Tuesday, July 28, 2009

EPISODE74- The Sims 2 Challenges - Daisy Chain

Have you always wondered what to do with your lone hubby when his/her spouse died? Want to generate new townies/genes in your neighborhood? Look no further, as this challenge is for you!

First create a single sim, with personality, genetics, and Aspiration of your choice. Have that sim move on to any lot in the neighborhood.

When your sims marry, they can only marry townies and NPCs.

No move-ins are allowed.

Have that sim build up a relationship to get married/joined to someone in that neighboorhood.

The main point of this is that each marriage/joining starting with the first sim is creating a "daisy chain". This means that when one of the members of the couple dies, the widowed sim then builds up a relationship and gets married/joined to someone else. Repeat this until either all of the members of this daisy chain die, or when reaching 10 sims in the chain, on the same lot. Each of these marriages must last at least 5 days, enough time to have/adopt a child. That means no breaking up or intentional premature deaths before 5 days. Only Old age and non-intentional accidental deaths are allowed before the 5 days. These include no access to Elixir of Life and a high enough Aspiration score for an aging sim, pregnancy death glitches, satellite hits, accidental drowning (no removing the pool ladder or denying interactions that involve exiting the pool), scaring to death, and losing to the Grim Reaper (as long as the pleader had any chance of succeding the plea: That sim had Daily and Lifetime scores of the dead sim totaling at least 25.).

Example: Lets say your first sim (we'll use Angela Pleasant as an example) gets married (we'll use Kennedy Cox as another example). When Angela dies, then have Kennedy build up a relationship and get married to someone else (let's say Andrea Hogan). When Kennedy dies, have Andrea do the same, and so on. The daisy chain would end here if Andrea didn't get married to someone and had/adopt a child when married before she died.

Please note that if a sim is married more than two times, the marriages beyond the first two won't count in this chain. (Example: After Kennedy dies, Andrea marries Amin Sims.[That's two marriages, one to Kennedy and one to Amin.] If Amin dies and Andrea marries [to Komei Tellerman], Komei won't count as being part of the chain due to that being Andrea's third marriage. This means that try not to get the younger person of the couple die first.)

Same-sex and Opposite-sex marriages are permitted, and so are Elder/Adult marriages.

Important Note: I have been hearing reports that sometimes when a sim dies of old age, the widowed sim is still considered to be married to the dead sim, and can't get engaged to someone else. The patch was supposed to have fixed this, but I still hear reports of this occuring post-patch wise. If this awful occasion occurs, well sorry, there's not much you can do about it, but since the marriage is still there, you still can get "affair" memories for points (see below).

After each marriage in the daisy chain, you must provide evidence that the sims were married. To do so, do the following:

1) Have the couple either have or adopt a child (alien pregnancies won't count for this, but provide an additional scoring opportunity.) Children won't count as being in the chain, though.

2) Either have one of the sims in the household paint a Still Life painting of the oldest member of the couple (as an Elder) floating while meditating (If you sim can't meditate due to too many Playful points, have them make a painting of that sim doing Yoga instead).

AND/OR

Keep the tombstones/urns of the late family member in the household. (Be careful of the ghosts, though.)

You may use cheats ONLY for debugging purposes only (no motherlode, aging -off, or boolProp, etc; only MoveObjects on to delete bugged objects. You may also use deleteallcharacters ONLY at the very beginning of the challenge, if you want only NPCs and townies in the neighborhood). No hacked objects are allowed.

You may use Career and Aspiration rewards to your desire (be careful with the SimVac, as it may cause Aspiration failures that will result in penalties).

If you lot gets too buggy to play adequately, you may end up having to restart the challenge. Please note that uploading lots as backups may cause the "sims not being able to marry when spouse dies" glitch. I've seemed to have this occur when moving families to different neighborhoods.

When the children grow up to become teens, you may choose their aspiration, or have some fun and choose it randomly.

When the teens become adults, they may move out, or stay in the original house. Getting them married does NOT count for the daisy chain, though, but still counts for scoring purposes.

No saving and restarting due to bad events (rejected marriage, death in household, etc.) allowed.

At the end of this challenge, you should be able to trace the daisy chain back to the beginning via the children in the Family Tree, and everyone should have the last name of the original sim (since move-ins aren't allowed, only marriages/joinings).

Scoring (Please don't kill me if this looks similar to other challenges!)

-5 for each break up that occurs, regardless of whether the couple was going steady, engaged, or married/joined

-5 points for each premature death that occurs on the lot, whether household or visitor sims (includes accidental pregnancy deaths, so be very careful..)

-2 points for EACH baby, toddler, or child taken away by the social worker

+3 points for each non-Platinum tombstone/urn on the lot

+5 points for each Platinum tombstone/urn on the lot

+2 points for each Meditation/Yoga Still Life portrait on lot (See above)

+1 point for each successful engagment attempt

+2 points for each successful marriage/join attempt

+2 points for each successful Go Steady attempt

-1 point for each rejected engagement attempt

-3 points for each rejected marriage attempt (sim gets left at the altar)

-2 points for each rejected Go Steady attempt

+1 point for each adoption

+2 points for each baby had (regular)

+3 points for each alien baby had (via alien abuduction)

+1 points for each alien abduction

+4 points for every set of twins born

-2 points for every teen that runs away from home

-3 points for each time a tombstone is kicked or urn is smashed

-4 points for each time one of the sims in the daisy-chain is married beyond the second time (Example: Andrea Hogan gets married to Amin Sims and later, Amin dies. If Andrea remarries, this penalty incurs. However, if instead Andrea dies, and Amin remarries, no penalty occurs this way.)

+3 points each time a sim is saved from death (Does not include each time someone defeats the Grim Reaper, only when someone is saved this way. Each sim saved from death this way can only receive this bonus once per lifetime. However, a sim may defeat the Grim Reaper as many times as he want and does)

+3 points for each "Had an affair" memory obtained

-3 points for each "Got caught cheating" memory obtained

+1 point for each $100,000 worth of net funds on the lot (that's +2 points for $200,000; +5 for $500,000, and so on)

+5 points for having all of the Career rewards on the lot at end of challenge

+2 points for having all Aspiration rewards (usable, used-up objects don't count) on the lot at end of challenge

-1 point for each Aspiration failure on the lot, whether by visitors or household sims

+1 point for each type of NPC married/join in the chain (townies will count as a type of NPC, but only once)

Good Luck!