wow those eyes on the baby look so cute i wouldnt have guessed it was the mailman's kid

Oh, god..not Pao...That guy is hideous! Please tell me it wasn't Pao, nobody is that desperate!

Sorry brendabond, some people really are that desperate.

NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I simply must refuse to believe. LOL I suppose there's someone for everyone, and even Pao must get lucky once in awhile!

Sorry Elmo, but so far I think you've been doing really well (I'VE seen the pictures! this thread is my new obsession- I thought they were really funny).

If I ever have time to play the game again (I hate school, I hate school, I hate school), I have been thinking of starting a couple of new families myself and trying different strategies... I think for one of them I will allow them to be promoted anyway in spite of the loss of points, because they might earn those points back later in the career, and in another family, never have them advance at all... maybe they can all be starving artist sims or something (I miss Darren Dreamer).

I think Pao looks better than Goopy. I'm surprised he refused to move in, even though he obviously liked her enough to "make a baby." What a cad...

Ok well here's where I started to where I'm at now...

This is Rori, she's a sagittarius and a family sim.


The first thing she did was buy a barrel and a phone... then look for a job. She took one in the field of politics.


Because money is was tight Rori made a paper airplane to up her fun level.


She was also working on a guy she met at a club one night... inviting him over and romancing him until he was loving the date. (don't remember his name)



Eventually she managed to add to her collection of household goods, including some GREAT DATE roses.


And now...
Rori just got married... they had a VERY small wedding consisting of just the two of them and no wine or cake but thankfully he brought almost $9000 with him so they don't have to live in the yard anymore. They have a small one room shack with the bare essentials but they seem happy as long as they have a good bed and a paper airplane! (he was fairly high up in the military career but now he's looking for another job)

I am suddenly realising how much more useful the newspapers are with this challenge... good pics kerriiskk, I like the one of her little camp on the lawn- toilet, armchair, and flowers haha

Anyway, plasticbox sent me a pm with some questions about the challenge, I'll answer some of them here because I think other people may want the answers as well:

1. If your CAS sim has a kid (3000 points!), and the kid grows up and moves out, you can still keep the 3000 child points for raising the kid in the first place, so long as you give them a call once in a while (jk). They don't have to stay on the lot forever, but they do have to be raised on the lot, so no moving them out as kids or younger. Teens may move out with an adult sibling, but not alone.

2. You get 3000 points for grandchildren raised on the lot as well- in fact, you get points for every kid born & raised on the lot at all, they don't even have to be a relative so long as you keep at least one heir of the original sim from one generation to the next.

3. If you have nightlife and you get a huge, expensive gift from dating. Don't sell it or use it: keep it in your inventory. Make it an "inventory heirloom," a housewarming gift for a sim that moves out, whatever- just don't profit from it in any way because it is an unfair advantage to NL users.

Yup, the paper airplane actually ups thier fun level pretty well, I never realized how much until this challange. It's pretty nice since even with the $ he brought they still didn't have much left after buying a bed, shower, sink, bookshelf, dining table, 2 dining chairs, stove, refrigerator (the dorm one at that) and a couple of counter tops. The walls and door took thier toll on the budget. Kinda reminds me of the first month at my first house... sitting on the floor watching the 13" tv using a milk crate for a tv stand... ahh that was the life.

This is Olivia McKeen - Im just showing her off for now - I of to bed in a moment so I will not right all the story I have just now. But enyway here she is:

I completely failed after 5 days! Wow I suck! Teenage preggers are not fun when they have the baby and no food. I'm going to try this again but with a cas male. 3 good things did come out of this, though. I hate Natalie Poorman (my sim I attempted the challage with) less, Natalie has a boyfriend now, Shannon Mills a born in game sim from way back when in my game now has some importance other then a random Kid about town, and a toddler named Ryan Poorman, who may end up quite handsome at the end. So If it wasn't for this chalage none of that wouldn't happened.

Well, i've started on this challenge. I dont have pics yet, but her name is Yalla Angel, she has bad hair and no house. She lives in a cheap bed and is trying to get with a fireman who hates her.
She has a job in the athletic career, because you cant be promoted in that without one body skill.

I'm having lots of fun with this, but I will probably fail too, miserably. Fiddling back & forth with the jobs is a pain, and making sure she gets enough sleep to get by is really hard when the baby keeps waking her up, not to mention the phone! (She doesn't have a real house with walls yet, you're right kerriiskk, I never realised how expensive the walls are!) And 9 times out of 10, it's Amin Sims calling. Like, 11pm when she's passed out from sleep depravation, boredom, starvation or whatever, he always calls and wakes her and the baby up. Sweet! Oh and she's pregnant again, but no more Pao-babies, this one is Don Lothario's.

How's everyone else doing?

I found the easiest way to deal with this is sell the phone when she is heading off to sleep. Then buy a new one when she wakes up, you actually don't loose money off it usually because it's under the wear deadline.

Really, I was sorta thinking about that but didn't know you wouldn't lose money by doing it. :loco: Thank you, that should make poor Vanessa's life much easier.

There's a time limit on how long you can own an item before you loose $ by selling it... I think it's either 12 or 24 sim hours but you might want to test exactly. I've been buying one when I need it and selling it when I'm done.

Yalla has moved in with Neil LeToureanu (the fireman) and is pregnant (3rd trimester). They still dont have a house.

Bartending is a great way of earning §'s to.
I will start wrigting my story as soon as I stop being so restless! I can't consentrat rigth now - and because english is not my native language I have to think while i write. I have a lot of great pics and Im looking forward to showing them to you. (I have to stop using the -ing form all the time)

Me too! Now I can finally post here =)

I really like this challenge, has been lots of fun so far. It's been going quite well, too (almost 2 sim weeks now) -- my sim is married, they have a house and even a *car* (but only because I messed up and no way he's going to spend a lazy day at home because of that), two kids and a third one on the way ...

The only problem I have is that his wife (the non-CAS sim) has too many points in everything and gets promoted all the time. Well, twice. She's been pregnant since then, but it'll happen again once she turns elder ... I think I'll have to download the mindcontrol mirror and get rid of her body points or something, that wouldn't be against the rules, or would it?

And: No more than 8 sims on the lot, right? Or can we play more if we want to? (Not that I'd really know how, but I know that it's possible somehow ... if they keep having kids like that I'm going to run out of space sooner or later)

I played with a self-imposed "No Borrowing Stuff" rule (no buying - using - reselling things), which if I remember correctly is made easier in Nightlife, as you can place showers and bathtubs on community lots now ... I don't think that was possible in the base game, was it?



Pictures are now in the Stories department, see this thread.

Hey plasticbox, glad to see you are finally on... I've been thinking about the extra people on the lot thing for a few days... but I can't decide if it should be allowed, and if so, a penalty, a bonus, or nothing. So, no word on that yet.

I am also still toying with an idea of some sort of handicap for nightlife players... again, no ideas yet.

And how on Earth do you manage to make such nice houses with so little money? EVERY TIME!

***EDIT 1/28/2006: I finally made a decision (albeit a bit late) about handicaps, etc- from now on, you may only use poverty lots that I have uploaded for the challenge, or those that I have expressly approved- you'll see more details in this thread. Nightlife players, furthermore, may not use the items that they get for having a good date- keep them forever in your inventory***

Hi plastic, I love your story! And their house is really nice!

I think I'll have to do that whole "No borrowing stuff" rule too, because when she needed to eat and I sold the sink and toilet to buy a decent stove, I realised I actually got more money for them when I sold them, than I had to pay for them. They are custom stuff that I downloaded and they cost like $100 each, but I got $300 for them when I sold them. And without a "No borrowing stuff" rule, I'd just be too tempted...


Anyways, Vanessa just had Don Lothario's baby.



And it was so funny, the moment after she had the baby, a townie walked by and did that cute little wave at her, like, "hello there crazy homeless girl giving birth to a second child in a mudpile on the lawn, how are you doing today?"
Here's baby Leona.



Vanessa hasn't had a chance to get pregnant again so she had to go to work, and hire a nanny. And not only did the nanny completely neglect the poor kids (like they needed that!), she also insulted Vanessa and splashed a water balloon at her as soon as she got home. And the next day, Vanessa didn't have enough money to pay her, so the nanny took the fridge instead. Yay.

11.000 (as my sim's boyfriend brought with him) is a lot of money then you only have to buy the most bacis objects and don't have to think about have the room is or anything. I think that bartending is the greatest way to make money (from Uni not NL) - my sim works tow jobs right now and have had all her showers on comunity grounds (it has been an option since uni).

This is Yalla with stupid hair (when she first moved in)




Freestyle for money (which she got none)



Getting desparate



Giving herself nightmares (i would too with that hair)



REALLY WANTING A SHOWER *fumes* (she stunk for about 30000 days)



Neil LeToureanu



Moves in...and Yalla is pregnant!




Her new friend Melissa Fancey (i paid all my money for that makeover table...but Melissa looks nice)



Her daughter Esmerelda (and Neil moved out...he is a romace sim with WAY to many skills)



Esmerelda again



In love with Badger (CAS Sim)



Pregnant again...to Badger! *dun dun dun* (and there's Esmerelda as a child)



And she changed jobs, now she is a dish washer.

One useful exploit, and I guess I should actually post this in the building section at some point, is that foundations cost §3 while walls cost §70 ... so houses with basements (or rather, "souterrains" -- not sure if you have that in English) are very, very economic to build. If you put actual walls only where you need them (for windows/doors), I mean, and use foundation "walls" for the rest.

You could actually build an over-the-ground house (without basement) as well with that technique, just make your foundation 16 clicks high (or however many clicks it was -- wall-height) and use it in place of a regular wall. The only thing I haven't tried yet is whether or not you can put roofs directly on a foundation (I only do this for garages normally, as they've hardly any windows anyway, and just give them a flat (floorpaint) "roof").

Not sure if I explained this very well, please shout if you don't understand.

Another "cheap trick" is that if you need to level terrain for some reason (basements, for example) it is *much* cheaper to use the terrain up/down tool (at the smallest setting) than the "make everything flat" one. For the souterrain of this house I lowered every point manually -> §2 or §3 per "point"/corner, while lowering one tile with the flattening tool to basement level would have cost about §60 I believe. No that's not cheating! =) I think of it as digging a hole by yourself, as opposed to hiring someone / renting a machine to do it for you.

Again, if I'm not being clear enough please tell. I really should be doing other things, but I can post pictures if necessary =) (then I have an excuse, at least ...)



OK -- I think I'll just play with 8 sims then.


You mean about the dating rewards thing? If you want I can test this later on -- whether or not the inventory stuff counts as "value", I mean. I'll let you know. If it does, I think the simplest solution would be (like you said) that people 1. can't use/place the rewards, and 2. (like I said) must deduct the accumulated value from their final family value at the end. Then they can date all they want but don't have an advantage that would be unfair to others ... and if the inventory items' value turns out not to count anyway, it would just be 1. -- people can't use the stuff, and other than that there's no difference.



About ways to make money: I don't have Uni so no bands or bartending for me ... I have my sims do paintings and sell them (luckily, they all have lots of playful points and even the toddlers want creativity points all the time, so it seems to suit them quite well), are there any other ways in the original game / NL that I'm somehow forgetting? Writing novels is the only other thing I can think of.

sepia mauve -- Yes, I've also seen that happen with custom objects (that if you sell them they're suddenly worth more) ... I guess that's an oversight of the people who make them. In the original game I always had my sims give that extra money "to charity" (i.e. befriend the pizza delivery guy and donate the money to him with some banking hack).

Plasticbox, thanks for your budget building tips- I'm doing a legacy family at the moment, and I'm finding that hard enough- never mind this challenge! But, I'm really concerned for your sleeping Sim- where is the door to get him out of that bedroom??

(In reference to this post (which I moved))


Yes, that screenshot was taken a bit hastily =) -- I had temporarily moved the door to the porch, if you look *even* chloser than you already did, you can see that there's a door, right next to the stairs, that doesn't really belong there ... next time I'll clean up a bit before taking a picture. All that stuff flying about in the livingroom, looks almost like our real one ...

The bedroom door is now next to the stairs to the basement (and the crib somewhere else) so they can go in and out of bed without advanced yoga skillz.

=)