(A Sim Challenge) Connections: Rule Post #1

Connections is a Sims 4 challenge that I’m developing. Right now, it is more of a play style than a true challenge, but we’ll see where it goes.

It is a multiple household challenge that spans all the households in a save. Every round, you select a number of households based on the relationships of the previous round of households. The intended result is that you have a very interconnected set of households that have relationships with each other, but you are also not playing the same households over and over again. Your set of households shifts and changes as your story develops.

When I play a Legacy or another challenge that involves a single family for several generations, I get bored. However, I don’t have the time and patience to play challenges that involve rotating between all the households in a neighborhood. I get attached to individual Sims story lines and want to see them play out, so whole neighborhoods take too long. I also enjoy a bit of randomness in my game and I love playing households that I normally wouldn’t play or create.

This is the first rules post, but I anticipate there might be more in the future as a refine the challenge.

Connections Rules (as of 3/5/19)L

1. Decide if you are going to play with Premade Sims or Sims of your own creation. I like using the premade Sims that come with the game. For my starter household, I download a household off the gallery (such as a household made for a game trailer).

2. Setup your neighborhood. Choose your starting family. Move any other Sims you want to be involved in the challenge into that save. Personally, I don’t add anyone except my starter family. However, there is no reason why you couldn’t.

3. Establish the number of houses you wish to play each round, and how long you want to play each house. I suggest playing each house for an in-game week and using 3 to 5 households per round. You could easily change those numbers, though.

4. Round One (1 household)

   1. Play your starter household for your chosen time.

   2. At the end of the time (such as a week), pause the game.

   3. Score the relationships (see below).

5. Round Two (2 households)

   1. The first household of Round Two will be your starter household

   2. The second household will be the household of the individual Sim that scored the highest at the end of Round One

   3. Play each household for the chosen time frame.

   4. Pause at the end of each household’s play through and score the relationships.

   5. Combine the scores as described below.

6. Round Three (3 households)

   1. The first household is your starter again.

   2. The second is the highest total score from Round Two.

   3. The third is the second highest score from Round Two.

7. Repeat with future rounds, except the Starter household is no longer automatic. So, if you are playing 3 households/round, Round Four would look like:

   1. Highest score from Round Three.

   2. Second highest score.

   3. Third highest score.

Relationship Scoring

Technically, you are scoring every Sim that your Sims know. However, you can quickly ignore anyone that is merely an acquaintance, as their total is 0. Further, we are not paying attention to relationship numbers/bars, just the labels the game generates (or if they are in a club with one of your Sims). So scoring goes pretty quick.

Here’s the scoring chart:

1. Ignore Sims who are living in the household that you are presently scoring. For example, if Edith and Jake are roommates, and we are scoring their relationships because we just finished playing with them, Jake doesn’t get any points for being friends with Edith.

2. Chose the first Sim who is not a member of the household, and more than just an acquaintance. Record their name.

3. Add the appropriate score next to their name. Scores stack. For example, if Edith works with (coworker +1) her best friend (+4) Samantha. Then Samantha’s score would be a 5. We are effectively summing the impact a Sim has on another Sims life.

4. Score each Sim for each person in a household. Scores accumulate. If Edith has a roommate, Jake, who is “Love Birds” with Samantha. Samantha’s new score is 9 (+5 from Edith, +4 from Jake).

5. Score all the Sims for all the households played in that Round. Scores continue to accumulate. For example, if our second household for this round consisted of Beth and Roger, and Samantha was good friends with Roger, Samantha’s new score would be 12 (+5 from Edith, +4 from Jake, +3 from Roger).

6. Scores from different households played in the same round count. For example, if Beth is good friends with Edith, Edith will have a score of 3 this round, even though Edith couldn’t win any points from being friends with Jake since they share a household.

7. Compare all the scores. Play the household with the Sim that earned the highest score.

Okay, so I know that probably sounded SUPER confusing. However, it is actually pretty simple and quick to do. After I finish a round in my game, I will post my score breakdown as an additional example.

I’m currently doing a play through of this challenge which you can follow along here: The Keye Family.