Tips and Strategy (Expired Challenges)

[Eftyen]

Hi there everyone!

Anyone who has participated in one of the challenges is welcome to post here revealing their hard-won knowledge for the benefit of all!

Just as a reminder up front, do not reveal your tips and strategy here for any on-going, upcoming, or even suggested challenges.

That kinda takes the "challenge" part largely out of these events.

Please identify in your post what challenge you are referring to and how you ranked finishing.

(Theoretical Example: Perfectly Happy - Rank 5/20 overall (3/20 perfect, 8/20 happy)

[Eftyen]

Okay, now that the Perfectly Happy Challenge has concluded, I'll open this up by posting about my entry there.

       Perfect Stuff        LTHP        Final Score      Rank
          352,000         499,245        851,245        3/29 (26/29 Perfect, 1/29 LTHP)

My character's name was Bliss Excelsia.  She had green skin and flame red hair, which made it mildly more interesting to watch.  Her traits were: Neurotic, Ambitious, Bookworm, Green Thumb, Angler.  Her LTW was Professional Author.

For the biggest impact on my LTHP score, I used the Ambitious trait in conjunction with Bookworm and the Pro Author LTW to reap major LTHP rewards from writing wishes, of which she completed quite a few.  I believe the Ambitious trait also gives an increase to other wish points, too (remember seeing this in the Guide, somewhere...).  The Neurotic trait performed a key roll by enabling writing marathons via the Freak Out action (instant tranquil moodlet for 8 hours = cannot be strained/stressed out!) as well as providing many opportunities to check the stove or sink, make the bed, clean various things and brush her teeth or wash her hands.  Those last wishes did not add up to nearly as much as I had anticipated, only contributing about 15,000 to LTHP (most of that coming from cleaning the dishes!).

Ambrosia was used on a weekly basis for a quick +75 mood bonus.

I also had her join and max out the Culinary career, quitting as soon as she got the super-fridge.  This greatly reduced the amount of time taken to prepare perfect meals (most of which were first-time successes!).  As with many of the rest of you, Perfect Hotdogs were elusive, but eventually procured.

I underestimated the amount of time necessary to grow perfect produce, and also did not see the Omni Plant lead-in opportunity until quite late in the game.  Oh well.

One mistake I made that almost took another chunk out of the perfect stuff score was that after zeniporting to the island in France (for the rare grapes) I did not have enough time to meditate and zeniport back off the island before becoming too tired to do so.  I spent the time available fishing from the island for perfect frogs, crawfish and snails.  The reason this was truly worrisome is that I had not yet purchased recipe books for the French dishes!  I tried learning from the cooking channel back at my floating house in Riverview (it was supported by a spiral staircase at one corner, with the garden growing underneath) but to no avail.  Then, when I made the trip to Egypt, I caught the perfect alligator and mummy fish in very little time, bought the Egyptian recipes, and spent the rest of my time there making friends and using the 'Trade Kitchen Tips' social action to learn the remaining recipes!  I actually learned all the French recipes from Egyptians in about 2 days.

A basic strategy I employed was to grant as many small wishes as possible.  I know this seems intuitive to some of you, but here's an example.  Because of her Ambitious-ness, Bliss wanted to join a career several times.  I had her go to the appropriate building, apply for a job, walk out with a fresh batch of LTHP, and immediately call in to work to quit her job.  Once she even got a wish to join the same career she had just quit, so I got to do it all over again!

Here I will list her many Skill accomplishments (not all of them, though), since a great many skill-related wishes came along.  I wasn't obsessively tracking, but I believe that skill-related wishes accounted for the second-greatest input to Bliss' LTHP score.

Writing (LTW Skill):  Mastered, all Skill Challenges achieved.
                             Books Read - 68
                             Books Written - 80
                             Best Sellers - 48
                             Specialized Genre - Children's ($600-900 royalty checks)
                             Most Profitable Book - 9,616 (the only Masterpiece she wrote)

Charisma:               Level 7, achieved Celebrity, Personable, and Super Friendly
                             Sims Known - 50
                             Friends - 31
                             Best Friends - 4
                             Traits Learned - 53

Cooking:                 Mastered, all Challenges achieved.
                             All recipes learned/perfected
                             Most-Prepared Meal - Hot Dogs!
                             Recipes Prepared - 113

Gardening:              Mastered, all Challenges achieved.
                             Plants NOT perfected: Pomelo, Cranerlet Nuala Grapes, Avornalino Grapes,
                             Gralladina Fran Grapes, Cherries, Burger Patty, Steak, Omni

Fishing:                   Mastered, achieved Amateur Icthyologist challenge
                             Caught at least one perfect specimen of every fish in the game.

Guitar:                    Level 3 (Been there, done that, got a few callouses).

Athletics:                 Level 6
                             Jogged - 27.68 km
                             Cardio Workout - 5 hrs 19 min

Martial Arts:            Mastered, achieved Timber Terminator challenge.
                             Hrs of Meditation - 36.24
                             Hardest Board Broken - Space Rock
                             Boards Broken - 351

Painting:                 Level 5
                             Paintings Created - 4
                             Most Valuable Painting - $38

Logic:                     Level 1 (Been there, done that, got the telescope).

Handiness:              Mastered, achieved Electrician and Plumber challenges
                             Items Upgraded - 6
                             Electrical Items Repaired - 12
                             Plumbing Items Repaired - 12

Her currently unfulfilled wishes at the time of this challenge ending were:
     Break 250 More Boards (2,750 LTHP; 120/250 smashed)
     Train Someone (450)
     Make the Bed (100 LTHP)
     Be Worth >$500,000 (14,000 LTHP; $479,484/$500,000 accumulated)

If anyone has any specific questions concerning the details of how I played this Challenge, I'll be happy to elaborate.

[HelenP]

Good idea FTN, I had wondered about something similar but never got round to posting it.

[Metropolis Man]

Eftyen: I think this is a really good idea, actually. But, the Graveyard is a better place to discuss old challenge strategies because this is where I move the threads anyway. I stickied your topic.

Thanks for this idea.

[Metropolis Man]

Eftyen posted his whole strategy for Perfectly Happy above, so I wanted to flag everyone's attention to it. It's good stuff.

[Eftyen]

Okay, in case anyone was wondering what happened to this topic here's the scoop: it was put in the Graveyard section of the forum because it does not apply to active challenges; however, Graveyard threads are locked to new posts, so no one could update this thread with their experiences!  We just solved the issue by moving it back to the Challenges section, so I encourage everyone to please share their unique challenge experiences with us!

[AriaGirl77]

Very cool!  I think sharing the strategy involved is often the most interesting part.

I don't remember that much about my Perfectly Happy guy.  His name was Happy Sam, that much I recall!  He was ambitious, green thumb, natural cook, angler, and I can't remember the last trait, maybe lucky?  Lucky is one of my favorite traits so I wouldn't be surprised if that was it.  I did pretty crappy with the cooking, there were lots of dishes I never got perfect, but I was able to accomplish everything else.  I boosted my score with the LTW points.  To get that up higher I had him throw a lot of parties and he also had a girlfriend (who of course never moved in), so lots of socials with her including plenty of woo hoo which resulted in several children.  So he often had that really nice "had a baby" moodlet.  I also gave him lots of spa treatments, wrote several books (mostly during parties), and worked out quite a bit.

[Eftyen]

Thanks for sharing, AriaGirl. 

I never would've thought about the parties and boyfriend/girlfriend wishes.  I guess that just goes to show how socially apathetic my sims tend to be!

[Metropolis Man]

One thing that I did differently with my Zeus and Hera couple that were in the nectar challenge vs. the Zeus and Hera I did for the Bottomless Nectar Cellar walkthrough was everything was ground level for the challenge pair—with the walkthrough couple they lived in the basement. Well, they slept down there and showered and ate on the main floor. But, in the challenge everything was outside—the nectar makers, the garden obviously, appliances, the bed, shower, everything...all very close to each other. Minimal walking is what I was going after. They never set foot in the massive 2 basement levels of nectar racks—everything was just shuttled via Inventory.

I think the most important thing I did to do well in the nectar challenge was really concentrate on building up a huge life plant/fruit stockpile. It was so tempting to take the first life fruit and make some nectar with it, but that would have been a mistake. Reinvestment was the key. You can have 6 or 8 nectar machines, but if you run dry on life fruit, then you're not making the good stuff, so what's the difference with just having 4 machines? That was my strategy. Once I really got going and had a huge amount of life plants, then all I needed was 4 machines.

[samoht04]

In my Nectar Challenge (even though I didn't complete it) I had 3 machines, upgraded eventually for better pressing, I had Bottle (female) make nectar and Cork (male) garden but Bottle maxed gardening as well from helping! I found that Bottle could cope well on her own and Cork did okay in Gardening, if they got Stir Crazy they went seed searching etc. So basicaly they shared the work load and yet they still managed to go to sleep at the same times!  I got Life Fruit at week four and Flame Fruit late on in week four, I found flame fruit and pomegranet turned out better than Life Fruit everytime... But 9 Life Fruit and One Pomegranet was very good!

[Eftyen]

I finished very middle-of-the-pack with the nectar challenge.  I don't remember when I started growing perfect life fruit, but my sims didn't make their trip to Champs Les Sims until week 7!  At that point I had almost enough life fruit to have them making nectar at the nectary for the entire 9 days they were there, mostly with a 7 life fruit, 2 flame fruit, & 1 watermelon recipe (almost as good ad 9 life fruit + 1 pomegranate!).  Since my sims were supposed to be Aztec, I called their creations "Pulque Twist" and "Aztec Gold". 

I left France with 8 nectar machines (in case one or more was somehow stolen) and over 300 bottles of nectar.  Once they got back home, they settled into mirror-image routines.  Wake up at 5 am, eat a life fruit, garden, shower, play foosball, make nectar, plant/fertilize, collect nectar from machines, sleep (12 am). 

Everything was on the ground, outside, lit by tiki torches.  Each of them had 2 garden sprinklers with up to 8 "6-packs" of plants around each.  I had 3 money trees and 4 pomegranates per side and one group of garlic (fertilizer), and the rest was life fruit.  I intentionally left one block empty per side for moving plants that didn't die with their neighbors.  (I planted them in 6's, rememember.)

My nectar cellar was quite small, due to the fact that my racks were stacked 16 high.  This had me finishing with 2 rows of 6 stacks, back to back in a 3x6 room.  It was pretty amusing to see a 5-story tower of nectar racks in black space supposedly one floor below-ground.

[AriaGirl77]

I didn't do so hot with the nectar challenge.  I went to France on day 1 of the challenge.  I missed out on getting pomegranates while in France, the owners of that house ran out and harvested before I could and then they didn't regrow before my trip was over.  I bought 2 nectar machines, thankfully I never had any stolen!  I had the female focus on gardening while the male did the nectar making.  During the challenge the female never made any nectar, but the male did help out with the garden from time to time and in the end they both had gardening maxed out.  The female completed all the gardening opportunities, so I also had steak/burger plants and omni (although I never really used it, seemed to take too much time away from the rest of the garden).  I mostly used the meat plants to fertilize, and before I got them I used garlic (also as a cash crop at the start).  I had about 6 money trees, I never went out searching for more seeds to them, they just kept dropping seeds and I kept planting more.  Most of my garden was life fruit, and I mostly made life fruit flame fruit plum nectar.  I also made quite a bit of flame fruit/watermelon nectar.  I think I did pretty good considering my early game setbacks with the pomegranates.

[samoht04]

I didn't do so hot with the nectar challenge

You didn't come last!  I did but I was week 8 when I packed it in.

[Metropolis Man]

Now that the Upgrade Race is in the books I'll share my main approach to that one. The main thing I wanted to do is to obviously get all team members upgrading asap. So, all 3 were bookworms and hit the books for the first 3 handiness skill levels in the library. Then, they started the upgrading in Sunset Valley. I wanted to do Sunset Valley first because I knew Riverview would take longer and is more spread out. I took a vacation as soon as I could afford it and got 2 Colesim tents (2 of my Sims were married so they were in one tent). But, that was pretty much it—mobile living was the key. High-quality dried food, sleeping on location, and showers in a can.

The wheels are already turning for version 2.0 of this next year. It would be fun to do an "Upgrade the whole world" event where you have to upgrade every single object in every location!!

[NancyJ]

I went a similar route to Metro - except I went on vacation straight after going to the book store and got up to skill level 5 or 6 on each. Spent all my cash on dried food and a couple of tents. I thought saving on travel time and eating would make a big difference but apparently not since we both got beaten by nearly 2 days

[Delgar]

I didn't have access to WA when I did this challenge so I'm happy with my score.

Without access to WA, I had to get my handygroups skill up to three fast, so I saved enough money to send them all to take a handy class, and then I sent them all to the library to read to get their skill up to 3. And from there it was a chore to keep their bars and happiness up enough to upgrade like mad. Also when i was close to completing a town (sunset or Riverview) I made heavy use of Coffee to push my sims to finish their upgrades.

I imagine if I had access to WA I would have saved the money on my house and went on vacation immediately and skilled up handiness on vacation, upgraded some objects there for the money and come back with food and tents. That could probably knock 12-16 hours off my score but still not enough to top the charts.

Oh well, it was a fun and quick challenge. Definately not something I've ever done in the sims before.

[AriaGirl77]

I went a similar route to Metro - except I went on vacation straight after going to the book store and got up to skill level 5 or 6 on each. Spent all my cash on dried food and a couple of tents. I thought saving on travel time and eating would make a big difference but apparently not since we both got beaten by nearly 2 days

This is pretty much what I did as far as skilling is concerned, but it didn't even occur to me to buy the camping stuff!  Sometimes I want to bonk myself in the head, why didn't I think of that? lol

[Eftyen]

(SV/RV Team Upgrade Race: SV-9th, RV-21st, Overall-18th/36)

I started my "Blue Girl Group"  (yes, they all had blue skin) in Sunset Valley.  Right off the bat I sent one of my sims to the bookstore and one to the grocery store.  They bought skill books and tomatoes, respectively.  Then I sent the three of them on a trip to China and came back, still before noon on Week 1 Day 1, with all of them at level 5 Handiness!

I used the tents like it seems many people did, and I split up the tomatoes for quick snacks.  The Blue Girl Group lived off of nothing but tomatoes and only slept in the tents for 2 weeks!  I wish I'd thought of buying good dried food for them instead, though.  That Nice Meal mood boost would have been, well, nice!

I never bought anything to put on their "home" lot at all, but I did buy them portable stereos so they could at least get a modest mood boost from music.

My sims were all Slobs, so they didn't care about things like showers or smelly sims (each other).  I also gave them No Sense of Humor because this makes the "Having A Blast" moodlet last nearly twice as long as normal.  Combined with Over-Emotional, this made for relatively easy mood-management (without the reward item, of course!).  Lastly, they were all Bookworms and, obviously, Handy.

I did not use coffee drinks, and rarely used napping for a recharge.  I preferred to keep them well-rested for the moodlet, which generally meant sleeping half as long twice/day. 

[Schipperke]

This is a great topic!  It is fascinating to read other peoples' strategies.  For the Upgrade Race, my strategy was much the same as others' - a quick trip to China, tents, dried food, apples, and shower-in-a-can.  I did learn that shower in a can is much faster than a normal shower, and wished I had purchased more of them.

What really interests me is the different traits we all chose.  I gave my team Over-emotional, Good, and Neurotic.  Good was so they could get a positive moodlet from donating money, but mostly they were never home, so that wasn't very useful.  But they could brighten each other's day which helped.  Neurotic was a big help, as they could freak out any time, and of course there was always a sink handy for them to check. 

[Saltypaws]

Well, silly me, I didn't even think of that, good grief, I wasted a ton of time going home, sleeping, eating etc.  I should have known better, no wonder I am close to the bottom of the list.

[Pam]

I never thought of the tent thing either, Saltypaws!  It wasn't until after we'd finished the challenge and were chatting that I learned about it from Metro.  I couldn't believe I was so dense!  Lol.

[HelenP]

I don't know how well known this is but one interesting thing I learned from this challenge is that siblings can share a tent.

At one point I had all 3 sisters sleeping in the same tent as they tried to finish the last place to be upgraded (the gym in RV I think it was).  I suspect, but haven't tested it, that 4 siblings could share one big tent.  This is based on the way their zzzz's and dream bubbles were arranged in three of the corners while the 4th corner was blank.  Has anyone tried this?

I didn't think of showers-in-a-can though, I just let them be stinky or use a shower they had just upgraded.  I also wish I had given them the loner trait because I found the social interactions took too much time, and they couldn't phone each other even though they were in different parts of the town 

I'm very happy to have finished in the top 10 though (I'm sure it won't happen again  )

[Metropolis Man]

I don't have too much to offer as far as deep underlying strategy for the Career Challenge. I did a lot of what Nancy touted in her Hall of Fame piece. I did make a critical error though and that was choosing Professional Sports as the last career for one of my Sims. That probably cost me 4 days right there because of the way the timing ended up. Another thing I did not realize until well into the event was that there is a cooldown period after asking a boss for a promotion. But, it's all about learning little tricks here and there. I did not choose Workaholic as a trait like Nancy did and I don't feel it kept me from any promotions. I pretty much got a promotion every single work day without that trait because I always chose the Work Hard tone, plus the Multi-Tasker reward was key in getting the performance bar to fill faster.

[NancyJ]

Workaholic was critical for me - you can get promoted before you've even started the job. I don't think I could have done professional sports without it. Every weekend was spent getting my performance bar up on the computer to get that extra promotion (eg. get a promotion on each day Mon-Fri as normal and then work from home all weekend and call your boss up on Sunday evening to get another one), 1-2 extra promotions per week was definitely worth taking the trait for.

[Delgar]

My career couples challenge started off okay, and the series of careers I had chosen for one of my sims was perfect.

Sim 1 - Traits: Workaholic, Ambitious, Schmoozer, Over Emotional, and Natural Cook
        - Careers: Chef, Business, Music, Politics

Sim 2 - Traits: Workaholic, Ambitious, Schmoozer, Over Emotional, and Athletic
        - Careers: Athlete, Criminal, Police, Doctor

My mistake here was basically choosing criminal and athletic. With no work hard function in the Althletic track its really hard to keep those promotions coming in no matter how hard I tried. But the nail in my coffin was Criminal, because you work odd hours you get promoted in the middle of the night and when that happens you don't go to work the next day even though your scheduled. I knew I was done after picking this career, I just did my best to finish as fast as I could.

Workaholic is key here as with workaholic you can work really hard on your two days off and get a promotion, basically allowing you to get 6 promotions in a week. If only I had done a test run I would have known to stay away from the nighttime careers. Congrats Nancy on a job well done.