00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 The Sims 2 University Practical FAQ 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Creator Information: Author: TheSocialBunny (Zephos Amaranis) E-Mail: zephos@xynthica.com Personal Website: http://www.xynthica.com FAQ Information: Version: 1.01 Date of Creation: April 10, 2005 Date of Last Update: -- ============================================================================= Update Comment: In order to prevent having an update history as long as this FAQ to scroll down, I'm just going to leave small comments behind each new update and delete the previous ones. Although labeled as version 1.01, several big modifications have been made to this FAQ, including multiple corrections, confirmations and additions to almost all parts of the FAQ, as well as the quite in demand "The Darker Side of the Sims" section. Another area of focus on this update is in the "Special Skills, Commands and Actions" section, as I have discovered several fun new things that your sims can do. ============================================================================= Introduction: 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 The Sims 2: University is the newest and first expansion pack added to The Sims 2, and offers a whole new perspective upon simulated life that reinforces the original game significantly, but enough of the one sentence review and onto the nitty gritty. This bad girl of a game draws up many different styles of game play, from the practical hardcore gamers, to the social experimentalists, to the fun filled cheaters, to the fine folks with a mean streak a mile wide and the tendency to "accidentally" kill off their sims, there really is no "right" way to play this game. That being said this is a FAQ dedicated to playing the game in a way that you're sims will probably not hate you for should they ever manifest themselves in reality with the opportunity to wring your neck, albeit I frequently do tend to refer to the reverse. There are three goals of this FAQ, as although I originally wrote it to be a small guide on the new expansion; it has accumulated into quite the perpetual ball of text on its own. The first goal is covering The Sims 2 University in detail with effective strategies that yield maximum payoff for minimal work (Like cheating, but less fun). The second is revealing obscure facets of the game to widen your enjoyment, like how to have a sim do the sexy walk or how the pool skill system really works. Finally, I'll tell you how to get a Level 99 Popularity Aspiration sim with enough output to live off of Enigmatic Energizers and defeat the last boss, the social bunny, in one hit. Well, unfortunately I still got some old school console RPG gamer in me, but seriously, making an ultimate sim with the most useful set of commands, optimized personality, the highest aspiration output, maximized skills, the most profitable job, not a single bad memory, lifetime platinum aspiration and enough children and grand children to make her own city happens to be my favorite way of playing this game and I will often step off to the side to describe just how to do that... in not so many words. This is The Sims 2: University Practical FAQ and focuses on strategy to play through university well, but is not designed to cover the entire scope of The Sims 2 like an encyclopedia to which many other FAQs hold the credit for. As such, I will leave what is not written is this document to rest on the highly capable shoulders of former and future FAQ writers with the humblest of gratitude. ============================================================================= Table of Contents: Chapter 1: Knowing What You've Gotten Yourself Into [1] What University Can Do For Your Sims [1.01] Why Send Your Sims to University? [1.02] What Is New In The Sims 2 University? [2] Reviewing the Play Mechanics for University [2.01] Motives [2.02] Personality [2.03] Aspiration [2.04] Skills [2.05] Interests [3] Off To University We Go [3.01] Before Going To University [3.02] Scholarships [3.03] Moving to University [3.04] Housing [3.05] About Young Adults Chapter 2: The Four Big University Goals [4] Graduate Summa Cum Laude: [4.01] Majors [4.02] Class Performance [4.03] Graduation [5] The Big Sim on Campus [5.01] Meeting New Sims [5.02] Invite Them Over [5.03] Three Hit Combo Routine [5.04] Becoming Best Friends and Beyond [6] The Ultimate Greek House Legacy [6.01] Planning A Legend [6.02] Reaching For A Level 6 Greek House [6.03] The Greek House Ladder [6.04] Getting Your Greek House Started [6.05] Greek House Features [6.06] Continuing the Legacy [7] The Secret Society [7.01] How to Get Into the Secret Society [7.02] Arriving At the Secret Society [7.03] The Secret Society and You [7.04] Different Types of Base Secret Society Buildings [7.05] Expanding the Secret Society [7.06] Must Have Items for the Secret Society [7.07] Ways to Make Money In the Secret Society [7.08] Secret Society Secrets [7.09] After Graduation Chapter 3: Making Money at University And Beyond [8] Making Money at University [8.01] Academic Grants [8.02] Odd Jobs and Other Sources of Income [9] The Top of The New Careers: [9.01] Show Business [9.02] Natural Scientist [9.03] Paranormal [9.04] Artist [9.05] Chance Cards [10] Career Rewards [10.01] Dr. Vu's Automated Cosmetic [10.02] Laganaphyllis Simnovorii [10.03] Resurrect-O-Nomitron [10.04] Luminous Pro Antique Camera Chapter 4: New Game Play Mechanics [11] Under the Influence [11.01] Influence Level [11.02] Influence Points [11.03] Being A Good Influence: [11.04] Being A Bad Influence: [12] Lifetime Wants [13] Household Merging: Chapter 5: Miscellaneous [14] NPCs [14.01] The House Crashers: [14.02] New Service Sims [14.03] Supernatural NPCs [14.05] Relying on Townies [15] Time Frames [16] How to Have a Roof Raiser of a Party [16.01] Party Types [16.02] Party Score [16.03] Rules of A Great Party: [17] Compulsive Clothing Compiling Chapter 6: The Quest for The Ultimate Sim [18] Studying Your Sim [18.01] The Sims 2 Endurance Trial [18.02]Skill Building: [18.03] Male Versus Female Sims: [18.04] Aspiration and Personality Optimization [18.05] The Fat and the Fit [19] Special Skills, Commands and Actions [19.01] Hidden Skills: [19.02] Age Based Interactions [19.03] Special Manual Commands: [19.04] Special Effects [19.05] Automatic Commands [19.06] Portable Devices [20]Fear, Anger, Hatred and Suffering: [20.01] Motive Desperation Actions [20.02] Aspiration Desperation: [20.03] When Disaster Strikes [20.04] Reactions to Sim Death [21]The Darker Side of the Sims [21.01] Evil Aspiration [21.02] Sim Fatality Chapter 7: Wrapping Up [21] Trivia: [22] Closure [23] Copyright [24] Special Thanks: ============================================================================= ***************************************************************************** Chapter 1: Knowing What You've Gotten Yourself Into ***************************************************************************** [1] What University Can Do For Your Sims ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1.01] Why Send Your Sims to University? Teen's are given the opportunity anytime during their growth stage to go and attend university, but much like in real life, going to university is quite optional and you can have them go straight to adulthood at the end of their growth stage, should you desire. Sure, higher education doesn't necessarily mean better jobs in real life as much as having a social network of friends wide enough to cover the Grand Canyon, but in The Sims 2, going to university and graduating clearly has advantages, and huge ones at that: 1. Four new careers are unlocked to graduates! These super careers take higher skills and more friends, but offer a lot more money, less work days, and better hours! Along with these new careers are four new fun career rewards. Here are the details: -Show Business: Career Reward: Dr. Vu's Automated Cosmetic (Level 6: Supporting Player) -Natural Scientist: Career Reward: Laganaphyllis Simnovorii (Level 6: Rogue Botanist) -Paranormal: Career Reward: Resurrect-O-Nomitron (Level 5: Medium) -Artist: Career Reward: Luminous Pro Antique Camera (Level 5: Wedding Photographer) 2. Sims get natural aspiration bonuses at the end of each year in University: -Freshmen: +1 Want Slot -Sophomore: Aspiration Change -Junior: +1 Lock Slot -Senior: +1 Want Slot At the end of graduation, you sim will be able to ultimately have 6 wants and the ability to use two locks, which becomes invaluable. In the scenario that you hate your sims, unlucky sims who have been forcibly expelled from college get an additional fear slot for you to exploit in the name of jolly good fun, and as a reminder, your sim will get a tiny red x across their young adult icon. You can avoid getting the extra fear slot by dropping out voluntarily using the phone to call college, and instead of the red x, your sim's young adult icon will have a white cross out on it. Other advantages to going to university include extending your sim's life naturally by almost thirty days without academic probation, the time to make new friends, and increase base skills so you can start off higher on the career ladder after you exit university. Sims who have traveled the full way to graduation also retain several young adult exclusive social interactions like the school cheer and those who graduate with honors get a good automatic career boost that allows them to leap positions. As proof of graduation, you also get a nifty looking diploma made out of faux sheep skin and the satisfaction of knowing that although you may have saved one sheep, that larger than normal sized cow plant of doom you're inevitably rooting for is going to eat dozens of people thanks to your new found education. All in all, not counting the penalty of academic probation, a sim will take 27 days to go through university with three days for eight semesters and three days of post graduation. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1.02] What Is New In the Sims 2 University? The Sims 2 University is anything but a light add on to an already superior game and having more than a dozen commonly used social actions and multiple new objects, some like the pool table that you will be sure to enjoy, doesn't hurt either. You can also now throw sports parties and toga parties, and of course, there's the entire gigantic young adult phase and university that is the focus of the game bit. The Sims 2 University also adds three vital new game play mechanics, influence, lifetime wants and the ability to merge households. If you were ever ticked off about computer controlled sims always being overly expendable filler pawns, then influence wouldn't change a thing there, but if you wanted one of them to try and fix a garbage compactor unit far beyond their skill limit and light up like a Christmas Tree or have two best friends get into a slap fight then write your term paper, then you're going to love influence. Lifetime wants are also a smart add on to the game, and allow a sim who completes a difficult task in line with their aspiration to achieve platinum mood for the rest of their life, no more worries about the Noodle Soother killing your sim or the Enigmatic Energizer roasting them extra crispy. House merging is an appreciated new feature that allows players to combine two or more households together and avoid the hassle of having your sims move in or marry their way in manually. These three new underlying features effect the entire style and direction of game play you will take, and tacked on with several other new features revealed later in this document, and you can see why I'm quite enthusiastic about writing this FAQ. ============================================================================= [2] Reviewing the Play Mechanics for University Still at the core of The Sims 2 University are of course the sims themselves. Knowing how sims operate is vital to putting them through university. No two sims are exactly the same, even if you tried to create a sim exactly the same as another one without cheating, they're original set of interests and life time wants will most likely be different. Although based on the core game, this following basic segment covers the standard rules of The Sims 2 and how you can use them to your advantage in university. There is also a special section that further scrutinizes this information later on in "The Quest for the Ultimate Sim" section. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2.01] Motives: Motives, sometimes called needs, are the things that prevent your sim from kicking the can before their time or going insane, so be sure they have them fulfilled so they can worry about bigger things. The main strategy involved in The Sims 2, much like the original, is the ability to multitask and know when and how to do things and what to expect as a reaction. Fortunately, this is a very user friendly game, and you usually have to be trying to get your sims to die prematurely by motive deprivation. ----------------------- Hunger: The most important motive, most likely because your sim will die if you ignore it for too long. Well before that though, your sim will start screaming, nagging, and start refusing to do anything beneficial until it is met, sometimes even interrupting his/her own cooking, resulting in a fiery finale. Hunger is one of the biggest pulls on a sim's mood, and as such, should always a priority above other motives. This bar should be at least above half unless you are in a desperate fight with time. The best way to fill Hunger is to have a sim with level 10 cook whip up something, anything. Even a Cup o' Ramen can refill almost half of a hunger bar if cooked by a master, but unfortunately, if your sim is fresh off the bus, he stands a higher chance of incinerating himself in the kitchen than anything else, so fortunately, that's where the university cafeterias come in handy. At university, cafeteria workers cook breakfast, lunch and dinner, but be sure to go for the fresh food they bring out, or else your sim might accidentally come down with food poisoning. ----------------------- Fun: An extremely important factor, especially in university, where almost anything academic sucks fun away like a proverbial sponge. Fortunately, there are many useful ways to increase fun that also double for skill building, such as playing chess, performing music and painting. The best ways to raise fun, depending on if your sim is lazy/active or serious/playful is to either watch The Yummy Channel on the most expensive wide screen television or playing pool. Both ways also can increase social if done in good company and increase skills, albeit the Pool ability is a hidden skill. They both also can ignore a sim's refusal in a bad mood, since both are unconventional skill building methods, as opposed to playing chess, which a sim will not do if their mood is in the red. Sims who also have an exceptionally neat or active personality can also derive fun from cleaning or exercising where other sims would rather get a root canal. When a sim is almost empty on fun, they become very difficult to handle, complaining every single chance they get and will also not be able to do most of the essential skill building activities due to a bad mood. ----------------------- Comfort: You typically don't need to worry about comfort unless your sim is sick, in which case it drains like a broken shower. Just having one good chair or couch around for their favorite activity and giving them a good night's sleep on time usually does the trick. The worst case scenario of comfort deprivation isn't too horrible either. They just do the usual complaining, but it's not too hard to handle. ----------------------- Social: Sims are social animals, and if they don't talk to anyone, they go a little bit crazy and summon their imaginary furry friend the social bunny! Fortunately, Social is easy to maintain in the Sims 2, and can be easily remedied by interacting with a good friend. As a matter of fact, having low social can actually be useful, as sims will usually talk on the phone all the way until their social meters are full, as opposed to the usual two or three topic exchanges that occur should you call on a full meter. A very low social meter can be a great opportunity to make a new friend out of a complete stranger when using the phone. ----------------------- Bladder: When a sim has gotta' go, a sim has got to go and there is only one solution. Well, actually, not really. Desperate male sims apparently can take a whiz on shrubs and bushes and there is always the Enigmatic Energizer, but for the most part, the good old toilet is your best friend. Bladder goes down fast, but fills up faster when a sim decides to relieve themselves. Ignoring low bladder causes your sim to wet themselves, resulting in zero hygiene and some cleaning up to do. ----------------------- Hygiene: You know you've ignored this too long when your sim starts venting noxious green gas as they run around the house like a superhero in the spring time. The best way to remedy low hygiene is a good hot shower. Although taking a bath or a bubble bath raises comfort as well, it's slower than a shower and usually remedied when you sim sits or sleeps. The new community showers at dorms are unfortunately, quite sub par, but when you barely have enough money to pay the bills, you don't really have a choice. Hygiene should be especially monitored when your sim exercises. For the most part, Yoga is the only exercise that doesn't melt away at hygiene. No really horrible effects come from low hygiene except fellow sims are repelled away and may be difficult to deal with when the number one thing on their mind is how to get away from the stench. ----------------------- Energy: Although it has almost no effect on mood, it's going to almost always be the bar that your eye will be most focused on, because it is also the motive with the longest recovery time and which a sim's time frame operates around. Even with the best of beds, Energy takes a few hours to recover unless you're keen about the idea of pumping your sim full of caffeine. Sims who run completely out of energy faint, which is never a good thing, so make sure your sims have enough energy going for them whenever they go to class or a community lot. If you have a sim with enough aspiration, relying completely on the Enigmatic Energizer is a very good idea at university, actually, relying on the Enigmatic Energizer for everyday of their life is an even better one, but in order to get a sim that well developed already, you must have already played them quite a bit before they became young adults. ----------------------- Environment: A surprisingly unpredictable motive that is based on the area that the sim is in at any given time, not just the room as a whole. Although difficult, it is possible to get perfect environment, all you need are expensive wall coverings and tiles, lots of light and for the room not to be a hive of scum and villainy filled with puddles, dirty dishes or other signs of filth. Usually, the most forgotten factor is light, sometimes, you have to double up lights or make sure that they are on during the day time if your house is lacking windows. Environment is rated on several different factors that have maximums and are generalized, so stuffing your room full of expensive art can only do so much to counter the smell of rotten meat and bad interior design. Outside, environment is a whole different ball game, but typically, the best ways to boost it are trees. Trees don't require maintenance while an overgrown shrub or rotten patch of flowers can damage environment more than help it. Environment is probably the least important factor in the game, but it is the only one that once you have established well, you can count on to be consistent, so getting the favorite room in your house perfect can be a lot of fun and help to make your sims happy and content while in it. In university, you'll be decorating your dorm room and building a legacy worthy Greek House, so keeping environment in mind is always the right idea. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2.02] Personality: Sims with different personalities have different AI tendencies, learn certain skills faster or slower, but most importantly, they gain or lose new abilities. The following is a run down of the differences between the negative personalities and the positive ones. All custom sims start off the bat with 25 personality points allocated to chosen areas but it is very possible to make a sim with perfect negative or positive personality through parental encouragement, albeit, it takes quite the while and you must have made the parents with full personality in two areas each and made the child perfect in remaining one to cover all five categories. I've been able to do this three times, but in my opinion, the "Perfect" personality sim isn't one who has full blue on everything. Of important note is that the description of the skills and personalities in the game might leave you to believe that some of the negative personalities help build skills. This is only true in one case. ----------------------- Negative Personality: (What Makes Sims Interesting To Watch) Sloppy: Nothing particularly good comes from being sloppy, at its extreme, it causes havoc with unflushed toilets, flooded showers and increased hygiene deterioration to a very high degree. A perfectly neat sim can still be in the healthy green while a completely sloppy sim will be in the red in the same amount of time. It allows sims the ability to lick dishes clean, take sponge baths in the sink out of desperation automatically, and have the ability to salvage the trash for sub-minimal profit, but ultimately these abilities are virtually useless for a productive sims, granted, they make for excellent home videos. Sloppy sims are also hazardous to the dinner table, belching, farting, eating, and even cooking like pigs. On one hand, if you are a practical gamer, there is very little point in having a sloppy sim, but its loads of fun if you are playing solely for the sake of having fun. Sloppy sims, as you can guess, are absolutely horrible at gaining Neat skill points. On the positive side though, sloppy sims are more tolerant to other's messes or rude behavior and can actually improve relationships with sims who try the "Gross Out" action on them. ----------------------- Shy: One of the better negative personalities to have. Being shy decreases the speed at which the social motive deteriorates. In return, they become a little less open to other sims' social interactions, making them less prominent when controlled by the computer, but also makes them quite a bit safer. Naturally, they are slow to learn charisma, not being very open to the world and all. Shy sims make great Knowledge Aspiration sims though, and can switch later to a Fortune or Popularity type after the sophomore year at university and live a good life as a stay at home painter or writer. A completely shy sim will have a social need that decreases about half as fast as a perfectly outgoing sim. Shy sims seem to also be more enthusiastic about more subtle expressions of love, such as the all purpose peck. ----------------------- Lazy: Lazy is the absolute worst personalities to have, not only does it disable a sim's ability to run long distances more so unless they're energy bar is almost full, but it also drains energy at an annoying rate that really gets on your nerves when you are at community lots. If that wasn't bad enough, Lazy sims also need more comfort than active sims and have a bar that decreases much faster to meet that aspect. Lazy sims also have the natural AI tendency to want to lounge and sit around while an active sim is up and about. In return for their disadvantages, they also consume less food as their hunger meters decrease slower. Unfortunately, this fact also makes them more prone to weight gain unless carefully monitored. If there was a negative personality trait to avoid, this would be it and body being one of the hardest skills to gain due to heavy hygiene drain doesn't help either. Oh, on the bright side though, if you were playing a game of "Who Can Stand Still the Longest and Not Die", a Lazy sim will beat an active one hands down because they consume less food and must be awake in order to die ironically enough. ----------------------- Serious: This is the best negative personality trait to have and is actually beneficial towards gaining logic skill points faster, making it the only negative personality trait to make gaining skill points faster instead of slower. Unfortunately, it constricts a few interactive abilities, but in return the fun meter decreases slower, as well as the ability to gain Creativity Skill points. Another bonus offered by serious to moderately playful sims is the ability to meditate. Meditation locks all of the motives of the selected sim and they can gain the ability to teleport if they have meditated long enough to train the skill. The ability to meditate disappears at eight points of playfulness. If you were to pick one factor of personality to have a big burning hole in, this should be it. An extremely serious sim will have a decrease in fun roughly half of that of a perfectly playful sim. ----------------------- Grouchy: Nothing particularly good comes from being grouchy. For one thing, grouchy sims love to cheat, tease and pull pranks on their own, which makes them difficult to get along with naturally. Make two grouchy sims play chess with each other, and watch them continuously try to cheat each other and get caught, it's actually quite funny. They're tendency to go sour during conversations might also ruin their potential, but it's not life crippling. However, grouchy sims can make Crank Calls, which do have uses as revealed in a later sections. Finally, they seem to gain an additional social boost by pulling pranks and negative social interactions like irritating or fighting more so than nice ones. Grouchy sims also get a little more satisfaction out of some of the more dirty romantic social interactions, like goosing their love interests. ----------------------- Positive Personality: (What Makes Sims That Don't Suck) Neat: There are only two bad things about having a neat personality. First of all is the tendency to want to make the bed every morning, it sometimes interrupts the best of plans as they do a full orbit around your house back to the bed and can't seem to be canceled. The second problem is that they occasionally gain a fear of using public washrooms. This aside, neat sims always put their dishes away, flush the toilet and take joy in the pleasure of cleaning. Yes, they actually gain fun out of cleaning crud off of the toilet. To top that off, they learn how to clean faster. Although the maid can also clean for you, she or he only comes once a day, and nobody's going to clean up after you between then, so having a sim with neat habits still is a great asset. There isn't much to be gained from being an extreme neat freak, but six points of neat saves a lot of headaches in the long run. Oh, but if you happen to want your sims to cleanse with a cleanliness super power closer to godliness, give them 9 to 10 points of Neat and they'll add sparkling bubbles to their cleaning routine when purifying toilets, showers, and other dirty objects. It should be noted that neat sims eat very elegantly. Watch how a neat sim eats a bag of chips compared to a sloppy one; it's actually kind of cute. You'd think that neat sims would be intolerant of sloppy sims like the proverbial evil OCD mother from hell, but it seems that having a nice personality or good relationship balances it out and appalled reactions are only apparent. It should be also noted that neat is the hardest personality for parents to encourage, as it has the longest animation and actually sends the encouraged sim out like a boomerang to go groom themselves or clean other messes before returning to the encourager. ----------------------- Outgoing: Outgoing sims are the firecrackers on the farm, they are more inclined to accept and perform more open social interactions. At maximum outgoing, it is very common for a sim to simply walk into your house, whether you greeted them or not. This can be really annoying if you happen to hate that sim, but since so few computer generated sims naturally have maximum outgoing, it's more of a blessing than a curse, albeit in university, various NPC mascots, cheerleaders and coaches do this as well as a part of their programming. Super Outgoing sims can also enter hot tubs nude and gain charisma with ease. Unfortunately, they also are a little bit overzealous when controlled by free will, especially if they are Romance Aspiration sims, as their strong actions can often cause social disasters since the computer doesn't always choose the best course of action on it's own in relation to a sim's friendship with another, resulting in occasional double negatives if they are around complete strangers or enemies. In general, outgoing sims get more pleasure out of performing more dramatic social interactions like making out and often let loose a cheer before doing so. ----------------------- Active: By far the best personality trait to have. Having six points of active allows a sim to run on command, this is the single most useful personality driven ability in the game. You have no idea how useful the ability to run on command is until you live in a house that takes an hour to walk through from entrance to bedroom, or when you are running for dear life to class or from one point to another on a community lot. All sims can autorun under circumstances, but that's only if they are either late, performing a crisis related action, or run long distances and have high energy like in the original The Sims. Active sims also gain body skills faster, and can stay awake longer, since their energy bars deplete slower. In return for these great bonuses, they eat more as their hunger bars deplete faster. This is a big problem early on where you sims can't cook anything but a big steamy ball of flame in their face, but when your sim is capable of cooking Lobster Thermador, you'll find that just a humble serving of salmon or porkchops is enough to satisfy them unless they happen to be on the verge of starvation. Active sims also have fun when exercising, particularly when swimming, doing yoga or working the treadmill, this becomes very useful even when you max out all of their skills, because even if you are careful, you're sim still can occasionally put on weight that needs to be burned. ----------------------- Playful: Probably the least beneficial of all of the positive personality traits. Playful sims gain entertaining mannerisms and interactions, some automatic such as the ability to play with a fridge's doors, others manual like the ability to play pirate in the bath tub and juggle on command. Unfortunately, extremely playful sims lose the ability to meditate and also have a leech in the fun department. They also have a tendency to frequently want to play their handheld game systems. When coupled with active personality, they seem to also gain a lot of fears and wants oriented to winning and losing games, particularly for Knowledge or Fortune aspiring sims. Playful sims gain creativity faster, however, since creativity is the easiest to gain skill because almost all creative activities have a productive side effect, it's not as useful as it might seem. Playful sims will however, suffer in the case of trying to build logic skill points. ----------------------- Nice: It's difficult to notice exactly what makes nice advantageous, since they don't gain any obvious abilities from their efforts. As such, being nice is one of the more subtle personality traits, but it does make conversations flow better and minimize negative interactions and maximize positive ones. In particular, nice sims are more perceptive to being hugged often getting two pluses while more grouchy sims only get one. They are also more enthusiastic about hugging and cheering up others and gain additional social boosts from doing so, often cheering before they do it, as opposed to grumbling like grouchy sims do. You can settle a nice sim down to a fun game of chess and know that they aren't going to piss anyone off by cheating unless you tell them to. Although the game hints that being nice helps boost charisma skill point learning, I have tested this and it would seem that being nice doesn't have a noticeable effect. Being nice really doesn't have any negative sides to it, and for the most part, The Sims 2 was created with a focus on being nice to other people, otherwise jobs would be based on people you beat up instead of friends. If you are a bit indecisive to where your personality points should go, feel free to dump them here. Of important note though is that being nice is the easiest and fastest positive personality trait for older family members to encourage, as it basically just consists of a hug as opposed to a long winding interaction. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2.03] Aspiration: Depending on your sim's aspiration, their play style will be different in university; this is an in-depth look into the mechanics and strategies involved, to make the most of each type. It should be taken into account that aspiration type can be changed at the end of sophomore year. Doing so will also change their lifetime want. ----------------------- Fortune Aspiration Before becoming an adult, the Fortune Aspiration is the most difficult aspiration to fulfill, since your sims will be making miniscule amounts of money as a teen and through university, even when raking in 1200 simoleans per A+ university grant. Fortune sims completely rely on job performance, and since they can't hold a real job in university, it's fairly common for their aspiration to stagnate. For the most part, sims with the Fortune Aspiration suffer the most in university, and their desire to buy expensive items well beyond their living expenses tends to clutter their want slots. Other than this, Fortune sims borrow most of their other wants from sims with Knowledge Aspiration with academic wants to finish assignments, term papers, go to class, finish the year and reach dean's list, as well as the occasional desire to take on various odd jobs that it seems all of the aspirations have on occasion. The best strategy for Fortune sims in university is to focus on academic excellence, but I personally would not recommend having any sim with a Fortune Aspiration until they are giving the choice to switch at the end of Sophomore year. After university though, Fortune sims have it made. Not only do they get huge bonuses from job promotions and relatively easy lifetime wants, but they also can buy expensive art, particularly paintings to give their meters a huge boost, only to sell it the next day with little or no penalty since art has a very low depreciation value, and on some cases, actually an appreciation value. You can repeat this cycle over and over again every day to earn between 4,000 to 13,000 aspiration points a day, since you can cover multiple wants to buy art of varying values in a single blow. There is a chance that your sim wouldn't have these wants, but I have yet to encounter a rich fortune sim who hasn't. Oh, regarding the young adult stage, there is one exception to the aspiration shortage, and that's if your sim has full creativity and the sell a masterpiece or write a novel want, in which case, those two wants alone can save the day. Being rich enough to buy everything they want is also a good thing, but seeing how money is really tight in university, it is better saved for after graduation where the homes are a little more permanent. ----------------------- Knowledge Aspiration: Knowledge aspiring sims ironically aren't all that much of a force to contend with in university, since although their wants might be in line with getting good grades, their train of skill building desire does not follow the regular path that their adult and teen versions go through. Normally, Knowledge Aspiration sims want to build skills all the time, and once you make them build one skill, they become obsessed with it until it is perfected or they pick up another skill they want to build. This is normally the main form of aspiration income for knowledge seeking sims. However, as Young Adults, this drive goes away mostly unless the class performance bar is full and their skill in any given area is past four or five points. Instead, their wants tend to reflect on the requirements necessary to maximize their class performance bar. Unfortunately, there are more efficient ways to increase class performance than the ways a knowledge aspiring sim might want to, such as influencing someone else to write a term paper, licking professor boot, or hacking grades. Knowledge based sims also occasionally get food oriented wants and the desire to stargaze with a telescope, but those barely fill the bar. As an additional note though, Knowledge Aspiration is great to have as a teen, and switch at the end of the Sophomore year as a Young Adult, as you get all of the bonuses of boosting and maximizing skills and can switch to something more perpetual in university. It should also be noted that knowledge sims outside of university who have maximized all of their skills start obtaining wants similar to family aspiring sims, along with their usual paranormal seeking ones. Knowledge sims have the special ability to remember some events that other sims remember badly in a good light, such as raising a zombie, being raised as a zombie, being abducted by aliens or seeing a ghost, unfortunately, if you are trying to play the game responsibility, it is difficult to purposely kill off or torment a sim for these purposes alone, let alone any given time to satisfy the want. However, knowledge aspiring sims would seem to have a largely untapped potential should you put them in a chaotic supernatural environment full of ghosts, aliens, zombies and the grim reaper making regular visits. ----------------------- Family Aspiration: You'd think that sims with a family aspiration wouldn't do well in university, seeing as how they just left their family, however Family Sims want to start new families, and what better place than university? Okay, that's a bad question, but seriously, sims with family aspiration are the best want chainers and combo makers in the game, once you get them on a roll of tickling, appreciating and telling jokes, it's hard to stop them and you can completely charge their aspiration and influence meters from small jabs like this in rapid succession. Family sims are great to pair up with any other sim in a household, family or not, and although they wouldn't have most of their big scorers around in university, since Young Adults can't "Try for Baby" or adopt, they're ability to chain social interaction wants from tickling to woohoo makes them easy to manage. On the down side, the Family Aspiration by far has the most difficult arsenal of lifetime wants to achieve, often at least spanning a generation and involving multiple offspring of that sim, as opposed to the simple top of the career aspirations that can be achieved in practically two weeks by other aspiration types. The family aspiration is one of the very best aspirations to have though if you managed to fulfill your lifetime want earlier in life under a different type of aspiration. As an additional note, a sim with a Family Aspiration and a sim with a Popularity Aspiration make an incredible team. ----------------------- Romance Aspiration: Romance aspiration is overall the most disastrous aspiration to pursue. It's not difficult, since for the most part, Romance is just the lover's version of the Popularity Aspiration, but it's the one that you have to always keep an eye out for or else chaos will strike. That being said it's also the most fun to play if you happen to be playing the game as a single sim as opposed to a whole community of sims you might actually not want to ruin the lives of. As a teenager, Romance Aspiration is basically suicidal, since you can't use the woohoo interaction or any of its variations, which is a major perpetual source of aspiration income for romance sims, and it's a bit difficult as an adult, since little things like commitment and a job tend to get in the way. In actuality, the Young Adult stage is the perfect time for Romance sims to level with their libido, especially with the campus directory at their finger tips which gives them the ability to meet anyone who is in the same university that might catch your eye. Young adults can also get woohoo wants, almost always right after a make out want or during a party, so as far as their love life is concerned, they are now complete, since Romance aspiring sims actually fear trivial things like commitment. When the player operates a romance sim, you can use your head and avoid being caught cheating, however, at parties or social gatherings where you cannot predict the actions of guests, all it takes is a single dippy little sim and loving intentions to ruin your perfect network of love and ruin negative daily relationships all over the board for you. Even a sim with a one way crush can get a bit loopy and open Pandora's box left, right and upside-down. Perhaps the worst combination is to have two romance sims married, it'd practically be a soup opera, but somehow, teaming one up with a Family Aspiration sim seems just too cruel and close to real life. Romance sims also have the ability to incite "Attraction" actions into other sims, which is a quick temporary sign of romantic interest. It starts off flattering at first, but eventually it gets tiring and actually starts causing stalls in actions. Oh yes, for romance sims, never forget the power of the peck. As far as I'm aware, it's the only intimate action that can trigger both love and a crush relationships without ticking every other love interest in the area off. Romance sims also get another nifty bonus at full platinum, and that is the sexy walk covered in the Special Skills and Abilities section. ----------------------- Popularity Aspiration: The ultimate aspiration, I kid you not. The Popularity Aspiration is the best aspiration in the game in terms of raking up aspiration and influence points and staying platinum without a lifetime want achieved and works equally well for all life stages. However, a great deal of it depends on how you play and configure your sim's personality. My main sim is an almost "perfect" personality sim (I only gave her 7 in playfulness so she could still meditate and teleport) with a Popularity Aspiration, and she's hit the 327,670 or so aspiration limit more times than I can count. She's hit the aspiration limit so many times in university alone that she bought enough Enigmatic Energizers to last her and her partner through their entire time in university; she never even touched a bed, or wrote a term paper for that matter. That's not all though, there's more, she bought so many Enigmatic Energizers in an attempt to keep from hitting the aspiration cap that she was able to supply three other sim successors for their times at university after she graduated and the supply is still not out yet, and that's not to mention the other items she purchased. Additionally, her fears are practically impossible to achieve, as they all involve making enemies out of her best friends which would take at least several days a piece of intentional conflict. Admittedly, I made very well sure that she was prepared for university and employed a special strategy, but a fully prepared Popularity sim is a scary thing in the hands of an attentive player. As you can see, I have a bit of a bias for the popularity aspiration, but it is not one without at least good evidence to support. The popularity aspiration is potentially the strongest aspiration type, but it takes quite a bit of warm up time to get into full bloom and to gain the knowledge and experience of how to work them to the hilt. A sim of this type focuses on five different areas to gain the majority of their points. The first is simply making friends and making best friends. This is simple enough, since most of the other aspirations have the same want. The second source is throwing parties, and making them Good Time or Roof Raisers to meet the Great Party want. Popularity sims naturally have to do this to maintain their friend base at around 30 friends and you can also combo both Toga/Sports party with the regular Throw Party want for extra points. The third arsenal for Popularity sims are small jab social interactions, similar to that of the Family Aspiration's that can be chained and lead up to the big guns of making out and woohoo. The fourth method for gaining aspiration and influence, and my favorite, is the ability to get large chunks of aspiration and influence by selling masterpieces. Since masterpieces, which are paintings worth more than 500 simoleans can be sold at any time; your sim basically has access to platinum aspiration on command if they have a spare completed painting lying around. This is also much more useful if you happen to have your popularity sim live with another sim with full creativity of any other aspiration, as "Sell Masterpiece" doesn't actually mean "Paint a Masterpiece", yup folks you can sell other people's paintings and get the points for it! Paintings also increase in value the more you paint them, so it's a skill that can grow. Unfortunately, it seems that not every popularity sim gets this want, and those who do can loose it if it's not carefully locked down after a period of time. Finally, the fifth method was introduced with the installation of The Sims 2 University and are the lifetime wants which are usually career based for popularity sims. This gives them a good reason to follow a broad category of careers, opposed to just the athletics and political ones, as when your sim has some mad skills, high jumping the career ladder when switching becomes easy. You can score some serious points by taking advantage of this. Another benefit of the popularity aspiration is that it's the best "off site" aspiration to have, just in case I haven't emphasized enough other points. This is to say that if you are playing multiple households and left your popularity sim in a tough spot with a low aspiration bar and a severe need of points, you can have another sim aid them on their own side by becoming friends with the popularity sim. Shortly after meeting any new sim and getting a daily relationship of above 10, a popularity sim starts to want to make him or her become their friend which leads to best friends and viable social interactions which you can often do on another sim's side to boost the wants of the original sim. Other aspiration types can do this, but the popularity aspiration is the one that is the easiest to work this way, although romance is a close second. This technique is a bit tricky, but you can rely on it in a pinch You can even switch between the sims in two households and have them invite each other over and interact on each side accordingly to the others wants, it becomes rather metaphysical really, but make sure you exercise your ability to lock wants, or else you might find old favorites slip away, like the want to sell as masterpiece. The popularity aspiration has it's downside though, friends eat up valuable time and there is a certain point where the numbers just wouldn't add up unless you get playable friends of that one sim to maintain their relationship on their own side or throw parties everyday, although that might very well be when your sim has 100 friends. At that point though, your sim has probably chugged enough Elixir of Life to have had your sim live for more than a dozen generations and might be time to call it quits, and as it stands, I'm not even sure if there are that many people in the default neighborhood. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2.04] Skills: Skills are what prevent your sims from lighting up like a Christmas tree when repairing things, increase their class performance bar in university and help get jobs later in life. A sim will maxed out skills is far more capable than a sim with no skills, and building them will be a huge focus in the game. ----------------------- Cooking: The ability to cook, cook well, and survive. Thanks to the cafeterias at the dormitories and community lots, cooking ability isn't as vital as it potentially could have been at university. On the other hand, if your sim happens to be living in a house or a Greek House, at least having one good cook in the household is essential. Cooking skill points allow a sim to prepare increasingly more fulfilling dishes, as well as increase the effect of anything they cook in general. Cooking points can be gained from reading books or watching television normally while at university, since there are no cooking oriented career rewards at the secret societies. Cooking is a skill unaffected by personality. ----------------------- Mechanical: Mechanical skill is the ability to work machinery and repair equipment without unpleasant consequences. Mechanical skill increases the chance rate of repairing objects without incident. Regarding electronic related equipment, especially the garbage compactor and dishwasher, I personally recommend from experience to just hiring a repairman, since even at maximum skill, there is still a possibility to be electrocuted and break your favorite grandfather clock. Mechanical is difficult to build at university, as books and repairing objects are pretty much the only source available to you. Like cooking, Mechanical skill has no personality advantage or disadvantage. ----------------------- Charisma: Being charismatic gives a sim the ability to successfully communicate and establish trust through speech and body language. Charisma doesn't have many actual applications outside of meeting requirements for majors and jobs in this game. Apparently it affects the ability for sims to tell a good joke or free style. Charisma is one of the harder skills to increase; since the only normal way to do so is use a mirror which doesn't do anything good for any of the motives, however, Secret Society 2 has the Execuputter mini golf course that increases fun. Outgoing sims are great at becoming charismatic. ----------------------- Body: The physical strength, agility and coordination one has with their physical manifestation for a lack of a metaphysical description. Body is an important skill to have and is fairly easy to increase in university with working out, swimming, yoga and exercise machines. Although body skill alone doesn't have many practical applications outside of beating the crap out of someone in a fight, it does effect various animations from Kicky Bag, to diving, to yoga, to their performance on exercise machines and working out. There aren't any secret society career rewards to boost it at university, but the new treadmill in university works great. Active sims will sky rocket at mastering this skill, and will get more fun out of doing as well. ----------------------- Logic: The ability to reason, analyze and present realistic solutions. Logic is one of the most useful skills in university, and many of the majors emphasize it. It is also the skill necessary when hacking grades using the computers. Logic is easy to increase, because many of things that increase it are fun to do, like chess, using the telescope, doing the crossword, and you can also raise it by using the biotech station at secret society 3. Lazy sims who bide their time well are more suited to master logic. ----------------------- Creativity: The ability to visualize, conceptualize and innovate what has yet to exist. I'd say the most useful skill at university, as it affects everything from how much you can sell a painting for to how much money you get for tips when performing music on instruments. Fortunately, creativity is very easy to increase, as most everything that can increase it is fun, save for writing a novel. Painting, writing, playing music and using the Senso-Twitch Lie Detector at Secret Societies 1 and 2 can all help you out in increasing it, as well as the Aquagreen Hydroponic Garden in Secret Society 3. Playful sims love to express their inner child and complete lack of a solid grasp on reality, and as such, master creativity faster. ----------------------- Cleaning: The ability to clean means knowing a mess when you see one, and how to fix it without going insane. Cleaning is a relatively useful skill, but isn't particularly important in university. If your sim happens to live in a dorm, they can get some good practice by cleaning the kitchen and washrooms while being constructive at the same time, seeing as how your fellow roommates are exponentially more inconsiderate and will live in their own filth if you don't fix it. You will also be quite the penny pincher in university and unable to higher a maid, in which case manual labor is the only option. Cleaning skill can be increased by mopping up puddles, cleaning up dirty stoves, counters, toilets, sinks and showers, among other objects, and can also be increased by studying from books. Secret Societies 2 and 3 also have access to the Prints Charming Fingerprinting Scanner which is a fun way to boost up cleaning skill. Neat sims got the concept of cleaning in the bag. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2.05] Interests: Interests are what your sims like to talk about as indicated by the thought bubbles that hover over their heads. By carefully monitoring what your sims talk about the most or looking at their interest levels, you can have other sims increase relationship with them easier through chatting by clicking on the talking sims and choosing the sub-action "Change Topic". It is also quite possible that interests effect a sim's chance of getting particular wants, although it seems to be a very subtle or unnoticeable effect and hard to test. These are the interests: Animals Crime Culture Entertainment Environment Fashion Food Health Money Paranormal Politics Sci-Fi School Sports Toys Travel Weather Work There are actually two ways to change interest, but either way, as you gain points of interest in one subject, you lose about an equal amount of points in another. Read Magazines: Magazines can be purchased off the shelf on community lots. There are six different types of magazines, each one capable of increasing three categories of interest. It would seem that although you can select the category of increase, the decreased category is random. Share Interests: Sims on good terms can share interests (Located under the talk command) with each other, although this seems to be quite a bit more unpredictable as the topic chosen is random. A sim also can only increase another sim's interest level as far as to equal their own. This also has a decreasing effect, but it seems quite a bit harder to predict. Sharing interests is also quite a bit slower than reading magazines. It is interesting to note that not all sims have equal interest points. Some seem to naturally or through the previously mentioned methods obtain a higher level of interest for multiple topics in general. Interests don't play an incredibly big role in The Sims 2, so most people don't do vigorous testing with them, but it might hypothetically be possible to get perfect interests without cheating or at least much closer to it than normal. In any case though, your sim wouldn't have time in university to worry about small details like this, so the most important thing you should remember about interests is to jot down the highest interests of sims under your control in the university, and have them target those specifically when first building relationships with each other so you can get a +5 positive reaction for every exchange with minimal risk of negatives. This is a fast, quick and effective way to make a friend, especially on the phone with the aid of the campus directory which allows you to call up anyone at university, whether you have met them or not. ============================================================================= [3.00] Off To University We Go ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [3.01] Before University: There are many advantages to start your sim off as a teen or earlier, as opposed to just jumping the gun at a Young Adult, specifically the extra time to gain skills, friends and scholarships can save a great deal of time in university, where the previously perpetual Elixir of Life has no effect. Also of note should be that Young Adults freshly created have already had their first kiss and a mystery sim memory, so if you are looking forward to the story of an innocent girl and her first kiss, its pass that time. The convenience of creating a young adult instead of a teen however is that you don't have to create their parental units in order for them to exist, so you can make them much easier without having to fill in extra space. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [3.02] Scholarships: Scholarships are the only material thing a sim can bring with them to university. Yup, even that favorite teddy bear has to stay at home. Every sim starts off with a puny 500 simoleans, that's not even enough to buy the smallest lot, let alone a house. That is where the dorms come in, but seriously, why would you want to live in one of those hellholes when you can live in your own residence? Since homes are rented in university instead of bought, money initially goes a much longer way. The prices for rentals at university are only a fourth of the ordinary purchasing price that you would have to pay with their neighborhood counterparts, so 20,000 simoleans can buy you quite a luxurious one story mansion on a 5x5 lot and great furnishings. Unfortunately, once you move in, prices become normal again, so scholarships are an exponential lever to setting your sims off to a bright future. ----------------------- The following is a list of the scholarships. Hogan Award for Athletics: 8 or higher body skill, 750 awarded Bain-Gordon Communications Fellowship: 8 or higher charisma skill, 750 awarded Kim Metro Prize for Hygienics: 8 or higher cleaning skill, 750 awarded London Culinary Arts Scholarship: 8 or higher cooking skill, 750 awarded Will Wright Genius Grant: 8 or higher logic skill, 750 awarded Bui Engineering Award: 8 or higher mechanical skill, 750 awarded Quigley Visual Arts Grant: 8 or higher creative skill, 750 awarded SimCity Scholar's Grant: A- or better in high school, 1,000 awarded Extraterrestrial Reparation Grant: Abducted by aliens, 1,500 awarded Young Entrepreneurs Award: Level 3 in Teen career, 750 awarded Undead Educational Scholarship: Teen Zombie, 1,500 awarded Phelps-Wilsonoff Billiards Prize: High Pool skill, 1,000 awarded Tsang Footwork Award: High Dancing skill, 1,000 awarded Orphaned Sims Assistance Fund: Sim has no living parents, 1,500 awarded Of these scholarships, I particularly recommend aiming for the Phelps- Wilsonoff Billards Prize, as hustling people in university is a good way to make money, and a surprisingly better way to make friends. The Undead Educational Scholarship and the Orphaned Sims Assistance Fund pay the most, but unfortunately, they both involve killing off your sims which is generally not a good thing to do unless you are trying to write a good sim story. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [3.03] Moving To University: A teenager has the option of going to college at any given time during their life stage. There are two ways to send your sims to university, through the phone/computer, or the "Move Sims To University" button on the neighborhood menu. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. The phone and computer is best used to send a single teenage sim to university to pursue their great adventure of learning or lack there of. If you decide to send them this way, you get to see them leave after a casual goodbye to their family and get a "Move Out" memory. The "Move Sims to University" button on the neighborhood or college town screen, on the other hand, offers more control, the chance to pick multiple sims and the name of their household. This allows multiple sims to pool their funds together, which is incredibly useful should you have two or more sims with tons of scholarships under their belt that simply must have a large house to live in on the biggest sized lot. You only get to see the opening growing up cinema for one of them, but who wants to have a big grass field in the background of the cinema when you can have a modestly well put together house? A neighborhood can have multiple universities for its sims to attend. This is particularly handy if you want to experiment with all three different secret society based buildings as you can normally only pick one per a college town. For the most part though, you will only need one, as it makes it easier for multiple young adults sims in your neighborhood to cluster together in a single community instead of be divided into several universities, allowing them to better develop and establish Greek Houses and the Secret Society to which future sims might be visiting and who could benefit greatly from. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [3.04] Housing Okay, now that is covered, onto the three types of houses on campus! ----------------------- Dorms: The place where nightmares are born, dorms in the sims universe aren't too far from their real life counterpart. When the equipment is crap, when the showers and toilets are always taken, when someone snatches that tasty stack of pancakes in the cafeteria you had your eye on, you know that your sim is living in a dorm. Dormitories are the collective residential units for the financially impaired student in The Sims 2 University; I'm not even going to get into what they are in real life, hahahaha. Within each dorm is a set number of rooms and equipment to use to build skills. Generally speaking, the furnishings are bottom of line and of especially mediocre nature to mention are the beds which seem to take forever to recharge a sim's energy when you've seen what the best beds can do. Within dorms, multiple sims live, but you only keep track of a few of them at a time, since the others are in their rooms or at class and are hidden from sight. This is the games way of saving processing time and for the most part, you can find out what a sim is doing from the bubbles emerging from their door. Good thing the game designers did this, because if your computer is the type that only allows two guests to be invited at a party, you might be facing more than a few frustrating issues. The dorms are almost always full of active people during the day who seem to always conveniently get in your way. So much that you often wonder what might happen if you... oh, set the stove on fire and incinerate everyone. Unfortunately, unlike the normal neighborhood, it seems that the supply of sims at university is indeed infinite, so as soon as you kill one, another pops up to take it's place. Man, what I wouldn't give to put a cow plant at a dorm without having to cheat. Oh yeah, just incase you thought you could beat the system and furnish the dorm with the best wall paper and tile before you move in, think again as you'll be tagged in the mail with gigantic ready to explode bills before you can even complete your first year, once I was tagged with a 600 simolean one and decided to evacuate my three sims to their own house rather than making the repoman their new best friend. Typically, if your sims are doing well in university and getting A+ grants worth 1,200 simoleans, you should move them out as soon as you get at least 4,000 simoleans which should be enough to rent a small house on a small lot with good equipment to meet their needs. For those who aren't doing so well financially however, there are ways to make the most of your time at the dorms, or the least for that matter. If you don't mind a little traveling, there are fortunately many good alternatives to getting the heck out of the dorms as soon as possible without actually moving. In university, your sims can gain skills in community lots. I absolutely love this feature, as you can cram your community lots with all the best goodies and take advantage of them, short of a bed. Of special recommendation are instruments, exercise machines, wide screen televisions, chess boards with fancy chairs and of course your friend and my friend, the bookshelf. While you are at it, be sure to chuck in a pool table and a hot tub in for good measures and escape that rat infested cellar that you came from. A great strategy is to send your sim there when they are full of energy and take them home when they are almost empty. They can even still go to class and final exams while at a university lot, as well as write term papers and study. The only thing you can't do is get any sleep pretty much, although the good old brown bean brewing baristas do wonders in a pinch. You can even move your sim to a big field of grass with a bed and have them live there as long as you take advantage of the community lots. Community lots also drag out time, as although time for your sim's final exam passes, time back at home doesn't. You can greatly extend the amount of time in between bills by going to community lots. The second way is through the Secret Society which has similar purposes to community lots but with a twist, but more on that later. ----------------------- Normal Houses: Just like houses in the neighborhood, there is nothing particularly unusual about them. After you build them, a sim can move into them at a rented price and continue to live as they would normally back at home. Why live in a normal house though when you can live in a Greek House? Well here's one big reason, anyone can move into a normal house. Once a house becomes a Greek House, it can only be moved into by members, and must be done so manually, not via the neighborhood screen. Normal houses are great if you want to recycle another sim's hard work so that following sims' futures might look a little brighter than they would have been drudging in dorm doldrums, as they can move in virtually free of charge right before the previous sim moves out and graduates, it's a great way to start a legacy. Still, for a little work, anyone can move into a Greek House, and wouldn't that legacy be worth so much more when written in huge untranslatable sim Greek letters? ----------------------- Greek Houses: Greek Houses are very similar to regular houses and refer to a system that the houses operate on rather than whether they are actually Greek in design or not. They have some great perks, such as the ability to throw toga parties and have other sims pledge. It is a wonderful way to leave a legacy for any sims you will have go through the university and you can develop it over the generations. There are six levels of Greek House, each one holding progressively more members. Aside from this, Greek Houses still have to pay the bills like everyone else and unlike regular houses, new sims have to either turn their own house into a Greek House with a charter or go through a trial in order to join, as you simply cannot drag and drop them to combine households like with normal houses. There is much more information on Greek Houses to come later on in this document in its own section under chapter 2: The Four Big Goals. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [3.05] About Young Adults: Appearance wise, young adults look almost exactly like adults but have the voice set of teenagers. They can wear special university exclusive clothing and features but can also wear some clothing that adults would normally wear as well. Essentially, young adults can only be played within a university campus. Ability wise, Young Adults are very different from regular sims with a focus on college activities and the inability to adopt or try for a baby. They also can't get married while in college, but they can still get engaged. Also while in college, a young adult cannot hold a regular job where a car pool comes to pick them up, however, there are various odd jobs that students can take up in university. ***************************************************************************** Chapter 2: The Four Big University Goals: ***************************************************************************** Okay! Now that the ground work is covered, time to get into the specifics of milking The Sims 2 University cow plant dry. There are four ultimate goals to achieve in university, in order to do all four, you're going to have to micromanage your sims, but after you learn the process for getting one sim through the grill, it'll become quite easy and sims in university that you control can vastly help each other and those who follow in their footsteps. The focus of this FAQ is how to achieve these four goals: 1. Graduate Summa Cum Laude: 2. Become the Big Sim on Campus: 3. The Ultimate Greek House Legacy: 4. The Secret Society. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [4.00] Graduate Summa Cum Laude: In case you were wondering, Summa Cum Laude basically means "With highest honors" in Latin and is bestowed onto sims with 4.0 GPA, followed by Magna Cum Laude and Cum Laude, based of course on their real life academic counterparts. Although the years of schooling and grading in real life might have traumatized you into fearing the dreaded virtual parallel of getting perfect 4.0, worry not! Getting 4.0 in The Sims 2: University is surprisingly easy! The Young Adult life at university is divided into semesters, which in case you didn't know, are half of a year. At the end of each semester is a final exam, as long as your Class Performance Meter is at the top, you have obtained the necessary skills to boost it to maximum and your sim attends the final exam, you can guarantee a 4.0. The sim will do all the stressful test taking for you with no variation depending on their mood, unlike job promotion or school. On the flip side, if you pretty much do the opposite of the previously mentioned, you'll end up on academic probation. On one hand this gives you more time at university to repeat the semester, on the bad side, it's down right disgraceful and if you screw up a second time, you get the universal boot back to common society. First of all, it is important to discuss the majors. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [4.01] Majors: A Major Pain, But Not Really All sims start off going to university with an undeclared major, basically, they're aimless in life. Unfortunately, sooner or later, they have to pick something or the game does it for them at the end of the sophomore year, and at the end of the junior year, a sim's major is set permanently. Until then, you can change your major whenever convenient to suit your strong skills and preferred class times. There are eleven majors: ----------------------- Art Related Careers: Artist, Culinary, Slacker Total Skills Required: Creativity: 5 Cooking: 4 Charisma: 4 Mechanical:4 Body: 1 Cleaning: 1 Logic: 1 Biology Related Careers: Law Enforcement, Medicine, Natural Scientist Total Skills Required: Logic: 5 Body: 4 Cleaning: 4 Mechanical: 4 Creativity: 1 Cooking: 1 Charisma: 1 Drama Related Careers: Athletic, Politics, Show Business Total Skills Needed: Charisma: 5 Body: 4 Logic: 4 Creativity: 4 Cleaning: 1 Mechanical: 1 Cooking: 1 Economics Related Careers: Business, Politics, Show Business Total Skills Required Charisma: 5 Creativity: 4 Logic: 4 Mechanical: 4 Body: 1 Cooking: 1 Cleaning: 1 History Related Careers: Artist, Military, Politics Total Skills Required: Logic: 5 Creativity: 4 Mechanical: 4 Charisma: 4 Cooking: 1 Body: 1 Cleaning: 1 Mathematics Related Careers: Criminal, Natural Science, Science Total Skills Required Logic: 5 Creativity: 4 Mechanical: 4 Cleaning: 4 Body: 1 Charisma: 1 Cooking: 1 Philosophy Related Careers: Culinary, Slacker, Paranormal Logic: 5 Cooking: 4 Charisma: 4 Creativity: 4 Body: 1 Cleaning: 1 Mechanical: 1 Physics Related Careers: Medicine, Science, Paranormal Total Skills Required: Mechanical: 5 Creativity: 4 Logic: 4 Cleaning: 4 Body: 1 Cooking: 1 Charisma: 1 Political Science Related Careers: Politics, Military, Show Business Total Required Skills: Charisma: 5 Body: 4 Creativity: 4 Cleaning: 4 Cooking: 1 Logic: 1 Mechanical: 1 Psychology Related Careers: Business, Paranormal, Law Enforcement Total Required Skills: Logic: 5 Creativity: 4 Charisma: 4 Cleaning: 4 Body: 1 Cooking: 1 Mechanical: 1 ----------------------- Majors don't particularly effect much but are rather guidelines to setting your sims on the right path, along with that, the times for the classes are different for each class and each semester, coupled with a well written description by the literary scientists at Maxis that are sure to make you smile should you be particularly familiar with that field of study. If your sim doesn't have a specific field they want to major in, it is best to do the math in your head to where you want them to go in life in accordance to their personality, although it should be noted that natural scientist is the new career least aligned with the majors, only related to biology and mathematics. So if you are a cow plant fan, you'll definitely want to get your own sim eating shrub as soon as possible through the power of natural science. Keep in mind though that after graduating from university, you might accidentally overshoot the point where you get desired career rewards when you pick up a job. Sims that have the same major have the social interaction of being able to talk about their majors as well as have different professors who they can ask to tutor them and to suck up to, two for each major. Having the ability to talk about the same major and sharing the same professors are good advantages to having all of your sims spend the first year undeclared, but then again, variety is it's own reward and it's better that you pick your sim's major than the game doing so automatically at the start of the junior year. The most commonly focused skills of the majors in general are logic and creativity, so above all, make sure your sims have healthy levels of those two if you are still undecided, although the early semesters make sure that you at least have one point in all skill areas, so fleshing your sim out ahead. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [4.02]Class Performance: Raising the Bar to Almost Human Standards There are six main ways to increase class performance. Although I haven't fully tested it yet, it would seem that you get more bang for your buck should your sim be in a good mood while performing these tasks, although you can still apparently swashbuckle the final exams in a crappy mood and get away with it should the meter be maxed out already. Depending on the type of aspiration your sim has, the method you primarily use might differ: ----------------------- 1. Go to Class Going to class is the most basic way to increase your grade and is good for all aspiration types. Depending on your sim's major, the time of class can vary from any waking hour of the day and can range from two to three hours. It increases the Class Performance Meter a small, but sturdy amount. Keep in mind that class is not mandatory. If your Class Performance bar is filled to the brim, going to class will just waste time. You can also attend just part of a class, like in the case of dashing in at the last hour. Classes are determined by time of day, not how many hours your sim has till their final exam, as such, you can double attend a class should you leave the home lot right before it, attend it at a community lot, then come back and attend it again. Going to the final exam is almost exactly like going to class, except it occurs when the semester is over independent of clock time, and you lose grades if you don't attend. I also haven't specifically tested it yet, but it seems that the final exam itself might increase the sim's class performance for that semester by a class worth, so you might be able to go to the final exam with an almost full bar and still get 4.0 from that last push. As an additional note, your sim normally walks to class, but will run if they are late instead of that old fashioned car pool you might have become used to. ----------------------- 2. Research and Group Research: Group Research is one of the best ways to raise Class Performance, despite how slow it may seem at first. Your sims grab books, sit down on the nearest couch or chair, and start reading till the fun is completely sucked out of them or their action is canceled, whatever comes first. Group research is also a great way to increase social and relationships, albeit it does the later quite poorly. If you are playing an entire community worth of sims in university instead of just a single household, doing group research is like giving free time to your other sims that aren't being played, as you can invite them over for group research, and like magic, when you return to play their house, their class performance meter will have increased! Group research shows up naturally as a want for Fortune and Knowledge sims often, but is also useful for Popularity aspiring sims who are almost always surrounded by people. Going to a community lot and inviting all of the young adults to come in to study is a good way to group study, According to the game, the more people you have to group research, the more effective it will be, so in theory, you can also go to the Secret Society and have the entire household of about eight people study along with you, although I haven't been able to test if this really significantly increases the speed of your studying, as for the most part, members of the Secret Society are talentless hacks that apparently don't have majors, even an undeclared one, and speaking of hacks... ----------------------- 3. Hacking Grades: You gain the ability to hack grades once you join the secret society, and can proceed from that point to do so on any computer. It sounds tempting and illegal, but seriously, hacking grades in the game is surprisingly boring and not as effective as you might think. It basically works like a faster research tool on a computer with security triggers and a risk level. In order to hack grades, you need to be a part of the secret society and also have at least a descent amount of logic if you don't want the cops to bust your chops. The higher your logic, the longer you can stay on, but basically, the higher the number of security triggers and the risk level, the better you are off logging out. If you have a sim with maximized logic, feel free for them to log out when the risk level has reached " Considerable", for others who are not so skilled, I recommend jumping off at the "Moderate" level and just signing back on and continuing where you left off. Hacking grades should only really be used as an emergency when it is the last night before the exam, you have already wrote your term paper and have no more classes to go. Hacking grades doesn't apparently have a corresponding want, so it's not particularly useful to any aspiration, but it can help you out in a pickle when you are out of options and time. ----------------------- 4. Do Assignment: Having a sim complete an assignment is not a very useful way of boosting up class performance on its own. Although assignments can be done roughly within only an hour of game time, they also don't increase very much class performance, roughly about half a class's worth. However, under certain circumstances, a sim can ask for help from another sim or to be tutored. The reverse is also true, as a sim can offer to be paid for their hard earned tutoring if you click on another sim's homework and choose to tutor. A special requirement must be met by a sim who wants to ask another sim to help them with their assignment as well as to tutor them, and that is that there must be a difference in their GPA. Surprisingly, class year, class performance, major and overall skills are irrelevant so long as there is a difference in GPA, with the sim with a higher GPA being able to help out sims with lower GPA. Additionally, if your sim was created straight up as a young adult, they can learn how to study from another sim, similar to how teenage sims can learn from their parents. It usually seems to take two sessions of either tutoring or ordinary help with an assignment to achieve this memory and ability, although if your teens already learned it, it's exactly the same thing and they wouldn't learn it a second time at university. Unfortunately, students who already have a perfect 4.0 wouldn't be able to find anybody with a higher score than that, so they will no longer be able to ask for tutoring, but instead will be able to offer it to other students with lesser GPA. If you want your young adult to have the increased study ability and still get 4.0, make sure that they ask for enough help before the end of the first semester, as 4.0 is a perfect grade, and one slightly off semester is all you need to upset the entire average so trying to dip your grades for this reason will theoretically not work. Busy sims can also leave their assignments around to be worked on by other sims who might not be as busy. You can also influence another sim to do it for you for 2,000 Influence points or get another controlled sim in the household to take it off your hands in the name of academic generosity. I highly do not recommend influencing another sim to do an assignment, for the price of 500 Influence points more, you can have them write your term paper, which is much more powerful. Fortune and Knowledge sims commonly have a want to do the assignment themselves for 1,000 aspiration points, which can provide a nice boost. Also of note is young adult sims love to bring their assignments over when you invite them and it is another good way for them to increase their performance without using time on their side up. ----------------------- 5. Writing a Term Paper: Writing the term paper of the very best ways to increase your grade that I recommend to do every semester, minus the doing part of course. Instead, get someone, anyone to do it for you! Doesn't matter of it's the evil cow mascot, the annoying cheer leader or even your very own professors! For the price of 2,500 Influence points, you can take this headache off of your mind and pat yourself on the back knowing that you've got the best deal influence can buy. Writing a term paper is a fun sponge more so than anything else in the game, it also takes several hours. In return, it boosts up the Class Performance bar by a variable 1/3. Starting young adults in university wouldn't have the influence power to get others to write their term paper early on, but if you have a well raised sim with lots of influence, take advantage of this every chance you get, you'll never find a better practical use for influence in the game as far as The Sims 2 University expansion. On the flip side, Knowledge and Fortune oriented sims often have a want to write it themselves for 3,000 aspiration points and not surprisingly, no influence, in which case writing it manually isn't a horrible option. ----------------------- 6. Sucking Up: There is no such thing as an unbiased decision, the concept itself is a paradox, so following that train of axiomatic logic, it's time to master the art of licking boot, kissing butt and sucking up to your professors with the grace of a Siberian wonder swan in the spring time. For every major, there is one male professor and one female professor and they can be either adults or elders, so keep in mind who the professors of your sim's particular major are and befriend them, because for every positive interaction you have with them, you get a small boost to your Class Performance bar. What's more is that it seems that the increase is equal regardless of how strong the social action is. There is one social interaction that stands far above the rest for the purpose of raising grades, Kicky Bag! Yes the fun phenomenon that's a hit with today's youth and has far too many names for its own good is one of the very best ways to do well in university, who would have guessed? Aside the fact that body skill helps keep the bag in the air; Kicky Bag is the fastest exchange of reaction social interaction in the game. The result is a steady increase in class performance, comparably as fast or even faster then hacking grades for raising class performance! Of course, you can also ask for straight up tutoring from the professor, or in some cases talk about your major with other sims, or even be a little more "realistic" and woohoo your teacher on a regular basis, but for all practical reasons, stick to the kicky bag. On a cautious note though, there have been cases where I simply didn't get any class performance increases from social interactions with a professor, I'm not sure particularly if this is a bug or intentional, but it is a possibility that at some point at a sims stay at university, sucking up will no longer do the trick, so make sure you are watching your bars carefully. Try to remember who your sim's professors are, as professors of other subjects will not have the same grade enhancing effect and they do all dress pretty much the same. If you are unsure who a sim's professor is, you can find out by looking at their interaction menu, because a sim can only ask for tutoring from one of the two professors teaching their major. Naturally though, Popularity, Romance and Family sims are the best and rubbing shoulders with the professors. As an additional note, it might just be me, but it seems that the professors reflect the personalities of the subject they are teaching. My main sim's drama teachers were bloody insane, apparently both having one sided crushes with my main sim without me even knowing it and everybody else they met, trying to spontaneously leap into their arms or whack them in the face with pillows, this is also annoying because they get slappy happy whenever my happy couple decides to get lovey dovey. Oh yeah, it should also be noted that you can also lose class performance if you piss your professors off, so be careful if final exam time is approaching. ----------------------- Strategy: By getting an A+ and a GPA of 4.0, you get a grant of 1,200 simoleans and make the Dean's List. It is fairly easy to do consistently if you work your time right. First of all, make sure your skills are at the right levels to fulfill the Class Performance Meter or you'll be spinning your wheels in mud by going overboard unnecessarily. Try to fill the meter up as early as possible, this way; you can also save time by cutting classes. Also be careful when changing majors, as if you do not have the skill requirements for the new choice, your otherwise full class performance meter might get cut down to size and your hard work along with it. Typically though, your class performance bar should be at the same level as your time progression bar till final exam. Even if your sim is fresh off of the assembly line, they shouldn't find it too difficult to reach 4.0 all while chasing the other three goals in university. All of the semesters are pretty much the same once you get used to them, aside from the junior year forcing a major onto you, the senior year locking your major and the extra aspiration ability bonuses you get after each year. Just use your sim's time wisely and you'll be okay. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [4.03] Graduation: The Better Idea Way to Leave University After passing the final exam at the end of your senior year, you will have officially graduated and obtained all the new aspiration oriented abilities that university has to offer, but not before you get 72 hours of quality time to spend saying goodbye and your non-dead sheep made diploma that comes with the ability to be repack and take out to wherever your sim may go. This is a brilliant feature; it would be great if you could do this with the other career rewards. Make sure that you remember to do it manually, or else just write that your diploma is in a parallel dimension on job applications, as you wouldn't be seeing it ever again when you move. Within the final stretch after passing your final exam, you can throw a Graduation Party complete with proper attire and the opportunity to maximize your friendship with other sims who you know for sure are never going to graduate, being static NPCs, all stuck in an eternal digital loop and everything. When you finally run out of time, you'll be gently booted back to common society, lose all the money you got at university (Or it will stay with the household members still around) and gain the default 20,000. So buy yourself a nice little cottage and get yourself a really big cow plant in natural science to greet your neighbors with cake and a mouth full doom. From here on, the new careers that pay more, demand more, and have the Chance Cards from hell; heaven and Christmas Past will be open to your sim. ============================================================================= [5.00] The Big Sim on Campus: It's what the game advertises; it's what you know your sim wants, so how the heck do you do it? All you need to do is get your sim 12 friends in order to raise their influence level to Master Manipulator, the highest level. This number counts friends who live outside of university as well. It's not really a status more so than just a tag in their memory list, but something this good sounding you most likely do want your sims to remember. Unfortunately, if you happened to have brought in your teen super star with more than 30 friends from the neighborhood like I did, they wouldn't be able to get the Big Sim on Campus memory, unless they theoretically lose enough friends to fall back down to Powerful Persuader and make it back up again to Master Manipulator which is an inconvenience of titanic proportions. At Master Manipulator level, your sim gains the ability to hold 10,000 Influence Points which is best spent on making other sims slave over your term papers, but in order to get there, you need to make some friends seriously fast, and wouldn't you know it, I have a system for that too. The best advice in general is to focus relationship building on two or three sims unless you know how the system works well and have planned ahead. Focusing on multiple sims has the advantage of multiple lifetime relationship growth, but can cause a lot of extra twisty headaches if you are trying to befriend more than six sims at a time, especially for a freshly created sims with no prior friend or skill building to their credit. Also be sure to saturate their daily relationship to 100 every chance you get, the higher your relationship with them is, the easier it is to maintain and repair and the better the lifetime relationship growth will be. Oh, if you are wondering, the icon for the Became Big Man/Woman on Campus is the university's jersey. To start things off, the best way to make friends is to have the ability to control them. Ideally, having custom made sims inhabit your university is the first best step, and they can all benefit from being friends with each other, as you can burn the candle of strangerhood on two ends instead of one. Unlike the regular neighborhood where it is difficult to meet people, Maxis created a Campus Directory option when you phone the college that is nothing short of genius, with this, you can phone all your own controlled sims right off the bat and start making connections right away. You'll wonder why in the hell the normal neighborhood doesn't have this. Unfortunately, playing multiple sims at the same time is serious work and takes a lot of time to do, so although this technique is effective, it's not particularly practical, and that's why I'm going to talk about powering your way into friendship like a well tuned fighting game, roughly. The key to becoming the big sim on campus is to make friends, with that simple logic in mind, let's boil the process down to a sterilized, orthodox, cold hearted science void of any human soul. Relationship levels are frequently not perfectly equal on both sides of a friendship, there is an element of randomness involved, but the rule of thumb is that the nicer the sim you are dealing with is and the nicer your sim is, the higher the chance that their relationship is about the same. The following is a requirement for friendship states: Friends: 50 Daily Relationship on both sides Best Friends: 50 Lifetime relationship on both sides Crush: 20 Lifetime relationship on either or both sides, triggered by a romantic action. Love: 70 Lifetime relationship on either or both sides, triggered by romantic action. Enemy: -50 Lifetime relationship on both sides. It is possible to have a one sided crush, but one sided love is a difficult to do normally. In the Young Adult stage, sims can have mature relationships with adults and elders. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [5.01]Meeting New Sims: And Forcing Yourself into Their Lives From 0 to 25 Daily Relationship In order to make friends, you have to meet people, and university offers many ways to do just that. First of all, people will randomly walk past your residence, second would be if you live in a dorm with many other people, third is to go to a community lot, and finally, you can use the campus directory of which I highly recommend doing if you are the kind of person who likes to choose their sim's friends. The first 25 points of daily relationship are harder to gain than the other 75, as such, ripping open the lid off the can of friendship takes precision so that it wouldn't blow up in your face. After all, you can't let something small in life like a sim's difference in opinion get in the way of campus conquest can you? In general, the best way to open up a relationship is through automated chatting. Automated chatting can be done on the phone, while playing chess, during a game of pool, sitting on the couch, watching television, during meals, practically at anytime, anywhere, if your sims have thought bubbles and green pluses over their heads, it's probably automated chat. You can also just manually choose the chat interaction option, but why do it alone when you can be doing something else at the same time? Having an automated chat while doing an activity also has the advantage of keeping the conversation flowing, as when you chat normally and the reactions start to go really south, it can end abruptly on negative terms. A lot of people assume that chatting is a bad way to start, because you have the chance to get negative reactions. The fact is, negative reactions are minimal, compared to the charisma driven jokes that barely increase relationship and can hurt it more so when they bomb badly, which is really the only other opener that is considered using on a complete stranger to work. Within the time it takes to play a game of pool or a game of chess, you can easily increase a sim's relationship from 0 to thirty, if not more. However, if you happen to control the sim that you are befriending, you can check out their interests beforehand, and make your sim change the topic appropriately when they are talking to further speed up the process. A well received discussion topic that the other sim is interested in often results in the addition of 5 relationship points and you only need 25. A sim can also share interests to make another sim become interested in what they like, however, by the time this option is available there are already well into a solid relationship and such chit chat becomes mostly unnecessary. Other good ways to gain relationship points with multiple people at once is to do group research or freestyle, but it's a bit unfocused, so it's more of a wide net technique. A useful way to make friends later on when you join the secret society is to use their secret handshake with other members, as it will always have a positive effect for meeting the first time for a handy small boost. If you are trying to have two of your sims who have yet to meet befriend each other, you will most likely be using the phone and the campus directory and might have to call each other multiple times via stalk talk unless your sim is low on social motive, in which case, they will talk until their bar is full again. Using the campus directory is especially handy once you start to know who Greek House or secret society members are, as you can target them directly and make friends that will do more for you than just boost up your friend counter. Unfortunately, the phone is a relatively slow way to exchange positive reactions, so after a while, it's time to call them up and invite them in person. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [5.02] Invite Them Over: Or Hunt Them Down From 25 to 35 Daily Relationship 25 Relationship points on both sides is the safe range to invite a sim over to your residence and start forcing your good will upon them, any lower and you'll be risking a fair chance of them giving a quippy sarcastic remark often involving broken phones, Baked Alaska, and llamas. If you have a grouchy sim however, you can Crank Call them to tick them off into coming down to your lot regardless, although the 25 daily relationship points are needed for the next step anyway. At 25, you can start uncorking the bottle if your sim is socially adept, but more precisely if they are able to perform the ultimate unromantic social action: Bust A' Move! Yup, this bad girl of a social action is fast, it frequently increases 2 lifetime relationship points and 8 daily relationship points and it works even when your sim's new relationship is shaky! You'll be using bust a' move a lot in making friends and I label it the number one most useful unromantic social action in the game! The only downside to this skill is that there are some requirements for it. You might be scratching your head all over wondering why some sims have it and others don't but the answer is very simple! In order to gain the ability to use Bust A' Move, you must first be skilled at dancing! It might seem to all make sense now in retrospect, but personally, I was smacking my head against the wall trying to figure out if this move was personality or ordinarily skill based. Unfortunately, that being said, a newly created sim will have to settle for either more chitchat, joke telling, or admiration, as any double plus social interaction stands a high chance of backfiring, although dancing together is your safest bet should there be music playing outside of busting a move, and will also help you towards your goal of obtaining the ability. In any case, you should be at least 30 to 35 points for the next step. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [5.03]Three Hit Combo Routine: Proving That Sims Have Infinitely Longer Attention Span From 35 to 100 Daily Relationship Now this is the easy part, just pick any three double plus social interactions and repeat. As long as both daily relationships are equal and both sims are in a good mood, they should work with minimal risk. At the first stage of the step, I highly recommend bust a' move, gossip and dancing together, the later two which you can speed up if you cancel just as the animation is starting and repeat them over and over again. Sims have a two interaction memory, so as long as your routine consists of three parts, it wouldn't get old. Later on after becoming friends, an early canceled red hands, dirty joke and hugging become useful too. When you are simply trying to maintain a friendly relationship instead of make one, the best attack to open up with is a hug chained into a bust a move and ended with a roman cancel... oops, wrong game, I mean red hands cancel. Punch Me Punch U is also good, but unfortunately has the side effect of one sim punching the other too hard resulting in a double negative surprisingly often. If you have a Popularity, Family or Romance sim, they might even get into the spirit of things and form their own chain of appreciation, tickle, and entertain/joke/dirty joke. Knowledge and fortune sims can also develop this chain, but it is rarer. This chain can also lead to the high rollers of making out and woohoo should the two sims be romantically involved. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [5.04]Becoming Best Friends and Beyond: And Why You Should Ignore Them After Full 100 in Daily and Lifetime Relationship Daily relationship slowly rises or falls with the passing of time to match your daily relationship. If you left them off with a 100 daily relationship points, you can proceed to ignore them for several days until they eventually become your best friend. Unfortunately, this can take a long time and burn a hole in your wants list if you are a Popularity, Romance or Family sim, as they frequently want to make any normal friends best friends, so there are ways to force the hand of time and accelerate good will to all sims. On a very effective note should be the socially enhancing Cool Shades aspiration item. For the love of all things holy, never underestimate the importance of this tool should you have the aspiration to use it, heck, you could have used it in one of the earlier stages and it would have given you a tremendous head start. Using the shades with a strong interaction like bust a' move does wonders on both daily and life time relationships should it succeed; it can also save a dying relationship and prevent a "Lost Best Friend" memory in the case that you let a relation stagnate for too long. As much of a great effect the Cool Shades have on a positive relationship, they also have a dramatic effect on negative interactions. I've seen a sim chop down 45 points clean on both sides of both daily and lifetime aspiration by attacking a sim while wearing the glasses. As to how I got them to fight despite such high relationships, look in the Under the Influence section. Even worst though is if you have a sim wear it and catch another sim cheating. Cool Shades also have a multiplying effect if both parties interacting wear them. Unfortunately, not every sim has enough aspiration to so freely afford socially unawkward fashion, and that's where the following information comes in. You might not notice it, since you're usually eying the big green pluses, but each interaction has a different daily and lifetime relationship increaser. While talk is a great opener, it doesn't offer much in the way of directly adding points to your lifetime relationship, nor does red hands, which is an excellent daily relationship increaser. Backrub on the other hand, frequently adds two points of lifetime relationship which it only gets a single plus for daily. As stated before, bust a' move adds two points of lifetime relationship as well. As such, a cycle of hug, backrub and bust a' move is ideal for increasing relationships without intimate actions. Hug only increases by lifetime relationship by one point usually, but it's fast, leaving more time for the two other moves. As a whole, romantic social actions are the best for raising lifetime relationships and daily ones as one by a mile, particularly making out and woohoo, but turning to the evils of truth and love has the disadvantages of lover's paranoia, as I'm sure plenty of romance aspiration sim fans can attest to. In a single invitation, you can usually boost up a lifetime relationship about 20 points without going too much out of your way, but for the most part, you should let time do it's work unless your sim is a romance sim and wants to chase proverbial skirt (Or pants) at a record speed. ============================================================================= [6.00] The Ultimate Greek House Legacy When you first start playing The Sims 2 University and send your first poverty stricken sim to university for the first time, you will quickly learn just how painful the road to education can be. It wouldn't be the stress of performing well in class or the frustration of the final exam that breaks you, but rather the dens of damnation known as the dorms and the financial black hole that will perpetually hover beneath your sim's feet. That is why if you want to help those who will follow in your path setting sim's footsteps with greater strides and a sense of a greater purpose, it is time to start your legacy of an ultimate Greek House, an establishment of such behemoth proportions that your sim's children's children and their inbred nieces and nephew's children will be a part of it so that they may never have to suffer dormitory life the way your first sim did. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.01] Planning A Legend: Because Any Other Plan is Stupid In order to start a Greek House, it kinda' goes without saying that you first need a house. The very strange thing in university to consider is that when you first move a sim into a rented house, the price will roughly be only 25% of what it would cost in an ordinary neighborhood. However, after moving in, all building and buying options return to their full price. In order to get a tremendous head start when building a Greek House, it is absolutely vital that you get a large sum of money, plan ahead and take off running... well, that or you can cheat. There are two best times to start a Greek House, either when a teen sim with tons of scholarships under their belt first moves to university with any other welcome wealth worthy buddies to pool their money together, or at the end of a young adult's time in university after saving up their money and living at makeshift homes for the financially challenged. Generally, recommended is to start off your young adults with lots of scholarship money, which will usually also mean that they will have been developed in skills and background to become strong leaders for those who follow in their footsteps. Unfortunately, raising a superior teen takes time, so for a quick fix, you can just work your young adult's butt to the hilt in college and use any remaining funds they have left at the end to build and buy a the house to become your Greek House, seeing as they can't seem to take the money with them back to the neighborhood. Ideally, you should have at least 8,000 simoleans to get a 5X5 plot of land and start up a descent one story house equipped with items to meet every motive, unless you like to take your baths at the secret society. The more money you throw into the house now, the less you'll have to worry about later. The reason why there is no turning back is that the rate of depreciation for bought objects starts to quickly settle in, and unlike for adults who can get careers to offset the depreciation quite easily, young adults barely make any money, and in a house full of expensive objects, with the exception of art, it becomes very difficult to abandon all those expensive goodies when you only get a fraction of the full value, even if you did technically get them all 25% off. The good news however is that the price of the bills goes down with them, since the overall worth of the house decreases. The price of art also can increase, including paintings made by your sims, so if you have an artist with mad skills and you are planning for a very long haul, get them to paint the memories of the Greek House and watch them grow in value over the generations. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.02] Reaching For A Level 6 Greek House: Because Anything Else Would Be Uncivilized Level 6 is the highest stage of a Greek House, and can be achieved by having 15 family friends. The number of members is irrelevant to this, as you can have an entire Level 6 Greek run by a single person, however, it does seem that more members makes it easy to have other sims pledge, or else they might reject it At the highest level, a Greek House can have 32,000 members. If any human on Earth ever manages to fill that up, the Apocalypse couldn't be that far off. Fortunately, reaching the goal of a Level 6 Greek House is almost directly in the same path as being the Big Sim on Campus and employs many of the same techniques in friend making with the addition of having joined a Greek House, either by starting or tacking on. Seriously though, how many Greek Houses does your university need though? Mine has three and it already seems like too many. One strong one is really all you need unless you are trying to tell a story about war and strife among students, albeit it's a very fun story to play out with the closest thing to gang wars you can get in The Sims 2 so far, and the entire house gang beating any member of the rival house that walks by. Speaking of which, you can also lower a Greek House's status by killing off or destroying the relationships of family friends, but who would want to do that, other than me of course. As an important note, either as a bug or a miswrite, it would also seem that there are rather frequent reports of cases where level 6 Greek Houses cannot get another sim to pledge. I have experienced this problem on numerous cases, and it has me in a knot as well, but since I'm extremely selective about who is a member of my Greek Houses and who isn't (Only custom made sims allowed), it doesn't bother me much since I just work the other side of the fence to get more members. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.03] The Greek House Ladder: For When Hostile Takeover Isn't An Option Level 1: Requires: 0 Friends Max Members: 8 Level 2: Requires: 3 Friends Level 3: Requires 5 Friends Max Members: 10 Level 4: Requires: 7 Friends Max Members: 20 Level 5: Requires: 10 Friends Max Members: 10 (I have no idea why the number goes down) Level 6: Requires: 15 Friends Max Members: 32,000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.04] Getting Your Greek House Started: Despite the Fact That It Isn't Really Greek If it weren't for its real life counter parts the fraternities and sororities, there wouldn't be anything Greek about the Greek houses, well except for the whole concept at least. For the price of a puny 20 simoleans to buy a charter over the phone, any house can become a Greek House. You don't necessarily have to build your way up with a Greek House to level 6. A popular teen from the neighborhood can start one upon moving to university if they have enough friends. You can check the status of a Greek House by having a sim click on the Sim Greek letters. If you didn't buy one of those, then don't worry, your sim will go to campus and borrow one from who knows where and plunk it on the wall of your house. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.05] Greek House Features: And Other Questionably Tasteful Things Greek Houses aren't really the party magnet that the game leads you to believe, nor will you really start feeling their influence as a towering monument of campus culture as much as you would like to, but they do come with some excellent perks that make your sim's stay at university fun, and they also can visit the campus time to time to gather merchandise that may or may not have fallen off the back of a truck. Sims that live in Greek Houses have the ability to visit campus to pick up items, many of which are great to sell or use. The following is the list of items that I have personally seen: Wornable Easy Chair Really Depressed Loveseat By Club Distress Trottco 27" Multivid IV Television Fun-Kadelic Frequency Stereo System from Kauker Inc. VroomMaster 4000 Simply Spindle Coffee Table Retratech "Office Pal" Economy Desk Juniper Bonsai Tree Brand Name MettleKettle Maxis Game Simulator Along with these items, a sim can also simply go out to get a nice hot steamy pizza, which can be quite handy for when your household is full of sims with the munchies. Sims that are members of Greek Houses also have the ability to make other sims pledge. Pledges are a lot of fun; they basically put other sims through a trial period in which you can influence them to do anything for the incredible price of zero influence! Yup, you can make them your slaves and ruin their lives until they become full fledge members! Of course, you can also somewhat influence them to kill themselves or at least incur serious trauma before then through the power of really bad cooking in the form of foot high flames or repairing one too many broken dishwashers for a shocking surprise, but more on that later on "Under the Influence". There are times however when a pledge might be rejected due to lack of members or friends in the house or an undeveloped relationship, in which case, you have to work the other side of the fence a bit to thicken the numbers. A sim outside of the Greek House can join by calling on the phone or talking to a member in person, either way, they'll summon a small handful of crazy sims to prance around your lot like ponies in the spring time, and it's up to you to raise their relationship to a certain level, usually between 15 to 35 within a short time frame of six hours, that or try to assassinate them should you get this game mixed up with Grand Theft Auto by accident. Fortunately, if your sim is already good buddies with the members of a Greek House, the initiation process will be close to instant. Just because a person has become the member of a Greek House doesn't mean that they have to move in though, they are given the option of moving in at their convenience, which is very handy for those who absolutely hate controlling too many sims in a household. Greek House members can also hold Toga Parties, although it seems that certain sims come in random underwear instead. This seems to happen with sims who are especially outgoing. My main sim who established the main Greek House at my university always wore skimpy black lingerie instead of a toga like everybody else, and I wondered why for the longest time. The underwear they will wear is also different from what their default underwear that they can normally wear and doesn't necessarily have to be in their wardrobe It would also seem that only young adults can wear togas, as ordinary adults will just come in regular attire. Other than the wardrobe change, there is nothing different from regular parties. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6.06] Continuing the Legacy: (Or How to End It Abruptly For Maximum Humiliation) A Greek House will continue to thrive as long as there are household members in it. Apparently, if the last standing sim in the house graduates, drops out, or meets a hot steamy death, it doesn't matter if you have members living in other houses or resting on the side lines, the Greek House will turn back into a regular house and has to be bought all over again and all of the outside members will lose membership status with the house, since it no longer exists. As such, the most important thing to do with a Greek House is make sure that someone is always living in it. Ideally, it is most fun if you have a member for every year of college, but working by generations is a more realistic approach. So before the graduating members use up the last of their time and head back to the neighborhood, be sure to move in some new blood to continue the legacy. Detouring off the side, I'm a bit of an anime fan, so my Greek House method and structure was based on a little known in North America anime called Maria-sama ga Miteru that basically has a council of three rose color based upper to lower classman relationships and... ahhh... let's just say that it's like the Star War's relationship between Master and Apprentice except with Catholic school girls that speak Japanese with no apparent special powers, so close enough. Ignoring the fact that I tend to tag the words "sempai" and "kohei" around story mode with vigorous regularity it is easier and much more interesting, not to mention more rewarding to carry a legacy through university, strengthening and reinforcing the work of the previous generation as they each pass through the same house, rather than just sending your sims off to dorms filled with expendables or housing with no concern for the next generation. Besides, sims you control are going to meet up again in the neighborhood eventually (Some exceptions may apply if you are evil), so you might as well make them acquainted with each other before hand, it's a great way to make friends for job hunting and fulfilling wants. ============================================================================= [7.00] The Secret Society: That is Full of Talentless Hacks When you are on the outside, the sim secret society is wrapped in a veil of secrecy so thick that only the entrails of the imagination can pierce it. When you are in it, you realize that it is run by clueless idiots, just like in real life, hahaha, just kidding, I wouldn't know anything about that... Anyhoo, fortunately, getting into the secret society also lies in the wake of the previous two goals, so you can easily aim for all three of them in the same blow. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [7.01] How to Get Into the Secret Society: And How To Master The Mighty Chicken Handshake Players new to The Sims 2 University often get Greek Houses and the secret society confused; they are quite different in many respects. The secret society is a lot type completely different from Greek Houses, and is best thought of as a community lot where you have the ability to build and buy as well as allow several commands that community lots restrict. It is also constantly filled with other secret society members. Getting into the secret society is easy if your sims get to know the right people. As a matter of fact, that pretty much describes the entire process of getting into the secret society, but first of all, make sure that if you are playing a custom university that you placed a secret society building out of the specialty lot selection in your university, or else consider yourself wasting time in the hunt. The secret society doesn't actually exist in the university neighborhood; it's a hidden building that you can be driven to via limo any time of the day that you can call with the phone. In order to initially get into the secret society, you must become friends with three of its members, not best friends, just plain old ordinary friends and you can dump them after they have served their purpose should you choose to do so. There are two ways to identify members of the secret society, the first is that they often, but not always wear black blazers with the llama emblem on them when out in public (But tend not to appear in them as often on residential lots until a member of that household joins). The second is that they are completely talentless bastards. Honestly, if you see someone performing music that completely sucks, chances are, they're a member of the secret society. Seriously, even the evil cow mascot, the cheer leaders and especially the drama professors are better at playing than any given member of the secret society. You'd be surprised what skill level some NPCs have, but not the secret society members; they practically zero on everything and have enough talent to fill a toothpaste cap. I generally recommend relying on the first method as it's a sure kill hint, but since members of the secret society seem to not always reveal themselves so easily to outsiders, their sheer lack of talent may pose a handy additional hint, at least in custom made neighborhoods. Secret society members seem to be randomly generated, so other than by coincidence, each university seems to have a different roster of them, and should one of them get into a slight accident with the cow plant, another will quickly come to take his or her place. After befriending three of the members of the secret society, prepare yourself that night at 11:00 a clock for a little visit from them in their big black limousine and watch as they proceed to harass your sim with their stupid chicken handshake and their kinky handcuffs as they promptly arrest your sim and haul him or her back to their hive collective. On an obscure note, the supposed secret society members who arrest and take you to the secret society are ironically adult police NPCs from the neighborhood, which is why you seem to never meet them at the actual secret society. In truth, they aren't actually secret society members, but then again, if you know that already, you'll probably also ignore the fact that they aren't really cops either, as they are really unemployed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [7.02] Arriving At the Secret Society Now that your sim is smack dab in the middle of the secret society and finding that it is indeed run by aimless idiots with nary a talent to spare, it's time to enjoy the riches of the elite. First off, your sim gains new abilities. Of particular note are the secret handshake and the ability to hack grades. Your sim also gets to suit up in one of those nifty black llama blazers and can enjoy the awesome items now available to you. There are some fundamental differences at the secret society from normal and community lots. First off, upon getting into the secret society, you get your own funds of roughly 40,000 simoleans to spend upgrading the secret society and the ability to build and buy objects; yes even a bed. A sim can literally live in a secret society, but be warned that all money they receive from good grades goes to them should you pass final exams while being there. Every one of the three different base secret societies come with multiple career rewards, including the famous cow plant and a Resurrect-O-Nomitron, just in case any genius members of the secret society gets the munchies for cake, and trust me, if you take that thing out of it's pen, they most definitely will. You can also save your game anytime at the secret society, but it will return you back home upon reloading. The secret society also doesn't get any bills thankfully, and it would also seem that like community lots, it is virtually impossible to die by any way other than cow plant, as fires just don't seem to erupt and people fall of the brink of starvation and still apparently stay alive. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [7.03] The Secret Society and You Well, it's time to face the church bells, your sim is the only competent one of the black clad bunch and it's time to do some heavy duty skill building. Case in point, the original set of career items that you have been looking forward to so longingly is virtually useless since all of the sims in the secret society have no talent whatsoever to teach you. You can still derive fun from them where normally building tough skills like charisma and cleaning are painfully boring tasks, but the key benefit they offer are gone with the lack of a coach, unless you happen to use a little trick I discovered that I will mention later that is a bit of indirect glitching. Only a single controllable sim can normally be at the secret society at any given time, but there are some ways to get around that, albeit rather inconveniencing. Now that the secret society is part of your sim's life, all other sims that happen to know him or her will count him in as a friend on their way to getting abducted by the fine men and women in black. Essentially, joining the secret society has the domino effect should you have a multiple sims in university that are friends. If you had a protagonist sim who is friends with everybody in the neighborhood, this can become a great asset to everyone else trying to join the secret society. Unfortunately, it seems that no custom made or controlled sim ever can be found at the secret society normally, maybe it's because of the dreaded cow plant taking a portion of their upper torso as an appetizer, but I have over twelve sims in the secret society, and without a special trick, I have yet to see two of my own sims at the secret society at the same time. It would have been great if they did appear time to time so my lower classmen sims could learn skills faster, but it simply seems never to happen. They can shower handy aspiration rewards like Smart Caps around however, which is always a plus, but that's about the size of it for contact. This might be another glitch more so than a solid play mechanic, but the first time a sim goes to the secret society, they get a fresh set of motives to use. You're given an independent and fresh new boost of motives that you can use to build skills and grades until your energy runs out in roughly half a day, then travel back home and pick up where you left off with your level of previous motives. This is a great way for some early skill building with little consequence, just don't do something stupid like... oh, eat rotten fo