By this point if you've been anywhere reasonably lucky you'll have partial to full control over your fate (meaning you've lifted at least one of Master Thief, Military, and Journalism - and ideally 2 or more). You should be able to plan - either directly, if you've lifted all of them, or indirectly by having plenty of Sims to choose from and thereby making at least some of the choices strong ones.
Some general tips to live by:
- If you've cleared both Education and Symphonic, don't ignore locking wishes and generating Lifetime Reward points. You can use Midlife Crisis to switch your traits around as you focus on different things; for example, you can be a Friendly Athletic Genius as a teen, only to transform into an Ambitious Workaholic when you enter young adulthood and decide to focus on the right traits for your career.
- If you've lifted Alien Technology, remember that Criminal should be lifted as soon as possible to unlock the Moodlet Manager. Beeline for that over everything except a Tier 1, as the Moodlet Manager allows you to be a lot more active as soon as you reach the teenage life stage. Once you get this, you never need to sleep, eat, shower, socialise, or have fun. You can do all of these things (for example to get the Well Rested moodlet), but you don't have to. And you can effectively ignore such factors as fatigue, feeling bad about the death of a loved one, bad consequences for cheating, and many others. There are many other Alien Technology rewards that are very useful too, but most of those are covered by Science which is a good lift anyway (unlike Criminal).
- Try to minimise non-productive time. You can't always be having fun while skill building, but you can swap things around. For example, have your kids work on their Writing until they're sick of it, and then play chess until they're having fun again. Work out until you're fatigued, and then play kicky bag until you're no longer fatigued so that your Athletics skill still builds. Or make a snow angel for virtually instead Fun.
- Unless you're looking at something like Artist where time is really of a premium - and even then, possibly - try to get as many life-stage-only skills as you can. Most kids can build their Cooking on the toy oven in about 10 or so goes, which at 3 tries per day (assuming you've lifted Culinary and not Entertainment) is only 3 and a bit days, and a relatively small amount of time each day. 3 instant points of Cooking is something you're unlikely to have cause to regret later, especially since you can live off the muffins and brownies for ages. Similarly, try to have your toddlers read as many books as possible. While it's true that you may well never need those Cooking skills or whatever, in my opinion Apocalypse Challenges have a way of going wild at the most unexpected times, and for the low low price of a few hours in your childhood that might otherwise get you from Logic 8 to Logic 8.5, you can ensure that you'll be able to survive on Peanut Butter & Jelly if you need to rather than risk burning the house down by cooking hot dogs.
- Where you can, have other Sims help out. Don't try and water all the plants and feed the fish while lifting Naturalist - other family members are allowed to do that; let them. Have your other Sims write books for the Copious Librarian to read. Large families can make some restrictions a lot easier to lift. With Gardening in particular, having other Sims water the garden (which even teens can do, regardless of Entertainment) will eventually give them a point in Gardening, which will give them a random set of seeds. You can pass these to the Naturalist Sim and have her plant them.
With 8 days to go as teens, both Mary and Nicola are now 10 Athletics. Neither of them have the Athletic trait, and they didn't get any practice as kids - but if you can zap away fatigue, it can go quite quickly. Admittedly I also had Fast Learner on both of them as well; generally you should have 15k LTR points by the time you are a teenager, and that's a good first pick. I had Nicola use the treadmill while Mary used the radio, and then once Nicola got to 10, she trained Mary on the treadmill. Quick Burst followed by Moodlet Manager = fairly rapid Athletic skill. Both also now have Multitasker in addition.
Unfortunately I only am allowed one easel, and with Oliver still tying that up to get to 10 Painting, the oldest twins are not going to be preloading Painting just yet. However, I can and did put them to work getting their Rebel influence up. And in any case I didn't really have to wait that long:
I then switch Oliver to writing, and Nicola turns to the easel. Once she gets to Painting 10, she starts writing books and Mary starts Painting. What about Rebel influence? Well...
Both Mary and Nicola have used Street Art to paint the floor and the walls, reaching Rebel 10 a fair while back. They got started with kicky bag, and then once they were high enough to get the street art bag, used that instead.
While this was going on, Quentin and Patricia both got to 10 Athletics (Nicola trained Quentin, who then trained Patricia). Quentin has plenty of free time until he gets to young adult, because Naturalist can't really begin until then. I experimented a bit and I am of the belief that Push Self is actually more efficient at raising Athletics than Quick Burst is, given the smaller number of breaks - but feel free to see if you agree or not.
On day 178 of the challenge, both Mary and Nicola transition to young adults and take the Art Appraiser job they are offered. Time to take stock:
- Mary has the traits Ambitious, Artistic, Charismatic, Friendly, Over-Emotional, and Workaholic (remember she is a 10th level Rebel). Her skills are Athletics 10, Cooking 3, Street Art 10, Handiness 4 (from fixing broken computers), Logic 6, Painting 3, Writing 9.
- Nicole has the traits Ambitious, Artistic, Friendly, Genius, Over-Emotional, and Workaholic (again, level 10 Rebel). Her skills are Athletics 10, Street Art 7, Logic 5, Painting 10, Writing 8.
- Oliver has 4 days until he becomes a young adult. His traits are Artistic, Bookworm, Friendly, Perfectionist. He has Painting 10 and Writing 10; he has done all the painting he needs to do (still-life of an elder, portrait of an elder, and masterpiece). For Writing, he needs 4 more best sellers (has 4 hits and 1 best seller at the moment), and is currently earning $2325/week in royalties (needs $4000). Not part of the restriction, but remember he's also got to get Athletics 10 before dying as well.
- Patricia has 6 days till young adult; her traits are Ambitious, Charismatic, Clumsy, and Friendly. She has the skills Athletics 10, Cooking 4, Logic 10, Writing 7.
- Quentin (Patricia's twin) is an Ambitious, Easily Impressed, Friendly, Green Thumb; his skills are Athletics 10, Logic 8, Writing 5. Remember that with Entertainment still in effect I cannot learn Gardening yet, but that's not really a big problem as he'll naturally increase that once he starts the garden. For the moment he's training his younger twins in Athletics.
- Renee has 11 days until young adult, with the traits Charismatic, Clumsy, Couch Potato, and Hates the Outdoors. (These are not ideal for an Acrobat, to say the least). She has the skills Athletics 9, Logic 9, Painting 3, Writing 5.
- Sarah (Renee's twin) is a Couch Potato, Easily Impressed, Inappropiate, and a Natural Born Performer. Her skills are Athletics 6, Logic 10, and Writing 4. (Quentin is currently training Renee; once she's at 10, Sarah will get his attention).
- And of course Ivy is still alive, at 92 days old.
A few hours after Patricia and Quentin become young adults, Oliver lifts the Artist restriction:
He got his final best seller. This breaks the "no commands to elders" restriction on Ivy, who - as The Admirable Adonis - can train Oliver in Athletics before the two of them leave.
Both Patricia and Quentin join the Fortune Teller career, and I grab a bunch of claw pots to grow plants in. Unfortunately there are 10 days until spring, and all the lakes are frozen, so no fishing yet. (If this were not the case, it is actually more efficient to go fishing first, to collect fertiliser). Don't forget to surround your plants with a fence and a locked gate! Otherwise when the next full moon comes, zombies will eat all your precious veggies! It's certainly easiest to plant with the pots, as you can have them inside, but if you don't have the plant pots expansion, then you can have your garden underneath the roofed area. If you haven't cleared Politics yet, you'll be cramped for room either way, but it's manageable and I certainly wouldn't delay Naturalist just because Politics hasn't come up yet. If you'll recall the only reason I've lifted Politics early is because it came up before I had the option to try for something better.
Another trick with the Moodlet Manager. Suppose you're about to go to school, or to work, and you notice that the energy bar is low, but not low enough to have caused a moodlet. However, it will certainly tank at work, which will drop your mood and make you less efficient. You don't have time to sleep. Well, the Moodlet Manager can still help. Instead of using "Cure", use "Zap". That will usually drop your energy to 0, which will mean that you can follow up with using "Cure" to maximise it.
Oliver reached 10 Athletics, so he and Ivy got kicked out. And then there were 6.
Annoyingly, if you have two Sims in the same career, and they both get promoted on the same day to the "split point", it doesn't tell you which of them the popup message applies to. With Mary and Nicola this means that I had to guess, and I guessed wrong, which put Mary in the Appraisal branch and Nicola in the Acquistion branch. But no real harm there.
However, I cannot - must not - let this happen to Patricia and Quentin. So I will deliberately delay Quentin's promotion from level 5 to level 6. Properly done, I don't even have to miss a day here - I can have Quentin just miss out, and then get the promotion by calling the boss after work.
A few days later, the last two twins became young adults. They've been mostly just writing novels till now, having reached maximum Athletics, Logic, and Writing some time ago. I do some genetic resequencing on each, and then get them employed in their respective careers.
Let's do a quick checkpoint now:
- Mary (the heir) has 12 days to go until she's an adult, and is at level 6 of Art Appraisal/Appraisal branch. She has Athletics 10, Charisma 1, Cooking 3, Street Art 10, Handiness 6, Logic 6, Painting 10, and Writing 10.
- Her twin Nicola is at level 8 of Art Appraisal/Acquisitions (mainly because the split point happened when Appraisal gets 2 days off, and Acquisition doesn't). She has Athletics 10, Charisma 1, Cooking 3, Street Art 8, Logic 8, Painting 10, and Writing 10.
- Patricia (18 days till adulthood) is at level 3 of Fortune Teller. She has Athletics 10, Charisma 3, Cooking 6, Logic 10, Painting 7, and Writing 10.
- Her twin Quentin is also at level 3 of Fortune Teller. He has Athletics 10, Charisma 2, Cooking 3, Fishing 1, Gardening 10, Logic 10, and Writing 5.
- Renee has just transitioned to young adult, and after resequencing has the traits Charismatic, Computer Whiz, Friendly, Natural Born Performer, and Over Emotional. (Computer Whiz may seem an odd choice; however, Ambitious and Workaholic don't help with the Showtime careers, and she plays games on the computer to raise fun, so I figured I may as well improve that process). She has Athletics 10, Gardening 1 (from watering Quentin's plants), Logic 10, Painting 3, Writing 10; as previously noted, she's going to become an Acrobat.
- Renee's twin Sarah has identical traits (for much the same reason). She has Athletics 10, Gardening 3 (she's watered more), Logic 10, and Writing 10 - she's going to become a Magician.
Now, arguably, one should not improve one's Athletic skill before attempting a Showtime career. The reason is that if you delay it, you can increase your skill and get job performance credit. This is entirely true. However, it isn't necessary. Since I have a Moodlet Manager, I can essentially Perform for Tips until I get fatigued, cure the fatigue, and get right back to it. This is sufficient to get the bar moving. It's not the optimal method, but don't feel if you accidentally got 10 Athletics before becoming an Acrobat (or Magician) that you have somehow snookered yourself.
If you're doing this before Naturalist - as I am - then for at least half the year, it's bitterly cold. So it is useful for performing Sims to be Immune to Cold (if you have lifted Medical); I buy this even over such stalwarts as Steel Bladder.
While I have the youngest twins performing for tips all through the night in a performance park, I have Quentin reading Alchemy books for his eventual split on to the Fortune Teller/Mystic path. Note that the rules say we can't use the Alchemy bench until we've lifted Paranormal; however, it is entirely legal to learn the skill from a book (assuming of course you have the book). Mary and Quentin are hanging around the library when not otherwise engaged; Mary is studying Social Networking because it is a tremendously awesome skill to have especially for an heir (as we'll see next post).
Nicola is first across the line:
This lifts Architect, which removes the restrictions on how valuable my stuff can be. She then moves out - and then there were 5.
A tip for the performing careers - make sure you get a point of Charisma first. You will effortlessly complete the Super Friendly and Celebrity challenges just by constant performing for tips (and have a decent chance of Everybody's Best Friend as well).
A couple of days after Nicola, Mary lifts her restriction:
Mary is now about to go husband seeking. That will be covered in the next post.
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