Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Fallen Angel: Planning Your Apocalypse

UPDATE: Note that Harold should not have been allowed to use the inventor's bench, since I have not lifted Art Appraisal. This makes no difference to what actually happens here, but try not to make the same mistake I did. Thanks to Sarah for catching this. Originally this post contained references to a short future jaunt by Harold; I have removed these references for clarity.

After your first dozen or so lifts you will hopefully have lifted at least one of:

  • Journalism
  • Master Thief (preferably)
  • Military
If you're lucky you can lift one of these right out of the gate with your founder. If you're terribly unlucky, you might not have lifted any of those yet. It happens. Just keep fighting the good fight.

But once you do, you gain a measure of control over your destiny. Journalism gives you a choice of 3 jobs each day (or more, if you've lifted Science and can use the computer); Military allows you to roll the same way you did for your founder which will give you a choice of 3 jobs as well. (What happens if you roll a number where you've already lifted all those jobs? Same thing as if you'd opened the paper - you wait until tomorrow and roll again).

Both of those are good. Master Thief is the real prize here though - while not giving you any more than the basic "first job in the paper" option, it allows you to say "nah, don't want that job" or quit any time you choose. So effectively, you can get whatever job you like if you're patient. Don't wait too long, but definitely hold out for something that isn't terrible.

In my case, I have both Master Thief and Military lifted, along with Science. I have two sets of twins, one with 3 days until they become teens, and the other with 7 days. What are the restrictions I should most focus on lifting next?

Well, the first thing to do is check the tiers - or whatever list you have decided is better. It's not necessarily as simple as "always take the best tiers first", but as a general rule that's never going to be the worst choice. We see that I've already cleared all tier 1 restrictions, plus 3/7 of the tier 2s. 4 kids, 4 remaining tier 2s, no thought needed? Well, I certainly could do that. But because I lifted Paranormal early, I only have 2 ghosts, and they aren't really that annoying. Instead, take a look at Gamer, which is a tier 3 that I've noted is close to tier 2. I think Gamer will be a superior choice to Paranormal at the moment (and even Naturalist has to come under scrutiny - maybe even Architect).

At present, all the twins have Athletic, Ambitious, and Friendly, which seemed reasonable "wait and see" choices. The plan will be:

  • Ivy (the heir) will lift Athletic. All she really needs is Athletic skill here, but a few points of Charisma would be wise once she becomes a young adult. Note that I'll be attempting the Admirable Adonis prestige lift here - so far so good, all members of my direct family had 10 Athletics before they died (or left the house), and indeed so did the spouses (though that isn't required).
  • James will lift Espionage. He'll need Athletic and Logic. Since he will also need to know a bunch of Sims to write reports on, he again will be well served by learning Charisma.
  • Karen will lift Journalism. In fact, let's try for the Prestige lift, so she'll have to read 100 books and achieve all Writing challenges. I've been keeping track of books I've collected (15 so far), which means I'll need another 85. But it looks to me that this is entirely possible - once I have lifted Journalism and later Art Appraisal, I can create a large number of rooms that have a bookshelf in each. Reading the 100 books will be challenging, but if I make her a Bookworm and keeping in mind that the library will be available once she has lifted Journalism, this looks possible as well. In any case she can get started on the Writing as a child, and once again she'll need Charisma too.
  • Lilandra will lift Gamer. Mostly she just needs Logic and Writing, but again she will be well served by Charisma since she's going to have to get her Nerd Influence up and might as well train Charisma while doing so (she's going to be doing it via the Video Game Developer Engineer method).
So it looks like we have a fairly clear plan: send all the kids to a Charisma class ASAP, get a couple more computers slapped down for the writers (keeping in mind that Harold is a writer as well, so they can't use his), and aggressively train Athletics for the elder twins.

It isn't necessary to plan out the entire rest of the challenge at this point (though it wouldn't really hurt), but it does help to at least have a general idea what you want to aim for. Of course it may not work out as well as I'd hope. I can pretty much guarantee Lilandra. The rest requires a little bit of luck. Athletics is the one that must come up reasonably early, since otherwise I risk Ivy getting too old to lift it...

... but wait. Let's think more carefully here. So far, I've had the founder and the first heir lift the restriction first, get the next generation sorted last. A few moment's reflection suggests this is no longer required. Instead, Ivy can get pregnant as soon as she becomes a young adult, and check the computer (or roll, or whatever) every single day while pregnant and, subsequently, while raising the kids. She can be working on all the Athletics challenges while this goes on. If the paper ever gives Athletics as a job, she can take it and just accept the fact that she'll miss several days - now that she no longer gets sacked for getting pregnant, this is a plan that would have to be absolutely obscenely unlucky to fail. (If she rolls every day, then she has an 85% chance of rolling a 2 some time in the first 10 days she looks).

And there are no real time challenges for the rest, as long as they comfortably get the jobs before they reach adulthood. So I should be fine.

Wonder of wonders!


No cane. Never can be sure of the age, but Oxqa looks youngish. I immediately grab Harold and get him to ladle on the charm. The bad news is that Oxga left before I could befriend him, but the good news is that I did manage to make contact, and with Military lifted I don't need to be friends to invite him over. So the next day he moves in - and he has 8 days until he becomes an elder. But it may as well be 800 days; all I need (indeed, all I can have) is 7.

7 days later, Oxqa escapes his captivity:


Harold managed to earn $9650 from mostly space rocks on his trips - $6547 from a gigantic space rock he got on the very last trip. You are allowed to analyse space rocks before selling them (and I would suggest you might as well) but you can't smelt metals or cut gems - you have to count them "raw". (If you've lifted Business, as I have, you can sell them). I found I almost always got a large space rock worth $100+ if I went to the Asteroid Belt, but that may have just been luck.

The final step is to get a job as a test subject. While he's working on that career, Ivy and James become young adults. While James diligently checks the computer each day for a job, Ivy finishes up the last of the Athletics challenges:


The Marathon Runner one was tedious - I had her jog from one side of the house to the other, over and over. (It's much easier when you get a treadmill of course, but I can't get one of those yet - and except for the Fitness Nut, she had the other two as a teen). This occurred on the day that James found a Law Enforcement job (note: James not only already has Logic 10 and Athletics 10, he has even already completed his lifetime wish as a teen - Perfect Body Perfect Mind; he will have no trouble at all). Now she needs to find a Sports job, but she might as well start spouse hunting. Karen is diligently writing novels, while Lilandra has taken a break to work on her Nerd influence. As it turns out though, Ivy gets her job the day after, so spouse hunting can wait.

When Karen and Lilandra become young adults the next day, Lilandra is already level 10 Nerd so she gets offered the Video Game Developer job. And Karen checks the computer and is able to skip past Military and Business to get Journalism. So now all four are in their "planned" careers.

And after the weekend:


Alien Technology is lifted!

Let's take stock:

  • Harold has outlived his usefulness, having lifted Alien Technology. He is the child of a spare, and cannot live any other restriction.
  • Ivy (the heir) has just reached level 3 of Professional Sports. She has completed all the Athletics challenges. She has 16 days until she reaches Adult.
  • James has reached level 3 of Law Enforcement. He has not only achieved a maximum in Logic and Athletics (the only skills he really needs for this career), but has also completed his lifetime wish already. He is Ivy's twin (and thus also has 16 days until he's an adult).
  • Karen is at level 2 of Journalism. She has Writing 8 at the moment, and has read 29 books (it appears she can easily read 5 per day, more on the weekends, so making it to 100 will not be a problem). I am fairly certain there are more than 100 books in the bookshelf, but even if I'm wrong I am probably not far wrong. She has completed the specialist author challenge (she is a Childrens' Book Author). For the collection portion of the Prestige Librarian, I am currently sitting at 18 books; recall the plan is to lift Art Appraisal in the next generation (or perhaps even with Ivy's spouse, though that is unlikely) and then create a bunch of rooms so that I can buy bunches of bookshelves.
  • Lilandra is at level 3 of the Video Game Developer career. She has Logic 8 and Writing 9, and has already completed her lifetime wish as well (Living in the Lap of Luxury).
All of them have Multitasker and Entrepreneurial Mindset; all are Ambitious Workaholics (though note they can only work from home on Mondays and Thursdays at present). Only Karen lacks Fast Learner. James and Lilandra also have Steel Bladder and Dirt Defiant, and they all have a couple of others as well (some have Simmunity, James has Immune to Cold so that he could use the telescope without needing breaks, and so on). Both Ivy and Karen have career based lifetime wishes.

I've gone to considerable effort to lift Alien Technology. Is it worth it? After all, I could have cleared at least one more restriction by now if I hadn't bothered with it. Well, next time I'll take a look at how clever use of Alien Technology can virtually trivialise the challenge.

No comments:

Post a Comment