Your sims have moved to the Russian motherland. The winters seem unending and the other seasons are not long enough. With very limited technology and only the land to live off of, your sims must gather two vital resources and get ready for the Russian winter. Only those with great determination can survive.

The primary goal of this challenge is to make it through the each Russian winter and try to keep your household's legacy going for ten season cycles.

In order to perform this challenge, some setup is required. First, almost all of the community buildings are going to need to be deleted except for the fishing areas, swimming pool, reading room, graveyard, and all parks (Consignment shops would be okay if your game contains them). If any of the remaining buildings have technology in them, please remove them as you spot the items. Then, most of your neighbors are going to be deleted along with their homes. You can salvage up to five other households to live in the motherland with you. Everyone should have similar accommodations, so your next step will be to design a very basic 'hut' which you will place for your household and any other households you have keep around. The only items which should be contained in the hut initially are beds, one toilet, bicycles, and a fire pit. These items are all you will start with but there are ways to attain more. Candles/torches/etc are the only forms of lighting permitted within the huts. Additionally, in the options menu, set the seasons as follows: Summer 7 days, Fall 3 days, Winter 28 days, Spring 3 days. This gives your sims enough time to grow crops, which will be a necessity.

To survive in the motherland, your sims will need to grow crops as well as fish. Seeds and produce are rare in this part of Russia, so you will only be able to have five crops per person maximum. Plants can only grow during spring and summer; however, fishing can occur year round (main streams do not freeze). Both fishing and growing crops are required to make it though the winter.

If your fire pit has the 'roast' option available, then you can roast fish. Do not roast fruits/vegetables. If your fire pit does not have the 'roast' option, then you are permitted to have a fridge so long as the fridge is emptied of ALL contents and only fish can be stored inside it. Your sims may make sushi or grill the fish, but that is the ONLY food they can cook. In this case, an outdoor grill may be added to the setup stage as well.

To start the game, you will need to harvest all the crops at the community garden. Use those crops to start your own garden and do not return to the community garden once your crops become able to harvest. You may use the garden until then and you can leave it there forever so long as you do not use it after the first few days.

Crops and fish can also be used as currency. Once you have all the starting items ready to roll, please set your family funds to zero and the only form of income you are permitted to have is by selling your produce and fish to buy items you want in your house. Please refrain from purchasing modern technology, but if there is an item like a record player, that would be acceptable because it isn't 'modern'. Do not purchase anything for the bathroom or any kitchen contents.

The community pool located in the neighborhood should have a shower. The reading room has books. You travel to those locations when necessary by bike or on foot. No vehicles allowed. If you can prevent your neighbors from using vehicles, please do.

If you would like to select one of the empty community lots to add an activity or two, feel free. In mine, I added a skating rink and an apple bobbing station. Keep these nontechnical as well.

If your household contains children, each age bracket it only permitted one toy each at a time. The motherland does not have many resources to spare, especially not for toys.

There are two types of bonuses which reward you for skills as well as time length.
If you max out a skill in a household, you may give yourself the funds to obtain one free item for your sims. There is a catch, though; if two sims in your household max out the fishing skill, that only counts for one free item. The bonus is granted only to each unique skill within a household.
The time bonus:
If your legacy survives 2 Russian winters, they may have a fireplace free of charge and one additional free item of your choosing.
If your legacy survives 5 Russian winters, you may build a complete bathroom for your sims and bring back two community buildings of your choosing (no restaurants/food related ones).
If your legacy survives 6 Russian winters, the huts can turn into homes. You may move past the one room living situation and up to three additional rooms to the house.
If your legacy survives 8 Russian winters, you may bring back two more community lots (no restaurants/food related ones) and buy your sims one free technology based item as a 'gift from the motherland'.
If your legacy survives 10 Russian winters, the motherland has been brought to modern times and you may provide the sims with anything they want! No more limitations, and essentially, the challenge is won!

That is everything for the Mother Russia Challenge! Please remember to set your family funds at zero after giving yourself free items, and try to abide by the motherland's rules!

Edit: Also, if you opt to have the fridge, please do not serve the meals. Cook each one individually for each sim in your household. One fish = one meal

By the Gods you have made me cold just thinking about this one. Good Job! I may have to try this one, especially if I manage to buy the Russian world from the Sims Store

Thank you I didn't even know there was a Russian world, that would be even more excellent! If you do end up trying it let me know if you liked it!

ZOMG I love the sound of this challenge! I especially like the winter twist making it super scary sounding and way hard!
I was going to try the medieval challenge so now I think I will just combine them both


Ooo, and I have a question.. I like realism in my games so I usually keep all my residential areas "open"(without doors/ just use arch ways) and install a fireplace in the room and set it up so that all my sims get the 'warmth from fire' buff and wont actually freeze to death in the fall/winter.... can I switch this reward from fireplace to cooking stove instead? This could be maybe just one general use stove (ie: community lot stove/communal feast /gathering lot for residents - side note, I believe there is a mod to put stoves on community lots - ) for at least 3 more generations or something, and then they can be rewarded with private home stoves? (as if they have finally managed to gain the wisdom/experience to keep stoves safely or something like that)

And what are your thoughts on fridges? ("food storage devices")

Sorry not trying to hijack your challenge! Just excited! :D

I'll post pics! Post your pics too!

You could definitely start using the fireplace immediately if that's how you prefer to play! In regards to the stove and fridge, you can do that so long as you empty the fridge and store only fish and produce inside it and the sims are only permitted to cook fish meals (sushi, grilled salmon, etc). Also, you should refrain from doing a serving size. One fish = one individual meal. I don't see any real harm to doing the community lot stoves until two winters pass and then doing the in home stove thing instead.

Thank you for the excitement about the challenge! I actually plan to post a video of my gameplay soon to my youtube channel of the same name if you want to check that out and I will also be sure to post some pictures. I can't wait to see how yours turns out!

This challenge seems like so muh fun and perfect for my game play style! Cannot wait fir the opportunity to try this one out.

It has been fun for me thus far, hopefully it will be enjoyable for you too

I've decided to try this out in Twinbrook. I do have the question of when we add community lots, if we put down a rabbithole, can a sim have a job there? Or is the only form of income allowed to be from gardening and fishing?

And is decor off limits?

Keep the income limited to gardening and fishing, even other crafts like painting would be okay to cash in on, but no formal jobs.

If you want to use the funds to buy some decoration, go for it!

Thank you for the questions and I hope I answered them successfully

Okay, so I have started this for the third time (first time game crashed before I could save, second time a scrolling glitch left me frustrated beyond belief). While clearing out worlds and creating Sims, I thought of some questions...

I have a lot of store content. Not as much as I would like, but enough. Part of that includes cows and chickens. You get eggs from chickens of course and milk that can be turned into cheese, milkshakes, if you want to tip the cow, and soymilk/cheese. You can sell the stuff or use it for eating or cooking. I was thinking that the cows would make a good dowry, since we are sticking to a pre-modern theme. The sell of wedding gifts could be used to purchase the cows, then for the second gen the chickens or when the first child is born receive the chickens from the "in-laws".

I am also going to buy the farmers market on Tuesday. That I will treat as a regular building, but it will be the first one I put in. It might prove to make the challenge a bit to easy, I will let you know once I have hit that point. If it makes life a lot easier on my Sims then you might want to limit it to a later gen purchase.

Secondly, do you consider it cheating for those of us that have Into the Future to build green houses so we can continue to grow plants all year long? Probably yes on that one unless you can think of a way to earn it. What about the planter bowls? Can you use them inside or no?

FreakWhiplash: Thank you! That works perfectly. I'm a decorator at heart in my game.

I had no idea you could buy chickens and cows, feel free to use those, I definitely would have if I had them. I like your ideas for the in-law gifts and such.

For planting all year, I'm going to say yes you can if you want to, but only plant one or two plants per person then to try to keep the challenge... I guess challenging.

The Farmer's Market falls under an eatery of a sort, and I did mention not to use those until the tenth generation when the challenge is 'won'. I suppose if you really want to use the market then you could place it but severely limit how much food you could purchase. I'm not sure if it would be similar to the grocery store where you would buy, say, an apple and pick how many you would like, but if it is, then you could purchase up to five individual products per day and only in the winter when the plants are no longer growing (if you didn't do the year round thing). If you do have the plants growing on your lot year round and you have the market, maybe try to only buy one or two individual produce every other day to keep it from being too easy. It still might be but you'll have to let me know.

I believe I answered all parts here, hopefully that will help and please let me know if it gets too simple with these modifications

The Farmers Market is based off some of the changes that came with Into the Future and Island Paradise. Though its not exactly like running your own business in the Sims 2... There are ways now to sell items through a "store" without it being a convenience store. The farmers Market lets you set up a food stand where you sell what you catch and grow. I believe it has vender push carts for flowers you collect, fruits, veggies and fish. You should be able to take over all the carts and run them yourself or edit the lot to remove any carts you don't own so that you can't purchase from them. Not sure on that completely yet though. Like I said, That one I get on Tuesday.

There is a lot of stuff they didn't release to stores that you can find in the sims3 store. Country Living set and the Farmers life or farm life set had the cows and chickens along with furniture and chickens what were prefect for this. The Russian world comes with a toy shop, where you can make and sell toys, Then there is a whole new lot that they just released that will let you restore cars like Sims 2 did. Then there are gambling sets and cooking sets. You can't wait tables or actually hire yourself to cook but you can manage a restaurant, its menu, who is hired, how often your open.

When hubby got a raise, I got 20 dollars a week I could use on anything I wanted. Nice to finally have some discretionary income. It's not much but it's all I need. I alternate between spending it on crafting supplies, cast iron cookware on Ebay and Sims store stuff. This week it's Sims store stuff. Last week it a divided pie/cornbread cast Iron pan. I like the Sims stuff best. I just have to wait for it to download. I don't have to wait for it to be delivered, nor do I have to leave my nice warm house for the cold cold world that the winter has given us.

Not to be confrontational, but the Farmer's Market (I believe you mean the Al Fresco Street Market that was released along with Monte Vista) only allows you to sell fruits and veggies. I'm not sure about anything else. And the toy shop came with Midnight Hollow. I don't believe there's a Russian world, either.

It might not be called Russia but the buildings have roofs shaped like Russia I believe it was called Motherland or something close to it in the description. I won't say anything about the title. I suck with name. At Christmas they were selling it along with the toy shop... Funny about the Monte Vista thing, I own Monte Vista but I don't own the Street Market. So if it came with Monte Vista it is a gold edition I haven't seen. I did see however, the green house and the Farmers Market being sold as sets in along with the sets where I got the cows and chickens. When and how they were released is not what is important. Arguing over the minute details does not in anyway change the function or how it effects the game or if we can use it.

Ah you'll have to pardon my wording with my previous post. The Market was another venue that came out around the time Monte Vista did, I believe. From what I saw of the Motherland whatnot or whatever, it was just a venue. Oh well, either way, we have the game and can still enjoy it.

Clearly I had zero knowledge of how that market worked, thank you for that! Yeah, the farmer's market should be fine if you're still selling the stuff you were already going to sell anyway. I usually only snag up the free things in the sims store because I am a teenager and I have limited funds hehe I don't really window shop in the sims store either because then I want to buy things. Thank you for telling me about all the stuff though, it all sounds pretty rad!

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Here is a shot of my town before the winter season.

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MY sim doing some gardening in early spring

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Here is the kitchen. I used a mod that empties your fridge of all ingredients and wont let you buy meals from the fridge. So unless my sims pick it themselves there is no option to make meals. At this point, my sims can make autumn salad and sushi. The chairs are positioned around a barbeque so they can roast fish and veggies.

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Play time!

More pictures to come now that the winter season is finally here!

What exactly do you mean by building a "hut"? Is everything outside and without walls or anything. Or?

The hut just has to be a small living quarters with the bare essentials. A small, one-room building with four walls, roof, and a door is sufficient. If you want it to be open to the outdoors, that is your call. I hope that answered your question, if not I can post images

[Ephy]

Wow, your setup looks absolutely exquisite! You really took the challenge above and beyond, I love it! The decor and the clothing are perfect for this, very splendid. Can't wait to see more pictures :D