Apocalypse I: The Founder/College

Introducing Jericho Founder. I've made him above-average neat, very serious, very active, and moderate outgoing. Just-below average nice points, mainly because I ran out of points. I really wanted an active sim, just because of all the work he's going to be doing. I kept the neat points because I want to be able to clean up after himself, and I want spontaneous-sponge baths to happen earlier.

On The Sims Resource, where I first came across a reference to this challenge, a fellow-simmer complained that she ended up in danger of her founder (female) reaching elder-hood before being able to produce the next generation. This danger is maximized by the presence of Seasons, which limits the phone usage in a very severe manner (and therefore times you can invite a sweetheart over). Jericho is a guy, because I figure the benefit of being able to produce offspring all thru the adult and elder stages outweighs the benefit of being able to produce offspring before the no-moving-in-others restriction is lifted. Of course, this is keeping in mind that once Jericho is an elder, unless I've got a pet lifting the Service Animal restriction, I won't be able to control him at all. :( That could be bad, but I'm going to risk it.

I sent Jericho off to Academie Le Tour, where he's been living in pre-apocalyptic bliss for the last seven semesters. I exploited a loophole while he's here; Academie Le Tour has had its seasons set to fallx4, giving me a learning bonus which has allowed me to just about max out all his skills but two (Mechanical and cleaning; cooking is only at 8 as well). I consider this only a partial exploitation, since I normally keep my colleges at fall, fall, winter, spring anyways.

I'm not sure about the wisdom of how I've used Jericho's Uni time, though, and if the challenge flops I may do it differently for round 2. I tried to maximize his skills because I don't actually have a firm, fixed game plan for how I want to approach the order of restrictions. Since so much of job-acquisition is now chance (thanks a lot, pinstar, for that darn journalism restriction *mock scowl*) I wanted Jericho to be able to move quickly up any employment ladder that makes itself available.

BUT, as a result of this focus, he currently has only five friends. I've got a semester and a half to bump that number up, but I don't think I'll be able to go beyond seven or eight. AND even if he has these friends now, maintaining college friends will be next to impossible, since they don't do walk-bys and he can only use the phone Tuesday mornings. Sooooo, really, the only point of college friends is probably to buy you time to make other friends as you (hopefully) move up the career. But since I haven't started that part of the challenge yet, I don't really know.

Pinstar, in an interview recorded on The Sims 2 Challenges (love the show, Rachel, by the way) commented that the hardest needs to meet once your founder graduates are hygiene and fun. I don't think there's anything I can really do for hygiene until the Medical restriction is lifted (btw, I think I will take his advice and make that my founder's spouse restriction), but I've been thinking about how to address the fun issue. Creativity-building objects are restricted by the Artist career, but games are not. I'm going to give Jericho the group game, whose name I can't remember, that raises fun quickly thru the "practice" interaction. It's pricey, which is one reason I'm buying it while at Uni instead of on the lot. Protection money for it will be a brat, but I think it will be worth it.

A gripe on the subject of spouses: Somehow I managed to pick the only dorm with only ONE female student living it it. She's typical townie quality, and I don't have time to make a new friend to replace her with. There's a professor that I like a little better, but I remember all the frustration that comes from moving professors off campus, and I don't know if it's been fixed. My game is buggy enough with all the new seasons stuff, so I'm stuck with blech for the next few generation's genetics. Gorram it!