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The Complete Guide
Version 2.5 (3-2-00)
by Dan Simpson (manymoose@hotmail.com, ICQ: 185116)
Email Policy: If you are going to email me about this game, please put
The Sims as the subject. Or Sims. Also please realize
that I am not hiding cheats or any other information, i.e.
everything I know about The Sims is in this guide.
_______________
.--------------------========= N O T E S =========-------------------------.
| |
| The most recent version of this FAQ can be found at: |
| http://www.gamefaqs.com/ |
| http://www.cheatcc.com/ |
| |
| If you are a webmaster and wish to post this on your web page, please email |
| me first. And if you do post this FAQ on your site, please make an attempt |
| to keep it up to date. There is nothing worse than getting emails from |
| people who saw an old version asking about things that are already in the |
| newer versions. Well, maybe there are worse things, but it IS annoying! |
| |
| BIG update this time. (Version 2.0) Decided to spruce up the format a bit |
| by "spinning off" some smaller sections from other sections to make |
| information easier to find. This is probably just the beginning! I'm |
| thinking to get the FAQ very "splintered" into many small sections rather |
| than a few large sections, thereby you won't have to dig through one big |
| section on "furnishing a house" to find information on Room Ratings, etc. |
| |
| In case you cared, The Sims has broken the SimCity 3000 sales record for the |
| first month of sales. SimCity 3000 went on to be the best grossing game of |
| 1999 (it didn't sell the most copies, RollerCoaster Tycoon did that, SC3K |
| simply pulled in more dollars due to a higher cost-per-sale average), so we |
| can safely assume that The Sims will be one of the top games of 2000! |
| |
| Be sure to check http://www.thesims.com/ every Thursday for a game update! |
| |
| This FAQ looks best in Courier New at about 9 points. |
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What's New in 2.5:
- Added a new Online Resource (Mall of the Sims)
- Added a new Frequently Asked Question
- Added the Section 3.1 Building a Better House
- Added the Section 4.4 Who Needs a Trashcan?
- Added the Section 8.1 Building that Second Story
- Also added the Section 8.1.1 The "Flying" Second Story
- Other Small Changes
For a complete Version History, check out the Final Words Section at the end
of the FAQ.
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Table of Contents:
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i.) What is The Sims?
1.) Getting Acquainted
2.) Creating a Family
a.) Creating a Sim
b.) Of Neatness and Maids
2.1) The Bachelor Sim
2.1.1) The Bachelor Gets Married
2.2) The Full House (8 Sims)
3.) Building a House
3.1) Building a Better House
4.) Furnishing a House
a.) Lighting and Lamps
b.) Decorations
4.1) Cooking (or, a Meal fit for a Sim!)
4.2) Room Rating
4.3) Alternative to Alarm Clocks
4.4) Who Needs a Trashcan?
5.) Of Friends and Lovers
a.) Socializing
b.) Marriage and Moving In
5.1) Befriending Mean Sims
5.2) Carrying on Multiple Romances
5.3) Maintaining Relationships the Easy Way
6.) Working (and Not)
a.) Quitting
b.) Job Events
6.1) The Jobs Chart (a.k.a. the Career Paths)
6.2) Abusing the Carpool
6.2.1) Early Morning Social Call (while Abusing the Carpool no
less!)
7.) Running an Efficient Household
8.) Expanding the House
8.1) Building that Second Story
8.1.1) The "Flying" Second Story
9.) Babies and Children
9.1) Children and School
9.2) What Kids Do
10.) Everything Else in the Neighborhood
10.1) Death and Ghosts
10.2) Changing the Radio Station Music
11.) Cheats & Tricks
11.1) Deleting Trash (and Bills too!)
Frequently Asked Questions
Final Words...
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i. What is The Sims?
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The Sims, simply put, is the People Simulator from the creator of SimCity.
So, what is a People Simulator? Well, you get to run the lives of everyone
in a neighborhood (not all at once, of course). Taking on one "family" at a
time, you try to guide them to success in life, love, and the workplace. Left
to their own devices, the Sims tend to simply tread water (i.e. they live
without a goal), and that is where you come in. I like to think of the player
as the Sims' ambition, their goals in life, if you will. You are that little
voice in their head that tells them to study Mechanics, or to take a shower,
in order to get that promotion. Without you, their ambition, the Sims
will tend to lounge around, fulfilling only their most immediate desire,
without any eye on the future.
Sim (noun) : A simulated person in a Maxis game. Ex: The Sim went to
SimCity to buy a bagel.
Updates to The Sims:
There are several new downloads available at the Official Site
(www.thesims.com of course!). These aren't any great Patches, but are some
neat new objects and skins. Maxis promises that every Thursday that they
will have some cool new thing on the site, and therefore every Thursday is
called SimDay. So far they have had 3 objects (a Slot Machine, a Cuckoo
Clock, and a Moose Head) and 5 Skins.
Mini-Review:
This is the first time a review of mine will be found in my FAQ. I just
felt that I needed to express my opinions on the game in a more
editorialized fashion than the normal FAQ sections allow.
I have been looking forward to The Sims since I heard about it back in
November. I couldn't quite put my finger on why this game sounded good to
me, but I was certainly intrigued. Controlling people's lives? Sounded
(strangely) like fun.
After having played it non-stop since I bought the game, I can sum up my
experience in one sentence: One of the most strangely addicting and
compelling games I have ever played. I haven't played a game this much
since Rollercoaster Tycoon, and that was back in April '99. That's almost
a year. I have stayed up many a night until 1 or 2 am, and only going to
sleep then so that I could get up the next day and play some MORE Sims!
In The Sims you take control of a family of Sims and try to guide them
through life. Along the way you develop friendships, work your way up the
career ladder at work, and try to keep your Sims fed and happy. You can
sit back and watch the Sims interact with each other, or you can take a more
active hand and FORCE them to do your bidding. You can even shut off their
Free Will.
Personal interactions between the Sims is often the most amusing part of the
game. Watch as someone will shoo another Sim out of the bathroom so he can
take a leak. Or as a Sim attempts to give another Sim a back rub, but is
pushed away. Then there are always the Sims who like each other... a lot,
and start getting passionate.
I also really enjoy the differences between the Sims. One may be very neat,
and like to clean up messes, and another may be extremely mean, and prone to
get into fights. Very interesting variety.
All in all I really enjoyed this game, and give it a 9.5.
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1. Getting Acquainted
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Welcome to the crazy world of The Sims. I'm assuming that you have gone
through the first Tutorial, and if not, then you probably should. It teaches
you all of the basics of the Sims and their needs. Once you have finished
with that little tutorial, save it and go back to the Neighborhood.
Note: There is only one neighborhood! Therefore there is also only one
Save Slot. Of course, there are lots of houses in the neighborhood,
so do you really need more than one save slot?
The first thing you should know, is that you control the entire neighborhood.
Not at the same time, but one house at a time. When you aren't directly
controlling a house, NOTHING HAPPENS THERE. It's like they are in stasis.
They can be called over to your current house (assuming you've met them), but
they won't actually do anything. They'll be exactly as you left them when you
go back to them. So, if you play one house, then switch to another, then
switch back to the first, it will be as if nothing has happened. If house 1
was eating breakfast, they'll still be doing that when you get back.
Note: There is ONE exception to the "nothing happens while you're away"
rule. And that is Relationships. If you have the Sims in your
current house flirt with the Sims from the other house and their
relationship improves, then that will carry over.
Another thing to know at the Neighborhood level is that the people you put in
the neighborhood are the only ones you can be friends with. That is, there
are no "random Sims" wandering about. Since your Sims require the friendships
of lots of other Sims (some careers require that you have lots of friends)that
means that you will have to work on the Neighborhood as a whole, rather than
single-mindedly working one house. (more on this in section 5. Of Friends and
Lovers)
Free Will: A quick little note here on Free Will. You CAN turn free will
off if you'd like to take full control of the Sims. With only
one or two Sims under your command this is an easy thing to do.
However, once you get up to 5 to 8 Sims, then it can get very
difficult to control all of their separate actions at once.
Free Will is useful to some extent--the Sims will do things that
are quite beneficial to themselves, such as cleaning up the
house, or talking to the neighbor. Although you should know
that the Sims aren't very efficient in what they choose to do.
Suppose that you need to improve both Hygiene and Comfort. The
best choice (if you have the Time) is a bath. Well maybe the
Sim wants a shower. Or what if the Sim takes the bath just as
the carpool pulls up. Therefore you can't totally give over to
free will. But neither should you destroy it and control their
every move.
Sims WILL ignore your commands if what you're telling them to
do seems contrary to what they need most. A starving man won't
go play basketball (or at least, is far less likely to!).
Well on we go! Click on the Create a Family button to get things going.
(You could, of course, play the Goths, or the Newbies, but you will need to
create a new family to start filling in the Neighborhood)
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2. Creating a Family
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Ah, your first family (besides the Newbies). Unless you created a family
earlier that failed, and now you want to find out what you did wrong. Either
way, we're going to create a Sim Family! Nothing fancy, mind you, just
something to get started with.
We're going to create two Sims for this family. Two is, in my opinion, the
best number to start with. It isn't so hard to control as, say, eight, and
is infinitely better than just having one as having an extra person gives you
a great advantage over having just the one.
What we're essentially going to do is to divide the tasks that our two family
members are going to have. One person is going to get a job, and the other
is going to take care of the house, cook, clean, and be the primary socialite.
You really don't need to employ both people at this stage of the game. This
strategy really helps in the mornings when one person has to get ready for
work (shower, toilet, etc.) the other cooks breakfast. When the worker goes
off to work, the other one stays home, cleans up, and meets the neighbors who
will all drop by (not all at once). Then later in the game, this Sim will
call up those neighbors and try to make them into Family Friends. Also your
stay at home Sim can answer the phone (which may be a Reward or another
beneficial Event), pay the bills, etc.
a. Creating a Sim
So now we need to create some Sims! Two, in fact. The stats that you
can give them effect what the Sims want to do, not what you will make
them do. So a low Neatness isn't all that bad if you are going to
be forcing them to clean up anyway. Of course, if you are a more
passive Sims player, (you don't plan on telling them EVERY LITTLE
THING that they should do), then SOMEONE should have a high Neatness.
Plus it's nice when the Sims will automatically clean the table after
eating.
Try to keep your Sims distinctive and different. The stay at home
Sim needs to be outgoing, nice, and playful, while the worker Sim
needs to be active and outgoing. Beyond that keep the stats somewhat
average.
Note: If you keep a stat blank (that is, empty), then that person
will be the opposite of that stat. So if he or she has no
Nice, then that person will be mean, and prone to piss others
off. That makes getting friends difficult!
Another thing that stats effect is what type of recreation they most
enjoy. Inactive people love the TV, while more active would like
Dancing or other more interactive entertainment.
Note: You don't need to use up all of the Stats points while creating
a Sim, in fact, you could use NO stats points at all and make
a surly, messy, lazy, mean, introverted Sim!
b. Of Neatness and Maids
One alternative to Neat Sims is to hire a Maid. This way you can avoid
using ANY neat points to spend them elsewhere, and still have a
wonderfully clean house. At most the Maid will cost you ў70 a day,
which isn't all that expensive. Plus the Maid is quite attractive! If
you DO hire a Maid, then you don't really NEED a stay at home Sim
(although I'd still recommend it for the Socializing aspect).
Note: There are more consequences of having a Messy Sim than one
would think. When the messy Sim gets out of the shower, he
ALWAYS leaves a little "puddle". Also, he NEVER flushes the
toilet.
For now we don't want anymore than these two adult Sims. Once your family is
finished, you cannot add new members by simply creating them... The only way
to get new Sims is to Marry them, ask them to Move In (between Same Sex
couples, either as friends or lovers), or to have a baby.
Now let's build them a house. (or if you'd rather not build your own house,
there are several already in the neighborhood)
(The following 2 sub sections are alternative ideas to having 2 Sims, the
first having to do with having just one Sim, and the second to having an
Arkload of Sims, 8!)
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2.1 The Bachelor Sim
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When I say "Bachelor" I mean any Sim who is living alone, not just male Sims.
I have said that your first Family of Sims should probably be 2 Sims, well
here are a few different ideas on how to play. The first being the Bachelor.
The trick with the Bachelor is that you have no one to help you. There is no
stay at home Sim. So your Bachelor must get a job, and while he (or she, but
for the purposes of this section, the Bachelor is a he) is at work, you can't
socialize (you can even watch as all your neighbors drop by, and leave,
because there's no one to greet them), nor can you clean up or have a meal
ready when he gets home. So the real problem here is TIME. You simply never
seem to have enough to Socialize, Work, and Improve your Skills.
So here are a couple ideas to having a good Bachelor:
1. Pick a job with decent hours. By this I mean stay away from the career
tracks that demand a lot of your time. I should suggest the Military
career track as it has good starting pay and fairly steady hours. Also
the Military requires the LEAST amount of Family Friends, and doesn't
require ANY until Level 5.
2. Hire a maid. This way your Bachelor can live like a slob, and not care.
This frees him up to hit the exercise machine, or call a date. The maid
costs ў10 an hour, and has a working hours of 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, for
a maximum of ў70 a day. However, if she runs out of things to clean
she leaves then.
3. Build a smaller house, and use the extra money to buy a better bed,
fridge, etc. Since you will have less time to do things (having no one
to help you) you will need the better things to be more efficient!
4. Go to work every other day (depending on how much money you need). In
the first few levels of your job, you will probably want to go everyday
because you need the money. But at the higher levels, you need TIME
more than anything, so skip a day. As long as you don't skip two days
in a row, you will be fine. Use that day to improve your skills, make
some friends, etc. You won't get paid or promoted, but it won't hurt
your chances of getting promoted either.
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2.1.1 The Bachelor Gets Married
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Your Bachelor Sim can't stay a hermit forever, he eventually will fall in
love, and want someone to move in or marry him. However, there is a better
way than simply having him marry someone.
Here's the idea. Your Bachelor Sim works fairly far up the career ladder,
possibly to the top without getting married. He's putting career before
relationships, only socializing to Gain Friends or Maintain Friendships for
work. Once he is at or near the top of the ladder, he will be rich, and
very likely talented as well. He'll have a great paying job, and lots of
skills.
Why not then, get HIM to move out?
Here's what I mean. Say you're starting up a new family. Wouldn't it be
nice if you had someone who had a nice high paying job? Well that's precisely
what you should do! Marry the bachelor from the OTHER SIM. That way he will
move out of his house, bring all his assets with him, PLUS he will keep his
great job. This is a great way to help out Beginning Sim Families. If his
net worth was ў28k, then that family will gain that much when he is married
into the family.
Sweet deal!
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2.2 The Full House (8 Sims)
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Starting your first game with 8 Sims would be a little crazy. Just keeping
up with ONE Sim's needs is hard enough, much less 8 Sims who all need the
same things. Plus the most difficult thing about starting out with an 8
Sim Family is simply getting them all into a furnished house using only the
20k that you start with. I would normally just advise you to start with a
small family, then build up from there, adding members by marriage or child
birth.
However, there is a good way to start out with 8 members. Don't build any
special house, except having a longer bedroom. Stick in at least 4 beds in
here. If you have any children, place as many 2 person beds as you have
children. The bedroom will resemble a military barracks, but there's nothing
to be done about that yet.
Make sure there are at least 3 different Fun things for the Sims to do, or
they will all fight over their limited Fun items. A radio, bookcase, and a
TV should be enough.
Now get all but one adult Sim jobs.
Tip: Before fully furnishing your house buy the cheap computer and use that
to get your Sims jobs. This will give you the choice of 3 different
jobs for each Sim. Then once they all have jobs, sell the computer.
If you sell it within 24 hours of buying it, you will get a full
refund.
With everyone working, you should get quite a lot of money, especially if any
of them get promoted.
Tip: If you start to get overwhelmed with these Sims, use the PAUSE feature
then decide what your Sims should do, then UNPAUSE. Remember I did
advise starting with only 2 Sims, a much more manageable number.
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3. Building a House
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Our objective with building the house is to create a livable area and have
enough money left over to actually put THINGS in the house.
Here's our objectives: We need a good sized house (not large), with three
rooms (living room/kitchen/dining room, bathroom, and
one bedroom). The Sims don't require their own
private bedrooms, and will do quite fine in a
"communal" bedroom. (where everyone sleeps in the
same room)
We're going to start the house a minimum of 2 or 3 squares away from the
nearby sidewalk. Now we create the Living Room/Kitchen. A good size for this
is a smallish rectangle, about 11 x 6 squares. Build the entrance door near
the mailbox and trashcan. Now off to the side of the house build a 4 x 4 room
to be your bathroom. You don't need any larger at the moment.
------------
| | Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| |
----------------e------------- Note: Two horizontal characters
| | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Bath | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | room |
| | | Note: To build a "square", hold down
| Living |-------- the shift while building a
| Room | wall outwards.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
As you can see, this is a very small type of house, but is perfectly suited
for two people. This is a "basic" house, and as your family grows you will
need to add to it. Notice that there isn't a wall between the kitchen and the
living room. This is quite intentional to aid in the parties that you will
be throwing here! The open space allows people to move about more freely, and
to prevent people from running into each other. Also note that this leaves
space to the left of the Bedroom which is ideal for building another room,
be it a new bedroom, or an entertaining room, or even just an outdoor
pavilion.
Once the basic floor plan is done, we need to apply wallpaper to the outside
of the house, and to each room individually. The last few wallpapers in the
list are specifically for the outside, and aluminum siding is cheap (ў7).
Note: To apply a wallpaper to every available surface, hold down the SHIFT
key, then click. If you're doing this to the outside, it won't
affect the inside, and if you are wallpapering the interior of a
room, then it will only wallpaper that room.
For the kitchen I would use the Deep Jade or the Tuscany Tin (ў6). The living
room you can do separate from the Kitchen if you want, although you can't use
the SHIFT function if you do, as they aren't really separate rooms. In the
bathroom I would go with a "Too Turquoise" (ў6).
Now we need to add flooring (can't have your Sims living on bare grass). Both
the kitchen and the bathroom have their own matching floor sets (if you chose
Tuscany, the best flooring would be the Il Perrinni Italliante tile (ў20)).
In the bedroom I would go with the simply Blue Carpet, it's cheap, and
effective.
Windows: Each room needs quite a number of windows to keep the room bright
and happy. This effects one of the Sims' eight needs, that of Room.
So place windows around each room until it is as bright as it can
be. Don't forget this! Also, when you start furnishing a house,
you need to place Lamps for when it gets dark.
Which window you pick is entirely up to your individual preference!
Note: Don't bother with a second story yet, as you don't need it, and you
probably can't afford it! See the section on Expanding the House below
for more information on Second Stories.
Tip: A backdoor is a very useful thing to have, as it allows your Sims
another way in or out (if the main entrance is blocked), and can provide
for a nice patio outside as well. Try putting in a flamingo in the
backyard, just for fun. Also the neighbors seem to like it.
Alternate Floor plan 1:
------------
| | Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| |-------- Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| e |
----------------e----- Bath | Note: Two horizontal characters
| | room | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | |
| |-------- This alternate version moves the
| Living | bathroom up 2 squares and builds a
| Room | door into the bedroom.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
Alternate Floor plan 2:
----------
/ \ Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| |-------- Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| e |
----------------e----- Bath | Note: Two horizontal characters
| | room | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | |
| |-------- This alternate version cuts the
| Living | square corners to be diagonal. This
\ Room / helps Room rating, and looks more
----------e--------- attractive.
=======================
Tr
Now that we have a house, we need to buy things for the house!
But first some ideas on Better Houses (i.e. Richer).
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3.1 Building a Better House
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Not to be confused with Section 7. Expanding the House, this section deals
with building a house with more money to start with. After all, sometimes
it's easier to start over than to keep adding onto a current house.
--------------e---------------
/ e e \ Key:
| Bedroom ---e--- Bedroom |
| One / \ Two ----------- e - Door -- - wall
| e Bath e | | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| | Room | | Pool |
-----e-----| |-----e-----| Hall | Note: Two horizontal characters
| \___e___/ | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Hottub | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen Living | |
| Room |\ / Notice just how much larger this
| | ---e---- house is than the previous
\ / models. Also, it makes the
------e-------------e--------- attempt to "round out" every
+ + room to improve Room Rating.
+ +
+ + This is a very large and
================================ spacious house, but designed to
Tr keep most everything "close by".
Notice particularly the amount
of doors that lead into the
house.
Why two bedrooms? When you have a baby, place the baby, plus one caregiver
to spend the night in their own bedroom. Then when the baby wakes up and
needs attention, only one of your Sims will have to be awakened by it. Plus
this allows you to do separate Socializing (you know, kissing other people
than your wife).
Alternate 1: The Second Story
Key: e - Door -- - Wall
Floor One: SS - Stairs + - Path
Pool and Hot Tub Outside Tr - Trash
/------e--------------e-------------e----\ This house keeps the first floor
| SS | Bath | very spartan and uses half the
| SS e Room | space for an outdoor pool and
| Kitchen SS Living | | spa area. The Stairs lead up to
| SS Room |\ / a Second Story, which will
| SS | -------- contain 2 bedrooms, a bathroom,
\ / as well as an extra room, for
------e-------------e--------- fun.
+ +
+ +
+ +
================================
Tr
Floor Two:
/----------------------------------------\ You could always leave the
| | SS | | | "Extra" room wall-less and have
| e SS e e Extra | it be a balcony.
| Bedroom | | Bedroom | |
| ---e---- |\ /
| e bath e | --------
\ | room | /
------e-------------e---------
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4. Furnishing a House
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We're going to build things based on the Sims' Needs, with the most pressing
needs first. We'll start with Hunger (the only Need that your Sims can Die
of) and furnish the Kitchen.
Kitchen Objects you Need:
Refrigerator (ў600 for the Llamark)
Cooking Appliance (ў400 for the Dialectic Free Standing Range, stove)
Empty Counter
Dish Cleaning Apparatus (either a Sink or the Fuzzy Logic Dishwasher, ў650)
Fire Alarm (ў50)
Food Processor (ў220)
Trashcan (or if you can afford it, a Trash Compactor)
Here's what I did. At the left end of the Kitchen is a 6x long wall. At the
top I put a Dialectic Range, then a Fridge, then a Counter (if you did the
Jade walls and floors, then do the Jade counter top, otherwise just keep it
cheap!), then a counter with a Sink, and another blank counter. This leaves
one square left in the bottom corner, but we'll use that later when we have
more money. (By moving the Counter with the Sink to the corner, and filling
that hole with a Dishwasher) Finally on the empty counter place the Food
Processor.
Note: When someone cooks a full meal it will go like this, they will take
the food out of the Fridge, and stick it into the food processor
(or onto a counter if you don't have one, but the food processor
adds more Food value to the meal), then from there onto the stove,
and from the stove to the counter where it is finished.
Tip: Be vigilant with who makes the meals! Every Sim when they get hungry
will go to the fridge to get a snack or to make a quick meal. But
you should let only the person with the most Cooking skill cook, and
then have them SERVE the meal. This creates 8 portions for only
ў20 which is very cost effective. Plus the higher cooking skill
reduces the chance of Fire and increases the Food Value.
Now 2 squares away from that stuff place a Card Table (ў95). Around it place
4 Chairs (the cheapest chair works fine, ў80). Make sure the chairs face the
table.
Tip: One good way to place the chairs is to put all the chairs in the
corners, like this:
Ch (not to scale)
Ch .....
.....
..... Ch
Ch
What this does, is keeps the other corners not touched by the chairs
completely free for your Sims to put things on like the mail, and for
YOU to put things like Lava Lamps (ў80) on. The Sims will be eating
closer together, but they don't seem to mind. This table is a 2x2
table, so how does this work with the longer Parisian table?
Ch (also not to scale)
Ch ..... Ch
.....
.....
Ch ..... Ch
Ch
This table is longer, and can hold more chairs. I recommend the
above pattern with the Parisian, as you fit more people, but keep the
same amount of Places for Sims to Drop things (like Gifts from other
Sims) or for you to put things (like radios).
Onto the Bathroom.
Bathroom Objects you Need:
Toilet (ў300 for the Hygeia-O-Matic)
Major Hygiene Item (ў640 for the SpaceMiser Shower)
Bathroom Sink (ў400 for the Andersonville sink)
The placement of these objects isn't so tough, just put them in the corners,
making sure that they face the right direction. If you have the money, I
would suggest also putting a Medicine Cabinet in above the Sink. However,
the Medicine Cabinet isn't as useful as a plain mirror placed in the living
room. (Mirrors are used to improve the Charisma Skill) This is because
other Sims like to use the bathroom, and you don't want to hold them up while
you make a speech to a mirror. We want the shower right now because it is
cheaper, and more time efficient. Plus we're saving up for that REALLY good
bathtub! (The Hydrothera) Once you get the money, you definitely want that
good tub!
However, you will still want that shower. Nothing beats the quick shower,
plus your Sim won't always need a full bath.
Pressing onward to the Bedroom.
Bedroom Objects you will Need:
1 Bed for each Person (in this case 2, Spartan Bed, ў300 each)
You won't spend too much time in the Bedroom, so you don't need too much more
than that. Don't worry about the Room rating much either, so don't worry
about lighting or decorations. One thing that you might want in the bedroom
is an End Table with an Alarm Clock on it.
Note: Alarm Clocks do need to be set by your Sims before they can be
effective. The alarm goes off 2 hours before your Sim has to be
to work. If you want more time than that to get ready, you can
always manually waken your Sim. Although, if you get a Sim up before
he or she is fully rested (full energy bar) they will stomp about
a bit trying to wake up.
Tip: The first beds that you can get aren't very efficient at getting your
Sims their Energy. So as soon as humanly possible get that really
expensive (and worth it!) bed.
And finally the Living Room.
Living Room Objects you will Need:
1 Couch (Contempto is ў150)
Television (Monochrome is ў85, Trottco 27" is ў500)
Bookcase (ў250 for the Cheap Pine)
Desk/Table (Mesquite Desk/Table is ў80)
Radio (Down Wid Dat Boom Box is ў100)
Phone (could also put this in the Bedroom, although it wakes them up!)
Security Alarm
Have the Television placed by one of the walls, and have the couch face the
Television about 2 squares away, and put the Bookcase next to the TV by the
wall, so that your Sims can read and sit on the couch. Now on another wall
place the table and place the Radio on it. Place the Phone on the wall behind
the radio, and the Security Alarm anywhere on the wall.
Note: All appliances, computers, etc., can break down and need to be
repaired. You can either repair them yourself (and maybe get
electrocuted and killed) or call the Repairman who charges you ў50 per
hour. Until you get your Mechanical skills up (via reading) you
should probably just call the experts.
Note: An alternative to placing the Security Alarm in the living room is
to put it outside. Then the Thief doesn't even have to enter the house
to trip the alarm. There's more on burglars in the Section Everything
Else in the Neighborhood.
a. Lighting and Lamps
Now that we've adequately furnished the house (I say adequate, because
once you get money, you'll want to replace your shoddy items with better
ones, like your little monochrome TV for a HUGE Plasma TV), you will want
to start filling your house with Lamps. I would place 1 lamp in the
bathroom, and 1 in the Bedroom, and a lot in the Living Room/Kitchen.
Keep the lamps spaced out to keep the lighting in the room even. (Say, 3
to 4 squares apart)
Check out the Sims website (http://www.thesims.com) to download the new
Wall Lamps, which are placed on the walls rather than on the floor, in
the same way that the Fire Alarm attaches to the wall.
Note: Lights can burn out, and need to have their bulbs replaced.
BEWARE! Your Sims can get electrocuted by doing this! There
isn't a good chance of it (maybe 1 in 5), but you may want to
call a repairman.
b. Decorations
The other way to pump up the Room value is to put decorations into a
room. And the easiest of the decorations to place, are the Paintings.
Since these go on the wall, they don't take up any space, and unlike
plants, they don't require water.
Most decorations also have a Fun value, which happens whenever someone
looks at it. For example, you can have your Sim check out a painting.
Also the better objects (such as the Plasma TV) also have a positive
effect on the Room.
Use Decorations to get the Room rating up, not only for your Sims, but
to help the Mood of visiting Sims. That helps you make friends! You
know the old saying, a happy Sim is a friendly Sim.
More on the Room rating in that section below (Room Rating).
I know your house seems rather Spartan (you even have the Spartan beds, no
doubt!), but this is just the starter equipment. As you go along, UPGRADE!
Replace that fridge as soon as you can, as well as the Range. These will
help alleviate your Sims' hunger rating better. Also replace those Spartan
beds with better ones. If you get your 2 Sims to like each other enough, you
can get a 2 person bed, and get them into it. I would also definitely get
rid of that couch the first chance you get, and also get rid of the cheap
lights in favor of the top of the line lights.
Generally you spend a good deal of the game replacing your old junk with the
better stuff.
Let's make some friends...
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4.1 Cooking (or, a Meal fit for a Sim!)
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But first, let's look a little deeper into the realm of Cooking for Sims. As
I have said a number of times, we want the Stay at Home Sim to be our Cook,
and therefore they should spend a good deal of time Studying Cooking.
Whenever they have a spare moment, they should grab that book and study until
they get all the way up to 10 Cooking Points. This helps in two ways: One,
they are far less likely to burn down the house (unless using the Grill), and
they prepare more satisfying meals.
Beyond simply helping the Cook become a better Chef, you can also improve
your equipment, and how you prepare the meals.
Let's start with the equipment. The first step in cooking is the
Refrigerator, and, no surprise here, the better the Fridge, the more
satisfying the meals (the more it satisfies the Hunger Need, that is). The
next piece of equipment is the Preparation part, which can be either just a
countertop, or the Food Processor. The Food Processor is about twice as good
as a mere countertop, and is faster to boot, so getting one of those is quite
valuable. Then comes the cooking implement, from Microwave (the worst) to the
Gas Range (the best). Finally you have to set the meal down on an empty
counter top to serve the meal. (only necessary if you ARE doing a SERVE, if
you are merely HAVING dinner this is skipped)
Note: If a step along the meal preparation chain is broken (say you have
no preparation surface, or your range is broken, etc.) then you will
get a different (and less satisfying) meal. If you don't have a prep
surface or food processor you end out with a Can (or cans) of Beans.
If you prepare it, but have no way to cook it, then you get a salad.
These results ALSO occur if you have the item, but can't get to it.
So if another Sim is in between your Cook and the Stove, you could
end out with Salad.
Next is how you prepare the meals. There are 4 basic options at every meal:
Snack, Quick Meal, Have Meal, and Serve Meal. I would heartily recommend
doing ONLY "Serve Meal"s and having them cooked ONLY by your best Chef. Then
the meals will be very effective at removing hunger. This requires that you
constantly check your other Sims when they get hungry as they will want to
have Snacks or Quick Meals. It's much more cost efficient to have just the
Big Meals (Serve Dinner, Serve Breakfast, etc.)
Other Options:
If you have no way of preparing your own meals, you can always call for
pizza (ў40). It also takes some time for the pizza to arrive, and it isn't
very satisfying.
Also you can use a Grill to grill up some food. This isn't so satisfying
and can cause a fire (if something is too close to the grill).
Both these options do make for some good socializing, however.
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4.2 Room Rating
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The Room Rating is influenced by quite a number of things, but we'll boil it
down to the essentials. One, is how well lit the room is. This is influenced
(in the day) by windows, and in the night by Lamps. Two, is what is in the
room that improves it, such as decorations. Three, is what is in the
room that degrades it, such as garbage and messes. And four, the size of the
room, the larger the better.
In the early part of the game you probably can't afford the mighty
Torchosterone lamp (the best lamp in the game, as it improves Room rating two
ways, by being a Lamp, and by being a Decoration), but as soon as you get
some steady cash flow, start replacing your old lamps with the good ones.
Tip: In the beginning of the game, only buy a few lamps. It will be dark,
and your room rating won't be so great, but you will save money (all
objects degrade in value over time) so that you can buy the better
lights later. Also the good lamps tend to need less bulb
replacements.
All the good objects also have a Room rating attached to them. Things like
the Plasma TV, the good couches, etc. Therefore, once you have all the neat
gadgets in your living room, do you really need some art deco piece?
The Outside Room rating is probably the most important, at least as far as
your Job goes. It's probably already well lit, and large, so the only two
things that you can do to improve it are to keep it clean, and add some
decoration. A fountain and some flamingoes would go well out there. Plus you
could put a fireplace out there if you really wanted to.
Note: Keep in mind that if you let something go to Pot (such as a flower
dying, or fish dying, a computer breaking, etc.) then it will pull
down the Room Rating just like trash. After all, if you can't use
the object as it was meant to be used, it's not much more than trash!
Tip: The Fireplace has the best Room Rating (when lit anyway) of anything.
HOWEVER, it can cause things (such as objects, or Sims) to catch on
fire, and should be placed well away from anything!
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4.3 Alternative to Alarm Clocks
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As anyone who has had to wake up to an alarm clock might say, it isn't the
most pleasant feeling. Yet the alarm clock is the only way to get your Sims
up in time for work. Or is it?
Sims tend to sleep until their Energy Bar is full, then they also tend to
keep on sleeping until an alarm clock goes off, or you wake them up. So you
could just wake them up as soon as you notice their Energy bar full green (or
at any set time that you want, although Sims take longer to get up if they
aren't fully rested), but I prefer this little trick.
If the Sim is sleeping, but is fully rested, he will tend to keep on sleeping
until he has a reason to get up. Simply add something to his Queue (such as
using the Toilet) and once his Energy bar fills up, he will wake up and start
working on his queue. This way your Sim gets to be fully rested. This is a
little more dynamic than simply waking your Sim with an alarm clock 2 hours
before the Carpool arrives
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4.4 Who Needs a Trashcan?
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There are 3 forms of waste management in The Sims:
1. Your outside trashcan. This is part of the Lot when you buy it, and
you can neither move it, nor sell it. This trashcan is here to stay.
2. A standard trashcan. This holds trash, and can be put anywhere you
want. When it fills up with trash (it doesn't take long!) it will take
down the Room Rating until someone takes out the trash.
3. And finally there is the Trash Compactor, which not only can it hold
more Garbage (because it compacts the garbage), but when it gets full,
it does not take down the room rating, because the garbage is self-
contained.
However, you can probably get away with NOT HAVING A HOUSE TRASHCAN at all.
You can never get rid of the First type of trashcan, so why should you buy
any more trashcans?
Here's what I'm talking about. There are only THREE MAIN types of trash
(there are more than 2 types, but you won't come across the others often),
Snacks, Newspapers, and Gifts. Consider for a moment that the place most
likely to need a trashcan is the Kitchen area, which is notably near the
exterior trash anyway (well it should be, it is in my designs). Therefore the
walk outside to the trash isn't much longer than that to go outside. The
important thing here is that we SKIP A STEP. If you don't have an interior
trashcan, you NEVER HAVE TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH.
For a different, i.e. "cheating", tactic on this, see section 11.1 Deleting
Trash (and Bills too!).
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5. Of Friends and Lovers
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Your Sims are going to need some friends in The Sims. Not only to keep your
Sims from going insane (Social being one of their 8 Needs), but also to
advance in certain job fields you will need a certain number of friends. (for
example, on the political career track, to become a Senator you need 14
friends, and mayor requires 17!)
Note: Your Sim does not personally need to be a friend with someone, as
long as SOMEONE in your family is friends with them, that is enough.
In other words you only need family friends, not personal friends.
When you first move into your house, various people from the neighborhood will
come by and chat with you. Make sure to greet them! They might not come back
if you don't. Once that new Sim is greeted then that person is "known" and at
any time, you can call them on the phone to get them to come over. (unless
they are working at that exact moment, but you can call them before or after
work)
Note: Yeah it sounds stupid but, the Sim you are calling also needs to
have a phone for this to work. I mention this because you might want
to create a large 8 person family, stick them on a vacant lot, and
befriend them. If you want to do that, at least build one wall with
a phone attached to it!
Once greeted, this neighbor Sim will start working to fulfill his or her
needs, just as your current Sims do. If there is food out, and they're hungry
they'll eat it (but they can't fix themselves any food, not even a snack). If
they have to go to the bathroom, they'll go (but they can't shower, or take a
bath). Mostly, however, what they want to do, is to socialize!
a. Socializing
When you first start socializing with someone, keep it simple. Just
talk. As your relationship gets better (10+ or so... depends on the
Sim), start complimenting them, and telling jokes. Avoid doing anything
else for awhile. Also, if they try to do something too intimate to you,
and your "rating" (click on the Relationship button to see the number
rating of how much you like them. By the way, they also have a number
for you, and they may not be the same number... You might love them, and
they might not care for you!) is not very high, you may want to cancel
their action. So if you see "Be Hugged" by someone you just met, you
may want to click it to get rid of it.
As you get to know someone (40+) you want to start dancing, and hugging.
Dancing is not considered sexual, and doing it is not coming on to them.
And as you get even higher (70+) you may want to start flirting, and
maybe even kissing! This all depends on where you want this relationship
to go. Although you can be in love with EVERYONE in the neighborhood
(except children), you probably won't want to. It makes parties awkward
if you are in love with everyone there. Someone might want to kiss you,
and if you are in love with everyone in the room...
Tip: If you hear the "bad" music (meaning usually that something is going
wrong, it sounds like a bad trumpet) and you just flirted with someone
(or kissed, hugged, or danced with them), then you probably just
flirted with someone's significant other! Check your "queue" to see
if someone is going to slap you, and if so, click it to stop them.
(Pause the game, if that helps)
So how do you come onto someone else's significant other? Go into an
empty room (if none are available, go outside), and Call Over that
Sim that you like. Then flirt away!
By the way, it doesn't matter if you hug them (or kiss them...) or if
they hug you, their significant other will still get mad. Although
maybe not at you...
b. Marriage and Moving In
When you get someone higher up on the Relationship-O-Meter, you will get
the option to ask them to marry (propose) or move in with you. Whether
they say yes is based on their mood, and their opinion of you.
Getting someone to marry/move in with you is simply a two stepped
process. First you must get them to love you. This is built up
gradually. Start out with a friendship, then gradually work up to love.
(Getting them in love with you is not necessary for Move Ins) Once you
believe that they love you enough, now you have to work on their Mood.
Sims will only marry you if all their needs are being met, and are
therefore happy enough to marry. As such, you will want to feed him or
her, entertain them, and generally keep them comfortable and happy.
Propose, and they're in!
Note: Moving In is only between Same Sex couples, whether they are
lovers, or just roommates.
Whenever someone is brought into the family through marriage or moving
in, they not only bring any children they have with them, but if they are
the only member of their family, they will sell their old house, and
bring that money plus the cash they had on hand to their new family.
Warning: When someone joins the family, they can no longer be
considered a family friend! Although they remain a close
personal friend (and possibly a lover) they are no longer
counted in the Family Friend count. (Although they ARE
counted as such in the Neighborhood, if you hold the mouse
over their house)
Note: So, you had someone marry you, and they were the last in their
family, and so sold the house. Well the house is still in the
neighborhood, and furthermore, it is in EXACTLY the same
condition as it was when the person left it! So if someone new
moves into it, they might find dirty dishes!
All relationships wither over time, and as such, you need to constantly keep
on socializing with your family friends to make sure that they STAY family
friends!
Tip: When working to maintain a relationship, you needn't work as hard at
it as when you were building the relationship. So call the Sim over,
talk a bit, maybe give a hug or two, then once the Rating is back up,
tell them to go home. Then move onto the next Sim...
Social Activities:
Talking -- usually the most successful for simply improving the rating.
This one also happens, to a lesser degree, when two Sims are
doing the same thing, such as both watching TV or eating dinner.
Compliment -- depending on how much they like you, and what type of person
they are, the Sim you compliment will likely be impressed by
this. They might, however, take it the wrong way. (best if
done over 10)
Joke -- depending on how playful the Sim is, and how much they like you,
this will help your relationship. Best if used over 10. Also
increases both of your Fun ratings
Hug -- a better social activity, best between good friends, and lovers. Can
make the other Sim's lover(s) jealous, though.
Back Rub -- increases the Sim's comfort level, and helps socialization.
Also will increase jealousy.
Dance -- increases Fun rating, and makes others jealous. Best if used only
between good friends (40+ or so).
Note: There are two ways of dancing with someone. One is to click on
the Sim and select Dance, and the other is to wait for someone to
dance by the Radio, and then click on the radio and click Join.
The second one will help Fun, but won't help Social (but they're
less likely to turn it down!).
Flirt -- for when you want the relationship to go further. Use this on
friends to make them lovers. Best if used over 80. And you
guessed it, makes other Sims jealous!
Kiss -- the ultimate sign of affection! Also the most likely to get someone
slapped, if either of the kissing Sims is already attached.
Others: Brag, Tease, and Fight
Note: So, can Sims get into homosexual relations? Yes, but only if you make
them. They won't seek it out on their own. But it's just as easy to
get 2 same sex people together as two of the opposite sex together.
One final thing here. What do you do when you want someone to Move OUT? Well
you could kill them (there ARE ways...), but if you're less bloodthirsty than
that, here's what you can try. Load up another household somewhere, with
another family that you aren't too likely to play often, and who has room for
one more. Call up the person that you are trying to get rid of (or if they
just moved into the neighborhood, wait for him or her to come around). Then
socialize the Sim until you can get them to move in with you. Now they've
left your first Sim family and joined a new one.
Note: Sims may also pack up and leave if they get into a fight. At which
point they disappear forever.
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5.1 Befriending Mean Sims
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Just a quick note on how you should go about making friends with a mean Sim.
The mean Sim tends to like to Taunt, Brag, and Insult the other Sims. This
makes them happy (and gives THEM a better opinion of YOUR Sim, but makes YOUR
Sim hate them). But it won't ever get them any friends, which is where you
come in.
In any social situation with a mean Sim, just keep an eye on your Sim's
Queue to check for "Be teased", "Be insulted", etc. Whenever any of these
pop up, just cancel them.
Tip: Keep social interactions with Mean Sims simple (just Talking) until
they start to like you. Once they like you, they are far less likely
to be mean to you. So after your Sim is done talking, PAUSE, talk
again, then UNPAUSE. Allow no other interaction to take place.
Tip: Another way to avoid mean actions is to enter Group Interaction. Have
the Mean Sim eat dinner with your Sim, or watch TV. This grows their
relationship slower, but safer.
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5.2 Carrying on Multiple Romances
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Your Sim(s) can fall in love with anyone and everyone. Sims are rather easy
about who they fall in love with, all they have to have is a pulse.
However, things start to get really sticky when one Sim is having relations
with multiple other Sims. You know what I mean, Jealousy. When a Sim sees
her boyfriend kissing someone else, she tends to react badly. She might slap
someone, or stalk off, or even get into a fight. You could completely lose
someone's friendship this way. They might even leave the game if provoked
enough (via fighting that is).
Yet the "romantic" actions are very common at the high levels of a
relationship. You can't very well go without hugging a friend, can you? In
fact, as you get closer to 100 in relationship points, you start losing the
basic things, such as Talking, Telling Jokes, and Compliment. Which means,
that the only way to maintain good relations, is to Hug, Kiss, and Flirt.
But how to avoid that thorn of jealousy?
- First off, never EVER do your socializing outside where everyone can see
you. This does not include areas that are hidden behind a fence. Sims
can tend to wander the neighborhood, and what if the husband of the girl
you are kissing wanders by?
- Second, if you are having many people over, and you THINK that 2 of them
may already be romantically "linked", then go into an unoccupied room, and
do a CALL OVER to get the right Sim in that room. Bedrooms work great for
this. Once the Sim is alone with you... well...
- Third, try to avoid falling in love with 2 people who are already in love.
These love triangles are just begging for trouble. Even if you aren't
caught in the act, you might catch THEM in the act which is just as bad.
With just a little careful planning, your Sim can pretty much have it all!
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5.3 Maintaining Relationships the Easy Way
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Every relationship your Sims have will naturally degrade by 2 points every
day. That means that no matter how in love with you they may be, they'll
eventually fall out of it if you don't call them up for a visit. Therefore
before too long, they won't even be your Family Friend any more (although you
will get a phone call reminding you to socialize with them before that
happens).
So, obviously your Sim has to keep working on his current friends to keep them
as friends. Now, you COULD just wait for that phone call to invite them over,
then wine, dine, dance, and kiss them; or you could call them over when they
are at about 70 relationship points.
Once the Sim is over, talk to them once, compliment them once, then hug them
until they hit 100, and then Ask them to Leave. Once they're gone, find the
next lowest relationship, and call that Sim over. You can probably work on
3 Sims a night, and 1 in the morning (call after 6:00 am, see 6.2.1 Early
Morning Social Call).
Note: Maintaining a 70+ relationship is a lot easier than starting from 0
and working your way up. Therefore you need take less time doing it.
And as such, I like to Ask them To Leave. Why? So you can cleanly
work on the next Sim. You could just leave the first Sim alone, but
this works better without interference (see the last section).
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6. Working (and Not)
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One Sim per household should definitely stay home. Any others should then
try to find a job. To keep things interesting, I try to get each Sim on a
different career track. So one Sim may be on the Law Enforcement track, while
another takes the business track.
Note: The starting pay of each career track has nothing to do with the
final pay. The starting pay for the business track is low, but the
final pay is high (ў1200). Politics starts out relatively well, but
ends out somewhat low (ў750). A full list on these pays can be found
in the next section 6.1 Career Tracks below.
I have already discussed the importance of why you leave someone home (to
socialize with the neighbors, of course!), another good reason is that when
you first start out, you really don't need the money that badly. As long as
all your needs are met, your expenses will be low. You have a ў40 per day
bill on food (assuming you do a "serve breakfast" and "serve dinner") and
likely around ў200 to ў300 in bills every 3 days. Most jobs start out around
ў200 a day, and you should be able to get quickly promoted to around ў300 or
so before the bills come. So money won't be crucial.
Depending on the job you take, you'll need to increase your "stats". Things
such as Creativity, Body, Logic, etc. are needed to advance past the most
entry level jobs. And some jobs don't require some stats, researchers don't
need to develop their body, and so forth. To find out how much stat increases
you need to get the next promotion, click on the Jobs button. The first few
skill points are relatively easy to get, a short time studying will get you
your first cooking point, for example. But the later stat points may take a
LOT longer.
SimSkills:
Your Sim has 6 Skills that may need improving to get a job. These are:
Cooking -- Study Cooking at a bookshelf to improve. Useful to prevent
kitchen catastrophes, and many jobs require at least 1 point
for the higher levels.
Mechanical -- Study Mechanical on a bookshelf to improve. Useful in that
now your own Sims can repair broken items rather than that
expensive repairman. Most useful in the military and scientist
career tracks.
Logic -- Play Chess on a chess set, you can do this alone or with others
to also improve your social skills. Logic doesn't help you out
around the house, however. Used in the scientist career track,
although most career tracks require a little bit of logic.
Charisma -- Practice a Speech in front of any available mirror. No
practical use around the house. Used in the political track
mostly, but again, most career paths need some Charisma.
Body -- Work out on that exercise machine to improve. You can also
try swimming, but this never worked for me. Used in the
military and law enforcement tracks, but most require at least
one point here. Also you can Swim in the pool for Body, but
it takes 4x as long in the pool as on the Machine.
Creativity -- Play the Piano or Paint a Picture (which can then be sold,
usually for a mere ў5) to become more creative.
Note: When the Carpool arrives, your Sim will automatically add the "Go to
Work" item to his or her queue of things to do. However, in many
cases, this Sim will not cancel what they are currently doing (at
least until they "finish" doing it), so you may need to cancel that
thing for them so they get to work on time. You have until an hour
after the Carpool shows up to get inside the car to get to work on
time.
There are 3 things need to get a promotion at work. One, is to make sure you
have all the right stats at the right levels; two, is to make sure that you
have enough family friends; and lastly you have to be in a good Mood to get
a promotion. Happy Sims are productive Sims. Again, everything you'll need
to know about this can be found in the Jobs button. It also has a description
of how well you are working (bad, average, good, excellent) which is based
on your Sims' mood. Below that will be how many Family Friends you need
(if it isn't there, then you have already met that requirement!), and to the
right are all the stats.
Note: You can sometimes miss one day of work, but missing two in a row is a
guaranteed firing. You can miss alternating days of work, but you
will miss out on a lot of money that way. Also, the night shift
tends to be more strict about missing shifts, and may fire you on the
first missed shift.
Tip: If you need a lot of friends for a promotion (the politics career
track especially), then create an 8 person family, and wait for your
Stay at home Sim to come over to socialize. Get each of the 8 to
talk to this Sim at least once, then go back to your original Sims.
Now you have a lot of people that you can call up!
a. Quitting
So, that new career as a Scientist just isn't working out. Or maybe, you
just want to try out something else. Well there are several ways to quit
your job. As we saw in the above note, you can just stop showing up to
work. They'll get the hint. Or you can just check the paper and take
the job from there (it will warn you that doing so will get rid of your
first job).
Warning: If two Sims are sharing a carpool, and one of them gets a
new job at a different time, then that carpool won't show up
for EITHER person!
I would also assume that if you did your job very poorly, or got caught
doing something really bad at work (see "Job Events" below), you may also
get fired.
How you quit depends on your goal from it. If you just want to stay at
home and be lazy, then by all means, just skip work. If you really are
tired of your career path (maybe you'd rather be an actor), then just
take that waiter job.
Note: Whenever taking a different job, you always start out at the
lowest rung on the ladder. So don't just quit to see what the
other jobs are like. That's very inefficient.
b. Job Events
Every once in awhile, a major event will happen to your Sim at his or her
job. These events are quite random as to when they happen, and they only
happen once. These are usually just little things like, "Taking a Bribe"
or "Scandal". They will often give you a choice, which amounts to doing
the right or wrong thing, and if you do the wrong thing you can get
caught.
Some other job events are less good vs. evil, such as the actor in the
remake.
In any event, these Events have 2 outcomes, a good one (whatever it
was succeeded perfectly) and the bad one (it failed miserably), and
depending on the severity of the choice, you get rewarded or punished.
Some punishments are rather severe (your family leaves you) or just
annoying (a fine, or loss of stats). But the rewards may be worth the
risks...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.1 The Jobs Chart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: When I say "To Get Promoted" that is what you must work on to get to
the next job level. So in Politics at the Intern Level it says that
you need "+2 Charisma", that is you need that much of that stat to
get to the next level, Lobbyist.
Career Hours Wage To Get Promoted
Politics:
Campaign Worker 9:00 am - 6:00 pm ў220 --
Intern 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў300 +2 Charisma
Lobbyist 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў360 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
2 Family Friends
Campaign Manager 9:00 am - 6:00 pm ў430 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
4 Family Friends
City Council Mem. 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў485 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
6 Family Friends
State Assembly 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў540 +1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
9 Family Friends
Congressperson 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў600 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
11 Family Friend
Judge 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў650 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
14 Family Friend
Senator 9:00 am - 6:00 pm ў700 +3 Charisma
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
17 Family Friend
Mayor 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў750 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 0
Mechanical -- 0
Charisma -- 9
Body -- 5
Logic -- 7
Creativity -- 5
Entertainment:
Waitress 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў100 --
Extra 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў150 +2 Charisma
Bit Player 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў200 +2 Body
2 Family Friends
Stunt Double 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў275 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
4 Family Friends
B-Movie Star 10:00 am - 5:00 pm ў375 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
6 Family Friends
Supporting Player 10:00 am - 6:00 pm ў500 +2 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
8 Family Friends
TV Star 10:00 am - 6:00 pm ў650 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
10 Family Friend
Feature Star 5:00 pm - 1:00 am ў900 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+3 Creativity
12 Family Friend
Broadway Star 10:00 am - 5:00 pm ў1100 +2 Charisma
+1 Body
+3 Creativity
14 Family Friend
Superstar 10:00 am - 3:00 pm ў1400 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 0
Mechanical -- 2
Charisma -- 10
Body -- 8
Logic -- 0
Creativity -- 10
Law Enforcement:
Security Guard 12:00 am - 6:00 am ў240 --
Cadet 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў320 +2 Body
Patrol Officer 5:00 pm - 1:00 am ў380 +2 Mechanical
1 Family Friend
Desk Sergeant 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў440 +1 Mechanical
+2 Body
2 Family Friends
Vice Squad 10:00 pm - 4:00 am ў490 +1 Cooking
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
4 Family Friends
Detective 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў540 +1 Charisma
+2 Logic
6 Family Friends
Lieutenant 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў590 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
8 Family Friends
SWAT Team Leader 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў625 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+2 Creativity
10 Family Friend
Police Chief 9:00 am - 5:00 pm ў650 +2 Charisma
+3 Logic
+2 Creativity
12 Family Friend
Captain Hero 10:00 am - 4:00 pm ў700 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 1
Mechanical -- 4
Charisma -- 6
Body -- 7
Logic -- 10
Creativity -- 5
Business:
Mail Room 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў120 --
Executive Asst. 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў180 +2 Mechanical
Field Sales Rep. 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў250 +2 Charisma
1 Family Friend
Junior Executive 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў320 +2 Logic
3 Family Friends
Executive 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў400 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
6 Family Friends
Senior Manager 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў520 +1 Charisma
+2 Body
+1 Logic
8 Family Friends
Vice President 9:00 am - 5:00 pm ў660 +1 Charisma
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
10 Family Friend
President 9:00 am - 5:00 pm ў800 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
12 Family Friend
CEO 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў950 +2 Charisma
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
14 Family Friend
Business Tycoon 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў1200 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 0
Mechanical -- 2
Charisma -- 8
Body -- 2
Logic -- 9
Creativity -- 6
Life of Crime:
Pickpocket 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў140 --
Bagman 11:00 pm - 7:00 am ў200 +2 Body
Bookie 12:00 pm - 7:00 pm ў275 +1 Charisma
+1 Creativity
2 Family Friends
Con Artist 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў350 +2 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
3 Family Friends
Getaway Driver 5:00 pm - 1:00 am ў425 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
4 Family Friends
Bank Robber 3:00 pm - 11:00 pm ў530 +1 Cooking
+2 Body
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
6 Family Friends
Cat Burglar 9:00 pm - 3:00 am ў640 +2 Mechanical
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
8 Family Friends
Counterfeiter 9:00 pm - 3:00 am ў760 +3 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
10 Family Friend
Smuggler 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў900 +1 Cooking
+2 Charisma
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
12 Family Friend
Criminal Mastermind 6:00 pm - 12:00 am ў1100 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 2
Mechanical -- 5
Charisma -- 7
Body -- 6
Logic -- 4
Creativity -- 8
Medicine:
Medical Technician 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў200 --
Paramedic 11:00 pm - 5:00 am ў275 +2 Mechanical
Nurse 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў340 +2 Body
2 Family Friends
Intern 9:00 am - 6:00 pm ў410 +1 Mechanical
+2 Logic
3 Family Friends
Resident 9:00 pm - 4:00 am ў480 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
4 Family Friends
GP 10:00 am - 6:00 pm ў550 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
5 Family Friends
Specialist 10:00 pm - 4:00 am ў625 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
7 Family Friends
Surgeon 10:00 pm - 4:00 am ў700 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
9 Family Friends
Medical Researcher 9:00 pm - 4:00 am ў775 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
11 Family Friend
Chief of Hospital 9:00 pm - 4:00 am ў850 --
Military:
Recruit 6:00 am - 12:00 pm ў250 --
Elite Forces 7:00 am - 1:00 pm ў325 +2 Body
Drill Instructor 8:00 am - 2:00 pm ў250 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
Junior Officer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў450 +1 Cooking
+2 Body
Counter-Intell. 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў500 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+1 Logic
1 Family Friend
Flight Officer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў550 +1 Mechanical
+1 Body
+2 Logic
3 Family Friends
Senior Officer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў580 +3 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+2 Logic
5 Family Friends
Commander 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў600 +3 Mechanical
+3 Body
+1 Logic
6 Family Friends
Astronaut 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў625 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+2 Body
+3 Logic
8 Family Friends
General 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў650 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 1
Mechanical -- 10
Charisma -- 7
Body -- 10
Logic -- 9
Creativity -- 0
Pro Athlete:
Team Mascot 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm ў110 --
Minor Leaguer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў170 +2 Body
Rookie 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў230 +3 Body
1 Family Friend
Starter 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў300 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
3 Family Friends
All-Star 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў385 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
5 Family Friends
MVP 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў510 +1 Cooking
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
7 Family Friends
Superstar 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў680 +1 Cooking
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
9 Family Friends
Assistant Coach 9:00 am - 2:00 pm ў850 +1 Cooking
+2 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
11 Family Friend
Coach 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў1000 +1 Cooking
+3 Charisma
+1 Creativity
13 Family Friend
Hall of Famer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў1300 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 4
Mechanical -- 2
Charisma -- 9
Body -- 10
Logic -- 0
Creativity -- 3
Science:
Test Subject 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў155 --
Lab Assistant 11:00 pm - 5:00 am ў230 +2 Logic
Field Researcher 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў320 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
1 Family Friend
Science Teacher 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў375 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
3 Family Friends
Project Leader 9:00 am - 5:00 pm ў450 +2 Mechanical
+2 Creativity
4 Family Friends
Inventor 10:00 am - 7:00 pm ў540 +2 Mechanical
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
5 Family Friends
Scholar 10:00 am - 3:00 pm ў640 +1 Cooking
+2 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+1 Logic
7 Family Friends
Top Secret Researcher 10:00 am - 3:00 pm ў740 +1 Mechanical
+2 Logic
+3 Creativity
8 Family Friends
Theorist 10:00 am - 2:00 pm ў870 +1 Cooking
+1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Logic
+3 Creativity
10 Family Friend
Mad Scientist 10:00 am - 2:00 pm ў1000 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 2
Mechanical -- 8
Charisma -- 5
Body -- 0
Logic -- 10
Creativity -- 10
Xtreme:
Daredevil 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў175 --
Bungee Jump Inst. 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў250 +2 Body
1 Family Friend
Whitewater Guide 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў325 +1 Mechanical
+2 Body
2 Family Friends
Xtreme Circuit Pro 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў400 +1 Cooking
+1 Mechanical
+1 Logic
3 Family Friends
Bush Pilot 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў475 +2 Mechanical
+2 Body
4 Family Friends
Mountain Climber 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў550 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+3 Creativity
5 Family Friends
Photo-Journalist 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў650 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
7 Family Friends
Treasure Hunter 10:00 am - 5:00 pm ў725 +2 Charisma
+2 Logic
+3 Creativity
9 Family Friends
Grand Prix Driver 10:00 am - 4:00 pm ў825 +1 Cooking
+3 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
11 Family Friend
International Spy 11:00 am - 5:00 pm ў925 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 2
Mechanical -- 6
Charisma -- 8
Body -- 8
Logic -- 6
Creativity -- 9
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.2 Abusing the Carpool
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have an alarm, it will go off 2 hours before the Carpool is going to
arrives to pick you up. The carpool itself arrives an hour before your shift
at work is actually set to begin. This is a fact that we can abuse!
You don't need to get into the carpool until it is just about ready to leave.
In fact, if you are even on your way just before your shift begins, the
carpool will wait for you! So, if you get into the carpool the second it
arrives, you are essentially losing ONE WHOLE HOUR of time that you could
be spending doing something constructive, like eating, or playing chess to
get that last logic point for that promotion.
In other words, don't leave for work until the last possible moment!
This gives you essentially 3 hours between when the alarm gets you up, and
when you get to work. It also makes my earlier idea of not using an alarm
clock a little more realistic. Even if you get up a little late, you'll still
have time to use the toilet, shower, and probably eat as well. Then spend the
rest of the time fulfilling other needs (such as Fun and Comfort by watching
TV) or by building Skills. Or do both and play Chess.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.2.1 Early Morning Social Call (while Abusing the Carpool no less!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some of the other Sims have jobs, just like your current Sims do. You
probably know what these jobs are, as you probably gave them to these other
Sims. Well, during the day they are probably at work, so if you were to call
them, you would get the Machine telling you that they are at work. The usual
solution to this problem is to simply call them after they get off work.
But another idea is to call them as soon as you get up.
The brilliance of this idea is even more evident when playing as a bachelor.
Your Sim gets up in the morning, goes to work, then has a little bit of time
to socialize, gain skills, and keep up with his own needs. Well, what we CAN
do is to help him out by starting socializing in the morning. He gets up,
calls someone, then continues getting ready. He Greets the guest Sim, then
Serves Breakfast. While they are both eating, then both socialize. After
eating your Sim could watch TV with the other Sim, or maybe they could just
talk.
Since we have about 3 hours to work with (due to the last strategy, Abuse the
Carpool), your Sim have plenty of time to improve his relationships!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Running an Efficient Household
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The most difficult aspect of the Sims is managing all your Sims time. Since
each Sim has only 24 hours in the day, 8 major needs, promotions, socializing,
and whatnot, you have to be fairly efficient in how you do things. It should
be noted that the Sims themselves are not especially efficient in how they
decide to do things. A Sim who has a nearly Red bladder Need, may sit down to
read a book, when his Fun need is still mostly Green.
Generally you want to fulfill your Sims' needs on a Need basis. Whichever
they need most, you have them do first. There are, of course, many
exceptions.
For example, you should use the toilet after eating, not before. You should
shower after using the toilet.
Anyway, since I advised you to create two Sims, I'll do a rundown of how
their first few mornings should go:
I'll call the two Sims, Worker, and Homer. When you first appear at your
house, you'll already have a Newspaper, and another one will be coming along
at 9:00 AM. Have Worker look for a job, and if you want to, take it. If it
is still before 8:00 AM, the car pool will be picking Worker up at that time
(assuming you didn't take a night job). Send Worker off to work.
Now Homer will be home alone. Have him Study up on Cooking so that he can
fix a feast when Worker comes home. One or two points here is all you need
(although you should keep at this until you have all the points!). Now
your neighbors are going to start dropping by. Cancel the Cooking Lessons,
and go out to greet them. Once greeted, the neighbor becomes a Guest in
your house, and will eat food if you have already prepared it, watch your
TV (if it's already on), etc. This neighbor should be very chatty, so just
let your Sims talk for a bit. At this point, it is more important to greet
new Sims, than to work up relationships with Sims already there, so if
someone new comes to the door, go greet them.
Note: If you have two or more Sims around when other Sims come to the
door, make sure that ALL of your Sims have talked to the new Sim
at least once. This is most important if you ever take control
of the other Sims' house, and need to get him some friends.
In the early days of your neighborhood, there won't be that many people for
you to socialize with, so you will have to start new families soon.
Worker comes home, and watches TV to get his fun rating up. While he is
doing that, Homer Serves Dinner (always do Serve Dinner! It costs only 2x
as much as "Have Dinner" and feeds 6!), and then the two sit around the
table eating and chatting. Also any guests in the house will eat with you,
and Socialize as well.
Note: Although they are talking here, their relationships only improve by
a mere point or two.
After dinner, Worker goes to improve some Stat to help get promoted, while
Homer talks to the Guest Sims. Before going to sleep, both Sims go to the
bathroom.
The next morning, Homer gets up at 5:00 AM to Serve Breakfast. Worker stays
in bed until his Energy rating is all the way back up, and as soon as it is
he jumps out of bed, and goes to take a shower, eat breakfast, and maybe
watch some TV before the Carpool arrives.
Note: The 5:00 AM breakfast gives your stay at home Sim plenty of time to
prepare the breakfast so that it is ready for the other Sim(s) when
they get up. Since the first Sim isn't going to work, he doesn't
need to worry about lack of energy. What I did usually is let the
game run on fast mode (speed level 3) until 5 AM, then I paused it
(press either 'p' or the key left of the 1 button), clicked on the
Sleep icon to cancel it (top left corner), and click on the Fridge
and Serve Breakfast. I wake up most Sims like this. Pause, then
order them to do something, then unpause for them to do it.
Once Worker is at work, Homer takes a shower, goes to the bathroom, and
fulfills his needs. Once that's done he picks up that Cooking book and
works on that for awhile, hoping that some new neighbors might drop by. If
they don't, he picks up the phone and calls the Sim who is close to becoming
a Family Friend. That Sim comes over (or blows you off with an excuse), the
two chat for a bit, and the Guest Sim smelling food, goes over and eats some
breakfast. Homer joins him.
Note: Since Homer got up early, he might need a nap. Usually I would
wait for my working Sims to get home before sending my Stay At Home
to sleep, then I would get that Sim up in time to fix dinner and
Socialize some more with the neighbors.
They continue socializing until you get a new Family Friend. At this point,
keep going until the relationship is at 100. At some point here, Homer is
going to need to clean up the table, and get rid of what remains of the
breakfast (it has undoubtedly spoiled by now).
Worker comes home and studies some more for a promotion. Homer takes a
small nap, and gets up to make dinner. The two Sims (three if you still
have a guest) eat and talk. After dinner everyone watches TV and talks.
Finally everyone goes to sleep.
That was just a sample of how to run things efficiently. It featured a
staggered approach to getting ready in the mornings, one Sim got up at 5, the
other a little later. The first Sim made breakfast, while the other did some
things in the bathroom. This is also how you do things when you get more Sims
(although you will probably need to build a second bathroom).
Remember, you aren't just fulfilling Needs, you're also advancing these Sims
in their lives. Work on Stats for promotion, have them practice speeches in
front of the bathroom mirror, or play chess to work on their logic. (chess is
also Fun) Bear in mind that Sims will work on their Stats forever if you let
them, so keep an eye on their Needs, and cut short their Statbuilding if they
need to go to the bathroom or something.
Also keep in mind that you CAN hire Maids, Gardeners, and even call for a
Pizza if you want to. These services cost you a little (Maids are ў10 an
hour), but they can help out if you are getting overwhelmed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Expanding the House
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well your Sims are doing quite well, you have gotten some promotions, you have
a bit of money now, and you want to spruce up your house. Who can blame you?
The first thing you should probably do is to replace your Not-Top-Of-The-Line
kitchen appliances with better ones. Get rid of the cheap Fridge and Range
for more expensive versions. These help satisfy your Sims hunger better.
Generally you will want to replace your cheap crap with expensive stuff.
Don't go overboard and spend all your money at once (you might have to pay
bills, or something).
If you succeed in getting someone to Move In or Marry you, then you have to
find a place for them to sleep, which may mean expanding the entire house (or
could just mean replacing a Spartan Bed with a Two Person Bed). But as the
game goes on, you definitely need to expand the house.
Here's the house as I designed it earlier:
------------
| | Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| |
----------------e------------- Note: Two horizontal characters
| | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Bath | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | room |
| | | Note: To build a "square", hold down
| Living |-------- the shift while building a
| Room | wall outwards.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
And here are a couple improvement Ideas:
Idea 1: Mega Bedroom
----------------------
| | Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| |
----------------e------------- Note: Two horizontal characters
| | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Bath | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | room |
| | | Note: To build a "square", hold down
| Living |-------- the shift while building a
| Room | wall outwards.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
Idea 2: Mega Bedroom, Move Bathroom, Add Den
----------------------
| Bedroom | Key:
| --------- |
| | Bath | | e - Door -- - wall
| e room e | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| | | |
---e------e-----e------------- Note: Two horizontal characters
| | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Den | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | |
| | | Note: The Den would have a Desk for
| Living |-------- a computer, as well as
| Room | a Piano, etc.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
And, of course, you could always build some stairs and add a second level.
Remember on the second level that people can't go up there until there is a
floor. And you can only build walls out one square past the walls on the
first story. Whatever else you stick on the second story, I would definitely
place a bathroom.
Also as I previously mentioned, a great deal of expanding your house is to
replace your old furniture and objects with bigger shinier models.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.1 Building that Second Story
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There isn't all that much to building a second story. As long as you can
fit those stairs in your house somewhere, you can build the second story.
Once the stairs are built, switch to the Second Story view. Notice how there
is nothing here, but the area directly above the walled area is marked. That
is where you can build. The buildable area extends out one square from the
first story's wall, in case you want to build out a little.
You will probably just want to build your walls directly above the first
story's walls. Make sure to wallpaper the outside and inside. Decide what
you are going to do with this story, and build interior walls appropriately.
Tip: I would recommend building a bathroom upstairs, at least. This way,
anyone up there won't have to come down to use the facilities, and
it gives you another bathroom in case the first gets "busy".
Note: If you want to build out a balcony that isn't directly above an
already walled area, there is one way to do it, but it's pretty
lame. You have to put Pillars under every single square that you
want to build on top of. I think this is lame that the pillars have
to be placed EVERYWHERE, and I call this the "Pillar Limitation".
For a way around this, check out 8.1.1 The "Flying" Second Story.
To finish the second story, make sure to build a flooring. Without a floor
no one can go up there!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.1.1 The "Flying" Second Story
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Based on a strategy from http://thesims.xtremesims.com/ (David Phillips)
There is a way around the "Pillar Limitation" as discussed in the previous
section. Here is what we're going to do. Say you want to build out a
true balcony, one that doesn't have any first story rooms below it. The only
way (until now) to do this was to build a Pillar under every square that you
wanted to build on.
First, do what you would normally do to build a balcony. That is, place a
pillar everywhere you want to build on. Then build the second story room,
floor, walls, whatever. Just make sure that it is finished. Now go back to
the first story, and DELETE all the pillars.
You will now have a True Balcony! If you want, you can leave a pillar or two
for aesthetic reasons.
You can even do this without having a First Story, so that you have nothing
but stairs down there, then a fully "flying" second story. It's great!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. Babies and Children
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can start any family with children, but you can't start them with a baby.
There are only two ways to get a baby, lots of kissing of the passionate sort,
or Adoption. I'll deal with adoption first. The way adoption works is that
they will call you and ask if you want a baby. This can happen to either
gay couples or singles (as they can't produce children on their own). You are
given the choice of taking or rejecting it.
As for the natural method, simply have a guy kiss a girl a lot (or visa versa,
it doesn't matter who kisses whom) and the option will come up "Would you like
to have a baby?" No, you don't get to see them have sex. The baby just
appears, magically. The sex and personality are set at birth, you have no
control over that. You do get to name the baby, though.
Now that you have the baby, you have to take care of her for 3 days. 72 hours
exactly from the moment you got her.
Tip: The best time to get a baby would probably be in the morning, as when
the baby becomes a Child, they have perfect Energy, and you don't want
perfect energy late at night. Not with school the next morning!
A baby is a huge responsibility. But you didn't need me to tell you that.
You have only 3 things you can do with the baby, Feed, Play and Sing (to
sleep). The baby will be resting quite comfortably when suddenly "WAH!" The
baby will cry out. Anyone sleeping in the area will be awakened (I'd
recommend sleeping ONE and only ONE person with the baby, and rotating who
gets to do it, so no one Sim loses too much Energy). Then you have to figure
out what the baby wants (impossible). Usually I would just do each option
once from Feed to Play to Sing. If that didn't put the baby to sleep, I'd
feed again and Sing again. That almost always works. If it does, the baby
will go back to sleep... only to wake up in a few hours bawling.
Note: If you fail to take proper care of the baby, she will be taken away
by the Social Workers. Shame on you!
As you can see, having someone home at all times is CRUCIAL here, not just
recommended. This is another place where it really helps to have left someone
home all along. But if you didn't, just have different people miss work
different days to care for the child. Sorry, there is no "day care" or "baby
sitter" for you to call. What I did, is I used my stay at home Sim to care
for the child until the first person got off work, then Sim 1 would go to
sleep and Sim 2 would take over tending over the baby. Make sure you have
something constructive to do while the child sleeps, so maybe you should move
the Chess set to the room that has the baby (or something like that).
After 3 full days, the baby goes *poof* and becomes a Child. Children can
sleep with any adult in the household, if you can't afford to buy her own
bed. Children have only one responsibility, and that is School. They have to
go everyday at 9 AM and come back everyday at 3 PM. Furthermore they have to
study to keep their grades up (you can study at any bookcase or computer).
Note: One side effect of good grades is that Grandparents can give money
for good grades. At the A+ level, I got ў100.
At this point you probably should buy a Toybox for the child so she can play
with the toys. And as you can guess, they like to watch Cartoons on TV as
well.
Finally children can also Play with other children, where they will just start
running amok. And no, children never grow up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.1 Children and School
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kids have to go to school everyday from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. Skipping a day
will drop their Grade one whole letter (say from A to B, or from B+ to C+).
If the child Sim (or SimKid if you will) goes to school everyday in a good
mood, their grades will naturally increase. The other way to increase the
child's grades is to have them Study. They can study either on a computer or
with a book, it makes no difference. After a period of time, they will
increase their grades. This period of studying is small for the low grades,
and large for the high grades. It's therefore easier to improve from a D to
a C than it is from a B to an A.
Note: As I noted earlier, you can randomly get ў100 gifts from grandparents
with an A+. Also with an A+ you don't have the option to study
anymore. What would be the point?
So what happens if you don't have good grades? Your Sim gets shipped off to
a military school! Plus your family has to pay ў1000 for tuition (but
thankfully you only pay this once, and they never ever bother you again).
Tip: Therefore to get rid of any troublesome child (i.e. a lazy one), just
let his or her grades slip to an F, and away they go!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.2 What Kids Do
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kids are a lot like the Adult Sims, except for the fact that they don't have
jobs, and therefore don't need Skill Points. They also never need to gain
Friends as it doesn't help them any. (although a parent could use them as an
extra agent of socialization)
So, once a Kid gets up to an A+ and has satisfied all of her needs, what IS
she going to do?
Since you aren't trying to get them up the Career Ladder, and getting them
good grades is absurdly easy, I would just leave kids alone, and let their
free will take them where it will.
Tip: Two kids together will almost always start running arouned Playing
together. So if there are other kids in the neighborhood, call them
over. Or you could always have a second kid.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Everything Else in the Neighborhood
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your house can be burglarized. During the night, the game will slow down to
the slow game speed, and a PIP will show the burglar coming your way. If you
have alarms, the second he enters the house, the police will be called. But
if he's clever, he'll just grab one thing and run, and may get away with it.
So if you see a burglar, here's something to try:
- Wake up your Sim.
- If possible, call the police BEFORE the burglar enters the house to get
the police here sooner.
- Now here's the fun part, since the burglar runs on the same pathfinding
algorithm as the rest of the Sims, you can "bump into" him, and he'll
stop cold. So if he's trying to go out the door, and you are in the
doorway, he'll have to stop and wait for you to move!
Note: Anything stolen by the thief can't be returned to you, but you do
get partial reimbursement from the Insurance Company. Plus if he
is captured you also get a ў1000 reward!
Sims who don't know their way around the kitchen, not only cut themselves or
burn themselves a lot while making it, may also cause a Fire to break out.
Once the fire has started, your alarm (if you have one) will go off. If you
don't have an alarm, call the Fire Dept. You can try to extinguish the fire
yourself, but ... you can die from the flames!
The character ў can be typed by pressing and holding ALT, then on the number
pad pressing 0167. This is the character for "Simoleon" the monetary unit of
the Sims. If you want to see something bizarre, check out the Money bag on
the CD case, and on the instruction manual. You will see the symbol ў on
both, but on the CD case, for some reason, it is backward!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.1 Death and Ghosts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Death can come to the Sims in a couple ways. One, they can starve to death.
This one is fairly easy to avoid, as when the Hunger bar gets low, it doesn't
deplete as fast, and even when it gets to completely red, your Sim won't die.
Give it a few days, and they will, however, so get them some food. The other
way for them to die is in a fire that they are either trying to extinguish, or
merely got caught in. Another way for them to die is to have them Drown in
your Swimming Pool. This occurs when they run out of energy in the Pool.
This can only happen if you remove the ladder out of the pool while they are
swimming, otherwise they'll just get out before they drown. When they die,
the Sims leave a Tombstone (you can readily see these by playing the Goth
household), and furthermore, they will HAUNT the living! So don't let the
Sims die.
Note: Ghost Sims (or SimGhosts if you will) usually do their haunting at
11 pm. It is random as to whether they will do it or not, but if
you have enough graves (see the Goth house) it will probably happen
every night!
Note: Where the Sim dies determines their "marker". If they die outside,
they leave a Tombstone, inside an Urn. The living members of your
household then have to "mourn" the marker for 24 hours. That is, of
course, after they have finished what they were already doing (so
they will watch TV until satisfied, then go mourn). After that you
can mourn at your leisure.
Death is one of the few ways to get rid of a Sim for Good. So, if you have
just plain too many Sims in your family, or you married a Bum or something...
Well you get the idea. Although this is HIGHLY amoral! (good thing morality
isn't a Need!)
Tip: One way to fortune is to marry a bachelor, take all their money, then
"bump them off". Two good ways to kill them, wall them up somewhere
and let nature take its course, or remove the ladder in a pool.
Bloodthirsty, but effective. Maybe you should even name your
murderous little Sim the "Black Widow" or something.
Well you've had your fun with the Ghost spooking your Sims, and now you want
rid of that Ghost. Well you can just sell their Tombstone/Urn for ў5, or
destroy the house and they'll never pester you again. Or if you like the
ghost, but don't like the hauntings, you can just move your bedrooms to the
second story since Ghosts can't climb stairs (probably since they'd go right
THROUGH the stairs!).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.2 Changing the Radio Station Music
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Changing the Radio Station Music: (from http://www.thesims.com/)
In case you were wondering, you CAN have the Sims listen to YOUR music,
rather than the default music. Go to:
C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\Music\Stations
And you will see 4 folders: Rock, Country, Latin, and Classica. Now place
any MP3 or shortcut to an MP3 in these folders and that song will play
when they play the radio! And, no you can't add new stations. You can,
however, add as many songs as you want to each station.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Cheats & Tricks
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All of the following In-Game cheats come from GameSages: (each cheat has noted
who came up with it)
Command Prompt: Press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + C during game to display the command
prompt.
1000 Simoleons and More: Press Control+Shift+C during gameplay. A small window
will come up. Type in "klapaucius" for 1000 simoleons,
or, to set the time of day, "SET_HOUR X" where X is
0-23. Handy if you're in the shower and your carpool
is 2 minutes away.
Submitted by Shot2Hell
1000 Simoleons: Type "klapaucius" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
7000 Simoleons: Enter the "1000 Simoleons" cheat, then type "!;!;!;!;!;!;!" at
the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Display Personality and Interests: Select a Sim, then type "interests" at the
command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Draw all frames: Type "draw_all_frames on" at the command prompt. To turn it
off, type "draw_all_frames off" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Note: If your game is running slowly, this above cheat can
be useful as it will "skip" frames of animation.
Island home: Type "water_tool" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Map Editor: To enable the map editor, type "map_edit on" at the command prompt.
To turn it off again, type "map_edit off" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Route Balloons: Type "route_balloons on" at the command prompt. This displays
little balloons explaining why a character is delayed or not
doing what you asked. To turn it off, type "route_balloons
off" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Set event logging mask: Type "log_mask" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Set free thinking level: Type "autonomy #" at the command prompt, where # is an
IQ between 1 and 100.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Set grass growth: Type "grow_grass #" at the command prompt, where # is a rate
of growth between 1 and 150.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Set time of day: Type "set hour #" at the command prompt, where # is an hour in
military time (1-24).
Submitted by the Simoleons
Tile Information: Type "tile_info on" at the command prompt, then move your
cursor over any object for detailed information. To turn it
off again, type "tile_info off" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Toggle "Ticks": Type "sweep on" or "sweep off" at the command prompt.
Submitted by The Simoleons
_________
Trainers:
There is currently only one trainer that I know about, a Money trainer, which
can be found here:
http://thesims.xtremesimz.com/cheat-description.shtml
_______
Tricks:
The old "Marry them for their Money" trick:
One way to get a bunch of money is to get the last person of a household to
marry into your family. Then they bring over all the money they had, plus
the money they got from selling their house. So, what you should do is to
simply create a Sim, put him in a cheap house (a Wall with a Phone will be
sufficient!) and then wait for your Family of Sims to come by. Once he has
met them, switch back to that Family and begin the process to get him (or
her) married into the family. You can do this as often as you want, until
your family is up to 8 members.
The old "Use it then return it" trick:
If you buy something, and decide that you don't really want it, then as long
as you get rid of it (in Furnish mode, click on it then press DEL) the same
day as you bought it, you'll get the full money back. Great for getting
rid of those impulse buys. Also useful if you want to buy a computer for
the purposes of Job Hunting, but don't need a computer just yet.
The old "Job Switching" Trick:
Many career paths use similar skills. For example, both law enforcement,
and military require much the same thing (Crime as well). So if you want
to suddenly... switch careers you will be able to jump up another career
ladder quite easily! And at each promotion you will be given a Bonus...
You can see where I'm going with this. So switching careers MAY be quite
beneficial!
The following tricks come to us from Kyrre Aalerud:
1: A little trick to get rid of garbage: Throw the garbage-can away!
This actually works! If the garbage-can is new, then you will get ў30
for it, and a new one costs the same!
2: Also, I couldn't find anything about getting rid of children...
I only know of this way: have them do lousy at school, or not go at
all. This will send them to military school and out of your hair.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.1 Deleting Trash (and Bills too!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Following Trick comes from Shyguy982:
I always find it hard to juggle keeping my Sims happy, socializing, and
cleaning. Well, I solved the cleaning agenda, which made it a whole lot
easier for me to concentrate on the other aspects of the game. While in
purchase mode, you can pick up dishes. On the bottom of the screen it says
they can't be sold or deleted. Which is false. In order to dispose of
these nuisances in a timely fashion, simply pick it up, place it over
another object such as a plant or couch. Somewhere it cannot be placed
onto. Then simply hit the escape key while it's hovering over the object.
Bingo! Gone for good. It makes cleaning your house a snap, and it gives
you extra time to do whatever needs be.
Also, this trick works on bills too! Yes, you can hover them over other
objects, and hit escape, thus deleting your bills in the process. And
don't worry, they don't come back to haunt you. I've played for several
months without having paid a bill, and never had a thing repossessed!
I hope you can pass along this info. It's a terribly sneaky cheat, but
it makes things a whole lot easier. And please give credit, it you decide
to post it on your FAQ. Thank you, and if ya can give me an email, and let
me know if they worked as well for you as they have for me. Thanks.
================================================================================
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
================================================================================
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: If I create two Sims in my first home, are they automatically |
| considered married? |
| |
| A: No. The "family" is just a grouping of people in one house. They |
| don't have any "relationship" until the game starts. Whether they |
| become good friends, or lovers, or get into a fight, is up to them |
| (and to you). |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: When I ask someone to marry me, they always say no. What can I do to |
| get them to FINALLY say yes? |
| |
| A: Well beyond being stubbornly persistent (and why not?), you have to |
| realize that the Sim you are wooing has Needs just as any other Sim, |
| even though you can't see their Need meters. Why is this important? |
| Because a Sim must be in a good mood to accept Marriage (or Moving |
| In), and Mood is based on the 8 Needs. So make sure your SimLover has |
| eaten, had some fun, talked to your other Sims, and is comfortable |
| before popping the question. Beyond that just keep asking them until |
| they say yes! |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: This marriage isn't working out. My SimWife gets jealous when I kiss |
| all the other girls. Can I get divorced? |
| |
| A: No, there is no divorce! If you simply want to "play the field", then |
| just make sure to have your Sim do all of his romancing in another |
| room than any of his other love interests. But if you want that Sim |
| OUT, then there are ways... You can have that person Die (see the Q |
| below for more info on that), or you could get that Sim to get married |
| to someone else. Simply start up another home, and romance that Sim |
| until you can get them to marry you. They move out of the first |
| house, and in with the new Sim. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: My Sim keeps making "ouches" while preparing Dinner. Can they be |
| wounded permanently from this? |
| |
| A: Not from the actual preparing of the meals, but they can die if a fire |
| breaks out while cooking the food. To prevent such occurrences, have |
| your Sim read some Books on Cooking. Also build a Fire Alarm nearby. |
| It can't prevent Fires, but it will call the Fire Department for you. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I want to expand my house, how do you remove walls? |
| |
| A: In the Build Mode press and hold CTRL, then click and drag the mouse |
| across the wall that you wish to remove. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I want to move my Sims into a new home, will they keep all of their |
| money? |
| |
| A: Yes. Also their previous house will be sold along with everything in |
| it (at current market value, e.g. all objects depreciate with time and |
| use). This value is called the "Net Worth". You can see all the |
| families' Net Worth at the Neighborhood screen. This basically is the |
| amount of money they would have if they moved out of their house. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: All my Sims only have 20,000 to start with, so how do I get them into |
| the nice big shiny homes? |
| |
| A: Evict your Sims when they get rich enough to get a new house (use the |
| bulldozer Icon in the Neighborhood screen, then click on the |
| appropriate house to evict. It also asks if you want to bulldoze that |
| house, that's up to you) then go back to the Select/Create a Family |
| screen and select the Sims that you just evicted. Now you can move |
| them into any house that they can afford. Make sure that they still |
| have enough money to furnish the house, as most houses on the block |
| come empty. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I don't like my neighborhood, is there a way to reset it to how it was |
| before I mucked it up? |
| |
| A: Uninstall and reinstall the game. Then you might want to make a copy |
| of the UserData folder (found in TheSims directory, |
| c:\program files\maxis\thesims\userdata). Then if you ever want to |
| play a different neighborhood, or just play with a blank neighborhood, |
| simply move the copied folder back. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: Is there a Demo? |
| |
| A: No. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: Is this game worth getting? |
| |
| A: Yes. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: How do we kill our Sim? |
| |
| A: Well that is rather morbid of you, but there are several ways to "off" |
| a Sim. You can have them fight a fire, they might catch on fire |
| themselves and die a horrible death. Or you could starve them to |
| death. And finally you can also have them get electrocuted by having |
| them try to fix an appliance (or even changing a light bulb) without |
| any mechanical know how. I think a Sim has a 1 in 5 chance of dying |
| per light bulb with no mechanical skill points. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: What happens to Dead Sims? |
| |
| A: Their remains will "remain" with you forever! You can place the |
| remains inside your house (as an Urn) or outside (as a tombstone). |
| Either way, that dead Sim will every once in awhile roam around |
| HAUNTING THE LIVING AS A GHOST! Spooky! It's a random chance as to |
| whether that Dead Sim will haunt each night at 11:00 pm. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: What happens to the rest of the Departed Sims' Family? |
| |
| A: They have to mourn (if they know about the death, that is) for the poor|
| Sim for awhile, then they can mourn at any time by going up to the |
| remains. Beyond that, they aren't much affected by it. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: My Sims' Mood is fine until they get outside, then it plummets (due to |
| the Room rating)... what's wrong? |
| |
| A: When this first happened to me, it was because I hadn't bothered to |
| recycle the newspapers that had been arriving everyday (they stop |
| being delivered after 6 days of you not picking them up). Once a new |
| paper arrives, then the old one turns to trash, and trash has a |
| horrible effect on Room. Also you may want to decorate the outside. |
| Place some flowers, flamingoes, hedges, and whatnot. If you place |
| flowers, be sure to water them, or those will take the Sims' Room |
| rating down. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: My Sim is going to work everyday, has all the requirements for a |
| promotion, but doesn't ever seem to get it. What's wrong? |
| |
| A: Once all the requirements are met, all you need is mood! If your Sim |
| goes to work a surly grouch, he won't get promoted, but a happy fun |
| loving Sim always gets the good jobs. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: Can my Sim get demoted for being in a Bad Mood? What about if he |
| loses some family friends, or a stat is dropped? |
| |
| A: Yes, Sims can get demoted for being in a bad mood. One could suppose |
| that being in a bad mood caused their work to suffer, and that got |
| them demoted. And no, you don't get demoted if you lose some family |
| friends, or you have a stat dropped. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: My Sim got fired, can I get another good high paying job? |
| |
| A: Nope! Have to start out at the bottom of the ladder again. That's |
| why you should avoid getting fired. Going back up the ladder is |
| easiest if you choose a career path that needs the Skills that you |
| already have from working on your previous job. So if you have lots |
| of Body, try for a Military, Law Enforcement, or X-Treme career |
| tracks. Same for the rest of the Skills, try to keep to what would be |
| easiest to get promoted. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I am having no luck at making friends with this one Sim. What am I |
| doing wrong? |
| |
| A: Some Sims just clash (click on the Personality Button, then on their |
| Astrological Sign to see which Sims they are least compatible with), |
| or maybe that Sim (or your Sim) isn't very nice. It's very hard to |
| like a mean Sim. Hard, but not impossible. With these Sims you have |
| to carefully monitor their interactions. If that Sim is about to |
| taunt you, then cancel that action (although you can't cancel their |
| action directly you can cancel it on the receiving end by clicking on |
| the "Be Taunted" icon that will appear in your Queue), and try simply |
| talking to the Sim. With time, their relationship will improve, and |
| you will be able to be less vigilant, as friends tend to clash less |
| often. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: Do we ever get to see the Sims naked? Having Sex? What about any |
| Naked Skins? |
| |
| A: No, no and no. Although at the proper angle, you CAN see the Sims |
| naked in the shower. (you'll have to figure out the angle yourself, |
| though!) The most the Sims ever do in love is to passionately kiss. |
| If they "make a baby" then nothing happens between the Sims and the |
| baby "magically appears". |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: In the opening movie I can see a Sim coming out naked (albeit |
| censored) from the Hot Tub, but my Sims always wear a Swimsuit... |
| Why? |
| |
| A: The first Sim into the Hot Tub must be a VERY Outgoing Sim to get in |
| Buck Nekkid. Once one Sim goes in naked, then it seems that you just |
| can't stop every other Sim from going in naked as well. Crazy! |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I set the Sims to speak English, but I can't understand a word that |
| they are saying. |
| |
| A: Sims speak in gibberish called Sim (or SimSpeak if you prefer). The |
| only way that it resembles English (or any other language that it lets |
| you "set") is in the rhythm or cadence. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: Can I change the radio station's names? What about the music? |
| |
| A: See the above section "Everything else in the Neighborhood" for |
| information on changing the music. However, you cannot change the |
| radio station's names. So whatever you change the music to will still |
| be listed under "Country" "Latin" "Rock" or "Classical". |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I can't find my serial number, can I have yours? |
| |
| A: No. If your game didn't COME with a serial number, you could try |
| contacting Maxis through their website: |
| http://www.thesims.com/ |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I have some bizarre and obscure technical problem.... |
| |
| A: I have no idea how to fix technical problems, such as the game not |
| running or the game crashing. Try looking at Maxis' Official Sims |
| Website: |
| http://www.thesims.com/ |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
================================================================================
Final Words...
================================================================================
_________________
Online Resources:
http://www.ea.com/ -- the publisher's site
http://www.thesims.com/ -- the Official Sims Site
This one is probably the one you will want
to go to the most often. They have
downloads to add to your game (new items
such as the Slot Machine), etc.
http://www.simzonline.com/ -- One of the best Fan Sites
http://thesims.xtremesimz.com/ -- Another of the best Fan Sites
This has a very large resource center for
finding skins, wallpapers, etc.
http://sims.xtremesimz.com/ -- The Sims Resource Center
http://www.projectsims.com/ -- Project Sims
http://www.synchroplay.com/mallofthesims/
-- Mall of the Sims
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ -- the best FAQs site on the net!
http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/25322.html
-- GameFAQs section on The Sims
http://www.cheatcc.com/ -- a great place for all your cheating needs
http://www.ebworld.com/ebx/ads/PROMOS/download/sims/default.asp
EBWorld made some neat skins that can be found at the above site.
ASCII Art created using the ASCII Art Maker by LTS (freeware)
You can probably find it at http://www.download.com/
This FAQ was written entirely using the GWD Text Editor: (shareware)
http://www.gwdsoft.com/
_________________________
Shameless Self Promotion:
I have also written FAQs for:
NES: Disney Adventures in the Magic Kingdom
The Legend of Zelda
SNES: Aerobiz Supersonic
Utopia: Creation of a Nation
PSX: Thousand Arms
PC: Baldur's Gate & Tales of the Sword Coast -- Walkthrough
-- NPC List
Colonization -- the Single Colony Strategy Guide
-- the Cheat Guide
Drakan: Order of the Flame
Dungeon Hack
Master of Magic (revision)
Pharaoh
Rollercoaster Tycoon
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar
Ultima 7: The Black Gate
Ultima 7 Part 2: Serpent Isle
Ultima Underworld -- Keyboard Commands
Ultima Underworld II -- Keyboard Commands
-- Spell List
All of my FAQs can be found at:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/
Questions? Comments? Mistakes? Wondering where all the Spam is?
Email me about it!
Email: manymoose@hotmail.com
ICQ: 185116
Email Policy: If you are going to email me about this game, please put
The Sims as the subject. Or Sims. Also please realize
that I am not hiding cheats or any other information, i.e.
everything I know about The Sims is in this guide.
_______________
Special Thanks:
Shyguy982 for his Trick in "Cheats & Tricks"
Kyrre Aalerud for the 3 tricks also in "Cheats & Tricks"
Anyone who has emailed me with something nice to say
CJayC for posting this FAQ and informing me (via his website) that The Sims
was out!
Will Wright for making this bizarrely fun game
Maxis and EA for publishing this uniquely addictive game
________________
Version History:
Preliminary Version 0.9 (2-11-00, 47k)
Original Version 1.0 (2-12-00, 63k)
Added the section Babies and Children
Finished all the other sections
Added a Trainer
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 1.1 (2-19-00, 64k)
Renamed the Cheats section to "Cheats & Tricks"
Changes in Version 1.5 (2-20-00, 74k)
Rewrote a lot of the information for clarity
Added lots of new information as well
Changes in Version 1.6 (2-21-00, 82k)
Added a neat new trick from Kyrre Aalerud
Added the Frequently Asked Questions Section
Changes in Version 1.7 (2-25-00, 86k)
Added several new Frequently Asked Questions
Started work on the Career Ladder Chart
Added a new Online Resource, and fixed another
Added 2 new Tricks to Cheats and Tricks
Other minute changes
Changes in Version 2.0 (2-26-00, 126k)
Spun out a new Section 6.1 and put the Career Tracks in there
Finished all the Career Tracks
Added 2 new Sections, 4.1 and 4.2, Cooking and Room Rating
Spun out another section 10.1 Death and Ghosts from section 10
Spun out the section 9.1 Children and School
Added another Alternate Floor Plan
Added another Frequently Asked Question (having to do with Hot Tubs)
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.1 (2-27-00, 127k)
Created a new section 2.1 The Bachelor Sim
Changes in Version 2.2 (2-28-00, 132k)
Added to the Bachelor Sim Section
Added the section 4.3 Alternative to Alarm Clocks
Also added the section 6.2 Abusing the Carpool
And also added the section 6.2.1 Early Morning Social Call
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.3 (2-29-00, 146k)
Spun out the section 11.1 Deleting Trash (and Bills too!) from the Cheats
& Tricks Section
Added the section 2.2 The Full House (8 Sims)
Renamed 6.1 to The Jobs Chart
Added the section 5.1 Befriending Mean Sims
Changed the Frequently Asked Questions Format
Added a couple new Frequently Asked Questions as well
Spun out the Changing the Radio Station Music section
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.4 (3-1-00, 153k)
Added the section 5.2 Carrying on Multiple Romances
Added the Section 5.3 Maintaining Relationships the Easy Way
Spell Checked the entire document (thanks to Red Phoenix who pointed out
that I needed to do this)
Added the section 9.2 What Kids Do
Added the section 2.1.1 The Bachelor Gets Married
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.5 (3-2-00, 164k)
Added a new Online Resource (Mall of the Sims)
Added a new Frequently Asked Question
Added the Section 3.1 Building a Better House
Added the Section 4.4 Who Needs a Trashcan?
Added the Section 8.1 Building that Second Story
Also added the Section 8.1.1 The "Flying" Second Story
Other Small Changes
__________________________
Misc Facts about this FAQ:
This FAQ was started on February 10, 2000; and released on February 11, 2000
The Original size of the FAQ was 47.1k
The size of the FAQ now is 164k, which is an increase of 248.2%
There were 33506 characters, 6863 words, and 953 lines in the Original
Preliminary Version.
There are now 103452 characters, 21561 words, and 2926 lines in this current
version.
If you were to print it out, it would take, 52 pages (average).
________
Stinger:
Reticulating Splines:
According to Webster's, to reticulate is: to divide, mark, or construct so
as to form a network. And a spline is: a function that is defined on an
interval, is used to approximate a given function, and is composed of pieces
of simple functions defined on subintervals and joined at their endpoints
with a suitable degree of smoothness.
Therefore, reticulating splines would be: Constructing network based
functions that are defined by divisible intervals while approximating said
network and composing it of pieces of simple functions defined on
subintervals and joined at their endpoints with a suitable degree of
smoothness.
-- Will Wright (from http://www.simzonline.com/)
________________________________________________________________________________
This Document is Copyright 2000 by Dan Simpson
The Sims is Copyright 2000 by Electronic Arts
I am not affiliated with Maxis, Electronic Arts, or anyone who had anything to
do with the creation of this game. This FAQ may be posted on any site so long
as NOTHING IS CHANGED and you EMAIL ME telling me that you are posting it. You
may not charge for, or in any way profit from this FAQ.
Version 2.5 (3-2-00)
by Dan Simpson (manymoose@hotmail.com, ICQ: 185116)
Email Policy: If you are going to email me about this game, please put
The Sims as the subject. Or Sims. Also please realize
that I am not hiding cheats or any other information, i.e.
everything I know about The Sims is in this guide.
_______________
.--------------------========= N O T E S =========-------------------------.
| |
| The most recent version of this FAQ can be found at: |
| http://www.gamefaqs.com/ |
| http://www.cheatcc.com/ |
| |
| If you are a webmaster and wish to post this on your web page, please email |
| me first. And if you do post this FAQ on your site, please make an attempt |
| to keep it up to date. There is nothing worse than getting emails from |
| people who saw an old version asking about things that are already in the |
| newer versions. Well, maybe there are worse things, but it IS annoying! |
| |
| BIG update this time. (Version 2.0) Decided to spruce up the format a bit |
| by "spinning off" some smaller sections from other sections to make |
| information easier to find. This is probably just the beginning! I'm |
| thinking to get the FAQ very "splintered" into many small sections rather |
| than a few large sections, thereby you won't have to dig through one big |
| section on "furnishing a house" to find information on Room Ratings, etc. |
| |
| In case you cared, The Sims has broken the SimCity 3000 sales record for the |
| first month of sales. SimCity 3000 went on to be the best grossing game of |
| 1999 (it didn't sell the most copies, RollerCoaster Tycoon did that, SC3K |
| simply pulled in more dollars due to a higher cost-per-sale average), so we |
| can safely assume that The Sims will be one of the top games of 2000! |
| |
| Be sure to check http://www.thesims.com/ every Thursday for a game update! |
| |
| This FAQ looks best in Courier New at about 9 points. |
'--------------------=================================-------------------------'
__________________
What's New in 2.5:
- Added a new Online Resource (Mall of the Sims)
- Added a new Frequently Asked Question
- Added the Section 3.1 Building a Better House
- Added the Section 4.4 Who Needs a Trashcan?
- Added the Section 8.1 Building that Second Story
- Also added the Section 8.1.1 The "Flying" Second Story
- Other Small Changes
For a complete Version History, check out the Final Words Section at the end
of the FAQ.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i.) What is The Sims?
1.) Getting Acquainted
2.) Creating a Family
a.) Creating a Sim
b.) Of Neatness and Maids
2.1) The Bachelor Sim
2.1.1) The Bachelor Gets Married
2.2) The Full House (8 Sims)
3.) Building a House
3.1) Building a Better House
4.) Furnishing a House
a.) Lighting and Lamps
b.) Decorations
4.1) Cooking (or, a Meal fit for a Sim!)
4.2) Room Rating
4.3) Alternative to Alarm Clocks
4.4) Who Needs a Trashcan?
5.) Of Friends and Lovers
a.) Socializing
b.) Marriage and Moving In
5.1) Befriending Mean Sims
5.2) Carrying on Multiple Romances
5.3) Maintaining Relationships the Easy Way
6.) Working (and Not)
a.) Quitting
b.) Job Events
6.1) The Jobs Chart (a.k.a. the Career Paths)
6.2) Abusing the Carpool
6.2.1) Early Morning Social Call (while Abusing the Carpool no
less!)
7.) Running an Efficient Household
8.) Expanding the House
8.1) Building that Second Story
8.1.1) The "Flying" Second Story
9.) Babies and Children
9.1) Children and School
9.2) What Kids Do
10.) Everything Else in the Neighborhood
10.1) Death and Ghosts
10.2) Changing the Radio Station Music
11.) Cheats & Tricks
11.1) Deleting Trash (and Bills too!)
Frequently Asked Questions
Final Words...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i. What is The Sims?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sims, simply put, is the People Simulator from the creator of SimCity.
So, what is a People Simulator? Well, you get to run the lives of everyone
in a neighborhood (not all at once, of course). Taking on one "family" at a
time, you try to guide them to success in life, love, and the workplace. Left
to their own devices, the Sims tend to simply tread water (i.e. they live
without a goal), and that is where you come in. I like to think of the player
as the Sims' ambition, their goals in life, if you will. You are that little
voice in their head that tells them to study Mechanics, or to take a shower,
in order to get that promotion. Without you, their ambition, the Sims
will tend to lounge around, fulfilling only their most immediate desire,
without any eye on the future.
Sim (noun) : A simulated person in a Maxis game. Ex: The Sim went to
SimCity to buy a bagel.
Updates to The Sims:
There are several new downloads available at the Official Site
(www.thesims.com of course!). These aren't any great Patches, but are some
neat new objects and skins. Maxis promises that every Thursday that they
will have some cool new thing on the site, and therefore every Thursday is
called SimDay. So far they have had 3 objects (a Slot Machine, a Cuckoo
Clock, and a Moose Head) and 5 Skins.
Mini-Review:
This is the first time a review of mine will be found in my FAQ. I just
felt that I needed to express my opinions on the game in a more
editorialized fashion than the normal FAQ sections allow.
I have been looking forward to The Sims since I heard about it back in
November. I couldn't quite put my finger on why this game sounded good to
me, but I was certainly intrigued. Controlling people's lives? Sounded
(strangely) like fun.
After having played it non-stop since I bought the game, I can sum up my
experience in one sentence: One of the most strangely addicting and
compelling games I have ever played. I haven't played a game this much
since Rollercoaster Tycoon, and that was back in April '99. That's almost
a year. I have stayed up many a night until 1 or 2 am, and only going to
sleep then so that I could get up the next day and play some MORE Sims!
In The Sims you take control of a family of Sims and try to guide them
through life. Along the way you develop friendships, work your way up the
career ladder at work, and try to keep your Sims fed and happy. You can
sit back and watch the Sims interact with each other, or you can take a more
active hand and FORCE them to do your bidding. You can even shut off their
Free Will.
Personal interactions between the Sims is often the most amusing part of the
game. Watch as someone will shoo another Sim out of the bathroom so he can
take a leak. Or as a Sim attempts to give another Sim a back rub, but is
pushed away. Then there are always the Sims who like each other... a lot,
and start getting passionate.
I also really enjoy the differences between the Sims. One may be very neat,
and like to clean up messes, and another may be extremely mean, and prone to
get into fights. Very interesting variety.
All in all I really enjoyed this game, and give it a 9.5.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Getting Acquainted
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the crazy world of The Sims. I'm assuming that you have gone
through the first Tutorial, and if not, then you probably should. It teaches
you all of the basics of the Sims and their needs. Once you have finished
with that little tutorial, save it and go back to the Neighborhood.
Note: There is only one neighborhood! Therefore there is also only one
Save Slot. Of course, there are lots of houses in the neighborhood,
so do you really need more than one save slot?
The first thing you should know, is that you control the entire neighborhood.
Not at the same time, but one house at a time. When you aren't directly
controlling a house, NOTHING HAPPENS THERE. It's like they are in stasis.
They can be called over to your current house (assuming you've met them), but
they won't actually do anything. They'll be exactly as you left them when you
go back to them. So, if you play one house, then switch to another, then
switch back to the first, it will be as if nothing has happened. If house 1
was eating breakfast, they'll still be doing that when you get back.
Note: There is ONE exception to the "nothing happens while you're away"
rule. And that is Relationships. If you have the Sims in your
current house flirt with the Sims from the other house and their
relationship improves, then that will carry over.
Another thing to know at the Neighborhood level is that the people you put in
the neighborhood are the only ones you can be friends with. That is, there
are no "random Sims" wandering about. Since your Sims require the friendships
of lots of other Sims (some careers require that you have lots of friends)that
means that you will have to work on the Neighborhood as a whole, rather than
single-mindedly working one house. (more on this in section 5. Of Friends and
Lovers)
Free Will: A quick little note here on Free Will. You CAN turn free will
off if you'd like to take full control of the Sims. With only
one or two Sims under your command this is an easy thing to do.
However, once you get up to 5 to 8 Sims, then it can get very
difficult to control all of their separate actions at once.
Free Will is useful to some extent--the Sims will do things that
are quite beneficial to themselves, such as cleaning up the
house, or talking to the neighbor. Although you should know
that the Sims aren't very efficient in what they choose to do.
Suppose that you need to improve both Hygiene and Comfort. The
best choice (if you have the Time) is a bath. Well maybe the
Sim wants a shower. Or what if the Sim takes the bath just as
the carpool pulls up. Therefore you can't totally give over to
free will. But neither should you destroy it and control their
every move.
Sims WILL ignore your commands if what you're telling them to
do seems contrary to what they need most. A starving man won't
go play basketball (or at least, is far less likely to!).
Well on we go! Click on the Create a Family button to get things going.
(You could, of course, play the Goths, or the Newbies, but you will need to
create a new family to start filling in the Neighborhood)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Creating a Family
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ah, your first family (besides the Newbies). Unless you created a family
earlier that failed, and now you want to find out what you did wrong. Either
way, we're going to create a Sim Family! Nothing fancy, mind you, just
something to get started with.
We're going to create two Sims for this family. Two is, in my opinion, the
best number to start with. It isn't so hard to control as, say, eight, and
is infinitely better than just having one as having an extra person gives you
a great advantage over having just the one.
What we're essentially going to do is to divide the tasks that our two family
members are going to have. One person is going to get a job, and the other
is going to take care of the house, cook, clean, and be the primary socialite.
You really don't need to employ both people at this stage of the game. This
strategy really helps in the mornings when one person has to get ready for
work (shower, toilet, etc.) the other cooks breakfast. When the worker goes
off to work, the other one stays home, cleans up, and meets the neighbors who
will all drop by (not all at once). Then later in the game, this Sim will
call up those neighbors and try to make them into Family Friends. Also your
stay at home Sim can answer the phone (which may be a Reward or another
beneficial Event), pay the bills, etc.
a. Creating a Sim
So now we need to create some Sims! Two, in fact. The stats that you
can give them effect what the Sims want to do, not what you will make
them do. So a low Neatness isn't all that bad if you are going to
be forcing them to clean up anyway. Of course, if you are a more
passive Sims player, (you don't plan on telling them EVERY LITTLE
THING that they should do), then SOMEONE should have a high Neatness.
Plus it's nice when the Sims will automatically clean the table after
eating.
Try to keep your Sims distinctive and different. The stay at home
Sim needs to be outgoing, nice, and playful, while the worker Sim
needs to be active and outgoing. Beyond that keep the stats somewhat
average.
Note: If you keep a stat blank (that is, empty), then that person
will be the opposite of that stat. So if he or she has no
Nice, then that person will be mean, and prone to piss others
off. That makes getting friends difficult!
Another thing that stats effect is what type of recreation they most
enjoy. Inactive people love the TV, while more active would like
Dancing or other more interactive entertainment.
Note: You don't need to use up all of the Stats points while creating
a Sim, in fact, you could use NO stats points at all and make
a surly, messy, lazy, mean, introverted Sim!
b. Of Neatness and Maids
One alternative to Neat Sims is to hire a Maid. This way you can avoid
using ANY neat points to spend them elsewhere, and still have a
wonderfully clean house. At most the Maid will cost you ў70 a day,
which isn't all that expensive. Plus the Maid is quite attractive! If
you DO hire a Maid, then you don't really NEED a stay at home Sim
(although I'd still recommend it for the Socializing aspect).
Note: There are more consequences of having a Messy Sim than one
would think. When the messy Sim gets out of the shower, he
ALWAYS leaves a little "puddle". Also, he NEVER flushes the
toilet.
For now we don't want anymore than these two adult Sims. Once your family is
finished, you cannot add new members by simply creating them... The only way
to get new Sims is to Marry them, ask them to Move In (between Same Sex
couples, either as friends or lovers), or to have a baby.
Now let's build them a house. (or if you'd rather not build your own house,
there are several already in the neighborhood)
(The following 2 sub sections are alternative ideas to having 2 Sims, the
first having to do with having just one Sim, and the second to having an
Arkload of Sims, 8!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1 The Bachelor Sim
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I say "Bachelor" I mean any Sim who is living alone, not just male Sims.
I have said that your first Family of Sims should probably be 2 Sims, well
here are a few different ideas on how to play. The first being the Bachelor.
The trick with the Bachelor is that you have no one to help you. There is no
stay at home Sim. So your Bachelor must get a job, and while he (or she, but
for the purposes of this section, the Bachelor is a he) is at work, you can't
socialize (you can even watch as all your neighbors drop by, and leave,
because there's no one to greet them), nor can you clean up or have a meal
ready when he gets home. So the real problem here is TIME. You simply never
seem to have enough to Socialize, Work, and Improve your Skills.
So here are a couple ideas to having a good Bachelor:
1. Pick a job with decent hours. By this I mean stay away from the career
tracks that demand a lot of your time. I should suggest the Military
career track as it has good starting pay and fairly steady hours. Also
the Military requires the LEAST amount of Family Friends, and doesn't
require ANY until Level 5.
2. Hire a maid. This way your Bachelor can live like a slob, and not care.
This frees him up to hit the exercise machine, or call a date. The maid
costs ў10 an hour, and has a working hours of 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, for
a maximum of ў70 a day. However, if she runs out of things to clean
she leaves then.
3. Build a smaller house, and use the extra money to buy a better bed,
fridge, etc. Since you will have less time to do things (having no one
to help you) you will need the better things to be more efficient!
4. Go to work every other day (depending on how much money you need). In
the first few levels of your job, you will probably want to go everyday
because you need the money. But at the higher levels, you need TIME
more than anything, so skip a day. As long as you don't skip two days
in a row, you will be fine. Use that day to improve your skills, make
some friends, etc. You won't get paid or promoted, but it won't hurt
your chances of getting promoted either.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1.1 The Bachelor Gets Married
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your Bachelor Sim can't stay a hermit forever, he eventually will fall in
love, and want someone to move in or marry him. However, there is a better
way than simply having him marry someone.
Here's the idea. Your Bachelor Sim works fairly far up the career ladder,
possibly to the top without getting married. He's putting career before
relationships, only socializing to Gain Friends or Maintain Friendships for
work. Once he is at or near the top of the ladder, he will be rich, and
very likely talented as well. He'll have a great paying job, and lots of
skills.
Why not then, get HIM to move out?
Here's what I mean. Say you're starting up a new family. Wouldn't it be
nice if you had someone who had a nice high paying job? Well that's precisely
what you should do! Marry the bachelor from the OTHER SIM. That way he will
move out of his house, bring all his assets with him, PLUS he will keep his
great job. This is a great way to help out Beginning Sim Families. If his
net worth was ў28k, then that family will gain that much when he is married
into the family.
Sweet deal!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.2 The Full House (8 Sims)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Starting your first game with 8 Sims would be a little crazy. Just keeping
up with ONE Sim's needs is hard enough, much less 8 Sims who all need the
same things. Plus the most difficult thing about starting out with an 8
Sim Family is simply getting them all into a furnished house using only the
20k that you start with. I would normally just advise you to start with a
small family, then build up from there, adding members by marriage or child
birth.
However, there is a good way to start out with 8 members. Don't build any
special house, except having a longer bedroom. Stick in at least 4 beds in
here. If you have any children, place as many 2 person beds as you have
children. The bedroom will resemble a military barracks, but there's nothing
to be done about that yet.
Make sure there are at least 3 different Fun things for the Sims to do, or
they will all fight over their limited Fun items. A radio, bookcase, and a
TV should be enough.
Now get all but one adult Sim jobs.
Tip: Before fully furnishing your house buy the cheap computer and use that
to get your Sims jobs. This will give you the choice of 3 different
jobs for each Sim. Then once they all have jobs, sell the computer.
If you sell it within 24 hours of buying it, you will get a full
refund.
With everyone working, you should get quite a lot of money, especially if any
of them get promoted.
Tip: If you start to get overwhelmed with these Sims, use the PAUSE feature
then decide what your Sims should do, then UNPAUSE. Remember I did
advise starting with only 2 Sims, a much more manageable number.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Building a House
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our objective with building the house is to create a livable area and have
enough money left over to actually put THINGS in the house.
Here's our objectives: We need a good sized house (not large), with three
rooms (living room/kitchen/dining room, bathroom, and
one bedroom). The Sims don't require their own
private bedrooms, and will do quite fine in a
"communal" bedroom. (where everyone sleeps in the
same room)
We're going to start the house a minimum of 2 or 3 squares away from the
nearby sidewalk. Now we create the Living Room/Kitchen. A good size for this
is a smallish rectangle, about 11 x 6 squares. Build the entrance door near
the mailbox and trashcan. Now off to the side of the house build a 4 x 4 room
to be your bathroom. You don't need any larger at the moment.
------------
| | Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| |
----------------e------------- Note: Two horizontal characters
| | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Bath | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | room |
| | | Note: To build a "square", hold down
| Living |-------- the shift while building a
| Room | wall outwards.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
As you can see, this is a very small type of house, but is perfectly suited
for two people. This is a "basic" house, and as your family grows you will
need to add to it. Notice that there isn't a wall between the kitchen and the
living room. This is quite intentional to aid in the parties that you will
be throwing here! The open space allows people to move about more freely, and
to prevent people from running into each other. Also note that this leaves
space to the left of the Bedroom which is ideal for building another room,
be it a new bedroom, or an entertaining room, or even just an outdoor
pavilion.
Once the basic floor plan is done, we need to apply wallpaper to the outside
of the house, and to each room individually. The last few wallpapers in the
list are specifically for the outside, and aluminum siding is cheap (ў7).
Note: To apply a wallpaper to every available surface, hold down the SHIFT
key, then click. If you're doing this to the outside, it won't
affect the inside, and if you are wallpapering the interior of a
room, then it will only wallpaper that room.
For the kitchen I would use the Deep Jade or the Tuscany Tin (ў6). The living
room you can do separate from the Kitchen if you want, although you can't use
the SHIFT function if you do, as they aren't really separate rooms. In the
bathroom I would go with a "Too Turquoise" (ў6).
Now we need to add flooring (can't have your Sims living on bare grass). Both
the kitchen and the bathroom have their own matching floor sets (if you chose
Tuscany, the best flooring would be the Il Perrinni Italliante tile (ў20)).
In the bedroom I would go with the simply Blue Carpet, it's cheap, and
effective.
Windows: Each room needs quite a number of windows to keep the room bright
and happy. This effects one of the Sims' eight needs, that of Room.
So place windows around each room until it is as bright as it can
be. Don't forget this! Also, when you start furnishing a house,
you need to place Lamps for when it gets dark.
Which window you pick is entirely up to your individual preference!
Note: Don't bother with a second story yet, as you don't need it, and you
probably can't afford it! See the section on Expanding the House below
for more information on Second Stories.
Tip: A backdoor is a very useful thing to have, as it allows your Sims
another way in or out (if the main entrance is blocked), and can provide
for a nice patio outside as well. Try putting in a flamingo in the
backyard, just for fun. Also the neighbors seem to like it.
Alternate Floor plan 1:
------------
| | Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| |-------- Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| e |
----------------e----- Bath | Note: Two horizontal characters
| | room | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | |
| |-------- This alternate version moves the
| Living | bathroom up 2 squares and builds a
| Room | door into the bedroom.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
Alternate Floor plan 2:
----------
/ \ Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| |-------- Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| e |
----------------e----- Bath | Note: Two horizontal characters
| | room | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | |
| |-------- This alternate version cuts the
| Living | square corners to be diagonal. This
\ Room / helps Room rating, and looks more
----------e--------- attractive.
=======================
Tr
Now that we have a house, we need to buy things for the house!
But first some ideas on Better Houses (i.e. Richer).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.1 Building a Better House
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not to be confused with Section 7. Expanding the House, this section deals
with building a house with more money to start with. After all, sometimes
it's easier to start over than to keep adding onto a current house.
--------------e---------------
/ e e \ Key:
| Bedroom ---e--- Bedroom |
| One / \ Two ----------- e - Door -- - wall
| e Bath e | | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| | Room | | Pool |
-----e-----| |-----e-----| Hall | Note: Two horizontal characters
| \___e___/ | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Hottub | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen Living | |
| Room |\ / Notice just how much larger this
| | ---e---- house is than the previous
\ / models. Also, it makes the
------e-------------e--------- attempt to "round out" every
+ + room to improve Room Rating.
+ +
+ + This is a very large and
================================ spacious house, but designed to
Tr keep most everything "close by".
Notice particularly the amount
of doors that lead into the
house.
Why two bedrooms? When you have a baby, place the baby, plus one caregiver
to spend the night in their own bedroom. Then when the baby wakes up and
needs attention, only one of your Sims will have to be awakened by it. Plus
this allows you to do separate Socializing (you know, kissing other people
than your wife).
Alternate 1: The Second Story
Key: e - Door -- - Wall
Floor One: SS - Stairs + - Path
Pool and Hot Tub Outside Tr - Trash
/------e--------------e-------------e----\ This house keeps the first floor
| SS | Bath | very spartan and uses half the
| SS e Room | space for an outdoor pool and
| Kitchen SS Living | | spa area. The Stairs lead up to
| SS Room |\ / a Second Story, which will
| SS | -------- contain 2 bedrooms, a bathroom,
\ / as well as an extra room, for
------e-------------e--------- fun.
+ +
+ +
+ +
================================
Tr
Floor Two:
/----------------------------------------\ You could always leave the
| | SS | | | "Extra" room wall-less and have
| e SS e e Extra | it be a balcony.
| Bedroom | | Bedroom | |
| ---e---- |\ /
| e bath e | --------
\ | room | /
------e-------------e---------
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4. Furnishing a House
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We're going to build things based on the Sims' Needs, with the most pressing
needs first. We'll start with Hunger (the only Need that your Sims can Die
of) and furnish the Kitchen.
Kitchen Objects you Need:
Refrigerator (ў600 for the Llamark)
Cooking Appliance (ў400 for the Dialectic Free Standing Range, stove)
Empty Counter
Dish Cleaning Apparatus (either a Sink or the Fuzzy Logic Dishwasher, ў650)
Fire Alarm (ў50)
Food Processor (ў220)
Trashcan (or if you can afford it, a Trash Compactor)
Here's what I did. At the left end of the Kitchen is a 6x long wall. At the
top I put a Dialectic Range, then a Fridge, then a Counter (if you did the
Jade walls and floors, then do the Jade counter top, otherwise just keep it
cheap!), then a counter with a Sink, and another blank counter. This leaves
one square left in the bottom corner, but we'll use that later when we have
more money. (By moving the Counter with the Sink to the corner, and filling
that hole with a Dishwasher) Finally on the empty counter place the Food
Processor.
Note: When someone cooks a full meal it will go like this, they will take
the food out of the Fridge, and stick it into the food processor
(or onto a counter if you don't have one, but the food processor
adds more Food value to the meal), then from there onto the stove,
and from the stove to the counter where it is finished.
Tip: Be vigilant with who makes the meals! Every Sim when they get hungry
will go to the fridge to get a snack or to make a quick meal. But
you should let only the person with the most Cooking skill cook, and
then have them SERVE the meal. This creates 8 portions for only
ў20 which is very cost effective. Plus the higher cooking skill
reduces the chance of Fire and increases the Food Value.
Now 2 squares away from that stuff place a Card Table (ў95). Around it place
4 Chairs (the cheapest chair works fine, ў80). Make sure the chairs face the
table.
Tip: One good way to place the chairs is to put all the chairs in the
corners, like this:
Ch (not to scale)
Ch .....
.....
..... Ch
Ch
What this does, is keeps the other corners not touched by the chairs
completely free for your Sims to put things on like the mail, and for
YOU to put things like Lava Lamps (ў80) on. The Sims will be eating
closer together, but they don't seem to mind. This table is a 2x2
table, so how does this work with the longer Parisian table?
Ch (also not to scale)
Ch ..... Ch
.....
.....
Ch ..... Ch
Ch
This table is longer, and can hold more chairs. I recommend the
above pattern with the Parisian, as you fit more people, but keep the
same amount of Places for Sims to Drop things (like Gifts from other
Sims) or for you to put things (like radios).
Onto the Bathroom.
Bathroom Objects you Need:
Toilet (ў300 for the Hygeia-O-Matic)
Major Hygiene Item (ў640 for the SpaceMiser Shower)
Bathroom Sink (ў400 for the Andersonville sink)
The placement of these objects isn't so tough, just put them in the corners,
making sure that they face the right direction. If you have the money, I
would suggest also putting a Medicine Cabinet in above the Sink. However,
the Medicine Cabinet isn't as useful as a plain mirror placed in the living
room. (Mirrors are used to improve the Charisma Skill) This is because
other Sims like to use the bathroom, and you don't want to hold them up while
you make a speech to a mirror. We want the shower right now because it is
cheaper, and more time efficient. Plus we're saving up for that REALLY good
bathtub! (The Hydrothera) Once you get the money, you definitely want that
good tub!
However, you will still want that shower. Nothing beats the quick shower,
plus your Sim won't always need a full bath.
Pressing onward to the Bedroom.
Bedroom Objects you will Need:
1 Bed for each Person (in this case 2, Spartan Bed, ў300 each)
You won't spend too much time in the Bedroom, so you don't need too much more
than that. Don't worry about the Room rating much either, so don't worry
about lighting or decorations. One thing that you might want in the bedroom
is an End Table with an Alarm Clock on it.
Note: Alarm Clocks do need to be set by your Sims before they can be
effective. The alarm goes off 2 hours before your Sim has to be
to work. If you want more time than that to get ready, you can
always manually waken your Sim. Although, if you get a Sim up before
he or she is fully rested (full energy bar) they will stomp about
a bit trying to wake up.
Tip: The first beds that you can get aren't very efficient at getting your
Sims their Energy. So as soon as humanly possible get that really
expensive (and worth it!) bed.
And finally the Living Room.
Living Room Objects you will Need:
1 Couch (Contempto is ў150)
Television (Monochrome is ў85, Trottco 27" is ў500)
Bookcase (ў250 for the Cheap Pine)
Desk/Table (Mesquite Desk/Table is ў80)
Radio (Down Wid Dat Boom Box is ў100)
Phone (could also put this in the Bedroom, although it wakes them up!)
Security Alarm
Have the Television placed by one of the walls, and have the couch face the
Television about 2 squares away, and put the Bookcase next to the TV by the
wall, so that your Sims can read and sit on the couch. Now on another wall
place the table and place the Radio on it. Place the Phone on the wall behind
the radio, and the Security Alarm anywhere on the wall.
Note: All appliances, computers, etc., can break down and need to be
repaired. You can either repair them yourself (and maybe get
electrocuted and killed) or call the Repairman who charges you ў50 per
hour. Until you get your Mechanical skills up (via reading) you
should probably just call the experts.
Note: An alternative to placing the Security Alarm in the living room is
to put it outside. Then the Thief doesn't even have to enter the house
to trip the alarm. There's more on burglars in the Section Everything
Else in the Neighborhood.
a. Lighting and Lamps
Now that we've adequately furnished the house (I say adequate, because
once you get money, you'll want to replace your shoddy items with better
ones, like your little monochrome TV for a HUGE Plasma TV), you will want
to start filling your house with Lamps. I would place 1 lamp in the
bathroom, and 1 in the Bedroom, and a lot in the Living Room/Kitchen.
Keep the lamps spaced out to keep the lighting in the room even. (Say, 3
to 4 squares apart)
Check out the Sims website (http://www.thesims.com) to download the new
Wall Lamps, which are placed on the walls rather than on the floor, in
the same way that the Fire Alarm attaches to the wall.
Note: Lights can burn out, and need to have their bulbs replaced.
BEWARE! Your Sims can get electrocuted by doing this! There
isn't a good chance of it (maybe 1 in 5), but you may want to
call a repairman.
b. Decorations
The other way to pump up the Room value is to put decorations into a
room. And the easiest of the decorations to place, are the Paintings.
Since these go on the wall, they don't take up any space, and unlike
plants, they don't require water.
Most decorations also have a Fun value, which happens whenever someone
looks at it. For example, you can have your Sim check out a painting.
Also the better objects (such as the Plasma TV) also have a positive
effect on the Room.
Use Decorations to get the Room rating up, not only for your Sims, but
to help the Mood of visiting Sims. That helps you make friends! You
know the old saying, a happy Sim is a friendly Sim.
More on the Room rating in that section below (Room Rating).
I know your house seems rather Spartan (you even have the Spartan beds, no
doubt!), but this is just the starter equipment. As you go along, UPGRADE!
Replace that fridge as soon as you can, as well as the Range. These will
help alleviate your Sims' hunger rating better. Also replace those Spartan
beds with better ones. If you get your 2 Sims to like each other enough, you
can get a 2 person bed, and get them into it. I would also definitely get
rid of that couch the first chance you get, and also get rid of the cheap
lights in favor of the top of the line lights.
Generally you spend a good deal of the game replacing your old junk with the
better stuff.
Let's make some friends...
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4.1 Cooking (or, a Meal fit for a Sim!)
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But first, let's look a little deeper into the realm of Cooking for Sims. As
I have said a number of times, we want the Stay at Home Sim to be our Cook,
and therefore they should spend a good deal of time Studying Cooking.
Whenever they have a spare moment, they should grab that book and study until
they get all the way up to 10 Cooking Points. This helps in two ways: One,
they are far less likely to burn down the house (unless using the Grill), and
they prepare more satisfying meals.
Beyond simply helping the Cook become a better Chef, you can also improve
your equipment, and how you prepare the meals.
Let's start with the equipment. The first step in cooking is the
Refrigerator, and, no surprise here, the better the Fridge, the more
satisfying the meals (the more it satisfies the Hunger Need, that is). The
next piece of equipment is the Preparation part, which can be either just a
countertop, or the Food Processor. The Food Processor is about twice as good
as a mere countertop, and is faster to boot, so getting one of those is quite
valuable. Then comes the cooking implement, from Microwave (the worst) to the
Gas Range (the best). Finally you have to set the meal down on an empty
counter top to serve the meal. (only necessary if you ARE doing a SERVE, if
you are merely HAVING dinner this is skipped)
Note: If a step along the meal preparation chain is broken (say you have
no preparation surface, or your range is broken, etc.) then you will
get a different (and less satisfying) meal. If you don't have a prep
surface or food processor you end out with a Can (or cans) of Beans.
If you prepare it, but have no way to cook it, then you get a salad.
These results ALSO occur if you have the item, but can't get to it.
So if another Sim is in between your Cook and the Stove, you could
end out with Salad.
Next is how you prepare the meals. There are 4 basic options at every meal:
Snack, Quick Meal, Have Meal, and Serve Meal. I would heartily recommend
doing ONLY "Serve Meal"s and having them cooked ONLY by your best Chef. Then
the meals will be very effective at removing hunger. This requires that you
constantly check your other Sims when they get hungry as they will want to
have Snacks or Quick Meals. It's much more cost efficient to have just the
Big Meals (Serve Dinner, Serve Breakfast, etc.)
Other Options:
If you have no way of preparing your own meals, you can always call for
pizza (ў40). It also takes some time for the pizza to arrive, and it isn't
very satisfying.
Also you can use a Grill to grill up some food. This isn't so satisfying
and can cause a fire (if something is too close to the grill).
Both these options do make for some good socializing, however.
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4.2 Room Rating
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The Room Rating is influenced by quite a number of things, but we'll boil it
down to the essentials. One, is how well lit the room is. This is influenced
(in the day) by windows, and in the night by Lamps. Two, is what is in the
room that improves it, such as decorations. Three, is what is in the
room that degrades it, such as garbage and messes. And four, the size of the
room, the larger the better.
In the early part of the game you probably can't afford the mighty
Torchosterone lamp (the best lamp in the game, as it improves Room rating two
ways, by being a Lamp, and by being a Decoration), but as soon as you get
some steady cash flow, start replacing your old lamps with the good ones.
Tip: In the beginning of the game, only buy a few lamps. It will be dark,
and your room rating won't be so great, but you will save money (all
objects degrade in value over time) so that you can buy the better
lights later. Also the good lamps tend to need less bulb
replacements.
All the good objects also have a Room rating attached to them. Things like
the Plasma TV, the good couches, etc. Therefore, once you have all the neat
gadgets in your living room, do you really need some art deco piece?
The Outside Room rating is probably the most important, at least as far as
your Job goes. It's probably already well lit, and large, so the only two
things that you can do to improve it are to keep it clean, and add some
decoration. A fountain and some flamingoes would go well out there. Plus you
could put a fireplace out there if you really wanted to.
Note: Keep in mind that if you let something go to Pot (such as a flower
dying, or fish dying, a computer breaking, etc.) then it will pull
down the Room Rating just like trash. After all, if you can't use
the object as it was meant to be used, it's not much more than trash!
Tip: The Fireplace has the best Room Rating (when lit anyway) of anything.
HOWEVER, it can cause things (such as objects, or Sims) to catch on
fire, and should be placed well away from anything!
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4.3 Alternative to Alarm Clocks
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As anyone who has had to wake up to an alarm clock might say, it isn't the
most pleasant feeling. Yet the alarm clock is the only way to get your Sims
up in time for work. Or is it?
Sims tend to sleep until their Energy Bar is full, then they also tend to
keep on sleeping until an alarm clock goes off, or you wake them up. So you
could just wake them up as soon as you notice their Energy bar full green (or
at any set time that you want, although Sims take longer to get up if they
aren't fully rested), but I prefer this little trick.
If the Sim is sleeping, but is fully rested, he will tend to keep on sleeping
until he has a reason to get up. Simply add something to his Queue (such as
using the Toilet) and once his Energy bar fills up, he will wake up and start
working on his queue. This way your Sim gets to be fully rested. This is a
little more dynamic than simply waking your Sim with an alarm clock 2 hours
before the Carpool arrives
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4.4 Who Needs a Trashcan?
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There are 3 forms of waste management in The Sims:
1. Your outside trashcan. This is part of the Lot when you buy it, and
you can neither move it, nor sell it. This trashcan is here to stay.
2. A standard trashcan. This holds trash, and can be put anywhere you
want. When it fills up with trash (it doesn't take long!) it will take
down the Room Rating until someone takes out the trash.
3. And finally there is the Trash Compactor, which not only can it hold
more Garbage (because it compacts the garbage), but when it gets full,
it does not take down the room rating, because the garbage is self-
contained.
However, you can probably get away with NOT HAVING A HOUSE TRASHCAN at all.
You can never get rid of the First type of trashcan, so why should you buy
any more trashcans?
Here's what I'm talking about. There are only THREE MAIN types of trash
(there are more than 2 types, but you won't come across the others often),
Snacks, Newspapers, and Gifts. Consider for a moment that the place most
likely to need a trashcan is the Kitchen area, which is notably near the
exterior trash anyway (well it should be, it is in my designs). Therefore the
walk outside to the trash isn't much longer than that to go outside. The
important thing here is that we SKIP A STEP. If you don't have an interior
trashcan, you NEVER HAVE TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH.
For a different, i.e. "cheating", tactic on this, see section 11.1 Deleting
Trash (and Bills too!).
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5. Of Friends and Lovers
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Your Sims are going to need some friends in The Sims. Not only to keep your
Sims from going insane (Social being one of their 8 Needs), but also to
advance in certain job fields you will need a certain number of friends. (for
example, on the political career track, to become a Senator you need 14
friends, and mayor requires 17!)
Note: Your Sim does not personally need to be a friend with someone, as
long as SOMEONE in your family is friends with them, that is enough.
In other words you only need family friends, not personal friends.
When you first move into your house, various people from the neighborhood will
come by and chat with you. Make sure to greet them! They might not come back
if you don't. Once that new Sim is greeted then that person is "known" and at
any time, you can call them on the phone to get them to come over. (unless
they are working at that exact moment, but you can call them before or after
work)
Note: Yeah it sounds stupid but, the Sim you are calling also needs to
have a phone for this to work. I mention this because you might want
to create a large 8 person family, stick them on a vacant lot, and
befriend them. If you want to do that, at least build one wall with
a phone attached to it!
Once greeted, this neighbor Sim will start working to fulfill his or her
needs, just as your current Sims do. If there is food out, and they're hungry
they'll eat it (but they can't fix themselves any food, not even a snack). If
they have to go to the bathroom, they'll go (but they can't shower, or take a
bath). Mostly, however, what they want to do, is to socialize!
a. Socializing
When you first start socializing with someone, keep it simple. Just
talk. As your relationship gets better (10+ or so... depends on the
Sim), start complimenting them, and telling jokes. Avoid doing anything
else for awhile. Also, if they try to do something too intimate to you,
and your "rating" (click on the Relationship button to see the number
rating of how much you like them. By the way, they also have a number
for you, and they may not be the same number... You might love them, and
they might not care for you!) is not very high, you may want to cancel
their action. So if you see "Be Hugged" by someone you just met, you
may want to click it to get rid of it.
As you get to know someone (40+) you want to start dancing, and hugging.
Dancing is not considered sexual, and doing it is not coming on to them.
And as you get even higher (70+) you may want to start flirting, and
maybe even kissing! This all depends on where you want this relationship
to go. Although you can be in love with EVERYONE in the neighborhood
(except children), you probably won't want to. It makes parties awkward
if you are in love with everyone there. Someone might want to kiss you,
and if you are in love with everyone in the room...
Tip: If you hear the "bad" music (meaning usually that something is going
wrong, it sounds like a bad trumpet) and you just flirted with someone
(or kissed, hugged, or danced with them), then you probably just
flirted with someone's significant other! Check your "queue" to see
if someone is going to slap you, and if so, click it to stop them.
(Pause the game, if that helps)
So how do you come onto someone else's significant other? Go into an
empty room (if none are available, go outside), and Call Over that
Sim that you like. Then flirt away!
By the way, it doesn't matter if you hug them (or kiss them...) or if
they hug you, their significant other will still get mad. Although
maybe not at you...
b. Marriage and Moving In
When you get someone higher up on the Relationship-O-Meter, you will get
the option to ask them to marry (propose) or move in with you. Whether
they say yes is based on their mood, and their opinion of you.
Getting someone to marry/move in with you is simply a two stepped
process. First you must get them to love you. This is built up
gradually. Start out with a friendship, then gradually work up to love.
(Getting them in love with you is not necessary for Move Ins) Once you
believe that they love you enough, now you have to work on their Mood.
Sims will only marry you if all their needs are being met, and are
therefore happy enough to marry. As such, you will want to feed him or
her, entertain them, and generally keep them comfortable and happy.
Propose, and they're in!
Note: Moving In is only between Same Sex couples, whether they are
lovers, or just roommates.
Whenever someone is brought into the family through marriage or moving
in, they not only bring any children they have with them, but if they are
the only member of their family, they will sell their old house, and
bring that money plus the cash they had on hand to their new family.
Warning: When someone joins the family, they can no longer be
considered a family friend! Although they remain a close
personal friend (and possibly a lover) they are no longer
counted in the Family Friend count. (Although they ARE
counted as such in the Neighborhood, if you hold the mouse
over their house)
Note: So, you had someone marry you, and they were the last in their
family, and so sold the house. Well the house is still in the
neighborhood, and furthermore, it is in EXACTLY the same
condition as it was when the person left it! So if someone new
moves into it, they might find dirty dishes!
All relationships wither over time, and as such, you need to constantly keep
on socializing with your family friends to make sure that they STAY family
friends!
Tip: When working to maintain a relationship, you needn't work as hard at
it as when you were building the relationship. So call the Sim over,
talk a bit, maybe give a hug or two, then once the Rating is back up,
tell them to go home. Then move onto the next Sim...
Social Activities:
Talking -- usually the most successful for simply improving the rating.
This one also happens, to a lesser degree, when two Sims are
doing the same thing, such as both watching TV or eating dinner.
Compliment -- depending on how much they like you, and what type of person
they are, the Sim you compliment will likely be impressed by
this. They might, however, take it the wrong way. (best if
done over 10)
Joke -- depending on how playful the Sim is, and how much they like you,
this will help your relationship. Best if used over 10. Also
increases both of your Fun ratings
Hug -- a better social activity, best between good friends, and lovers. Can
make the other Sim's lover(s) jealous, though.
Back Rub -- increases the Sim's comfort level, and helps socialization.
Also will increase jealousy.
Dance -- increases Fun rating, and makes others jealous. Best if used only
between good friends (40+ or so).
Note: There are two ways of dancing with someone. One is to click on
the Sim and select Dance, and the other is to wait for someone to
dance by the Radio, and then click on the radio and click Join.
The second one will help Fun, but won't help Social (but they're
less likely to turn it down!).
Flirt -- for when you want the relationship to go further. Use this on
friends to make them lovers. Best if used over 80. And you
guessed it, makes other Sims jealous!
Kiss -- the ultimate sign of affection! Also the most likely to get someone
slapped, if either of the kissing Sims is already attached.
Others: Brag, Tease, and Fight
Note: So, can Sims get into homosexual relations? Yes, but only if you make
them. They won't seek it out on their own. But it's just as easy to
get 2 same sex people together as two of the opposite sex together.
One final thing here. What do you do when you want someone to Move OUT? Well
you could kill them (there ARE ways...), but if you're less bloodthirsty than
that, here's what you can try. Load up another household somewhere, with
another family that you aren't too likely to play often, and who has room for
one more. Call up the person that you are trying to get rid of (or if they
just moved into the neighborhood, wait for him or her to come around). Then
socialize the Sim until you can get them to move in with you. Now they've
left your first Sim family and joined a new one.
Note: Sims may also pack up and leave if they get into a fight. At which
point they disappear forever.
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5.1 Befriending Mean Sims
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Just a quick note on how you should go about making friends with a mean Sim.
The mean Sim tends to like to Taunt, Brag, and Insult the other Sims. This
makes them happy (and gives THEM a better opinion of YOUR Sim, but makes YOUR
Sim hate them). But it won't ever get them any friends, which is where you
come in.
In any social situation with a mean Sim, just keep an eye on your Sim's
Queue to check for "Be teased", "Be insulted", etc. Whenever any of these
pop up, just cancel them.
Tip: Keep social interactions with Mean Sims simple (just Talking) until
they start to like you. Once they like you, they are far less likely
to be mean to you. So after your Sim is done talking, PAUSE, talk
again, then UNPAUSE. Allow no other interaction to take place.
Tip: Another way to avoid mean actions is to enter Group Interaction. Have
the Mean Sim eat dinner with your Sim, or watch TV. This grows their
relationship slower, but safer.
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5.2 Carrying on Multiple Romances
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Your Sim(s) can fall in love with anyone and everyone. Sims are rather easy
about who they fall in love with, all they have to have is a pulse.
However, things start to get really sticky when one Sim is having relations
with multiple other Sims. You know what I mean, Jealousy. When a Sim sees
her boyfriend kissing someone else, she tends to react badly. She might slap
someone, or stalk off, or even get into a fight. You could completely lose
someone's friendship this way. They might even leave the game if provoked
enough (via fighting that is).
Yet the "romantic" actions are very common at the high levels of a
relationship. You can't very well go without hugging a friend, can you? In
fact, as you get closer to 100 in relationship points, you start losing the
basic things, such as Talking, Telling Jokes, and Compliment. Which means,
that the only way to maintain good relations, is to Hug, Kiss, and Flirt.
But how to avoid that thorn of jealousy?
- First off, never EVER do your socializing outside where everyone can see
you. This does not include areas that are hidden behind a fence. Sims
can tend to wander the neighborhood, and what if the husband of the girl
you are kissing wanders by?
- Second, if you are having many people over, and you THINK that 2 of them
may already be romantically "linked", then go into an unoccupied room, and
do a CALL OVER to get the right Sim in that room. Bedrooms work great for
this. Once the Sim is alone with you... well...
- Third, try to avoid falling in love with 2 people who are already in love.
These love triangles are just begging for trouble. Even if you aren't
caught in the act, you might catch THEM in the act which is just as bad.
With just a little careful planning, your Sim can pretty much have it all!
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5.3 Maintaining Relationships the Easy Way
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Every relationship your Sims have will naturally degrade by 2 points every
day. That means that no matter how in love with you they may be, they'll
eventually fall out of it if you don't call them up for a visit. Therefore
before too long, they won't even be your Family Friend any more (although you
will get a phone call reminding you to socialize with them before that
happens).
So, obviously your Sim has to keep working on his current friends to keep them
as friends. Now, you COULD just wait for that phone call to invite them over,
then wine, dine, dance, and kiss them; or you could call them over when they
are at about 70 relationship points.
Once the Sim is over, talk to them once, compliment them once, then hug them
until they hit 100, and then Ask them to Leave. Once they're gone, find the
next lowest relationship, and call that Sim over. You can probably work on
3 Sims a night, and 1 in the morning (call after 6:00 am, see 6.2.1 Early
Morning Social Call).
Note: Maintaining a 70+ relationship is a lot easier than starting from 0
and working your way up. Therefore you need take less time doing it.
And as such, I like to Ask them To Leave. Why? So you can cleanly
work on the next Sim. You could just leave the first Sim alone, but
this works better without interference (see the last section).
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6. Working (and Not)
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One Sim per household should definitely stay home. Any others should then
try to find a job. To keep things interesting, I try to get each Sim on a
different career track. So one Sim may be on the Law Enforcement track, while
another takes the business track.
Note: The starting pay of each career track has nothing to do with the
final pay. The starting pay for the business track is low, but the
final pay is high (ў1200). Politics starts out relatively well, but
ends out somewhat low (ў750). A full list on these pays can be found
in the next section 6.1 Career Tracks below.
I have already discussed the importance of why you leave someone home (to
socialize with the neighbors, of course!), another good reason is that when
you first start out, you really don't need the money that badly. As long as
all your needs are met, your expenses will be low. You have a ў40 per day
bill on food (assuming you do a "serve breakfast" and "serve dinner") and
likely around ў200 to ў300 in bills every 3 days. Most jobs start out around
ў200 a day, and you should be able to get quickly promoted to around ў300 or
so before the bills come. So money won't be crucial.
Depending on the job you take, you'll need to increase your "stats". Things
such as Creativity, Body, Logic, etc. are needed to advance past the most
entry level jobs. And some jobs don't require some stats, researchers don't
need to develop their body, and so forth. To find out how much stat increases
you need to get the next promotion, click on the Jobs button. The first few
skill points are relatively easy to get, a short time studying will get you
your first cooking point, for example. But the later stat points may take a
LOT longer.
SimSkills:
Your Sim has 6 Skills that may need improving to get a job. These are:
Cooking -- Study Cooking at a bookshelf to improve. Useful to prevent
kitchen catastrophes, and many jobs require at least 1 point
for the higher levels.
Mechanical -- Study Mechanical on a bookshelf to improve. Useful in that
now your own Sims can repair broken items rather than that
expensive repairman. Most useful in the military and scientist
career tracks.
Logic -- Play Chess on a chess set, you can do this alone or with others
to also improve your social skills. Logic doesn't help you out
around the house, however. Used in the scientist career track,
although most career tracks require a little bit of logic.
Charisma -- Practice a Speech in front of any available mirror. No
practical use around the house. Used in the political track
mostly, but again, most career paths need some Charisma.
Body -- Work out on that exercise machine to improve. You can also
try swimming, but this never worked for me. Used in the
military and law enforcement tracks, but most require at least
one point here. Also you can Swim in the pool for Body, but
it takes 4x as long in the pool as on the Machine.
Creativity -- Play the Piano or Paint a Picture (which can then be sold,
usually for a mere ў5) to become more creative.
Note: When the Carpool arrives, your Sim will automatically add the "Go to
Work" item to his or her queue of things to do. However, in many
cases, this Sim will not cancel what they are currently doing (at
least until they "finish" doing it), so you may need to cancel that
thing for them so they get to work on time. You have until an hour
after the Carpool shows up to get inside the car to get to work on
time.
There are 3 things need to get a promotion at work. One, is to make sure you
have all the right stats at the right levels; two, is to make sure that you
have enough family friends; and lastly you have to be in a good Mood to get
a promotion. Happy Sims are productive Sims. Again, everything you'll need
to know about this can be found in the Jobs button. It also has a description
of how well you are working (bad, average, good, excellent) which is based
on your Sims' mood. Below that will be how many Family Friends you need
(if it isn't there, then you have already met that requirement!), and to the
right are all the stats.
Note: You can sometimes miss one day of work, but missing two in a row is a
guaranteed firing. You can miss alternating days of work, but you
will miss out on a lot of money that way. Also, the night shift
tends to be more strict about missing shifts, and may fire you on the
first missed shift.
Tip: If you need a lot of friends for a promotion (the politics career
track especially), then create an 8 person family, and wait for your
Stay at home Sim to come over to socialize. Get each of the 8 to
talk to this Sim at least once, then go back to your original Sims.
Now you have a lot of people that you can call up!
a. Quitting
So, that new career as a Scientist just isn't working out. Or maybe, you
just want to try out something else. Well there are several ways to quit
your job. As we saw in the above note, you can just stop showing up to
work. They'll get the hint. Or you can just check the paper and take
the job from there (it will warn you that doing so will get rid of your
first job).
Warning: If two Sims are sharing a carpool, and one of them gets a
new job at a different time, then that carpool won't show up
for EITHER person!
I would also assume that if you did your job very poorly, or got caught
doing something really bad at work (see "Job Events" below), you may also
get fired.
How you quit depends on your goal from it. If you just want to stay at
home and be lazy, then by all means, just skip work. If you really are
tired of your career path (maybe you'd rather be an actor), then just
take that waiter job.
Note: Whenever taking a different job, you always start out at the
lowest rung on the ladder. So don't just quit to see what the
other jobs are like. That's very inefficient.
b. Job Events
Every once in awhile, a major event will happen to your Sim at his or her
job. These events are quite random as to when they happen, and they only
happen once. These are usually just little things like, "Taking a Bribe"
or "Scandal". They will often give you a choice, which amounts to doing
the right or wrong thing, and if you do the wrong thing you can get
caught.
Some other job events are less good vs. evil, such as the actor in the
remake.
In any event, these Events have 2 outcomes, a good one (whatever it
was succeeded perfectly) and the bad one (it failed miserably), and
depending on the severity of the choice, you get rewarded or punished.
Some punishments are rather severe (your family leaves you) or just
annoying (a fine, or loss of stats). But the rewards may be worth the
risks...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.1 The Jobs Chart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: When I say "To Get Promoted" that is what you must work on to get to
the next job level. So in Politics at the Intern Level it says that
you need "+2 Charisma", that is you need that much of that stat to
get to the next level, Lobbyist.
Career Hours Wage To Get Promoted
Politics:
Campaign Worker 9:00 am - 6:00 pm ў220 --
Intern 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў300 +2 Charisma
Lobbyist 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў360 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
2 Family Friends
Campaign Manager 9:00 am - 6:00 pm ў430 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
4 Family Friends
City Council Mem. 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў485 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
6 Family Friends
State Assembly 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў540 +1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
9 Family Friends
Congressperson 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў600 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
11 Family Friend
Judge 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў650 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
14 Family Friend
Senator 9:00 am - 6:00 pm ў700 +3 Charisma
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
17 Family Friend
Mayor 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў750 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 0
Mechanical -- 0
Charisma -- 9
Body -- 5
Logic -- 7
Creativity -- 5
Entertainment:
Waitress 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў100 --
Extra 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў150 +2 Charisma
Bit Player 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў200 +2 Body
2 Family Friends
Stunt Double 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў275 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
4 Family Friends
B-Movie Star 10:00 am - 5:00 pm ў375 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
6 Family Friends
Supporting Player 10:00 am - 6:00 pm ў500 +2 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
8 Family Friends
TV Star 10:00 am - 6:00 pm ў650 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
10 Family Friend
Feature Star 5:00 pm - 1:00 am ў900 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+3 Creativity
12 Family Friend
Broadway Star 10:00 am - 5:00 pm ў1100 +2 Charisma
+1 Body
+3 Creativity
14 Family Friend
Superstar 10:00 am - 3:00 pm ў1400 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 0
Mechanical -- 2
Charisma -- 10
Body -- 8
Logic -- 0
Creativity -- 10
Law Enforcement:
Security Guard 12:00 am - 6:00 am ў240 --
Cadet 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў320 +2 Body
Patrol Officer 5:00 pm - 1:00 am ў380 +2 Mechanical
1 Family Friend
Desk Sergeant 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў440 +1 Mechanical
+2 Body
2 Family Friends
Vice Squad 10:00 pm - 4:00 am ў490 +1 Cooking
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
4 Family Friends
Detective 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў540 +1 Charisma
+2 Logic
6 Family Friends
Lieutenant 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў590 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
8 Family Friends
SWAT Team Leader 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў625 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+2 Creativity
10 Family Friend
Police Chief 9:00 am - 5:00 pm ў650 +2 Charisma
+3 Logic
+2 Creativity
12 Family Friend
Captain Hero 10:00 am - 4:00 pm ў700 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 1
Mechanical -- 4
Charisma -- 6
Body -- 7
Logic -- 10
Creativity -- 5
Business:
Mail Room 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў120 --
Executive Asst. 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў180 +2 Mechanical
Field Sales Rep. 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў250 +2 Charisma
1 Family Friend
Junior Executive 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў320 +2 Logic
3 Family Friends
Executive 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў400 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
6 Family Friends
Senior Manager 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў520 +1 Charisma
+2 Body
+1 Logic
8 Family Friends
Vice President 9:00 am - 5:00 pm ў660 +1 Charisma
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
10 Family Friend
President 9:00 am - 5:00 pm ў800 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
12 Family Friend
CEO 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў950 +2 Charisma
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
14 Family Friend
Business Tycoon 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў1200 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 0
Mechanical -- 2
Charisma -- 8
Body -- 2
Logic -- 9
Creativity -- 6
Life of Crime:
Pickpocket 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў140 --
Bagman 11:00 pm - 7:00 am ў200 +2 Body
Bookie 12:00 pm - 7:00 pm ў275 +1 Charisma
+1 Creativity
2 Family Friends
Con Artist 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў350 +2 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
3 Family Friends
Getaway Driver 5:00 pm - 1:00 am ў425 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
4 Family Friends
Bank Robber 3:00 pm - 11:00 pm ў530 +1 Cooking
+2 Body
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
6 Family Friends
Cat Burglar 9:00 pm - 3:00 am ў640 +2 Mechanical
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
8 Family Friends
Counterfeiter 9:00 pm - 3:00 am ў760 +3 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
10 Family Friend
Smuggler 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў900 +1 Cooking
+2 Charisma
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
12 Family Friend
Criminal Mastermind 6:00 pm - 12:00 am ў1100 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 2
Mechanical -- 5
Charisma -- 7
Body -- 6
Logic -- 4
Creativity -- 8
Medicine:
Medical Technician 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў200 --
Paramedic 11:00 pm - 5:00 am ў275 +2 Mechanical
Nurse 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў340 +2 Body
2 Family Friends
Intern 9:00 am - 6:00 pm ў410 +1 Mechanical
+2 Logic
3 Family Friends
Resident 9:00 pm - 4:00 am ў480 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
4 Family Friends
GP 10:00 am - 6:00 pm ў550 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
5 Family Friends
Specialist 10:00 pm - 4:00 am ў625 +1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
7 Family Friends
Surgeon 10:00 pm - 4:00 am ў700 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
9 Family Friends
Medical Researcher 9:00 pm - 4:00 am ў775 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
11 Family Friend
Chief of Hospital 9:00 pm - 4:00 am ў850 --
Military:
Recruit 6:00 am - 12:00 pm ў250 --
Elite Forces 7:00 am - 1:00 pm ў325 +2 Body
Drill Instructor 8:00 am - 2:00 pm ў250 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
Junior Officer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў450 +1 Cooking
+2 Body
Counter-Intell. 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў500 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+1 Logic
1 Family Friend
Flight Officer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў550 +1 Mechanical
+1 Body
+2 Logic
3 Family Friends
Senior Officer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў580 +3 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+2 Logic
5 Family Friends
Commander 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў600 +3 Mechanical
+3 Body
+1 Logic
6 Family Friends
Astronaut 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў625 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+2 Body
+3 Logic
8 Family Friends
General 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў650 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 1
Mechanical -- 10
Charisma -- 7
Body -- 10
Logic -- 9
Creativity -- 0
Pro Athlete:
Team Mascot 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm ў110 --
Minor Leaguer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў170 +2 Body
Rookie 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў230 +3 Body
1 Family Friend
Starter 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў300 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
3 Family Friends
All-Star 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў385 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
5 Family Friends
MVP 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў510 +1 Cooking
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
7 Family Friends
Superstar 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў680 +1 Cooking
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
9 Family Friends
Assistant Coach 9:00 am - 2:00 pm ў850 +1 Cooking
+2 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Creativity
11 Family Friend
Coach 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў1000 +1 Cooking
+3 Charisma
+1 Creativity
13 Family Friend
Hall of Famer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў1300 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 4
Mechanical -- 2
Charisma -- 9
Body -- 10
Logic -- 0
Creativity -- 3
Science:
Test Subject 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў155 --
Lab Assistant 11:00 pm - 5:00 am ў230 +2 Logic
Field Researcher 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў320 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
1 Family Friend
Science Teacher 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў375 +1 Charisma
+1 Logic
+1 Creativity
3 Family Friends
Project Leader 9:00 am - 5:00 pm ў450 +2 Mechanical
+2 Creativity
4 Family Friends
Inventor 10:00 am - 7:00 pm ў540 +2 Mechanical
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
5 Family Friends
Scholar 10:00 am - 3:00 pm ў640 +1 Cooking
+2 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+1 Logic
7 Family Friends
Top Secret Researcher 10:00 am - 3:00 pm ў740 +1 Mechanical
+2 Logic
+3 Creativity
8 Family Friends
Theorist 10:00 am - 2:00 pm ў870 +1 Cooking
+1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Logic
+3 Creativity
10 Family Friend
Mad Scientist 10:00 am - 2:00 pm ў1000 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 2
Mechanical -- 8
Charisma -- 5
Body -- 0
Logic -- 10
Creativity -- 10
Xtreme:
Daredevil 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў175 --
Bungee Jump Inst. 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў250 +2 Body
1 Family Friend
Whitewater Guide 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў325 +1 Mechanical
+2 Body
2 Family Friends
Xtreme Circuit Pro 9:00 am - 4:00 pm ў400 +1 Cooking
+1 Mechanical
+1 Logic
3 Family Friends
Bush Pilot 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў475 +2 Mechanical
+2 Body
4 Family Friends
Mountain Climber 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў550 +1 Mechanical
+2 Charisma
+3 Creativity
5 Family Friends
Photo-Journalist 9:00 am - 3:00 pm ў650 +1 Mechanical
+1 Charisma
+1 Body
+2 Logic
+1 Creativity
7 Family Friends
Treasure Hunter 10:00 am - 5:00 pm ў725 +2 Charisma
+2 Logic
+3 Creativity
9 Family Friends
Grand Prix Driver 10:00 am - 4:00 pm ў825 +1 Cooking
+3 Charisma
+1 Body
+1 Logic
+2 Creativity
11 Family Friend
International Spy 11:00 am - 5:00 pm ў925 --
Final Stats: Cooking -- 2
Mechanical -- 6
Charisma -- 8
Body -- 8
Logic -- 6
Creativity -- 9
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.2 Abusing the Carpool
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have an alarm, it will go off 2 hours before the Carpool is going to
arrives to pick you up. The carpool itself arrives an hour before your shift
at work is actually set to begin. This is a fact that we can abuse!
You don't need to get into the carpool until it is just about ready to leave.
In fact, if you are even on your way just before your shift begins, the
carpool will wait for you! So, if you get into the carpool the second it
arrives, you are essentially losing ONE WHOLE HOUR of time that you could
be spending doing something constructive, like eating, or playing chess to
get that last logic point for that promotion.
In other words, don't leave for work until the last possible moment!
This gives you essentially 3 hours between when the alarm gets you up, and
when you get to work. It also makes my earlier idea of not using an alarm
clock a little more realistic. Even if you get up a little late, you'll still
have time to use the toilet, shower, and probably eat as well. Then spend the
rest of the time fulfilling other needs (such as Fun and Comfort by watching
TV) or by building Skills. Or do both and play Chess.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.2.1 Early Morning Social Call (while Abusing the Carpool no less!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some of the other Sims have jobs, just like your current Sims do. You
probably know what these jobs are, as you probably gave them to these other
Sims. Well, during the day they are probably at work, so if you were to call
them, you would get the Machine telling you that they are at work. The usual
solution to this problem is to simply call them after they get off work.
But another idea is to call them as soon as you get up.
The brilliance of this idea is even more evident when playing as a bachelor.
Your Sim gets up in the morning, goes to work, then has a little bit of time
to socialize, gain skills, and keep up with his own needs. Well, what we CAN
do is to help him out by starting socializing in the morning. He gets up,
calls someone, then continues getting ready. He Greets the guest Sim, then
Serves Breakfast. While they are both eating, then both socialize. After
eating your Sim could watch TV with the other Sim, or maybe they could just
talk.
Since we have about 3 hours to work with (due to the last strategy, Abuse the
Carpool), your Sim have plenty of time to improve his relationships!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Running an Efficient Household
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The most difficult aspect of the Sims is managing all your Sims time. Since
each Sim has only 24 hours in the day, 8 major needs, promotions, socializing,
and whatnot, you have to be fairly efficient in how you do things. It should
be noted that the Sims themselves are not especially efficient in how they
decide to do things. A Sim who has a nearly Red bladder Need, may sit down to
read a book, when his Fun need is still mostly Green.
Generally you want to fulfill your Sims' needs on a Need basis. Whichever
they need most, you have them do first. There are, of course, many
exceptions.
For example, you should use the toilet after eating, not before. You should
shower after using the toilet.
Anyway, since I advised you to create two Sims, I'll do a rundown of how
their first few mornings should go:
I'll call the two Sims, Worker, and Homer. When you first appear at your
house, you'll already have a Newspaper, and another one will be coming along
at 9:00 AM. Have Worker look for a job, and if you want to, take it. If it
is still before 8:00 AM, the car pool will be picking Worker up at that time
(assuming you didn't take a night job). Send Worker off to work.
Now Homer will be home alone. Have him Study up on Cooking so that he can
fix a feast when Worker comes home. One or two points here is all you need
(although you should keep at this until you have all the points!). Now
your neighbors are going to start dropping by. Cancel the Cooking Lessons,
and go out to greet them. Once greeted, the neighbor becomes a Guest in
your house, and will eat food if you have already prepared it, watch your
TV (if it's already on), etc. This neighbor should be very chatty, so just
let your Sims talk for a bit. At this point, it is more important to greet
new Sims, than to work up relationships with Sims already there, so if
someone new comes to the door, go greet them.
Note: If you have two or more Sims around when other Sims come to the
door, make sure that ALL of your Sims have talked to the new Sim
at least once. This is most important if you ever take control
of the other Sims' house, and need to get him some friends.
In the early days of your neighborhood, there won't be that many people for
you to socialize with, so you will have to start new families soon.
Worker comes home, and watches TV to get his fun rating up. While he is
doing that, Homer Serves Dinner (always do Serve Dinner! It costs only 2x
as much as "Have Dinner" and feeds 6!), and then the two sit around the
table eating and chatting. Also any guests in the house will eat with you,
and Socialize as well.
Note: Although they are talking here, their relationships only improve by
a mere point or two.
After dinner, Worker goes to improve some Stat to help get promoted, while
Homer talks to the Guest Sims. Before going to sleep, both Sims go to the
bathroom.
The next morning, Homer gets up at 5:00 AM to Serve Breakfast. Worker stays
in bed until his Energy rating is all the way back up, and as soon as it is
he jumps out of bed, and goes to take a shower, eat breakfast, and maybe
watch some TV before the Carpool arrives.
Note: The 5:00 AM breakfast gives your stay at home Sim plenty of time to
prepare the breakfast so that it is ready for the other Sim(s) when
they get up. Since the first Sim isn't going to work, he doesn't
need to worry about lack of energy. What I did usually is let the
game run on fast mode (speed level 3) until 5 AM, then I paused it
(press either 'p' or the key left of the 1 button), clicked on the
Sleep icon to cancel it (top left corner), and click on the Fridge
and Serve Breakfast. I wake up most Sims like this. Pause, then
order them to do something, then unpause for them to do it.
Once Worker is at work, Homer takes a shower, goes to the bathroom, and
fulfills his needs. Once that's done he picks up that Cooking book and
works on that for awhile, hoping that some new neighbors might drop by. If
they don't, he picks up the phone and calls the Sim who is close to becoming
a Family Friend. That Sim comes over (or blows you off with an excuse), the
two chat for a bit, and the Guest Sim smelling food, goes over and eats some
breakfast. Homer joins him.
Note: Since Homer got up early, he might need a nap. Usually I would
wait for my working Sims to get home before sending my Stay At Home
to sleep, then I would get that Sim up in time to fix dinner and
Socialize some more with the neighbors.
They continue socializing until you get a new Family Friend. At this point,
keep going until the relationship is at 100. At some point here, Homer is
going to need to clean up the table, and get rid of what remains of the
breakfast (it has undoubtedly spoiled by now).
Worker comes home and studies some more for a promotion. Homer takes a
small nap, and gets up to make dinner. The two Sims (three if you still
have a guest) eat and talk. After dinner everyone watches TV and talks.
Finally everyone goes to sleep.
That was just a sample of how to run things efficiently. It featured a
staggered approach to getting ready in the mornings, one Sim got up at 5, the
other a little later. The first Sim made breakfast, while the other did some
things in the bathroom. This is also how you do things when you get more Sims
(although you will probably need to build a second bathroom).
Remember, you aren't just fulfilling Needs, you're also advancing these Sims
in their lives. Work on Stats for promotion, have them practice speeches in
front of the bathroom mirror, or play chess to work on their logic. (chess is
also Fun) Bear in mind that Sims will work on their Stats forever if you let
them, so keep an eye on their Needs, and cut short their Statbuilding if they
need to go to the bathroom or something.
Also keep in mind that you CAN hire Maids, Gardeners, and even call for a
Pizza if you want to. These services cost you a little (Maids are ў10 an
hour), but they can help out if you are getting overwhelmed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Expanding the House
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well your Sims are doing quite well, you have gotten some promotions, you have
a bit of money now, and you want to spruce up your house. Who can blame you?
The first thing you should probably do is to replace your Not-Top-Of-The-Line
kitchen appliances with better ones. Get rid of the cheap Fridge and Range
for more expensive versions. These help satisfy your Sims hunger better.
Generally you will want to replace your cheap crap with expensive stuff.
Don't go overboard and spend all your money at once (you might have to pay
bills, or something).
If you succeed in getting someone to Move In or Marry you, then you have to
find a place for them to sleep, which may mean expanding the entire house (or
could just mean replacing a Spartan Bed with a Two Person Bed). But as the
game goes on, you definitely need to expand the house.
Here's the house as I designed it earlier:
------------
| | Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| |
----------------e------------- Note: Two horizontal characters
| | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Bath | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | room |
| | | Note: To build a "square", hold down
| Living |-------- the shift while building a
| Room | wall outwards.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
And here are a couple improvement Ideas:
Idea 1: Mega Bedroom
----------------------
| | Key:
| |
| Bedroom | e - Door -- - wall
| | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| |
----------------e------------- Note: Two horizontal characters
| | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Bath | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | room |
| | | Note: To build a "square", hold down
| Living |-------- the shift while building a
| Room | wall outwards.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
Idea 2: Mega Bedroom, Move Bathroom, Add Den
----------------------
| Bedroom | Key:
| --------- |
| | Bath | | e - Door -- - wall
| e room e | Tr - Trash == - sidewalk
| | | |
---e------e-----e------------- Note: Two horizontal characters
| | | is one "square" of SimLand.
| e Den | So -- is one 1 x 1.
| Kitchen | |
| | | Note: The Den would have a Desk for
| Living |-------- a computer, as well as
| Room | a Piano, etc.
-----------e----------
=======================
Tr
And, of course, you could always build some stairs and add a second level.
Remember on the second level that people can't go up there until there is a
floor. And you can only build walls out one square past the walls on the
first story. Whatever else you stick on the second story, I would definitely
place a bathroom.
Also as I previously mentioned, a great deal of expanding your house is to
replace your old furniture and objects with bigger shinier models.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.1 Building that Second Story
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There isn't all that much to building a second story. As long as you can
fit those stairs in your house somewhere, you can build the second story.
Once the stairs are built, switch to the Second Story view. Notice how there
is nothing here, but the area directly above the walled area is marked. That
is where you can build. The buildable area extends out one square from the
first story's wall, in case you want to build out a little.
You will probably just want to build your walls directly above the first
story's walls. Make sure to wallpaper the outside and inside. Decide what
you are going to do with this story, and build interior walls appropriately.
Tip: I would recommend building a bathroom upstairs, at least. This way,
anyone up there won't have to come down to use the facilities, and
it gives you another bathroom in case the first gets "busy".
Note: If you want to build out a balcony that isn't directly above an
already walled area, there is one way to do it, but it's pretty
lame. You have to put Pillars under every single square that you
want to build on top of. I think this is lame that the pillars have
to be placed EVERYWHERE, and I call this the "Pillar Limitation".
For a way around this, check out 8.1.1 The "Flying" Second Story.
To finish the second story, make sure to build a flooring. Without a floor
no one can go up there!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.1.1 The "Flying" Second Story
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Based on a strategy from http://thesims.xtremesims.com/ (David Phillips)
There is a way around the "Pillar Limitation" as discussed in the previous
section. Here is what we're going to do. Say you want to build out a
true balcony, one that doesn't have any first story rooms below it. The only
way (until now) to do this was to build a Pillar under every square that you
wanted to build on.
First, do what you would normally do to build a balcony. That is, place a
pillar everywhere you want to build on. Then build the second story room,
floor, walls, whatever. Just make sure that it is finished. Now go back to
the first story, and DELETE all the pillars.
You will now have a True Balcony! If you want, you can leave a pillar or two
for aesthetic reasons.
You can even do this without having a First Story, so that you have nothing
but stairs down there, then a fully "flying" second story. It's great!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. Babies and Children
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can start any family with children, but you can't start them with a baby.
There are only two ways to get a baby, lots of kissing of the passionate sort,
or Adoption. I'll deal with adoption first. The way adoption works is that
they will call you and ask if you want a baby. This can happen to either
gay couples or singles (as they can't produce children on their own). You are
given the choice of taking or rejecting it.
As for the natural method, simply have a guy kiss a girl a lot (or visa versa,
it doesn't matter who kisses whom) and the option will come up "Would you like
to have a baby?" No, you don't get to see them have sex. The baby just
appears, magically. The sex and personality are set at birth, you have no
control over that. You do get to name the baby, though.
Now that you have the baby, you have to take care of her for 3 days. 72 hours
exactly from the moment you got her.
Tip: The best time to get a baby would probably be in the morning, as when
the baby becomes a Child, they have perfect Energy, and you don't want
perfect energy late at night. Not with school the next morning!
A baby is a huge responsibility. But you didn't need me to tell you that.
You have only 3 things you can do with the baby, Feed, Play and Sing (to
sleep). The baby will be resting quite comfortably when suddenly "WAH!" The
baby will cry out. Anyone sleeping in the area will be awakened (I'd
recommend sleeping ONE and only ONE person with the baby, and rotating who
gets to do it, so no one Sim loses too much Energy). Then you have to figure
out what the baby wants (impossible). Usually I would just do each option
once from Feed to Play to Sing. If that didn't put the baby to sleep, I'd
feed again and Sing again. That almost always works. If it does, the baby
will go back to sleep... only to wake up in a few hours bawling.
Note: If you fail to take proper care of the baby, she will be taken away
by the Social Workers. Shame on you!
As you can see, having someone home at all times is CRUCIAL here, not just
recommended. This is another place where it really helps to have left someone
home all along. But if you didn't, just have different people miss work
different days to care for the child. Sorry, there is no "day care" or "baby
sitter" for you to call. What I did, is I used my stay at home Sim to care
for the child until the first person got off work, then Sim 1 would go to
sleep and Sim 2 would take over tending over the baby. Make sure you have
something constructive to do while the child sleeps, so maybe you should move
the Chess set to the room that has the baby (or something like that).
After 3 full days, the baby goes *poof* and becomes a Child. Children can
sleep with any adult in the household, if you can't afford to buy her own
bed. Children have only one responsibility, and that is School. They have to
go everyday at 9 AM and come back everyday at 3 PM. Furthermore they have to
study to keep their grades up (you can study at any bookcase or computer).
Note: One side effect of good grades is that Grandparents can give money
for good grades. At the A+ level, I got ў100.
At this point you probably should buy a Toybox for the child so she can play
with the toys. And as you can guess, they like to watch Cartoons on TV as
well.
Finally children can also Play with other children, where they will just start
running amok. And no, children never grow up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.1 Children and School
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kids have to go to school everyday from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. Skipping a day
will drop their Grade one whole letter (say from A to B, or from B+ to C+).
If the child Sim (or SimKid if you will) goes to school everyday in a good
mood, their grades will naturally increase. The other way to increase the
child's grades is to have them Study. They can study either on a computer or
with a book, it makes no difference. After a period of time, they will
increase their grades. This period of studying is small for the low grades,
and large for the high grades. It's therefore easier to improve from a D to
a C than it is from a B to an A.
Note: As I noted earlier, you can randomly get ў100 gifts from grandparents
with an A+. Also with an A+ you don't have the option to study
anymore. What would be the point?
So what happens if you don't have good grades? Your Sim gets shipped off to
a military school! Plus your family has to pay ў1000 for tuition (but
thankfully you only pay this once, and they never ever bother you again).
Tip: Therefore to get rid of any troublesome child (i.e. a lazy one), just
let his or her grades slip to an F, and away they go!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.2 What Kids Do
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kids are a lot like the Adult Sims, except for the fact that they don't have
jobs, and therefore don't need Skill Points. They also never need to gain
Friends as it doesn't help them any. (although a parent could use them as an
extra agent of socialization)
So, once a Kid gets up to an A+ and has satisfied all of her needs, what IS
she going to do?
Since you aren't trying to get them up the Career Ladder, and getting them
good grades is absurdly easy, I would just leave kids alone, and let their
free will take them where it will.
Tip: Two kids together will almost always start running arouned Playing
together. So if there are other kids in the neighborhood, call them
over. Or you could always have a second kid.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Everything Else in the Neighborhood
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your house can be burglarized. During the night, the game will slow down to
the slow game speed, and a PIP will show the burglar coming your way. If you
have alarms, the second he enters the house, the police will be called. But
if he's clever, he'll just grab one thing and run, and may get away with it.
So if you see a burglar, here's something to try:
- Wake up your Sim.
- If possible, call the police BEFORE the burglar enters the house to get
the police here sooner.
- Now here's the fun part, since the burglar runs on the same pathfinding
algorithm as the rest of the Sims, you can "bump into" him, and he'll
stop cold. So if he's trying to go out the door, and you are in the
doorway, he'll have to stop and wait for you to move!
Note: Anything stolen by the thief can't be returned to you, but you do
get partial reimbursement from the Insurance Company. Plus if he
is captured you also get a ў1000 reward!
Sims who don't know their way around the kitchen, not only cut themselves or
burn themselves a lot while making it, may also cause a Fire to break out.
Once the fire has started, your alarm (if you have one) will go off. If you
don't have an alarm, call the Fire Dept. You can try to extinguish the fire
yourself, but ... you can die from the flames!
The character ў can be typed by pressing and holding ALT, then on the number
pad pressing 0167. This is the character for "Simoleon" the monetary unit of
the Sims. If you want to see something bizarre, check out the Money bag on
the CD case, and on the instruction manual. You will see the symbol ў on
both, but on the CD case, for some reason, it is backward!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.1 Death and Ghosts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Death can come to the Sims in a couple ways. One, they can starve to death.
This one is fairly easy to avoid, as when the Hunger bar gets low, it doesn't
deplete as fast, and even when it gets to completely red, your Sim won't die.
Give it a few days, and they will, however, so get them some food. The other
way for them to die is in a fire that they are either trying to extinguish, or
merely got caught in. Another way for them to die is to have them Drown in
your Swimming Pool. This occurs when they run out of energy in the Pool.
This can only happen if you remove the ladder out of the pool while they are
swimming, otherwise they'll just get out before they drown. When they die,
the Sims leave a Tombstone (you can readily see these by playing the Goth
household), and furthermore, they will HAUNT the living! So don't let the
Sims die.
Note: Ghost Sims (or SimGhosts if you will) usually do their haunting at
11 pm. It is random as to whether they will do it or not, but if
you have enough graves (see the Goth house) it will probably happen
every night!
Note: Where the Sim dies determines their "marker". If they die outside,
they leave a Tombstone, inside an Urn. The living members of your
household then have to "mourn" the marker for 24 hours. That is, of
course, after they have finished what they were already doing (so
they will watch TV until satisfied, then go mourn). After that you
can mourn at your leisure.
Death is one of the few ways to get rid of a Sim for Good. So, if you have
just plain too many Sims in your family, or you married a Bum or something...
Well you get the idea. Although this is HIGHLY amoral! (good thing morality
isn't a Need!)
Tip: One way to fortune is to marry a bachelor, take all their money, then
"bump them off". Two good ways to kill them, wall them up somewhere
and let nature take its course, or remove the ladder in a pool.
Bloodthirsty, but effective. Maybe you should even name your
murderous little Sim the "Black Widow" or something.
Well you've had your fun with the Ghost spooking your Sims, and now you want
rid of that Ghost. Well you can just sell their Tombstone/Urn for ў5, or
destroy the house and they'll never pester you again. Or if you like the
ghost, but don't like the hauntings, you can just move your bedrooms to the
second story since Ghosts can't climb stairs (probably since they'd go right
THROUGH the stairs!).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.2 Changing the Radio Station Music
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Changing the Radio Station Music: (from http://www.thesims.com/)
In case you were wondering, you CAN have the Sims listen to YOUR music,
rather than the default music. Go to:
C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\Music\Stations
And you will see 4 folders: Rock, Country, Latin, and Classica. Now place
any MP3 or shortcut to an MP3 in these folders and that song will play
when they play the radio! And, no you can't add new stations. You can,
however, add as many songs as you want to each station.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Cheats & Tricks
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All of the following In-Game cheats come from GameSages: (each cheat has noted
who came up with it)
Command Prompt: Press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + C during game to display the command
prompt.
1000 Simoleons and More: Press Control+Shift+C during gameplay. A small window
will come up. Type in "klapaucius" for 1000 simoleons,
or, to set the time of day, "SET_HOUR X" where X is
0-23. Handy if you're in the shower and your carpool
is 2 minutes away.
Submitted by Shot2Hell
1000 Simoleons: Type "klapaucius" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
7000 Simoleons: Enter the "1000 Simoleons" cheat, then type "!;!;!;!;!;!;!" at
the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Display Personality and Interests: Select a Sim, then type "interests" at the
command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Draw all frames: Type "draw_all_frames on" at the command prompt. To turn it
off, type "draw_all_frames off" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Note: If your game is running slowly, this above cheat can
be useful as it will "skip" frames of animation.
Island home: Type "water_tool" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Map Editor: To enable the map editor, type "map_edit on" at the command prompt.
To turn it off again, type "map_edit off" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Route Balloons: Type "route_balloons on" at the command prompt. This displays
little balloons explaining why a character is delayed or not
doing what you asked. To turn it off, type "route_balloons
off" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Set event logging mask: Type "log_mask" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Set free thinking level: Type "autonomy #" at the command prompt, where # is an
IQ between 1 and 100.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Set grass growth: Type "grow_grass #" at the command prompt, where # is a rate
of growth between 1 and 150.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Set time of day: Type "set hour #" at the command prompt, where # is an hour in
military time (1-24).
Submitted by the Simoleons
Tile Information: Type "tile_info on" at the command prompt, then move your
cursor over any object for detailed information. To turn it
off again, type "tile_info off" at the command prompt.
Submitted by the Simoleons
Toggle "Ticks": Type "sweep on" or "sweep off" at the command prompt.
Submitted by The Simoleons
_________
Trainers:
There is currently only one trainer that I know about, a Money trainer, which
can be found here:
http://thesims.xtremesimz.com/cheat-description.shtml
_______
Tricks:
The old "Marry them for their Money" trick:
One way to get a bunch of money is to get the last person of a household to
marry into your family. Then they bring over all the money they had, plus
the money they got from selling their house. So, what you should do is to
simply create a Sim, put him in a cheap house (a Wall with a Phone will be
sufficient!) and then wait for your Family of Sims to come by. Once he has
met them, switch back to that Family and begin the process to get him (or
her) married into the family. You can do this as often as you want, until
your family is up to 8 members.
The old "Use it then return it" trick:
If you buy something, and decide that you don't really want it, then as long
as you get rid of it (in Furnish mode, click on it then press DEL) the same
day as you bought it, you'll get the full money back. Great for getting
rid of those impulse buys. Also useful if you want to buy a computer for
the purposes of Job Hunting, but don't need a computer just yet.
The old "Job Switching" Trick:
Many career paths use similar skills. For example, both law enforcement,
and military require much the same thing (Crime as well). So if you want
to suddenly... switch careers you will be able to jump up another career
ladder quite easily! And at each promotion you will be given a Bonus...
You can see where I'm going with this. So switching careers MAY be quite
beneficial!
The following tricks come to us from Kyrre Aalerud:
1: A little trick to get rid of garbage: Throw the garbage-can away!
This actually works! If the garbage-can is new, then you will get ў30
for it, and a new one costs the same!
2: Also, I couldn't find anything about getting rid of children...
I only know of this way: have them do lousy at school, or not go at
all. This will send them to military school and out of your hair.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.1 Deleting Trash (and Bills too!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Following Trick comes from Shyguy982:
I always find it hard to juggle keeping my Sims happy, socializing, and
cleaning. Well, I solved the cleaning agenda, which made it a whole lot
easier for me to concentrate on the other aspects of the game. While in
purchase mode, you can pick up dishes. On the bottom of the screen it says
they can't be sold or deleted. Which is false. In order to dispose of
these nuisances in a timely fashion, simply pick it up, place it over
another object such as a plant or couch. Somewhere it cannot be placed
onto. Then simply hit the escape key while it's hovering over the object.
Bingo! Gone for good. It makes cleaning your house a snap, and it gives
you extra time to do whatever needs be.
Also, this trick works on bills too! Yes, you can hover them over other
objects, and hit escape, thus deleting your bills in the process. And
don't worry, they don't come back to haunt you. I've played for several
months without having paid a bill, and never had a thing repossessed!
I hope you can pass along this info. It's a terribly sneaky cheat, but
it makes things a whole lot easier. And please give credit, it you decide
to post it on your FAQ. Thank you, and if ya can give me an email, and let
me know if they worked as well for you as they have for me. Thanks.
================================================================================
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
================================================================================
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: If I create two Sims in my first home, are they automatically |
| considered married? |
| |
| A: No. The "family" is just a grouping of people in one house. They |
| don't have any "relationship" until the game starts. Whether they |
| become good friends, or lovers, or get into a fight, is up to them |
| (and to you). |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: When I ask someone to marry me, they always say no. What can I do to |
| get them to FINALLY say yes? |
| |
| A: Well beyond being stubbornly persistent (and why not?), you have to |
| realize that the Sim you are wooing has Needs just as any other Sim, |
| even though you can't see their Need meters. Why is this important? |
| Because a Sim must be in a good mood to accept Marriage (or Moving |
| In), and Mood is based on the 8 Needs. So make sure your SimLover has |
| eaten, had some fun, talked to your other Sims, and is comfortable |
| before popping the question. Beyond that just keep asking them until |
| they say yes! |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: This marriage isn't working out. My SimWife gets jealous when I kiss |
| all the other girls. Can I get divorced? |
| |
| A: No, there is no divorce! If you simply want to "play the field", then |
| just make sure to have your Sim do all of his romancing in another |
| room than any of his other love interests. But if you want that Sim |
| OUT, then there are ways... You can have that person Die (see the Q |
| below for more info on that), or you could get that Sim to get married |
| to someone else. Simply start up another home, and romance that Sim |
| until you can get them to marry you. They move out of the first |
| house, and in with the new Sim. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: My Sim keeps making "ouches" while preparing Dinner. Can they be |
| wounded permanently from this? |
| |
| A: Not from the actual preparing of the meals, but they can die if a fire |
| breaks out while cooking the food. To prevent such occurrences, have |
| your Sim read some Books on Cooking. Also build a Fire Alarm nearby. |
| It can't prevent Fires, but it will call the Fire Department for you. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I want to expand my house, how do you remove walls? |
| |
| A: In the Build Mode press and hold CTRL, then click and drag the mouse |
| across the wall that you wish to remove. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I want to move my Sims into a new home, will they keep all of their |
| money? |
| |
| A: Yes. Also their previous house will be sold along with everything in |
| it (at current market value, e.g. all objects depreciate with time and |
| use). This value is called the "Net Worth". You can see all the |
| families' Net Worth at the Neighborhood screen. This basically is the |
| amount of money they would have if they moved out of their house. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: All my Sims only have 20,000 to start with, so how do I get them into |
| the nice big shiny homes? |
| |
| A: Evict your Sims when they get rich enough to get a new house (use the |
| bulldozer Icon in the Neighborhood screen, then click on the |
| appropriate house to evict. It also asks if you want to bulldoze that |
| house, that's up to you) then go back to the Select/Create a Family |
| screen and select the Sims that you just evicted. Now you can move |
| them into any house that they can afford. Make sure that they still |
| have enough money to furnish the house, as most houses on the block |
| come empty. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I don't like my neighborhood, is there a way to reset it to how it was |
| before I mucked it up? |
| |
| A: Uninstall and reinstall the game. Then you might want to make a copy |
| of the UserData folder (found in TheSims directory, |
| c:\program files\maxis\thesims\userdata). Then if you ever want to |
| play a different neighborhood, or just play with a blank neighborhood, |
| simply move the copied folder back. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: Is there a Demo? |
| |
| A: No. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: Is this game worth getting? |
| |
| A: Yes. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: How do we kill our Sim? |
| |
| A: Well that is rather morbid of you, but there are several ways to "off" |
| a Sim. You can have them fight a fire, they might catch on fire |
| themselves and die a horrible death. Or you could starve them to |
| death. And finally you can also have them get electrocuted by having |
| them try to fix an appliance (or even changing a light bulb) without |
| any mechanical know how. I think a Sim has a 1 in 5 chance of dying |
| per light bulb with no mechanical skill points. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: What happens to Dead Sims? |
| |
| A: Their remains will "remain" with you forever! You can place the |
| remains inside your house (as an Urn) or outside (as a tombstone). |
| Either way, that dead Sim will every once in awhile roam around |
| HAUNTING THE LIVING AS A GHOST! Spooky! It's a random chance as to |
| whether that Dead Sim will haunt each night at 11:00 pm. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: What happens to the rest of the Departed Sims' Family? |
| |
| A: They have to mourn (if they know about the death, that is) for the poor|
| Sim for awhile, then they can mourn at any time by going up to the |
| remains. Beyond that, they aren't much affected by it. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: My Sims' Mood is fine until they get outside, then it plummets (due to |
| the Room rating)... what's wrong? |
| |
| A: When this first happened to me, it was because I hadn't bothered to |
| recycle the newspapers that had been arriving everyday (they stop |
| being delivered after 6 days of you not picking them up). Once a new |
| paper arrives, then the old one turns to trash, and trash has a |
| horrible effect on Room. Also you may want to decorate the outside. |
| Place some flowers, flamingoes, hedges, and whatnot. If you place |
| flowers, be sure to water them, or those will take the Sims' Room |
| rating down. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: My Sim is going to work everyday, has all the requirements for a |
| promotion, but doesn't ever seem to get it. What's wrong? |
| |
| A: Once all the requirements are met, all you need is mood! If your Sim |
| goes to work a surly grouch, he won't get promoted, but a happy fun |
| loving Sim always gets the good jobs. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: Can my Sim get demoted for being in a Bad Mood? What about if he |
| loses some family friends, or a stat is dropped? |
| |
| A: Yes, Sims can get demoted for being in a bad mood. One could suppose |
| that being in a bad mood caused their work to suffer, and that got |
| them demoted. And no, you don't get demoted if you lose some family |
| friends, or you have a stat dropped. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: My Sim got fired, can I get another good high paying job? |
| |
| A: Nope! Have to start out at the bottom of the ladder again. That's |
| why you should avoid getting fired. Going back up the ladder is |
| easiest if you choose a career path that needs the Skills that you |
| already have from working on your previous job. So if you have lots |
| of Body, try for a Military, Law Enforcement, or X-Treme career |
| tracks. Same for the rest of the Skills, try to keep to what would be |
| easiest to get promoted. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I am having no luck at making friends with this one Sim. What am I |
| doing wrong? |
| |
| A: Some Sims just clash (click on the Personality Button, then on their |
| Astrological Sign to see which Sims they are least compatible with), |
| or maybe that Sim (or your Sim) isn't very nice. It's very hard to |
| like a mean Sim. Hard, but not impossible. With these Sims you have |
| to carefully monitor their interactions. If that Sim is about to |
| taunt you, then cancel that action (although you can't cancel their |
| action directly you can cancel it on the receiving end by clicking on |
| the "Be Taunted" icon that will appear in your Queue), and try simply |
| talking to the Sim. With time, their relationship will improve, and |
| you will be able to be less vigilant, as friends tend to clash less |
| often. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: Do we ever get to see the Sims naked? Having Sex? What about any |
| Naked Skins? |
| |
| A: No, no and no. Although at the proper angle, you CAN see the Sims |
| naked in the shower. (you'll have to figure out the angle yourself, |
| though!) The most the Sims ever do in love is to passionately kiss. |
| If they "make a baby" then nothing happens between the Sims and the |
| baby "magically appears". |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: In the opening movie I can see a Sim coming out naked (albeit |
| censored) from the Hot Tub, but my Sims always wear a Swimsuit... |
| Why? |
| |
| A: The first Sim into the Hot Tub must be a VERY Outgoing Sim to get in |
| Buck Nekkid. Once one Sim goes in naked, then it seems that you just |
| can't stop every other Sim from going in naked as well. Crazy! |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I set the Sims to speak English, but I can't understand a word that |
| they are saying. |
| |
| A: Sims speak in gibberish called Sim (or SimSpeak if you prefer). The |
| only way that it resembles English (or any other language that it lets |
| you "set") is in the rhythm or cadence. |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: Can I change the radio station's names? What about the music? |
| |
| A: See the above section "Everything else in the Neighborhood" for |
| information on changing the music. However, you cannot change the |
| radio station's names. So whatever you change the music to will still |
| be listed under "Country" "Latin" "Rock" or "Classical". |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I can't find my serial number, can I have yours? |
| |
| A: No. If your game didn't COME with a serial number, you could try |
| contacting Maxis through their website: |
| http://www.thesims.com/ |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Q: I have some bizarre and obscure technical problem.... |
| |
| A: I have no idea how to fix technical problems, such as the game not |
| running or the game crashing. Try looking at Maxis' Official Sims |
| Website: |
| http://www.thesims.com/ |
'----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
================================================================================
Final Words...
================================================================================
_________________
Online Resources:
http://www.ea.com/ -- the publisher's site
http://www.thesims.com/ -- the Official Sims Site
This one is probably the one you will want
to go to the most often. They have
downloads to add to your game (new items
such as the Slot Machine), etc.
http://www.simzonline.com/ -- One of the best Fan Sites
http://thesims.xtremesimz.com/ -- Another of the best Fan Sites
This has a very large resource center for
finding skins, wallpapers, etc.
http://sims.xtremesimz.com/ -- The Sims Resource Center
http://www.projectsims.com/ -- Project Sims
http://www.synchroplay.com/mallofthesims/
-- Mall of the Sims
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ -- the best FAQs site on the net!
http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/25322.html
-- GameFAQs section on The Sims
http://www.cheatcc.com/ -- a great place for all your cheating needs
http://www.ebworld.com/ebx/ads/PROMOS/download/sims/default.asp
EBWorld made some neat skins that can be found at the above site.
ASCII Art created using the ASCII Art Maker by LTS (freeware)
You can probably find it at http://www.download.com/
This FAQ was written entirely using the GWD Text Editor: (shareware)
http://www.gwdsoft.com/
_________________________
Shameless Self Promotion:
I have also written FAQs for:
NES: Disney Adventures in the Magic Kingdom
The Legend of Zelda
SNES: Aerobiz Supersonic
Utopia: Creation of a Nation
PSX: Thousand Arms
PC: Baldur's Gate & Tales of the Sword Coast -- Walkthrough
-- NPC List
Colonization -- the Single Colony Strategy Guide
-- the Cheat Guide
Drakan: Order of the Flame
Dungeon Hack
Master of Magic (revision)
Pharaoh
Rollercoaster Tycoon
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar
Ultima 7: The Black Gate
Ultima 7 Part 2: Serpent Isle
Ultima Underworld -- Keyboard Commands
Ultima Underworld II -- Keyboard Commands
-- Spell List
All of my FAQs can be found at:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/
Questions? Comments? Mistakes? Wondering where all the Spam is?
Email me about it!
Email: manymoose@hotmail.com
ICQ: 185116
Email Policy: If you are going to email me about this game, please put
The Sims as the subject. Or Sims. Also please realize
that I am not hiding cheats or any other information, i.e.
everything I know about The Sims is in this guide.
_______________
Special Thanks:
Shyguy982 for his Trick in "Cheats & Tricks"
Kyrre Aalerud for the 3 tricks also in "Cheats & Tricks"
Anyone who has emailed me with something nice to say
CJayC for posting this FAQ and informing me (via his website) that The Sims
was out!
Will Wright for making this bizarrely fun game
Maxis and EA for publishing this uniquely addictive game
________________
Version History:
Preliminary Version 0.9 (2-11-00, 47k)
Original Version 1.0 (2-12-00, 63k)
Added the section Babies and Children
Finished all the other sections
Added a Trainer
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 1.1 (2-19-00, 64k)
Renamed the Cheats section to "Cheats & Tricks"
Changes in Version 1.5 (2-20-00, 74k)
Rewrote a lot of the information for clarity
Added lots of new information as well
Changes in Version 1.6 (2-21-00, 82k)
Added a neat new trick from Kyrre Aalerud
Added the Frequently Asked Questions Section
Changes in Version 1.7 (2-25-00, 86k)
Added several new Frequently Asked Questions
Started work on the Career Ladder Chart
Added a new Online Resource, and fixed another
Added 2 new Tricks to Cheats and Tricks
Other minute changes
Changes in Version 2.0 (2-26-00, 126k)
Spun out a new Section 6.1 and put the Career Tracks in there
Finished all the Career Tracks
Added 2 new Sections, 4.1 and 4.2, Cooking and Room Rating
Spun out another section 10.1 Death and Ghosts from section 10
Spun out the section 9.1 Children and School
Added another Alternate Floor Plan
Added another Frequently Asked Question (having to do with Hot Tubs)
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.1 (2-27-00, 127k)
Created a new section 2.1 The Bachelor Sim
Changes in Version 2.2 (2-28-00, 132k)
Added to the Bachelor Sim Section
Added the section 4.3 Alternative to Alarm Clocks
Also added the section 6.2 Abusing the Carpool
And also added the section 6.2.1 Early Morning Social Call
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.3 (2-29-00, 146k)
Spun out the section 11.1 Deleting Trash (and Bills too!) from the Cheats
& Tricks Section
Added the section 2.2 The Full House (8 Sims)
Renamed 6.1 to The Jobs Chart
Added the section 5.1 Befriending Mean Sims
Changed the Frequently Asked Questions Format
Added a couple new Frequently Asked Questions as well
Spun out the Changing the Radio Station Music section
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.4 (3-1-00, 153k)
Added the section 5.2 Carrying on Multiple Romances
Added the Section 5.3 Maintaining Relationships the Easy Way
Spell Checked the entire document (thanks to Red Phoenix who pointed out
that I needed to do this)
Added the section 9.2 What Kids Do
Added the section 2.1.1 The Bachelor Gets Married
Other Small Changes
Changes in Version 2.5 (3-2-00, 164k)
Added a new Online Resource (Mall of the Sims)
Added a new Frequently Asked Question
Added the Section 3.1 Building a Better House
Added the Section 4.4 Who Needs a Trashcan?
Added the Section 8.1 Building that Second Story
Also added the Section 8.1.1 The "Flying" Second Story
Other Small Changes
__________________________
Misc Facts about this FAQ:
This FAQ was started on February 10, 2000; and released on February 11, 2000
The Original size of the FAQ was 47.1k
The size of the FAQ now is 164k, which is an increase of 248.2%
There were 33506 characters, 6863 words, and 953 lines in the Original
Preliminary Version.
There are now 103452 characters, 21561 words, and 2926 lines in this current
version.
If you were to print it out, it would take, 52 pages (average).
________
Stinger:
Reticulating Splines:
According to Webster's, to reticulate is: to divide, mark, or construct so
as to form a network. And a spline is: a function that is defined on an
interval, is used to approximate a given function, and is composed of pieces
of simple functions defined on subintervals and joined at their endpoints
with a suitable degree of smoothness.
Therefore, reticulating splines would be: Constructing network based
functions that are defined by divisible intervals while approximating said
network and composing it of pieces of simple functions defined on
subintervals and joined at their endpoints with a suitable degree of
smoothness.
-- Will Wright (from http://www.simzonline.com/)
________________________________________________________________________________
This Document is Copyright 2000 by Dan Simpson
The Sims is Copyright 2000 by Electronic Arts
I am not affiliated with Maxis, Electronic Arts, or anyone who had anything to
do with the creation of this game. This FAQ may be posted on any site so long
as NOTHING IS CHANGED and you EMAIL ME telling me that you are posting it. You
may not charge for, or in any way profit from this FAQ.