Hi!
I ask here a quick question about the "long" saves with "eternal" sims, I mean, with the aging disabled or freezed aging with SP...the main problem is the money, literally I loose the interest on the save (well, really loose the challenge) on 25-30 sim weeks, where the sims are extremely rich and the level of the abilities are on the top. I thought that with the new expansions that I bought, seasons, ambitions, WA, pets and Uni, everything would become a bit more complex and challenging, but it hasn't been like that, I see everything as even easier... the question would be, how do you play "long" saves? With the normal cycle and see how sims die and die non-stop? Any advice to keep the game interesting after 20 or 30 sim weeks (mods, self-challenges, I don't know)?

I think the key to keeping the game interesting is to challenge yourself, either with known challenges or rules of your own making, or a combo of different challenges and rules. I found Judesims Random Town Jump Project at Carl's and Pam's Sim 3 Forum and have been playing it for almost 5 years now! My family is in their 13th town with 5 more to go! And despite a glitchy family urn, the family tree is pretty much intact from the founders to the current generation. I've really enjoyed researching each town and its residents and adding that town's unique genetics to my founding family. Getting to move to a new town after the current gen becomes a young adult and explore has really kept the game fresh for me.

Another way to keep it fresh is to use a random generator for each aspect of game play, gender, traits, marital status, # of kids each gen, career, etc. There are several challenges with variations on that, like the Not-So-Berry Challenge,though that one has specifics for you to follow instead of using a random generator. In fact, I'd like to make that one and actual Berry Challenge and see if I could get the colors naturally with the sims in Dragon Valley!

And playing differently than you normally do can add interest too, like picking traits you don't normally use, randomizing them, playing a career you haven't done before, or playing a single sim or couple and, instead of having children, have them do all of the adventures in WA.
Maybe even a 'homeless' challenge where they start on an empty lot and can only make money by fishing or collecting, actually both very lucrative careers! But if you don't want rich sims, maybe try horse racing or raising pets to sell. Or even breeding them and having a pet family tree to match your main family tree.

These are just a few ideas, and I'm sure others will have more!

Good luck and happy simming!

deedee_828 post_id=95174 time=1686715810 user_id=18684 wrote: Good luck and happy simming!

Thanks for the ideas. I don't like any of the original maps apart from Sunset Valley, Appalosa is boring and sad, there are beautiful sims but the map is horrible...Twinbrook is a scary and "dark" place, I don't like it at all...so I have I have to look for custom maps and I can't find anything with the expansions I have, everyone asks for many more or they are empty maps that cost a lot to build, so I don't like the first option.
About the random traits, I'm not interested because most of the traits that I don't use I've tried, and they don't add difficulty but frustration, and that's not fun.
I don't like adventures in WA either, dangers, risks and negative things, and little fun for my sims, and then there is another, that you take them on a trip and the second day they ask you to return, to travel I prefer to go to a normal map, like Fern Valley, they have a good time there and have a great vacation.
The last section that you tell me, yes, it is what I like the most, homelessness and looking for a life, but with the expansions there are a thousand ways to get rich from scratch, for example, just by going to look for scrap metal you make your sim enjoy and gives a very big extra money, just like gardening, WA adds useless things like coffee that has no real use but if you plant it it gives you an incredible amount of money, and nectar, overrated to epic levels.
Anyway, I look forward to more ideas, I appreciate what you have commented, of course.
At the moment I have returned to the base game with mods to complicate everything economically, which is, I think, the most attractive thing for me. I want to see after many hours with the expansions that I notice differently when I return to the base game, initially it is a relief not to see many things that I don't like at all having those expansions installed. I was thinking of buying some more but I don't think I'm going to.

I agree that money is far too easy to get. I've added a lot of financial restrictions to try to keep my sims from becoming effectively billionaires too quickly.

One thing is to add mods that increase bills. Another is to use something like Ani's Tax Collector mod to add taxes. For my Medieval save, I require my household to throw a location party at the church every Sunday, which is approximately §400. This roughly simulates a church service, which would be a center of western medieval social life, while simulating tithe to the church at the same time.

I guess classically people move their sims onto 64x64 lots very early, which will keep the bills high. There's a certain amount of money lost when you move to a new lot in-game, even if you sell everything, so moving around from lot to lot helps reduce savings.

I, for one, love the WA adventures. There is technically danger, but I've never had a sim come close to dying. Mostly, it's about exploring cool areas and solving puzzles. If you use Traveler to take regular trips to Isla Paradiso, you can work to discover all the hidden islands there. There are other custom worlds that contain tombs to explore.

I find the active careers from Ambitions and Showtime to be a lot of fun. There's a lot of complexity to putting on a show in Showtime that is not well explained. The audience has thought bubbles requesting specific kinds of performance, and you have to give it to them and do well to achieve a legendary show. You CAN just send a performer to a performance and just let it roll on autonomy, but you'll never achieve a legendary show that way.

My gameplay is very wish-driven, which leads me to do things that I wouldn't think of by myself. I enjoy the old ISBI challenge (you control only one member of your household and have to try to manage while the others are running on autonomy. That creates a lot of absurdity of the kind only the Sims can produce.

You can maximize wish points. You can collect things (butterflies, flowers, etc).

I got into a challenge I modified from the Nothing is Free challenge that I called High Price of Living. The idea was to empty out your neighborhood and start with one sim on an empty lot. That sim focuses on earning money and persuading inactives (newspaper kids, mail carriers, pizza delivery, etc.) to move in with you. Then when you accumulate enough sims for a new household, you buy the house and move them in. You can't have a community lot until you buy it. There's a mod that allows you to buy/invest in a few community lots like graveyards that you usually can't, and I think I charged myself §50k for the City Hall and the school. I enjoy that challenge because it allows you to make use of your opportunities to make huge amounts of money. It's worth using a randomized sims fix like Lazy Duchess's if you intend to do anything with inactives or they'll have all their face sliders set to 0 (what I know as Face One, but folks these days tend to call Pudding Face).

The rules I came up with are here: http://sims3waypoint.illation.net/about/ though the blog itself hasn't been updated in years.

I'll try to shut up now.

I like your ideas, but are not my gameplay style. I like a lot to play some kind of "realistic urban" simulation, I like a lot the nature but in this game, is nothing to do with the nature things, I play some kind of a "second life" on the game....at start is very fun, but from 10 or more weeks becomes a little bit les challenging, and from 25 to up is literally make a daily routine without any interest. The WA maps are great, but the adventures are repetitive, dangerous and always is the same, move something, activate this button, collect something that makes your family MORE rich...this kind of vacations are not normal, if I travel to a custom map I enjoy "normal" things out of the daily tasks, like spa, fishing, cinema, swimming pool, beach....I don't know, is more fun for me and for my sims. I play with wishes always but on some point all is easy to get it, because this theme of the money....
Now I'm playing on Sunset and I installed only Seasons, with rain disabled, and a mods to increase the bills, less money on careers, taxi charge, job overhaul and some more to make harder the situation. For now is difficult and I'm making balancing act to get my couple go ahead....is interesting. For now is better for me play withot Uni, Ambitions, Pets and WA, more calmed gameplay. I used Tax collector sometimes to send money to another household but no more.
I take into account your contributions to have more ideas about the next save.
I not have more expansions for now, but Generations, Showtime, Island paradise and Late Night are in my mind, I don't know if buy them.

Echoweaver wrote: ↑

June 14th, 2023, 11:16 am

I got into a challenge I modified from the Nothing is Free challenge that I called High Price of Living. The idea was to empty out your neighborhood and start with one sim on an empty lot. That sim focuses on earning money and persuading inactives (newspaper kids, mail carriers, pizza delivery, etc.) to move in with you. Then when you accumulate enough sims for a new household, you buy the house and move them in. You can't have a community lot until you buy it. There's a mod that allows you to buy/invest in a few community lots like graveyards that you usually can't, and I think I charged myself §50k for the City Hall and the school. I enjoy that challenge because it allows you to make use of your opportunities to make huge amounts of money. It's worth using a randomized sims fix like Lazy Duchess's if you intend to do anything with inactives or they'll have all their face sliders set to 0 (what I know as Face One, but folks these days tend to call Pudding Face).

Oh, I've come up with a variation on this that might be interesting, mixed in with an Adam and Eve adventure I did a while back in the base game and loved it. It could be starting in the same Springville that I love with everything empty, and with 2 couples. The idea would be to build the map from what they earn, that is, fill it with sims from these two initial couples and mount the houses with testingcheats -> buy here, which subtracts from their money... without as many restrictions as that Adam and Eve game, all allowed but initially 0 Simleons. They should start with gardening and things like that and then evolve….oh….interesting, very interesting.
See, you've already given me a great hint, thanks xD

Jseg wrote: ↑

June 14th, 2023, 1:27 pm

See, you've already given me a great hint, thanks xD

I'm glad to hear it! I'd love to find out how the game goes.

Echoweaver post_id=95185 time=1686764546 user_id=383 wrote: I'm glad to hear it! I'd love to find out how the game goes.

As I said, is not my style of gameplay, but seems a great way to make something useful with the money, and see the evolution of the map from their own money will be a great thing to do xD
Difficult, but no cheats allowed.

With Mastercontroller - household - family fund
you can substract amount of money from multiple households.

I do this regularly, especially when resetting town after selling with MC the lost items from Sims inventory of inactive households which were moved to family inventory and cannot be used from them.
Because you need to sell it, their family fund increases too.

The family fund option circles then to all households you have marked and you can
use minus.

So my town will have about 90000 to 110000
you need to calculate for each

C-Dark wrote: ↑

June 15th, 2023, 2:43 pm

With Mastercontroller - household - family fund

I know this option but again the same, I need to "force" all the situations on this game? Is really annoying. I need some challenge that not "cheats" needed and all becomes natural....seems impossible. On this last save I enjoy a lot viewing my sims do their hobbies but, "do nectar", they have 10 level, all the bottles have surreal values...do something on sculpture...the same....the nectary lot gives me I don't know, 85.000 simoleons every few days....I know, I can move to level 1 the abilities with MC, I can set the value of the bottles of nectar to 10 simoleons with DebugEnabler, I can "force" everything that I can think, but....is really fun this? I constantly readjust the value of the relationships to 70 for all the friends of my couple because is sad to see on the list all the friends that not have any activity with my sims before their own family, and all is the same...I'm not complaining, is a really enjoyable game, but....I don't know, more coherent "automatic" things maybe it would be more enjoyable.