Reflections

So I thought I would just say a little about my best and worst moments of the legacy, and about the things I learned doing it – those that worked and those that didn’t…

Best bits

Starting and completing! Being a TS1 fan (and hating TS2) I struggled with TS3 at first because it was so hard to play Sims1-style.  Discovering this challenge helped me love the game, helped me make some great online friends, has given me a reason to sim and has just been lots of fun.

Super-Popular: One of my all-time favourite moments was completing this LTW when Emma Mabel was a teenager.  It was just so satisfying.

Triplets: They were just so much fun to play, especially Nicola – who rolled perfect traits and perfect LTWs and was pure, pure evil.  Mwahahaha.

The heirs: Even though I know they’re just sims and I was controlling them, something about heirdom kind of made all of them noble.  Someone like Karis or Amanda would be an obvious heir choice, but SJ and Joseph seemed to take it in their stride despite being somewhat nuts.  Joseph beating Laurence up was particularly fun.  Michael overcoming the fire was another highlight.

The blogging community: I love reading legacy blogs, love that you read mine, love hearing what others are doing – has made the challenge even more fun.

The worst bits

Jared and Daniela dying: Both of them would have completed their LTWs the next day: in fact Daniela was about to complete hers when she died – she was reading the charisma book with her bar almost maxed out. In Daniela’s case, not knowing her age when she married Joseph wasn’t exactly a help.

Losing graves: The game lost a few graves of both my sims and the townies during one patch upgrade.  Hmmph.

The baby glitch: Definitely the worst moment ever.

Jack of all Trades: Sulk.

Learnings

I learned so much from other legacy blogs, and from forums etc that I won’t repeat here because you can just go read them, but as for what I learned from my own legacy…

Random traits: It made it harder, and a little frustrating when it came to getting all the LTWs, but I managed 31 so I think if I’d been more efficient early on, all 32 could have happened, even with rolling traits.  I won’t always play this way but it did make it fun and more challenging.

Pinstar’s rules: I will definitely try Aaroc’s in the future, but for a novice, Pinstar’s rules were very easy to keep track of, and definitely a good starting place.

Spares: It took me a while to learn that spares need an easy LTW, to get 100K LTH and a portrait and THEN be kicked.  I bought houses for two of the early spares, and didn’t make the best use of at least three of them by kicking/moving them too soon.

Perfect Aquarium: Always keep the fish in your backpack.  I keep reading legacies where people have to keep feeding their fish.  DO NOT WASTE TIME FEEDING FISH.

Painting and Gardening: I’d have invested much more time in these if I could, especially painting which my sims got into very late.  A couple of painters and a couple of gardeners each gen would be good – I always had one of each from Gen 2  onwards, but as they had other duties that garden in particular got neglected.  Both are big money-spinners.  I’d probably try to have a fishing sim each gen, too.

Money: I didn’t really pursue money points hard enough.  I should have bought out all the businesses early on, maintained a bigger garden and built a less complex house so I had fewer bills.  My money score kind of sucks.  But my score for everything else is pretty decent, I think.

Heartbreaker: Always dump as soon as they agree to go out, and have a charisma sim on hand to comfort them.  Everyone’s a winner.

Ghosts: Boxing my ghosts in a mausoleum worked: but only for those placed in it after it was built – those Gen 1-3 ghosts who’d haunted the house before I built it still haunted it.  So if you want to keep graves on the lot, cage them in from the start.

Townie reseeds: Story progression fails.  My strategy is to roll some families in CAS with toddlers and import them whenever I have a new generation, that way the toddlers will be at school with my kids.  The random families do all end up looking a bit alike, mind.

and the most important thing I learned…

Guitars are a sim’s best friend… and make your sim everyone’s best friend: Seriously.  Always have a guitar player or two around and life will be much easier.