Stranger Sims

New Caledonia is made up of Riverview City by LordCrumps, Baskerville by plasticbox, converted into a shopping neighbourhood by marka93, Downtown Revamp by TheDudeWithTheDragonTattoos and Mission State University by aelflaed.

The intention is to play New Caledonia in a loose Prosperity Challenge style*, with a round lasting 4 days, and incorporate the Serial Killer Challenge by perihelion, which will activate when the appropriate condition is met, along with several Sim City Senate-imposed population control protocols in place to counter overpopulation.

*Notable exceptions from the Prosperity Challenge rules as written, are that I will look to shoehorn existing Sims into the generated households before creating new, and instead use the Starsign/ Aspiration adjustments refined by Pleasant Sims, which can be found at PleasantSims.com, to determine Sim Aspirations.

A third challenge, in the form of an over-arching ‘draft lottery’ based loosely on the Hunger Games challenge by simzo10, will be in place where New Caledonia has been designated ‘District 12’ and may be required to offer ‘volunteers’ (12 on a 12-sided die roll), to be drafted into the Sim City military. The draft lottery will run between each full rotation and should the district not be able to provide valid volunteers, a $250000 Forfeiture Tax will be levied, split evenly between all the current mainhood households in New Caledonia. This sum will be deducted from the overall neighbourhood value and impact the Prosperity Challenge scoring.

A D6 (six-sided die) will determine the total number of potential volunteers required. Further D6 (1’s re-rolled) rolls will determine whether the volunteer is (2-3) honourably discharged (returned to their respective household with $10000 ‘salary’ and eligible to be re-drafted in future), (4-5) simply rejected and returned (sans payment and eligible to be re-drafted in future), or (6) missing in action (not returned and no household recompense). Volunteers with high skills will be permitted to re-roll negative outcomes once for each skill with at least 6 skill points.

Supplemental:

Households begin with a full fridge however only food produced within the neighbourhood may be used to re-fill said fridge, which may NOT be sold and re-purchased in order to re-fill. Sims with excess stock may sell produce and likewise neighbourhood sims may purchase the same produce.

Enforced by the Sim City Senate is a ‘Child Tax’ of $10000, which is imposed on any births beyond the first. Multiple births from an initial single pregnancy are exempt. This tax does not apply to adopted children (subject to adoption pool availability). Unwanted children are still subject to the Child Tax but may be given up for adoption. These Sims will then be sent to the the Children’s Home and available for future adoption.

In order to be able to leave the mainhood and attend university, an ‘Education Tax’ of $10000 is payable, per-Sim, in advance of the eligible Teen moving to the university sub-hood. The Teen requires to have rolled (and have locked) the Want to attend and hold at least a C grade, they remain eligible for ‘draft’ selection until such time as the tax is paid. Scholarship Grants can be used to offset this cost should the Teen be eligible, likewise loans can be taken from the New Caledonia treasury.

When a Sim reaches the state retirement age (65) and transitions into an Elder, they will be required to retire from their employment with immediate effect. If they have achieved at least Level 6 of their respective career, their former employer will cover the cost of moving into the New Caledonia Retirement Village. The Elder Sim may also choose to remain in their current household, though doing so will incur a $25000 ‘Burden On The State’ Tax. Sims who operate their own business are not required to retire and may continue indefinitely. The Retirement Village household will join the rotation and the residents can live out their days in (relative**) peace. A single Servo Sim will be resident as Caretaker. The Caretaker is not factored into any scoring, may not have an external job, or be moved out, though they may befriend, and be befriended by others from New Caledonia. In the event that the Caretaker is no longer viable, for any reason, the Sim City Senate will appoint a replacement.

On moving to the Retirement Village, any Adult Townie Sims friendly with the Retiree, have a 50% chance of being aged up to Elder. Any Elder friends, including those who have just recently aged up, of the Retiree have a separate 50% chance to also be moved to the Retirement Village, subject to sufficient space.

* The Retirement Village will played under I’m Surrounded By Idiots Challenge rules. On moving to the Retirement Village, any Adult Townie Sims friendly with the Retiree, have a 50% chance of being aged up to Elder. Any Elder friends, including those who have just recently aged up, of the Retiree have a separate 50% chance to also be moved to the Retirement Village, subject to sufficient space.

Disclaimer: The personalities of any actual people depicted within are dictated by the hard-coded behaviours of a video game published in 2004, forcibly changed by a number of external 3rd-party modifications, and may be exaggerated or manipulated for comedy or storyline purposes. Permission, whether explicit or implied, for 3rd-party content was gained at the time of download. Where appropriate and/ or realistically feasible, consent has been gained for portrayal of non-celebrity ‘simselves’, with names being changed on request to protect the privacy of any who have made the request.

For reasons that will never be fully known, the previous attempt to launch the Stranger Sims blog was impacted by corruption (a vastly overused, often without just cause, term within the Simming community), resulting in incomplete character files, jump glitches, and missing portraits. Initially I intended to carry on regardless and hope the problems would simply resolve themselves as the game generated more of it’s own files however it quickly became evident that would not happen so, rather than always wondering whether it would show up again, I took the decision to reset and restart. In all honesty, due to the choices made in the initial setup, it was irritating with only the Stein family showing up constantly to the Asland’s Home Business and spending all their household funds. This, along with the very real possibility of several rounds of zero growth, all contributed to the decision.

The already completed posts will remain, with the older content hidden, and the starter households have been moved back into the houses they previously held.

Without further ado;