Tearin' Down The Walls: Making Friends In An Apocalypse

The three most common skills needed for careers in Sims 3 are Athletics, Charisma, and Logic. Charisma is not always a direct requirement, but almost all jobs at some point need you to be friends with your boss and co-workers, and Charisma helps with that.

If you buy the same Toddler books that I bought, you'll be starting on Logic as a toddler. A chess set and domino table will keep that moving along through their childhood years. Once they become teenagers, they should be doing at least one daily workout to get Athletics moving. As soon as they get their first point of Charisma (from a mirror, from a skill book, or whatever) they can raise Charisma just by talking and socialising. Unless you've lifted Entertainment, Charisma has to wait until the Sim is a young adult.

Charisma is unique amongst the skills in the Sims in that practice alone will not be sufficient. To rise to the higher levels of Charisma, you need a certain amount of relationships and friends. The exact number you need for each level can be found here. In a normal Sims game you hit the streets, go to parties, wander into night clubs, make friends with the paparazzi or newspaper delivery girl, or whatever - all of which are usually unavailable in an Apocalypse. So how do you make the friends you need?

There are a few ways:

• Pass on the friends of the founder. The founder (even on a Hard or Prestige start) will meet plenty of people at university that they can befriend; these can be invited over. Once they are on the home lot, any household Sim can interact and get that founder friend on their own relationship panel. Since Sims at university do not age while they are there, it is possible to make enough friends this way to carry you through the entire challenge.
• Meet your co-workers, boss, and neighbours. You can wander within a small distance from your house; make use of that to meet your neighbours. Use the Meet option at work during the early levels. And once you have them on your relationship panel, you can call them over and over on Mondays and Thursdays to make them friends.
• Have a large family. If you have 6-8 Sims all in different careers, who can make friends with their own co-workers and boss and then invite them over to meet the rest of the family, you can quickly get a large amount of friends this way.

It's the last one I'm going to focus on here. Workmates have the following advantages over random Sims:

• You know what their job is. Unfortunately that doesn't give you any hint as to their skills, because the NPCs don't necessarily do logical things, but you can be certain of their career at least. Why is this an advantage? Mainly because you might want to marry them. Once you lift that career, even with Master Thief still in effect you're allowed to have a workmate that you marry quit and find another job. Any random Sim you decide to marry may turn out to have a job that is legal, that you haven't lifted yet, and that you would prefer not to have to lift yet (like Sports Agent, for example). And for some jobs you can make even better use of this; for a career like Criminal or Law Enforcement (a "split career") if they are below the "split point" but above level 1 in the job, you can marry them and have them pursue the opposite path.
• You can socialise with them during work hours. If you can see that you're going to get promoted anyway, or that there's no way you will get promoted today but you definitely will tomorrow, you might as well socialise with your co-workers or boss.
• They're easy to meet.

This is not to say that you should ignore other Sims. If a Sim walks by your house, you'd better have a good reason for not having one of your family introduce themselves. Haul them out of bed if necessary. Don't let random opportunities like that pass you by. But you can't rely on random walk bys, so let's concentrate on what we can control.

If you're following my advice, you're having your Sim make friends with their boss as soon as possible. Once that's done, as soon as there's going to be sufficient time (a day off, or whatever) have a "virtual party": get as many bosses invited over as you can. It's not "throw a party" - it's "Invite Over" a lot - but it has the same effect.

First up - Gabrielle joins her siblings as an adult and enters the Music career. She will be going the Symphonic branch, as that is by far the more powerful of the restrictions, the main one being that it allows locking of wishes, which in turn means I can earn a lot more LTR points. Her traits are Artistic (handy for this profession), Friendly (always useful), Natural Born Performer (neutral), Over-Emotional (good - usually), and Perceptive (decent). I'll have to get her a guitar after midnight. Currently she has Logic 10, Painting 5, and Athletic 7.

Next, make sure that everyone has at least Charisma 1. There is no point talking to someone if you haven't unlocked Charisma yet; all that valuable skill training time will be wasted. Read the book, or use a mirror if you have one. Usually getting that first point of Charisma should be a focus as soon as they become a young adult. (By the way, it's also worthwhile to have stay-at-home Sims not otherwise engaged learning whatever skills you happen to have available. It's not that they'll necessarily be useful, but they will keep the Sim occupied, and in a large family that's the key to tolerable micromanagement. Obviously any skills they actually need take preference).

Before the weekend hits though, Harold is born:

If you recall I'm trying to lift Alien Technology with The Alien Baby method. Harold must become a young adult and then abduct another alien. The way I see it, my best practical chance here is that his father Obgu may still be alive at that point. This seems unlikely, but if true, then that is a workable way to lift this. Otherwise I will just have to hope that at some point in the next 30 days another alien makes itself known. It is of course highly unlikely that Obgu will live another 30 days, but I'm not sure that it is less likely than another alien. I'll have to wait and see.

If you have multiple adult Sims in the house, and their careers are such that there is always one of them at home, you can go ahead and get anyone that has just given birth a job right away. I'm not quite that lucky; Gabrielle starts at 1500, while Francis finishes at 1500, but that effectively means there's a 2 hour gap (since Gabrielle would leave for work at 1300). No huge problem though, Diana can delay her job hunting for a while.

On the Saturday, the "virtual party" begins:

It's a miserable day of course. The idea is simple: introduce everyone to everyone, and then make friends one at a time. Since everyone there is a friend of somebody, you can go inside occasionally to warm up. Don't even start socialising until you have that first point of Charisma, because you want to be "training" Charisma as you go. It's worth making these contacts for everybody, even those in careers that don't really need it much; having a high Charisma is never a bad thing.

I'm sure everyone has their own favourite way of making friends. Here's my usual technique:

1. Start with Funny->Make Silly Face, Funny->Tell Funny Story. Repeat. By this point they should think you are being funny; if only amusing, skip to the Friendly cycle starting on step 4. Also skip ahead immediately if you determine that the target has No Sense of Humour.
2. Now do Tell Joke, Funny->Goof Around, Funny->Make Silly Face, Funny->Tell Funny Story.
3. At this point they should think you are being hilarious (and you should have a nice moodlet as well). Now Tell Joke, Funny->Goof Around, Funny->Impersonate Celebrity, Funny->Make Silly Face, Funny->Tell Funny Story, then repeat this cycle. There's a decent chance you are already friends at this point if you already have a good Charisma; if not, proceed to the Friendly cycle at step 4. Proceed immediately if at any point your listener is bored, and if that happens begin with Friendly->Apologise.
4. If you repeat those any more, you'll bore the listener. So now begins the Friendly cycle. This is less set in stone. In general, cycle through "harmless" interactions on the Friendly wheel that are not overly time consuming. Things like "Chat", "Boast About Gamer Skillz", "Tell Story", "Gossip", and "Share Secret". For appropriate Sims, "Praise", "Flatter", "Compliment", "Ask About Day", "Brighten Day", are also good. Once they think you're being friendly, add in "Get to Know", "Admire", "Tell Dramatic Story". If you discover a trait, throw in that as well (for example, if they are a Natural Cook, certainly you can use "Talk about Cooking"). Try to get as many different interactions before repeating as you can, but avoid anything that might backfire - most Boasting (except about Gamer Skillz) is dangerous, any Complains are dangerous, if you're not Insane you don't appreciate Speak About Madness, and most of the Asks are either restricted (Alma Mater cannot be asked until you lift Education) or take too long (Make Snowman, Pillow Fight). You'll get a feel for it.

Your objective in a "virtual party" is to get to Friend and then a couple more interactions, so that it doesn't fade too quickly. Then move on so you can make more friends.

Note that if you absolutely positively need to make a friend as fast as possible, Romantic interactions move the bar the fastest. But use these as a last resort; Sims 3 uses telepathic alerts so that you will be known as a cheater even if the two people you're cheating with have never met. Of course if your LTW is Heartbreaker, go for it.

When your Sims are all getting tired and hungry, have one of them Ask Everyone To Leave. You should find that such a session gets you at least a couple of extra Charisma points for each of your Sims, unless you're starting to run into hard limits with number of Sims known. After the Saturday session I had:

• Barbara with Charisma 6, having completed the Celebrity challenge and with 9 friendships. (Though having said that, I count only 17 people in her relationship panel; certainly she knew her Mum and Dad, but that's only 19, and I can't recall her having met any other dead folks).
• Charles with Charisma 5 (needing another friend for 6).
• Eleanor with Charisma 6 (but needing to meet someone new and get one more friend before she can get to 7).

Francis and Gabrielle invited over their work mates but did not really participate (Francis didn't have any Charisma, so he spent the time learning Charisma from a book and then just introducing himself, while Gabrielle spent the time playing Guitar). Diana was asleep for most of it, waking towards the end and starting to teach Harold to talk.

As you reach higher levels of Charisma things get easier. Once you've met the Celebrity challenge, you start with a hefty bonus towards any new relationship; with Charisma 2 you can kick things off with an Amusing Greet and speed up the Funny cycle. After Charisma 5 if you bore your target you can use a Smooth Recovery instead of Apologise and it will restore the state of the conversation to what it was (eg Funny, Friendly, or whatever, instead of just okay). And never forget that you're looking for potential spouses as well - but I recommend never using a romantic interaction until you're ready to get married. A best friend can become a husband or wife almost instantly anyway.

On day 59 of the challenge, it was time to have another virtual party when everyone got home from work:

At this point:

• Barbara (doing a snow angel to the right of the car) has reached level 6 of Business, and has Athletics 10, Charisma 6, Cooking 4, Gardening 7, Logic 10. She's just gotten home after holding a meeting. In the business career, remember the general rule that you want to have all green before Working Hard. For that reason, she's been Holding Meetings all day, plus one more after work. It's green now and she'll easily get promoted tomorrow.
• Charles is downstairs practising chess. He's at level 5 of Education, and has Athletics 7, Charisma 5, Cooking 4, Science 6, Handiness 3, Logic 8, Painting 5. For the moment everything is green for him, but it wouldn't hurt to get his Logic to 10 soon.
• Diana (with the green plumbob) is still unemployed. She has Athletics 10, Charisma 1, Cooking 3, Science 2, Handiness 3, Logic 8, Painting 4, and Writing 5. I figured this was a decent opportunity for her to meet people; she's going around with Charming Introductions on everyone.
• Eleanor (bottom left) is my main focus here. She's just reached Political level 5, which is where the funding requirement starts. She has Athletics 8, Charisma 6 (could do with 2 more to go green), Cooking 3, Gardening 2, Logic 10, and Painting 3. The plan is for her to schmooze her way around the crowd (most of whom she invited over) and ask for campaign contributions.
• Francis is downstairs fixing the sink; his boss is at the far right top but he's finished schmoozing her. He's at level 5 of the Military career, currently all green. He has Athletics 10, Charisma 2, Handiness 6, Logic 10. Once the sink is fixed he's going to be reading the Handiness book to push his Handiness higher.
• Gabrielle is playing guitar at about the middle of that picture. She's at level 3 of Music. She has Athletics 7, Charisma 2, Guitar 7, Logic 10, Painting 5. Her relationships are fine for now; I'm concentrating on getting her Guitar skill up to 10 as soon as possible.
• Harold (left of the bin) has met his Dad, and is trying to talk him into playing Tag. This is his first day as a child, but a quick go on the chess set plus the toddler books gave him Logic 3. He is Artistic, Brave, and Rebellious, but it largely doesn't matter, because he can't lift a restriction. I am not particularly hopeful that dear old Dad will last the distance - but might as well make friends sooner rather than later.

Some miscellanea:

• If you have visitors over and you either invite them inside, or it's a basement style "no front door" abode, then make sure your fridge is inaccessible. Don't want visitors nicking your food - especially if you haven't lifted Culinary. This also works to prevent ghosts raiding your fridge - as soon as a ghost spawns, turn the fridge so that they can't get to it. If you need to feed your Sims, turn it back around just long enough for them to get fed.
• You'll see some haphazard pillars there around the car. I'm slowly building an 8x8 roof there; that will allow me to move some objects like the chess set outside. This is useful if you want to try to become a Chess Grandmaster. Of course if you're playing above ground, you already have something similar. The reason that the stilts are weirdly placed is that I had to move them to be able to place roof tiles - remember, you can only buy 14 objects from the build menu once a week (or 2 per day if you prefer), but you can move anything that is only 1 square whenever you like. And once placed, a tiled roof doesn't actually need pillars for continued support - it will just magically hang in the air.

The target now is to just push on with those careers; once I get a bit more overlap in work times I'll get Diana a job as well. When Military is lifted, I will be able to just move out all the spares. I'm keeping an eye out for an appropriate spouse for Barbara; ideally I'd like to find a Criminal since I can use them to lift Master Thief. But so far, no such prospect has appeared, so I'm still looking.

Next time we're going to get a lot of restrictions lifted, and I'll offer some advice on how best to take advantage of that.