have you ever wanted to create a bustling community from virtually nothing and see your sims thrive? inspired by various BACC challenges made for the sims 2 & the recent release of businesses & hobbies, i decided to rewrite the beloved challenge to suit my needs and share it with you all!
READ: here (under the cut) OR google docs
WARNING: long read!
INTRODUCTIONS
The Build a City Challenge has existed in the Sims community since The Sims 2. It prompts you as a player to build up a bustling city starting from virtually nothing. If you like rotational gameplay, managing businesses in The Sims and playing rags to riches, this challenge might be for you!
This is a lighter, less complicated approach to the challenge (hence the lite in the title). It doesn’t require you to calculate taxes for your sims or grind your sims’ skills, careers or aspirations to unlock new things. If you’re interested in that kind of gameplay though, these rules for The Sims 4 should satisfy you! You can also get inspired from rulesets made for The Sims 2, such as these: x, x, x.
Please also remember that this is my personal ruleset and you’re welcome to change anything and everything to your heart’s desire!
NOTES BEFORE PLAYING
This challenge heavily relies on retail gameplay, as every Sim you’re starting out with will be owning their own business, thus making this challenge not base game compatible. You will need either Get to Work or Businesses & Hobbies to play (the latter being preferable, as you can start a business from your home lot AND it doesn’t have to be strictly retail). If you’re able to play with mods, I recommend checking out Saleabration Retail System by Ravasheen, which makes it possible to run a store without either of those packs.
RECOMMENDED MODS/DOWNLOADS
Empty Save File by midnitetech (makes the set-up process a breeze)
Venue Changes by zerbu (enables you to build a highschool in any world (make sure to download the High School Years add-on)
No Romantic Satisfaction by lumpinou (rotational gameplay causes the romantic satisfaction to decay overtime in all households you’re currently not playing, so I prefer to turn the whole system off all together)
RESTRICTIONS
At the beginning of the gameplay I like to make it a lot harder for myself than it needs to be. That’s why I choose to play with the Simple Living and Off-The-Grid lot challenges, which later on you can get rid of through gameplay! You can also choose to play with them forever or never play with them. It’s completely up to you!
I also don’t allow myself to Hire Services, such as Maid, Gardener, Repairperson, Babysitter etc., as well as Ordering Delivery. You can also unlock these through gameplay, or choose to omit the restrictions all together.
No purchasing items on the phone/computer as well!
Sims can only Try For Baby when they want to Woohoo before the Doctor role is unlocked.
There’s no daycare/babysitter before the Daycare is actually built, so at least 1 parent has to stay with the baby at all times.
GETTING STARTED
Pick any world you want to build the city in. If you want to stick with only one world throughout the whole challenge, I recommend Windenburg since it’s the largest. You can also ‘merge’ multiple worlds into one (for example Willow Creek and Newcrest) and pretend it’s one big city. There’s no limit to how many worlds you can merge together.
If you can’t download the Empty Save File, bulldoze every lot and delete every sim that lives in that world, and preferably your whole savefile.
Roll a number between 2-8 (I like using the random number generator by typing ‘rng’ into Google). This is the number of your starter Sims/founders.
I personally like for my Sims to have roles in the town, and have written them in order of importance to my own taste:
Mayor - without this Sim the town wouldn’t exist. They work in the POLITICS career [City Living] & make sure the residents of the town have everything they need to live good lives. Or they cause absolute chaos and dismay, it’s all up to you! The Mayor owns the TOWN HALL building, which you can run in any way you like (I personally host Charisma Skill Classes & invite “important” Sims over for Important Political Meetings. Or whatever real politicians actually do). If you own Eco Lifestyle, the NAP gameplay comes in handy here! You can pretend the NAPs are your Mayor’s personal plans for the town & you can campaign by asking other residents to vote for them.
Farmer - they grow produce & tend farm animals [Cottage Living], thus providing the community with fresh ingredients. The Farmer owns the GROCERY STORE, in which they sell fruits, vegetables and animal products. It’s quite difficult to run a functioning grocery store in The Sims 4, because of the inability to sell majority of Cottage Living products (such as flour and meat), so I recommend either turning off the Simple Living Lot Challenge as soon as the Grocery Store you build is up to your standard, or downloading the Grocery Store Set by Severinka_ (TSR warning), which makes running the store a little more bearable. Once the Grocery Store is set up and you have at least one non-household employee, the Grocery Store Delivery Service is unlocked!
Handyperson - they work in the HANDYPERSON career [For Rent], as well as UPGRADE all appliances in all residents’ houses with Fuel Cell/Add H2O Siphoner upgrades. Once 10 houses are upgraded, you can turn off the Off-the-Grid lot challenge forever! You unlocked permanent electricity! The Handyperson also unlocks the Repair Service. They don’t have to own a business, but they can host Handiness Skill Classes, for example.
Furniture Store Owner - they own a FURNITURE STORE, which provides Sims with new furniture. Sims don’t necessarily need to buy the furniture from this store to furnish their own house with, but the store needs to at least carry a type of furniture for Sims to buy it for their own house (for example, if the store doesn’t sell beds, Sims can’t buy a new bed for themselves; if the store does sell beds, Sims can buy any bed from the Build/Buy catalogue to furnish their house with).
General Store Owner - they own a GENERAL STORE, which sells alarms, umbrella stands, decoration boxes, entertainment objects, even computers, TV’s and other electronics. Having this store open unlocks the Order ability available on the Computer, as well as the Purchase Gifts interaction on the phone.
Scientist - works in the SCIENTIST career [Get to Work]. Unlocks the ability to have Science Babies, can own a business where they host Logic/Rocket Science/Robotics Skill Classes, can sell Telescopes, Microscopes, Robotics Workstations, Chess Tables etc.
Doctor - works in the DOCTOR career [Get to Work]. Unlocks being able to purchase medicine & the ability to Woohoo. They can own a Business where they sell medicine.
Police - works in the DETECTIVE career [Get to Work]. Unlocks the Police Link Security Upgrade on the burglar alarm, as well as the ability to call the police with the burglar present on the lot.
You can omit any roles you deem unnecessary, merge roles together, as well as create new ones to fit your playstyle.
I like to create every role in a separate household, and randomize their traits, preferences and turn ons/offs. I also use the random number generator to determine things such as:
AGE GROUP (numbers 1-3)
1 = young adult
2 = adult
3 = elder
GENDER PREFERENCE (numbers 1-4)
1 = attracted to female sims
2 = attracted to male sims
3 = attracted to both
4 = attracted to neither
OCCULT STATUS (numbers 1-5)
1-4 = human sim
5 = occult
OCCULT TYPE (numbers 1-5)
1 = alien
2 = vampire
3 = merfolk
4 = spellcaster
5 = werewolf
Of course none of these randomizations are necessary, but it’s nice to start out with a variety of Sims!
Once you have your founders created, move them to their empty home lots, build their houses and/or businesses, and start playing!
I also recommend adding at least one community lot, such as the park, so your sims have something to do other than run their businesses all day.
ROTATIONAL GAMEPLAY
To play rotationally, you need to make sure you have the following settings enabled, found in GAME OPTIONS → GAMEPLAY:
Auto Age (Played Households): Only Active Household
Auto Age (Unplayed Households): Off (or On, if you prefer townies to age faster than your sims)
Animal Aging: Off (there’s a bug where farm animals keep aging (and dying) while you’re not playing with the family that owns them, so I just prefer to turn their aging off all together)
Neighbourhood Stories: Off
Then, play every single one of your households for the same amount of time, to keep their ages in sync. For example, start with household one, play with them for 7 days (Sunday 8 am - Sunday 8 am next week) and then switch over to household two, and repeat that process until you’ve played with every household for the rotation! The rotation ends when every single household has been played through.
GROWING THE COMMUNITY
Obviously, starting with 2-8 sims isn’t a lot when we’re trying to build a city. Usually in this challenge you earn the ability to move new sims in as soon as you accomplish some goals, but because I didn’t set any, you’re welcome to move new sims in anytime!
If you don’t want to create new sims, growing the community through marriage and making children is obviously fine too. You can also create Servos, if you want!
The only rule I have for adding newly created sims is to include 1 new sim per rotation. So on rotation number one, after just creating our founders, you can’t add any new sims. But as soon as you’re starting on the second rotation, you can add 1 new sim and play them on the end of the rotation!
The newly created sims have to take on roles too. Once you fill all first 8 roles I’ve provided before, you can create sims such as teachers, vets, daycare / bar / restaurant owners, and whoever else you can come up with!
The roles unlock new services, too. For example, once you have a restaurant, your sims can order pizza, and when you open a daycare, sims can call for a babysitter!
ENDING NOTES
If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to reach out to me either under this post, or in my askbox! Also, I’d love to see everyone’s towns grow, so feel free to post them on tumblr with the tag #ts4 baccl!
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