________________________________________________________________________________ ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ oo,o, ,o, ,o,, , ,,, ooooo,, ooo oooo,,o oo,,oo ,ooo, oo,, ,oo oooooooooo oooooooo ,oooo,,,,,,,oo,,oo, oooooooooooooo oooooooo oo, ooo,,o o,, , ,oooooooooooooo, ,oooooo ooo, oooooo ,oo ooooooooooo ,o, ,,,o ooo ooooooooo, ,oooooo ooo, oo, , ,ooo,o, oooooooo, ,oooooo oooo ooo, ooooooooo, ooooooooo ,oooooo ooooo ooooo ooooooooo, oooooooooo ,oooooo oooooo oooooo, oooooo, ,oooooooo,, ,oooooo ,oooooo ooooooo ooooo, oooooooo,o, ,oooooo oooooooo oooooooo ooooo, T H E ,oooooooo,o ,oooooo oooooooo, ooooooooo oooooo, ,oooooooooo, ,oooooo ,ooooooooo,oooooooooo ,oooooo, ,oooooooo,o ,oooooo ooooooooo,,oooooooooo, oooooo, ,ooooooooo, ,oooooo ,oooooooooooooooooooooo ooooo,o, ooooooooo ,oooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooo, ooooooo ooooooooo ,oooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooo, ooooooo ooooooooo ,oooooo ,oooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooo oooooooooo, ,oooooo oooooooo oooooooo ooooooo,ooooooooooo, ,oooooooooooo, ,oooooo ooooooo, ,oooooo oooooooo oooooooo, oooooooooooooooo, ,oooooo ooooooo oooooo ,ooooooo oooo ooooooooooooo oooooo, ooooo ooooooo ,ooooooo, ,oooooo ooo, ooooooo ooooooo oooooo, ________________________________________________________________________________ ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ The Sims The Complete Guide Version 4.11 (4-10-00) by Dan Simpson (manymoose@hotmail.com) Email Policy: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ If you are going to email me about this game, please put The Sims as the subject. Or just 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. If you see any mistakes, or have anything that you want to add please email me! I will, of course, give you full credit for your addition, and be eternally grateful to you. Before emailing me with a question, be sure to check out the Frequently Asked Questions section. _______________ .--------------------========= N O T E S =========-------------------------. | ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ | | The most recent version of this FAQ can be found at: | | http://www.gamefaqs.com/ | | http://www.cheatcc.com/ | | http://www.gamewinners.com/ | | | | Den nyeste norske versjonen kan finnes pċ: | | http://www.danielthesim.cjb.net | | | | 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! | | | | If you wish to translate this FAQ into another language, just email me | | telling me about it, and where it will be located (the URL). You still have | | to give me credit for writing the FAQ, though. | | | | 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! | | | | There is also now an Expansion Pack planned for the Sims! Not much is known | | about it, but it should be out in the fall. | | | | Be sure to check http://www.thesims.com/ every Thursday for a game update! | | | | Updates so far: | | | | Cuckoo Clock | | Moose Head Decoration | | 5 New Skins | | 5 New Houses | | Wall Lights | | Slot Machine | | Guinea Pig (Pet) | | Note: With the Guinea Pig, if you fail to keep its cage clean, your | | Sim may catch a disease from it! | | New Plants | | New "Buff" Skins | | "Elwood" Skin | | | | AND | | | | A complete Game upgrade to The Sims version 1.1! | | | | This FAQ looks best in Courier New at about 9 points. | '--------------------=================================-------------------------' ___________________ What's New in 4.11: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ - Added a new "trick" to section 11 - Fixed one glaringly bad mistake 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 1.1) Understanding Your Sims 1.1.1) What a Sim Wants/Needs 1.1.2) Why A Sim Does What He Does 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 3.2) Who Needs Walls? 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? 4.5) Sims' Interaction With Objects 4.6) Moving Trash Yourself 4.7) The "Cluster" Method 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 5.4) Sending your Sim Out of the House! 5.5) Creating Friends the Old Fashioned Way 5.6) How to Befriend SimKids 6.) Working (and Not) a.) Quitting b.) Job Events 6.1) The Jobs Chart (a.k.a. the Career Paths) 6.1.1) Alternate Job Chart 6.2) Abusing the Carpool 6.2.1) Early Morning Social Call (while Abusing the Carpool no less!) 6.3) Quitting for Fun and Profit 7.) Running an Efficient Household 7.1) Working the Pause 8.) Expanding the House 8.1) Building that Second Story 8.1.1) The "Flying" Second Story 8.1.2) The Balcony 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 11.) Cheats & Tricks 11.1) Deleting Trash (and Bills too!) 11.2) Paying only Every Other Bill 11.3) The Newbie Trick 11.4) Washing Dishes Faster 12.) Customizing Your Game 12.1) Changing the Radio Station Music 12.2) Skins 12.2.1) The "Nude" Patch 12.3) Setting up Multiple Neighborhoods 13.) Known Bugs 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 9 downloads: a Slot Machine, a Cuckoo Clock, a Moose Head, 5 Warrior Skins, 5 Houses, New Plants, Wall Lights, new Buff Skins, and a Guinea Pig. 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 a neat little trick that one can do with the Tutorial, check out section 11.3 The Newbie Trick for details. 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) The following subsections deals with the Sims themselves, and why they do the things that they do. Note: Throughout this FAQ I often refer to Sims as "he" or "him". This is a fairly arbitrary choice of gender, basically because I myself am male. This is not because all Sims are male, I just refer to them that way. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.1 Understanding Your Sims -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Even if you don't have Freewill turned on (and you don't HAVE to, check the Game Options) you should understand a few things about your Sims. What they like, why they like it, etc. For example, why does a Sim choose what they do on their own? Why do they stop doing it when they do? In the first subsection we'll talk about the 8 motives (or as I prefer to call them, Needs) and their effect on your Sim, then in the next subsection we'll talk about the reasons behind your Sim's actions, and how to better control them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.1.1 What a Sim Wants/Needs -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Each Sim has 8 Needs that constantly need to be met. And at most you can satisfy 2 or 3 needs at a time. Note: The Hot Tub CAN satisfy up to 4 needs at a time, depending on whether there's more than one person in the Hot Tub. Also, Sims will stay in the Hot Tub until all 4 of those needs are filled. (these Needs are Hygiene, Comfort, Fun, and if someone else is in with them, Social) Also realize that the needs are weighted differently. That is, Hunger counts for more than Room does, although both count when computing mood. So, your Sim will try to satisfy Needs based on the most serious Need first, which may not be the Need that needs the most work done on it. The Needs: (in no particular order) Hunger -- fairly self-explanatory. Satisfying hunger can be done mostly at the fridge. In a pinch you can also call the Pizza delivery guy (under Services on your phone), but that isn't nearly so satisfying as a good home cooked meal. The following factors go into how satisfying, and therefore how much of the Hunger Need is filled, a meal is: - The Type of Fridge you have, the better the more satisfying the meal. - The Type of Preparation surface used. A food processor here is best, followed by a bare counter, then by using the surface on a dishwasher/garbage compactor. So don't count on the surface of the dishwasher, as it makes less appealing meals. - The type of cooking implement used, again the better the equipment, then the better the meal will be. - And the skill of the cook comes into play here. The more cooking skill points your Sim has, the better the meal. If you have the best in all 4 of the above categories, then you can and should let your hunger rating drop lower than you would if you didn't. Otherwise you are wasting all those nutritional points by eating a great meal when you only needed a good one. For more information check out section 4.1 Cooking (or a Meal fit for a Sim). Room -- How appealing the room you are in is. This is covered in depth in section 4.2 The Room Rating. Social -- Sims are social creatures, and need companionship. Some Sims (the High Outgoing Sims) need Social more than others. (i.e. their Social rating will drop faster than the less outgoing Sims) The "High Level" interactions, kissing, hugging, etc., have a better effect on this than merely talking. The best way to keep Social satisfied is to socialize at least once a day. Work your way up on other Sims relationship charts, dance with them, tell jokes, etc. Do that and you should be just fine. Bladder - Just use the toilet before this one hits Pure Red (empty) or you might pee on the floor. Not only that, but having this little "accident" cuts into their other Needs too, such as Hygiene. Your sims will need to "use the facilities" after drinking coffee or eating a meal. Note: Non-neat Sims won't flush automatically after using the toilet, so you will have to make sure that they do it, or the toilet could clog up. Energy -- Two ways to get Energy up, sleep, and Coffee. Sleep is the better solution, and the better the bed (or couch in the case of naps) the more Energy you get back in less time. If you fail to get to sleep or drink some coffee before your Sims' Energy bar hits Pure Red, then he will collapse on the floor and sleep there. THIS IS NOT GOOD! Your Sim will wake up with NO Comfort, and far less Energy than if he had slept in a bed. So before Energy gets too low, send the Sim to bed! Note: Espresso is better than Coffee, but takes longer to drink. Comfort - A gauge on how your Sim is FEELING. Low comfort is similar to how you would feel Sore after exercising. Comfort is a Need that you should never bother with on its own. You can always increase Comfort while doing something else, for example, while eating your Sim sits on a chair, or while watching TV he sits on a couch. Note: The Best Toilet also increases Comfort. Also the main reason to get the top of the line Tub (not the hot tub) is because it helps Comfort as well as Hygiene. Hygiene - How clean your Sim feels. This naturally decays throughout the day, but is also decreased by using the toilet without washing your hands, or accidentally peeing your pants. Fun -- And lastly there is Fun. A bored Sim is an unhappy Sim. Keep your Sim entertained by having him read the Paper, a Book, or Watch TV, Dance to the radio, etc. There are some activities that help out 2 or more of the Needs. Some of these are: Sitting in the Hot Tub (Hygiene, Comfort, Fun, Social), the Hygeia-Matic Toilet (Comfort, Bladder), Eating while Sitting with Others (Social, Hunger, Comfort), Dancing with a Guest (Fun, Social), Joking with a Guest (Fun, Social), etc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.1.2 Why A Sim Does What He Does -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why do some Sims like to watch TV and others like to read a book? Why does one Sim like cartoons and another the horror channel? Why does your Sim STOP doing a certain activity even though he still hasn't filled that Need? And why do they keep doing an inefficient activity when there are better objects to fill that need around? Let's find out! Here's where we get into the PERSONALITY of your Sims. (We won't actually be CREATING our Sims for the moment, we're just looking at them first so you can know what you're dealing with) Just like people, every Sim has his own personality. One Sim may be a happy little go-getter, while another is a slob who can't shut up. Obviously then, not all Sims are going to like doing the same things. The Personality Types: Neat, Messy -- Neat Sims are like little Maids, they clean up not only after themselves, but others too. They also wash their hands after using the Toilet, and after eating with their hands. They do the dishes, they take out the trash, and are generally nice to have around. Messy Sims are the opposite. They don't wash their hands, they don't do dishes. They also tend to leave puddles when using the shower. Outgoing, Shy - Outgoing Sims crave conversation with other Sims. As discussed in the last section, their Social Need will drop like a rock if they don't have some friends over to chat with. They're more likely to have the Higher Level social interactions pop up, and react better when someone does one on them (for example, they are less likely to push a hug away). Shy Sims still need Social, but on a smaller scale. Active, Lazy -- The Active Sim wants to go out and play some Hoops, or do something other than sit around watching TV. They Dance, they Swim, and enjoy moving around. Lazy Sims are your couch potatoes. Their Comfort score will drop faster than for active Sims (to reflect their overwhelming desire to sit). Lazy Sims also have troubles getting out of bed. Playful, Serious -- Playful Sims like to play around with other Sims (i.e. jokes) or with games (Pool, Computer, Pinball). Serious Sims are your bookworms. They also like Newspapers. Nice, Grouchy -- This mostly effects how well your Sim will interact with others. Remember the old saying "Doesn't play well with others", well that's the Grouchy Sim. I refer to them as the Mean Sim as they like to insult, tease, taunt, and brag. Following your Sims' personality type will make them happy, but may make others unhappy. (i.e. the Mean Sim insulting people) So try to work within the boundaries of personality, but don't let it run their lives. Best Fun Objects Based on Personality: Playful -- Aquarium, Chess Table, Computer, Doll house, Pinball, TV (Cartoons), VR Glasses -- INTERACTIVE Objects Serious -- Newspaper, Book Active -- Basketball, TV (Action), Pool, Radio Lazy -- TV (Any Channel!), Computer Outgoing - Hot Tub, TV (Romance) Mean -- TV (Horror) For a more thorough look at Sims and their interactions with various Objects check out section 4.5. Now let's actually create that Sim Family! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 §70 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 tricky thing about 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. Note: The best way to pick and choose your Career is to use a computer. If you can't really afford a computer, buy it before you buy the rest of your things, use it quickly to get a good job, then sell it before it has been 24 hours. If you sell before that, you get all your money back! 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 §10 an hour, and has a working hours of 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, for a maximum of §70 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 your BACHELOR HIMSELF 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 §28k, then that family will gain that much when he is married into the family. Sweet deal! Note: Once you've moved your Bachelor out in this fashion, his old house will remain EXACTLY AS HE LEFT IT! Which might make it an ideal house to have another Bachelor move into, as it would be cheaper (due to Item Value Degradation) than buying it all new. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 (§7). 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 (§6). 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" (§6). 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 (§20)). 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--------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2 Who Needs Walls? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thinking about this logically (and we Sims players are nothing if not logical) there is only one thing Sims need privacy for, and that's going to the bathroom. They don't seem disturbed when they sleep in a room with other people (though they do seem to mind being put into the same bed with a stranger). So, if all you need walls for is a bathroom, then why not simply save on money, and ONLY build walls around the bathroom? Walls are expensive! Save your money for something really cool, like that Hot Tub! Note: Well this strategy seems really cool on the surface, but there is a bit of a downside. No one can sleep in the same room as an active TV or radio. Which means that everyone will have to sleep at the same time. In other words, if Sim Bob is on the nightshift and Sim Betty is on the dayshift, they'll overlap, and one will want to sleep while the other wants to watch TV. Other than that it works great. Note: This strategy works best with a Bachelor Sim, for reasons stated in the previous NOTE. A more extreme version of this is to build ONLY the 2x1 bathroom, and have no house at all. This really saves on money as walls aren't cheap, but has some odd drawbacks, such as your Sim refusing to get out of the shower if even another Sim wanders by the lot, or your Sim getting stuck in the bathroom because another Sim wants to use it. However, it makes a great starting Bachelor house (although it looks very Hillbilly), if you intend to have this Bachelor get married into another household later. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Furnishing a House -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 (§600 for the Llamark) Cooking Appliance (§400 for the Dialectic Free Standing Range, stove) Empty Counter Dish Cleaning Apparatus (either a Sink or the Fuzzy Logic Dishwasher, §650) Fire Alarm (§50) Food Processor (§220) 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 §20 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 (§95). Around it place 4 Chairs (the cheapest chair works fine, §80). 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 (§80) 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 (§300 for the Hygeia-O-Matic) Major Hygiene Item (§640 for the SpaceMiser Shower) Bathroom Sink (§400 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, §300 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 §150) Television (Monochrome is §85, Trottco 27" is §500) Bookcase (§250 for the Cheap Pine) Desk/Table (Mesquite Desk/Table is §80) Radio (Down Wid Dat Boom Box is §100) 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 §50 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... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.1 Cooking (or, a Meal fit for a Sim!) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: To keep things moving efficiently, you should arrange the kitchen appliances in order of use, so place the Fridge, then next to it have the Food Processor on a Counter, then the Cooking Range, and finally a blank counter. Why? Saves time, and every second counts! 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 (§40). 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.2 Room Rating -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.3 Alternative to Alarm Clocks -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.4 Who Needs a Trashcan? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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!). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.5 Sims Interactions with Objects -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You may wonder why a Sim will go painting for fun when he doesn't need the Creativity, and he Needs more Fun than he can get out of painting. Part of the reason is that when Sims choose what they are going to do, they pick their most pressing need (Hunger being the greatest Need, then the rest based on how Red they are), and checking the room for the best objects. Once they have an idea of the best objects in the area, they'll randomly pick one and go to it. So it isn't entirely a random process, it's just not an entirely educated process either. After all, Sims do get bored of watching TV, they need more than just one source of Fun. So, if your Sim needs some Fun, he'll take stock of the area, find all the available sources of Fun, and pick one. They usually limit their choices to the better objects, so the more better objects you have, the better chance that they will pick at least one good object instead of going to something less than preferable. Note: This Randomness doesn't seem to apply to Guest Sims (Sims who you have invited over), they always seem to know what they want and use the best available method to get it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.6 Moving Trash Yourself -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You, the player, can pick up any object while in build mode, including dirty dishes, trash, bills, and other things. What does this mean to you? Read on! Red Phoenix sent me this: "While in Build mode, you can move any object that's currently not in use. You can get this ability to do lots of micro-management. For instance, before you can afford a maid, you can help your Sims with clean up. Gather all of the dishes and stack them next to the sink. Or gather trash and place it next to a trash can. If you're really cheap and lazy, you can create a garbage pit at the side of your house where you can throw your trash." If you do create a garbage pit, make it in a small enclosed space that has no doors. You will be able to move things in and out, but no one, thankfully, will be able to go in there. Also, you could just DELETE the garbage (see section 11.1 Deleting Trash and Bills too!) instead. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.7 The "Cluster" Method -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, what is the "Cluster" Method? My latest attempt at efficiency! Here's the idea: Keep a cluster of objects around the mailbox/trashcan. That's the jist of it, anyway. Here's a more detailed explanation. Build your house about 3 squares away from the sidewalk, with your door being close to the mailbox/trashcan. Pave a little walkway from your door to the sidewalk. Now on one side of the walkway, place a cheap desk, facing the walkway. When you get the mail, your Sim will place the Bills on this desk, instead of walking who knows how far. On the other side of the table place a standard phone. On the opposite side of the walkway place an Easel, a Mirror, and a chess set with a chair (or two). Now when you call another Sim over to your house, you have a few things that you can do while waiting for them to actually arrive! So, call someone, then start working on your Charisma (using the Mirror), or play some Chess, or whatnot. Tip: If a Guest Sim arrives with an Object, such as candies, flowers, or whatnot, cancel AFTER they have given it to you, and your Sim looks for a place to put it (if you don't, it will possibly end up on your desk, candies likely end out in your kitchen), and your Sim will drop it there. However, it's very close to your garbage can for easy disposal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Of Friends and Lovers -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 your Sim. 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! When a Guest Sim (anyone you call over) comes to your house, their Needs are usually in an atrocious state. They are hungry, bored, and need to talk a LOT. This counter will reset every time you invite the Sim over, so if you fail to get them to marry your Sim in one sitting, you will have to start all over the next day. Note: If your Sim is turned down, the other Sim will give a reason, such as "We don't talk enough." (which means, that their Social Need needs work) They give what they think is the thing that would help their mood out the most, saying "We don't talk enough" tells you that you need to work on Social a lot, but that might not be the only thing that they need, merely it is the most pressing Need. 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.1 Befriending Mean Sims -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.2 Carrying on Multiple Romances -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.3 Maintaining Relationships the Easy Way -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.4 Sending your Sim Out of the House! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, you can't actually go to another Sim's house while playing as one Sim. But there is another way, you can simply go back to the Neighborhood screen (save first), and then play one of your neighbors, and have THEM call your first Sim. Red Phoenix sent me this: "You don't have to wait for your friends to come to you. You can go to them. Go to your neighborhood selector and choose another house. Then call up the Sim you are working on and invite him or her over. Then, bombard the Sim with social options. This works great with large families. The Sim you've invited can interact with three or four other Sims and boost his relationship rating. An extra bonus to this technique is that it doesn't cost the Sim and time or energy. When you go back to the original Sim's house, no time will have passed." Note: You are NOT in control of your original Sim, you now control a different family. That means that you might not be able to even get your first Sim to come over, and lord knows he might not get along with these Sims. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.5 Creating Friends the Old Fashioned Way -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some jobs require a LOT of friends. In fact, if you are playing your first family of Sims, your neighborhood will be rather sparse, and you will need to start new Families just so your first one has a few people to talk with. Red Phoenix sent me this: "If your Sim is in dire need of new friends, create a large family of new Sims and move them onto a lot. You don't have to worry about completely outfitting a new house, or building any house at all. Just give them a phone. Without a phone, you can't call the new Sims and invite them over." What this amounts to is creating a Family specifically to be used by a Sim who you like more. Fun! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.6 How to Befriend SimKids -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've ever tried befriending a Sim Kid, you may have noticed that as the night gets going, their parent will come and collect the kid. This cuts the time short that you could use to befriend the kid. (you could just avoid this altogether by not HAVING any kids in the neighborhood, but where's the fun in that?) Red Phoenix sent me this: "Having good relationships with neighborhood kids can be tough for the working adult due to narrow window of social time between school hours and the eight o'clock curfew. But there's a way around this. If a kid is visiting and the kid's parent comes over to collect the kid, ignore the parent. Don't answer the door and keep the kid occupied. Eventually, the parent will go away and you keep the kid well past midnight." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Working (and Not) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 (§1200). Politics starts out relatively well, but ends out somewhat low (§750). 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 §40 per day bill on food (assuming you do a "serve breakfast" and "serve dinner") and likely around §200 to §300 in bills every 3 days. Most jobs start out around §200 a day, and you should be able to get quickly promoted to around §300 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 Entertainment and Political career tracks 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, starting out at a mere §5, but eventually going up to §166, also at that point your Sim will actually LOSE Fun by painting!) 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. Although, if your Skills are high enough, jumping to a new career may be quite profitable! (see Section 6.3 Quitting for Fun and Profit) 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... There is another type of random job event, and that is the Job Swap, where you are fired from your Level 10 job and given a Level 6 (or so) Job in another Career. Mark H. Dove sent me this about it: Here it is. I reached the top of the career ladder with my guy, he became a General, and I was very satisfied about that result, then, once all of a sudden one day when he came back from work I got a message about a random event that was about something like: "Military downsizing: You've been fired due to excess personnel in the base, but because of your high ranking postion and your knowing of military strategies you easily find a job as a Swat Team Leader". So my military career (level 10) automatically changed (and I had no way to choose if to accept it or not) to the Law Enforcement Career (Level 6). It also happened to me other times from Level 10 Business Tycoon to Level 6 Politcian, from Level 10 Law Enforcment to Level 6 Entertainment. But remember it does happen JUST if you reached the top of the career ladder. This may actually end out good in the end, as some careers have much better final pay, which you can see in the Job Chart in the next section. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 §220 -- Intern 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §300 +2 Charisma Lobbyist 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §360 +1 Charisma +1 Logic 2 Family Friends Campaign Manager 9:00 am - 6:00 pm §430 +1 Charisma +1 Body 4 Family Friends City Council Mem. 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §485 +1 Charisma +1 Body +1 Creativity 6 Family Friends State Assembly 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §540 +1 Body +2 Logic +1 Creativity 9 Family Friends Congressperson 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §600 +1 Charisma +1 Body +1 Logic +1 Creativity 11 Family Friend Judge 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §650 +1 Charisma +1 Body +2 Logic +1 Creativity 14 Family Friend Senator 9:00 am - 6:00 pm §700 +3 Charisma +1 Logic +1 Creativity 17 Family Friend Mayor 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §750 -- Final Stats: Cooking -- 0 Mechanical -- 0 Charisma -- 9 Body -- 5 Logic -- 7 Creativity -- 5 Entertainment: Waitress 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §100 -- Extra 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §150 +2 Charisma Bit Player 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §200 +2 Body 2 Family Friends Stunt Double 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §275 +1 Charisma +1 Body +1 Creativity 4 Family Friends B-Movie Star 10:00 am - 5:00 pm §375 +1 Mechanical +1 Charisma +1 Body +1 Creativity 6 Family Friends Supporting Player 10:00 am - 6:00 pm §500 +2 Charisma +1 Body +1 Creativity 8 Family Friends TV Star 10:00 am - 6:00 pm §650 +1 Mechanical +1 Charisma +1 Body +1 Creativity 10 Family Friend Feature Star 5:00 pm - 1:00 am §900 +1 Charisma +1 Body +3 Creativity 12 Family Friend Broadway Star 10:00 am - 5:00 pm §1100 +2 Charisma +1 Body +3 Creativity 14 Family Friend Superstar 10:00 am - 3:00 pm §1400 -- Final Stats: Cooking -- 0 Mechanical -- 2 Charisma -- 10 Body -- 8 Logic -- 0 Creativity -- 10 Law Enforcement: Security Guard 12:00 am - 6:00 am §240 -- Cadet 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §320 +2 Body Patrol Officer 5:00 pm - 1:00 am §380 +2 Mechanical 1 Family Friend Desk Sergeant 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §440 +1 Mechanical +2 Body 2 Family Friends Vice Squad 10:00 pm - 4:00 am §490 +1 Cooking +1 Charisma +1 Body +1 Logic 4 Family Friends Detective 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §540 +1 Charisma +2 Logic 6 Family Friends Lieutenant 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §590 +1 Mechanical +1 Charisma +1 Body +2 Logic 8 Family Friends SWAT Team Leader 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §625 +1 Charisma +1 Body +2 Logic +2 Creativity 10 Family Friend Police Chief 9:00 am - 5:00 pm §650 +2 Charisma +3 Logic +2 Creativity 12 Family Friend Captain Hero 10:00 am - 4:00 pm §700 -- Final Stats: Cooking -- 1 Mechanical -- 4 Charisma -- 6 Body -- 7 Logic -- 10 Creativity -- 5 Business: Mail Room 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §120 -- Executive Asst. 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §180 +2 Mechanical Field Sales Rep. 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §250 +2 Charisma 1 Family Friend Junior Executive 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §320 +2 Logic 3 Family Friends Executive 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §400 +1 Charisma +1 Logic +2 Creativity 6 Family Friends Senior Manager 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §520 +1 Charisma +2 Body +1 Logic 8 Family Friends Vice President 9:00 am - 5:00 pm §660 +1 Charisma +2 Logic +1 Creativity 10 Family Friend President 9:00 am - 5:00 pm §800 +1 Charisma +1 Logic +2 Creativity 12 Family Friend CEO 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §950 +2 Charisma +2 Logic +1 Creativity 14 Family Friend Business Tycoon 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §1200 -- Final Stats: Cooking -- 0 Mechanical -- 2 Charisma -- 8 Body -- 2 Logic -- 9 Creativity -- 6 Life of Crime: Pickpocket 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §140 -- Bagman 11:00 pm - 7:00 am §200 +2 Body Bookie 12:00 pm - 7:00 pm §275 +1 Charisma +1 Creativity 2 Family Friends Con Artist 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §350 +2 Mechanical +1 Charisma 3 Family Friends Getaway Driver 5:00 pm - 1:00 am §425 +1 Mechanical +1 Charisma +1 Body +1 Logic 4 Family Friends Bank Robber 3:00 pm - 11:00 pm §530 +1 Cooking +2 Body +1 Logic +1 Creativity 6 Family Friends Cat Burglar 9:00 pm - 3:00 am §640 +2 Mechanical +1 Logic +2 Creativity 8 Family Friends Counterfeiter 9:00 pm - 3:00 am §760 +3 Charisma +1 Body +1 Creativity 10 Family Friend Smuggler 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §900 +1 Cooking +2 Charisma +1 Logic +2 Creativity 12 Family Friend Criminal Mastermind 6:00 pm - 12:00 am §1100 -- Final Stats: Cooking -- 2 Mechanical -- 5 Charisma -- 7 Body -- 6 Logic -- 4 Creativity -- 8 Medicine: Medical Technician 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §200 -- Paramedic 11:00 pm - 5:00 am §275 +2 Mechanical Nurse 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §340 +2 Body 2 Family Friends Intern 9:00 am - 6:00 pm §410 +1 Mechanical +2 Logic 3 Family Friends Resident 9:00 pm - 4:00 am §480 +1 Charisma +1 Body +2 Logic 4 Family Friends GP 10:00 am - 6:00 pm §550 +1 Mechanical +1 Charisma +1 Body +1 Creativity 5 Family Friends Specialist 10:00 pm - 4:00 am §625 +1 Charisma +1 Body +2 Logic +1 Creativity 7 Family Friends Surgeon 10:00 pm - 4:00 am §700 +1 Mechanical +1 Charisma +1 Body +2 Logic +1 Creativity 9 Family Friends Medical Researcher 9:00 pm - 4:00 am §775 +1 Mechanical +2 Charisma +1 Body +1 Logic +1 Creativity 11 Family Friend Chief of Hospital 9:00 pm - 4:00 am §850 -- Final Stats: Cooking -- 0 Mechanical -- 6 Charisma -- 6 Body -- 7 Logic -- 9 Creativity -- 4 Military: Recruit 6:00 am - 12:00 pm §250 -- Elite Forces 7:00 am - 1:00 pm §325 +2 Body Drill Instructor 8:00 am - 2:00 pm §350 +1 Mechanical +2 Charisma Junior Officer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §450 +1 Cooking +2 Body Counter-Intell. 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §500 +1 Mechanical +2 Charisma +1 Logic 1 Family Friend Flight Officer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §550 +1 Mechanical +1 Body +2 Logic 3 Family Friends Senior Officer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §580 +3 Mechanical +1 Charisma +2 Logic 5 Family Friends Commander 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §600 +3 Mechanical +3 Body +1 Logic 6 Family Friends Astronaut 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §625 +1 Mechanical +2 Charisma +2 Body +3 Logic 8 Family Friends General 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §650 -- Final Stats: Cooking -- 1 Mechanical -- 10 Charisma -- 7 Body -- 10 Logic -- 9 Creativity -- 0 Pro Athlete: Team Mascot 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm §110 -- Minor Leaguer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §170 +2 Body Rookie 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §230 +3 Body 1 Family Friend Starter 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §300 +1 Mechanical +1 Charisma +1 Body 3 Family Friends All-Star 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §385 +1 Mechanical +1 Charisma +1 Body 5 Family Friends MVP 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §510 +1 Cooking +1 Charisma +1 Body 7 Family Friends Superstar 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §680 +1 Cooking +1 Charisma +1 Body +1 Creativity 9 Family Friends Assistant Coach 9:00 am - 2:00 pm §850 +1 Cooking +2 Charisma +1 Body +1 Creativity 11 Family Friend Coach 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §1000 +1 Cooking +3 Charisma +1 Creativity 13 Family Friend Hall of Famer 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §1300 -- Final Stats: Cooking -- 4 Mechanical -- 2 Charisma -- 9 Body -- 10 Logic -- 0 Creativity -- 3 Science: Test Subject 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §155 -- Lab Assistant 11:00 pm - 5:00 am §230 +2 Logic Field Researcher 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §320 +1 Charisma +1 Logic 1 Family Friend Science Teacher 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §375 +1 Charisma +1 Logic +1 Creativity 3 Family Friends Project Leader 9:00 am - 5:00 pm §450 +2 Mechanical +2 Creativity 4 Family Friends Inventor 10:00 am - 7:00 pm §540 +2 Mechanical +2 Logic +1 Creativity 5 Family Friends Scholar 10:00 am - 3:00 pm §640 +1 Cooking +2 Mechanical +2 Charisma +1 Logic 7 Family Friends Top Secret Researcher 10:00 am - 3:00 pm §740 +1 Mechanical +2 Logic +3 Creativity 8 Family Friends Theorist 10:00 am - 2:00 pm §870 +1 Cooking +1 Mechanical +1 Charisma +1 Logic +3 Creativity 10 Family Friend Mad Scientist 10:00 am - 2:00 pm §1000 -- Final Stats: Cooking -- 2 Mechanical -- 8 Charisma -- 5 Body -- 0 Logic -- 10 Creativity -- 10 Xtreme: Daredevil 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §175 -- Bungee Jump Inst. 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §250 +2 Body 1 Family Friend Whitewater Guide 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §325 +1 Mechanical +2 Body 2 Family Friends Xtreme Circuit Pro 9:00 am - 4:00 pm §400 +1 Cooking +1 Mechanical +1 Logic 3 Family Friends Bush Pilot 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §475 +2 Mechanical +2 Body 4 Family Friends Mountain Climber 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §550 +1 Mechanical +2 Charisma +3 Creativity 5 Family Friends Photo-Journalist 9:00 am - 3:00 pm §650 +1 Mechanical +1 Charisma +1 Body +2 Logic +1 Creativity 7 Family Friends Treasure Hunter 10:00 am - 5:00 pm §725 +2 Charisma +2 Logic +3 Creativity 9 Family Friends Grand Prix Driver 10:00 am - 4:00 pm §825 +1 Cooking +3 Charisma +1 Body +1 Logic +2 Creativity 11 Family Friend International Spy 11:00 am - 5:00 pm §925 -- Final Stats: Cooking -- 2 Mechanical -- 6 Charisma -- 8 Body -- 8 Logic -- 6 Creativity -- 9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6.1.1 Alternate Job Charts -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I realize that the above chart isn't the most user friendly of charts (although it looks fine to me) and I realize that it does have an annoying flaw in it. So here are some Different Styles of charts that contain roughly the same information. Most of these charts compare all the jobs, rather than show you all the information for a particular career path. (since that information can be found in the previous section) The Money Chart Comparison: (allows you to simply compare Pay of each job at each level, Sorted by Final Pay) Career Level Career | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ Entertainer | §100 §150 §200 §275 §375 §500 §650 §900 §1100 §1400 Athlete | §110 §170 §230 §300 §385 §510 §680 §850 §1000 §1300 Business | §120 §180 §250 §320 §400 §520 §660 §800 §950 §1200 Crime | §140 §200 §275 §350 §425 §530 §640 §760 §900 §1100 Science | §155 §230 §320 §375 §450 §540 §640 §740 §870 §1000 XTreme | §175 §250 §325 §400 §475 §550 §650 §725 §825 §925 Medicine | §200 §275 §340 §410 §480 §550 §640 §700 §775 §850 Politics | §220 §300 §360 §430 §485 §540 §600 §650 §700 §750 Law Enf. | §240 §320 §380 §440 §490 §540 §590 §625 §650 §700 Military | §250 §325 §350 §450 §500 §550 §580 §600 §625 §650 Hours Worked Per Day Chart Comparison: (shows the number of hours that your Sim will work at each level per day, sorted from lowest final to highest) Career Level Career | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ Science | 6 6 6 7 8 9 5 5 4 4 Entertainer | 6 6 6 7 7 8 8 8 7 5 Athlete | 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 5 6 6 Business | 6 7 7 7 7 7 8 8 7 6 Crime | 6 8 7 6 8 8 6 6 6 6 XTreme | 6 6 6 7 6 6 6 7 6 6 Politics | 9 6 6 9 6 7 6 6 9 6 Law Enf. | 6 6 8 6 6 6 6 6 8 6 Military | 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 Medicine | 6 6 6 9 7 8 6 6 7 7 Hourly Wage: (this is for the 10th level only! Sorted from best hourly wage to the lowest hourly wage) Career | Final Wage Final Hours Final Hourly Wage ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ Entertainer | §1400 5 §280 / hr. Science | §1000 4 §250 / hr. Athlete | §1300 6 §217 / hr. Business | §1200 6 §200 / hr. Crime | §1100 6 §183 / hr. XTreme | §925 6 §154 / hr. Politics | §750 6 §125 / hr. Medicine | §850 7 §121 / hr. Law Enf. | §700 6 §117 / hr. Military | §650 6 §108 / hr. Note: This is just another way of deciding which job ends out being the best. You can see that Science and Entertainer are incredibly good, Science being only 4 hours a day (from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm) and Entertainer bringing in the most money. Final Stats: (this is for the 10th level only! Sorted from the Career that requires the least stats, to the one with the most) Career | Cook Mech Char Body Logic Create Friend Totals ------------|-------------------------------------------------------------- Athlete | 4 2 9 10 0 3 13 = 41 Business | 0 2 8 2 9 6 14 = 41 Politics | 0 0 9 5 7 5 17 = 43 Medicine | 0 6 6 7 9 4 11 = 43 Crime | 2 5 7 6 4 8 12 = 44 Entertainer | 0 2 10 8 0 10 14 = 44 Law Enf. | 1 4 6 7 10 5 12 = 45 Military | 1 10 7 10 9 0 8 = 45 Science | 2 8 5 0 10 10 10 = 45 XTreme | 2 6 8 8 6 9 11 = 50 Note: The lower the total here, the better, as that means that it takes less time to get to the 10th level in that Career. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6.3 Quitting for Fun and Profit -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's a neat little idea to try if you are sick of your job. Assuming that you have fairly high skills, your Sim would find it pretty easy to jump up a new career ladder, right? And at each promotion level your Sim is given a Promotion Bonus which is equal to 2x the time of the salary that they are being promoted to. That is key. So say, your Sim, Bob, is a Superstar in the Entertainment track. There is no hope for him to ever get promoted since he is at the Apex of his career. Well why not start over? Since Bob already has a lot of stats from getting this high in the first place, he will JUMP rather quickly up several other career ladders! Ideally if you could get him back into Entertainment, he would rise very quickly. And at every single promotion you get your Promotion Bonus. And if you chose a new Career wisely (similar stats), you could get promoted EVERY DAY. Quite the bonus! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 §10 an hour), but they can help out if you are getting overwhelmed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7.1 Working the Pause -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part of running an efficient household is to know when to pause the game. If you were to watch me playing The Sims, you would see that I pause the game a lot. And unless you're playing just one Sim, you are going to need to pause quite a bit. Here are the basics of when to pause and how often to pause your game. - Pause Whenever you need to decide what your Sims are going to do. This is fairly simple. While you are thinking of what your Sims should be doing, you should pause the game. Once paused, you can look around at all their various stats, moods, and whatnot, and decide what would be the best thing for them to do right then. Ex. Your Sim comes home from work, you pause it to think of what he should do first. Note: Don't just give your Sim ONE thing to do, give him several. He will then simply go from one activity to another. For example, have him use the toilet, then take a shower, then serve dinner. - Pause in Social Interactions There are two really good times to do this. The first is when you are just starting out with another Sim to avoid them doing something that your Sim won't like (such as them trying to Hug you, and your Sim rejecting them, that will drop your relationship, so you need to cancel it). So, I will simply pause after they finish what they are doing, then have them do something SAFE (such as talk). The other time this comes in handy is when you are carrying on an affair, you will want to pause to make sure they don't kiss you while the wife is around. This all has to do with TIME EFFICIENCY. Since your Sims never seem to have enough hours in the day to do everything they need to do, those precious moments they lose while you are deciding what they should do are costly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 are two ways to do it. The first is the standard Balcony idea (see 8.1.2) and the second is the "Flying" Balcony Idea. (see 8.1.1) 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! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8.1.2 The Balcony -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following correction comes from Christopher Scatliff: When building a balcony, you don't need to put pillars under *every* square. Every pillar supports a 3x3 area, but these buildable floor squares don't appear until there is a floor square next to them. Therefore, your pillar pattern can be every 3rd square: XXXXXXXXX XOXXOXXOX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XOXXOXXOX XXXXXXXXX (O = pillar, X = empty) As you can see. those six pillars will support a balcony of area 6x9! But that floor area won't become apparent until you actually put the balcony floor in place. Of course, you could just use the "flying balcony" strategy, too... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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! Tip: Children are a TAX CREDIT, which is a deduction in Bill Payments. How much? About 10% off of Bills per child. So if your bills were §310 before having a kid, after it will be about §279. (assuming you haven't bought anything, nor had anything stolen/sold/broken, and that depreciation was small/nonexistent) Naturally the most you can get off is 70% (you can only get 7 kids, you NEED at least one adult). 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 §100. 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 §100 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 §1000 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! Apieper sent me this: "Regarding the section of kids and getting good grades... I always get $100 for good grades too. I don't think it goes higher, and I'm pretty sure it only happens at the A+ level. And a friend of mine pointed out that studying is optional. Attending school for one day raises your grade by three points (from B- to A-, or from F to D+) and studying raises it one point. So if you go to school every day you don't need to study. I think it's important to add that children are far more likely to cause a mess in the shower or tub than adults." (Ed. Note: Although "Messy" adult Sims will make messes as well) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 around 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 §1000 reward! Tip: Place burglar alarms on the OUTSIDE of your house, the burglar will be caught before he has a chance to steal anything! Sims who don't know their way around the kitchen, not only cut themselves or burn themselves a lot while making a meal, 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 § 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 § 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. Another way to kill a Sim would be to stick a fence (or a wall) around him, and wait. I did this once, and it was rather depressing to watch as the Sim first went Insane, then died of hunger. 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 §5, 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!). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. Cheats & Tricks -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following Cheats come from http://www.gamewinners.com/ To bring up the Console to enter the Cheats into, press CTRL-SHIFT-C. Warning: Try to avoid using the move_objects cheat to delete things like mailboxes and carpools. If you delete a Mailbox, sure you can't get bills, but it screws up the game (in mine Guest Sims could arrive, but couldn't be greeted!!). Also if you delete the carpool, you can't go to work. Ever. Note: Some of these cheats don't seem to actually work. - 1000 Simoleons (unpatched game version) klapaucius - 1000 Simoleons (patched game version) rosebud - Add new family history stat to the current family hist_add - Appends the route destination list to AllRoutes.txt every time a route is found write_destlist - Architecture tools automatically set the level as needed auto_level - Automatically import and load indicated FAM file import - Automatically load indicated house, no questions asked house - Check and fix required lot objects prepare_lot - Completely flush app to VM file when running Windows NT flush - Crash game crash - Create moat or streams water_tool - Create shrunk_text_#.bmp files shrink_text - Create-a-character mode edit_char - Display personality and interests interests - Draw all animation frames disabled draw_all_frames off - Draw all animation frames enabled draw_all_frames on - Draw colored dots at each person's origin draw_origins - Dump entire memory to core_dump_[date:time].txt core_dump - Dump selected person's most recent list of scored interactions to a file dump_happy - Dump selected person's motive contribution curve to a file dump_mc - Enable debug flag to show outcome choice dialogs for social interactions debug_social - End sim logging sim_log end - Execute "file.cht" file as a list of cheats cht - Floorable grid disabled draw_floorable off - Floorable grid enabled draw_floorable on - Force an assert for testing assert - Log animations in the event log window log_animations - Map editor disabled map_edit off - Map editor enabled map_edit on - Move any object move_objects - No tutorial object generation when tutorial house is loaded tutorial off - Prevent web browser crashes browser_failsafe - Preview animations disabled preview_anims off - Preview animations enabled preview_anims on - Programmer stats tile_info - Quit game quit - Read in behavior tuning constants from Tuning.txt #import - Rebuilds entire control panel/UCP from scratch rebuild_cp - Refresh the BMP_ resources for all people whose IFF files are writable refresh_faces - Rematch dependent textures and regenerate bitmaps for all user characters refresh_textures - Restore tutorial restore_tut - Rotate camera rotation <0-3> - Routing debug balloons disabled route_balloons off - Routing debug balloons enabled route_balloons on - Run series of random operations on unhoused families fam_test - Save currently loaded house save - Save family history file history - Say "plugh" plugh - Say "porntipsguzzardo" porntipsguzzardo - Say "xyzzy" xyzzy - Selected person's path displayed draw_routes on - Selected person's path hidden draw_routes off - Set event logging mask log_mask - Set free thinking level autonomy <1-100> - Set game speed sim_speed <-1000-1000> - Set grass change value edit_grass : Set grass growth grow_grass <0-150>, 150 is brown grass - Set lot size lot_size - Set maximum milliseconds to allow simulator sim_limit - Set time of day (unpatched game version) set_hour <1-24> - Set z offset for thought bubbles bubble_tweak - Sets the neighborhood directory to the path - Sets up the borders of the lot with non-editable flag. Requires rotation lot_border
- Sets whether menu items appear for in use objects allow_inuse - Show memory view window in debug builds of the game memview - Start sim logging sim_log begin - Swap the two house files and updates families swap_houses - Ticks disabled sweep off - Ticks enabled sweep on - Tile information displayed tile_info on - Tile information hidden tile_info off - Toggle allowing visitors to be controlled using the keyboard visitor_control - Toggle assets report report_assets - Toggle automatic object reset feature auto_reset - Toggle calls to PeekMessage within sim loop sim_peek - Toggle camera mode cam_mode - Toggle display of unavailable interactions in person control menus all_menus - Toggle music music - Toggle object compression in save file obj_comp - Toggle quaternion transformations quats - Toggle sound log window sound_log - Toggle sounds sound - Toggle web page creation html - Total reload of people skeletons, animations, suits and skins reload_people - Trigger sound event soundevent - Write out an RTE file every time a route is found write_routes - Write out behavior tuning constants to Tuning.txt #export This was sent in by Nancy Beck: I (actually, my son) found 2 quicker ways to make money with the cheat. One is when you are typing all the !;!;! add a wrong symbol at the end and just hold the enter key. It will come up saying no such cheat, but will still add the money. Just back space over the wrong symbol at the end and enter to get rid of the window. Another way is to type klapaucius; ; and just hold the enter key...it too will add all the money. This was sent in by Mandy Falco: Another way to get a bunch of money - after typing the "klapaucius" cheat, *do the "!;!;!;!;!;!;!" except fill up the command line until it starts clicking at you (it should end on an "!".) Now copy what you typed and hit enter. you should get around 130,000 simoleons. Since you copied it now you just keep pasteing in your new code and before you know it you will have one simoleon short of 10 million. :) ____________ Easter Eggs: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ There is only one easter egg that I know of. Insert the game CD and let the autoplay screen come up. Once it's up, click the Maxis logo in the lower left of the window to open up a picture of Will Wright with Sims crawling all over him. (from Mikey Griffiths) _________ Trainers: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 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: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 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 "Use it while it's being repossessed" trick: If you manage to use an object at the same time as it is being repossessed, you will get money for that object, as if you had sold it. It sure beats just LOSING the item! 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 §30 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. Killing everyone in the neighborhood (for Sadists, I suppose) by Dan Vernon: If you are a real sadist, and you want to kill off an entire Sim neighbourhood, read this. For maximum effect, have a family of 8. Buy a brand new lot, and build a house with a 3-4 tile gap all the way around it. Build a swimming pool all around (use klapaucius if the money's getting short) and put a diving boardgoing in (from pavement to pool) and a ladder coming out (pool to front door). Get all your family inside and wait for the neighbours to arrive... They'll dive in and come inside, socialize with your Sims and then when they want to go home, attempt to leave. This is where it gets fun! The neighbours will swim around until they've run out of energy, and then, they will DROWN! Repeat until entire neighbourhood dies (try all this after making a large neighbourhood that went wrong). Then put all but one (an adult) of the house Sims into the pool and sell the ladder! Watch them all drown and then, using the move_objects cheat, move all the tombstones into the lonely Sims bedroom. Then make a space for him to get out (to go to work) and wait for 11 pm! There are sometimes several ghosts (it's very odd when they try to swim underneath furniture!) in the night and they howl and wake up Sims (which is the downside of this really....). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11.2 Paying only Every Other Bill -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I found the following cheat at http://strategyshrine.gamereactor.net/ Paying the Bills Simply keep a bill, unpaid, until the mail carrier delivers the next set. When your flag is up (your mailbox being full of-- what else, more bills), pay the first one (i.e., bring it out to the mailbox.) When you do this, the newer bills disappear. Using this cheat, you will only have to pay every other bill, instead of every one. (sent in by Jesper Thiesen) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11.3 The Newbie Trick -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, we all remember the Newbies, those crazy cats from the Tutorial. But there is a really neat little trick that one can do with them, if one pays attention. Here's the crux of the trick: While the tutorial is going, the Newbies Needs drop very very slowly. In other words, you can safely ignore most everything and have them do whatever you please. This works ONLY SO LONG AS THE TUTORIAL is running, and stops once the tutorial does. So as soon as Betty Newbie pops in, do no more of the tutorial. But what will one do with these Newbies? Build their skills! And since their Needs don't fall (well, not exactly, check the following NOTE), you can build skills at the Ultra Speed to get them up to perfect skills. Note: Although Needs don't drop on their own, they will drop if you start exercising, or while at work. However, this drop is considerably smaller than what one would experience by just normally standing around the house, and can be eliminated quickly by a quick nap, sleeping in a bed, or by Coffee/Espresso. Using this trick, one can quickly get some Super Newbies! Mandy Falco sent me this: "When you are cheating the Newbie mode to max out all your skills be aware that it takes about 24 sim hours for your sims to regain all their energy back." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11.4 Washing Dishes Faster -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh sure, you COULD just delete the dishes (see the above trick), but suppose you don't want to, there is a way to just do the dishes a little faster. Mandy Falco sent me this: "Washing dishes faster - as soon as your sim starts washing dishes tell him to quit or make him do something else and the dishes disappear." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12. Customizing Your Game -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Within these next couple of subsections are the various ways that you can customize The Sims, including the Nude Patch. (heh) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12.1 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 (not Classical, just 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12.2 Skins -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can download Skins for your Sims (think different outfits and heads) at almost any of the Websites listed below in the Final Words... section. If you are interested in creating your own Skins, I would suggest this link: http://www.simzonline.com/features/19990602/ Located at http://www.simzonline.com/ this feature is a comprehensive look at how you can create your own skins. I would also recommend downloading several other programs from http://www.thesims.com/, such as FaceLift and SimShow. FaceLift: http://www.thesims.com/us/getcool/faces/index.html SimShow: http://www.thesims.com/us/getcool/skins/index.html There are other programs at the official site, which you may be interested in. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12.2.1 The "Nude" Patch -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well somebody finally got around to getting around the pixellated censoring that occurs whenever your Sim does something "naughty" (such as going to the bathroom). It should be noted that this isn't anything great as Maxis never really intended for the Sims to be seen in the buff, and therefore they didn't put any detail into it. You can find the patch here: http://superturbo.com/sims/ All the instructions that you will need are in the ZIP file on that site. What you do when you get it is to unzip it, and place the files in your SKINS directory, which is probably something like: C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\UserData\Skins -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12.3 Setting up Multiple Neighborhoods -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I vaguely covered this in the FAQ for a few versions, and decided it needed its own section. There are actually two ways to do this. One is the Do-It-Yourself method, and the other is the Download-A-Program method. The first method is really simple. This is best done BEFORE you have done any work on your neighborhood! In your Game Directory (which is probably c:\program files\maxis\thesims\) is a directory called UserData. Right Click on this, and select COPY. Now go back out to the Maxis directory, and do a CTRL-V to paste (or click the Edit menu and choose Paste, also you can place this directory anywhere). You now have a copy of your neighborhood. Now rename the folder to UserData2 and move it back to TheSims directory. Now to switch between neighborhoods, simply rename UserData to UserData1 and UserData2 to UserData. The second method is to download this program: (Neighborhood Watch) http://www.simzonline.com/files/tools/neighborhoodwatch.zip and run it! This file is from http://www.simzonline.com/ a great site for your Simming needs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13. Known Bugs -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Apieper sent me these: Repairmen can't walk up or down hills to repair things, only to repossess things. So if your entire house is elevated below or above the sidewalk (I know one lot starts out like this, lot 2 I believe), and you call a repairman, they will just stand in place for 8 hours, bill you, and leave. If a sim "Sam" is watching TV on a couch, and another sim "Stanley " tries to interact with them, then Stanley will simply stand in front of Sam waiting for Sam to stop watching TV. However, Sam will be blocked from standing up, because Stanley is standing in front of them. Even if you cancel Stanley's "interact with Sam" action, Stanley won't be able to move. They will be stuck doing nothing for a few hours - possibly missing work, or urinating on themselves. Similarly, if a Sim, "Escher" is painting and another sim "Dopey" is standing behind him trying to interact with him, Dopey will block Escher again. However, this time Escher will be able to stop painting, and he will occupy the same square as Dopey, so that neither of them can move under any condition. The only way to resolve this situation is to evict everyone in the home. Not done yet! If you have guests, and they are swimming in your pool, you can't ask them to leave, or even to stop swimming. They will swim and swim and swim, sometimes until they just climb out of the pool and collapse in front of the pool ladder. If there are any sims in the swimming pool when the pool ladder is blocked, they will all die. If you have an angled wall on top of a carpet, you can't remove the carpet without removing the wall. Oh! And a HUGE glitch. If you delete any picture in a scrapbook, then the caption for the picture is automatically overwritten. So overall, the sims isn't a very glitchy game as long as you avoid having houses with any hills, couches, chairs, paint sets, and don't use your photo album. Catty Burton sent me this: I've got something really weird to tell you, and hopefully we will be able to solve this problem I have. I decided to have a baby, after having one already. When the baby changes into a Sim kid, there are TWO of them! Weird, but it gets stranger. One is a real person, that you can control and make do things. But the other, acts like a guest and you can't make him do anything or interact with him (nothing happens when I click on him). The twins can even interact with each other, and the Friendships signs come up (though the other twin isn't in the relationship bar). This has happened almost every time I give birth to a baby (because I start back from a saved game), is this a glitch? I'm going to experiment with this, see what happens when the controlled sim is sent to military school or dies. I'll give you a report on that. And this kid, he's a Cancer, but when he was born, he has nothing on his personality. I mean nothing, no blue slots, and he is the worst of every category. Isn't there some way you can use those 25 personality points? (Ed note: If anyone has anything to say about this, please email me!) ================================================================================ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) ================================================================================ .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Q: Is there any way to skip the intro, where the Sims logo is on a blue | | screen and the phrases are scrolling by at the bottom? | | | | A: Nope! This is The Sims equivalent of the "Now Loading..." screen, and | | therefore cannot be skipped! | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Q: Is there any way to alter a Sim's biography after once you're out of | | the Family Creation screen, or am I stuck with what I wrote initially? | | | | A: Yes there is! From Page 40, Paragraph 1 of the Game Manual: | | | | "...If you click and hold on a character, the character's bio which | | you composed in the Create a Sim window [or Maxis did] appears. If | | you think the bio needs a little refreshing, just Control-Click on the | | character in question, and get that bio in an editable dialogue box | | for your red-pen pleasure." (Thanks to Andrew Tate for pointing this | | out to me!) '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Q: Can I switch a Sim's skin after I've created them, or will my Sim just | | wear the same exact clothes for the rest if his digital little life? | | | | A: Your Sim can change their clothes by buying a Dresser/Armoir. Once | | you have the Dresser, then select it, and do a "Change Clothes". | | There is one downside to this, your Sim will simply change to the NEXT | | Body Skin (there is no way to change the Head Skin). So if you want | | to change to something specific, you may be at it for awhile. And if | | you change your mind, and want to go back to the first skin, well... | | that will take even longer! | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Q: The Sim I called asked me to come over to their place, is there a way | | for me to do that? | | | | A: No. What the Sim you called really meant was "I don't want to see you | | right now." And they were just being diplomatic about it. Anything | | they say that doesn't result in them coming over is a refusal. | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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: You mention in your guide that I shouldn't bother making friends for | | SimKids, since they don't need them to advance in their job field or | | anything. Does it work the other way around; can my adult Sim | | befriend a SimKid to help with that promotion that he wants? | | | | A: Although Kids don't need Family Friends for any particular reason (as | | long as their Social is high, who needs friends!), they can be counted | | for other people's Family Friends counter. So if SimBob befriends | | SimKid1, he still gets +1 Family Friend. | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Q: So, a SimBaby grows up to be a SimKid. Does a SimKid grow up to be a | | SimAdult? What about a SimAdult growing up to be a SimOldPerson? | | | | A: Doesn't happen. The only Sims who grow up are Babies who become | | children. Your Kids will never grow up and provide you with an | | income, nor will your adults need to be placed in a nursing home. | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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: The "Propose"/"Move In" option never seems to come up, what can I do | | to encourage it? | | | | A: The only reason that those options will never come up is if the two | | Sims already live in the same house, i.e. if they started out in the | | same "family", then they can't get married. Why? Marriage is only | | an "event", it merely serves the purpose of getting a new Sim into the | | house. After that, there's no special purpose to marriage, and the | | two married Sims will act just like two Sims in Love who already lived | | together. | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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: My Sim keeps getting strange phone calls, including one that implies | | that (s)he is going to die soon! Is this just the developers playing | | with my mind, or am I about to have an ex-Sim? | | | | A: Wouldn't that be weird? But luckily it isn't going to happen. The | | only ways that your Sim can die are through YOUR own negligence. In | | fact most the incoming phone calls are completely meaningless. So, if | | they aren't telling you something important, such as a Friend about to | | lose interest in you, your Sim getting fired if they skip work again, | | or your Sim gaining an inheritance, you can safely ignore the call. | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Q: My Sim is Sick! What should I do? Can he die? | | | | A. First quarantine the sick Sim to prevent contagion. Next make sure | | that your Sim is well rested. Don't go to work or school while sick, | | just stay home and rest. When up, go drink some coffee, but don't do | | anything strenuous. And YES YOU CAN DIE! So take sickness seriously. | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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: My Sim seems to sleep forever! Nothing I have done will get him up! | | What do I do? | | | | A: Sims like to stay in bed, if they have no way to get out of bed. That | | is, if you have some object by the side of the bed that prevents the | | Sim from getting out of bed, they'll just stay in there forever. Of | | course, it would be nice if they would tell you something... | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Q: My Sim has been in the Bath for an awful long time. How can I get | | him/her out? | | | | A: This one happened to my sister (and it's similar to the above Sleeping | | problem). She had a Sim in a brand new Tub that was built in the | | corner of the bathroom with a Shower right next to it. The Sim was | | able to get in, but due to the Shower being right there, the Sim could | | not get out. When something like this happens, look around to see | | what is blocking your Sim, and move it! | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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". | | | | Note: You CAN patch your game to get rid of the Pixel Censor when | | your Sim does something naughty. See section 12.2.1 for the | | details. | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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! Also | | you probably should know that a lot of things in the Opening Video | | were changed in the Final Game. If you watch closely you can see | | different Serving Plates, Plasma TV's and more. | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 downloaded a Jukebox, but not from TheSims.com, is this an official | | item, or did someone outside of Maxis make it? | | | | A: I've heard two different things about it, one that it was made by a | | German Affiliate of Maxis, and two, that it is a Maxis item, but one | | that wasn't meant to be released for another month. I think of the | | two the second seems to be the truer, but I guess time will tell. | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Q: Do you have any cheats? What about any trainers or editors? | | | | A: Cheats can be found in the above section "Cheats & Tricks". As for | | editors and trainers, there aren't any that I know of. | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Q: The cheat 'klapaucius' no longer works! Did upgrading the game do | | this? | | | | A: Yes. The new patch changes the money cheat from klapaucius to | | rosebud. Why they did this is beyond me. | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Q: Can I win The Sims? | | | | A: Nope. You can't lose either, although if you kill off all your Sims | | that could be considered losing. This game is all about the playing, | | nothing more, nothing less. | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 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 another question not covered in this FAQ... | | | | A: Then by all means, email me with it! | | manymoose@hotmail.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/ | '----------------------------------------------------------------------------' If you have a question that wasn't answered by one of the Frequently Asked Questions above, please feel free to email me: manymoose@hotmail.com ================================================================================ Final Words... ================================================================================ _________________ Online Resources: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 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.simeden.com/ -- SimEden http://www.sim-heaven.com/ -- Sim Heaven 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 possibly (doubtfully) 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: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ I have also written FAQs for: NES: Disney Adventures in the Magic Kingdom Final Fantasy -- Magic FAQ The Legend of Zelda SNES: Aerobiz Aerobiz Supersonic Utopia: Creation of a Nation Genesis: Starflight 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) Messiah 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: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Shyguy982 for his Trick in "Cheats & Tricks" Kyrre Aalerud for the 3 tricks also in "Cheats & Tricks" Christopher Scatliff for the Balcony correction Alan Waumsley for noticing that some Sims just don't get up Nancy Beck for a new cheat J.T. Kauffman for his great Questions Andrew Tate for a correction in the FAQ (about Sim's Bios) Apieper for some minor corrections here and there and for the Known Bugs Jesper Thiesen for the Every Other Bill thing Red Phoenix for a great many tips, tricks, and/or strategies Locutus for the Spellchecking Mandy Falco for her wonderful tips Catty Burton for her multiple baby bug Mark H. Dove for sending me the note on Forced Job Switching Mikey Griffiths for the Easter Egg (see the Cheats section) Dan Vernon for his method on killing everyone in the neighborhood (a bizarre thing to thank!) Adam McSweeney for pointing out one very bad mistake of mine 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: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 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 Changes in Version 2.51 (3-3-00, 165k) Created section 8.1.2 (thanks to Christopher Scatliff for the info) Other Small Changes Changes in Version 2.52 (3-5-00, 166k) Added a new Frequently Asked Question Other Small Changes Changes in Version 2.53 (3-8-00, 167k) Added 2 new Frequently Asked Questions Other Small Changes Changes in Version 3.0 (3-9-00, 200k) Added the Section "Customizing Your Game" And in that section I moved the "Changing the Radio Music" Section And created 2 new sections "Skins" and "Multiple Neighborhoods" Created the section "Alternate Job Chart" Created the section "Understanding Your Sims" and its subsections: "What a Sim Wants/Needs" and "Why A Sim Does What He Does" Oh, I also created section 12.2.1 The "Nude" Patch (heh) Other Small Changes Changes in Version 3.01 (3-10-00, 201k) Some Small Changes Changes in Version 3.02 (3-11-00, 202k) Some more Small Changes Changes in Version 3.03 (3-13-00, 203k) Added a new cheat from Nancy Beck There is now a new Translation! Check the Notes at the top of the FAQ Some Small Changes Changes in Version 3.1 (3-18-00, 210k) Added the new section 7.1 Working the Pause Added a few new Frequently Asked Questions Did some Spellchecking! Some Small Changes Changes in Version 3.12 (3-20-00, 214k) Added the section 6.3 Quitting for Fun and Profit Realized that I had left out the Final Stats for the Medicine Career Path (this is now fixed!) Cut some things out from the "Misc Facts" Added a new "Alternate Job Chart" to the section of the same name Some Small Changes Changes in Version 3.14 (3-21-00, 221k) Added a bunch of new Frequently Asked Questions (courtesy of J.T. Kauffman) Some Small Changes Changes in Version 3.15 (3-24-00, 222k) Lots of small changes all around! Changes in Version 3.16 (3-25-00, 223k) Some small changes Changes in Version 3.17 (3-27-00, 224k) One small change Changes in Version 3.18 (3-28-00, 224k) One more small change Changes in Version 3.19 (3-29-00, 225k) Added the section 11.2 Paying only Every Other Bill Changes in Version 4.0 (3-30-00, 240k) Added the Section 13 Known Bugs (thanks to Apieper!) Added a new Frequently Asked Question Added the Section 5.4 Sending your Sim out of the House Added the Section 5.5 Creating Friends the Old Fashioned Way Added the Section 11.3 The Newbie Trick Added the Section 3.2 Who Needs Walls? Added the Section 5.6 How to Befriend SimKids Added the Section 4.6 Moving Trash Yourself Small Changes (Always!) Changes in Version 4.01 (3-31-00, 241k) One small change (The new SimDay was an upgrade to the game!) Changes in Version 4.02 (4-1-00, 242k) Apparantly klapaucius no longer works with the game update (see above), but a new code, rosebud, works in its place. So I added a Frequently Asked Question about this as well as updated the Cheats listing. Changes in Version 4.03 (4-3-00, 245k) Some spelling corrections, thanks to Locutus Some new tips, thanks to Mandy Falco (added 11.4 Washing Dishes Faster) Added a new Known Bug from Catty Burton Changes in Version 4.04 (4-4-00, 248k) Added one thing from Mark H. Dove about Fored Job Switching (Section 6) Added a new Frequently Asked Question Changes in Version 4.05 (4-5-00, 252k) Re-did the Cheats section with a LOT of new cheats! Small Changes Changes in Version 4.1 (4-6-00, 257k) Added Section 4.7 The "Cluster" Method Added a tip to Section 9, about Children being a Tax Credit Added an Easter Egg from Mikey Griffiths Small Changes Changes in Version 4.11 (4-10-00, 258k) Added a new "trick" to section 11 Fixed one glaringly bad mistake __________________________ Misc Facts about this FAQ: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 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 257k, which is an increase of 446% This is the 34th revision of the FAQ. If you were to print it out, it would take, 77 pages (average). ________ Stinger: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 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/) ________________________________________________________________________________ ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 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.