Episode 54 - String Me Challenge

String Me by ASimWen

A Game Challenge for The Sims 2

Ok, picture this. Your Sim gets out of his carpool at the end of the workday, and you hear the ‘Sim Got Promoted’ jingle. The pop up materializes, and tells you all about it. Yay! Your Sim is now at the top of his career, and in permanent platinum for the rest of his life. He has lead a good life. Plenty of dating, going downtown with friends and being a general party animal. Now it is time to settle down and get a spouse, maybe start a family, now that he is making good money. Oh but wait a minute. What’s this??? Something is missing! The skill bar showing how your Sim slaved skilling is nearly empty. No skills?? How did your Sim reach TOC without any skills?? Well, that is what this challenge is all about. Getting your Sim to the top of his/her career without skilling.

Okay, I will wait while you clean up the milk that just sputtered out of your nose and down into your keyboard. (ASimWen goes to her kitchen to check supper that is simmering). OK I am back. Ready to hear about this?

Yes, it is true. This can be done. I have played many different challenges, and most of them involve something with skilling or maxing skills. I realized I was very brainwashed when I would sit down to play the game and all I could think about was sitting my Sim children down to pour over a cookbook or getting them outside to run the obstacle course to gain skills. This challenge is ALL ABOUT working and gaining promotions and simoleons without skilling. I will give some tips at the end of this explanation on how to do it, but I will not tell all. I will leave some of it up to you to figure out.

First I will say all the aspirations in the game have been play tested by myself, my friend Just Lynn and her husband Ron. Yes, all aspirations, including Grilled Cheese Sims can be worked to TOC without earning skills.

Explanation / Goal

Why is this challenge called String Me? Because your Sim will rely on his coworkers to “Pull Strings At Work” and get him promoted. Yup. Your Sim will become a royal Suck Up. Ya know that irritating Sim who comes home in the carpool with your Sim? Yah…that coworker. Now you will want to see that guy or gal appear because that coworker will be responsible for your Sim’s future.

Starting Sim Life Skill-less

Okey dokey. Here we go.

If you want to play by chance, you may roll the aspiration for your Sim. If you are that confident that you can work a skill loving Knowledge Sim to TOC. If not, then here it is:

1. You may design your Sim in CAS with aspiration/personality that you think you can best play to the top. If you own Nightlife, you may choose the Turn Ons and Turn Off.

2. Your Sim can be poor or rich, that is, motherlode to your heart’s content. Starting from rags and ending up in riches is not the challenge here.

3. Your Sim can get a job from the computer. After all, if he has no skills, he will start at the bottom anyway. Using the computer gives you more daily options to choose from.

That is it. Easy set up, huh?

The Skilling Rules….kinda….

I do not hate challenge rules, but I don’t follow every single challenge rule when I do a challenge. So I wanna keep this simple. But a little something must be in place to give you an idea of my vision.

The Yes’s…

1. The “No Skilling” rule does not apply to the first skill needed for your Sim to promote. Your Sim MUST earn the first skill needed to promote. This ‘turns on’ the first promotion, and opens the door for a co worker to come home with him.

2. Your Sim MAY gain and keep skills awarded by the game through dating, outings, and chance cards.

3. Your Sim may earn skills he doesn’t need to promote with.

4. It is OKAY to reload the lot after a bad chance card. Oh here, lemme pat you on the back…sorry that made you choke with surprise….. There is one condition to this YES rule. You must have ‘saved’ the game when you get the pop up saying your Sim has to be at work in an hour, or the carpool will arrive in an hour. If you did not save the game, you must disregard the card. Even if you think you know the answer.

5. OK to give your Sim elixir.

The No’s………

1. No skills may be gained by your Sim from books, simvac, produce, (Seasons) listening to a Knowledge Sim ‘Impart Knowledge’ (Freetime) or other aspiration objects that is needed for his job. That is, (in case I left anything out) if your Sim has actively recruited the illegal skill, he can’t keep it.

2. Your Sim may not switch to a job for which he has physically earned skills. Example: your Sim is in the Athletic career, but has earned 10 cooking skills because he has a secret desire to become the second Rachel Ray. Your Sim cannot then switch to Culinary. If your Sim is offered a career switch by a townie (Apartment Life), your Sim must turn it down if he or she has already earned skills for it.

3. If your Sim needs cooking, cleaning, or mechanical for their career, he or she must influence other Sims to do these tasks, or hire it out. (maid, food delivery, repairman, butler).

4. A Sim must smooze only the co-worker that comes home in his own carpool. He cannot use a co worker in the carpool from a house mate.

Once your Sim reaches level five in his/her job, a career reward will be earned. Your target Sim may not use it, but anyone else in the household can. It must be placed within the house/lot in a place of high esteem where it can be noticed by all who live there or come to visit. After all, it was freely earned by being lazy. What Sim wouldn’t want to show that off?

Hacks, Cheats

Allowed:

Auto-Yak. I have never seen the point of making my Sim continually call back out repeatedly to the same Sim trying to befriend him / her. Warning: having this will ‘turn off’ the ability for your Popularity Sim to use the three way calling feature in the Freetime Lifetime Benefits. Unless Pescado has fixed that and I am behind the times.

Abduction Hacks

University Hacks, like the college clock

BoolProp to ‘force error’, moveobjects or any cheat to generally fix game hiccups

Not Allowed:

Any hack that will award skills or enhance moods or fill needs. For gosh sakes, use the energizer, and smooze your co worker.

Any hack that turns your Sim into a Plant Sim, Werewolf, Witch, or Vampire.

Boolprop to award skills or become pregnant, or to become a Plant Sim, Witch, Werewolf or Vampire.

Ways to Smooze your Co-Worker

Your Sim will smooze with his coworkers to get on their good side so the coworker will pull strings and get him promoted.

If you have it, use FreeTime’s new lifetime aspiration benefits. I found I used this heavily in testing. My friend’s husband, Ron, did not have Freetime and managed the Knowledge Sim. Want to play it ruff? Then don’t use it.

Nightlife’s dating. It is handy dandy for keeping your Sim in a good mood. Ummmm…maybe for dating the coworker???? Also, for going on scored outings with your coworker.

Now, not all promotions will come from your co worker. You will find that since your Sim isn’t skilling, the game will step up the number of chance cards you get. Yep. I actually saw a couple I had never seen before.

If you don’t have these EP’s? Good luck. Try it and let me know.

Summary: Your Sim will promote by chance cards, and by String Pulling. If you have the EP Apartment Life, there is a chance your Sim can get offered a promotion from random Townies they befriend.

EP Modules

This challenge is hard enough with just developing string pulling. But if you would like a little spice on the side, here are some mix and match modules you may include, or not, in your challenge.

1. University – Your target Sim is not only a sloafer sponging off his coworker, he is also a parent. His child goes off to college, graduates, returns home and gets a job in Natural Science. The child earns the cowplant, which one day is left unattended in the yard. One of your target Sim’s hungry co-workers comes by one day and tries to get that piece of cake…..

a. If your target Sim is male, he must adopt a baby. If he doesn’t need logic for his job, he may be abducted.

b. If your target Sim is female, she must get pregnant by (first choice) a male co worker, or if none available, an NPC.

2. Nightlife – Your Sim’s co worker simply adores vampires. Your target Sim thinks to do his co worker a favor and introduces him to the Count or Countess. Alas, the co-worker gets bitten…….and somehow doesn’t make it home before sunrise.

3. Open For Business – Your target Sim loves to build, and has managed to create a Servo. He activates the Servo, who promptly gets a job in the same field as his creator. The Servo then ‘gets his own place’ and becomes a co worker of the target Sim by coming home with him in the carpool. (cannot do if your Sim needs mechanical for his job)

4. Pets – Your target Sim loves doggies or kitties. He manages to adopt 2 strays and breed them. He then gives the entire litter to his co worker as a thank you gift for helping him work up through the ranks.

5. Seasons – Your target Sim loves to garden, but neglected to put out the lady bug nests that keep the bugs away. Oops! Before you know it, your target Sim has become a Plant Sim and has spored a plant baby. The plant baby grows up to eventually get a job in the same field as his/her parent, and ‘gets his own place’. He comes home in the car pool and becomes a co worker of his parent.

6. Bon Voyage – The target Sim is especially grateful to his co worker for assisting him in climbing the ladder of success at XYZ company. As a thank you, the target Sim takes his co worker on vacation where he manages to show is co worker a good time by collecting all the vacation momentos that are indigenous to one of the vacation spots. (That is, no general vacation memories count) All eligible trinkets and souvenirs are also proudly displayed on a shelf in the target Sim’s home, and a photo album is made depicting all the snapshots taken to preserve memories.

7. Free time – Choose a hobby your target Sim can do that doesn’t interfere with proper skilling. Your target Sim makes some sort of arts and crafts item, such is in sewing or tinkering and presents it to his co worker as a thank you gift. But only the top of the line items will do. Such as a pitcher that was thrown on the pottery wheel. No lower end pieces allowed.

8. Apartment Life – Your target Sim loves to delve into the world of magic. He or she has befriended the Head NPC Witch and manages to convince her to work her spell and get themselves turned into a witch too. Your Sim then becomes a full fledged witch, and turns her or his favorite co-worker into one as well.

Scoring

I tend not to like scoring systems. This challenge is mostly about bragging rights. But here are a couple of things for you bean counters out there to keep track of for posterity’s sake. And, no point deductions for not sticking to the rules or playing badly. It is all positive reinforcement here.

After reaching TOC, give yourself 1 pt for each day left until elder hood is reached. If you used elixir, forget this.

1 point for each promotion your Sim gets from his Servo or PlantSim child.

5 pts if reaching TOC which also fulfilled your Sims’ LTW.

5 pts for each EP module successfully completed

10 pts if your Sim builds a ‘trophy room’ to show off all his date and outings gifts that his coworkers will sneak by and leave on his front steps. The freely earned career reward may be placed here.

10 pts for reaching your Sim’s LTW if it wasn’t career inspired.

15 pts if you stuck to the approved hacks list.

When To Change The LTW

If you want your Knowledge Sim to have a shot at fulfilling his LTW, you may use the method of your choice to change it only if his LTW is ‘Max All Skills’. Change it only once.

This is the only time you may change the LTW. Tuff if you have a Popularity Sim who wants to befriend 20 animals.

CAVEATS

1. Having Freetime can be a help or a hindrance. Once your Sim’s lifetime meter maxes out, the free promotions seem to stop. So don’t do anything that will make that move a lot. The more time your Sim spends in Platinum aspiration, the quicker this fills up.

2. Mean Sims tend not to pull strings. Don’t depend on Benjamin Long to help your target Sim out.

3. Elder hood seems to stop the free promotions too.

4. Not every aspiration is played the same way. What ever worked for a Popularity Sim, will not work for a Fortune Sim.

5. From my experience, the newer careers do not have townies automatically assigned to them like the older ones do. Either play this in an established hood where you already have Sims working in the new career fields who can be brought home as co workers, or simply work your Sim in one of the older careers. But then you might have to give up the points for reaching TOC that is also his LTW.

I love to read Sim blogs. If you happen to try this challenge and happen to blog it, email me at asimwen(at)gmail.com, and I will come take a look and leave comments. Have fun.

ASimWen

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