Build a City Challenge Chat

[simsterlyrock]

There was a thread like this over on the old Boolprop, and I'm going to start it up again! So just post random tidbits about how your BACC is doing.

At the moment, I'm almost about to start year 2 and I have three households and a population of 24. I've just been flying through the rotations and I'm loving my families. I'm also SUPER excited to see what the kids look like when they grow up!

[Twilightoutside]

Thanks for creating this thread again, Simsterlyrock!

Currently working my way through 21 households in Spring 1 - just crossed the 3000 Population mark - yay pizza! 60+ Community Lots/Businesses now, and while we only have Servos, Bigfeet and Plantsims so far, the first alien abduction just happened... I'm going for a 'no townies/npc's allowed into the family, unless they are Bigfoot, and no CAS Sims either' approach... yeah, I'm kinda lame like that...

[simsterlyrock]

Sounds like a fun of doing it! At the moment I'm only using townies as spouses. In previous attempts at the BACC, I moved in tons of townie friends to get my households and population up, but this time around I want to take it a little bit slower.

[Jendra]

Just got my first permaplat. Mind you, Delphinia was a plantsim, so she was easy to keep in a good mood anyway, but still, she's the first permaplat in the city. At this point I'm not letting any one get a job unless it's their ltw and is open, so only about 4 people even have jobs. Oh... no, I have to take that back, her dad fulfilled his ltw to max all skills this season (by virtue of a *lot* of eggplant juice), so Delphinia was the second. She was the first job one though.

[Pony]

I'm debating on starting another BaCC. I love and will keep playing Arbor Watch...but I have an idea. *plots*

[simsterlyrock]

I love the way my BACC is going so far, but I've been reading keoni-chan's BACC and I'm sort of wanting to start a second one using the modified rules by Nepheris...hmm...but I also want to makeover and play the Pleasantview sims, since it's been 5ever since I've played any of them.

Either way, I'm almost done with summer of year 2. I just have to play one more household and then I'll be done, and ready to start the next season! So far I've been able to add a new household every rotation because I've always had the newest household buy a community lot, but I think I might slow down on that, since I've got a PlantSim now, and quite a few kids that will be growing up in coming seasons, and I don't want to go crazy with the number of households to play.

[Leviathan255]

Well, I've been having issues and lost all my sims 2 files. So I will once again be starting over. I think I'll use my first towns name of Emerald Fields because I really like the name. Here's hoping that the third time is the charm!

[simsterlyrock]

I'm sorry you have to restart! I like the name though.

[Leviathan255]

Thank you!

[LibyLu]

I just started my first BACC about a week ago and I am having a lot of fun! I am rotating by seasons between my four families. A couple of the 2nd generation just turned into teens so I am very excited about that! My population is at 36. My goal is to get some of my sims businesses up to level 10 by the end of the week and finally get some careers unlocked.
I recently discovered how terrible I am at running restaurant businesses, who knew you could get a -1 level business! (anyone got any tips for running restaurants?)

[simsterlyrock]

I've never tried a restaurant before, so I can't help much. But maybe someone else can help. Sorry! I'm loving my BACC though. I'm trying it with a different ruleset and I just finished the first week for all five households and there was a lot of romancing going on. ACR ended up giving me four kids in the first week.

[Jendra]

What problems were you having? I admit, I didn't have any problems, but I ran mine with 3 plantsims. Even at that, Talin didn't have quite enough body points as a server, since he occasionally spilled food on people.

I did take all foreign foods off the menu because, to me, it seemed there were problems when they tried to choose one of those.

Tips... Use family members if you have enough instead of hiring someone. At the podium you need someone to do sales. Your cook needs 10 cooking points, if they don't have 10 then take anything off the menu that they don't have the points to make, burned food will not get you stars. Your server needs body points, Talin had 3 and it wasn't enough, I'd say at least 5 to make sure food isn't spilled. Once your restaurant reaches level 5 or so, you really need another server. Make sure there's enough room between tables. Don't know what to tell you about needs, since I used plantsims, I just needed sunlamps over the podium, stove and in the middle of the restaurant and showers in the restrooms.

[LibyLu]

The only ones running the restaurant is one of my couples from the challenge. I bumped up the servers body skill points and that did help! I think next time I play the family im going to have them hire another server. I'm not a big fan of hiring employees for family buisnesses, I can never get them to either stay or actually work.
And as for taking care of my sims needs I keep the energizer in one of their inventories and have them use it when their needs get scary.


I have another question: Under the Architecture career rules it says, " A position in Architecture will be opened for every 10 lots, residential, or community, and each neighborhood addition." Does that mean I can add total my number of residential and community lots? Or does there have to be 10 residential lots or 10 community lots for a position in Architecture to be unlocked?

[Pony]

In Arbor Watch I added both together, 10 lots total.

Started my new BACC, got the founder through her first week. She had a tough time getting enough money to start her business. Thankfully she dug up four treasure chest. She didn't find a spouse until the last day of the rotation. I was so hoping for babies, but no luck.

[simsterlyrock]

I have another question: Under the Architecture career rules it says, " A position in Architecture will be opened for every 10 lots, residential, or community, and each neighborhood addition." Does that mean I can add total my number of residential and community lots? Or does there have to be 10 residential lots or 10 community lots for a position in Architecture to be unlocked?

I'd say that it's a combination of either community or residential lots.

[Jendra]

My question is hobby lots. I don't recall seeing anything about them in either of the rule sets I use. I don't think they should be there from the beginning, so when do you think would be a good time to allow people to go to hobby lots? (or is there already a rule and I just missed it?)

[simsterlyrock]

My question is hobby lots. I don't recall seeing anything about them in either of the rule sets I use. I don't think they should be there from the beginning, so when do you think would be a good time to allow people to go to hobby lots? (or is there already a rule and I just missed it?)

In the original rules there are no rules about them, so you could figure something out for yourself. Maybe have them unlocked with the Downtown? And I know that Nepheris' rules have them locked until Downtown is unlocked.

I'm not sure what other versions of the rules are out there, but I feel like having hobby lots be locked until you unlock Downtown is a good idea.

[Jendra]

*sigh* That's a long, long time away. Oh well, I can't really disagree.

I just counted. I've done 27 seasons. 27! In that time I've had *1* burglary, *1* fire and *0* gypsy lamps. That just doesn't seem fair to me! <pout>

[simsterlyrock]

Wow. That's a long time and not a lot of anything. I've already had two burglaries in just one week.

[Twilightoutside]

I didn't even had a single burglary till now... *sigh*... but when I opened a bakery, I had 4 fires... then again, I probably baked a thousand cakes and pies in this time...

Aside from that, question: how would you define a 'club'? Does that mean, a DJ booth, a bar, seats and tables and nothing else you can earn money with?