’ one, I thought. But I decided to give it a try in the practice run.
Then, as usual, I examined my long-existing Excel spreadsheet with all townies’ info to choose the best townies. This time, I couldn’t take Elders, so I skipped Jacques Villareal even though he’s a level 9 Criminal, and initially chose Lily Feng (Business - Management 9), Baako Jang (Entertainer – Comedian 9)*Anaya Jang (Painter – Master of the Real 9)*, Penny Pizzass (Social media – Internet Personality 8 ), Raj Rasoya (Culinary – Chef 7) and Octavia Moon (Writer – Author 6). There are more townies with levels 8 or 9, but these are the careers that give very few rewards.
*yes, they have a child daughter, but I came to their place and gave her a birthday cake so she could become a teen and stay alone – I asked about the cake beforehand and was allowed to use it.
Then I tried to do a practice run, but soon realized that the active career of the Detective is just impossible. Not only the active career ruins all the others sims’ work performance when you ‘accompany’ your detective at work, but also it’s too hard to get a promotion at, because they just don’t give you the full task of catching the crime every day, and you need these closed cases count for the promotion. After more than a week, my detective sim only got one promotion (maybe the fact that it was actually my very first time of playing as a detective played its role too, but still). So I thought I have to give up on this strategy… but then I got an eureka moment
When you play as a detective, the game generates you some colleagues, one of which is a boss. I thought that a boss should logically have a high level in the career, so I tried to befriend him and invite him to live together (I had to remove one sim from my household, but it was still in my practice run). And it turned out that the boss is level 10, and I instantly got all 54 rewards!!!
So, in my real game run, I decided to skip Penny Pizzass, because she had to get 25 million followers from zero, and it took too long, wasting precious days. Instead, I started with only 7 sims and waited for one of my aliens to go to work as a detective. There could be a problem though if a game generated an Elder boss, but I got lucky – there was a YA one, a perfectly young strong man named Karim Jawad! So I befriended him and invited him to our household, and the Detective career was done in a second
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As for the basic gameplay process, there isn’t anything special. It’s just a routine where you just have to be very slow and concentrated. For the best possible work performance, I used the following:
- I made all my 8 sims have a spouse from their household. The Aliens, Alf and Proxima Centaura, were already created married, as well as Anaya and Baako Jang; Raj married Lily who had to dump her Victor (and both Lily and Raj are Unflirty so I had to buy them a potion from the rewards store which allows you to choose other traits – it costs 5000 satisfaction points so it was quite hard to do because it had to be done fast). Octavia had to wait a couple of days before Karim arrived, then she dumped her Thorne and married Karim. Everyone bought the Great Kisser reward (with the help of the Soulmate aspiration that goes along with all that stuff well), and leveled Charisma to level 10 so they could ask for bonus. I started using this opportunity only at careers level 7 and up because levels 4-6 are doable without the bonus. I also watched the calendar wisely, taking into account that sometimes the schedule differs within two career levels, and it’s useless to use a bonus if you get a day off afterwards, but you have a working day if you don’t promote – it’s easier than just to go to work twice in a row and get promoted naturally.
- Everyone always went to work in a “very” mood that would last for the whole shift – I mainly used the Massage table and various aromatherapy massages for that. Also they drank a mood potion just before the shift. I only had difficulties with Baako Jang because he worked in careers requiring the Playful mood which has no potion, and can also result in dying from hysteria – and the catch is that he HAD to be hysterical to get enough work performance. But he survived, tough guy
- I also used the Crystal crown with a hematite crystal, making them all wear one just before going to work. And I bought them a new crystal for every new day, so they always had a fresh and powerful one.
- After about a week, they all naturally got the Workaholic lifestyle (from the Snowy Escape expansion). But I’m still not sure how helpful it is – I have a feeling that it does nothing. Maybe I’m wrong though.
- Of course, everyone had Connections and Entrepreneurial rewards.
- At the free time, they all leveled Programming and used Hack work performance if really needed.
- Some sims had some Fame (Octavia is level 3 from the beginning, and some others got fame when working via chance cards/social media account/etc.). If they had at least level 1 and a half, I made them paint, then sold the paintings while wearing a crystal crown with a Diamond that doubles fame, and got them to level 3. At this level, you can buy a perk that allows you to donate items for fame. They then donated a bunch of expensive computers and within a few sim minutes got up to level 5 fame, which, in its turn, gives a work performance boost if you choose a corresponding perk.
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In total, here are my 8 sims and the careers they capped:
Alf Centaura (first Alien): Military – Covet Operator, then Secret Agent – Diamond Agent
Proxima Centaura (second Alien): Detective (quit immediately after inviting the boss), then Tech Guru – eSports Gamer, then Engineer – Computer Engineer
Lily Feng: Business – Management, then Criminal – Oracle, then Athlete – Pro Athlete (in the very last day!)
Anaya Jang: Painter – Master of the Real, then Gardener – Florist
Baako Jang: Entertainer – Comedian, then Social Media – Internet Personality
Octavia Moon: Writer – Author, then Style Influencer – Stylist
Raj Rasoya: Culinary – Chef (and that’s it for him -_- I was stupid enough to choose Doctor as his second career, and then realized I can’t get promotions without accompanying him for the whole shift that would cost me all the other sims’ promotions on that day. So he only got promoted once in two weeks)
Karim Jawad: Detective (instantly), then Astronaut - Interstellar Smuggler
Most of the sims also started a third career, but I don’t think it matters much who had which because they all could take any career at that point, I just chose by schedule. And last but not least, just before the end of the game, Octavia started and quit all the previously untouched careers to get some low-level rewards.
