Episode 47: Boomtown by Reniusa

Boomtown: Booming Business

The Goal: The point of this challenge is to create a growing neighborhood striving towards business diversity and economic growth while adhering to a class system Sims will advance in; mimic a ‘real’ city in economic diversity. So you will have your run-down shacks, small starter homes, medium family homes, and those castles on the hill. Along with that concept, you will also have corner convenience stores, discount clothing stores, Sim-Marts, fast food restaurants, family restaurants, gourmet restaurants, and high fashion boutiques. If you don’t like rules, move along…this challenge has plenty.

Key Points:
Sims will start out in the Poverty Class. Classes starting with lowest Class: Poverty Class, Working Class, Middle Class, and Upper Class.
Requirements for moving from one class to the next are detailed in the ‘Class Structure Gameplay’ section.
All households must own one business. This can be either a home-based business, or one operated on a community lot.
Sims will move from one house to another when they change classes. This encourages sections of the city that are populated based on wealth or lack there of.
Sims can marry or move in any type of Sim. NPCs, Townies, and Create-A-Family Sims are all fair game. Create-A-Family and Townie Sims must adhere to specific rules for them, which are outlined in the ‘Family Additions Gameplay’ section.
Aspirations are decided through a roll of a dice.
The challenge starts with 4 Sims. Once one of these Sims move out of their ‘Poverty Class’ house, another Sim must remain, or a new Sim must move in. Poverty Class houses must never be vacant longer than 1 play-turn.
Challenge ends when the 5th generation is born.
Major points are given for business ownership, as well as business ownership being a requirement for advancing Class status.
Major points are given for Neighborhood wealth and population.
Households are played for a set time before moving to the next family. (referred to as a play-turn)

Still interested? Let’s get going then…

Set-Up:
Create a new neighborhood, naming it what you wish. Attach as many or few sub-neighborhoods. Delete all characters using the ‘deleteallcharacters’ cheat. You are welcome to put in some community lots if you wish.
Create or download 4 Sims of any gender, aspiration, and personality. Each Sim should be a separate household. (i.e. 4 households consisting of 1 Sim each) These Sims cannot have a college education. Future generations can go to college, and the rules give more details on that below.
Move each Sim into whatever size lot or house you wish, as long as it costs less than $10,000. If you are building one from scratch, you will need to make sure you do not spend more than $10,000 building, including the cost of the lot. I would encourage these homes to be small ‘starter’ houses since all 4 Sims will be starting out in the Poverty Class. You are more than welcome to use Custom Content, and/or download from the exchange. Please note: You cannot have any more than 4 ‘Poverty Class’ lots/houses in the neighborhood at any given time.
Make sure to give each Sim a phone when you move them in, so they may develop relationships while you are playing other Sims before their play-turn.
Each Sim cannot start with more than $10,000 in net worth. This means if they spent $10,000 building their house, then your Sims are out of luck. You will need to adjust their income using either the ‘familyfunds’ cheat or other methods (laying flooring, etc.) to get their starting net worth less than $10,000.
Decide the playing order and length of a play-turn for your Sims. You cannot play any household for longer than 2 Sim weeks. A Sim cannot sit in the bin (including the sub-neighborhoods) for more than 1 complete play-turn cycle. Any Sims that are sent to College must be added to the playing schedule. I recommend putting each family on a list so you will not forget which family to play next.

General Gameplay:
The primary goal is to have a booming city. To this end, every household must open a business before the 2 Sim week mark. Either purchase a community lot (this might be extremely difficult for Poverty Class families) or create any type of home business.
You are welcome to add Create-A-Sim Sims to the neighborhood at any time, just remember they must be added to the caretaker(s)’ house or moved into a ‘Poverty Class’ house.
Only 1 servo is allowed per house. Servo is not allowed to be married/joined to anyone living in his/her current household upon time of his/her ‘initialization’. If Servo marries or his/her love interest moves in, he/she must be moved out with the love interest and added to the play list. Servo’s may adopt, and do anything else the other Sims in this challenge are allowed to do.
No cheats or hacks allowed. Except gardening hacks and necessary 3rd party bug fixes. If it doesn’t crash your game, or make it unplayable (i.e. freezes, not allowing game to run normally-such as the Greek House bug in Uni), then it is not a bug fix.
o I will also allow the ‘College Adjuster’ hack by modthesims2.com to speed up University, by adjusting the time to final exam only.
o Another exception to the ‘No Cheats’ rule: you may use the rotation cheat and snaptogrid cheats, as well as moveobjects for decoration purposes only. You may also use the elevation cheats for building purposes.
You cannot use the cheesecake to have twins.
You may marry/join any type of Sim. Please see the ‘Family Additions’ section of Gameplay for rules.
You may use all the features of Nightlife/University/Open For Business to your advantage. If you want a city run by Vampire/Zombies/Cheerleaders…go for it. Go on dates/outings and send Sims to college if you wish. If you own the expansion packs, I think you should have fun with them. J
You may only move a new Sim household into a Poverty house once there is one available. Sims cannot be moved from the bin directly into any other class housing than the Poverty Class housing. The only exception to this rule is moving a graduated Sim back into their family’s house. Only one graduated Sim per household may move back into their family’s house. Please see the ‘Family Additions’ Gameplay section for Sims you are planning on marrying/joining/moving in to existing playable Sims.
You may not marry/move-in Mr. Big, The Diva, and the Grand Vampire/Vampiress simply because of the money they come with. You can reproduce with them if you wish.
You are allowed to use any of the career rewards (if your class can obtain them), and almost any of the aspiration rewards without penalty. The exception to this is the ReNuYuSeso Orb; you may use this to change turnoffs/ons with no penalty, but to change aspiration -- there is a penalty of -1 pt. per use. If you happen to get the ‘Grilled Cheese’ aspiration, no penalty applies.
Upon reaching the teen stage of life, you must roll for your aspiration. 1= Fortune, 2= Knowledge, 3= Family, 4= Romance, 5= Popularity, 6= Pleasure Seeker. If teens attend college, then they can take the option to change aspirations in their junior year when prompted with no penalty. If you choose to change their aspiration in college, you still have to roll for their aspiration. You must keep the aspiration that you roll. (unless you later change it with the ReNuYuSeso Orb for a penalty)
You may resurrect Sims, but they can only be counted as ‘playable’ Sims for scoring purposes if they are not made into zombies.
You may take or ignore chance cards. If you take a chance card, you are stuck with the outcome. No reloading after a bad choice.
Tombstones/Urns may not be deleted, but they may be moved to a community graveyard.

Class Structure Gameplay:
As detailed above there are 4 classes: Poverty Class, Working Class, Middle Class, and Upper Class. After achieving the Class goal, your Sim must move into the next Class. And by moving, I mean literally moving into a new house.
To advance from Poverty Class you must have:
o A net worth of over $25,000.
o One business at least at level 3.
o Poverty Class Sims can only work the following jobs: Artist, Criminal, Paranormal, Military, Slacker and Culinary.
o Poverty Class Sims can only send one child to college.
To advance from Working Class you must have:
o A net worth of over $35,000.
o Two businesses at least at level 5.
o Working Class Sims can only work the following jobs: Artist, Slacker, Military, Paranormal, Culinary, Criminal, Business, Medical, and Culinary.
o Working Class Sims can only send two children to college.
To advance from Middle Class you must have:
o A net worth of over $50,000.
o 3 businesses at least at top-level.
o Middle Class Sims can work any job except Show Business.
o Middle Class Sims can send four children to college.
Obviously, once you’ve moved from Middle Class you are now in Upper Class.
o Upper Class can work any job.
o Upper Class can send as many children as they wish to college.
o Upper Class can own as many businesses as they wish. Bonus points are awarded for top-level businesses up to 5 businesses per household. See ‘Scoring’ section for details.

Family Addition Gameplay:
You may marry any NPC’s and add them directly to your family.
Townies can be moved in/married, but must however stay until they age to the next life stage. This is to prevent moving Townies in for money/convenience.
Create-A-Sim Sims must be moved into an existing lot with a ‘caretaker’ before marrying/moving them in to a playable lot or a ‘Poverty Class’ lot. This is to prevent them from bringing the $20,000 start up funds with them. I would recommend creating an orphanage or apartment complex with a caretaker that you don’t plan on playing. It is simply to store Sims meant for joining playable houses. You may do the same on college campus.
Your Sims can have as many children as they wish, either by ‘Woohoo’ or adopting. In fact, the more children the better, as it will increase the neighborhood’s net worth.
I will allow children/teen townies to be moved in using a move-in-all-ages hack, or using the testing cheat. (‘boolprop testingcheatsenabled true’). They must stay until their next life stage unless they are moved in with the ‘caretaker’.

University Gameplay:
You are welcome to send any Sims to college except the four Sims who start the neighborhood.
Sims that are sent to college must be put on the play schedule.
Sims that graduate or drop-out from college must be moved back to the neighborhood in one of the following ways:
o Move back into their original household. (remember only one college graduate from each household can move back in)
o Move into a vacant ‘Poverty Class’ house.
o Move into the caretaker’s house.
College Sims that move into the ‘Poverty Class’ house do not need to adjust their net worth.
As mentioned above, I’m allowing a college hack to speed up college only. Meaning if you wish to change the time to final exam, you may do so.
You may join a Greek house or start one up. There are points for owning a Greek house by the same family for 3 or more generations.
You may join the secret society.

Scoring:
3 pts for every owned business that is at top level, maximum allowed of 15 pts per household.
1 pt for every playable Sim in game at the end of the challenge. (do not count the caretaker(s))
1 pt per every $100,000 net worth in the entire neighborhood. Add all Sims net worth together, rounding up.
1 pt for every Greek house that has been consecutively owned by the same family for 3 or more generations.
2 pts for every aspiration related impossible want fulfilled. ‘Have 10 babies’ counts as an impossible want. All other impossible wants are wants that are worth over 30,000. Fulfilling impossible wants that are not relevant to that Sims aspiration, do not count. (i.e. a Family Sim maxes all skills, that does not count for that Sim, as maxing all skills is an impossible want for a Knowledge Sim, not Family)
1 pt per platinum grave in the neighborhood at the end of the challenge.
1 pt for every twin birth
1 pt for every alien birth
1 pt for every child that gets into private school
-1 pt for every visit from the shrink
-1 pt for every visit from the social bunny
-2 pts for every Sim you intentionally kill
-1 pt for each child that is removed by the Social Worker

Conclusion and Notes:

The main reason I created this challenge is because I really wanted my neighborhoods to have income-based sections. I also wanted a bit more freedom for CAS Sims in a challenge. I love the idea of a neighborhood having sections that almost make up their own sub-neighborhood. I’ve already got my trailer park built for Poverty Class housing. I think around it I’ll have a Quickie Mart, Flea Market, Diner, and a Pay Park. And I can just imagine a small tract of family starter homes for my Working Class. I’m going to surround it by building a Sim-Mart, Bowling Alley…well I could tell you all my plans, but I don’t want to bore you. J

The idea of the challenge was inspired by several other challenges. Most notably, The Royal Kingdom Challenge, Prosperity Challenge, and The Neighborhood Challenge; I also took the dicing of aspirations from The Legacy Challenge. Thank you to all the great creators of challenges! I couldn’t list all the ones I’ve participated in, well I could but I’m kind of tired of typing as it is.

One last note: If you see a flaw in the challenge, let me know. Also, I will try to answer any questions on clarifying the rules as I can. I will put up a word document and notepad document of this, as well as an Excel spreadsheet for tabulating the scoring. I will update this thread when I have them completed.

-Reni