This is the not-so-epic-tale of my Sim, Katrina Holmes, and her efforts to finish the
Centurian Challenge.
This may be a bad place for this; quite frankly (possibly much to Pam's horror) I plan on making the majority of these posts analyses of what happened rather than pure story. But I will mix in a bit of story, for TS3 is a bit dull with no story! So if you're a mod and you feel there's a better place for this, then just move away.
(oh and fwiw, I am male IRL; I've chosen to tell the tale of a female character in this challenge).
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Katrina Holmes was a lovely child. Everyone said so. Especially all the servants her spend-thrift wealthy daredevil parents employed. When at 18 her parents died, insolvent, in a tragic indoor bungee-jumping accident, she resolved to move away and spend as little time as possible indoors. She also resolved to not squander a fortune as her parents did, and to work hard.
Such is the way with children, and while they are their parents' children, they so often react to perceived excesses of their parents, forming new and different lives. So it would be with Katrina.
Left with a mere 16,000 simoleons from the estate (and lucky to have that much!) she migrated to Sunset Valley. There, she bought a lovely lot that overlooked the ocean. She'd always loved to read, and, enthralled by the immense library in Sunset Valley [i.e., skill books], she resolved to sharpen up her Gardening and cooking skills.
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That's the story intro. Here's the analysis.
Katrina has bookworm, loves the outdoors, angler, green thumb, natural cook.
Her first steps:
You don't buy a house, let alone a furnished one in a challenge like this. Your goal is to get your cash working for you as rapidly as possible, and in the Sims 3, all fixed property just sits and depreciates. (Though granted, it can help your moodlets, with good sleeps, refreshing showers, baths, nice meals, and decoration).
So: You need ideally a nice lot, relatively near town at this point to reduce travel times. And cheap. 9 Sun Song lane in Sunset Valley fits the bill. A good view so a bonus moodlet, and 2700.
That leaves 13300 from the starting 16k for one sim.
Naturally, we will pick up a 12,500 partnership in the Little Corsican Bistro. This will yield us 16.8% per week. Outside of partnerships in the Hospital, Science Lab, and Stadium [in that order], this is the best partnership in the game. So why don't we save for one of the top 3 partnerships? Simple. We need our money working for us right away, given that we get our first return in 25 hours. It's a staggeringly good deal to put in 12,500 into the bistro and get 2100 back 25 hours later. Hoping that we somehow raise more money over the course of the week (we likely won't, in our first week of play, but suppose we did) cuts our rate of return in the short order to roughly in half. So, sure, we get the magic 20.0% rate of return on our Hospital partnership, but that's cut virtually in half since we had to wait 8 days to invest it. In the short order that kills us, as it does in the long.
We'll hold off on buying the partnership til we are quite tired. Don't think that will matter, and better to be awake and in a good mood while we're learning.
You can play some handy games with the timing on investments; basically, anything you FINISH investing in before 9am Monday allows you to pick up your dividend on or after 9am Monday. Typically, I run my investment cycle around 4am Monday morning, after I've been fishing for Deathfish.
So, I spend most of the day in the Library, reading Gardening (and cooking once I get the wish to learn that skill) books. I pop out to buy Gardening and Cooking skill books at the bookstore to fill those wishes. That leaves me with exactly 12,500. Ouch. No bed tonight.
We're now 2am. Tired, and hungry. OK, head out get a partnership in the Bistro. We've now 0 cash. Go to the Science facility and grab our career, and quit. 400 points in lifetime happiness. We're starving and tired. Where can we remedy this til at least 9am?
The gym. In Sunset Valley they have coffee and a fridge. Nice.
Rest of the week? She'll burn through to level 7 gardening as fast as she can; ideally 2 days. [In fact it was much, much slower since I was constantly finishing challenges. You can ding 7 in 1-2 days with bookworm, though]. Why level 7? That's the level you can plant virtually any basic seed, including all the special ones. You'll also organically (haha) move up to level 10 just by running a garden.
She's buzzed on caffeine, simply trying to survive til 9am to collect her dividend from the bistro and buy a bed. Maybe even a shower.
End of Part 1
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And now Part 2 (covering weeks 1 and 2)
With the 2100 simoleons dividend from the bistro, Katrina was feeling elated and exhausted. She could afford a bed! Hopefully she could purchase it before she collapsed in total fatigue. She was so far gone she couldn't even mumble her address as she collapsed into the taxi. Fortunately the driver recognized her; had a daughter her age, and took her safely home. One of the perks of living in Sunset Valley.
Barely able to stand, back at her lot, she swiftly ordered the best bed she could get (++, single). To top that off she built a short wall, putting a fridge paired with a stove and single counter on one side, and a toilet and shower on the other side.
Thanks to SimPost, these things all arrived instantly. She collapsed into bed.
Many hours later, she awoke, her plans for the next 10 days clear in her mind...
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End of Part 2 story, Part 2 discussion.
So the big deal here is that she no longer has to head to the gym to eat, shower and err... pee. And of course she can sleep. No effort made to construct an actual house; just pop up unfinished walls sufficient to support plumbing.
Is this an exploit? Arguable, and I argue that it's not. This incidentally is part of why I chose "loves the outdoors". She's simply an outdoor, camping-style sim, living in an area with no mosquitoes, no rain or snow and so she can live outdoors. Think a perfected form of the Caribbean.
Unfinished walls? No floor? Won't your sims get a negative moodlet? Ah, here's the neat thing. There's no room enclosed by these walls, and even if there were, your sims wouldn't have to spend time there. Toilet *cough* accidents simply don't matter; they sink into the ground. No mess, no fuss, no mopping required.
The rest of the week, however, does not go so well. Massive seed collection is the order of the day as we get gardening to 7. This last takes 4 days, rather than the 1-2 I had estimated. Bad. Too distracted with other wishes and didn't have other sim(s) supporting Katrina.
Why the massive seed collection? Simple, apart from the money issues (getting money trees, life fruits, happiness-enhancing flame fruits): we need 20 excellent vegetables/fruits to pass the first stage of the Omni challenge. If we try and do this using standard growth, and possibly in-town omni plant... we'll be a long time.
As we head into week 2, I grab a better stove and fridge for her. Good. She can avoid "tastes like fridge".
Gardening having hit 7 in week 1, Cooking its 10 in week 2, thanks to a lot of time in the library. Sadly I don't have the money to complete my lifetime wish -- this was a bad error -- of having all recipes.
At this stage, I'm feeling very uneasy. Basically I've foregone writing progress to progress in cooking and gardening (and to a limited degree fishing). I've written a novel or two, but just to satisfy wishes.
I've little money, and not much to show for my efforts in cooking/gardening. That said, Fishing will come online nicely over the next two weeks and, along with gardening, will provide quite significant short term revenue. Neither will offer the significant residuals of writing (which is perhaps, arguably, why writing is overpowered in this game, but I shan't complain since I intend to make use of just that).
Part 3 to follow.
-Holmes
