The Sims - Vacation
Full Strategy Guide
Document written by PyroFalkon (pyrofalkon@hotmail.com)
Current version: 3.9
Last update: 24 April 2004
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||LATEST UPDATE||
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v3.9 (24 April 2004)
I guess I've got one more update ready. (No wonder CJayC recommends that we
never say an FAQ's version as "Final.") Again, this update SHOULD BE it for
this FAQ. That said, I'm always available by e-mail for questions you may have,
as long as I didn't already answer it in the FAQ.
Okay, three tiny updates. First, I made a mistake in how to back up your sims,
so that's been fixed. Second, I read over my Alpha strategy again just to
proofread it and all that. Third, I've added the second way to get rid of the
Tragic Clown, so that's in the Disasters section.
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||TABLE OF CONTENTS||
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1. Intro
2. Creating a family
a. Attributes
3. Buying a lot and building a house
a. Build Mode, and tips for building
b. Buy Mode, and tips for buying
c. the Option gump
4. Taking care of yourself
a. Hunger
b. Comfort
c. Hygiene
d. Bladder
e. Energy
f. Fun
g. Social
h. Room
5. Taking care of others
6. Money
a. Jobs
b. Arts and Crafts
c. Other Money Tips
7. Skills
a. Skill Gain Rates
8. Sim Love
a. Having and Greeting Visitors
b. Interests
9. Astrological Signs
a. Aquarius
b. Pisces
c. Aries
d. Taurus
e. Gemini
f. Cancer
g. Leo
h. Virgo
i. Libra
j. Scorpio
k. Sagittarius
l. Capricorn
10. Downtown
a. Having a date or friend with you downtown
b. Constructing buildings
11. Vacation Island: The New Area of SimCity
a. Having a date with you on vacation
12. Throwing Parties
13. Kids
a. Babies
14. Disasters
a. Death
15. Other Events and Rumor Killers
16. Strategies
a. PyroFalkon's Alpha Strategy
b. Money Strategies
c. Relationship Strategies
d. Other strategies and short tips
e. Strategies Submitted by Readers
17. Customizing your sims
18. Cheat Codes
19. Unconfirmed Information
20. Backing Up Your Sims
a. Method 1
b. Method 2
21. Contributor List
22. Version History
23. Legal Info
24. Contact Info
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||1. INTRO||
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+----------+
Ah, The Sims, a classic game by SimCity creator Will Wright. Vacation is the
fourth expansion for the game, and it adds a whole crapload of new happy
features. I'll cover as much as I can here, assuming that you know nothing
about any of The Sims series. If you've already played it, but haven't played
Hot Date or Vacation yet, head to the Sim Love section. Maxis changed the whole
spectrum of relationships this time around, so getting dates is a bit
different; not harder, just different.
This FAQ will cover every aspect of The Sims, from your sims' births to their
deaths and everything in between. However, because I don't want to ruin the
game for anyone, it will not contain detailed item lists and whatnot. Part of
the fun of this game is exploring your options; I'm just pointing you in the
general direction.
Okay, enough of that. Away we go!
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|+--------------------+|
||2. CREATING A FAMILY||
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+----------------------+
Once you get past the title screen and all that, you'll come to a view of the
neighborhood. There may be a few houses scattered around, one of which has a
big flashing arrow. That's the tutorial house, and I recommend you play it
before leaping into The Sims. Of course, you don't have to, and I cover in this
FAQ pretty much everything it says in the tutorial.
Across the top are a few buttons. The one you're interested in is the left-most
of the center group, the one with a few people on it. Click that and you'll be
taken to a screen that lists all the families that are not currently in houses
(I call this the barracks; what can I say, I'm a fan of Worms: World Party).
Click an empty line (or the button with a few people and a plus sign) to create
a new family.
You'll be prompted to enter a last name. For my examples, I'll refer to my
primary family that I've got going here... so, type in the last name that suits
you. In my case, "Falkon."
After that, click the button that lit up: the top one of the group of three.
Here, you'll get to personalize your first character. The simplest thing listed
is at the top, the first name. Obviously, "Pyro" goes here for me.
Next, you need to enter your character's attributes.
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|2a. Attributes|
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The attributes are divided into five catagories: Neat, Outgoing, Active,
Playful, and Nice. You can assign up to 10 points to any attribute, but you
have a total limit of 25 points.
NEAT indicates how environmentally-conscious your sim is, and what the chance
is of it doing cleaning actions automatically. If it's set to max, then your
sim will always clear the table and flush the toilet when finished eating and
doing their business, respectively (at least, I HOPE it's respectively). A
minimum rating of zero will make your sim a complete slob who doesn't mind
being in its own filth. This rating has an indirect effect on the Room bar; see
the Mood Bars section for details.
OUTGOING indicates how well your sim gets to know others. If set to 10, it
makes friends easily; if set to 0, it makes friends as easily as a corpse. This
rating has an indirect effect on the Social bar.
ACTIVE indicates how much your sim likes to move around. A high rating means
that it would rather play basketball, for example, than watch TV. A low rating
means just the opposite. Also, the rating directly affects how long it takes
for that sim to get up after it wakes up. A sim with an ACTIVE rating of 10
will literally leap out of bed. A sim with a zero rating will take one full
game hour to get out of bed once it wakes up.
PLAYFUL indicates how much your sim prefers games over serious things. This,
combined with ACTIVE, gives you an idea of what your sim wants to do with
itself to get its Fun mood up. Again, check out the Mood Meter section for
details.
NICE indicates just how well your sim gets along with others. This, combined
with OUTGOING, affects the way your sim makes friends.
Once you have your attributes set, check out the series of seven buttons to the
right. The top two affect whether the sim is a child or an adult. Families
should have at least one adult, since children can't get jobs to earn money.
Below that are three buttons that change your sim's skin tone from light to
medium to dark. The bottom two set its gender; the one on the left is for
males, the one to the right is for females.
Once you have your sim's age, skin tone, and gender set, take a look at the
arrows that flank your sim's head and body. Using those, you can scroll through
the available choices of heads and clothes (called skins). Don't worry so much
about the clothes since those can be changed in-game, but once you choose a
head, it's locked in for eternity.
The attributes are almost permanent once you set them, so make sure you think
carefully before you confirm your choice.
At the bottom of this screen is a section where you can write a bio. It's
totally optional, but I think it's fun to give my sims backstories.
To confirm your choices, click the Done button. You'll be taken back to the
family screen where you entered the last name. You can add up to seven more
family members for a total of eight, but you have to be careful. The more
people you have, the faster you earn money, but the more maintenance you pay.
If this is your first family, I'd stick with no more than two.
For my strategy (outlined in a later section), I use three adults: Pyro,
Stephanie, and Pud.
In the bios, I declare Pyro and Stephanie to be married, and Pud is Pyro's
brother. Now, there is no "official" way to set any relationship; I could
consider the Falkons to all be siblings if I wanted, or all be married to each
other, or both. Of course, since I'm normal, I'm just sticking with a simple
marriage with a tag-along brother.
If you make a mistake on a family member, you can click that sim, then the
bottom button of the Create Family screen to edit him or her. If things go
horribly wrong, you can click the sim, then the middle button to end its life
before it even begins. Once you're satisfied with your family, click the done
button on the Create Family screen, but remember that you can never come back
to the Create Family screen again to edit anyone.
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||3. BUYING A LOT AND BUILDING A HOUSE||
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On the family select screen, click the family you just made, then the button in
the bottom-right (a family with an arrow pointing to a house). You'll be kicked
back to the neighborhood screen where you can select which lot you want to buy.
You have to buy a lot that does not have a family already there, but you CAN
buy one if it already contains a house. However, I like building houses (and
it's cheaper that way than buying a huge house off the bat). The more people
that are in your sim family, the less expensive the lot you should buy. It's up
to you, of course, but there's no reason to make this too hard if it's your
first time.
If the lot you want is taken by a family and/or a house, you can evict the
family and/or bulldoze the house to clear the lot. To do so, click the button
at the top of the screen with a bulldozer. Your cursor will change; click the
lot you wish to clear after that. If there's a family there, you'll be asked if
you want to evict them. Doing so sells all of their house objects (everything
but walls, carpets, and wallpaper), then throws them and their money into the
barracks. Either way, you'll then be asked to bulldoze the house. If you agree,
the lot is slaughtered. Trees and hills stay as they were, but the walls,
carpets, and roofs will be no more.
Make sure your family is selected, then click the lot you wish to move into.
All families start with $20,000 (simoleans), and once you buy the lot, the cost
is automatically deducted from your account.
+--------------+
|3a. Build Mode|
+--------------+
After the game loads, your family will be standing near its mailbox beside the
empty lot. There's a whole mess of buttons here, but this section of my FAQ
covers building the house, so let's worry about only the bare essentials for
now. Off the bat, click the small button that's fifth from the left; it has
three dots horizontally through the middle of it. That's the option gump, and
what you need to click is the disk icon in the top-left corner of the group of
six. That's how you save the game, and I seriously suggest you save it
immediately. If something goes horribly wrong during the construction of the
building, you can always load and not have too many problems.
Once it's saved, click the third button from the left of the main five; it
looks like a house. That takes you to Build Mode, the place you go to construct
your house.
The two buttons on the far left of the gump that just appeared are Undo and
Redo. Let's ignore those for now, since you haven't done anything yet. The
first tool for house construction is the wall tool, which is located in the top
row, third from the left. Click that, and you'll get a long list of choices for
everything relating to walls. The wall itself is the very first item, and it
costs $70 per section, which can add up to a crapload of money.
To create a wall, simply click-and-drag across the landscape wherever you want
the wall. To quickly make a room, you can hold SHIFT as you drag, and it will
make a rectangle for you. To undo a mistake, either click the undo button
(which also returns all your money), or hold CONTROL and click-drag (which only
returns half the wall cost).
You can't blow your remaining money on your house alone since you'll need to
end up buying things like toilets and refrigerators, so try to cut corners
whenever you can. The bathroom is really the only room you need to keep
isolated; you can combine the living and bed rooms for now.
Your rooms should not be more than 5 tiles by 5 tiles, but that doesn't mean
you can't have an "invisible" wall. Check out this crappy ASCII art to see what
I mean...
+-----+-----+
| | |
| | |
| KIT | LVR |
| | |
| | |
+-----+-----+
Now, this is two rooms that are 5x5 each (count the dashes, not the actual
distance). The one marked KIT is the kitchen, and the one marked LVR is the
living room. This is a good starting setup, but it can be improved by one
little change...
+-----------+
| |
| |
| KIT LVR |
| |
| |
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Now the wall that separated the two rooms is gone, saving you $350, which is
enough to buy a burglar alarm and a phone with enough left over for a meal. If
you absolutely must have that center wall, you can always add it later. This
early in the game though, every single simolean counts.
I recommend that you make the bathroom no more than 3x4, and the bedroom no
larger than the standard 5x5. Again, this is ALL temporary; you can extend and
expand to your heart's content once you have the money.
To help you with the view, check out the buttons that are just above the clock
on the left side. Those are the various wall views you can use. From left to
right: first story / second story, roof view, walls up, walls cutaway, and
walls down. Don't worry about the story selection since you haven't even built
the ground floor yet. While building walls, I just leave the walls down. It
lets you see your design clearly without having to rotate the view or anything
like that.
If you do want to rotate or zoom the view, you can use the buttons in the
bottom left: the two curved arrows, and the plus and minus arrows. Play around
with the views as much as you want; time is frozen in Build Mode.
You now need doors for house. The tool for this looks amazingly like a door;
just click it and you'll get a list of door styles. The doorless frame for $150
is perhaps the most functional of them all, since your sims don't have to waste
time opening doors all day. Of course, I always put closed doors around the
bathroom; even though it makes no difference in practice, I don't think my sims
would appreciate being spied on during their moment of privacy.
Anyway, set up your doors however you see fit. Make sure you don't forget to
get a door on every room, but remember that you don't have to connect *every*
room to *every other* room. Also make sure you put a door on an exterior wall;
that will be your front door. Any room will do, but the bathroom is not
recommended unless you want all your visitors to get peeks of sims in showers.
(Note to self: make an all female sim family and test out this method of door
placement.)
You can now add windows, wallpaper (which covers both interior and external
walls), and flooring, but I recommend against all of it for now. However, I'll
tell you how to mess with it, whether you're doing it now or later.
Windows are added like doors and can even go on interior walls, although I fail
to see why you would want to do that. The smaller the room is, the less windows
it needs to be fully lit. A 5x5 room only needs two windows max.
By the way, some doors have windows in them and do add to the light in a room.
They tend to be more expensive, but it's your choice.
Carpet can be chosen by clicking the icon that's second to the left of the
bottom row, below the water drop. After selecting the flooring patern you want,
you can click-drag an area that you want to cover, or hold SHIFT then click,
which fills the whole room. Wallpaper works the same way; just click the icon
of a paintbrush to get started. You can remove any flooring or wallpaper by
CTRL-clicking, or even SHIFT-CTRL-clicking, which will remove everything from
that whole room.
Finally, you need customize the roof on your house. Simply click the icon that
looks like a roof, and you can choose the pitch and style of the roof. You
don't have too many choices, but you should have enough to work with.
I'll describe the other tools in Build Mode to you here...
The far left icon of the top row is the landscaping tool. With this, you can
raise, lower, or level the land; you can also grow or shrink grass, making your
lawn a lush green or a dusty brown.
Beside that is the water tool. You can add a pool with a diving board and
ladder with three of the tools. The fourth tool, big water drop, lets you
manually change tiles to little pools of water. In theory, you could make a
river, pond, or even a moat. I haven't used it much myself, but experiment to
heck and back.
Next to the water tool is the wall selection. What I didn't mention above is
that you can select fences and pillars here as well as the basic wall. Take a
look at the selection, but you probably don't want to buy any of it this early.
On the other side of the paintbrush is the staircase button. You can eventually
add a second story to your house, but that's insanely unimportant at the
moment. Keep it in mind in case you want to expand eventually.
The last icon of the top row is the fireplace tool. Again, those are so
stupid-expensive that you don't need to deal with it yet.
Now, the bottom row. The left-most icon is the plant tool. You can buy flowers,
trees, and shrubs to spruce up your lawn. This is another luxury you can deal
with once you're rich.
You know what the flooring, door, window, and roof tools do. The last one in
that row is the hand tool. You can use that to move objects, flowers, shrubs,
trees, fences, and a whole bunch of other stuff around. It's rather pointless
since your house is empty at the moment, but it's there whenever you need it.
+------------+
|3b. Buy Mode|
+------------+
The button to the left of the Build Mode button, the one with a chair and lamp
on it, takes you to Buy Mode. Here, you're greeted with a list of catagories of
Stuff To Buy. Watch your money, but don't neglect the basics.
You can use the eight buttons in the Buy Mode gump to select what precisely you
want to buy. You have chairs and beds, tables and other surfaces, decorations,
and electronics in the top row. In the bottom row are appliances, everything
relating to plumbing, lamps of all flavors, and miscellaneous items.
There's a secondary way you can sort the list. If you click the Buy Mode button
again, those eight catagories will switch to a room sort. Then, you can click
the appropriate button for the room you want to furnish, and go from there.
They are: living room, dining room, bedroom, and study on the top row. Kitchen,
bathroom, outside, and miscellaneous are across the bottom row.
Once you click any sort, be it a room or catagory, you get a subsort to further
your search. If you just want to browse a catagory, click the infinity symbol
in any subsort to view all the items of that catagory or room (this is the only
way to find some items).
If you click-and-hold on any item, a short description and larger picture will
come up. The price is shown along with any mood or skills it will raise. I'll
get more into the moods in the next section, and skills after that. If a
description of an item includes the line "Group Activity," it means that at
least two sims can use the item simultaneously, generally increasing the Social
meter as well as whatever else it normally increases. Some descriptions may
include "Can only be used by an adult" or "Can only be used by a child," both
of which are self-explanatory.
I won't go into details of why until the next section, but for now you're going
to need the essentials of living. Those are: a fridge, a toilet, a shower, a
bed, some form of entertainment, a chair, a phone, a burglar alarm, and a
bookcase. Most of these are obvious where to find them.
The entertainment form I recommend is a TV, although if none of your sims are
playful, you may want to just use the bookcase as your entertainment source (it
can double as such). The bookcase is listed under miscellaneous objects or the
study, depending whether you're looking at the catagory or room sort.
Make sure you put the burglar alarm outside near your front door, and place a
phone in any room but the bedroom. The phone rings in the middle of the night
often, and your sims hate waking up before they're supposed to.
You should still have the money to afford two of the cheapest counters, the
cheapest oven, and the only food processor. They will be worth their weight in
gold, or at least simoleons.
If you didn't go nuts in Build Mode, you probably have plenty of money of left
over to get a few more items that will seriously help your first few game days.
First and easiest is a nice couch. It can double as a bed if need be, so take a
look. You could also get a cheap table, put a few chairs around it, and shove
it all in the kitchen as a temporary dining room.
The last general tip I have for Build Mode is that just because you CAN buy
something doesn't mean you SHOULD buy something. Just because you have the
money to buy the $7000 DJ spintable doesn't mean that it'll help your sims' fun
ratings any more than that plasma TV, which is half the price.
Finally, if you ever want to sell an item, simply click on it while in Buy Mode
(or use the hand tool in Build Mode) to pick it up, then hit your DELETE key.
You'll get some of the money back; all of it if less than one day passed since
you bought it. To see one way you can use that to your advantage, head to the
Money Strategies subsection.
Though you can arrange anything in any order, there's one specific piece of
advice I must give. Check the Mood Meter section for details.
+--------------------+
|3c. The Options Gump|
+--------------------+
Before we get into the game, you may want to save (or not, if you think all
hell is going to break loose and you regret your construction decisions). I'll
take a few lines here to explain all the other options.
Across the top row are Save, Neighborhood Screen, and Quit. The first saves
your game instantly without a prompt. The second sends you back to the
neighborhood screen after prompting you to save if you hadn't recently. The
last will send you back to Windows, also after a save prompt.
The bottom three allow you to tinker with the video, audio, and game settings.
The left icon of the bottom row gives you the display settings. You can change
the level of detail of the terrain and/or characters, or toggle graphic
options. All four graphic options, if checked, make the game prettier, but take
a bit more processor power (not an issue if you're using a GHz processor with
over 128 MB RAM). All of these are explained simply by click the words of what
you want described, so I'm not going to waste your time by writing them here.
The button in center of the bottom row adjusts the volumes for sound, music,
and voices. The sound FX is all the sounds made from objects, including the TV.
The music setting affects songs from the audio objects like radios, and it
affects the volume of the fanfare that's played whenever your sims do something
special. VOX is the measure of the sims' voices when they interact with each
other.
The last button is the game options. There are eight there, and I'll explain
them.
AUTO-CENTERING automatically brings the view to an event. If this is your first
time, you may want to keep it on so you don't miss when something unusual
happens.
FREE WILL gives your sims the ability to act on their own, though their actions
will be heavily weighed by their personality (for example, a sim with a Neat
rating of zero will never take a shower). If you enact this, you can give your
sims commands as usual, and your commands will always take precedence over
anything they come up with on their own.
EDGE SCROLLING allows you to move the view simply by laying the cursor against
the edge of the screen. With this unchecked, you can only move the view by
right-click dragging.
SIM IN BACKGROUND allows the game to run if you task switch (ALT-TAB) out of
the game. With it unchecked, the game will pause if you task switch.
QUICK TIPS affect whether little hints will appear in the upper-right corner of
the screen. If this is enabled, occasionally a box with a question mark will
appear, and you can click that to get a bit more information. This is always
enabled in the downtown area.
AUTO SNAPSHOT lets the game take a picture for you whenever an event occurs. To
take a picture manually, click the button that looks like a camera, then choose
the size and quality of your shot. A box will appear in the game view, and
another click will capture the scene for all of time.
LIVE PIP makes the picture-in-picture (shown during some events) show what's
happening in real-time. This SERIOUSLY drains processor power, and I recommend
you leave it unchecked. The PIP will appear anyway, but it will be a still
picture, not a moving camera.
EXPORT HTML forces the game to create webpages of your families when you save.
This has serious negative impacts on save times, so I leave it unchecked.
There's a global command on the neighborhood screen that makes webpages for all
the families, and I use that whenever I decide to make webpages.
+----------------------------+
|+--------------------------+|
||4. TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF||
|+--------------------------+|
+----------------------------+
When your house is built and the objects inside it are bought, click the button
on the far left, the one that shows two people standing beside each other. This
activates Live Mode, the meat and potatoes of the game. If your sims are on
Free Will, they'll probably poke around and check out what you bought, either
applauding or booing your taste.
On the bottom of the screen are portraits of each sim in your family, along
with seven buttons to the right of them. I'll describe each one in a moment,
but right now, let me teach you how to care for your sims.
Firstly, you can only have one sim active at once. Its portrait will have a
blue border around it, and a big colored crystal will appear over its head. To
change the active sim, you can either click on the portrait of the one you want
to control, right-click the sim itself, or hit the space bar. The change
happens instantly.
Once you have a sim under your control, you can order it to interact with
anything you have. Simply click an object, and a list of actions will pop up.
Some objects only have a few actions, some have many. Explore; I'm not going to
ruin the game by going over every little item. Once you give a command, a
picture representing the command will appear in the upper-left corner of the
screen. You can cancel the action before it's completed by clicking that icon.
Only nine actions can be queued at once.
The only thing that needs a special explaination is the fridge. If a sim clicks
a fridge, it can either have a snack, make a quick meal, make a normal meal, or
serve a meal. If you select the snack, the sim will just grab a bag of chips
out of the fridge for $5. If you ask it to make a meal or quick meal, it will
go through the cooking process I talk about in 4a, with one minor note. If you
picked the quick meal, it will skip the process or chop step. This is less
filling, but takes less time. Either way, $10 will be taken from your account.
If you choose to serve a meal, the sim will make a plate of food that has six
servings, all for a measly $20. Get real intimate with that command, you'll be
using a lot.
It's time to start covering those buttons to the right of your sims' portraits.
The one that's probably already open is the mood button. If it's not, click it;
it's the one with the happy and sad masks.
Above and below that button is a graph. The graph shows the overall mood of
your sim, based on the weighted average of its eight individual moods. The
overall mood is graded positively and negatively by 5 levels, plus the neutral
mood. The color of the crystal above the active sim's head tells what mood it's
in; a green crystal is a happy mood, and the deeper the green, the happier the
mood. If the crystal is red, the sim is ticked off or depressed, and a blood
red crystal is just a more intense version.
I'll deal with the eight individual moods in a second, since they require their
own section. Let's take a look at the other buttons first.
The top button on the left, the one that looks like a word balloon, leads to
your sim's interests. This button is new to the series starting with Hot Date.
These are randomly generated, I believe. Poke around there for a moment if you
want. It shows what a sim likes and dislikes talking about, and it can have
serious impacts on friends. I talk more about interests later.
Below that is the personality button. Here, you can see what astrological sign
your sim is, along with its attributes that you set in the Create Sim screen.
The bottom-left button is the inventory screen, also new starting with Hot
Date. If your sim is carrying any items, they will appear here.
The top-right button opens the relationship meters, which shows how well your
sim is getting along with others that it has met. Until Hot Date, there was
only one meter, but now there are two. The upper meter indicates the daily
relationship, while the lower one represents the lifetime relationship. I deal
with those in more detail in the love section, too.
The button in the right-center is the job button. There you can see what, if
any, job you sim has, what its salary is, and what its skills are. Take a look
at cooking. The higher that is, the more filling their meals are. Sims
shouldn't cook unless they have at least one point in cooking, or they may end
up setting the kitchen on fire. To raise any of those skills, your sim needs to
perform a specific action. For cooking, just have one read a book. Click your
bookcase, then click "study cooking." Your sim will grab the book and take the
nearest seat, studying its heart out. The blue progress bar above its head will
fill, and when it fills completely, you'll get a message that your sim gained a
point in that skill. I'll get into skills in more detail in a later section.
The last button, the one that looks like a house, gives you a rating on your
happy home. It's probably kinda low for now, but remember that you didn't have
too much money to deal with. That will change soon, I promise.
Okay, now it's time for the mood meters. Remember I told you in that you'll
need certain objects as essential for living? This is why. I'll describe each
meter here, what it means, and how it's weighed in the overall mood. This is
the heart and soul of the game. Click back over to the mood meters to follow
along as you check out my next section.
If a sim has one particular mood extremely low, it may look at the camera
(i.e., you the player) and scream bloody murder with an accompying picture to
tell you what mood is suffering. You need to fix that quickly.
All eight moods are weighted, then averaged, and that becomes your sim's
overall mood. Its mood, among other things, severely affects what options pass
or fail when they do an action to another sim. I cover that in the Sim Love
section.
+----------+
|4a. Hunger|
+----------+
This is arguably the most important meter of all eight. This obviously is how
badly your sim needs food. No sim likes being hungry. Make sure you feed them
often, or they could die of starvation. When the bar is low, let them eat.
To make a sim eat, make the sim that's hungry the active sim, then click a
fridge. For now, choose "Have Meal" or "Serve Meal," so you can see the whole
cooking process. Sims start their cooking at a fridge by getting the
ingredients. It will then proceed to chop up the veggies if there's an empty
counter, or use a food processor if there's one present. Then it will move to
the microwave or oven, depending on which deals with hunger better, if one is
available. Once the food is done cooking, if it's a family meal, the sim will
put it on an available surface, preferring counters. If it's just a meal for
one, the sim will take it to a table if one is available, sit down, and eat.
Since you know this ahead of time, you can save your sims' time and effort by
building your kitchen and dining room in a logical order. Look at this
flowchart...
FRIDGE ----- COUNTER - OVEN ----- COUNTER --- SERVED FOOD
\ X /
-- PROCESSOR - MICROWAVE-
So, the logical order to arrange your kitchen is thus...
+--------+ +-----------+ +------+ +---------+
| | | COUNTER | | | | EMPTY |
| FRIDGE | | WITH | | OVEN | | COUNTER |
| | | PROCESSOR | | | | |
+--------+ +-----------+ +------+ +---------+
Then you can position a table and chair strategically on the other side of the
empty counter. Efficency is the idea.
+-----------+
|4b. Comfort|
+-----------+
This is how much sims are happy with their comfort, obviously. A sim that is
standing will constantly lose comfort, although not as severely as a sim that's
working out or swimming. Generally, this is weighed pretty heavily, although
not as much as hunger.
Comfort is rather easy to raise, espeically when you consider that sims do a
lot of things sitting down. Watching TV, for example, will help comfort as well
as raising the Fun meter. You have to be wary though; sometimes, if their path
is blocked, they may watch TV or eat while standing, which is perfectly capable
to be done, but it kills the Comfort meter. Some actions, such as playing chess
or playing on a computer, cannot be done at all while standing.
So basically, while a low Comfort meter is bad, it's hardly anything to panic
about. If push comes to shove, just click a chair or couch and select "Sit." If
another sim sitting at the same time, the two will talk idly, which can bring
up the Social meter in the process as well.
+-----------+
|4c. Hygiene|
+-----------+
This is how clean the sim feels, and it's also the first one that is weighed by
the individual sim. Sims that are neat are more interested in hygiene than slob
sims are. No sim likes to be around a stinky sim, though, and if your hygiene
is too low, it could affect whether others become friends or more. Would YOU
like to kiss someone who hadn't washed their face in over a week?
Hygiene gets directly healed via bathtubs and showers. Hot tubs do the job too,
but not as well. Sims typically don't have a problem stripping down and taking
a shower if someone's in the bathroom, oddly enough. I guess the door is so
well blurred that you can't see anything once you're inside.
Anyway, if you don't have a maid, be sure to clean your shower or tub often. If
you don't, Hygiene won't go up as fast as it could; and besides, that dirt ring
looks nasty.
+-----------+
|4d. Bladder|
+-----------+
This is how much sims feel the need to visit their old friend John. Take care
of this one fast if it gets low, because if it drops to zero, the sim will wet
itself. That will cut hygiene to zero and make the sim terribly embarrassed,
possibly forcing bad relationships. No sim likes needing to do its business,
but this mood is not weighed very heavily.
If the meter drops rather low, and then you tell your sim to get to the
bathroom, he'll RUN for it. Although it's certainly not something you exactly
want to intentionally set up, it is pretty cool to see sims tearing through the
house.
Sims will often times stop whatever they're doing if they need to go. They can
wake up in the middle of the night or stop eating before their plate is clean
if they get the urge. There are two solutions here. You can take care of the
problem when it happens, then send them back to bed or their meal. The other,
more logical solution is to send them to the bathroom BEFORE they take the
action. That prevents any and all bladder problems, so you'll be fine.
Oh, one more thing. If a sim is rather close to having an exploding bladder,
there's an action another sim can do to intentionally make it wet itself. If
two sims are close in relationships, have the one who does not have the empty
Bladder meter the active sim. Then, click the sim who does need to go the
bathroom and select the "Tickle > Extreme" action. Your active sim will do some
serious tickling, enough to make the target wet itself. Ah, gotta love social
interactions.
+----------+
|4e. Energy|
+----------+
This tells how long the sim can go before it collapses (literally). Every
waking moment expends energy (unless the sim is drinking coffee), and you need
to send it to bed before it gets too late. Early to bed, early to rise makes a
sim healthy, wealthy, and wise... and at least still employed in the morning.
I believe that sims with a high active rating can go longer than sims with a
low active rating, but I'm not entirely sure. I do know that it takes far
shorter time for an active sim to actually get moving in the morning. If a sim
has 10 Active, then they'll literally hop out of bed, bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed (whatever THAT means). A sim with zero Active will take a full 30
minutes to get the cobwebs out of their head.
Adult sims are rather light sleepers. The slightest sound will keep them awake,
so make sure all radios, TVs, and computers are shut off if they're in the same
room. Lights don't bother them, but certain sounds that other sims make might.
For example, if there is a weight set in a bedroom, and one sim is sleeping,
it'll be woken by the sound of another sim working out. Also, they'll wake up
to the phone, and since most nighttime calls are prank callers, keep phones out
of the bedroom. Remember, as long as the object is in another room, it won't
matter in the slightest.
Kid sims are far different. They can be woken from the alarm clock, but other
sounds won't bother them. That means you can shove a kid in the living room
with your speakers blaring and phones ringing, but they won't stir a bit. This
more or less ensures that they'll have max energy when the time comes for
school.
Once a sim goes to sleep, assuming there's no offending noise in the room, it
can only be woken a few ways. First of all, a sim will wake up if its bladder
meter gets extremely empty. You'll have about 10 game minutes to get a sim to
the bathroom before it wets itself. The second way it will wake up is to alarm
clocks. If an alarm is set, it will ring two hours before the carpool arrives.
Third, sims will (or should) wake up automatically when the sun rises at 6 AM.
It's not guaranteed, and sometimes you make have to wake a sim up manually.
As long as the Energy meter is not full, a sim will be sleeping. If it is woken
up before its Energy tops out, it will throw a fit for about 30 minutes for
sleep deprivation.
If the sun is out (anytime from 6 AM to 6 PM), the sim will stop sleeping if
its energy tops out. However, if it's nighttime, it will keep on sleeping
anyway until the sun does rise, or until you give it another command. If time
isn't a factor, then you can simply order a sim to go to sleep, and issue
another order directly afterwards. The sim will sleep, and the moment its
Energy tops off, it will wake up and take the next action you gave it.
There is only one bed that has any special commands. That's the heart-shaped
love bed, which gives three additional options besides Sleep: those are
"Vibrate," "Relax," and "Play in Bed." If a sim elects to Vibrate, he or she
will pay about $20, then get nekkid and go under the sheets. This raises
Comfort through the roof, though Energy won't go up. Relaxing is a free, but
weaker, version of Vibrate in practice.
If a sim is either Vibrating or Relaxing, another sim can elect to Play in Bed
with the one already there. The second sim will approach, get naked, and start
a healty match of sheet-wrestling. This brings Comfort and Social way up, and
Energy and Hygiene way down. Once they finish, they'll hop out of bed and react
to each other depending on how good the whole thing was. Stephanie has slapped
Pyro before, evidentally because he used his hands a little too roughly. Pyro
has laughed in Stephanie's face before, also. Most of the time, Pyro will
whisper something to Stephanie, who starts giggling. You may see other
reactions as well.
Oh, and kids can come about from Playing. It's not guaranteed, but there's
certainly a chance.
By the way, the Sleep option for beds will not appear unless the active sim has
about 85% of its Energy meter. Any higher, and the option simply won't be there
at all.
+-------+
|4f. Fun|
+-------+
No sim likes being bored, but sims have different things they like doing. Sims
with low playful ratings prefer reading books, and sims with high playful
ratings like watching TV. The playful and active ratings combine for this one,
too; if a sim has high active and playful ratings, it prefers basketball or
vitrual gaming. If it has low active but high playful ratings, watching the
latest episode of Malcom in the Middle or playing The Sims on its computer is
what it likes more.
There are many actions that can boost Fun. Sims can even boost each other's Fun
by tickling or telling jokes. Playing in Bed or Playing in hot tubs will boost
fun also (everyone likes playing like that, right?).
If you decide to tell your sim to watch to TV or play on the computer to get
the Fun meter up, you'll need to take precautions. See, for some reason, if you
give them more than one command, they'll drop the TV or computer to do whatever
you ordered after it. So, make sure that playing on the computer or watching TV
is the LAST command on the action list.
Sims prefer to watch TV while sitting down. Should a chair or couch be
provided, they'll sit it in automatically. They'll try to pick the most
comfortable one, but they'll even settle on standing if there's nothing
available (although that kills Comfort). Once a sim tops off its Fun meter, it
will stop whatever it's doing.
However, if a sim is having Fun but doing something else in the process, it may
continue the action anyway. For example, if it's playing chess, it won't stop
even after the Fun meter tops off because it is still studying Logic at the
same time.
+----------+
|4g. Social|
+----------+
The sim's need to talk. This is HEAVILY weighed for all sims; a sim that has
zero Social but 100 everything else will probably have a mood of +1 or +2 max.
The balance of the weight comes in with the speed of the bar's decline. A sim
with a high outgoing rating will feel the need to be social FAR more than a sim
with no outgoing ratings, but will fill the meter a bit quicker than a shy sim.
The Social meter is not entirely in scale to the relationship meters. So, just
because you raise the relationship by 50 points doesn't mean that the Social
meter increases by 50%. Talking, for example, only mildly helps the Social
meter, even if two sims talk for hours. However, a few kisses, especially the
passionate kind, will kick the Social meter into overdrive.
Because the Social meter is independent of the relationship meters, it won't
matter who is doing what as far as the Social meter goes. So, if Pyro is
talking to Stephanie, the Social meter will go up the same as if he's talking
to Pud, no matter what the relationship numbers say.
The Social meter can also be brought down by choosing negative interactions,
such as Fight and Insult. Still, some sims get a kick out of being insulted for
some reason; it has to do with their level of Nice that you assigned in the
Create Sim screen. The nicer a person is, the more of a chance they'll do
positive actions, and the less of a chance they'll be Socially better by doing
negative ones. Still, every neighborhood has a bitch that you just want to beat
the crap out of, and variety in sims is the key to doing very well in the game.
+--------+
|4h. Room|
+--------+
This is the sim's opinion of the room it's currently in, or how much it likes
the yard if it's outside. All sims like large rooms and lit rooms, but neat
sims dislike dirty dishes and pee puddles. Slobby sims are less picky, but even
they get tired of the flies once in awhile. Decorations boost this meter
considerably, but try to buy better windows or more lamps before you blow
thousands on a statue or painting.
Lights are optional, and they don't seem to improve room ratings too much. I
had a room that was 5x30, and any sim in it had a full Room meter, even though
it was unlighted.
You see, sims like light, but they like space more. They would rather be in a
dark room the size of a small country than a small bathroom with a billion
lights. Sims are weird like that. They also prefer diagonal walls over normal
ones, so making an octognal room will significantly help.
Don't do this...
+------------------------------+
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+------------------------------+
Do this...
--------------------------
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\ /
--------------------------
Not only does this save money, but room scores will get better. You can also
get super-fancy, though it's more expensive...
---------------------------
/ \
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---------------------------
Eventually, you'll want lights, but if for no other reason than to make the
room a bit more realistic. (In real life, I wouldn't want to live in a dark
house, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't either.)
When you buy lights, think about the room you're buying the lamp for. That
should help lead to your decision about just what lamp to buy at all.
If you're buying a lamp for the bathroom, and it's a tiny bathroom, you don't
need any huge expensive lamp. Since floor lamps would get too much in the way,
you would want to go with a wall lamp or hanging lamp. Hanging lamps even have
life-long light bulbs, so you wouldn't endanger your sim's life when it's time
to change bulbs and there's water on the floor.
The cheapest hanging lamp, the red one that looks like it belongs in a bar,
would serve better than anything else. Just one could easily light a 3x3
bathroom, and two could cover a 3x4 or 4x4 bathroom.
Also, make sure you know how much light is being generated. Most lamps send
light one or two tile(s) in every direction. If you space your lamps
accordingly, you can cover a whole room while not spending too much on extra
lamps.
You could also take the completely opposite route I just described and coat the
walls with wall lights. I noticed that if there are enough lamps in one room,
every tile will be lit no matter how far away the lamps are. You could, say,
put one wall lamp on every wall section, and whatever room you do that to will
be bright all night. Of course, doing so prevents windows, but lights light up
during the day as well as the night.
Once you have a bunch of money, you should start buying decorative things for
the rooms. Certain things, like the more expensive chess set, have practical
uses as well as boosting Room scores. Upgrading furniture and fireplaces will
help too. Statues and paintings actually appreciate in value, so you can buy
one and sell it a few days later for a profit. Coat the walls liberally with
paintings either way: your sims' Room meters will go through the roof.
Outside, coat the yard with plants. Pink flamingos, while pretty damn ugly,
still boost the yard score significantly. The only thing you need to avoid is
the Topiaries. For some reason, sims run into them, and can't figure out how to
go AROUND them, so they just give up whatever their current task is. Must be a
fault in the object code, but whatever the cause is, don't build any. There are
plenty of other flowers you can plop down that won't have the same problem.
+--------------------------+
|+------------------------+|
||5. TAKING CARE OF OTHERS||
|+------------------------+|
+--------------------------+
Let's face it: just like real life, one person alone cannot do everything.
Maybe a particular sim stayed up too late and doesn't have time to cook the
next morning.
This is where a second sim in the family is very helpful. A second sim can pick
up the slack for another. Some methods could be obvious; one sim could excell
in the cooking skill and be the only one who prepares meals, for example.
Sims work best as a team. If any one sim is doing nothing, probably the rest of
its family is suffering or could at least better off. More on this in my
strategy section.
Your sim can interact with other sims whenever you wish it to. With a sim
active, simply click any other sim and you'll get a list of actions you can
perform. I talk more about that in the Sim Love section.
+----------+
|+--------+|
||6. MONEY||
|+--------+|
+----------+
It's all about the Benja-sims. Now that your family is settled in its house,
you need to turn to earning money, since bills arrive at your house every 3
days. There's a million ways to make money.
+--------+
|6a. Jobs|
+--------+
The easiest way to earn money is to have your adult sims get jobs, because the
jobs pay daily. Polish up those resumes, it's time to start working!
At 9 AM every morning, the paper is delivered to your front lawn, near your
mailbox. You can check that to see what jobs are being offered, along with
their salary. For the first day, take whatever job is offered; "Beggars can't
be choosers," as the saying goes.
You can also get a job by using a computer, but you may not be able to afford
it unless you "cheat the system" a bit. Check the short-strategy subsection.
Once you take a job, your mission is to get promoted to the next level. There
are 20 career paths, each with 10 levels. You begin every path on the lowest
rung, with one situational exception, which I'll explain in a moment.
Promotions will happen automatically, and you will be informed of them once the
sim who got promoted comes home. You'll get the next level's pay, along with a
one-time bonus that is twice as much.
For example, if a sim in the X-treme Career is at level 2 and gets promoted,
he'll bring home the new salary of level 3 ($325), plus twice as much for a
bonus ($650), for a total of $975. Generally, you would want to use the extra
cash to buy anything you may need to hone new required skills. Demotions can
happen too, if the sim keeps showing to work in a bad mood.
Carpools set to take you to work will arrive at a certain time. If two sims go
to work at the same time, they use the same carpool. Your sim has one hour to
start walking toward the car before it will drive away. Sims can miss work
without repercussion so long as they don't miss two days in a row. Two skip
days will result in being fired, but skipping one day, going the next day, and
skipping the third day is fine.
No matter what job you have, there's a chance a random event will happen (I
call them Chance Cards; what can I say? I love Monopoly.). Most are in the form
of skill bonuses, but many give you extra money. Chance Cards can be bad,
however; you may lose money or skill. The chance of a Chance Card appearing is
slim, but I don't know the exact percentage.
The most lucrative one I've found is in the Hacker career track. If you're
lucky, you'll end up getting a boost of a whopping $30000. Yes, thirty THOUSAND
simoleans. That's more than enough to remodel your house, including buying
carpet, wallpaper, windows (in any style), doors (in any style), and lamps (in
any style) for every room. And after that, you'll still have a great deal left
over. Personally, that's one of the main reasons I tend to favor the Hacker
career with Pyro.
If you stay at the top level of any job for awhile, you'll get a chance card
that will boot you to another career at about the 5th level. There's no real
positive of this, it's just a way for your games to be more random.
That's the only time you won't start at the bottom however. If you quit or get
fired, then take another job, you WILL start at the lowest level.
+-------------------+
|6b. Arts and Crafts|
+-------------------+
There are many things you can make to earn a living. If you decide to go into
business for yourself, you'll first need the creation tools.
One way is to be the Bill Gates of gnomes. Once you're in a lot, grab a wood
working table through Buy Mode. You may want to zone off a large room (about
8x8) as a garage or whatever for this. Put only the table in it; if you insist
on lights, use hanging lamps or wall lamps to keep them out of the way.
Once your sim wakes up in the morning, take care of your moods, then
immediately get to work on making lawn gnomes! Keep working through the day and
night, only stop when your sim stops on his own.
Remember, you'll be gaining your Mechanical skill along the way, so every
moment that you're working on the gnomes, you're getting better at it.
Eventually, when the Bill Gates type get 10 Mechanical, he can make over 20 to
25 gnomes in one day if he starts with a +4 mood. Each sells for $100, so
you'll have a DAILY income of at least $2000! Considering that you don't need
friends or work hours for this, it's a great, lazy way to earn money.
The only real problem with this is the Social meter. If your sim lives alone,
he can head downtown to meet someone. If he lives with someone, his friend /
brother / lover / whatever can compliment the Social meter. Even if only your
Bill Gates works, you'll earn PLENTY of money to make a living.
Instead of gnomes, you could try to dabble in paint. Now, I don't think you can
earn a living JUST by painting, but Joseph Bull (JoeBull@HotPOP.com) says the
following...
####################################################
This is incorrect - it is possible. At 10 creativity points, paintings sell for
$166. A Sim can easily paint 2 pictures in a day, and just about manage 3. That
means a daily income of $332 - $498 - more than enough to survive. For example,
my sim, with 10 creativity, paints two pictures a day. This means a 3-day
income of $996. She gets bills of $498, spends $60 on food, and $20 on a
gardener. That leaves $418 to spend/save.
####################################################
If table working is more your thing, but you don't want to deal with gnomes,
you can make homemade preserves with the preserves table. They sell for even
less than paintings, but you may be able to make enough preserves per day to
get a good living going.
Finally, you can try being an art dealer. Paintings and statues that you buy
through Buy Mode actually APPRECIATE value before depreciating. So, if you buy
a statue, you can leave it in your house for a few days, then sell it again to
make a profit. Of course, you'll need large capital to start in the first
place, so you may not want to try it at the beginning.
+--------------------+
|6c. Other Money Tips|
+--------------------+
+----------------------------------+
|Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta|
+----------------------------------+
You could take a very underhanded and mean way to get large sums of money in
relatively short times. You'll be damaging the life of a poor, innocent sim,
but hey, you're mean like that.
Let's take two sims here for the example. We'll make Tony the gangster, and
Trixie the sim he steps on.
Okay, Tony moves into whatever lot he wants to, builds his house into whatever
he wants to, and generally starts his life like normal. Meanwhile, Trixie moves
into a lot, but she only buys a table and a phone to put on it.
Tony then goes through life, and soon enough, Trixie will come up to his house.
He flirts with her, making her fall in love with him. Eventually, they'll be
married, and all $20,000 of Trixie's money will transfer to Tony's account.
Then, Trixie will be in a, um, "horrible accident" and die.
Trixie may be dead, but Tony still has all her money. He's 20 grand richer
simply by marrying and killing an innocent sim. Weep not for Trixie; she'll get
even by having her ghost scare him. Then again, he could just sell the urn for
a quick fiver, and that will be the end of that. The cops will never touch him!
Ha ha ha ha!
+-------------+
|Renting Items|
+-------------+
I don't know what shop sims buy from, but it has the greatest return policy
I've ever heard of. Whatever you buy, if you return it the same day, you get
all your money back no matter how much you used.
Now, notice I said that you need to return the SAME DAY, not "within 24 hours."
If you buy the item at 11:59 PM, then you have one minute before it loses its
full value. If you plan on "renting" an item like this, be sure to do so no
later than the early evening.
One basic way to take advantage of this is to buy a computer, desk, and chair
so your sims have more options for employment. Then, when they have a job, you
can return all of it to get your cash back.
+----------------+
|Pre-Built Houses|
+----------------+
Houses are expensive to build from scratch, and with only $20,000 to work with
(well, less since you have to buy the lot), you may end up starting in a house
small enough and ugly enough to be appropiate for under a bum's shoe.
However, there is a way to save a bunch of money on homes from the start. For
some reason, if you buy a lot with a house already on it, then you get a HUGE
break on the price. So, the idea is to build a house before entering the lot.
First, you need to make a throwaway family (for this example, I'll call it the
Tester family). It doesn't matter who is in it or anything. Move the Testers
into the lot you want your real family to be in. Then, as the Testers, build
the house the way you want it. Don't bother with objects, just get the walls,
windows, doors, wallpaper, carpet, and roof the way you want it. Once that's
all done, save the game and go back to the neighbood screen.
Now, evict the Testers out of the lot, but DON'T demolish the house. Any
objects you bought will be sold, which is why I told you not buy any (landscape
items will still be there). Then, move in your main family, and they'll get a
huge break in price for the house!
+-------------------------+
|The Homeless Bum Strategy|
+-------------------------+
Vacation Island is a special place... there's warm sun, cool mountains, hot
chicks in bikinis, and the fact that you can't die!
That's right, you cannot die when on the island, and can therefore be a
homeless bum! Simply make a sim and immediately move him over to the Island. In
theory, you can just stay there for your entire life, stinking up pools and
digging up the grass to find treasure! And, even if you run out of money, you
don't NEED to eat, and the ground makes a perfect bed!
+-----------+
|+---------+|
||7. SKILLS||
|+---------+|
+-----------+
The six skills you need are Cooking, Mechanical, Charisma, Body, Logic, and
Creativity. All but one of them can help you directly; the other simply serves
for the job. All skills start at zero and can be raised to 10. They won't decay
unless you're unlucky enough to get a chance card during the course of a job.
When you start working on any skill, a little blue progress bar will appear
over that sim's head. When it tops off, you'll get a message informing you that
the sim gained in that skill.
COOKING and MECHANICAL can be learned by studying them from a bookcase or
buying and using the appropiate work table. The Cooking table is a homemade
preserves cooking set, which you can buy under miscellaneous items. The
Mechanical table, also under miscellaneous, is a wood working table. Both
enable you to work on your skills while making money, although you'll have to
work a little bit to see any profits.
To use either table, simply interact with it, and choose the sole option that
appears. If you're wood working, your sim will continue until it gets in a bad
mood or you give it a different order. The same applies to the preserves table,
but your sim will stop if it makes a set of six jars.
By far, the better item is the wood working table. While it chops at your
comfort level (since you're standing while you're working), you can make mass
profits from being fully knowledgable in Mechanical. If your Mechanical rating
is 10, then each gnome you craft with the table nets you $100 (you can sell the
gnomes in Buy Mode). A family could EASILY make a living on just that table
alone, but I'll deal with that specific strategy in the strategy section.
The homemade preserves table will advance your cooking, but you can only sell
the preserves for $60 a set when your Cooking is at 10 (these are sold as an
interaction, not in Buy Mode). However, you can use the preserves as gifts,
also with an interaction to the table itself, if you so desire. I cover gifts
in the next section.
Cooking contributes to how filling the sim's meal is. The higher the Cooking
skill, the better a meal (whether it be a family meal or a single meal) will
improve the Hunger mood bar. Mechanical affects how fast a sim can repair a
broken appliance or clogged toilet. With a low rating, it may be worth the $50
or so it takes to call a repairman.
CHARISMA is the next skill, and it's gained in only two ways. You can either
Practice Speech when you interact with any mirror, or you can buy the item
called Bezique's Folly Card Game, found in the miscellaneous items and PRACTICE
it. While the card game is a group activity, you don't gain Charisma from
playing with others. It doesn't make sense to me, but hey, I didn't program the
game. Anyway, there's no purpose for Charisma other than job advances.
BODY is gained from either swimming or working on the exercise equipment, found
in the miscellaneous items. By the way, while your sim swims, there won't be a
blue progress bar, but trust me, Body IS going up. Doyle Brigman
(d_brigman@hotmail.com) reminded me that there is a third way: you can ride the
mechanical bull. Erik Swinson (CronoFiend@msn.com) and Samuel Loucks
(gragnoth@yahoo.com) e-mailed me and told me that Body actually has a purpose.
It enables you to more easily win fights against others. So if you want someone
with low Body to move, just get someone with high Body to whoop on them enough
times.
LOGIC is gained by either playing chess, looking in the telescope, or working
with the chemistry set. I prefer the chess set, since it boosts your fun as
well as logic; plus, since you're sitting, your comfort will be going up as
well. If you can find another sim to play with you, you'll have the social
meter getting a boost too. Logic determines the chance that making a potion in
the chemistry set will be a positive potion. I have always made good potions
when my logic was at 10.
CREATIVITY can be raised by playing a musical instrument or painting.
Creativity affects the quality of what you're painting too, but even a painting
that was painted by someone with 10 Creativity points won't sell for much.
Other than that, Creativity won't affect anything else in-game.
Try to raise your sims' skills as much as possible without compromising your
moods. Of course, you can kill several birds with one grenade if you can. As I
said up there by Logic, playing chess is a great way to raise Fun, Comfort,
Social, and Logic all at once. Besides, if two people play chess, they both
learn Logic simultaneously. Not a bad deal!
Just be careful with raising Body. It absolutely drains energy and comfort
levels, so don't try it if your sim is already uncomfortable or tired.
+--------------------+
|7a. Skill Gain Rates|
+--------------------+
To gain a skill, you have to use an item for awhile, as I said. But the
question is, how long must you study? The first few points don't take long at
all, but soon the process seems excrusiatingly slow.
I ran a few tests and discovered that it takes
whatever-point-you're-studying-for hours. For example, to gain the first point,
you need to study for an hour. To gain the second point, you need to study for
two hours. The third point takes three hours, and so on. This applies to all
six skills.
If you know ahead of time how long it will take, you can plan your day around
it (or plan it around your day). Or, you could devote a set time to studying.
Anyway, this means that one skill will take a total of 55 hours to max out. All
skills will be maxxed at 330 hours. Since your working sims can only study a
maximum of about 8 hours a day (the other 16 devoted to sleeping or working),
it will take at LEAST 42 days to max everything. And that's of course assuming
you spend no time eating, socializing, or taking showers, which is impossible
of course.
That's why I recommend the following: the first thing you should do is study
whatever skill is necessary to get promoted. Once you have all the skill
requirements, study whatever skill is the MOST developed. The reason is because
whatever skill is needed in the first few levels of the career will probably
end up having to be maxxed at the end of the track. For example, the first Body
requirement of the Military career track is 2, but the final requirement is 9.
Instead of working on Body only when it's required, you should work on it any
time you have free. That will make the final promotion a bit easier on your
nerves.
+-------------+
|+-----------+|
||8. SIM LOVE||
|+-----------+|
+-------------+
"When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore!"
...Well, something like that anyway.
First of all, let me start by saying that your sims start off their lives by
not having any sort of sexual preference... either that, or everyone is a
bisexual. In other words, any sim can fall in love with any other sim. I
suppose if you really want to, you could have incest stories going, but that's
a little weird.
The point is that you cannot "set" whether sims are homosexual, heterosexual,
or bisexual. However, you can point your sim in one direction or another. If
you want a heterosexual sim, just don't do any of the "love" actions (explained
below) to the same gender of sim. There are plenty of actions that aren't
considered love, although there are a few of each that I don't agree with. More
on that in a second though.
Remember the button that lets you view relationships? It's in Live Mode, and
the top-right button of the group of seven (the one that has the two people on
it). That shows all the sims whom the active sim knows. You may have to scroll
the list if you know a lot of others.
I'm going to use my own sims as examples here so I don't have to say "your sim"
and "the other sim" every few seconds...
The background color of the portrait indicates the general feeling of your
active sim to the other one. For example, if Stephanie's picture is gray when
Pyro is the active character, it means that Pyro barely knows Stephanie at all.
If it's a faded green, it means Pyro is starting to know Stephanie, just not
all that well. When it turns bright green, Pyro knows Stephanie inside and out
(though that may not indicate love). It works negatively, too. A dull red means
Pyro sort of resents Stephanie, but he can suck it up for awhile. A bright red
indicates that Pyro openly wants to whoop Stephanie's candy ass whenever she
appears.
Directly below the portrait is a number, and below that is a thin bar. These
show the same thing, in different ways; they show the daily (i.e., short-term)
feelings specifically. The number can range anywhere from -100 to 100. At 0,
Pyro just met Stephaine. At 100, they're very good friends. At -100, they're
enemies.
Below that is another, thicker bar, and another number. These show the lifetime
(i.e., long-term) feelings. At 100, Pyro and Stephanie have been lifelong
friends since childhood. At -100, they've been enemies before they were even
born.
Both the daily and lifetime meters combine to determine the overall feelings. I
assume they're weighted, but I'm not sure. The purpose of having both meters is
to allow Pyro and Stephanie to be in love but be fighting, in theory. It
doesn't work that easily, though.
If two sims do not interact with each other, the bars will slowly go toward 0.
I've experimented and found out that the lifetime bar affects the general speed
of decay. For example, if Pyro has 100 daily and 100 lifetime to Stephanie,
there may be no decay at all before the day is done. If Pyro has 100 daily and
only 20 lifetime to Stephaine, the 100 may trickle down to 90 or so that day.
I got a contribution from Clay (nafai@texas.net) detailing this a bit more...
####################################################
The top bar (current relationship) is similar to the old style bar. So, you can
directly affect it (higher or lower) through interactions, but it also degrades
by several points by itself. It also degrades a bit faster now, about every 2-3
hours instead of overnight.
The lower bar (long-term relationship) is the life time relationship and isn't
directly affected through social interactions. What it does is, every few hours
or so it moves a few points in the direction of the top bar. So if the lower
bar is at 20 and the upper bar is at 70, after a few hours the lower bar will
jump a few points up to 22 or so. All this bar ever does is try to match the
top bar. So, if you can keep the top bar high, the lower bar will eventually
match it.
####################################################
And Sheepgood, who asked me to keep his e-mail address private, gave exact
numbers...
####################################################
Every 90 Sim-minutes the lifetime bar moves towards the daily bar by 3 points.
####################################################
Beware that just because Pyro likes Stephanie doesn't mean she likes him back.
In fact, most if not all of sims' relationships will be very slightly different
if you compare both sets of numbers. Generally, the numbers won't be TOO far
off; Pyro could be 95 daily/90 lifetime, while Stephanie is 92 daily/87
lifetime. Differences that small are more or less negligable.
Below the bars and numbers, two symbols may or may not be there. A blue smiley
face indicates that Pyro considers Stephanie a friend. A pink heart would
indicate that he's starting to feel some butterflies whenever she's around.
That heart could change into a red heart, which means he's head over heels in
love. Until the Hot Date expansion, there was only one level of love.
The numbers, overall mood, and love or friendship status affect what actions
are available when two sims interact, and whether those actions will fail.
Because I don't want to ruin the game for you, I'm going to just touch on the
actions sims can do with each other. I divide all the positive actions into two
classes: those that initate love, and those that don't. This is VERY important
to remember.
You see, if two sims love each other, they get jealous or angry whenever other
sims hit on their lovers. If Pyro loves Stephanie, and Pud tries to kiss her,
Pyro will be ticked. No matter how Stephanie reacts, be it positively or
negatively, Pyro will take a cut in his Social meter, and he'll normally stop
whatever he's doing to slap Pud. He'll also lose several points of friendship
against Pud too.
Now, the only actions that can do this are those that initate love. Pyro won't
get mad if Pud talks to Stephanie or gives her a friendly hug, but my namesake
will get very angry if Pud tries to sweep Stephanie off her feet.
Pyro can only detect this if he's in the same room, however. If Pud coaxes
Stephanie into his bedroom and tries to move in on her, Pyro won't know and
will ignorantly continue whatever he's doing. Wow, this is turning into the
latest episode of Days of Our Lives.
Anyway, the moral is that you'll want to stay innocent with other sims if
someone who loves them is in the same room. If you're in different rooms, well,
do what you wish.
In any event, all actions will boost the Social meter and add positive points
to the relationship bars if the move is not rejected. Just because the option
to kiss a sim appears doesn't mean your target will accept your advances. The
only option that is never outright rejected is Talk, although there's a slim
chance one sim will get a bit agitated at the conversation.
I'm going to sound like a complete moron with my next statement, but I can't
think of a better way to put it: all actions that can induce love have a chance
of inducing love. That is, all kisses and a few hugs may make one sim fall in
love with other, or they may fall for each other at the same time. Typically,
the sims will go to a pink heart before a red heart, but I've seen a few
instances when they skip the pink heart step.
The only exception, the one that makes me scratch my head in wonder, is the
Compliment > Admire action. This causes other sims to get jealous, but it never
induces love. I can understand why Compliment > Worship would get some tempers
rising, but admiration? Ah well, just be aware of it.
If love is not your cup of tea and you just want to be friends with another
sim, your actions become slightly limited, but not significantly. No group
activity can induce love, so you can have two sims improve their friendship by
playing chess or watching TV for example.
Once the daily relationship meter is high enough, that sim becomes a friend and
the blue smiley face will appear. This generally happens around 50, but that
number could be significantly higher. If two sims have conflicting zodiac
signs, or one is particularly shy, or one is particularly mean, the number
could reach as high 90. It's one way the game more or less forces you to have
variety among your families.
Forelli_Boy (nyfrank55@hotmail.com) points out that for two sims to be friends,
their meters have to be around +50 daily BOTH WAYS. That means even if one sim
is totally head-over-heels with another, they may not be a friend yet if the
other doesn't like him the same.
When a sim becomes a friend, it's counted as a FAMILY friend. The number of
friends a family has is indicated in the bottom-left corner by the green smiley
face.
The reason I stress FAMILY friend is because that's the number that is
considered when a sim gets promoted. In fact, my main strategy takes full
advantage of that. You can check that out in the strategy section.
As far as I know, there is no real border to indicate whether a sim will fall
in love, but I do know that a sim will not fall in love with someone that's not
a friend first. Summary: "All lovers will be friends, but not all friends will
be lovers."
So by now you're probably asking how you get your sims to fall in love. It
sounds simple on paper, and may be simple in the game, but it could end up
getting rather complex.
Let's go back in time before Pyro and Stephanie were married, when they were
both still in SimCollege. The first thing that had to happen was a meeting.
After that, they talked casually about their interests, occasionally
entertaining each other with jokes or puppets. As their relationship grew, they
became friends, and started getting slightly more forward with one another. One
day, their hug was an intimate one, lasting longer than normal. That's when
both started feeling a little flustered.
Pyro and Stephanie did a lot of flirting, whispering sweet little nothings in
each other's ears and sharing back rubs. Pyro eventually found the courage to
give Stephanie a little peck on her cheek. That kiss carried bucketloads of
fireworks. Stephanie returned the kiss with a passionate one on Pyro's lips,
and he got all red and giggly. Pyro's a dork, what can I say? They were married
soon after that, and Pyro started giving Stephanie back rubs from the front.
The point is, all you have to do is slowly get more forward with your target,
and it will happen automatically. There's just a few general rules:
1. WATCH YOUR MOOD -- If you're in a bad mood, you may hug a little too hard or
miss your aim with that kiss. It's best to keep it simple if you're ticked off.
2. WATCH YOUR TARGET'S MOOD -- Your target may be a little angry and doesn't
feel like being hugged or flirted with. Again, keep it simple.
3. DON'T BE STINKY -- No one wants to be kissed by a pair of lips that have the
remains of yesterday's pizza. If you're not clean, you may want to avoid trying
anything until a shower.
4. DON'T BE TIRED -- If you lean in for a kiss and end up falling asleep on
your target's shoulder, it kinda ruins the night for both of you.
5. DON'T BE TOO FORWARD -- If you met your target ten seconds ago, he/she is
not going to want a deep passionate kiss. Save those advanced moves until
you're both ready, Romeo. Don't make me get the hose!
Since friends care less about each other's moods and hygiene, you can pretty
much pull the meter up to 50 without any sort of issue of cleanliness and
energy. Still though, you want to be in the best mood you can be at all times
anyway.
Some say that you can get from a relationship rating of 0 to 100 in one day,
while others say you can't. I can tell you from the bottom of my soul that not
only is it possible, it's very likely if you play your cards right. In my
strategy section, I deal with that very issue. Even if you're a veteran of The
Sims, do not try old strategies. Maxis has slightly changed the way sims get
their relationship meters up; it's nothing weird, but it's slightly harder.
More details in the strategy section. (By the way, I'm talking about getting
the DAILY meter up to 100. There's no way you can get the lifetime meter up to
triple digits in one day.)
At least, I don't think there's a way. However, SweetE8907
(cassidy@wilyums.com) insists that it's possible...
####################################################
You stated in it that it is impossible to raise your lifetime meter 100 in a
single day but it is not because I did it. I just had the two get to know each
other, hugg and kiss alot, and it happened in a few hours.
####################################################
Once your sim has a strong daily and lifetime relationship with one person, you
can ask the target to move in with you if they aren't already. If this is
accepted, they do so immediately, and if they're the last one of their family,
their money and friends are added to yours! It can be a quick boost to your
bank account as well as a ticket to eternal happiness.
If a sim is up to 100, in love, and of the opposite gender, the option of
marriage can come up on the list. If accepted, a very short ceremony commences,
with a chunk of your cash being subtracted to cover the expenses. After that,
they move in as they would with the move-in command I just described. For tips
on how to accomplish either, head to my strategy section.
The last thing I want to touch on is the art of giving gifts. Before the Hot
Date expansion, "Give Gift" was a basic action that subtracted $20 from your
account in order to give a green package to your target. The target would
generally gain 5 points, and this action could never be rejected. In a very
real sense, you could buy your target's love.
Now, it's not so simple. In order to give a gift, you have to possess it first.
Not everything can be gifts, and most of them must be bought when you're
downtown. Only the homemade preserves can be added to your inventory, which can
be accessed by clicking the button with a little gift-wrapped package.
Once you have a gift, there's no cost to give it, but it will disappear
afterwards. Therefore, Pyro can't give Stephanie a necklace and have her give
it back, for example. I think the boost is now around 3 points for gift giving,
making it terribly unprofitable.
Although, Karmo04 (karmo04@hotmail.com) told me a different story about just
how much the relationship meter raises for a gift...
####################################################
u mention that giving a gift boosts relationsships by 3 points. this isn't
true. it depends on what gift u give. a strategy that i use it if i have alot
of money i buy lots of diamond rings (1000 simolians a piece). even if the sims
don't like diamond rings, they will except them and benifit from them. each
diamond ring can produce around a 20 point increase, or more!
####################################################
And, Darkflash5 (Darkflash5@aol.com) has not only confirmed what Karmo04 said,
but he gave me some exact numbers, too...
####################################################
Homemade preserves = 1 relationship point for every cooking skill point the
giver had when making the preserves.
Lawn Gnome = 1 relationship point for every mechanical skill point when the
giver had when making the Gnome. (don't understand why ANYONE would want a lawn
gnome...)
The Sims = 5 relationship points (10 for kids)
Teddy Bear = 10 relationship points (15 for kids)
Sucker (lollipop, but I hate saying it) = 5 relationship points (15 for kids)
Chocolates = 10 relationship points (11 for kids: get the sucker!)
Yellow Rose = 15 relationship points (cannot induce love, but CAN induce
friendship)
Red Roses = 15 relationship points (Can induce love, but not friendship)
Necklace = 20 relationship points (Can induce love and friendship)
Diamond Ring = 20 relationship points (Can induce love, friendship, and is
gauranteed to be accepted or your money back....I wish.)
####################################################
By the way, Rob Sevening (alanisman1@hotmail.com) says that gifts can be
rejected...
####################################################
You said in your FAQ that giving a gift could never be rejected. That is SO not
true. I once gave a gift to a particularly stone-cold sim (the dark-haired
'Mom' in the default family who lived in the cemetary house) and she took the
gift, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it.
####################################################
+--------------------------------+
|8a. Having and Greeting Visitors|
+--------------------------------+
Sims in the same neighborhood will show up on your family's doorstep on the day
you move in, but they only do that until you've met them. After that, you have
to invite them over.
To do so, click a phone, then the last name of the sim you want to invite, then
the first name of the sim. A little pop-up box will appear; click Invite. This
can be declined, but they're far more willing to come over if the relationship
meter is high. Calling while your target is at work won't do anything, and
calling in the middle of the night will tick him or her off.
The sim may ask if another sim can come over too. This is up to you, and if you
accept, you may have up to four others come over. All visitors expect you to
feed them, so you may not want to do this until you've got a meal ready. If you
decline, you're not penalized in any way.
If the sim is an exceptionally good friend, he or she may bring a box of
chocolates or a vase of flowers. The flowers are worthless, and the chocolates
aren't that great at helping the Hunger meter, but the gesture is nice I
suppose.
By the way, speaking of things that are worthless... you may have noticed a
"Talk" option in the pop-up box after you call a sim. Never choose it; it
wastes time and doesn't boost the relationship meter by more than a few points.
However, Roel Kroesen (kroesen@home.nl) tells me that the Talk option isn't so
bad after all...
####################################################
If have noticed that talking on the phone to a friend is a good way to boost
the social meter. From 100% red to about 60-65% green takes just 3 phonecalls.
Ofcourse if the friend that you call hangs up, the effect is less.
####################################################
I tested that, and indeed the Social meter gets a nice kick when two sims just
talk. The Relationship meter doesn't move more than 5 points, but the Social
boost can save a sim that's depressed. But anyway, let's get back on topic.
If the sim does not bring a gift, it's up to you to decide how you will greet
them. Shaking hands is generally the considerable thing to do, but you could be
more forward if you think you can get away with it. Just be careful; being too
forward can lead to any number of things going wrong.
When you want a sim to vacate your house, you should do so politely. Click the
target, choose "Say Goodbye...," then something appropiate to the situation.
Only enemies will want to leave with a wave. Most prefer handshaking, although
you can try a kiss if you're daring. The "Hug" option means a friendly hug, so
no one is going to get jealous as a result of it.
Remember, you can never control a visitor. Just make sure you have a healthy
balance of stuff so the sim won't go away angry, and you'll be okay.
+-------------+
|8b. Interests|
+-------------+
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is PyroFalkon, and I am a gamer.
[insert applause here]
All my real-life friends are hardcore gamers, too. Two of them and I combine to
be the greatest force on the face of the earth when it comes to Age of Empires
II: The Conquerors for the PC. (No, that wasn't a challenge.) I guarentee you
that it was pretty much our similar interests in all things gaming that brought
us together and sealed our friendship.
Starting with Hot Date, The Sims works the same way. In the previous versions
of The Sims, you could see what your sims discussed via the little picture
balloons that appeared over their heads. It wasn't a very DETAILED way of
seeing it, but at least you had some semblence of an idea of what they were
talking about.
Enter Hot Date's expansion of relationships. Now, sims have a variety of
interests that they can... well, be interested in. There are 15, and you can
view them in the Interests window of Live Mode (the top-left button of the
group, the one with the word balloon).
When two sims talk, they will only talk about things that interest them. If a
sim has 0 in Sports, for example, he'll never bring up that the Chicago Cubs
have gone nearly a century without winning the bloody World Series. If his
Technology interest is up to 10, on the other hand, he'll be constantly
reciting the specs of his new favorite computer.
The sim that is talking will gain around 3 relationship points if his or her
words are well received, or lose 3 points if not. Pyro typically has high
technology and sports interests, and Stephanie has high exercise and sports
interests. If Pyro talks about computers with her, he'll lose 3 points. Of
course, if he talks about the Pittsburgh Steelers, he'll start gaining.
Compatable interests don't just help relationship meters, by the way. Having
similar interests, especially if the topic is a 10 for both sims, will give a
MASSIVE boost to the Social meters as well, which can easily put them in
fantastic moods (remember, the Social meter is the most-heavily weighted of all
eight).
When two sims are conversing, you can click the active sim and change the
topic, but again only to something that he's interested in. Also, the sims will
change topics on their own, so you may need to carefully monitor conversations
to make sure things aren't bad. I once had a dinner where Pyro kept talking for
a half-hour about DVD burners, and he lost 30 points of care for Stephanie, but
she talked about the Penguins, and she gained 30 to him. It was the greatest
difference I had ever seen between those two.
Typically, you'll want families to have similiar, if not the same, interests.
That way, dinner conversations don't end up turning into brawls.
If you are downtown, you can ask a date "What are you into?" The target will
respond by telling you the three highest interests on his list, and your sim
will think to himself whether he likes them or not. If your sim thinks of a
picture, and there's a big red X through it, that topic won't be well received.
Of course, you can change their level on interest in a topic, but first, let me
describe what those topics are...
TRAVEL - "I'm telling you, the Great Wall of China looks better than those ugly
Pyramids of Egypt!" When sims talk about travel, you see a sailboat, plane, or
car in their word bubble.
MONEY - "Yeah, these young people nowadays don't know the value of a simolean.
And they don't respect their elders, neither!" You'll see dollar bills, the
simolean symbol, or the face of a burglar when money comes up in a
conversation.
POLITICS - "I accidentally voted for the wrong guy! Really!" You'll see the
Memorial Building, a judge behind a desk flanked with two furled flags, or a
set of scales here.
THE 60s - "Dude! Flower power all the way! Burn those bras, baby!" Here, you'll
see a peace sign, the symbol of an atom, or a flower.
WEATHER - "That dork on channel 7 is always wrong. He said it'll be sunny
today, so you better bring your umbrella." You'll see a sun, a sun behind a
cloud, or a cloud pouring rain.
SPORTS - "The Steelers will go all the way this year. And the Texans freakin'
suck." You'll get a picture of a soccer ball, a tennis racket, or a skier going
down a hill.
MUSIC - "Just how many of the Backstreet Boys and N*Sync are actually
straight?" You'll see a guitar, a musical staff with notes, or a drum.
OUTDOORS - "Ah, the feel of the warm sun, the soft whisper of wind, the pain of
the rabid wolf knawing at my leg... I love nature!" You'll see a mountain, a
jumping fish, or a windy road.
EXERCISE - "Listen up tubby! I'm gonna get you in shape! My abs are so flat
that you can calibrate a leveler on them!" Sims talking about this will have a
swimmer, a hiker, or a dumbell in their word bubble.
FOOD - "*belch* Oh... pass me a Tums... and cover it in bacon." You'll see a
spoon and fork, a turkey leg, or a cup of coffee here.
PARTIES - "Woo hoo! Shake that funky booty! Where the hell are my drinks?"
You'll see balloons, a party hat, or a cake.
STYLE - "Looks like someone forgot their Rayban Sunglasses! Oh wait, they're in
my back pocket, never mind." You'll see a high heel shoe, a pair of sunglasses,
or a long tie.
HOLLYWOOD - "Mmm... Sandra Bullock... *drool*" You'll see a movie camera, a
director's plate, or a film reel here.
TECHNOLOGY - "Get that piece of crap out of here! What do you think I can do
with only a 5GHz processor?" You can see a computer disk (aren't those, um,
obsolete by now?), a plug, or a computer mouse.
ROMANCE - "My darling, I love you beyond anything you can possibly imagine.
Will you... move already? You're blocking the TV!" You'll see the male and
female symbols, a pair of lips, or a heart with Cupid's arrow through it.
All 15 interests can be incresed by buying magazines downtown. Once you make
your purchase (each is less than $10) and get home, your sim will put the mag
on the closest available surface. Any sim can then read it and increase an
interest.
There are 5 magazines, and each one provides three interests that can be
gained...
WhooNoo!!! increases Style, Hollywood, or Romance.
Livin' Large boosts The 60s, Music, and Parties.
The Avarix brings up Money, Politics, and Technology.
Victors' Digest juices Weather, Sports, and Food.
MAXSIMUM spews Travel, Outdoors, and Exercise.
The magazines only last a few days, then get outdated. At that point, you can
only throw it away, although you can always go buy the next issue.
Each interest can be brought up to 10, just like job skills. However, there is
a cap, so no sim can be interested in everything. As a sim starts reading a
magazine, a pink progress bar will appear over their head, like when they gain
skills. When it tops off, you may or may not be alerted, but your sim will gain
a point of that interest.
The cap is 76 total points. Once you hit that, you can still gain interests,
but points will be taken away from something else at random. However, no
magazine will take away points from another of its interests. For example,
let's say you've hit the cap, but you're still reading about Travel. The mag
for Travel is MAXSIMUM, so when you do score another point for Travel, it will
not be taken away from Outdoors or Exercise. The other 12 are fair game,
however.
Interests gain FAST. The first point only takes around 10 minutes, and you can
gain all 10 in only 6-1/2 hours of reading.
+-----------------------+
|+---------------------+|
||9. ASTROLOGICAL SIGNS||
|+---------------------+|
+-----------------------+
Don't ask me why it's taken as long as version 1.9 for me to actually include
this.
The astrological signs of your sims, which are based on the sim's personality,
can seriously affect relationships. With conflicting zodiac signs, it will take
longer to get two sims befriended and in love. Also, with conflicting signs,
all social interactions (Hug, Kiss, whatever) have a much higher chance of
failing.
On the other hand, compatible signs will help relationships. All social
interactions have a better chance of being accepted, and some will be available
much earlier. It takes a shorter amount of time to induce love, but no two sims
can be friends until the daily meter hits +50 no matter what the sign.
The following sub-sections will list the signs in chronological order. First,
I'll list the in-game description (IGD) of the sign. You can access this by
clicking the Personality button, then clicking the name of the zodiac sign.
After that, I'll say what precisely that description means in game terms (DEF),
such as what roles a sim of a particular sign excells at. Then, I'll list the
compatiable signs (Good Signs, GS for short) and the incompatible signs (Bad
Signs, BS for short). Finally, just for laughs, I'll list the lyrics of the
sign from Weird Al Yankovic's song "Your Horoscope for Today" (WAL).
+------------+
|9a. Aquarius|
+------------+
IGD: Friendly and amusing, Aquarians are excellent companions. Being well
balanced in other areas helps to make them one of the most agreeable signs.
DEF: A sim with the Aquarius sign has high Outgoing and Nice stats, plus decent
Playful ratings. The other two are balanced. This makes the sim very
susceptible to the benefits of parties; throw a bunch if this one is in the
family.
GS: Capricorn, Sagittarius
BS: Scorpio, Virgo
WAL: There's travel in your future when your tongue freezes to the back of a
speeding bus. Fill that void in your pathetic life by playing Whack-a-Mole 17
hours a day.
+----------+
|9b. Pisces|
+----------+
IGD: Selfless and kind, Pisces are one of the nicest signs. They're active too.
However, this combination can make them emotionally restless and indecisive.
DEF: Nice and Active are high, with decent Outgoing and a balance between the
other two. A sim with this sign is the best way to make Pud (check my alpha
strategy). This sim is almost too effective being a cook who only makes friends
to help the other sims in the family.
GS: Scorpio, Gemini
BS: Leo, Aries
WAL: Try to avoid any Virgos or Leos with the Ebola Virus. You are the true
lord of the dance, no matter what those idiots at work say.
+---------+
|9c. Aries|
+---------+
IGD: Dynamic and confidant, most Aries never shy away from the opportunity to
strike up a conversation with anyone. However, they can be somewhat impulsive
and quick-tempered.
DEF: Low Nice and Playful, but high Outgoing. This sim is a moderate challenge;
with low nice, you have to be careful what actions you choose. If you try to
insult a sim that doesn't like to be insulted, the high Outgoing is going to
hurt. Plus, with high Outgoing, the sim needs to be social more often, thus
increasing the chance of having bad relationships.
GS: Gemini, Taurus
BS: Cancer, Libra
WAL: The look on your face will be priceless when you find that 40-pound
watermelon in your colon. Trade toothbrushes with an albino dwarf, and give a
hickey to Meryl Streep.
+----------+
|9d. Taurus|
+----------+
IGD: The typical Taurus is strong-willed and determined. That can often mean
determined to have a good time.
DEF: High Playful, and the rest is balanced. These sims have fun and don't mind
company. These sims, like Aquarians, really benefit from parties.
GS: Aries, Libra
BS: Virgo, Cancer
WAL: You will never find true happiness; whatchya gonna do, cry about it? The
stars predict tomorrow you'll wake up to a bunch of stuff and then go back to
sleep.
+----------+
|9e. Gemini|
+----------+
IGD: Youthful and lively, many think Gemini have enough energy for two. Also
energized by conversation, it isn't surprising to find them bouncing from one
topic to the next at parties.
DEF: High Outgoing and Active, with higher Neat than the last two. This is
another good one for Pud in my alpha strategy. A Gemini can make friends
pretty fast, and while he's not, he can clean and cook.
GS: Pisces, Virgo
BS: Capricorn, Aries
WAL: Your birthday party will be ruined once again by your explosive
flatulence. Your love life will run into trouble when your fiancee hurls a
javelin through your chest.
+----------+
|9f. Cancer|
+----------+
IGD: There is nothing extreme about Cancers--they are very balanced. They can
also be very changeable which can be good or bad depending on the situation.
DEF: Balance, balance, balance. In theory, this sim has no weakness. However,
because he has no weakness, that in and of itself may be a weakness. After all,
because no one stat is low, you'll need to attend to all his needs regularly.
This could be mean more work for you if you're new; then again, it may also be
a good way to train yourself. Try him out; having one sim with 5s all the way
across the board is good for the neighborhood.
GS: Taurus, Scorpio
BS: Gemini, Aries
WAL: The position of Jupiter says that you should spend the rest of the week
face-down in the mud. Try not to shove a roll of duct tape up your nose while
taking your driver's test.
+-------+
|9g. Leo|
+-------+
IGD: The ultimate 'people' people, Leos are complete extroverts. Unfortunately,
this makes them deficient in other areas.
DEF: The in-game description says it all. Leos have high, if not max, Outgoing.
Nice is up there as well, which means Neat, Playful, and Active are all
relatively low. Leos get kicks out of parties, but because they're not active
nor playful, they don't get too much pleasure out of life aside from reading
books. Of course, that also means that the sim won't get as distracted as most
will by bright and shiny things.
GS: Sagittarius, Cancer
BS: Capricorn, Gemini
WAL: Now is not a good time to photocopy your butt and staple it to your boss's
face. Eat a bucket of tuna-flavored pudding and wash it down with a gallon of
Strawberry Qwik.
+---------+
|9h. Virgo|
+---------+
IGD: Modest and shy, introverted Virgos take pride in their meticulous and
practical approach to life. Unfortunately, these same traits can also result in
a very fussy individual.
DEF: Low Neat and Outgoing are complimented by high Active and decent Nice and
Playful. These guys are almost custom-made to work, because their low Outgoing
will slow the Social meter enough to make it not be any kind of distraction to
get up the career ladders. The more time spent away from home, the better; just
make sure that you don't neglect their skill gains. By the way, I am a Virgo.
GS: Aquarius, Sagittarius
BS: Leo, Taurus
WAL: All Virgos are extremely friendly and intelligent EXCEPT FOR YOU. Expect a
big surprise today when you wind up with your head impaled upon a stick.
+---------+
|9i. Libra|
+---------+
IGD: Romantic and charming and incredibly sociable, it's hard not to like a
Libra. However, their social pursuits leave them leave them little time for
more practical endeavors.
DEF: High Outgoing and Nice, decent Playful, low Active and Neat. Another good
choice for Pud, Libras love parties and dates. With an obscenely high Outgoing
rating, you need to make sure these sims have plenty of people to talk to all
the time.
GS: Virgo, Cancer
BS: Pisces, Scorpio
WAL: A big promotion is just around the corner for someone much more talented
than you. Laughter is the very best medicine; remember that when your appendix
bursts next week.
+-----------+
|9j. Scorpio|
+-----------+
IGD: While somewhat withdrawn from social activities, Scorpios are forceful and
determined in more practical pursuits.
DEF: The complete opposite of Libras, Scorpios boast decent to high Active and
Neat, though their Outgoing and Nice suffer. This makes them custom made to get
out of the house and work.
GS: Pisces, Leo
BS: Libra, Aquarius
WAL: Get ready for an unexpected trip when you fall screaming from an open
window. Work a little bit harder on your low self-esteem, you stupid freak.
+---------------+
|9k. Sagittarius|
+---------------+
IGD: Jovial and carefree Sagittarians are also blessed with boundless energy.
Unfortunately, this combination can also make them restless and careless.
DEF: Extremely high Active is the star of the show here. High Outgoing and
decent Playful are present also, though that makes Nice low and Neat
non-existant. That means they'll be in dirty houses, but they'll be able to
entertain guests despite cockroaches. However, make sure they're always in a
good mood, because they are pretty quick to get some negative interactions
going.
GS: Pisces, Capricorn
BS: Libra, Scorpio
WAL: All your friends are laughing behind your back... KILL THEM. Take down all
those naked pictures of Ernest Borge that you've got hanging in your den.
+-------------+
|9l. Capricorn|
+-------------+
IGD: Armed with a dry wit, Capricorns can often be found telling a good joke.
Also being very practical, they strive for order and discipline.
DEF: Capricorns have high Outgoing. The other four stats are balanced, though
Active normally is a point more than the others. They have no glaring
weaknesses as long as there are other sims to talk to, and they're not so
social that jobs are dangerous. This sign is excellent for a worker as long as
he doesn't live alone.
GS: Aquarius, Taurus
BS: Leo, Gemini
WAL: The stars say that you're an exciting and wonderful person, but you know
they're lying. If I were you, I'd lock my doors and windows and never never
never never never leave my house again.
+--------------+
|+------------+|
||10. DOWNTOWN||
|+------------+|
+--------------+
(note: this only works if you have Hot Date installed)
Before the Hot Date expansion, your sims could not leave the lot. Now, they
have the option to call a cab to head to the big city. To initiate it, click a
phone in your house, then Call Cab. For $50, one adult sim can get a ride
downtown. Be aware that the game will save when you do so, so make sure you
WANT it saved first.
You're taken to a screen like the Neighborhood Screen, but it shows the
downtown lots. If you hover the taxi cursor over a building, you can get a
short description of it. To pick one, simply click it.
Once downtown, you cannot enter Buy Mode or Build Mode, but more on that later.
You can only use that one sim, and you can't save. I know the technical reason,
but let's not deal with it. If you want to know, toss me an e-mail.
Anyway, as soon as you're downtown, you can do whatever you wish. There are
shops, places to eat, recreational places, and other things. The moment you
arrive to any place, a hoard of other sims show up, including any others that
you moved into houses already, although they won't cross neighborhoods. That
is, if you're visiting downtown with a sim from neighborhood 1, you won't find
one from neighborhood 2 running around.
There are several actions that were added specifically for the downtown area.
The initial two, "Let's Hang Out?" and "Let's Date?," are explained in a
moment. Like all other actions, they can be accepted or declined based on any
number of factors.
Again, because I don't want to ruin the game for anyone, I won't go into
details about every little thing in Downtown. It's all pretty self-explanatory
anyway.
What I will do, however, is have a word about saving and leaving downtown. In
every downtown lot, there will be a big yellow phone. You can use that to call
a cab to go home for free, or to go somewhere else for another $50.
In order to save the game, you'll need to get back home. If your game crashes
or you quit while you're downtown, the game will load you back at your house.
The budget you had while you were downtown WILL save, but your relationships
WILL NOT.
+----------------------------------------------+
|10a. Having a Date or Friend With You Downtown|
+----------------------------------------------+
You can have up to one other adult sim accompany your sim downtown. This is a
standard interaction, and can also be initated over the phone with no extra
clicks. I've never known it to be rejected, but you never know.
To get someone to go downtown with you, you have three options, depending on
where both sims are. Let's say Pyro wants to invite Steph downtown for my
examples.
Scenario 1: Steph is at Pyro's house (whether she's living there or just
visiting). Click Pyro to make him the active sim, then click Steph, and "Invite
Downtown" should be an interaction. Click it, and Steph will hopefully accept
(it's almost guaranteed to be accepted, but there's a slim chance it won't be,
depending on moods). Pyro will then call a cab automatically, and both will go
downtown together.
Scenario 2: Pyro is already downtown and sees Stephanie. Again, make Pyro the
active sim, and click Steph. This time, click the interaction "Ask..." You'll
be presented with two options: "Let's Hang Out?" and "Let's Date?." If you
select "Let's Hang Out?," that's non-love inducing, made for friends. "Let's
Date?" is for a romantic thing, so your target will expect different things.
She'll immediately start following you around in either case if she accepts.
Scenario 3: Pyro is at home and Steph is in her own house. With Pyro as the
active sim, click a phone, and select Steph from the list. You'll be given
three options: "Talk," "Invite Over," and "Invite Somewhere." Click the third
one, and you'll be presented with two more choices: "Invite Downtown" and
"Invite On Vacation." Select the first, and Steph will hopefully accept. Pyro
will then hang up, and automatically call a cab. Choose whichever lot you want
to, and Steph will show up there at the same time you do.
Once you're downtown, your date or friend will have a tiny blue crystal over
their head. This indicates their mood (just like your green crystal): the bluer
it is, the happier the sim is. If the crystal turns purple to red, you have a
problem. The crystal is the ONLY way you'll know their mood. Why's that, you
ask? Simple, and make sure you memorize this: YOU CAN'T CONTROL DATES WHILE
DOWNTOWN, EVEN IF THEY LIVE WITH YOU.
Yeah, it sucks, but I didn't program the game. A command that you need to get
real intimate with is "Ask..." then "How are you?." The target will tell you
what mood meter is the lowest. Fix that as soon as possible.
The date will follow you around like a sheep and will do whatever you're doing
if it's a social activity. If you order food, you'll order for the both of you
(and pay for both). If you dance on a dance floor, your date will join you. I
don't need to go on with examples, I hope.
I should point out here that the date is a little too willing when you do
things Downtown. I don't mean social interactions; see, if you elect to go to
the bathroom, your date probably follow you into it. If you decide to dance on
a dance floor, your date will follow you and do that too.
This is all very nice, but there's a minor problem: your date has a hideously
short memory. See, she can only remember the LAST COMMAND you entered.
Therefore, you can't queue up eight different actions and assume that she'll do
every one. You must enter them one at a time... for example, if you know you'll
need to go to the bathroom after you eat, then enter the eating command first,
wait for it to be finished, THEN enter the bathroom command. If you don't, your
date may follow you into the bathroom without eating. So, take the date one
step and action at a time.
Once your sim gets real friendly with the other, and the other's mood is high
(its crystal is deep blue), you can attempt to invite the sim back to your
house. Well, you can make the ATTEMPT anytime, but it's likely to fail if you
don't time it right. The mood and relationship meters of the target must be
relatively high before it will be accepted.
Be careful with that command. The two quickest ways to end a date are to run
out of money and get too personal. If you ask someone you just met to come home
with you, 
Walkthroughs 
