Micronation Challenge!

[Riptide651]

Ok, so this is a bit like a legacy challenge, but it focused more on actually creating an island nation, rather than making a generation legacy. Ok so heres the plan:

1. Download an tropical island-esque world, I suggest Coconut Island 2.0 or 3.0 by ProfPlumbob.

2. Clear all of the lots, even the community ones

3. Create 5 families (EDIT 11/8)
-1st family: A Male and Female, and 2 children (1 boy, 1 girl)
-2nd family: A Male and a Female
-3rd family: A Male and a Female and 1 child (gender doesn't matter)
- 4th family: any size, but traits must be survivalist - type
- 5th family: same as first, different people though haha

* When I say Male or Female, its referring to a YA

4. Create 5 (EDIT 11/28) Residential Lots: Each can contain: As many beds as needed (you can be the judge on that, but I'm not really sure a Sim needs two double beds), Any luxuries you want, as long as they do not involve electricity. You may also place a bathroom, but everything must be the cheapest thing possible.


5. Create 1 Community Lot, to be a farm. There should be 3 rows of plants in it, you can pick whichever you like, as long as its not any of the unique or rare plants like death plant, or the life fruit.

6. I suggest also clearing all of the empty lots, as in the lots don't exist any more, just to make it look like its never been inhabited before, plus when you're nation starts expanding, you will be able to place lots wherever you want.

7, Finally, choose One Family to be King and Queen of your land, this will be the family you control, the other 2 will be AI.

Ok so here are the rules:

- No money cheats allowed of any kind

- You may only gain money using harvest crops or some other medium or work which does not involve electricity, until you gain electricity. (ex. Painting is fine, writing is not... computer)

- you will gain electricity after 30 Sim day (You should have story progression on and aging set to normal), then you may upgrade to anything electronic, and have jobs which involve electronics like architect or author.

-After 40 Sim days, you may upgrade the stove, sinks, toilets, refrigerators, and showers due to the availability of a plumbing system.

- In order to make community lots, you must make sure your "Royal Family" is able to fund them. You may make community lots, but your family has to purchase them through real estate, of course over the long run, you will make a profit.

- After 2 generations, you will be able to do normal jobs, as by then your community will have exponentially grown in size.

- every 10 sim days after you gain a sewage system, you are allowed to create a new family and have them "move" to your nation. Keep in mind all homes need to be built to the family's budget. Also, as a hint, If you want your town to be a bit more upscale, once you gain electronic, make one person in your family and architect (if you have ambitions) It'll make the town a bit more high end.


Ok, so that about covers everything, so have fun with it and try to make your nation as large as possible. If you want throw in some pics of your progress.

- Riptide651



EDIT (11/7) : Raeyn had brought up that the architecture career will not activate until you reach a certain amount of people, or families in your town. In order to upgrade everything at once during the acquisition of sewage or electricity, you can either house the bathrooms and such in common places, and reserve the houses for sleeping only. Or, you can use testingcheatsenabled true and shift-click on the lot you want to edit, one of the options should be edit in buy. Think will subtract money from your account, which actually is its only purpose. Either way works as long as you improve the common spaces by buying real estate and improving them with your own funds.


EDIT: (11/7) : Also, in the case you feel you don't have necessary funds to do something, you are allowed to take a maximum of 10,000 simoleons a family per generation of royalty, using the family funds cheats and adding it to your account using the family funds once again.. DO NOT go over 10,000. Also, if you do happen to expand to over 50 families, you are now only allowed to tax 5,000 simoleons off of each family. I think thats pretty straightforward. Also, you are only allowed to use this in times of trouble or financial depression. This is a luxury, not a right.

EDIT (11/8) : if your island is getting too small for your likes, you can install another island and "pack" all of your families into boats and move to a different island. Your progress on the challenge will stay the same with the sewage and electricity, you can move the houses too if you want to.

EDIT (11/8): I suggest making the garden very large, if the lot is large, its a good idea to build some buildings too, which, linking with the common space idea, would include a common place and bathrooms and such, and when larger even a nectary or something, excessive rooms etc. you decide.

EDIT (2/13): I just remembered you can collect profits off of community lots, so after you have bought 5 community Lots, upgraded to level 2, you can stop working in the family and just collect profit off of the lots.

[Wabbit4odd]

I'll give this a try.
it looks like it may be fun.

[Riptide651]

thnks, hope it works, its just a drafted down, idea, but honestly, i've been obsessing over, wel.., micronations for the past week so i figured this would be fun.

[Riptide651]

What is like no one gonna look at this thread?!?!?

[Raeyn]

Is it okay to create our own little islands? :) I think I've just about got the perfect one whipped up....

[Riptide651]

Yeah, of course it is, just make sure its generally about the same size, i'm gonna go really loose with that because this is more of thing that can be an independent variable here.

[ViviSims2]

I'm gonna try this out, and just in case people have trouble finding the download, I have a link (http://www.mediafire.com/?k1whvdni3rdyf28).

[Klevkin]

This definitly sounds like fun, i just started a diff challenge though :) so when i finished that one ;) i am going to try this one!

[Raeyn]

Yeah, of course it is, just make sure its generally about the same size, i'm gonna go really loose with that because this is more of thing that can be an independent variable here.

I've not checked Coconut Island, but I suspect I proooobably made it smaller. Here's a screencap of the mainly occupied island on week 20, day 7 (day 140 - time to add another family!):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v130/Raeynsedai/Simsbits/Screenshot-25.jpg

I had a few caveats that I applied myself, since I didn't use the recommended island. Firstly, the three founder families all got 30x30 lots; all subsequent families are on 15x15:

At the beginning (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v130/Raeynsedai/Simsbits/Screenshot-5.jpg)
The first three houses (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v130/Raeynsedai/Simsbits/Screenshot-4.jpg)

I couldn't find a way to purchase the school or the town hall, so I put them in place once electricity was available. By the same token, I think I avoided putting anything I could buy in place until after that point... or it might have even been after sewage. I also started with town locales that only gave part-time jobs besides the city hall and school; by the time I got to buying 'real' job locales, the third generation had been born.

I also let most of the families I made be rolled with pets, 'cause it adds flavour to the neighborhood.

Finally, the architect career did NOT want to work until I was well over 100 days in game, so I ended up popping into the other first two houses to slightly upgrade them; I use Awesomemod, so didn't lose any lifetime wishes or the like. It wasn't ideal, but I felt bad for them flaunting my power and sewage. :rofl:

I think there might've been something else (in spite of the finally), but I guess that'll do for now. It is definitely a fun challenge though!

[[radio edit]] Downloaded the recommend island.... mine is deeefinitely smaller. It's mainly awesome-sized, barring the fact I don't have room for a stadium or the fancy horse stuff. :D

[Riptide651]

@ViviSims2: Thanks for the link, sry I didnt put that there.

@Klevkin: thnks, hope you like it!

@Raeyn: Looks like its going great, i hadn't really anticipated it being so tightly packed on your island. Thats strange, about the architecture career, I'll have to look into that, thats probably because of the lack of residents at that point. Yeah, adding pets is ok, I just hadn't used the pets stuff because It hadn't been released yet. Yeah, if you need to upgrade the other two, It is best, in compliance with the rules to use testingcheats enabled true and shift click on the lot and edit lot in buy mode. so that will keep everything not free, haha.

[Raeyn]

And that's what I did - I wasn't going to let them get off cheap/free!

I think if I try this again (and I likely will some time in the future, though I'm still playing the heck out of it right now ), I'll roll a slightly bigger island and prep my slots earlier so it's a bit tidier. It does look nice, but routing is a nightmare, and despite the fact I thought the island was flat, it completely isn't.

I will say I was disappointed by how little breeding was going on with the first three houses, but I think I had botched a few things. I'd not made my garden lot a visitors allowed place, so nobody was having a middle place to meet on (whups). I also made it much too tiny for anyone to stand around and say hello on, so I'll have to keep that in mind and make it very slightly bigger. The garden also HAD to be fenced off, or else the wild animals would eat up the lot, and that just sucks. Once I started adding more families/some community lots, there was acceptable cross-pollination, and even some Sims having multiple pregnancies without me trying to convince them to lurve each other at parties.

All in all, I *am* happy with the whole small/compact lot concept; it makes it feel really micro. *grins* Plus, I'll be happy to hit the space cap soon, as my graph paper I'm using to track the days (150 days = week 22, day 3, par example) is gonna be half full soon. As I prefer to have it folded so it takes up less space.... :D

[Riptide651]

Haha, what you can do, just a thought, if your island is getting too small for your likes, you can install another island and "pack" all of your families into boats and move to a different island. The progress you have made will still be he same. Just an idea, I'm being real lenient about it. The breeding seems just like to architecture problem, probably not enough people, I'll change the original families to 5.

[Raeyn]

It might have been the people, it might have been the lots, I don't know for sure. Once I was able to successfully do architecture jobs, I could do it on one of the three founders... but not the other. So I don't know what to tell you there. I will likely use the same families I've rolled (I didn't have a large stash before, preferring to do Pinstar-style legacies and starting with singles), since that saves my lazy butt the effort. I guess the population will be the tell once people try it with more founders. :)

[Riptide651]

Yah, but we wont know for sure yet, maybe it because of the map, and it being really small, but maybe not.

[Klevkin]

I'm working on this right now, but you edited with two extra familys, shouldn't it have 2 extra residential lots then as well??

Oh.......and the island you recommended, is there a way to delete all those buildings that are there for show??? or the lanterns for instance??? it would be wonderful if i could make it completely abandoned!

[Riptide651]

Yeah, so sorry about that lemme fix that....

You should be able to if they are on a lot, if not, then if you want go through the trouble of editing it in CAW, but since that is way to long of an explanation, I'm sure there is a thread on how to do it...

Specifically this one: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=416989

But the same applies for worlds made by others too, just pick the right map

[Klevkin]

Thanks :) i'll tried the whole CAW thing :) haven't been able to get it to work yet :) but i'll check out the topic you posted!

[77sparks77]

In the process of bulldozing all the lots! However, was wondering how pets tie into this? I personally gave one of my starter families a dog, and another a cat. Planning on gaining a horse at some week! Would really appreciate an edit! ;)


:gjob:

[Riptide651]

I will definitely tie pets into this at some point, its just I don't have it yet and I don't know how it will work with this, but I'm planning on getting it soon! I assure you! Right now just go wild... I guess bring like 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 any other animals, and breed them into like a stble supply of animals, and like 2 of each for the entire colony so, but I'm not gonna edit this into the rules, because I don't know how it will work out.

[77sparks77]

Hmm? I shall try something along the lines! ;) I originally let one family have a cat, and one a dog. I guess I shall bring certain pets in with other families as I go along the game! And maybe when we get electricity, I shall bring in all the random animals, I'll experiment and let you know how I have worked it out! ;D May post some updates as well in the forum if that's alright? :D

[Riptide651]

Yeah of course! I'm eager to see how that'll end up working!

[Riptide651]

So hows it going with this?

[Quetzkotl]

I'm definitely planning on starting this, I haven't had any luck finding Coconut Island 2.0 though, and I only have WA and Ambitions. I may just substitute some other world. This is a fantastic idea for a challenge, though. I love the idea of building a world from the ground up.

[Riptide651]

This might work: http://www.sims3fanatics.com/sims-3-custom-content/world-lost-island/

but If you don't like mountainous lots then I'll find something else

Like this: http://customsims3.com/forums/thread-26.html

both are small islands

[Quetzkotl]

Ooh, thank you! Downloading the second one now.

[Quetzkotl]

Hopefully this works.. here's some pictures of where my challenge is so far.

http://i42.tinypic.com/21b59xw.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/11t20s8.jpg http://i42.tinypic.com/15gqv6h.jpg
http://i41.tinypic.com/9kmg6t.jpg

My royal family got a nice big 20x20 lot while the other four families are pretty much in little shacks. I made the community lot as directed but added a fishing pond because I'm a great big cheaterhead. I wasn't able to get rid of the graveyard. Apparently you need some kind of cheat to be able to delete it, so it looks like that's going to be the first lot my family buys. Right now in my royal family I have the mom painting. She seems to be bringing in the majority of the money right now. The dad fishes and gardens, the son fishes and the daughter cooks and cleans. Right now my game kind of feels like the Sims Medieval without all of the annoying quests.

[Riptide651]

Yeah, seems like it's going great, I'm not sure but could you remove the graveyard with Testing Cheats?

[Quetzkotl]

Yeah, seems like it's going great, I'm not sure but could you remove the graveyard with Testing Cheats?

I'm not sure but I think I could. I found out that it had a player made WA tomb underneath it, so that's probably why it was giving me problems.

edit: actually I have no idea how to get rid of this thing. For now I just used family funds to make my family pay the 7k or so for the lot. At least that way they can mess around with the catacombs, although it turns out that teens aren't allowed to take the part time job there. It's kind of funny, I guess EA thinks the morgue's a little morbid for an after school job.

[Riptide651]

Um try building a small second graveyard and delete the first. Is it due to the graveyard or the tomb. If its the tomb changing the lot type to visitors allowed and delete it.

[jcalandra]

To delete the graveyard in Edit Town, use the cheat "testingcheatsenabled true," press enter, and then use the cheat "enablelotlocking true" -- you should now be able to unlock the lot and delete it. Hope this is clear/helps. :-)

[Quetzkotl]

That was very helpful, thank you. :)

[Riptide651]

So umm.. any progress at all?

"bump"

[Wyldhawke]

Just ran across this challenge, and planning to try it sometime soon - looks like fun! Debating on trying out world creator, or finding a world and editing it to what I'd like. :)

[liniageline89]

I'm going to try this! I'm thinking of starting out with coconut island then maybe after a while I'll cause some kind of scenario and move them to niua simoa! That the perfect island for them. :) This looks like it will be a lot of fun! :)


in fact. after looking at the other challenges, I'm going to go extreme and combine this with the dilute the ugly gene. :lol: So I'll make my King an ugly and my queen a beautiful goddess! Yay! I can't wait!

[Riptide651]

@liniageline: Nice! Thats clever! So if you are gonna move them to Niua Simoa, You are still, just like the other islands, are going to have to remove any traces of civilization, and with an island that large it could be difficult, but give it a try.

@Wyldhawke: Any works, if you wanna get straight to the challenge download a world, If you want as much control as possible (because why do we play sims? Because we enjoy controlling tiny computer people like a god) you can design your own island.

[Wyldhawke]

I was actually thinking of using the Niua Simoa island too, or there's a couple other ones out there that are really neat too. However, I haven't gotten the Barnacle Bay world yet, so I'm going to wait until I get that. Most tropical-themed worlds seem to use parts from the Buccaneer set, plus.. what's a tropical isle without them!!?! I plan on getting it in the next few weeks, however, and I'll start the challenge up then. (I know, I'll be deleting all civilization on the island, but I still want the fun Piratey stuff to build with as I go!)

I would love to do a world creator one, but there are only so many hours in the day - and so many very cool already made tropical worlds already, that I figure I'll just use one of them!

[Riptide651]

I don't think Barnacle bay is an island though, is it? I don't think EA even makes Islands... It might be to big though.

[liniageline89]

I don't know, but some people may have some problems with immigrants. You thought you had the island deserted but then random people start popping up. If this should happen, I recommend the Twallan Story Progression. It has a setting somewhere there for immigration. :)

[Wyldhawke]

To clarify: I'm not planning on using Barnacle Bay, just the Buccaneer set that comes with it. ;) And as for Barnacle Bay being an Island, I don't know, I haven't researched. :) .. but I DO know that Twinbrook is supposedly an island (wikipedia talks about it)

[Riptide651]

Yeah, but you can't travel over all of it... :(

[Raeyn]

Hello again!

I think I'm going to run another game of this in the near future (with a bigger island, ha ha), and I come with a question - community lots. How does one realistically handle purchasing the lots that have things like City Hall on them? There's not a buy option, so would it be a matter of using family funds to 'pay' that way? How much? I ended up just thumping down the ones I couldn't buy specifically and feeling guilty about it, but I figured I'd ask before giving it another whirl. :)

[Riptide651]

I think the thing to do would be to make it a small park, because then you can buy it and the hall would function.

[Raeyn]

Seems reasonable - I will try it when I get to that stage of play. :)

[Wyldhawke]

Finally found a world that will work for this - that I don't have to make. Have tried a couple attempts to CAW, but I'm still very new at it, and I think it will take a few more to get a truly play-able world out of the whole deal without scrapping it because I did something wrong in the process, or ended up REALLY not liking a part of it. I still want to work at it, but it's nice to have found a world that will work in the meantime. for those curious, it's on the exchange - called Horse Head Island. I may need to tweak the two? lots that are on it, and set all of the lots to no visitor community lots or simply delete them - depending on how easy that particular world is to add lots you removed - some of them are horribly stubborn about it and it's easier to just leave it. http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=4864581

[Raeyn]

Okay, this is a question/query I pose to the rest of y'all running this fun challenge - are you finding it hard to get the other families to date and breed? I'm sort of speculating (here on my second run-through) that it's due to lack of places to go on dates. I can throw parties once electricity comes on line and get people smooching all over each other... but nobody hooks up, and nobody breeds. It's sort of annoying, yanno? Makes me wonder if I should start out with a City Hall in the background, if only to get other people going there on dates. :) I won't worry about it for this run (we're now 40 something days in with the me making the second round of babies in my family), but I might consider that for next time...

[[radio edit]] Actually, what I might do when I get home is port the island I made for this go around to my desktop, and try running a game of this on there too. My Legacy is too slow and cranky for me right now, so it would be a good way to test the City Hall theorem and have a change of pace. I'd still not let my family members get real jobs until the right generation, but if it'll get people breeding... watch this space? xD

[Tasselcat]

^ If you aren't adverse to mods, Raeyn, you could try using Twallan's Story Progression mod. With that and the Kama Simtra skill, even when my sims travel the townies breed quite happily.

I think I will try this challenge later today, maybe using the Arrrland here at MTS. I might end up fudging a bit, though, since my game gets fussy if I place all the rabbitholes. It's entirely possible that I will give the peasants the last names 'Llama' and 'Alpaca'. Just because. :llama:

[Riptide651]

Just noticed too, Arrsland is just PERFECT for this challenge.

If you are against modding, I guess you could populate the entire town using your legacy family, and just kick them out as they become YA's and move them into a different household...

[Riptide651]

Currently working on howland Island, when completed it could be useful fro this, in fact, its better to download it now before the tombs are built. Check the CFF forum for the download file/