Thursday, April 17, 2014

Choosing A Place To Live

One thing we don't want to do is rely on the Sims 3 tutorial settings to place our founder. So go in to Edit Town; it will warn you that you're about to turn off the tutorial, but that's what we want.

Now take a look at the town. Some neighbourhoods have everything you want, but others are a bit bare. You'll want to add in any community lots that you're missing. Appaloosa seems reasonably complete. You want to be somewhat careful with your choice of starting area. Here's what I see:


From here, even without lifting Military, I can visit the dog park across the road, and all the buildings to the north west (two neighbours and three community lots). I can't go south east because I have to cross a four way intersection to get to the neighbour that way, but that's still pretty good. It's only a 30x40 lot, but that's OK - I can delete it and replace it with a 40x40...

... or so I thought. Annoyingly, after going ahead and bulldozing, I was unable to place a 40x40 there. Instead, I slapped down a standard house in that lot and bulldozed the one to the north west - that's already a 40x50. So the lot is empty; it's time to move in and get started:


First, I use the Master Controller cheat to reduce my funds to $8308. You can also do this the old fashioned way with testingcheats, but Master Controller makes it much easier. (It's under the Household options). I also note that she is already 2 days into young adulthood; I use Master Controller to reset her to the start of it. She has a camera and a high school diploma in her inventory; I put the camera into family inventory (aka "the black hole") and I'll get rid of the diploma when I get to University.

I'm going to use the University Easy Start, so I don't start building just yet. Instead, we'll use Founder Method 2, and roll for our job. I strongly recommend novice players, at least, do not use Founder Method 1. If you happen to roll a 2, you are essentially getting a very bad start this way; there are no really bad options for method 2.

In any case I did roll a 2, so that was fortunate! Instead of having to choose a Communications Major and end up stuck with Paranormal, Journalism, or Politics (of which only Journalism isn't terrible - and Journalism is very hard to lift for the founder because you won't know anyone), I instead get to choose between Medical, Athletics, and Forensics. It isn't going to be Forensics. Athletics is a solid choice - you'd be surprised how useful it is to be able to carry a lot of stuff in your inventory. But I think few people would disagree that Medical is the best choice here.

What would I have chosen otherwise?

  • A 1 is the worst roll. Of the three options, probably Espionage is the best choice, but some people may prefer Criminal just to get out of protection money early.
  • With a 3, pick Business. It's not a great start, but it's solid; you'll be able to sell things that are starting to clutter up your house. Journalism is better, but again - harder for the founder, and much easier for one of his kids.
  • With a 4 you pick Master Thief instantly 9 times out of 10 without thinking. The 10th time, you think about it, and then pick Master Thief anyway. Master Thief for the founder is one of the best possible starts.
  • With a 5, you can choose between Culinary and Science. Probably Culinary is a better choice, but Science is perfectly fine too.
  • A 6 is an agonising roll. All three options are excellent; the trouble is choosing which of them to lift.
    • Symphonic allows you to lock wishes, and incidentally gives you a summer season.
    • Education allows you to pick traits, which is extremely handy, as well as tutor your kids.
    • Military allows you to wander the neighbourhood and is a prerequisite for a lot of other restrictions.
    • All else being equal, you probably should pick Military here. But I certainly wouldn't fault you for either of the other two.
If you insist on going with Founder Method 1, hope that you roll a 4, 5, or 6. The problem with Method 1 (besides the fact that 2 is really hard) is that you don't really know what you'll end up with. If you rolled 1, you might get Criminal (in which case you can take Master Thief) or Education, but you could equally get stuck with Business (which isn't terrible, but it isn't great). But if you assumed you were going to get Criminal and focused on Athletics, you'd be annoyed to find you actually ended up with Business. With a roll of 5 you know what you're getting, and a roll or 4 or 6 isn't bad either: with a roll of 4, concentrate on Logic (both Medical and Science use it) and with 6, go for Athletics (both Military and Law Enforcement use it).

Anyway, all I can do at the moment is wait for the mascot to arrive:


and then I take the Aptitude test. With no skills, it's only going on traits. I've ended up with 349/400 for Business (presumably because I'm an Ambitious Workaholic), and 183/400 for the rest. Just as I'm about to head to University, our friend Emit arrives:


Despite the Business credits I'm going to enrol for a Science and Medicine degree, for 2 terms, and for 24 credits. After all, I only need 48 credits to graduate, and this way I'll have more skilling time. This is going to cost Anna $2300, but she gets $2000 financial aid for her Aptitude, so it's a mere $300. Away we go!

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