My friend PyroFalkon is a huge fan of The Sims. He was the one who introduced me to the Legacy Challenge, which has taken over how I play The Sims. He has created a new challenge which he calls the Sims 3 Socialism Challenge and is currently beta testing it in Let’s Play form on his YouTube channel.
I’ve enjoyed watching it and since much of my blog traffic is drawn to my Legacy Challenge scorecard spreadsheet, maybe some of you will like the Socialism Challenge, too. Today I’ll talk about the rules PyroFalkon has set up and my thoughts on how things have gone so far.
The Rules
Overall Goal
- Reach the top of all 13 conventional career tracks in the game as soon as possible.
- This excludes professions and working at home.
- The 13 conventional career tracks are:
- Business
- Criminal
- Culinary
- Education
- Fortune Teller
- Journalism
- Law Enforcement
- Medical
- Military
- Music
- Political
- Professional Athlete
- Science
- The first four Sims to hit the top of their career tracks change careers.
Scoring
- Scoring is determined by the number of Sim days it takes to complete the goal.
- The day the household moves in is day 1.
Sim Creation
- One household consisting of 8 unrelated Sims.
- All Sims are human young adults.
- Favorites, astrological signs, and traits are all randomized.
- However, the Workaholic and Ambitious traits are forbidden
- If randomized traits result in either of these two, re-roll all traits.
- Once traits are successfully rolled without Ambitious or Workaholic, the top left lifetime wish is chosen.
Game Settings
- Aging is turned off.
- Story progression is turned on.
- All related story settings and races are enabled.
- Opt out of celebrity points for current family.
- High free will.
- Opportunities suppressed.
- 10-day rotating lunar cycle (if you have Supernatural installed).
Neighborhood and Lot
- Use the newest neighborhood available to you (i.e. Moonlight Falls for owners of Supernatural).
- You may choose any empty lot.
- Your Sims may not move to a new lot.
- Beds, bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. must all be identical.
- Including style and decor.
General Rules
- All sims move in together.
- No merging households (to limit starting balance).
- Death is permanent.
- No children if a Sim should die.
- All Sims share everything in the lot — no personal items.
- All charity items are rejected if possible, sold if not.
- Gems are sold uncut.
- Items earned through careers are sold.
- No vehicles of any kind.
- No restrictions on order in which careers are pursued.
- Only one career branch must be completed.
Thoughts and Reflections
At the time of this writing, PyroFalkon has just released episode 14 of his Socialism Challenge Let’s Play series. I have seen the first 13 episodes. In episode 1, he explains the rules of the challenge while building his Sims’ starting house. (He didn’t record the process of creating his Sims, which makes total sense from a time and tedium standpoint.) Episode 2, however, is where the fun really begins.
I would say that PyroFalkon designed the challenge pretty well. The only thing he’s had to decide in the middle, really, is whether or not to use lifetime rewards points. He took input from his YouTube commenters on that one and the general consensus was no, though one person suggested only buying lifetime rewards if you could afford the same reward for everyone. I think that’s the sort of thing that makes for a great optional rule. It’s in keeping with some of the thinking behind certain established rules, but at odds with others.
The one thing Pyro is doing that I think is a bit silly is selling everything anyone earns as part of his or her career. This makes sense to an extent. If one guy gets a car as part of his job and no one else has cars, then the equal and identical resources idea is being violated. (Not to mention the blanket no cars rule, but that’s specific to this example.) However, if someone brings home gems, those gems could be removed from his or her inventory and put on display to improve the environment to everyone’s benefit rather than being sold.
PyroFalkon has been open to this change since I suggested it, but one could easily argue that selling the items is also to the benefit of the entire household. So should selling them all be a rule? Or should the rule be modified? Maybe a better rule would be, “Any items received through careers must be sold if they cannot otherwise be used to the benefit of all Sims in the household.”
Conclusion
Other than that, all I really have to say at this point is that it’s an interesting idea for a challenge. Watching PyroFalkon’s Let’s Plays as he tries it out has been entertaining. He’s good at voicing his thoughts while he plays, and his constant commentary is both entertaining and enlightening. He knows the game very well and explains the reasoning behind certain decisions as he carries them out. If you’re into this sort of thing, I recommend checking it out.
Edited on November 5, 2012 because someone pointed out to PyroFalkon that there are 13 conventional career tracks, including the music track.