Townies and businesses

EnkiSchmidt

I'm trying to get back into Sims 2 after a two year pause and decided to play a business with one of my new families. They own a landfill, that works fine, and a car dealership, where I ran into a problem:

Twice now customers gave me the "I can't afford this" symbol when I presented the expensive sports car to them, despite being townies. I thought townies had a limitless budget?

The sims in question are a Garden Club member (Toby Bruenig) and a Social Townie (Sarah McCarthy). Are those exempt from the endless money rule?

I'm aware of the Townie Budget mod, but I don't have that one.

lisamwitt

How much townies and NPC's have varies. Some are quite wealthy, and some have very little. Townies are (mostly) also lumped into "families", which have a limit that all the members access. The only way to know, without moving them in, how much any given Sim has, is to look at their family funds in SimPe. I've only ever sold clothing, so I haven't had this happen much, but sometimes things are just hard to sell.

EnkiSchmidt

Oh, no. That throws quite a wrench in my get rich scheme. (I have an old guidebook (in german) that claims townies have limitless funds and will be able to afford everything, so that was what I based my plans on.)

I'm not too familar with SimPE, other than using Sim surgery and changing names, but after reading your reply I looked and found an entry "Family Information". According to that there is one household with 71,000 simoleons, another with 64,000, one with 44,000, four with 32,000 each and a handful with the standard 20,000. (Not counting my played households.)

Cinebar

Open for Business doesn't exactly work that simply. The game has a lot of surprises if you are just thinking all townies can afford everything.

First it depends on your business level. Around level 5 some richer townies will start showing up. Even a few of your own played Sims who may have more money than a homeless townie. But you have to remember AL and M&G makes OFB not play exactly as it did when it was new and very few EPs. You have the AL townies now (if installed) which overrules the base game townie character files and some of the richer NL townies.

Those Sims add flavor to your apartment life experience but very little to the OFB experience as before.

Two NL townies who won't show up at all until about level five or six are Mr. Big and Diva. They have money but more in inventory sometimes than money. They could afford a car, maybe. However, OFB is based on throwing you some curveballs.

For instance, if no EPs are installed except OFB (nor M&G) then Townies who come to cause trouble (hang out, just browse, socialize too much when inventory is low, cause messes, complain about messes) are there to make you realize your prices are too high.

You throw the bums out if they don't have any money. Ask to leave. Or lower the prices when townies tell you they can't afford it. If they still don't have money, throw them out. They will cause problems if the stock gets low and they have nothing else to do. They will be replaced by another before your business closes.

EnkiSchmidt

Cinebar wrote: »

Open for Business doesn't exactly work that simply. The game has a lot of surprises if you are just thinking all townies can afford everything.

In my defense, I didn't pull that assumption out of my backside, but got it from the PRIMA guidebook that had the "official" label (and otherwise very detailed and helpful information.)

As for the rest, you're totally correct, it is a very different experience from what I remember!

I have way more fun with the landfill. Soon as my two interns have earned their gold badges I might just make one of them the manager of the car dealership and let it simmer in the background, only checking in when the income deterioates too much.

lisamwitt

I've never had a Prima guide, but based on what others who have used them have said, they seem to have been largely written when the packs were still in development. They always had things in them that were no longer true.

EnkiSchmidt

Makes sense, they'll have wanted the books to be out at the same time as the game/expansion.

Devalaous

EnkiSchmidt wrote: »

I'm trying to get back into Sims 2 after a two year pause and decided to play a business with one of my new families. They own a landfill, that works fine, and a car dealership, where I ran into a problem:

Twice now customers gave me the "I can't afford this" symbol when I presented the expensive sports car to them, despite being townies. I thought townies had a limitless budget?

The sims in question are a Garden Club member (Toby Bruenig) and a Social Townie (Sarah McCarthy). Are those exempt from the endless money rule?

I'm aware of the Townie Budget mod, but I don't have that one.

Most Townie pools have 20000 simoleons, including the social class and garden club pools, if the car is higher priced than that I dont think they can buy it.