Pics 18: Battle Sims
Battle Sims
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Hello, I want to share with you all a competition that I am hosting in my game. It's called Battle Sims. Maybe it could be seen as a sims challenge, I don't know. I think it was a challenge to set it all up. I had fun figuring out how to do this, and I would like to share some of that with you, too. It might give you some ideas to set up your own thing. You will also get to see the first round of it here. First, I will explain what this is and how it works.
16 sims are moved into the same household. The sims are split into teams of 4 to compete in individual and group challenges over several rounds. This 4-square box is where the sims will compete against each other in different activities. I made up a brand new word to describe this. It's called the 'arena'.
The rounds are set up by directing sims to perform activities at the same time, using in-game commands or the Clubs feature from Get Together. Sims will lose or earn points in a round by making a mistake or doing something good. There are other factors that determine a sim's point score, like speed or quality.
At the end of a round, Sims receive 4-1 gems based on their performance. When all the rounds are finished, the team with the most gems wins. For me, I thought it would be cool if the winning team gets a portrait somewhere special. I cleared out the Casbah Arts center in San Myshuno and renamed it to The Hall of Premium Sims. How epic. The winners will get some good reward traits, too.
So that's what this thing is. I know it's kind of over-the-top. I wanted to see the idea all the way through, so I started getting things together.
It's called "Battle Sims", so I need some battle sims. I make a list of names with some rough character ideas and start slaving away in Create-A-Sim. There's a backwoods sim shine brewer, a part-time sumo wrestler, and a vampire that's had hundreds of years to come up with new slang words.
After a few hours I've got 16 sims ready for battle. It's mostly new sims, but there's a few old ones sprinkled in there. I threw them all in a picture so you could see them. Fancy!
I tried to get a multitude of personalities in these groups, so I need some uniforms to help them look more like a team. I put together some outfits with clothes from the game. It's not fancy, but I'm able to color some accessories to match and make it look more official.
Don't worry. There isn't a big-ass crabb logo on it or anything like that (not yet). It's a whole outfit so you can switch teams efficiently if you want to do some glory hunting.
crabb LeggyBoi CBSL uniform women.package
crabb LeggyBoi CBSL uniform men.package
crabb LeggyBoi CBSL compression sleeves [gloves].package
I can't have sims sleeping on the floor of the arena, so I put together a place for them to live in during their free time. I made the mistake of building the arena on the first floor, so it looks like they will be living in the basement. I'm going to call it a barracks. That doesn't sound as bad. Or cruel. I think.
A better life, underground! Here is the cafeteria where the teams meet and chow down.
There is a TV room for movies and games. Round winners get dibs on the remote. Losers get off-brand controllers.
There's a cozy cafe for reading, recreation, and crafty activities.
It made sense to add a gym so these sims can keep in shape and get energized. They're athletes, after all. Hopefully nobody injures themselves on the equipment.
At the very bottom level there's an all-inclusive spa for rest and relaxation.
After I'm done building the barracks, there's nothing left to do but move all battle sims into the lot. I've never played more than 8 sims, so its a mystery if this is going to work as well as it needs to. It's a little nerve-wracking doing all that setup and not seeing anything yet. There's some lag after I hit the play button, and the sims are acting slow to respond. Uh oh. Is it too late to do 8 sims?
I give it a couple minutes and thankfully everyone starts acting natural and lag-free. I'm going to be injecting suspense into this. I'm sorry if I scared you with that.
There's some quality friendships coming out of this, like Jo Streety, a San Myshuno politician, and Bert Munchie, a snow-loving stonie. Maybe I could hand out some friendship awards at the end!
While everyone is getting settled in at the barracks, I'm bringing sims upstairs to test out events in the arena and work out the rules for scoring.
I'm also trying out activities in a couple different ways to see how many sims can be used.
After testing everything out, I'm pretty sure about how the scores are going to work.
Painting, Cooking, Etc.
Set the club activity to a desired activity, and allow the sims to choose what they make on their own. The crafted items will be judged to determine a sim's score.
Fitness, Dancing, Etc.
Queue everyone up for the same action, and award points based on if a sim makes a mistake or does something special. Examples of this would be a slip and fall during "trick slide" on the lawn slide, or a back flip during "show off moves" on the dance floor.
There was enough variety in the scores to hand out 1st-4th place, even with sims of the same skill levels and buffs. It's enough to move forward. After I figure out how the scoring works, I set up a schedule with the events I think are going to run well.
Cooking (Duos)
Dishes are scored on quality and serving size
Water Sliding (Individual)
Bonus points for spins. Lose points for falls
Rock Wall (Team)
Least amount of falls wins.
Dance Floor (Individual)
Points awarded based on dance moves.
The last challenge to be tested was cooking, and I ran into a speed bump here. It's supposed to be the first event so I don't have to set up the kitchens twice, but the sims keep dropping the ingredients on the floor. Just throw it in the oven! I'm getting a little crabby at this point. I'm going to be stuck here until this activity works.
I test a few kitchen configurations and find out that I am goofing up on something simple. I was using CC kitchen counters. They are base game recolors, but they are not autonomy friendly. I will have to be careful with custom content. Here is one of the setups after things start working properly.
After I finish preparing the first round, it's time to have a look at the sims and get them ready. It's been a at least a day since I checked in, and they've been on their own the whole time. I better not walk into an orgy down there. I go down to discover that everyone is basically living off of popcorn. You can't just eat popcorn all day. I take the popcorn machine away
I also discover there is the problem of two very thirsty vampires, and 14 eligible necks, locked in a basement together.
I decide I'll just let them do their thing and watch the drama unfold. Delicious.
After a few showers and directed vampire attacks I send everyone away for bed. Except for Ron Yobu. He's allowed a snack, he's going to need those curves.
After everyone is all rested up, I use Little Ms Sam's Social Activities to send away the 8 other sims who aren't playing in the first challenge. It would be cool to have them here to spectate, but it's going to run a lot faster if they aren't around. These sims will be queuing up their own cooking interactions in the first round, and I'm praying for this to go smooth the first time. No reshoots. I hope.
Without any further ado, it's time to play Battle Sims. Let's see if this thing is going to work.
Round 1: Cooking (Duos)
8 Dishes are scored on quality and serving size.
A dish is 1 point. Dishes with 4 or more servings get 1pt bonus. 'Excellent' dishes get 1pt bonus. 1st and 2nd teams to finish get 1 bonus point. In the case of a tie, the team with the most 'excellent' dishes wins.
Sims in this round
Bert Munchie
Billie Raygun
Ernie Blunt
Gretta Maw
Moe Solomon
Skeeter Jinsky
Pia Pazeet
Tiz Nmak
I wanted fireworks for this, but the CBSL said it's not in our budget. Something about, "16 rock walls". Maybe next time. Let the sim begin!
Green gets off to a strong start as Skeeter goes straight for the stove. Moe is at the prep station laying down some simple syrup.
Gretta gets off to a shaky start, Ernie remembers that he was supposed to be doing something today
A couple minutes later and the cook-off is going at full speed. It's working!
Skeeter and Moe move ahead of the group with an alternating flip pattern at the stoves. The general principle at work here is the more you flip the food, the better it is.
Tiz finishes his first dish, a white cake. Bert begins to make spaghetti (it's 9:30am).
Billie is back at the prep station working on something breakfast-y. Gretta starts to pick up the pace, she may have to carry Ernie through this.
With multiple dishes down for each team, it looks like Bert and Billie are going to chase Skeeter and Moe to the finish
Blue team is quick to respond, and Tiz taps into his alien mind control powers with Pia for a double mixing maneuver
Blue is doing a great job of catching up until Tiz walks over to the Red side and starts staring at Billie. What's he doing? Does he want a cookie? Is he mind reading? Only Tiz knows!
[PAUSE!] After the stare down, I had to assign these sims back to the dishes they were working on, so green doesn't pull too far ahead.
[GAME ON!] While everyone was standing around waiting to reset, Tiz ran back to the prep station and started cooking again. Whatever that was, it was socially awkward but effective! Blue team moves to #2 in the dish count
Ding ding! Skeeter drops some very hastily chopped tomatoes down to finish their 8th dish. Green finishes 1st for 1 bonus point. Let's hope the food quality is good too!
As green team takes their leave, it's up to Red and Blue to decide who finishes next
Pia quickly finishes an 8th dish, and Blue team finishes second for 1 bonus point. It looks like Tiz's gambit has paid off. Anything to win!
After Red and Yellow team finish up, I gather all the meals together to tally the scores. If all these scores turn out to be equal, I think I might be sick. Almost as sick as the panning in this gif is making me. Drum roll please.
What a round! There were a few surprises in here, like Ernie scoring 9 points. There was also way more spaghetti than I expected! There's always more spaghetti. Here's a breakdown.
Skeeter and Moe win the first ever round of Battle Sims with 20 points, total beast mode! +4 gems
Gretta and Ernie win the 2nd place tiebreaker at 17 points with 6 excellent dishes, more than any other team! +3 gems
Pia and Tiz earn the second +1 bonus point for expedience, but they couldn't stare their dishes into excellence. Better luck next time, Tiz! +2 gems
Billie and Bert are down, but not out. They will be back, there's still 12 gems left to play for! +1 gem
With the first round out of the way, I send all the battle sims back down to the barracks to regroup and start getting ready for the next round. We will pick it back up from there in the next post. It was a long journey but it's finally here. I hope you enjoyed it.
I've left a voting option so you can vote for a team. Vote for the underdog, vote for your favorite! Do whatever you want. The team with the most votes gets a special gift, and it just might help them win the whole thing. Thanks for reading.
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