Much Games Offical Strategy Guide The Sims 2 Nightlife Strategy Guide Written by Mike Thorne ------------ Legal Notice ------------ This strategy guide is an offical Much Games strategy guide and is legal copyrighted materal of Much Games. This guide may not be reproduced, redistributed or appear on any other website with out the express written consent of Much Games. See http://www.muchgames.ca/index.asp?action=copyright ----------------- Table of Contents ----------------- 1. Introduction 2. System Requirements 3. Whats new 3.1 Pleasure Aspiration 3.2 Downtown 3.3 Chemistry 3.4 Turn Ons and Turn Offs 3.5 Cars 3.6 Vampires 4. Neighbourhoods 4.1 Pleasantview 4.2 Strangetown 4.3 Veronaville 5. Creating your Sims 5.1 Sims 2 Body Shop 5.1.1 Build Sims Vs Create Parts 5.1.2 Build Sims 5.1.3 Create Parts 5.1.4 Create Genentics 5.1.5 Create Facial Hair, Makeup, and Glasses 5.1.6 Clothing 5.1.7 Hot Keys 6. Aspiration 6.1 Fortune 6.2 Knowledge 6.3 Family 6.4 Romance 6.5 Popularity 6.6 Grow Up 6.7 Aspiration Rewards 7. Personality 8. Needs 9. Skills 10. Birth to Death 10.1 Types of Deaths 11. Careers 11.1 Getting Promoted 11.2 Career Rewards 11.3 Maternaty Leave 12. School 12.1 Public School 12.2 Private School 13. Falling in Love 14. Parties 15. Build Mode 15.1 Decks & Foundations 15.2 Basements 15.3 Swimming Pools 16. Buy Mode 17. Cheat Codes --------------- 1. Introduction --------------- The Sims 2 Nightlife is the second expansion pack for The Sims 2. ---------------------- 2. System Requirements ---------------------- If you have a T&L capable video card with at least 32 MB of video RAM then you need at least: 800 MHz processor or better 256 MB RAM if Windows XP, Windows ME, Windows 98 or Windows 2000 At least 3.5 GB of hard drive space If you have a non-T&L capable video card (an Intel Extreme Graphics or a Radeon 7000/VE Series) then you need at least: 2.0 GHz processor or better 256 MB RAM if Windows XP, Windows ME, Windows 98, or Windows 2000 At least 1.5GB of hard drive space (5 GB of hard drive space for both The Sims 2 and Nightlife and 6 GB of hard drive space for The Sims 2, University, and Nightlife) Supported video cards (and the more video memory the better): ATI RadeonTM series (7000 or better) Radeon 7000/VE series (non-T&L; requires 2.0 GHz processor) 7200, 7500 8500, All-In-Wonder 8500 9000, 9200, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800 X300, X600, X800 Nvidia® QuadroTM series Quadro, Quadro2, Quadro4 Nvidia® Geforce series (GeForce2 and better) GeForce2 GeForce3, 3 Ti GeForce4, 4Ti, MX 420, 440 GeForce FX 5200, 5600, 5700, 5800, 5900, 5950 GeForce 6600, 6800 Intel® Extreme Graphics (non-T&L; requires 2.0 GHz processor) 82845, 82865, 82915 ------------ 3. Whats new ------------ Some of the new features in the Sims 2 Nightlife are the new Pleasure aspiration, downtown, turn ons and turn offs, chemistry, cars, and vampires. Not to mention the over 100 new objects, being able to go on dates, and being able to form casual groups for poker night or just a night on the town. ----------------------- 3.1 Pleasure Aspiration ----------------------- The Pleasure aspiration is a new aspiration you can set for your outgoing sims who wants to live a good life by having fun. Some of the lifetime wants a sim with the pleasure aspiration will have are: Become a professional party guest, have 50 first dates, and have 50 dream dates. Some of a pleasure sims day to day wants are: play poker, have a dream date, have a first date, go bowling, and win trophies. ------------ 3.2 Downtown ------------ The downtown is a new neighbourhood that you can add to an existing neighbourhood like you can in The Sims 2 University when you add a university to a neighbourhood. Downtown has a wide varity of community lots where your sims can go shopping, bar hopping, or even get something to eat at one of the restaurants, or if your sim wants to live downtown there are a few residential lots to choose from. A side effect of going downtown too often could result in your sims getting bitten by a vampire if you get to know the count and/or the countessa a little too well. ------------- 3.3 Chemistry ------------- Chemistry effects the relationship between 2 sims. The more chemistry a relationship has the faster 2 sims will fall in love with each other. Chemistry is indicated by lightning bolts in the bottom right corner of there picture in the relationship panel. The more lightning bolts the better the chemistry. The most lightning bolts a relationship can have is 3. It is possable for a relationship to have no chemistry and that is indicated by lightning bolts with a red X going through them. What effects the chemistry of a relationship is each sims turn ons and turn offs. This will determan how much chemistry the relationship has and the number of lightning bolts that will appear. Turn ons and turn offs are what make sims attracted to each other just like real life. The more lightning bolts a relationship has the faster the daily and lifetime relationship bars fill up. If there are no lightning bolts meaning no chemistry then there will be very little impact to the daily relationship bar and no impact to the lifetime relationship bar. Lightning bolts with a red x going through them means there is bad chemistry in the relationship with a high risk of hating that sim and there is no increase to the daily or lifetime relationship bars. One, two, or three lightning bolts mean there is good chemistry in the relationship and the increase in the daily and lifetime relationship bars depend on the number of lightning bolts there are. -------------------------- 3.4 Turn Ons and Turn Offs -------------------------- Turn ons and turn offs effect the chemistry in a relationship by either increasing or decreasing it. Turn ons and turn offs are what make 2 sims attracted to each other. With every sim you create or every sim that turns into a teen you must give them 2 turn ons and 1 turn off. Sims that have been created before the Sims 2 Nightlife must drink the ReNuYu Porta-Chug potition to set their turn ons and turn offs. There are 18 turn ons and turn offs but you are only able to have 2 turn ons and 1 turn off. The turn ons and turn offs are: Fat Fit Stink Cologne Vampirism Formal wear Swim suits Underwear Make UP Full Face Make Up Glasses Hat Facial Hair Black Hair Brown Hair Blonde Hair Red Hair Gray Hair Custom Hair -------- 3.5 Cars -------- Finally no more car pools as long as your sim is set as the cars owner. When you first buy a car and put it in the driveway or the garage the car has no owner even thou you might have 2 adult sims and 1 teenage sim who drive the car. Setting a car owner only effects the car pool not showing up for the sim you set as car owner and all your sims who is a teenager or older on that lot can drive the car. Cars can only be place in a driveway or garage. Driveways and garages can take up a fair amount of space depending on the size of the lot. Adding a driveway or garage on a small lot will take up a lot of space and will limit expanding your sims house to adding another floor to the top of the house or the bottom by building a basement. Now on to the cars that every sims fan has been waiting for for so long. There are 5 different cars your sims can drive that vary in price and they range from the cheap heap of junk that picks you up when your sim first gets a job to the expensive sports car that picks you up when you reach the top of a career. ------------ 3.6 Vampires ------------ The Sims 2 came with aliens, The Sims 2 University introduced zombies and now The Sims 2 Nightlife introduces vampires. Unlike aliens and zombies vampires have to stay away from sunlight (what else is new) and they sleep in coffins. You can easily spot a vampire by their pale skin, red eyes, fangs, and the way they walk. There are 2 main vampires the Count and Countessa who can be found downtown. The more time you spend downtown the higher the chance of meeting the Count or Countessa. Once you have meet them the more you will see them and take note of your relationship bars with them as the higher they get the more likely they will bite you and turn you into a vampire. This usually happens when you become best friends with them and because they are vampires the lifetime bar only needs to get to 50 to become best friends unlike the 70 it takes to become a best friend with another sim. If your sim has been bitten by a vampire and your freeking out because you don't want them to be one then don't worry because your sim can be cured. All you have to do is pick up the phone and call the match maker which is located under services. When she comes over greet her and then on her and click potions and then select Vamprocillin-D. Once the effected sim drinks the Vamprocillin-D they will be instantly cured and return back to there normal form. ----------------- 4. Neighbourhoods ----------------- When you first start the game a menu will appear with the different neighbourhoods you can play. You can play any one of the pre-made neighbourhoods Pleasantview, Strangetown, Veronaville, or you can create your own. Each of the 3 pre-made neighbourhoods has its own story and pre-built houses and families you can play or you can create your own family. ---------------- 4.1 Pleasantview ---------------- In Pleasantview there are 8 pre-made families Goth, Pleasant, Dreamer, Caliente, Broke, Lothario, Burb, and Oldie. The Burb and Oldie families are the only 2 families that are found in the family bin. --------------- 4.2 Strangetown --------------- In Strangetown there are 7 pre-made families Spector, Curious, Smith, Grunt, Beaker, Loner, and Singles. The 2 families you can find in the family bin are the Singles and Loner. --------------- 4.3 Veronaville --------------- In Veronavile there are also 7 pre-made families Monty, Capp, Summerdream, Monty, Monty, Capp, and Capp. This time there are 4 families in the family bin Monty, Monty, Capp and Capp. --------------------- 5. Creating your sims --------------------- Creating your Sims is rather easy and sometimes time consuming depending on how many sims you want in your family. To create a family you need to be in a neighbourhood and select the family bin. When you click on the family bin button you will see the families that you can move into the neighbourhood and the create a family button. It looks like the family bin button with a + sign on it. Clicking on this button will take you to Create A Sim (CAS). Once the CAS has loaded the first thing you do here is enter in the last name of your sims family. Once you have that done you will then need to add a sim to the family. Adding a sim to a family is very simple all you have to do is click the button that has a sim head and a plus sign on it and you can then select adult or child. In order to add a child you must create and adult first. Once thats done a screen will load with a sim on it and this is where you choose the sims gender, first name, skin color, sims age, fitness level, and biography. You do not have to enter in a biograhpy if you don't want to. Now that you have 1 done its time to move onto 2. This is where you Choose your Sims head. There will be different heads depending on what you have your sims, age, gender and skin color set to. Once you have selected your head its onto 3 hair styles and color. Here you can change your sims hair style and color to suit your sims. You can also change your sims face shape, brow size and shape, eye color and shape, nose size and shape, mouth size and shape, and jaw and chin size and shape. Now that you have setup your hair and eyes its onto makeup. Here you have lipstick, eyeliner, eye shadow, blush, and costume makeup. Now its time to plan your outfit. Here you select your sims everyday, formal, undies, pj's, swimwear, and athletic wear. This can be a long progress because there are so many different outfits to choose from. Unlike The Sims 1 where you scroll through outfits, well this time its a lot different because with everyday outfits you can either select your sims outfits by selecting one of three choices. 1 Outfits, 2 Tops, and 3 Bottoms. By selecting outfits you will be browsing a group of pre-made outfits which is fine, or you can get creative and play the mix and match game by selecting a top and a bottom. Once you have selected your outfits its onto the shortest part of CAS Personality. Here you select your sims asperation and zodiac sign. Depending on which asperation you choose will reflect the different life goals for your sims and depending on which zodiac sign you choose will determin your sims moods and activity levels. Now that you have everything done there is just one more step left and thats click the check mark under number 6 and now you have created your sim. To add another sim to the family just follow the steps above again. Before exiting CAS and moving you sims into a house you need to setup there relationships. Inorder to do this you click on the icon that looks like a family tree. Once thats done click on a sim and drag the sim over another sim and release. Now a box will appear asking the relationship of the sims are. they can be room mates, siblings, spouse, or child of the sim you selected. Do this for every sim in your family. When you are done just click the check mark to return to the family picture. Now you can click the check mark and move your family into a house. If your family only has one sim then youcan skip this step. -------------------- 5.1 Sims 2 Body Shop -------------------- The Sims 2 Body Shop is a program that shipped with The Sims 2 that is used for creating sims and creating body parts. -------------------------------- 5.1.1 Build Sims vs Create Parts -------------------------------- It's important to comprehend specifically what each part of the Sims 2 Body Shop does. Build Sims: assemble created, or downloaded parts into a finished sim. You may also duplicate any sim in the bin and use it for the basis for another new sim. Create Parts: Use built-in, already created, or downloaded sim pieces to create brand new parts. ---------------- 5.1.2 Build Sims ---------------- Build Sims consists of two sections Clone Sims, and Build Sims. Clone Sims: Using the bin full of Sims you’ve downloaded or assembled, you can pick one to form the basis of a new Sim or choose to start a brand new Sim from scratch. Saved Sims may be deleted from here too. Build Sims: Once a Sim has been cloned or freshly created, you can mix and match any Genetics (eye color, skin tone, or hair), Faces (entire face or by region), Modifications (several for each facial region), Facial Hair, Makeup, Glasses, Eyebrows, Stubble, Costume Makeup, or Clothing. These elements may have been created by you, by Maxis, or by other users. Build Sims allows you to put together various Sim parts you’ve created or downloaded into one glorious, statuesque creation. You can’t, of course, name these Sims or tinker with their personalities or aspirations, but you can choose how they look. Much but not all of what can be done in Build Sims can be done in the in-game Create-A-Sim. For example, in Build Sims, you can effectively edit finished Sims; this isn’t possible in Create-A-Sim. In Create-A-Sim, when you work your magic on a Sim from scratch or from the Sim Bin, you save that Sim into a family. Once the family is saved, that Sim exists only in that family and cannot be changed. Likewise, there’s no saved original copy of your creation that you can go back to; if you want to make the same Sim with a different personality or aspiration, you must start from scratch. In The Sims 2 Body Shop, however, any Sim you’ve completed can be cloned and modified. Though you aren’t really editing the original Sim, the effect is the same: you can fix problems or create small variations and save that Sim too. The original is still available and unchanged; you may delete it and save only the altered clone if you like. When a Sim is finished, you can package it either into a file or directly up to TheSims2.com. A packaged file can be traded among users. If you receive one, just double click on the package file and the new Sim will be saved into the right place (presuming you have The Sims 2 Body Shop or the game installed). ------------------ 5.1.3 Create Parts ------------------ Create Parts is what really differentiates The Sims 2 Body Shop and Create-A-Sim. In Create Parts you don’t change the Sim as a whole, but rather many of the components that make up a Sim. Want to create hot pink eyes? This is where you go. Create Parts consists of two tools: Start New Project: Take any Sim part in the catalog and alter it to your precise vision. Load Saved Project: Reload your own projects for further editing. Parts fall into three categories: Create Genetics: Create the color of eyes and the shape of pupils and irises, the tone of skin, and the color of hair. Create Facial Hair, Makeup, and Glasses: Generate the texture of eyebrows, the amount of men’s facial hair stubble, the look of beards and mustaches, the color and pattern of makeup (blush, eye shadow, eyeliner, and lipstick), costume makeup (a.k.a. face painting/facial tattoos), and the color and texture of eyeglasses. Create Clothing: Design clothing for each sartorial category (Everyday, Formal, Undies, PJs, Swimwear, and Athletic). You may even change an outfit’s classification, for example, turn Undies into Formal. ---------------------- 5.1.4 Create Genentics ---------------------- Genetics are the basic Sim features that are passed from generation to generation: eyes, hair, and skin tone. Each is edited differently in The Sims 2 Body Shop. Within each skin tone are textures for each age group, gender, and fitness level. To completely manipulate a skin tone, you must alter every file in the project folder. Every skin tone is actually a collection of 39 files: Five textures each for male and female elders (soft, neutral, fit, face, and the head). Five textures each for male and female adults (soft, neutral, fit, face, and the head). Five textures each for male and female teens (soft, neutral, fit, face, and the head). Three textures for children (body, face, and the head). Three textures for toddlers (body, face, and the head). Three textures for babies (body, face, and the head). If you alter only some of these files, when a Sim changes to the unmodified age or fitness level in the game, he or she will suddenly revert to the original skin tone. The same would happen for offspring; if the Sim has a child and that age is not modified, the child won’t look like the parent. Eyes are exported as two files: the texture file and the alpha channel file. In the texture file, you may change the coloring and shape of the iris and the color and shape of the pupil. A hair project contains files for each age group (except babies; they’re bald) for the specified gender. The texture files can be changed to alter the color or texture of the hair, though not the hairstyle’s overall shape or configuration. Hairstyles are actually 3D models that can’t be altered with The Sims 2 Body Shop. You can use the alpha channel file to superficially change the shape of the hair. By making parts of the image black, you can cover up parts of a hairstyle to make it look shorter or show bare patches. However, because the hairstyle is a 3D model, an alpha-channel-altered hairstyle in-game still moves as if it’s longer hair. --------------------------------------------- 5.1.5 Create Facial Hair, Makeup, and Glasses --------------------------------------------- Anything that goes on the face is constructed here. Eyebrow, stubble, and beard projects consist of colored and gray (for elders) versions of the facial hair. The texture file can be altered for color, shape, and texture of the hair. All makeup projects, regardless of type, export a texture and an alpha channel file. The texture file dictates the color and shading of the makeup. The alpha channel file can be changed to extend the makeup into other parts of the face (by painting parts of the file white instead of black). For example, if you want ancient Egyptian-style eye shadow, you’d extend the outer eye corners. Right after you export the files, you can specify (in The Sims 2 Body Shop) which ages and genders you want the makeup to apply to (from toddler to elder). While you cannot change the shape of glasses or the lens colors in The Sims 2 Body Shop, you can alter the color of the frames. The project folder contains several texture files, each of which represents a piece of the frames (the temples, the rims, etc.). Edit them all to completely change the frame color. -------------- 5.1.6 Clothing -------------- Clothing of every type (Everyday, Formal, Undies, Swimwear, PJs, and Athletic) can be altered. You can even change an item’s classification to have it appear as a different type. Clothing projects consist of three files: the texture, the alpha channel, and the bump map. Alterations to the texture file change the garment’s color. The alpha channel file lets you superfi-cially change the shape of the garment, though drastic changes aren’t possible. You can, for instance, create cut-outs to show off a little skin by painting part of the white portions black. The bump map file creates the illusion of three dimensionality in the garment. If you want to make a smooth T-shirt look ribbed, for example, you could change the bump map. Want to make some manly undies into any Sims’ everyday wear? In Create Parts, choose Create Clothing. Select the clothing category and specific item you wish to change, then click the Export Selected Texture button. Name the project and click the checkmark. When the clothing finishes exporting, you may select in which category your clothing will appear. Choose something other than its original category (and enter a tool tip if you like), and click the Import To Game button. Now, when you go into The Sims 2 Body Shop’s Build Sim mode or Create-A-Sim in the The Sims 2, there’ll be some real scandalous formal wear for Sims brave enough to don it. When a project is complete, click on the Import to Game button and the part will hence-forth be available in the Build Sims portion of The Sims 2 Body Shop or in Create-A-Sim in The Sims 2. If you don’t yet have The Sims 2 installed, the appropriate files will be automatically moved over into the game when it’s installed. -------------- 5.1.7 Hot Keys -------------- Several features dear to the hearts of Sim designers and fansite webmasters are available with a single keystroke. F3: Free camera. Hold the left-mouse button and drag to move the camera. Hold the right mouse button and drag to zoom. Hold both mouse buttons and drag to pan. To return to the standard camera, press 3 again. F5 : Turns off the room background. Normally, this replaces the room background with a black void. You can customize this void by creating a pattern and saving it with the name userBkg.bmp. Place this file in \My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\. Henceforth, when you turn off the room with 5, it will be replaced with this texture. This is very handy if you’ll be posting Sims on your fansite and want to know how they’ll look against your site’s background. F6 : Puts the Sim in the awkward looking, but easier to view, “Bind” pose. To get out of this pose, click on any thumbnail of in the panel to the right. F7 : Jump to far zoom. F8 : Jump to close zoom. F9: Drops the The Sims 2 Body Shop interface. Pressing again restores it. alt+enter: Toggles The Sims 2 Body Shop into/out of Full Screen mode. ------------- 6. Aspiration ------------- Aspiration is a list of a sims life goals that consists of wants and fears. When a sim acheives a want they will gain aspiration points and when one of there fears come true they will lose aspiration points. A sims wants and fears are different for each aspiration and different wants and fears have different point values. -------------------- 6.1 Fortune -------------------- The fortune aspiration is for the sims who want to be rich, marry a rich sim and buy expensive things. These are just some of the things that will get you the most aspiration points to buy those aspiration rewards. The wants that score the highest aspiration points are: Be An Overachiever (8,000) Big Bonus (5,000) Marry a Rich Sim (15,000) Earn $50,000 (10,000) Reach the Top of a Career (15,000) -------------------- 6.2 Knowledge -------------------- Knowledge is the right aspiration for your sims if you want them to be a book worm, get abducted by aliens, or see a ghost. Some of the wants that score the most aspiration points are: Ask for Homework Help (2,500) Get A+ Report Card (3,000) Maximize a Skill (8,000) Meet Aliens (8,000) See a Ghost (3,000) Reach the Top of the Science Career (15,000) Maximize All Skills (30,000) Be Saved from Death (8,000) ---------- 6.3 Family ---------- The family aspiration is for those who like making babies. Some of there highest scoring wants are: Get Engaged (5,000) Get Married (8,000) Teach to Walk (5,000) Teach to Talk (5,000) Teach Potty Training (5,000) Help with Homework (5,000) Get a Grandchild (8,000) Have a baby (8,000) have 10 babies (15,000) have 10 grand kids (15,000) ----------- 6.4 Romance ----------- Romance is for the ones who like meeting people, flirting with people, and doing woohoo with x number of sims. The following wants score the highest aspiration points: Have Very First Kiss (8,000) WooHoo (3,500) Have 2 Loves at Once (8,000) WooHoo with 3 Different Sims (8,000) Reach the Top of the Slacker Career (15,000) ------------- 6.5 Popularity ------------- Popularity aspiration is for sims who like making friends, throwing lots of great parties, and winning fights. The wants that will score the highest amount of points are: Have a Great Party (5,000) Have 3 Best Friends (8,000) Sell a Masterpiece (6,000) Win Fight (5,000) Reach the Top of the Politics Career (15,000) Reach the Top of the Athletic Career (15,000) ----------- 6.6 Grow Up ----------- The grow up aspiration is for toddlers and children. As a toddler your sims biggest wants are: want to be potty trained, learn to talk, and learn to walk. Each of these will earn 2000 points. As for children there biggest wants are: make a friend, do homework, and ask for homework help. These wants will earn between 1000 and 2000 points. ---------------------- 6.7 Aspiration Rewards ---------------------- There are quite a few aspiration rewards each costing different aspiration points and they all do different things. When using aspiration rewards your aspiration meter must be gold or platinum for them to work if not there will be side effects. Money tree (3000) The money tree is a great way to earn some extra money or it could be used as the main source of income if you have enough. The money tree only requires you to water it and pick the money off of it. Beware, if you have a gardner or have people over they will pick the money off the tree. Noodlesoother (5,000) When you use the Noodlesoother, your Mood will automatically be increased by 50 points. Your Needs will decay more quickly, though. If you fail at using it, you'll pass out from a complete lack of Energy, and your Mood will obviously take a concurrent nosedive. Pasteur's HomoGenius Smart Milk (7,500) Smart Milk is a great reward to use because it makes a toddler learn faster and is great when teaching a toddler to walk, talk, and be potty trained. After feeding a toddler the smart milk the toddler will be glowing and learns at a rate 5x faster then normal. Even thou this is a great reward to use it also has a disadvantage, and that is it can only be used 5 times. Cool Shades (10,000) Cool Shades is great for sims who are shy. You get 5 pairs of shades that will boost your social interactions. However there is a negative side effect if the interaction gets rejected. The Eclectic and Enigmatic Energizer (14,000) This is another one of the games best aspiration rewards. Again with only 5 uses the energizer will max out all your sims needs expect for enviroment. However the energizer has major side effects if used below gold by having the opposite effect on your sims needs. Thinking Cap (16,000) The thinking cap is a very usefull reward when it comes to gaining skill points by cutting the time required to gain each skill in half. The thinking cap will wear out after 24 hours of use. SimVac (17,500) The simvac is great if you hate a sim. The simvac will absorb either aspiration or a skill point from a sim. When absorbing aspiration your sim will receive 3000 points and there aspiration meter will fill up. When absoring a skill the simvac will ramdomly select a skill point to transfer to your sim. The simvac can only be used 5 times. Love Tub (20,000) If romance aint your thing then the love tub is for you. The love tub will only last for 4 hours but the time will only decrease if you and or someone else is in the tub. When you are in the tub your social interactions with the person that is in with you increase and so will your friendship meters. The best thing about the love tub is that after the candles have burned out you still have a perfectly good hot tub and it didn't even cost you any money. Genuine Buck's Famous Counterfeiting Machine (27,750) Why earn money when you can print it yourself? Thats what the Genuine Buck's Famous Counterfeiting Machine allows you to do. This machine is a great second source of income for your sims, however to make it your primary source of income you sim will be cranking that handle a long time because it takes a while just to get a couple of hundred bucks. Elixir of Life (30,580) Last but not least the elixir of life. Even thou it costs a lot of aspiration points it works as the fountain of youth. With every use it adds an extra 3 days to your sims life. After you have used up all 5 uses you will add 15 extra days to your sims life. If your aspiration meter is below gold you will instead lose 3 days of your sims life or it can kill you if you are close to death of old age. -------------- 7. Personality -------------- When you create your sim you have to pick a zodiac sign for your sim. Each of the 12 zodiac signs will cause your sims to react differently with each other, how playful they are, and how sloppy they are. The zodiac signs will also have a different number of points in each of the 5 following categories and are on a scale of 1-10: sloppy/neat, shy/outgoing, lazy/active, serious/playful, grouchy/nice. The following is a list of the zodiac signs and there traits. Zodiac sign | Sloppy/neat | Shy/outgoing | Lazy/Active | Serious/playful | Grouchy/nice Aries | 5 | 8 | 6 | 3 | 3 Taurus | 5 | 5 | 3 | 8 | 4 Gemini | 4 | 7 | 8 | 3 | 3 Cancer | 6 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 6 Leo | 4 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 3 Virgo | 9 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 5 Libra | 2 | 8 | 2 | 6 | 7 Scropio | 6 | 5 | 8 | 3 | 3 Sagittarius | 2 | 3 | 9 | 7 | 4 Capricorn | 7 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 5 Aquarius | 4 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 6 Pisces | 4 | 3 | 7 | 3 | 7 Sloppy/Neat Sloppy Sims are just that, sloppy, they will not clean up after themself, or make there beds. A neat Sim will always wash the dishes after eating, and make the bed after getting up. If your Sim only has a few neat points, around 4 - 6 they will some times clean up, to take out the trash, and maybe even flush the toilet. Shy/Outgoing A shy Sim although still needing some social interaction won't really want to join in on activities, and their social bar will not drop very fast. An outgoing Sim needs to have people around and will want to have parties. Great for Popularity Aspiration Sims, you will have to watch the social bar closely or your Sim will not want to learn any Sim Skills. Lazy/Active A lazy Sim want to lounge around and watch TV or relax and read a book to have fun. Whereas a active Sim will get more out of dancing, working out and other activities like swimming. Take note of this as it will help working out what is best to increase your Sims fun levels. Serious/Playful Serious Sims don't like to 'play' with other Sims. They don't like to tickle or be tickled etc. A playful Sim will get more social rating out of the play options (Tickle, Red Hands) than a Serious Sim. Grouchy/Nice This is an easy one, a grouchy Sim will be hard to get along with other Sims, and a nice Sim will get along with anyone. Grouchy Sims will find it hard to make and keep friends, and nice Sims will make friends easy. Other non-player controlled Sims will react to how grouchy/nice your Sim is. -------- 8. Needs -------- Your sims have 8 needs that need to be kept in the green in order for your sim to be in a good mood. If you don't pay attention to your sims needs and let them go to zero your sim will die. The 8 needs of you Sim are, Hunger, Energy, Fun, Social, Hygiene, Comfort, Bladder and Environment. If you remember from the sims 1 one of the needs there was room and as you can see the room need is not in the Sims 2, but the environment need takes the place of the room need. The following is a list and description of each of the needs. Hunger Personally, this is the most important of the 8 needs, although you don't need to keep this full, if it gets to zero your sim will die. It is important to note that if you are sick, or pregnant, then your hunger bar will decease faster. Energy Your Sims energy will go down as you Sim does activity. There are three ways to increase you Sims energy levels, sleep, nap and drink coffee. If your Sim runs out of energy, when the bar goes red, your sim will collapse on the floor and sleep there. If this happens you will need to wake you Sim and put them to bed. Fun This is another important Sim need as if this need is not looked after then your Sim will refuse to learn new Sim Skills and will be more grumpy. There are a lot of ways to increase your Sims fun levels, the best of these is the play Computer games. You can also chat online read a book, watch TV, and dance. Some activities that increase fun also help towards you Sim Skills, like painting, playing chess and stargazing. Each Sim will have different things that they prefer to do to keep fun up in there lives, and this can effect how fast your fun goes up. Social This is one of the need that is impacted by your Sims personality. If your Sim is Outgoing then they will need more interaction with other Sims. A good way to keep the social bar up is to eat meals with otherSims. When socialising, the higher level activities will increase your Sims social bar faster, things like hugging, kiss and entertaining work better than just talking. Also, some things can increase both social and fun, like watch TV together, playing games together and dancing. Hygiene Hygiene will decrease throughout the day, however some events can cause this to decrease faster, such as working out or wet yourself. Take a shower or have a bath to increase this, you can also wash you hands to help this. When you Sim is sick, hygiene will also drop faster. Comfort This is your Sims comfort level, and something that you should be aware but can be easily handled. Your Sims comfort will increase whenever you sleep or sit down. Some items are able to increase your Sims comfort better than others, so it pays to get a better bed and chairs. Bladder This is pretty easy, you just need to tell your Sim to go to the toilet. If the bar gets down to red, your Sim will have an accident and wet yourself. Drink coffee and being pregnant will cause your Sims bladder bar to go down faster. Environment This is how your Sim feels about the room they are in. The best way to keep this up is to have the room well lit, so put in plenty of lights. The environment rating will go down if there are dirty plates, or other mess and the room rating will also be decreased by cheap furniture. You can also increase the environment by putting up pictures and other decorations. --------- 9. Skills --------- Your sims have 7 skills that they can learn from and these skills are required for job promotion. Depending on your job your sim will be required to increase certain skills and sometimes its quite a few skill points. The 7 skills are Cooking, Mechanical, Charisma, Body, Logic, Creativity and Cleaning. You can max out a skill when you reach level 10 in any one of the 7 skills. If your sim has an aspiration of knowledge then your sim will want to max out these skills. Out of these skills there are 2 that your sim benifits from other than getting promoted. Cooking and Creativity are the 2 skills that will best benifit your sims because with each new cooking skill your sim receives your sim learns to prepare a new meal and with each new meal learned the more your hunger need will increase. With creativity the more creativity skill points your sim has the more you can sell paintings for, thus creating a second income. The Mechanical skill can also be helpful because you wont need to hire a repairman to fix things, however unless your sim has a really high number of mechanical skill points DON'T repair electronics as you will get electrocution. ----------------- 10. Birth to Death ----------------- In a sims life your sim will go through 6 stages: baby, toddler, child, teenager, adult, and elder. The baby stage is the shortest of them all and it only takes 3 sim days for your baby to grow into a toddler. However when the baby is 2 days you can make the baby turn into a toddler by buying a birthday cake and have an adult sim or a teenage sim take the baby to the cake to blow out the candles. Even thou the baby stage is the shortest it is also the hardest because babies need a lot of attention, to be feed, diaper changes, and sleep at aquward hours it really does the number on your adult sims needs. Before your toddler grows into a child there are 3 import things you must teach your toddler: Learn to walk, learn to talk, and be potty trained. These have to be done within the 4 days of this stage. If you don't get all 3 of these completed then that is fine because once the toddler turns into a child it will know how to do what you could not teach them. Even thou you don't have to teach these things to your toddler it is recommened that you do so that your toddler will have happy memories when it turns into a child. If you want your toddler to learn these 3 things faster so your adult sims aren't wasting 4 days teaching these thing to your toddler you can buy the Pasteur's HomoGenius Smart Milk for 7,500 aspiration points so your toddler can learn at an accelerated rate. Once your toddler has become a child, your child will now be going to school and will want to do homework and be helped with homework. The child stage will last for 8 days and in these 8 days the child will want to learn to study, make friends, get and A+ report card, and get into private school. Teenager stage is the start of the real aspirations now that your sim has completed the aspiration grow-up. As a teenager your sim will want to fall in love and get part-time jobs. The teenager stage will last for 15 days which is plenty of time for your sim to fall in love and keep their grades up while having a part-time job. A teenager is just like having another adult in the house because teenagers are now able to cook and help look after babies and toddlers. The thing a teenager can't do that an adult can is woohoo. Now that your sim is an adult your sim will be in this stage for 29 days. Your adult sim also gets a full-time job after transforming from a teenager. Thats if your sim had a part-time job as a teenager. As an adult your sim can now get engaged, get married, woohoo, and have babies. However if your adult female sim is 3 days away from becoming an elder she can no longer be able to get pregnant. You will also want your adult sims to get as many job promotions as you can so that when you become an elder and retire the bigger pension you will have. Now that your sim is an elder your sims can die anytime from old age. The elder stage don't have a set number of days in it which is why your elder sim can die anytime. Elder sims can be just as good as maids and nannies because of the fact that they don't work any more, and they are home all day and able to clean the house and look after any grandchildren they may have living with them. ------------------- 10.1 Types of Deaths ------------------- There are 9 types of deaths your sims can die from: disease, drowning, electrocution, fire, fly swarm, old age, satellite, scared to death, and starvation. Your sims will die from disease if you have a really dirty house, cockroaches, or eat food that has gone bad and did not get enough rest to get over it. A sim will drown if you make them go swimming with low energy or remove the ladder so they can't get out of the pool. Electrocution happens when your repairs electronics and don't have a lot of mechnaical skill points. Your sim dies by fire when you are cooking and catch your food on fire and don't have a smoke detector to alert the fire department. Death by flies is cause by having a really dirty house with dirty plates on the floor and your sim walks over the plates. Death by old age happens when your sim is an elder. Death by satellite happens when you do a lot of cloud watching or stargazing on the ground. Getting scared to death happens when your sims needs are low and they see a ghost. Starvation is caused by letting your sims hunger need go all the way down to zero. ----------- 11. Careers ----------- The Sims 2 has 10 different career paths your sims can take athletic, business, criminal, culinary, law enforcement, medical, military, politics, science, slacker and new to the Sims 2 Nightlife are: . If you don't want your sim to have a career you should keep in mind that your sim needs money to pay the bills when they come on Tuesday's and Thursdays's or the repo man will take away your sims belongings in order to pay the bills. --------------------- 11.1 Getting Promoted --------------------- Getting your sim promoted can take a long time the higher up your sim is in that career. To get promoted is where your sims skills and social life become a big factor as each new level in a career will require your sim to have a certain number of skills in one or more of the skill categories and a certain number of friends before getting promoted. ------------------- 11.2 Career Rewards ------------------- Each of the 10 careers has a career reward that provides a different way for your sims to get those skill points. You earn each career reward by having a good performance level, doing good on the chance cards that come up every now and then, and getting promoted. The 10 career rewards are as follows: Career | Reward |Skill ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Athletic | Exerto Punching Bag | body Business | Execuputter | charisma Criminal | SensoTwitch Lie Finder | mechanical Culinary | Schokolade 890 Chocolate Manufacturing Facility | cooking Law Enforcement | Prints Charming Fingerprinting Scanner | cleaning Medical | TraumaTime Surgical Training Station | mechanical Military | Exerto Selfflog Obstacle Course | body Politics | Enterprise Office Concepts Bushmaster Teleprompter | charisma Science | Simsanto Inc. Biotech Station | creativity Slacker | AquaGreen Hydroponic Garden | cooking Show Business | Dr. Vu's Automated Cosmetic | Natural Scientist | Laganaphyllis Simnovorii | Paranormal | Resurrect-O-Nomitron | Artist | Luminous Pro Antique Camera | -------------------- 11.3 Maternaty Leave -------------------- Maternaty leave only applies to pregnant sims and lasts 3 days which is the length of the pregnancy. During those 3 days your sim don't do to work until after the baby is born. Maternaty leave is also for male sims who have been abducted by aliens because male sims return home pregnant after there 3 hour journey. ---------- 12. School ---------- Every sim goes to school unless you make them an adult or an edler. Children and teens are the age groups that go to school. The higher your sims grades can increase the amount of money they earn or the skill they will earn. Sims in public school can only earn money and sims in private school can only earn skills. A child will attend school monday to friday from 9am to 3 pm and a teen will also attend also monday to friday but from 9am to 1pm. ------------------ 12.1 Public School ------------------ Public school is where every sim child and teen attends to get good grades and earn money as a result of the good grades. ------------------- 12.2 Private School ------------------- In order for your sim to get accepted into private school you must invite the headmaster over for dinner and must get a score of 90 or more for your sim children and teens to get into private school. Once accepted into private school your child and/or teen will earn skill points for doing good in school. ------------------- 13. Falling in Love ------------------- Falling in love can be quite time consuming or happen in just 1 day depending on your sims daily routin. All it takes to fall in love is for 2 sims to meet either opposite sex or same sex and start off by chatting with them because at this point thats all you can do to get your relationship points going up. Your daily relationship bar should be at 65 or higher to successfully be able to kiss or flirt with the sim you are trying to fall in love with. You will notice that there are 2 bars the daily relationship bar(top) and long term relationship bar (bottom). When the long term relationship bar get to around 70 the couple will fall in love and you can now woohoo them. Teens can't woohoo they can only kiss and flirt. There are 3 different places you can have your sims woohoo: in bed, a hot tub, or a changing room on a community lot. To woohoo in bed click on the bed and select relax from the options and then click on your sims lover and then click ask to join. Once your sims lover gets on the bed you can then click on them and select woohoo or try for baby and then the couple will woohoo. When woohooing in bed the sims will go to sleep when they are finished unless there energy bar is full. With a hot tub all you have to do is get both sims into the hot tub then click on your partner and select cuddle. Once they have cuddled you can now make them woohoo. Sims can not woohoo in a hot tub if there is more then 2 sims in it. A public woohoo is quite easy just click on the cloths rack and try an outfit on. Once your sim is in the changing room click on your partner and select woohoo. Its best to pause the game when selecting your partner so that your sim don't come out of the changing room to check them self out. ----------- 14. Parties ----------- Parties are not a lot different from the sims 1 but you do have to invite your guests and you can throw different types of parties. You can throw a house party, birthday party, wedding party, and even an anniversary party. Unlike in the sims 1 when you threw a party everybody in the neighbourhood showed up, you can now select who you want to invite and you can invite between 1-8 guests depending on your system specs. The key to throwing parties is that the sims you invite have a good time and be fed so it is best to start preparing a meal just after they arrive so you can have the remainder of the party time to interact with your guests and get those relationship points built up. Birthday parties can only be thrown when a sim is 1 day away before they transition into the next phase of there life by buying a birthday cake and making the birthday boy or girl blow out the candles. Babies and toddlers require an adult or teen to bring them to the cake. Wedding parties require that 2 sims be engaged either male and female, male and male, or female and female. When throwing a wedding party make sure that you have purchased the wedding arch so that the engaged sims can get married. An anniversary party can only happen when both of the married sims are an elder. -------------- 15. Build Mode -------------- Build mode is where you can build your sims a house or edit the one they are currently living in. Building a house can take some time depending on the size and shape you make it. Also don't forget to add a roof to your house, its not there to prevent the rain from getting in because it don't rain, it just adds to the look of your house. ------------------------ 15.1 Decks & Foundations ------------------------ Building a deck or foundation is fairly simple you just click, drag, and then let go, now you just built your deck or foundation. You can have your decks and foundations any size, shape and forum. This is made possable because you can make them a rectangle and you can also make them diangle which will allow you to do what you want with your decks and foundations. -------------- 15.2 Basements -------------- Adding a basement to your house can be a pain to do it just takes time and practice to master it. You can make a basement in a new house your building or an existing one. To make a basement in a new house you must first move your sim into an empty lot. Next go into build mode and make your foundation. Once you have your foundation made you will need to delete the middle section of your foundation so that it is only 1 block. ----------------------- Once you have that done it should look something like shown. Now |---------------------| its time to lower the ground so you can add a stair case. You can | | | | only add a stair case if the ground was lowered enough otherwise | | cut out of | | a message will come up saying the ceiling is too low or too high. | | foundation | | If this happens just rise of lower the ground. An easy way too | | | | tell if the ground is at the right depth add a wall treatment to |---------------------| the inner foundation wall the part that will be your basement and ----------------------- when the ground is at the bottom of the wall treatment then you will be able to add a stair case. Adding a basement to an existing house is done the same way but the existing house must have a foundation in order to add a basement. By removing the foundation in an existing will cause you to lose your flooring on the main floor expect for the tiles that are under objects. Once again you lower the ground until you are able to add a stair case. ------------------- 15.3 Swimming Pools ------------------- With a swimming pool you can make different shapes then just the rectangle infact you can make them whatever shape you want. However you can't make a swimming pool a circle swimming pools can only be a squared meaning you can't make them diangle. To make an L shaped swimming pool just make your regular rectangle pool. Now to make the L just click and hold ctrl and make another rectangle pool then release the buttons and then click the mouse again and now you have an L shape swimming pool. You follow the same method to make different shapes for your pool or if you want to make and island in the middle of it. ------------ 16. Buy Mode ------------ Buy mode is the same as in the sims 1 its where you buy things to furnish your house. --------------- 17. Cheat Codes --------------- In order to enter cheats, you'll need to open the cheat window. You can do this by holding down CTRL + SHIFT + C while playing. Note when using the boolprop codes be careful because misuse of the code can corrupt the lot your playing, exit you out of the game or cause you to reinstall the game. boolprop objectShadows (True/False): Set to false to remove removes shadows on objects outside house boolProp guob (True/False): Set to false to remove shadows on objects inside house boolprop renderSelectedSimLevel (True/False): Set to true and walls will no longer cut away from selected Sim boolProp displayPaths (True/False): Set to true to see the path where the selected Sim walks to boolprop displayLookAtBoxes (True/False): Set to true and blocks appear on Sims faces and on parts where Sims look at boolProp simShadows (True/False): Toggle shadows on/off for Sims boolprop ShowLotPackageFilename (True/False): In neighborhood, shows filename of house when lot is highlighted boolprop carsCompact (True/False): Set to true and cars will have more detail in neighborhood boolprop lotInfoAdvancedMode (True/False): Set to true to show lot information boolprop locktiles (True/False): Set to false to place floor tiles outside lot boolprop lotWater (True/False): Set to false to remove removes water (ponds) from lots boolprop lotTerrainPaints (True/False): Set to false to remove floorpainting on lot boolprop displayNeighborhoodProps (True/False): Set to false to remove props like rocks and towers from neighborhood boolprop allObjectLightsOn (True/False): Set to true to light up objects continuously instead of only when used boolprop displayNeighborhoodRoads (True/False): Set to false to remove roads from neighborhood boolprop displayNeighborhoodFlora (True/False): Set to false to removes trees/plants from neighborhood boolprop displayNeighborhoodWater (True/False): Set to false to remove water from neighborhood boolprop displayLotImposters (True/False): Set to false to removes house graphics from neighborhood boolprop displayNeighborhoodRoadsWithModel (True/False): Set to false to remove bridges from neighborhood. boolprop lotTerrainLighting (True/False): Set to false and lots will not light up when highlighted in neighborhood boolProp TestingCheatsEnabled (True/False): turns on debug mode vsync (on/off): increases game performance but lowers graphics moveobjects (on/off): moves objects and deletes you couldnt before autopatch (on/off): lets you know if theres a patch kaching: get 1000 cash motherlode: get 50,000 cash help -all: list cheats expand: expands or contracts cheat window exit: closes cheat window slowmotion: Puts the game in slow motion. Enter any number that 0 through 8 (0=fastest and 8=slowest) StretchSkeleton: makes your sims larger or smaller boolprop constrainFloorElevation true: Disables the ability to change elevation of floor tiles boolprop constrainFloorElevation false: Allows you to change elevation of floor tiles. aging on/off: turn on/off aging faceBlendLimits (on/off): turns off facial bounding limitations. It prevents the normal corrections the game will make for two parents with very different facial structures. intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims 8: You can invite more people to your parties. boolProp snapObjectsToGrid true/false: You can place objects outside the grid. intprop censorgridsize 0: Takes off censoring clear: Clears all cheat codes on the screen, but codes are still in effect. social_debug: You can tell what social reaction will happen before you do it deleteAllCharacters: At neighborhood view only, removes every Sim from the neighborhood. TerrainType (desert/temperate): Only for use in neighborhood view, toggles between the two terrain types. boolProp enablePostProcessing true: Turns Postprocessing on. boolProp enablePostProcessing false: Turns Postprocessing off. bloom rgb #: Sitcom flashback blur effect (# = 0.0 to 1.0) (require postprocessing on) vignette # # #: Blurry bits at the edge of the screen. (# = 0.0 to 1.0) (require postprocessing on) filmGrain #: Makes the screen grainy. (# = 0.0 to 1.0) (require postprocessing on) letterBox #: Adds a letterbox effect to the view. (# = 0.0 boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation true/false: Allows you to rotate objects at a 45 Degree Angle boolprop dormspecifictoolsdisabled true/false: Enables/disables all building mode tools unlockcareerreqards: Allows access to all career rewards agesimcheat on/off: Adds "Set Age" to the interaction menu. Any sim you click on can be set to any age group aspirationlevel (0-5): 0 puts them at the lowest, 5 in the platinum level ShowHeadlines on/off: Makes invisible thought balloons. Useful for movie making RoofSlopeAngle (15-75): In build mode, it adjusts the slope angle on all roofs on a lot LockAspiration on/off: Freezes Aspiration point decay for all sims on the lot AspirationPoints #: Permits for more expensive aspiration reward objects MotiveDecay on/off: Turns natural need decay on or off MaxMotives: Sets all needs for all playable sims on the lot to full. familyfunds: Allows you to give money to a household of sims without having to move them in a house first