I've been debating starting a legacy challenge for a while, but found the rule too restrictive for my taste (see below). It turns out there are many kinds of legacy challenges to choose from, but I think I may still prefer to play it by ear. I'll let you know how I plan to do this as soon as I make up my mind. In the meanwhile, if you're curious, here's the challenge all other challenges seem derived from. What do you think?
Quoted from Pinstar1161, TS3 Forums - 06/21/09 01:54 PM:
The Legacy Challenge is a long, 10-generation challenge where you start out with a single founder and very humble beginnings and try to lead the family to fame, fortune and success over the course of 10 generations.
Starting out
Create a brand new game file. You will be using this file exclusively to play your Legacy Challenge. You may use an existing game file, but your Legacy family must immediately become the “Active Household” and not cease to be active for the duration of the challenge. You may select any neighborhood.
The challenge begins with a single founder. Make this founder in Create A Sim. They may be male or female. They may be any age that can have children (YA, Adult and Elder for males, YA and Adult for females). You have full choice over their look, color and clothing. Custom content may be used if you like, including create-a-style custom patterns and colors. You may choose all 5 traits as well as their three favorite likes (food, music and color) and a lifetime want. No other sims may be created in the founder’s family. Be creative with the family name, you’ll be seeing it for quite some time.
Now to place the founder. While you are free to choose either standard town, there is a very specific lot that must be used. If you move into Riverview, you must move into “345 Riverblossom Hills Drive”. If you move into Sunset Valley, you will be moving into “15 Summer Hill Court”. The common thread between these lots is that they are large, empty and cost $14,700. Yes I know that leaves you with only $1,300 in cash to build a house, that’s the point. All legacies start out with very humble beginnings and expect your founder to live like a hobo for awhile. If additional neighborhoods are made available with mods or EPs, or we gain the ability to plop our own lots down, they may be used, as long as the lot in question is completely empty and costs at least $14,700.
Rules:
- No cheating. Plain and simple, no money or mood cheats. You may use custom objects, as long as their price and mood effects are in line with similar ‘official’ objects. Objects purchased from the Sim Store are considered 'official' as well as the ones included with the game.
- Aging and story progression must be on and lifespans set to the normal level.
- You are allowed to play with any Mod that does not give you a signifigant advantage over a player without the mod. The only specific mod I know of at the moment, Awesome Mod, is allowed.
- The Legacy family must be the “Active Household” during the entire challenge. You may never switch the active household to another family. If you want to take a break from Legacy play, it is recommended you play in another saved game slot.
- No Ambrosia! Your sims may learn the recipe for Ambrosia, but may not cook or consume the dish. Nor may ambrosia be used to resurrect ghosts.
- You may not ressurect dead sims via the Science lab.
- Sims may not consume life fruit to gain extra days to their lifespan.
- You may age sims up via the birthday cake only once the game prompts you with a reminder of their impending birthday, not earlier. You do not have to use the birthday cake to age sims up, you can wait for the game to force the age transition if you wish.
- Death Flowers may not be kept in inventory. You may gather and sell them, but cannot be used to ward off death.
Black Market Restriction:
The Black Market is no longer being monitored by police. Kleptos, rummagers and theives are now allowed to liquidate their ill gotten goods for cash.
Moving Sims in:
- Any sim may be moved into the Legacy Family via marriage or move-in except for the following:
- Sims created by the player
- Sims/households downloaded and imported from the exchange
- Sims that had previously lived in the Legacy household but had since moved out
- Sims that are identified by your sim as "Rich" are now fair game for all sims except your founder.
All other sims are fair game. You are allowed to create/download/import sims and families into your Legacy neighborhood, they just cannot join the family.
No sims/families may ever be merged into the Legacy family. If you wish to add members, they must be done in game.
Challenge concepts
Generation: Order of birth in relation to the family at large. Your founder is generation 1, your founder’s son/daughter would be generation 2, the grandchildren of the founder would be generation 3 and so on. The challenge ends the moment generation 10 is born.
Founder: The sim you create in CAS who starts the family.
Heir: The sim belonging to the family bloodline who is slated to bring in the next generation once he/she is old enough and finds a mate.
Spare: A sibling of an heir, who can become an heir should anything happen to the current heir. Spares may be fed to the time stream or kept on the lot if you wish. They are eligible to earn legacy points for the family.
Fed to the time stream: Moving a controllable sim out of the legacy house. A sim fed to the time stream no longer can generate legacy points for the family, but still may be interacted with. Legacy points that have already been earned by this sim still count towards your total, even after you move the sim out.
Legacy Points: Your score for the challenge, earned in a variety of ways described below. The goal of the challenge is to get as many legacy points before the 10th generation.
Legacy House: The lot initially moved into by your founder. You may not move the family to another lot during the entire challenge. All heirs must be born in this house (or rather, born from sims living at this house, even if they use the hospital to give birth)
Bloodline: Any sim who can trace his or her family tree directly to the founder. Adopted sims are NOT part of the bloodline. Sims that are moved in are only considered part of the bloodline when they contribute to the birth of the next generation.
Mate: A sim brought in from outside the family to reproduce with the current generation’s heir to produce the next generation. When the next generation is born, the mate becomes part of the family bloodline and eligible to earn points.
Points:
You earn points for your family in the following ways.
Generation: You get 1 legacy point for your founder, and 1 point for every generation born until the 10th. You earn each point at the birth of the first child in each generation. Further births in that generation do not generate more points. Thus you can only earn a maximum of 10 total Generation points by completing the challenge and birthing the 10th generation.
Lifetime wants: You gain 1 point for every unique lifetime want fulfilled by a family member. The sim in question must be living in the legacy house and be part of the family tree to earn this point. Once a specific liftime wish has been fulfilled by a sim, further sims fulifilling that wish will not earn you a legacy point for doing so. There are 32 unique liftime wishes in the game, meaning you could earn a maximum of 32 points in this category.
Portraits: 1 point for creating a portrait of a family member and keeping it on display after their death. Like above, the sim must be part of the family tree and living in the legacy house to qualify for this point. You earn this point after the portrait is created, you do not have to wait for the sim in the portrait to actually die. Portraits are still worth their points even if the family member pictured is moved out of the house later on. The skill of the artist doing the portrait does not matter, as long as it features the sim in question it counts. Portraits may be of any size or style. Keep in mind that a sim must have a painting skill of at least 5 to get the option of painting a still life (needed to capture a sim’s picture).
Sims must be of Young Adult or older and living on the Legacy Lot at the time of painting to count for a portrait point.
Legacy House: Earn 1 legacy point for every $100,000 in net worth the house is worth. To get the net worth combine the "Furnished Value" of the house with the family's cash on hand. Round up. This category can have a maximum of 20 points earned, meaning a net-worth of 2,000,000
Aspiration Rewards: If a sim is able to earn 100,000 points worth of aspiration rewards, they earn your family 1 legacy point. You are free to spend aspiration points as you gain them, it is your lifetime total, not your current total, that matters for this point. Like the other sim-based points, this may only be earned by family members. You may earn an additional point in this category from a sim if they somehow earn 200,000 points in their lifetime. .
Birth and growing up
Whenever a sim is born or ages up, they will often obtain new traits. Sometimes these traits are randomly assigned by the game. Other times the game lets you pick them. In the Legacy Challenge, all traits are random. If you are given the option to pick traits for any sim, you must hit the random button and accept the trait that is randomly assigned. The only exception is if you are playing with the "Family Trait" optional rule. If you are, and the family trait is one of the options, you may select that trait rather than hitting the random button.
Death
Sims that die on the family lot may be kept around as ghosts, or may be moved to a cemetery. It is up to you. If a sim dies and you forgot to get their portrait, making a portrait of their ghost does not count. If the bloodline is cut short by death, the challenge ends immediately. It is always a good idea to have at least one spare in case the heir perishes. Even if ghosts become playable, they may not earn any further points for the family. Ghost babies are not considered part of any bloodline.
Bringing in the next generation.
In order to bring in the next generation, a new sim must be born. Adoptions do not carry the family bloodline and thus don’t count. (You are still allowed to adopt sims if you really want to, but they won’t help point wise) If the heir is male, you must move their mate into the legacy family house before having a baby. If the heir is female, she may move her mate in, or simply get pregnant while off the lot. In either case, the heir and their mate don’t have to be married. Sims may be born at home or in a hospital, whichever you prefer. The moment the next generation is born, the heir’s mate officially becomes part of the family bloodline (and thus can earn lifetime want, aspiration perk and portrait points for you, provided they are living in the Legacy House).
Optional Rules
These are optional rules you may play with if you wish. They don’t affect your score in any way, and are merely tools to help establish a theme for your family.
Family Trait
When creating your founder in CAS, choose one of the founder’s 5 traits to become the ‘family trait’ for your legacy family. There after, every sim born to the legacy family must possess this trait by the time they reach young adulthood. If they do not inherit it at birth, you must choose that trait the moment you are given the option to. The remaining traits still must be rolled for.
Matriarchy/Patriarchy
Whatever gender your founder was, this must be the gender of every heir. Meaning if you started with a female founder, only female children may become the heir to bring in the next generation. Children of the other gender are still counted as part of the family bloodline and may still earn the family points, they simply may not bring in the next generation.
A male dominant family is called a Patriarchy, a female dominant family is a Matriarchy.
Story Teller
A popular practice is to write a story for your Legacy family and upload it in chapters. If you feel the creative energy, why not try uploading your own story? There is no in-game bonus for doing this, but the addition to the community is always welcome!
FAQ
Why do I have to buy such a big lot. I barely have money in the beginning.
Early poverty is a hallmark of the challenge. A large plot of land not only drains the available cash from your starting funds, it gives you the ability to build some epic sized legacy homes as you play through the generations and get more wealth.
If I’m playing with the family trait option, does my sim’s mate have to have that trait too?
No.
Can I move in/marry sims into the legacy home that aren’t going to help bring in the next generation?
Yes, keep in mind that they don’t earn any points for the family. Even sims that are destined to help bring in the next generation won’t count as part of the family until the next generation is actually born.
Does the first born have to be the heir?
No, as long as they are part of the bloodline and born on the legacy house they are eligible to be an heir, regardless of order of birth. They must be the proper gender if playing with the matriarchy/patriarchy option.
Are collection items, such as rocks, insects and seeds subject to the black market restriction?
No, you are allowed to sell any collection items you find...as long as they weren't stolen out of someone's house or garbage.
