Practical Starting Strategies

Practical Starting Strategies

The focus of World Adventures is squarely upon leisure activities, but not really just travel... It is fair to describe the primary focus of this expansion as being about many different types of leisure pursuits, from adventure, collecting, mystery, self-improvement, crafting, and yes, travel, but most of the other elements that are party of this are accomplished via travel! Ah, but therein lies the problem... Because to travel requires freedom, and as most Simmers are aware, the average lot in a Sim's life is the division between the time that they spend at work, and the time that the spend taking care of all of the things at home that need to be taken care of, which leaves only a small amount of time for fun each day, and forget taking a week off for travel!

The ideal situation is, of course, an independently wealthy Sim who can live the life that they want to live, but that is really only possible in a handful of ways -- legitimately by your Sim being the 4th or 5th generation and has inherited their wealth (which requires quite a bit of play time but is not impossible) -- and illegitimately you could cheat... But there is another way, a sort of Bohemian-meets-slacker alternative lifestyle that is perfectly suited to this particular expansion -- and that is the artistic route!

That can include the skills hacking, musician, artist, photographer, and writer -- essentially any activity that allows your Sim to make money outside of the normal work grind, giving them the ability to be their own boss. There is a downside to that path of course is that income is not predictable -- your Sim starts out earning only modest amounts for their work, but on the other hand if you have just created the Sim and moved them into a starter house their overhead costs are such that you can not only survive while building up their skills, but get a little ahead as well... And it is even easier when you create a household of two Sims -- whether that is a couple or simply roommates -- who can divide up the basics.

Leading a carefree Bohemian Lifestyle

As a general rule we use the group of two in a household, and they compliment each other skill-wise -- for example one focuses upon learning to cook, while the other focuses upon learning to maintain and repair the household items. When goals are offered care should be taken to pick goals you will naturally work towards or that make sense for your Sim to be working towards based upon their chosen career and lifetime goal -- because banking Lifetime Happiness Points is an important element of gaining better progress later, since you can purchase special abilities like Jetsetter, which reduces costs of trips and travel, and many other useful skill-altering abilities!

When creating your Sims alternative careers it is a good idea to have them do different ones -- an Artist and a Musician in the same house is complimentary but more important does not require duplication of kit. It is also a good idea to give them more than one potential money-making skill, for instance an Artist can also be a Photographer, a Musician also Writer...

While one of the pair covers the daily grind, makes meals, pays bills, fixes what needs fixing, the other focuses solely upon their primary skill, the idea being to get it mastered as quickly as you can because that is the fastest route to reliable income. After the first has mastered theirs, they switch roles and the second half of the pair masters their primary skill, then you do the same for the secondary, and with all four skills mastered, your money problems are now over, and you can focus upon improving their home, traveling, and having adventures!

-- Secondary Focuses --

In addition to your focus upon completing leveling their primary and secondary creative skills, you will also want to try to complete as many of the goals and challenges, and the opportunities, that your Sim receives, in order to build a nest egg of Lifetime Reward Points, so that you can obtain a few of the special abilities that can only be had in that way. Ideally you want to focus upon accepting only the sort of goals and challenges that further the lifestyle and ability set you have already chosen for each of your Sims -- that way you are not constantly doing things that do not contribute to your over-all goals.

Some of the goals and objectives that you will receive are only slightly related to your primary strategy, but because they improve your Sim overall, they are still worth developing because they not only improve your Sim but also present opportunities for you to multi-task on the sort of activities that you have to do anyway.

For example buying and placing a Chess Board and a couple of chairs in your home is a small investment in acquiring the intelligence skills, which while this is not obvious actually has an impact on how fast your Sims can acquire some of the other skills in the game! When using the Chess Board NEVER simply practice -- always have one of your Sims play with the other, since that gives THREE gains -- Logic, Fun, and Social -- rather than just Logic.

Some of the skills are important for both Sims to learn -- cooking is one -- while you can easily get away with having a dedicated repairing Sim.

Designating a Repair Sim and a Different Cook Sim is Wise

-- Skill and Reward Overlapping --

At some point in the development of your Sim-Unit (whether that is a family or just roommates, or something more) there will come a point at which skills and rewards overlap. Your Sims cannot exist together without each taking an interest in the interests of the others -- so you should naturally expect that at some point, even in a household in which the responsibilities and abilities are clearly divided along logical lines, that your Sims will begin exploring the areas of specialty of each other.

In the household that was created in order to play as reference in creating this guide there were two Sims -- Tomos SuperCheats and his girlfriend Katya SuperCheats (they are not married and they are not blood relations so do not worry about that common last name, pure coincidence heh) there was a set plan in place from the start.

Tomos began as an artist (this was a purely Bohemian household with no plans for traditional employment or early procreation) while Katya began as a Musician and Writer. Their support duties were equally split, with Tomos concentrating on cooking while Katya did maintenance and repairing, and both pursued Logic skills. They each focused upon their primary "jobs" but, at some point past mastery of those, they both showed prolonged and determined interest in pursuing the "jobs" of the other! That trend has been observed in other family/group units, so it is not unusual to the game.

Considering that there is always an enforced span of "downtime" between trips to other countries it seems that you will eventually reach a point in skills and abilities development that allows for the indulging of those cross-interests, so when you reach that point in the life of your Sims, why not let them indulge? It certainly cannot hurt your game or the basic strategy, right?