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About

The High Cost of Living

This started out as a a Nothing Is Free (NIF) Challenge on a deserted island theme. At this point, I have changed the rules enough that it is its own challenge. It is all about MONEY MONEY MONEY, so I’m calling it the High Cost of Living Challenge.The official rules of the NIF, which inspired this challenge, are Here on ModtheSims.

I am trashing the skill requirements from the NIF. Since I have to pay for every single home (and I’d like to have more than starter homes) *and* every single community lot, this seems like a pretty serious encumbrance all by itself. Endless skilling is a big drag IMHO.

The Setup

Delete every single resident sim in your neighborhood. If you’re using Twallan’s mod suite, you should use Total Annihilation, but you can leave homeless and service sims alone. The don’t count as residents, and first generation EA sims have more interesting genetics. If you are using Twallan’s NRaas mod suite, you might want to turn off Manage Homeless to keep the more interesting-looking homeless sims around.

Delete every single building in your neighborhood. You may optionally keep one starter home for your starting sim. Create a single starting sim. Using that sim, you must populate the town and pay for every single lot in the neighborhood.

You may keep the same active household, or you may switch households in whatever way works for you.

The Goal

Buy the town. Literally. You may place a community lot when you can purchase it through Real Estate, either as a building (rabbithole) or as an upgradeable venue.

Here is a reference to give you an idea of what various lots might cost you, though you won’t know the exact cost without placing it and opening up the Real Estate option from a computer.

The City Hall and School rabbitholes cost §50,000 apiece. You’ll need to deduct that from your household funds, since there’s no way to buy them.

Other lots, such as junkyards or small parks, cost whatever the lot would cost as a residential home. Alternatively, you may also use this mod to make them purchasable as upgradeable venues. That will grant you the ability to upgrade and collect investment income.

Oh, and you probably want other sims to LIVE in your town. All residents are sims you can get to move in with you. Mailman, paperboy, the stupid university llama, the pizza delivery kid…but you can also grow plantsims, wish at the wishing well, or whatever else works. Any non-resident sim you can find that is generated by the game is fair, um, game. If the sim is younger than YA and you’re not using a cheat to allow you to ask them to move in, you may use a cheat to add them to your household after an active sim is friends with them.

You may purchase residential homes for sims that you move out of the active household. Or you may move your active household and leave their home empty behind them. These are the ways you add residential lots to your neighborhood. All inactive resident sims must live on a residential lot with at least a basic house containing bed, bathroom, and kitchen.

You’re done when you feel you’re done.

Notes on money

A maxed a skill is worth §10,000.Topping a career of any variety is worth §10,000.

Of course you can use the Inheritance lifetime reward. You can restrict the number of times a sim can use it if you want to, but really 30,000 happiness points is a steep enough requirement, so use it as much as you like.

You may do whatever you like with the inventory of a new sim joining the household, including sell it.

Limited Resources

This is a completely empty town that is completely or partially cut off from the rest of the world. Most of the limitations to the game come from having no rabbitholes, community lots, or population. But there are a few additional limitations that go hand-in-hand. This gives the challenge shades of the Apocalypse Challenge.

– Severe tech restrictions until there is a Science Rabbithole. You may only use buy mode items that don’t use electricity, e.g. candles for lighting. CC is totally allowed to maintain the effect. The Scribbling Pad for Writing is a nice one. Since you need a computer to do Real Estate, you may have one, though consider using these CC items: crystal ball or book (laptop part of a set). You may not use internet or video game functions of the computer (e.g. chat and hack).

– May not buy food from the refrigerator until there is a Grocery Store. Also, no free Quick Meals. If you use mods, this mod will help.

– No reading books until there is a Library lot. All skills must be learned by doing.

– No owning books (or buying bookcases that contain books) until there is a Bookstore. Yes, this means that you really need to have a Library before you have a Bookstore. This seems logical to me — first a few books as a community resource, then a lot of books that can be personally owned.

– If you are using mods, all woohoo is risky (using NRaas Woohooer) until there is a Hospital.

– No cars until there’s business center (i.e. cars must be imported to the town). Must avoid automatic taxis.

– No TVs, celebrities, or reading the newspaper until there is journalism (also business center).

– No burglar alarms until there is a Police Headquarters. You may follow normal game mechanics if a burglar turns up on your lot.

– No fire alarms until there is a Fire Station. You may call the fire department from your phone if a fire is started.

– No inventing until there is a junkyard

– Basically, if there is a skill that is associated with a lot, you must add the lot according to the above rules before you can use the skill.

Six Degrees of Separation Inheritance

I’m also planning to merge Waypoint with a Six Degrees of Separation storytelling challenge, brainchild of Buckygirl of Wishacy fame. This challenge just means that this is NOT a legacy in the genetic sense. Adding my specifics to her rules:- Successor is selected by the current patron at any point after the patron becomes an Elder. The existing patron doesn’t have to do anything to qualify for the handoff. I’ll probably finish his/her Lifetime Wish because I’m like that, but it’s not required.

– Successor can NOT be the child of the current patron and should not be in the same household (though I leave myself wiggle room to grant exceptions).

– Successor may be any age except Elder.

– At the point of handoff, current patron gives a gift to the heir, passing off the storyline from one to the other. At that exact moment, I switch households and active sims. (This will probably be done via NRaas mods so I don’t have to back out to Edit Town.)

– I intend to come up with an object that represents the patronhood that can be given from one to the other as a gift, but I haven’t decided what that is yet.

This is my first non-scored challenge, so I won’t score it. So there.


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