Build a City Challenge Chat

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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Lorinsv »

I got a good idea from a BaCC that I read for placing earned community lots: buildings that your Sims might go to in the various levels of their career. For example, a science lab, a criminal den/lair, a construction site, etc.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by katrisims »

Hmm, an interesting idea indeed. :hmm: Although, I'm currently working on building my second non-business community lot, so it'll probably be a while before I need any such ideas. :lol:
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by simsterlyrock »

I started a new BACC and I'm going to definitely be adding more community lots that will complete the look of the town, such as a town hall, schoolhouse, etc.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by peachy123uk »

I have always wanted to have bank, or town hall or library in any B.A.C.C.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by simsterlyrock »

Ooooh, a library is an awesome idea. <3
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Lorinsv »

I have a library in Mesa Vista, ostensibly for the residents to buy cell phones.

I also put the FreeTime model train set upstairs in the kid's section, which makes it a fun place to visit.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Pony »

I haven't played in awhile, but I missed playing the Sims the other day. So of course I made a new neighborhood and picked a random Sim from my Sim bin and started a BACC named Cornough. Though I'm now regretting not taking pictures.

But Cornough is doing well, Kiet Razbern is the founder, is growing a garden. He sells the produce at his little shop called the Stand. He married Kaylynn from the welcome wagon and they have four kids. Kiet wants three and Kaylynn wants six. Though I doubt there'll be a college in time for Kiet to graduate three kids from college.

I'm coming to the end of week 2, and I'm debating if I want to use my CAS point or not.

I'm also debating about starting over so I can take pictures or just starting to take pictures now. Though I'm not sure if I want to commit to writing atm.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Oso_Peluche »

Gosh the Build a City Challenge. it's been ages since I played it or TS2! I'm in the middle of moving so my PC with all the fancy CC is still back in the States, thankfully my Boyfriend has a super old laptop that plays TS2 rather nicely! This is going to be a lengthy post, I'm rarely able to talk about the sims with anyone.

Only have one household right now: The Soledad family. (Soledad is Spanish for Solitude)
-My Simself, Omar Soledad, Family/Knowledge LTW of having 6 Grandkids.
-The Husband, Kenny Soledad, Knowledge/Pleasure LTW of Becoming a mad scientist. Which probably won't happen!
-The cat, Tartar Sauce
-Oldest Twin, Flor Soledad
-Youngest Twin, Jose Soledad

Spoiler:
So I decided to Start a BACC, because clearly playing the game for the first time in forever with hard restrictions is fun!
The Neighbourhood is called Luna :wizard: I made my simself as the founder, put him on a 5x5 lot and went at it!
Anyway everything caught on fire and I had to reload.
Silly me! My sim had super low social so he went to talk to a passerby, and I had forgotten that he had put food in the oven.

Second (and current!) attempt is going much "better"! Honestly I forgot how hard this game was, motives drain so fast, digging up treasure did give me enough to buy a square and a roof to protect from winter! I foolishly bought my first small Business, but I forgot how to run businesses and I hardly had money for anything! I never had this many aspiration failures. I am very rusty at the game! :roll:
I was so busy trying to make money to buy the essentials that I only noticed my Sim having 12 days left to being an elder! Quickly went for the next guy that walked by. And soon they had twins! Bought the Elixer of life and had my Simself chug a couple of drinks to give him more days and be more in line with his husband.
At some point with two adults trying to make enough money to buy food, two babies crying, and a kitty. I ended up downloaded a hack that slows the motive decay. I slowed it by 25%, didn't want to feel too cheaty but I was feeling overwhelmed! :peekaboo:
Once I get used to TS2 again I'll remove it, but for now I don't have babies crying every few minutes!

We got a Burglary and a stove fire in the same day. And while I know fire caused by lightning doesn't count, Lighting hit the Toy maker thing, sim put it out, lightning hit it again, sim put it out, and lightning hit it again! Decided to count that for the Law enforcement which Lenny joined, he just got his first promotions and I'm going to invest that into the Business which is a Toy shop!
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by peachy123uk »

Spoiler:
i do love a bacc myself i have actually completed one. And i had one ongoing hasn't been updated in a while. But you seem to having very poor luck with lightning and everything sometimes a little help is needed
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Jenn »

I want to do another BACC. I had a lot of fun with mine.

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Your game sounds like how every single one of mine goes. I hope your twins age up soon. Crying babies are the worst!

I haven't played sims 2 in a couple of years, so I feel your pain. I keep thinking I should go play, but I have forgotten how hard it is compared to 3 and 4. Now I'm tempted to make one right now.

Edit: I checked my sig, apparently I played in 2021, so only a year away. Seems so much longer than that.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Oso_Peluche »

You should do another BACC! I just love seeing a whole empty neighborhood that started with 1 sim grow to be giant city.

Played a bit yesterday and today. The twins grew up to be teenagers! My simself is pregnant once more, but I'm thinking of sending Kenny to the business and keep him there for a while since I've been ignoring that side of things.
Anyone has general adviceanf tips afor businesses I've always been horrible at them!
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by peachy123uk »

Spoiler:
never hire anybody always use your playable sims. Never put too much out for sale and always cheap and first and then average. You don't need to hire baby sitter if there is two playable and one of you that own the business. One playable sim goes to the business about 7 am and call the other playable sim to come to the business. Saves money on baby sitter and don't have to hire sims. if married couple close the shop have date and that should raise their energy to keep playing the business. Or if you use cheats you could always max their motives. Hope that helps.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Seera »

More business tips (some useful for this house, others useful for future ones):

1. Businesses that sell things will be easier to get stars in than venues. At least that's what I've found. Especially starting out when you don't have a fortune to make a star generating venue.

2. Have someone always being cashier.

3. Have the other person be manually controlled to do sales and restock.

4. Dazzling will tank your salesperson's motives so be careful unless you've got a Sim who isn't bothered by low energy - such as a Servo or Plantsim.

5. Plantsims and Servos make great business employees because they don't require much care. You just have to be careful with the Servo with their Social and Fun motives to prevent running amok. You do need a shower and the sun lights for Plantsims. You would need to have a set of Servos if you wanted to run 24/7 due to Servos needing to recharge via sunlight.

6. Vampires are doable, but you have to be extra careful to time when they close the business so that they can leave the lot BEFORE 7 am hits.

7. Have your salesperson/restocker stop what they are doing and say bye to the evil witch to reduce chances of the evil witch doing things that will cause loss of stars.

8. Restaurants with servers and hosts and chefs are the hardest to run because they take prep. Some people take the route of doing a more food court interpretation of restaurant the typical sit down restaurant for the restaurant requirement for Culinary. Up to you on that if you've got the Bon Voyage food stations

9. Teenagers make great business helpers. Send them with Kenny on the weekend. They can also be babysitters if you don't send Kenny until after they get home - then the mom can come. If you do send three of them, make one of them a restocker and the other a salesperson.

10. Keep your playables from socializing on lots where they key is to be buying items. They'll distract those buying items and keep other Sims from coming onto the lot to actually buy something. And try to interrupt the customers from doing that as well.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Lorinsv »

I've found that the two easiest businesses for me are:

- a food stand using the ones that come with Bon Voyage - they practically sell themselves, no need for a restaurant podium or cash register
- selling anything you can buy from the catalog - with practice, this becomes relatively easy

I start cheap and small for first businesses, like I have specialized stores that sell lamps, candles, pet supplies, toys, baby supplies, kitchen supplies, anything you can dream up. Once the households get more money, they sell larger ticket items like furniture, appliances, beds, an art gallery, landscape supplies, the sky is the limit!

For realism, my first businesses were a small grocery store and a clothing store, but those are little more expensive to establish so I did lots of digging at first.

Venues are a little harder - my first one was a bar with a pool table and juke box. Later on I made a bowling alley, and that is hecka fun!

One thing I like to do is check out the inventories when I go into each household to see what my Sims have been buying behind the scenes while they're not being played, then use that stuff for their home if possible.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Oso_Peluche »

Thanks a lot! For some reason I kept thinking that I had to make the things in order to sell them, think I got my games mixed up!
I changed the Toy store to a Grocery store since that makes more sense, and now knowing that I don't have to grow all the produce and I can just buy that produce bins and restock those. But the stars really started coming in when I bought that Sellafone Gadget Kiosk, who knew sims really wanted to buy multiple cellphones!
At rank 7 right now and I'm going to use the money to remodel the house, or just download one because I'm bad at houses!
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by katrisims »

Ooh, business tips! It's fun to see how everyone plays. :) Here's what I can think of:
  • If you're selling items made by a sim, stick to one kind per business and buy the rest of the items from the catalogue. The customers will buy items faster than your sim can make them, so sticking to one kind will help them keep up. If you need to make both toy robots and cleaning bots, it gets overwhelming fast. Even with one kind, you might have to close the business every now and then to make more.
  • Prioritize having a cashier and helping confused customers. Not having a cashier will make customers upset quickly, and you can gain nice stars from helping the confused customers before they give up. Restocking comes second and I'd say other selling only third. If your items are not super expensive, most sims will eventually buy them on their own.
  • Related to the previous, if you micromanage, you can manage without having a cashier assigned all the time, you just have to keep an eye on the situation and make someone Ring Up These Customers as soon as anyone wants to checkout. I do this a lot, so the cashier doesn't have to stand there doing nothing while the customers are shopping, but if you fear you might forget, assigning a cashier could be better.
  • If your family has some money already, venues can be a fun and relaxed way to make money. If you're not in a hurry, you can set the ticket price pretty cheap, meaning you don't even have to sell them, so your sim gets to mostly just socialize with the customers and lure them to do something fun so they'll stay longer. You just need to clean any plates or bathroom facilities occasionally.
  • If a customer is causing trouble - rejecting all your sales socials or picking fights with other customers etc. - you can just ask them to leave! They won't even get upset. Some mean sims might do this repeatedly, but most sims are a pain only when in a bad mood.
  • The Good Witch is an excellent customer, especially for a venue! It seems their needs don't drop, so if you can lure them to do something fun, they'll stay indefinitely making you money and gaining stars. I had a "dance studio" business once, where I managed to lure the Good Witch to dance smustle. She danced for like two weeks straight, and as a bonus, other sims were compelled to join her on their own, so my sim could do something else. :)
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Oso_Peluche »

Thanks Katri! The biggest thing holding me back was thinking that my sims had to make everything they sold. (Harvest all the produce to open a grocery store for example, when I could have just bought the Produce bin!)
Speaking of Witches, I had to install a mod that stopped the Evil Witch from casting that Roach spell. He kept coming to the lot and infecting everything with roaches, my poor sims!

A little update, with all the money from the Business perks I finally rebuild the house, couldn't find one that I could download that fit what I wanted, so I just made a box!
Baby Number 3 has been born too! Little Baby Esmeralda was just born!
Here are the kiddos!
Spoiler:
Esmeralda
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Jose
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Flor
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All the business tips have been super helpful, planning on opening a small clothing store next!
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Chase »

I hate those roaches. I straight up moveobjects on delete them the instant they generate at this point. I should probably get that mod, too, lol. Congrats on the growth!

I've been playing my BACC lately and just hit a few milestones! First university and 1000 population! I have 5 college kids waiting until the next rotation to be played. I'm eager to get them graduated so that the founder's family can start their fourth generation! (It's technically already been started because of PlantSims, but it'll still feel significant to have the first standard nooboo of the fourth gen.) I'm currently playing the 16th rotation, with a population of 30 and SM of 40.

Since I'm not sharing this BaCC, here is the town:
Spoiler:
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The main neighborhood.

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The main hood's business area. Here we have an art gallery, dance studio, electronics store, gaming store, car dealership, farmers market, recreation store, camping store, Costco-style warehouse store hahaha, restaurant/music venue, grocery store, and a tower/pavilion.

Image
Here is where most of the population lives, as well as the cemetary.

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This is the the main Business District (I've decorated one other but not really filled it in, there are currently 6 total). It has a pottery store, a Servo store (so the whole town will be stacked with Servos if I decide I want to inflate the population for an instant win, lol), a public pool, a garden supply store, a gym, a flower store, and a car dealership. The car dealership funded 95% of the university, lol.
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Lorinsv »

Your town is beautiful, thanks for sharing the pictures, Chase! Congrats on the score too :thup:

My first car lot was a disaster, my poor Sim went completely broke after only one session :thdown: Can you share some tips on how to make them work?
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Re: Build a City Challenge Chat

Post by Chase »

Thanks! So I don't remember exactly how it went when I first started it, but I just played it a bit and basically it's a lot of Dazzling. It of course takes a lot of money to start up. It's my founding family that's got the car dealerships; they already had a few level 10 businesses before starting them. Since the cars are so expensive, some of them sell on their own, but even at level 10 I had my Sim Dazzling an average of 2 times to get a sale, even just on the 'average' price. It helps that the Sim I have doing the sales is a PlantSim, so he's unstoppable during the day. I've got snapdragons on the cashier and energizers (the aspiration reward) on hand for the non-PlantSims--nearly the entire family is permaplat already with tons of aspiration points, so they can basically go forever. I've also got the weather aspiration reward going all the time because lightning storms aren't fun for a 90% outdoor business, lol. I just spent an in-game day or two on the lot and netted over 300k!

I've been playing a lot lately and just got out of a house that currently has 5 kids--including two sets of twins born two days apart (two dads, one got alien pregnant after the other one was already pregnant). Stress. :peekaboo: At least the oldest went to college now.
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