2023 Challenge Tournament Simology Finale

[Metropolis Man]

My little group of sims ended up with 583 points.

What a great adventure! Many things I did in game for the first time 
It's nice that we can continue it with the dynasty!

And look at you...you'll be in the Dynasty Hall of Fame with your 500+ score! Congrats.

[Metropolis Man]

All done. I played as much as I could today but could not go the entire five weeks of Sim time. There is too much else going on in RL. Like Elinoee, I experienced a few things in this playthrough I had not done before, so it was fun seeing new animations, etc.

Final score = 455 points.

[Vesper]

sorry that I'm unable to submit a score for the finale

Best of luck to everyone, some impressive scores already

[Metropolis Man]

sorry that I'm unable to submit a score for the finale

Best of luck to everyone, some impressive scores already

Oh, no. I hope all is well with you. You had a truly fantastic season.

[LenaLJ]

At half the game time, real time if running from me. So sadly its just 378 points.

I discovered how much stuff i have been missing out on in sims by not playing much this year. So had it not been for to much work all of october i would have loved to complete this challenge.

[Nandarelle]

578 points for me.

[Eighty8Keys]

Real life got in the way and I haven't been able to play for the last two weeks, so I'm stopping at 3.5 weeks.

Total score is 272.

[CynKuy]

Real life with me too, but I'm glad I got to participate in the last one. Final score 321 points.

[mismck]

Real life is hard! I got to play one afternoon over the last 6 weeks. My very pathetic score is 16.

[sone]

Alright, I fought the lag and...well, the lag sort of won. But I went through the lists fairly decently, and I hope I didn't miss anything.

Perfect 10 +(10), fabulous 15 +(15), 92 traits (+92), 76 milestones (+228), 1 death (-15), and museum points (+9) for a total score of: 339.

[Metropolis Man]

So, that's a wrap, everyone. Special kudos go out to Elinoee for winning the Finale. The 2023 Tournament season is officially closed. After making this post, I will update the world ranking again to determine prizes.

This season was a hit, I feel. Participation was better than in previous seasons. It's still not comparable to the old Sims 3 days, but the format change of going with a straightforward one-week event to kick off each month seemed a good move. We'll continue that in 2024. I'll be talking to the team in a couple of weeks to flesh out initial ideas for 2024, and one thought I had was to make the month's first event even less time-consuming for participants...like needing to play only two or three Sim days. And each month's second, more extended event could be just one week of Sim time.

If you have suggestions for the team, we would love your feedback. What did you like about 2023? What things would you like to see changed?

Thanks so much, everyone. A special thank you to all participants. And an extra special thanks to my fantastic team, @sone, @Teresa, and @mismck.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season. Stay safe, and we shall see you soon at the beginning of 2024. I will post the first rule sets at the end of December.

[Elinoee]

I had much fun doing the tournament challenges this year, even if I didn't begin very early! I will try to be more diligent in 2024, beginning in January.

I thank all the team for their imagination and for making us have such a good time playing sims 
I particularly liked the gardening challenge in April : it really was the one that make me want to participate again to the forum’s challenges afeter a long break.
The infants one was very fun to me too, and the finale !
I really love that you invent such a variety of challenges that make us explore so many different aspects of the game. Each challenge is unique ans that's great !

If someone is interested in, here was my strategy for the finale:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I first mostly focused mys strategy on milestones because each gave us 3 points.
I then thought about the traits, especially those we can earn by completing aspirations and other means : careers, inherited, and some that required specific things to do in game.
The reward traits (bought with satisfaction points) were all easy to get with a 8 sims household, and I also paid attention to the personality traits, so that each sims had completely different traits, and got different « learning traits » when it was possible.
To get more personality traits I made them buy re-traiting potions, and finally got every possible in-CAS traits with my sims.
 
I began with a mermaid and vampire so that I got the milestones « manifested as a mermaid » and « manifested as a vampire » on day 1. I put them in a haunted mansion and so got the milestone 7 days later.
My two founders started to romance and then marry, and that gave them a few milestones.
(Later on, they both cheated on each other and divorced, which gave them a few other milestones!)

I made the mermaid become a human (another milestone then), and then a spellcaster (milestone again). She finally completed the two spellcaster aspirations (plus the leader of the pack and freelance botanist ones) and got a biology degree, for the milestone and in order to max the doctor and biology career for the bonus traits.
She resurrected a sim and became immortal thanks to her spellcaster powers.

The vampire completed the 3 vampire aspirations (plus the painter extraordinaire and fabulously wealthy ones).
The founders easily got the « perfect 10 » and « fabulous 15 » bonuses, completing the points they had by buying reward traits with satisfaction points.

I made them adopt a cat for the milestone (and sold it to make room), and two horses to get the milestones « witness the birth of a foal » and « won first horse competition » (I didn’t try to get the « place in the ultimate horse championship » because I wanted to get rid of all the horses to make room for sims).

Rory Oaklow moved in, because of the «manifested as a werewolf » milestone and the « leader of the wildfangs » trait. I expected her to beat Greg to get the milestone, and it works after I trained her a little  to get level 10 of fitness (she already was level 9). She managed to complete 3 of the werwolf aspirations (and the bodybuilder, curator and super parent ones). I also wanted her to have children with the specific werewolves traits but it didn’t work.
She had twins with Lou Howell but none of the boys had one of the 2 possible herited traits.

When babies were born, I completely focused on them to get all the infant milestones. I missed the « learned to wave » one (tried to get it with a third baby later on -son of my mermaid/spellcaster and Father Winter - but didn’t manage).
They got all the toddlers milestones and some of children ones, but impossible to have one of the three children lose a tooth nor have a childhood phase despite the fact I didn’t age them up early, which was very frustrating. Nor did they « began puberty » when they were teenagers, which I found a bit strange.
They completed all the children aspirations but none of the teenager ones because I wanted them to become young adults in order to get some traits before the end of the challenge.
They also got character values reward traits when growing up (all the positive ones but none of the negatives).

I moved Judith Ward in because I wanted her money and her house ! All the members of the household completed the « mansion baron » aspiration thanks to her. I also expected her to complete the worl famous celebrity aspiration (which works) and the master actor one (which didn’t because she was unable to get a celebrity tile to place in Sunlight Boulevard… (she already had one placed at the beginning of the game!).
She completed the « chief of mischief » aspiration then.

After Judith Ward, the last to move in was Kado Akiyama, because of his climbing abilities and his salaryman career. I got the milestone and traits related to Mt Komorebi thanks to him.
He also completed the nerd brain aspiration and discovered the forgotten grotto.
Thanks to his career, he got 2 specific traits : legendary stamina and charismatic crooner (and got the «first time burning out» milestone! He also got the retired milestone as I aged him up early)
I finally killed his poor wife Jenna in a cold swimming pool to have him get the widowed milestone.

One of Rory’s twins was dropped out of high school and then get the milestone, plus a trait that is not in the spreadsheet : « drop out of high school » (he kept this trait even after his young adult birthday). Later on, he got the trait «earned online high school diploma » by working on computer to get his graduation, and this trait is also not on the spreadsheet.

Nobody died or moved out  because -15 points is a big penalty. I think it is hard to get more than 15 points by moving in another sim but I will think about it a bit more for my dynasty.

I finally got 345 points with the milestones. I did not get adopted a new family member, born, began puberty,childhood phase, defeated the mother plant (I will work on that later on!), died, expelled from high school, finchwick fair winner (I tried two times but only got the second place),got laid off, graduated from high school (maybe my new young adults will get the milestone by receiving their diploma in mailbox ? I don’t know yet), had a mid-life crisis, learned to wave, lost first tooth,placed in the ultimate hors championship, proposal rejected (I tried so hard to be rejected with all of my sims but it never worked!), saved from death (too risky) and won the lottery.
I got all the other milestones, so I think that for the dynasty I could get maybe 3 more with my sims but no more than that if I don’t move anybody from the household (which would make me lose points).

I got 181 points with the traits and 32 with the museum.
Three of my sims went to Selvadorada (each separately so that they don’t have any help) to get a Omniscan treasure worth 9000 -10000 each.
Judith Ward was an « affizionado » (level 5 of juice fizzing) so she made a masterpiece of dragonfruit juice worth 6000, and the others made paintings.
I wanted all of them to go to Selvadorada find a treasure but didn’t have enough time.

I'd really like to read other player's strategies, especially @Nandarelle 's one!

And look at you...you'll be in the Dynasty Hall of Fame with your 500+ score! Congrats.

You're right @Metropolis Man , already in the Dynasty Hall of Fame, wow 
I will try to play the 5 more weeks to improve my score!

[Metropolis Man]

Fantastic writeup, Elinoee. Very detailed. Thanks so much for that.

[Nandarelle]

My thanks the challenge team for another good one, and the tournament as a whole as well.
This challenge was a strange mix of order (or an attempt to it at least, in spreadsheets) and utter chaos (of course my spellcaster is going to adopt a horse and seduce Father Winter!), which I really enjoyed.

Congratulations to Elinoee! When you posted your score, it seemed unattainably high. I did end up getting close in the end, but not quite there.

Did anyone notice the time I posted my score? It was a whole ...ahem... 10 seconds to midnight. I knew I was cutting it close, but I didn't realise I was cutting it that close.
I played almost the entire time, but had to stop on Friday of week 5, and my Sims missed their trip to Selvadorado.

Point breakdown:
Bonus: 25
Traits: 160
Milestones: 327 (109 milestones)
Museum: 66
Deaths / moveouts: 0

I started with two human Sims, Anna and Valentijn, who remained friends and roommates until the very end, when Valentijn used Anna to finish his serial romantic aspiration.
In the first week, Anna became a spellcaster and got pregnant from Father Winter, and Valentijn defeated Strangerville's Motherplant and climbed Mt Komorebi (not fully to the top, but it was enough to get the milestone). They also settled in a tiny house in Strangerville, and adopted a dog and two horses (who got a foal). The dog and the (grown-up) foal stayed in the household arguably a little too long.
Anna married and later divorced Father Winter which gave her a few milestones, and with some other things, it was enough for both of them to get their starter bonuses.

Anna had three kids:
Jesper: Father Winter's baby, weak bloodline. He got lots of infant milestones. But I still missed 8 of them. Maybe Elinoee has some pointers to get more infant milestones on normal lifespan, but I just couldn't get to the more advanced ones. He also got toddler milestones, became a top-notch infant & toddler, and got all 5 of the positive parenthood traits.
Roos: Darrel Charm's daughter, so she could get ancient bloodline, and have family to visit as an infant. She wasn't treated very well, and became an unhappy infant. Toddler-time was a little better; she was a happy toddler. But then she got low self esteem and grew up with two negative parenthood traits and as a high school dropout.
Maud: was adopted (which gives 3 milestones: 'born' 'adopted' and 'adopted family member' for the parent). I tried again with her for the infant milestones. Other than that she didn't get any special treatment - positive or negative.
Between the thee of them, the kids completed all childhood aspirations, but no teen ones.

Vlad also joined the family, and completed the vampire aspirations (except Good Vampire, which was buggy). He also earned a degree and completed the academic and music aspirations.
Valentijn became a werewolf and completed the initial werewolf aspiration.
Anna used her spellcrafting powers to invite Jacques Villareal, who died of old age, to join the household. This also gave the 'Saved from death' and 'Resurrected another Sim' milestones. (I misunderstood these milestones at first.) He did the public enemy aspiration, and then retired.
Valentijn had a relationship with Judith Ward. After she had aged up to elder, she tragically overexerted herself and died. She was also brought back by Anna and joined the household. In week 5, they moved first to Evergreen Harbor, because that's the only way to complete the Eco Innovator aspiration and then to Judith's house in Del Sol Valley.
Judith became a mermaid. Maud became a plantSim. Vlad manifested as non-occult by curing his vampirism.

Other than that, everyone mostly worked on aspirations. (Some fruitlessly, such as the Animal lover one). Like Elinoee, I paid attention not to overlap the CAS traits.
Sidenote on that: I picked 'loyal' for Anna, since that is not a common trait among townies, and I usually see it as a positive trait. However, she then felt too guilty to be able to get the 'Had an affair' milestone. Valentijn had to do that later.

For the museum, 5 household member separately joined a klepto club and stole one of the computer-like machines from the University. The kids later gave Incognito parties and got the playground reward.

[Elinoee]

Love your strategy @Nandarelle , especially how you organized it with the kids.
Was not sure it was ok to steal things for the museum, so I didn't. But sure, I should have think about the incognito party rewards!
You had a great score with your museum!

Concerning the infants, as Rory Oaklow had twins, one of them was focused only on the gross motor milestones and the other only on the fine motor milestones.
The social ones were shared between the two babies, and the "firsts" too.
I focused on the few milestones they didn't get with my third infant, son of my spellcaster (who also seduced Father Winter and got horses, as yours  )

Can't imagine Judith Ward as a mermaid...lol!  In my game she became a plantsim 

I din't know you could the "resurrected another sim" milestone by saving someone from death. That's interesting! I got it using the Dedeathify spell.