I've seen the getting paid for repairs and upgrades thing in Sims 3 for a long time. I had assumed that you guys knew of it; frankly, I'd rather use that for paying my bills than use mooching, because I've never liked the idea of mooching. (Probably because I knew people who mooched when I was a kid, and I never had any respect for them.) I would rather look at my bills, and then repair one or two items to pay for it, than mooch from someone else. I doubt you'd make more than you'd get from mooching, and it seems less undignified.
It's funny you guys talking about these $10 and $20 bills. The first bill my Sim had in Sims 4 was $110! I was able to offset most of it by gathering water once every few hours at the fishing spots, which got it down to something like $60 the first time I had to pay it. But as the number of plants I was growing increased, my bills increased as well. My second (or maybe it was my third) bill was $300; I was only able to offset that down to about $160, and that was by gathering water even more frequently than before.
I do think the number of plants - and the quality of the plants - affect your bills. At least in Sims 4; my bills were going up, and my plants were the only things at all on my lot.
@MiaSkywalker Thanks for confirming I'm not crazy. Can you believe I've played Sims 3 since the very beginning, so 11 years, and I'm just now noticing the payments for repairs. I agree with you about the mooching vs. repairing things for money to pay the bills. Ella has never mooched for any money, just for food, and in the case of food, it was more in the spirit of the challenge to see what she would get.
S3's bills are a lot lower (and epecially those for this challenge where your sim owns nothing), but I don't remember overall enough money being any more difficult to come by in one game over the other. Of course, I only played S4 for a brief period, and it was long enough ago that I likely don't remember accurately.
Also at @Mmdrgntobldrgn and @ciane -
I played again last night (and stayed up too late again *cough*), setting the summer longer, and found her money situation got much, much better just a couple sim days after where things had been when I posted. It seems more hopeful now and more interesting because I will be able to start buying/building at least *something.* I do like starting with nothing (this is the least nothing I've ever done, though), but I like to see things moving along.
Oh, and putting the gnome in her family inventory did remove it from the lot value (furnished went down just around 1000 to almost the same as the unfurnished value), and her next bills were down to 16 simoleons.
I've never found the need to mooch for money as the initial seeds will pay the bills before the tomato is ready to harvest. I have no experience with sims 4 at all though, so I'm no help there.
My game informed me last night that I've played my tomato challenge for 24 hours now. I knew I've been playing it pretty intensively, but I hadn't realized how much time I've already devoted to it!
I'm going to try to post the second chapter today. I might have enough for a third chapter as well. We'll see.
The only reason I'm doing this in Sims 4 rather than Sims 3 is simply that I can't play Sims 3 without it crashing within minutes. It's definitely a different challenge; it's easy enough to make money in 3, but I think it's even easier in 4. Bills seem to be higher in 4, at least after their recent revamp. (Which I'm convinced they did, because they want us to get ES in order to be able to lower them. ) Also, evolving plants in S4 used to be much easier than it is now, particularly if you only have low $ items to fertilize them with. I would say that S4 used to be easier than S3 that way, but now it's reversed.
@Ciane: I hadn't thought to make SamelaRita's Ella into Cinderella! What a great story twist! Mooching for food seems very useful, all right. I deliberately put my Sim in an area that is empty of Sims (as well as any commercial or residential buildings), so even if mooching were a thing in the game, she wouldn't have anyone to mooch from. I loved seeing all those Sunset Valley Sims in your game. Who was the blond guy she was talking to at the beginning? I don't recognize him.
I enjoyed reading your take on, Ella, @ciane . Thinking she'd better have a bed by the time her garden gets bigger because she'll have far less time to nap. Or, maybe you'll just be smarter about what's in her garden than I have been. My Ella heads to her lot in the morning, and it's usually 4 PM till she gets out of there now. I'm trying not to replace lower quality plants that die, but it seems every time one does, I have a harvestable that's higher quality than I've had before, and so I plant it and never manage to cut anything back.
I'll look forward to your new chapter @MiaSkywalker . It's too bad you can't keep your S3 running. We could probably suggest some things to try, but I'm thinking you know all of them already and so probably have tried them.
She is in Hidden Springs @MiaSkywalker. That's why you don't recognize him. His name is Sebastian Vanderburg, the prince counterpart to Cinderella. Here's the blurb from the sims wiki:
Hidden Springs has some references to the fairy tale Cinderella: The royalty of the world, the Vanderburg family is trying to get their "prince," Sebastian married. Lonnie Pertridge has a fondest wish to marry her daughters, Eunice and Astrid to the "prince," and they mistreat Ella Carlisle, Lonnie's step-daughter, who is obliged to perform domestic roles. Following Cinderella story, the "prince" would end up marrying Ella Carlisle and despise Lonnie, Eunice and Astrid. The players are, however, free to choose their fate.
So, it's maybe not such an original twist; yet, a twist it is.
I've finished playing the second week, so I'll try to get that posted for you all to catch up with my game play. (I haven't gotten her a bed yet @suzses, but I did get tired of all the wasted time napping and splurged for a sleeping bag.
@Ciane : Oh! I've played in Hidden Springs before, and I made over the Pertridge family to look like the women in the movie Ever After. I got all three of the step-family looking very like the actresses; I didn't need to do Ella over, as someone else had already made a Drew Barrymore sim. I *thought* that kind of looked like Sebastian, but the other Sims all look like they're from Sunset Valley, so... how did you combine the Sims from the two areas? Or does there just happen to be a kid who looks exactly like young Mortimer Goth there?
The sleeping bag will improve things enormously! I've used them with the Homeless Challenge (which isn't really a challenge anymore), and they certainly help a lot. You will probably wake up with the bad bed moodlet a lot, but it's better than wasting your whole day napping!
@suzses: I've tried many things, including playing without CC and mods. (Other than Nraas, of course.) I think one problem is that so many of the lovely player-made and EA-made worlds have a lot of bugs in them. Nraas gets rid of a lot of that when it runs its reset every 4am game time, but in the meantime a lot of that can build up. And if a world has something inherent in it that causes the lag all the time (I'm looking at you, Island Paradiso), then even with a once-every-24-hour reset in the game, it's just not enough.
I think another problem is that this computer is just getting old. While it was state-of-the-art when I built it, that was probably over a decade ago. Someday I'll splurge and get a better computer with an SD system drive and a much better CPU, and that should help enormously.
@ciane I like how you've used the extra lot clutter (portal, university bucket, etc.) to protect your garden. I sort of did the same in that I briefly used her bike in place of a gate when her garden fence was partly done. I definitely approve of sleeping bags. Funny, though, @MiaSkywalker , I don't remember ever getting any bad night's sleep moodlets with sleeping bags, which makes me prefer them over cheap beds. Plus, a sim will just plop them down wherever when they want to sleep, and that can mean less traveling if you're dealing with a homeless sim.
@MiaSkywalker I hope you get a spiffy new computer sometime soon. They do perform less well as they get older, unfortunately. Having an SSD really is nice with Sims 3. You'll enjoy that when you get one.
Plus, a sim will just plop them down wherever when they want to sleep, and that can mean less traveling if you're dealing with a homeless sim.
@MiaSkywalker I hope you get a spiffy new computer sometime soon. They do perform less well as they get older, unfortunately. Having an SSD really is nice with Sims 3. You'll enjoy that when you get one.
Oh, I know! I gave one to my hobo Sim (he's one of the two I use in my Homeless Challenge games - I leave him on full free will, and only control his daughter. He has every negative trait in the game - it's fun to watch him!), and whenever he gets tired, he plops it down anywhere and sleeps. So they'll do it autonomously, if they have one in their inventory. I love the sleeping bags from Sims 3; they're just awesome for stuff like that.
I won't be getting one anytime VERY soon, unfortunately. But it is still something I have in the back of my mind.
I've seen the getting paid for repairs and upgrades thing in Sims 3 for a long time. I had assumed that you guys knew of it; frankly, I'd rather use that for paying my bills than use mooching, because I've never liked the idea of mooching. (Probably because I knew people who mooched when I was a kid, and I never had any respect for them.) I would rather look at my bills, and then repair one or two items to pay for it, than mooch from someone else. I doubt you'd make more than you'd get from mooching, and it seems less undignified.
It's funny you guys talking about these $10 and $20 bills. The first bill my Sim had in Sims 4 was $110! I was able to offset most of it by gathering water once every few hours at the fishing spots, which got it down to something like $60 the first time I had to pay it. But as the number of plants I was growing increased, my bills increased as well. My second (or maybe it was my third) bill was $300; I was only able to offset that down to about $160, and that was by gathering water even more frequently than before.
I do think the number of plants - and the quality of the plants - affect your bills. At least in Sims 4; my bills were going up, and my plants were the only things at all on my lot.
Add the off the grid trait if you haven't already, until you can get a decent house up. It trims down the early bills in 4.
Ps, in 3 I like the rocker the best for napping and good moodlet's, however the sleeping bag is only 100$ whereas the rocker is over 200$ (I think).
Lots of the problems in the worlds that cause lag can be addressed before you start playing in edit town mode. Remove fences and even hedges around public places as the sims often get stuck in them - the science facility in SV and the library in HS, etc. Delete anything with foundation and stairs on public lots as well - esp. the center fountain areas in many worlds. I often level the school and city hall so there aren't all those stairs. Delete parking spots on community lots and just use the ones in debug if you want a bit of realism with actual cars hanging out. (I leave the look of the parking, but just delete the actual parking spot.) I still love overwatch and how it helps out; but once you've made certain fixes to a world and save it, you can just pull up the save to start any new game there. IP did require a lot of work to set it up for me because of all the houseboats, that large castle with all the stairs to just get to the door, etc. That's why I shared my copy of the world and have it linked in my siggie and on my wall.
Great idea about the rocker @Mmdrgntobldrgn. For me, it was a stretch to just get the sleeping bag. There are so many things to focus on first, esp. the plants. I wanted to buy all the seeds she needed first. Ella definitely was more challenging than Chad simply because the first time around, I let him use the fire station. This time, I deleted the fire station before starting.
I'm looking forward to some more story telling!
Oops, I forgot to add @MiaSkywalker - that some of the kids just happen to look a lot a like.
@Ciane: I didn't realize it was the fences and hedges, and I *especially* didn't know that foundations can cause a problem. I do know the schools can; I've seen the crowding that takes place in them. Often I will plop down a couple of those small schools that come with HS (I think that's the one with the small school) in several different places on any world, just so all the kids aren't crowding at the doors of a single school all day long. This is particularly true if I have kids in my own Sim family; I want them to be able to actually, you know, GO to school, instead of waiting all day in a queue to go in. I also always remove the school that comes with DV and replace it with one of the others; it's gorgeous, but it requires a 64x64 lot, and apparently it's one of the worst schools in the game for causing lag.
I think I remember reading that about the parking spots, although it has been so long now that I had forgotten. Iirc, it causes cars to be abandoned in those spots, which causes game lag. Overwatch will clear that out once a game day, but until it does, that apparently causes problems. (Although why this is true has never made any sense to me.)
Another thing that I know can cause problems are horses, which is a shame, because I love them. But if you have too many NPC horses - and that includes the wild ones, as well as any NPC Sims who have them - they get stuck in places, and it lags the game. I usually turn off wild horses for precisely that reason, but I do NOT turn off unicorns, because I love them. And I don't find that those tend to hang out in the urbanized areas anyway, so I think they're less likely to get stuck.
I'm having fun reading everyone's rendition of SamelaRita's challenge, and writing my own. I had estimated three chapters for mine, and it looks like I estimated correctly. I have one more chapter to eventually write (I need one or two more days of playing to get shots for it), and I will essentially be done. Then she and Caleb can settle down and have babies, and do other things in my game.
@MiaSkywalker I'm very much enjoying your story. Your sim is very pretty, and my her garden got big fast. It's cool she can have people come help with the gardening. Your painted windows are very pretty, too - her home is coming along nicely.
I have not played again. I have a folder stuffed full of pictures (like 98) already, and I've been scribbling down things in a notebook (that I may not be able to read) so I can remember what was going on, but I'm fast reaching a point where I either have to DO something with those pictures and the info or just bag all that and play. I'm wanting to do the latter but persuaded myself to try to finish up the resort project (and its more like 150 pictures) first, and then I can make a better decision about what to do with all the Ella stuff. I had to sort out a routing problem with the resort that was driving me buggy - and then retake a few pictures because of that - and now I just have to finish up the presentation stuff, so I hope I'll be playing Ella again by tomorrow, or at least the next day.
@MiaSkywalker -There is a great mod that you can get at ModtheSims that activates the other doors of buildings that is especially useful for university graduations and addresses all schools. The Dragon Valley school then has at least one door in back that works too.
I included a pic of Ella stuck in the fence at the library, showing what I was referring to before. The foundations and stairs at parks are, of course, a great place for sims to put down toddlers, puppies, and kittens, leaving them stranded as they can't navigate stairs.
Add the off the grid trait if you haven't already, until you can get a decent house up. It trims down the early bills in 4.
Ps, in 3 I like the rocker the best for napping and good moodlet's, however the sleeping bag is only 100$ whereas the rocker is over 200$ (I think).
I had Off the Grid as a lot trait at the beginning. I've never bothered with it before, because I tend to prefer higher end furnishings that aren't off the grid. But there was no reason not to be, because she had no plumbing and electricity anyway.
When I built her the outhouse, I still had that lot trait, and used only off-the-grid items. But the shower was horrible (it helped some, but I had to take something like four showers to get her hygiene in the green), so when I built the house, I removed that lot trait. That's one reason she has a better shower - I decided it was worth it!
I also originally had the new eco thing turned on in the game play menu, and she was gathering water from the river to offset the bill. That helped a bit for it. I turned that off once I started building; if I want to use wood paneling, I don't want it to burn down just because she turns on the oven or lights a candle. Since I had that in mind from the beginning, I didn't start building until she had enough money stored up that I didn't have to worry about bills anymore.
I think that new Eco thing has made bills overall a bit higher than they used to be. At least, I *think* they are. I'd probably have to check the same empty lot in both my 1.63 game, and my 1.62 game. (I blocked Origin and S4 from accessing the internet on my desktop, so my game is frozen at 1.62. My laptop is the one doing the challenge, and that one is on 1.63. I do NOT want to play with the new Eco stuff in my main games. Not until I absolutely must.)
Btw, one advantage of sleeping bags over rockers: you can take a sleeping bag everywhere. I don't think you can carry a rocker around. Or can you? And would that be any better than benches, since all you'd be able to do is nap?
@suzses: I hope you do post your story. I'd love to read it! I love reading Sims games that other people play. They can be fun stories, and it gives me an idea how other people play.
@ciane I loved your story, your take on Ella, and the home she built. @MiaSkywalker It was fun seeing the challenge play out in Sims 4 - you and @Mmdrgntobldrgn and anyone else who's trying it will have to put together a set of Sims4 rules for it. I know MamD's had a pretty comprehensive go at that already...
@ciane I loved your story, your take on Ella, and the home she built. @MiaSkywalker It was fun seeing the challenge play out in Sims 4 - you and @Mmdrgntobldrgn and anyone else who's trying it will have to put together a set of Sims4 rules for it. I know MamD's had a pretty comprehensive go at that already...
@BreeMiles: Oh my goodness, a meteor! That's not a very common occurrence - so awful (and yet hilarious) that it happened in the middle of this challenge! You'll have to almost kind of start over, won't you?
@SamelaRita & @Mmdrgntobldrgn : Well, my feeling is that with Sims 4 it's both harder and easier. Harder in that you need to make sure you pick a spot that will have a grill, a place to fish, and some place to go to the bathroom; also harder in that since you can't grill fish right off, you have to either harvest some fruits (which technically you're not supposed to) or catch some fruits from fishing, that you can then eat, because you can't mooch food off someone. Part of these fall in because the game isn't open world, so you can't just walk into a community lot and shower, use the bathroom, etc. Easier because some of the growth mechanics in the game seem a bit easier.
Not plant evolution, though; that's much easier in Sims 3, iirc. Although... you don't have to keep replanting in order to increase quality, which MAY make Sims 4 easier in that regard, too. Also, Sims 4 has the Super Sell interaction, which vastly increases the speed at which you can sell fruits and flowers for simoleons. Also, if you graft one plant type onto another, whatever quality you've evolved the plant that's being grafted to, becomes the quality of all of it. So if you graft a normal quality bluebell onto a perfect quality tomato, you'll get perfect quality bluebells from the get-go. I also don't think plants have a limited number of harvests before the plants died, which I know it used to, and I know Sims 3 definitely has. So gardens can get larger and larger, without losing any plants unless you're careless. (Or very unlucky, like Bree was!)
I was lucky in that an early grafting I had done got me dragon fruit, which is apparently the most profitable plant in the game, bar none. I hadn't realized it, because I've never used gardening for profit before; I always garden in order to fill my refrigerator and my flower arranging station; once I have about a hundred of each harvest type, I generally delete the garden or put the plants in my family inventory. Dragon Fruit is more profitable than even Death Flowers. Although a Death Flower will sell for double what a dragon fruit will, you only get one or two death flowers per plant per harvest, and you get eight dragon fruits per plant per harvest. That means you can replant those much more quickly, and end up with a large - and very profitable - garden extremely quickly.
I have almost enough screen caps to do the final chapter to my One Tomato story, but I haven't done the final bit yet. I've been working on other things, and when I launch my Tomato game on my laptop, I often am too absorbed in what I'm doing on my desktop, that I forget my Sims 4 is running. Several times I've forgotten to pause the game, then I've had to load a previous save, because oops! I know it SEEMS that my Sim was able to grow her garden quickly, but that's not really true; the game has been going on for seven Sim weeks already, and it's almost autumn.
I've been taking @Ciane's advice, and deleting all the hedges, fences, and parking lots from all of the builds in Sunset Valley, and then I'm going to attempt to do this in Sims 3. It's a slow process, and I'm only about 15% of the way through it by now, although I *think* I've gotten about a third of the really bad lots. But I haven't even looked at the inhabited lots yet, so who knows? I do know that even doing this, and without ever going into Create a Sim, Create a Style, or live mode, my game crashed after three hours. (Good thing Nraas saves automatically every 30 minutes.) That never happens when I'm playing Sims 4; I can play for over 12 hours straight in that, without crashing. So while the game play in Sims 3 was well designed, the game programming was poorly done. Rather sad, that.
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It's funny you guys talking about these $10 and $20 bills. The first bill my Sim had in Sims 4 was $110! I was able to offset most of it by gathering water once every few hours at the fishing spots, which got it down to something like $60 the first time I had to pay it. But as the number of plants I was growing increased, my bills increased as well. My second (or maybe it was my third) bill was $300; I was only able to offset that down to about $160, and that was by gathering water even more frequently than before.
I do think the number of plants - and the quality of the plants - affect your bills. At least in Sims 4; my bills were going up, and my plants were the only things at all on my lot.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
S3's bills are a lot lower (and epecially those for this challenge where your sim owns nothing), but I don't remember overall enough money being any more difficult to come by in one game over the other. Of course, I only played S4 for a brief period, and it was long enough ago that I likely don't remember accurately.
Also at @Mmdrgntobldrgn and @ciane -
I played again last night (and stayed up too late again *cough*), setting the summer longer, and found her money situation got much, much better just a couple sim days after where things had been when I posted. It seems more hopeful now and more interesting because I will be able to start buying/building at least *something.* I do like starting with nothing (this is the least nothing I've ever done, though), but I like to see things moving along.
Oh, and putting the gnome in her family inventory did remove it from the lot value (furnished went down just around 1000 to almost the same as the unfurnished value), and her next bills were down to 16 simoleons.
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I'll be interesting to watch all the stories unfold differently. I do hope everyone continues to post here.
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I'm going to try to post the second chapter today. I might have enough for a third chapter as well. We'll see.
The only reason I'm doing this in Sims 4 rather than Sims 3 is simply that I can't play Sims 3 without it crashing within minutes. It's definitely a different challenge; it's easy enough to make money in 3, but I think it's even easier in 4. Bills seem to be higher in 4, at least after their recent revamp. (Which I'm convinced they did, because they want us to get ES in order to be able to lower them.
@Ciane: I hadn't thought to make SamelaRita's Ella into Cinderella! What a great story twist! Mooching for food seems very useful, all right. I deliberately put my Sim in an area that is empty of Sims (as well as any commercial or residential buildings), so even if mooching were a thing in the game, she wouldn't have anyone to mooch from.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
I'll look forward to your new chapter @MiaSkywalker . It's too bad you can't keep your S3 running. We could probably suggest some things to try, but I'm thinking you know all of them already and so probably have tried them.
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Hidden Springs has some references to the fairy tale Cinderella: The royalty of the world, the Vanderburg family is trying to get their "prince," Sebastian married. Lonnie Pertridge has a fondest wish to marry her daughters, Eunice and Astrid to the "prince," and they mistreat Ella Carlisle, Lonnie's step-daughter, who is obliged to perform domestic roles. Following Cinderella story, the "prince" would end up marrying Ella Carlisle and despise Lonnie, Eunice and Astrid. The players are, however, free to choose their fate.
So, it's maybe not such an original twist; yet, a twist it is.
I've finished playing the second week, so I'll try to get that posted for you all to catch up with my game play. (I haven't gotten her a bed yet @suzses, but I did get tired of all the wasted time napping and splurged for a sleeping bag.
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The sleeping bag will improve things enormously! I've used them with the Homeless Challenge (which isn't really a challenge anymore), and they certainly help a lot. You will probably wake up with the bad bed moodlet a lot, but it's better than wasting your whole day napping!
@suzses: I've tried many things, including playing without CC and mods. (Other than Nraas, of course.) I think one problem is that so many of the lovely player-made and EA-made worlds have a lot of bugs in them. Nraas gets rid of a lot of that when it runs its reset every 4am game time, but in the meantime a lot of that can build up. And if a world has something inherent in it that causes the lag all the time (I'm looking at you, Island Paradiso), then even with a once-every-24-hour reset in the game, it's just not enough.
I think another problem is that this computer is just getting old. While it was state-of-the-art when I built it, that was probably over a decade ago. Someday I'll splurge and get a better computer with an SD system drive and a much better CPU, and that should help enormously.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
@MiaSkywalker I hope you get a spiffy new computer sometime soon.
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I won't be getting one anytime VERY soon, unfortunately. But it is still something I have in the back of my mind.
Edit: Chapter 2 is up, for anyone interested.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
Add the off the grid trait if you haven't already, until you can get a decent house up. It trims down the early bills in 4.
Ps, in 3 I like the rocker the best for napping and good moodlet's, however the sleeping bag is only 100$ whereas the rocker is over 200$ (I think).
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Lots of the problems in the worlds that cause lag can be addressed before you start playing in edit town mode. Remove fences and even hedges around public places as the sims often get stuck in them - the science facility in SV and the library in HS, etc. Delete anything with foundation and stairs on public lots as well - esp. the center fountain areas in many worlds. I often level the school and city hall so there aren't all those stairs. Delete parking spots on community lots and just use the ones in debug if you want a bit of realism with actual cars hanging out. (I leave the look of the parking, but just delete the actual parking spot.) I still love overwatch and how it helps out; but once you've made certain fixes to a world and save it, you can just pull up the save to start any new game there. IP did require a lot of work to set it up for me because of all the houseboats, that large castle with all the stairs to just get to the door, etc. That's why I shared my copy of the world and have it linked in my siggie and on my wall.
Great idea about the rocker @Mmdrgntobldrgn. For me, it was a stretch to just get the sleeping bag. There are so many things to focus on first, esp. the plants. I wanted to buy all the seeds she needed first. Ella definitely was more challenging than Chad simply because the first time around, I let him use the fire station. This time, I deleted the fire station before starting.
I'm looking forward to some more story telling!
Oops, I forgot to add @MiaSkywalker - that some of the kids just happen to look a lot a like.
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I think I remember reading that about the parking spots, although it has been so long now that I had forgotten. Iirc, it causes cars to be abandoned in those spots, which causes game lag. Overwatch will clear that out once a game day, but until it does, that apparently causes problems. (Although why this is true has never made any sense to me.)
Another thing that I know can cause problems are horses, which is a shame, because I love them. But if you have too many NPC horses - and that includes the wild ones, as well as any NPC Sims who have them - they get stuck in places, and it lags the game. I usually turn off wild horses for precisely that reason, but I do NOT turn off unicorns, because I love them. And I don't find that those tend to hang out in the urbanized areas anyway, so I think they're less likely to get stuck.
I'm having fun reading everyone's rendition of SamelaRita's challenge, and writing my own. I had estimated three chapters for mine, and it looks like I estimated correctly. I have one more chapter to eventually write (I need one or two more days of playing to get shots for it), and I will essentially be done. Then she and Caleb can settle down and have babies, and do other things in my game.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
I have not played again. I have a folder stuffed full of pictures (like 98) already, and I've been scribbling down things in a notebook (that I may not be able to read) so I can remember what was going on, but I'm fast reaching a point where I either have to DO something with those pictures and the info or just bag all that and play. I'm wanting to do the latter
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@MiaSkywalker -There is a great mod that you can get at ModtheSims that activates the other doors of buildings that is especially useful for university graduations and addresses all schools. The Dragon Valley school then has at least one door in back that works too.
I included a pic of Ella stuck in the fence at the library, showing what I was referring to before. The foundations and stairs at parks are, of course, a great place for sims to put down toddlers, puppies, and kittens, leaving them stranded as they can't navigate stairs.
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When I built her the outhouse, I still had that lot trait, and used only off-the-grid items. But the shower was horrible (it helped some, but I had to take something like four showers to get her hygiene in the green), so when I built the house, I removed that lot trait. That's one reason she has a better shower - I decided it was worth it!
I also originally had the new eco thing turned on in the game play menu, and she was gathering water from the river to offset the bill. That helped a bit for it. I turned that off once I started building; if I want to use wood paneling, I don't want it to burn down just because she turns on the oven or lights a candle. Since I had that in mind from the beginning, I didn't start building until she had enough money stored up that I didn't have to worry about bills anymore.
I think that new Eco thing has made bills overall a bit higher than they used to be. At least, I *think* they are. I'd probably have to check the same empty lot in both my 1.63 game, and my 1.62 game. (I blocked Origin and S4 from accessing the internet on my desktop, so my game is frozen at 1.62. My laptop is the one doing the challenge, and that one is on 1.63. I do NOT want to play with the new Eco stuff in my main games. Not until I absolutely must.)
Btw, one advantage of sleeping bags over rockers: you can take a sleeping bag everywhere. I don't think you can carry a rocker around. Or can you? And would that be any better than benches, since all you'd be able to do is nap?
@suzses: I hope you do post your story. I'd love to read it! I love reading Sims games that other people play. They can be fun stories, and it gives me an idea how other people play.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
https://cianesims.home.blog/story/ella/e4/
I played Ella exactly four weeks - a long summer. ;}
Store Install
Unlocked Stencils
random legacy
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
@MiaSkywalker It was fun seeing the challenge play out in Sims 4 - you and @Mmdrgntobldrgn and anyone else who's trying it will have to put together a set of Sims4 rules for it. I know MamD's had a pretty comprehensive go at that already...
Just needs a stamp of approval from you and more feedback & input from @MiaSkywalker
more-one-tomato
Exploring life through imagination & satire since 1969.
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@SamelaRita & @Mmdrgntobldrgn : Well, my feeling is that with Sims 4 it's both harder and easier. Harder in that you need to make sure you pick a spot that will have a grill, a place to fish, and some place to go to the bathroom; also harder in that since you can't grill fish right off, you have to either harvest some fruits (which technically you're not supposed to) or catch some fruits from fishing, that you can then eat, because you can't mooch food off someone. Part of these fall in because the game isn't open world, so you can't just walk into a community lot and shower, use the bathroom, etc. Easier because some of the growth mechanics in the game seem a bit easier.
Not plant evolution, though; that's much easier in Sims 3, iirc. Although... you don't have to keep replanting in order to increase quality, which MAY make Sims 4 easier in that regard, too. Also, Sims 4 has the Super Sell interaction, which vastly increases the speed at which you can sell fruits and flowers for simoleons. Also, if you graft one plant type onto another, whatever quality you've evolved the plant that's being grafted to, becomes the quality of all of it. So if you graft a normal quality bluebell onto a perfect quality tomato, you'll get perfect quality bluebells from the get-go. I also don't think plants have a limited number of harvests before the plants died, which I know it used to, and I know Sims 3 definitely has. So gardens can get larger and larger, without losing any plants unless you're careless. (Or very unlucky, like Bree was!)
I was lucky in that an early grafting I had done got me dragon fruit, which is apparently the most profitable plant in the game, bar none. I hadn't realized it, because I've never used gardening for profit before; I always garden in order to fill my refrigerator and my flower arranging station; once I have about a hundred of each harvest type, I generally delete the garden or put the plants in my family inventory. Dragon Fruit is more profitable than even Death Flowers. Although a Death Flower will sell for double what a dragon fruit will, you only get one or two death flowers per plant per harvest, and you get eight dragon fruits per plant per harvest. That means you can replant those much more quickly, and end up with a large - and very profitable - garden extremely quickly.
I have almost enough screen caps to do the final chapter to my One Tomato story, but I haven't done the final bit yet. I've been working on other things, and when I launch my Tomato game on my laptop, I often am too absorbed in what I'm doing on my desktop, that I forget my Sims 4 is running. Several times I've forgotten to pause the game, then I've had to load a previous save, because oops! I know it SEEMS that my Sim was able to grow her garden quickly, but that's not really true; the game has been going on for seven Sim weeks already, and it's almost autumn.
I've been taking @Ciane's advice, and deleting all the hedges, fences, and parking lots from all of the builds in Sunset Valley, and then I'm going to attempt to do this in Sims 3. It's a slow process, and I'm only about 15% of the way through it by now, although I *think* I've gotten about a third of the really bad lots. But I haven't even looked at the inhabited lots yet, so who knows? I do know that even doing this, and without ever going into Create a Sim, Create a Style, or live mode, my game crashed after three hours. (Good thing Nraas saves automatically every 30 minutes.) That never happens when I'm playing Sims 4; I can play for over 12 hours straight in that, without crashing. So while the game play in Sims 3 was well designed, the game programming was poorly done. Rather sad, that.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!