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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 13th May 2014 at 8:15 PM
Default Nothing is free: cash business rewards
So I LOVE the economics aspect of the sims 2, and all the possibilities that Open for Business opens up. I find playing "nothing is free" style to be critical, since you have to build up a consumer base through primary economic activities like fishing and agriculture in order to make secondary and tertiary activity possible. I know lots of my fellow simmers play this way, so my question is: do you consider the business rewards where you get a lump sum of cash cheating? Seems like you could make a reasonable case for either approach. On the one hand, you could say that the lump sums just represent extra income from building a brand. On the other hand, you could point out that there's nothing to stop a sim from setting up a few end tables for sale on their lawn at Ridiculously Cheap and parleying those stars into a small fortune.

As for me, I do consider it cheating, but I'm pretty agressive about nothing is free style, i,e, I don't allow:

Maxis jobs (duh)
Inheritance
Townies (free consumers with unlimited money that appear out of nowhere? I think not... though I won't deny it was pretty funny the one time I did build Heimlichbourg with townies and my prehistoric Hamlek tribesmen wound up hawking their pots and herbs to Goopy )
Business rewards
Genie lamp wish for wealth
Digging for treasure on a normal lot (you have to build a community lot mine, i.e. a huge mountain with the top cut off and several support structures that you work with simwardrobe's controller)
Financial consulting (only available on the bank lot and only when it has a big heap of capital in its vaults)
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Lab Assistant
#2 Old 13th May 2014 at 8:42 PM
More nothing is free ideas:

Sometimes sim children/teens get "$100 for a relative for A+" Either make it come from an actual relative, or subtract the money.
College isn't free, make YA's pay, then use the money for college campus buildings/campus beautification/ scholarships.
Same sort of set up, but with taxes/fees

I don't find townies as cheating though, because In my town it's like they are from another city/tourists.

Just take each day 24 minutes at a time... Unless you hit pause, then you could be there for hours!

Sims 2 Pinterest Profile: https://www.pinterest.com/tullulabell1894/
In the process of moving all Sims 2 pins from my personal Pinterest
Scholar
#3 Old 13th May 2014 at 10:03 PM
I don't really play a "nothing is free" style; I guess mine is just a "default was too easy" style (no20khandout, etc.).
But in some aspects I agree with your point of view, so I hope I can post here anyway ...

I'm fine with townies buying in Sim-owned business.
I agree with Tullulabell here: my townies are people from nearby neighbourhoods who walk by. They have their jobs and houses -just not here- and they may have cash to spend on trifles.
What I don't like is that my Sims may autonomously earn § or items when they are not being played. Autonomous fishing have been modded out because it bothered me so much and I felt it was quite cheaty. (They may fish only when being played!)

My most personal choice is that I have fixed the service wages for what I considered fair.
Because I thought that the most basic services should be paid at least about what a Sim gets paid in a very basic job (per hour). And butlers should be a luxury which only Sims with high wages can afford.
So my current settings are 3x the default settings (basic services @ §30/hour, buttler about §1000 a day, and so on).
#4 Old 14th May 2014 at 12:43 PM
Townies are actually beneficial if they're purposed a certain way. When you move them in to a family they retain whatever they bought in their inventory. In my style they make friends with the various second hand shop owners and then "gift" certain items to be resold cheaper. So they actually play a vital role in the economy.
Mad Poster
#5 Old 14th May 2014 at 4:22 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Tullulabell
College isn't free, make YA's pay, then use the money for college campus buildings/campus beautification/ scholarships.


Do you have a mod that makes Uni cost, or do you just take money from them?
Lab Assistant
#6 Old 14th May 2014 at 7:25 PM
I've heard there are mods, but I don't use one. I have them tally up all money they earn from scholarships/ from the grades they get during college, and if it is less than $10,000 ($8,000 for college for 4 years and $2000 for room and board for 4 years) whatever is left over becomes debt. $10,000 may not seem like a lot, but in my game it is because not only is it a new hood, but I make my sims pay taxes and fee out the wazoo. I am also developing an education system for post college, which is about $5000 per term ( which is about one week ) So for my sims $10,000 is a lot!

Just take each day 24 minutes at a time... Unless you hit pause, then you could be there for hours!

Sims 2 Pinterest Profile: https://www.pinterest.com/tullulabell1894/
In the process of moving all Sims 2 pins from my personal Pinterest
Scholar
#7 Old 14th May 2014 at 9:05 PM
Apologies if this is going off topic, but Tullulabell, I have a ton of rules and mods for my game, some of which I've detailed here. I also charge for uni ($10k unless a sim is from a low-income family), added in master's ($7k) and doctorates ($20k), rules and limits on jobs, taxes, the occasional benefits paid back, private school (and prep and boarding schools) needing fees paid, and lower wages. Like for you, $10k for my sims is a lot, and if they're not able to pay it back by the time they graduate, they start getting charged interest.

Personally, it's very fun to see a sim achieving success in this kind of game mod

On topic: I consider at the very least the higher up money rewards cheaty. The first two, maybe three I can accept (I see them as like business incentives to encourage people to actually start up a business) but the $50k one? Nah, gamebreaking.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#8 Old 14th May 2014 at 10:22 PM
I also have a number of rules for my integrated hood, so having the cash depends if they have government funding or not. A bar is not going to have any kind of funding, while the police station will. Once they get their funding, the Government needs to actually decrees it's own coppers because that money has to come from somewhere. My rules are not as strict as some though, as my Government and certain sims are given more cash to start with. Not everyone comes along with $20,000; some start out with a good 50K and others only with a $100 to their name. If they are born in they may have moved out of home with very little due to the no 20K handout mod. Depends what mum or dad let them take. Different folks have different back stories. Once you are set up though, that is it.

Movies always have extras and townies are those extras. They are background characters and tourists. The playables are the towns well known main characters. No sim town can have as many sims as a real town. I live in the country and our area has ten thousand people. We are not a large place, but no sim town would have that many. I just have them set with the visitor controller to not walk by my sims houses but they are free to come and go at most of the businesses.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Lab Assistant
#9 Old 18th May 2014 at 7:53 PM
Default Community mining?
Quote: Originally posted by Heimlichbourger
So I LOVE the economics aspect of the sims 2, and all the possibilities that Open for Business opens up. I find playing "nothing is free" style to be critical, since you have to build up a consumer base through primary economic activities like fishing and agriculture in order to make secondary and tertiary activity possible. I know lots of my fellow simmers play this way, so my question is: do you consider the business rewards where you get a lump sum of cash cheating? Seems like you could make a reasonable case for either approach. On the one hand, you could say that the lump sums just represent extra income from building a brand. On the other hand, you could point out that there's nothing to stop a sim from setting up a few end tables for sale on their lawn at Ridiculously Cheap and parleying those stars into a small fortune.

As for me, I do consider it cheating, but I'm pretty agressive about nothing is free style, i,e, I don't allow:

Maxis jobs (duh)
Inheritance
Townies (free consumers with unlimited money that appear out of nowhere? I think not... though I won't deny it was pretty funny the one time I did build Heimlichbourg with townies and my prehistoric Hamlek tribesmen wound up hawking their pots and herbs to Goopy )
Business rewards
Genie lamp wish for wealth
Digging for treasure on a normal lot (you have to build a community lot mine, i.e. a huge mountain with the top cut off and several support structures that you work with simwardrobe's controller)
Financial consulting (only available on the bank lot and only when it has a big heap of capital in its vaults)


How do you build a comm, lot mine?
Field Researcher
#10 Old 19th May 2014 at 3:53 AM
I use a pretty intense tax system, as well as taking away $20k handouts, charging $25 000 for university, and limiting jobs for many, particularly those that do not go to uni.
I tend to find that sometimes I need to use the easy moneymaking stuff maxis laid out to keep my rich sims rich or to keep my sims able to pay for things I want them to have (like a lot of plastic surgery or elixir of life (they pay to take it to stay young, but the days are then deducted once they are elders).

What fixed my problem of my sims always having too much money was when I got the paintings that are certificate valued at $1000, $5000, $10 000 and $25 000.
Now I have my sims purchase the bonds and put them in their inventory to save up for the taxes they need to pay at the start of every season. They aren't allowed to cash the bonds in the same season in which they bought them, so they no longer have a ton of disposable income.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#11 Old 19th May 2014 at 5:11 AM
Quote: Originally posted by bnymph
How do you build a comm, lot mine?


You use the employee digging controller from http://www.simwardrobe.com/ (SIms2/objects/business facilitators). Just plonk that down on a community lot and hire some sims, then assign them to dig for treasure- the treasure winds up in the owner's inventory and can be resold. It's a great business model early on when you play the kind of concrete-chewingly-psychotic nothing is free hoods I do and your sims have to produce every scrap of wealth with their little pixelated hands. Plus it gives some real flavor to the hood when you have a tyrannical tribal chief working everybody else in his mines! There's no overheard except the cost of the sims' wages, and there are no skill points or talent badges required to mine. The occasional treasure chest your sims dig up would be enough on their own to generate a tidy profit.

The rest of you have gotten me thinking about townies- I love the idea of having them represent visitors from other settlements, but I want to do that in a way that fits with nothing is free. Here's an idea: townies are traveling merchants from nearby cities, but you have to open up trade routes before you can export to them. You open trade routes by making a huge investment and building one large lot where your new townies can come (just sink it all into a huge impressive building). Every other business lot has to use the visitor controller to ban them. Maybe kill off a few soldiers or explores (depending on how your government likes to handle international relations ). Then you have a trading company with access to the export market. It would actually be viable for the sims who own it to buy in bulk from non-export businesses and then gouge the foreigners, pumping money into the whole economy. You could also do it by having your government acquire territory. For example, in Heimlichbourg I could make a mountain vacation hood, the Hinterlands, representing a new market open to consumer goods exports. To represent the presence of the government there, the king could spend a few soldiers' lives and build a huge castle (vacation home lot) to loom over the Hinterlands and keep the road open to trade caravans
Mad Poster
#12 Old 20th May 2014 at 3:58 AM
My local chamber of commerce and a couple other small business oriented organizations specific to my town offer grants for certain purposes, so I figure the cash perks mean that business owner got a grant for his business. Not everyone gets them, of course, most of my business owning sims only have one business and might value the networking or price reduction rewards more.

Pics from my game: Sunbee's Simblr Sunbee's Livejournal
"English is a marvelous edged weapon if you know how to wield it." C.J. Cherryh
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#13 Old 20th May 2014 at 4:18 AM
Heimlichbourger, the mine idea is a good one. For the most part I don't allow digging as it seems too easy. Nobodies back garden is going to have gnomes, vases, maps and treasure chests just lying under the surface. I have thought of having my stone mason in my medieval town dig for rocks, but I don't know what to do with all the other stuff.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#14 Old 20th May 2014 at 6:20 PM
Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
Heimlichbourger, the mine idea is a good one. For the most part I don't allow digging as it seems too easy. Nobodies back garden is going to have gnomes, vases, maps and treasure chests just lying under the surface. I have thought of having my stone mason in my medieval town dig for rocks, but I don't know what to do with all the other stuff.

You could just get rid of them without selling them and getting money for them, as if the sim hadn't found anything that time they dug a hole? I use the stuck object remover from MATY, which "burninates" things and gets rid of them without the family receiving money for them. It's originally made to remove stuck items that can't be picked up/deleted in Buy Mode, but I also use it for getting rid of date rewards/gifts that don't make sense. Dina Caliente Goth gives Don a pinball machine after a date? Fair enough - she has tons of money, and they do get on well. So when I next play Dina's lot I buy the same pinball machine and burninate it, so she's actually paid for it. Victoria Ottomas gives Robert Broke a Chinese vase after their first date? No way! Sure, they had a great time, but she lives in a household with 12 sims and they only have about $500 on hand.... She could never afford that! So I burninate it :-)
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#15 Old 21st May 2014 at 4:25 AM
Good idea Laura, I hadn't thought of the stuck object remover. Maybe I can pretend they are blowing stuff up with gun powder and oil. Shame it makes no noise.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
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