4x4 Dynasty Hints & Tips

[Nutella]

This thread is not for questions.   All questions need to be done at the official 4x4 Dynasty thread.

[betabee]

Well, to start the ball rolling . . .

-Genies Genies Genies Genies . . .   
-If you need a few thousand extra LTHP for the better gravestones, give the founder/heirs in question several children. They can spawn really good wishes as their children grow up, especially when the kids reach YA.
-The sooner you can get the property requirements done, the better. One you have a few building and properties, they should help fund buying the rest. And did I mention the genies?
-Workaholic is your rabbit-hole heir's best friend, since it allows them to work from home despite silly things like weekends, holidays and siblings graduating.
- If you can get any children in the house to all graduate on the same day, this may help your heir to avoid work free days if they're in a rabbit hole. In my 4x4 certainly, Susan probably would have reached her requirements before elderhood if it weren't for her siblings graduation days stopping her going to work.

[Snufflesxx]

My tips:

- University is good for off the clock skilling. While you do have to go to classes, you can easily add skilling objects to your heir's room. Getting a degree will also help you in particular rabbithole careers.

- If you have spares with a lot of lifetime happiness points, use them on genie lamps/inheritance. I unfortunately lost my code for Showtime therefore do not have access to genies but several inheritances can be good as well. Remember that spares can't be used for the large tombstone requirement so unless having large tombstones is important for you I suggest you make the most of their lifetime happiness points.

- I had major issues with young again potions from the chemistry table and I think it is a general bug as somebody else had problems with it as well. I'm not sure if it affects everybody's game but check before you use them. It was nearly a gamebreaker for me.

- If you are planning to use paintings as part of your collection, make sure the artist in question dies before you total up your collection. You'll get a death bonus. I believe this also applies to photographs but I'm not sure about sculptures.

- Make sure you plan. Decide which skills you're going to pick, how many skill challenges they have and which job would fit best with that skill. Figure out which of those skills produces something that could be used for your family collection and fit in other collections around that.

- Have a 'high ticket' collection. If you have a collection that makes up all or most of the 16,000 Simleons required then you can just use common or cheap items for your rest of your collection. So, for example, if you used wedding gifts and somebody gave you a very expensive fountain (it's happened to me before!) then you could use potions as another collection, despite them being worthless.

That's it for now. I'll probably think of heaps of other things later 

[Elena]

Edit:

Opportunities:
-I find all other requirements not too difficult, except those opps keep popping up and asking me to go abroad, from both rabbit holes and skills.
I wish I could have uninstall World Adventures before starting this dynasty (might do if I attempt another).
Medium lifespan is a bit short, you don't want every-time the phone rings up giving opportunity then it's 'go to China/Egypt/France and do X'.
-With Into The Future expansion, there will be no skill opportunities. It is a glitch that seems not only happening to me but also to many others.
So if your heirs are in ambitions and self-employed careers and rely very much on skill opps, decide whether you want ITF opps or Skill opps.

University EP advantage:
- Make a rebel sim, get him to protest for lifetime happiness every two days.
I was surprised that this is actually allowed, as I find it much more effective than wish enhancing serum, the double LTHs moodlet lasts for 2 days for the whole family.
- You don't have to get a degree for rabbit hole and can buy one using LTR to start from level 3, or create a popular blog (3 stars up, reviewer blog is the quickest to do) and upload resume.
- For self-employed careers, since liquid job boosters are allowed, drink them before doing the big jobs or consigning stuff.

Genie is extremely useful for instant money, but money trees and resorts can be very profitable too, properties will return investment in the long term so no worries:)
If a property requires some big amount of money to upgrade, You can put your painter/photographer/sculptor/inventor items there so you don't have to buy things.

[Rikki8528]

My tips:

-Try not to do a skill like Cooking or Gardening until you have a logic and that skill sim able to tutor them, giving them more free time.
-Genies. That is the one and only word.
-With the properties requirement, do the cheap buildings then the cheap properties. After that go for properties when you have spare time to upgrade them, and buildings when you're tired but want to do something productive.
-Before starting do a few games for fun and watch the amount of crashing in each. Fix it before it crashes your dynasty.
-With your spares, make them do an easy skill like painting, give them a rabbit-hole career, and when you have time fulfill their wishes. Once they have enough LTHP get a genie, complete their LTW if you're close to doing it, get another genie and kick them out.
-Read other dynasties! Learn from others' mistakes, and get a good story out of it too.
-Keep up with the rule clarifications on the dynasty. Check the actual rule set too, to make sure you've got everything right. Better safe than sorry!

[Metropolis Man]

Thank you for starting this thread, Nutella. I made it a sticky.

[KRae]

I just completed mine with no genies or travel basically by being a slave driver. One thing is either to get married before starting a rabbit hole job or after maxing it so you don't lose work days. I agree with Snuffles on everything - great advice and pretty much follows what I did. I had no trouble making money using money trees and the grow station. I bought most buildings and properties before the second generation passed on in each world. I also kept my families on the small side to keep the game running smoothly. And yes, I was the other one with Young Again Potion Problems.

[Elena]

I just completed mine with no genies or travel basically by being a slave driver. One thing is either to get married before starting a rabbit hole job or after maxing it so you don't lose work days. I agree with Snuffles on everything - great advice and pretty much follows what I did. I had no trouble making money using money trees and the grow station. I bought most buildings and properties before the second generation passed on in each world. I also kept my families on the small side to keep the game running smoothly. And yes, I was the other one with Young Again Potion Problems.

Hi Krae, can I just ask - you mentioned in the rule thread that the hardest part is getting the opps to trigger rather than getting collection and awards, do you have any advice on that?
This is the major thing that troubles me right now and I am even thinking of failing it so to uninstall WA for the next attempt (as I find you don't travel at all i wonder if you've got rid of WA?)
P.S. Yes the greenhouse, grow station and money trees are the major income in my file and I usually get married before starting or, after someone is on top of their career.
However I think it is wise to invite the spouse as soon as the heir is YA so that he or she can be a great help-hand to the family, as well as making sure that person doesn't die of accident.

[KRae]

Absolutely, move them in. It's just the marriage that needs to wait. I have very limited EPs and no WA, so that was not a problem for me. I just had to wait it out for ops that were not already taken. Everyone finished up before elderhood, but it was close sometimes. I know being an elder isn't a problem, but getting opportunities is something a player has little control over, and I'm a control freak. I made sure that my sims in professions had a unique skill  (bass, mixology, drums) not only for skill challenges but to provide unique skill based opportunities. It sounds like WA is messing that up though.

[Elena]

Ah, no wonder there's no travel at all! The problem with WA in my file is that all base game skills can given opps that require travelling somewhere and do something. If your sim is unlucky he might get travel related opps all the time and I can do nothing about it but praying the next op will ask me to do trivial things within the neighborhood, this really bothers a control freak like me:p
I find it viable to max rabbit hole career then do an ambition/self-employed career just for the awards, some awards doesn't even require maxing to have 4 awards already, such as firefighter. However I think there is a glitch about emergency cancelling itself after 1.50 patch and I have no idea why my stylist cannot even work properly. So perhaps this is useful: If you have no experience or feel unsure about a career in this town, test with a spare/spouse before having the actual heir spending his precious lifetime on it to avoid certain glitches.

[Margerita]

One way of making money that hasn't been mentioned so far is the machines from the casino premium item.
Early on a rather hefty investment, minimum 1/4 of your starting cash...
But soon you will be racking in more simoleons than you think, EA was very generous with how easy it is to get more than you start with...

[KRae]

I thought of two other things I found useful. Get the Opportunistic LTR to maximize the rewards for completing opportunities. The extra skill or job performance jump is a big help. The other thing, total unrelated, is timing of pregnancies. The first couple in each world must try for baby by the fourth day, but in all other cases becoming pregnant on Friday or Saturday times out so that a child has 4 days in school to get that A without tutoring (assuming no early BDay cakes).

[EtnaFan666]

Yeah, being on Medium Lifespan really puts the pressure on you, but I think I like it as Normal Lifespan takes me days in real life - it takes an hour for three days to pass on Speed 3, and I get bored really easily.

I've had some of those "no skill opportunity trigger" bug - when I was doing a test Immortal Dynasty, my founder(who was supermaxing Gardening) never got the Uncommonly Good opportunity, and whenever she answered the phone, she yelled and did the "la la! I can't hear you!" interaction and hung up, as if she was rejecting the opportunity. If I let the phone ring, it hangs up. I won't say any more as this is a technical issue but it bothers me - I love Into the Future and this is a fatal bug.

I also agree about marrying before you apply for a career - My 4x4 Test Run is with a CAS couple who got married AFTER the husband applied for a Criminal Job, so he's stuck with four days off, and he will end up less than a week to adulthood. This can be fatal if it's an heir who ages up, gets a job and marries and gets stuck with marriage leave. This is even MORE fatal if you Try For Baby and the heir is female! They get a full WEEK off with maternity leave! Luckily, the requirements prevent you from losing work days from pregnancy since you can't Try For Baby if you haven't topped your career.

[Margerita]

Regarding the moving heirs, the rules do say what you can take with you to the next town but you can also hold off buying some rewards that you can't take with you and thus gather happiness points to help you out a bit early in the next town. A motive mobile, a moodlet manager, a geni lamp, an inheritance... as long as it is allowed you can pick it up there.

[KRae]

Yes, that's what I did. I always made sure that the moving heir and spouse had enough happiness points to buy at least the motive mobile and collection helper in the new town.

[ratchie]

I stole all the books from the university co-ed dorm and sold them for a profit at the consignment store.

Rachel

[Snufflesxx]

One thing I've learnt from having my heir in a rabbithole job is that you really need to give them the workaholic trait. My Sim is in the military which means that his work days are quite limited so it would have been useful if he'd been able to work from home.

[KRae]

I think limiting the number of children is useful. When they graduate everyone in the family with a rabbithole job misses a work day.

[Margerita]

I think limiting the number of children is useful. When they graduate everyone in the family with a rabbithole job misses a work day.

Or just limit the amount of rabbithole jobs you have planed, either or works.

[Nutella]

Ambitious + Workaholic + Multi-Tasker LTR works wonder for rabbithole job.  Ambitious also does double duty here for the extra lifetime happiness points.

[Margerita]

Ambitious + Workaholic + Multi-Tasker LTR works wonder for rabbithole job.  Ambitious also does double duty here for the extra lifetime happiness points.

Don't forget the bonus lvls for having a degree, lvl 4 instead of lvl 1  - yes please.

[Trip]

Consider picking up schmoozer too; you can ask for promotions with less career progress.

I haven't attempted a 4x4 yet, but schmoozer has helped me in other dynasties.

[saltpastillen]

If you want to play with Into the future and have problems accepting skill opportunities, remember that a sim can have many different jobs, and as long as they don't max a career any other heir can play it too. This is useful if you want to have several heirs collect opportunities from the opportunity rich professions.

[Shirin]

Just offhand, other than a Private Investigator, what other professions are rich in opportunities? I've gotten about 8 from PI, and I know there's a few more, but I keep getting the one to Study, or repeats of old ones.

[saltpastillen]

I usually get a lot of ops from the showtime professions - though I guess it can vary from game to game.

[hazelnut]

Just offhand, other than a Private Investigator, what other professions are rich in opportunities? I've gotten about 8 from PI, and I know there's a few more, but I keep getting the one to Study, or repeats of old ones.

The PI profession has loads of ops.  At least it used to have, although some of them are long-winded and/or involve stakeouts, which seem to be buggy recently.  Ghost hunter has three that I know of.  I don't think the other Ambitions professions have any.


Some thoughts on Hidden Springs, having played my first four generations there:

• There are no combined rabbitholes, which is good.
• The town has a reputation for being laggy, although I didn't find that at all.  The file did get pretty large, though - with all the glitches that usually implies.
• The Lodge was very useful at the start.
• There's a lot of unroutable terrain.  Frustratingly, this includes a number of spawner locations.  There was a special seed spawner just up the road from the lot I used but almost all of the seeds were inaccessible.
• I chose it as my photography town, having found out the hard way in the Life States that only the default diner registers for the photo.  Unfortunately, I failed to notice that there's no beach so you still can’t complete the  ‘Around Town’ collection .  I'd recommend Sunset Valley or Riverview for photography (possibly also Lucky Palms but I don't own that one so I'm not sure).

[EtnaFan666]

Here are a few things to watch out for and some loopholes:

• Job comes before marriage. My first heir in my test run was into Film but married an ex-vampire and the next thing I know, five days off and she's three days to true adult!  If I hadn't sent her to University she would have never gotten her requirements done, but she still turned into an elder because she didn't top her career until she was old! Marriage gives you two days of honeymoon leave so be careful not to get married until you are sure you can top your heir's career!
• As I said above, University and travel is great if you need the time to do skill challenges. Unless you have a Level 3 Visa and your own vacation house, you should stick with University since you get two weeks and a weekend free of classes. The classes can be a pain but unless you are going for a degree(my first heir didn't need a degree but got one in Business anyways), you can just have minimal classes and spending the rest of the time doing skill challenges or going for a Social Group trait slot. My first heir surprised me by getting Poseidon(she was doing the mixology challenges) on her second day of college. When she got back to Bridgeport, she was able to focus on her career and top it eventually, and she was soon able to have a baby with William Fangmann, her husband.
• Don't be afraid to double up on careers if you have the time. University(see a pattern here) will help get your heirs a heads up by skipping ranks. I plan on my second heir attending a full term of Fine Arts with extra credit so he can start at Rank 4 instead of bottom-rank and then he can speed through his remaining promotions. But since he's contributing to the collcetion, he'll spend his college years doing the Alchemy skill challenges and then he'll top Alchemist and then Culinary. While this locks out Culinary for other heirs, I have my remaining heirs planned out so it's not a big deal to lose one career since I have all these professions and self-employed careers.  He'll get the two culinary career rewards and the four elixirs for the collections.

[Trip]

EtnaFan, did the skill challenges your sim completed at University stick? I've heard about skill challenges completed at University not transferring over when your sim returned home, but that was all the way back on patch 1.50 and I'm wondering if things changed.

Good tips, though. Marrying before you finish a rabbithole career is already something to struggle with in an immortal dynasty. Cut the time in half and the forced days off are a recipe for disaster.

[KRae]

My solution for rabbithole jobs and marriage is to marry very young and then start the job. No time off that way. I completed this without any travel EPs by being a slave driver.

[EtnaFan666]

EtnaFan, did the skill challenges your sim completed at University stick? I've heard about skill challenges completed at University not transferring over when your sim returned home, but that was all the way back on patch 1.50 and I'm wondering if things changed.

Yes, my first heir completed the Poseidon mixology challenge in Uni and it still lists as being completed even after returning home to Bridgeport. You're probably running on an early patch, I have the most recent(1.67). Those early patches were EVIL - I couldn't play Barnacle Bay with Patch 1.43 because it had tons of bugs.

So far my first heir is almost completed with her requirements. She still needs 15 recipes for Professor of Drinks(she's got all of the recipes from Brightmore, the Grind and Eugi's and most of the recipes from everywhere else) and four more promotions(she is in Film and just got into the Acting branch, which meant three day weekend - and she called over her boss but wasn't able to ask for a promotion - the option didn't show even after she got max job performance!).

[Margerita]

For those who are planing to use photography in Lucky Palms, the diner in Lucky Palms doesn't register, tested it quite a few times.
It won't pose a problem for me since I wasn't planing on using the challenge requiring completed categories, I'll just get an extra from somewhere else.

[silversim2]

I haven't tried this yet but if you are using a gardener and want to complete the skill challenges, then grow all the herbs because nearly all of them are available at level 1, and you can complete the Master Planter challenge.

[Trip]

For those who are planing to use photography in Lucky Palms, the diner in Lucky Palms doesn't register, tested it quite a few times.
It won't pose a problem for me since I wasn't planing on using the challenge requiring completed categories, I'll just get an extra from somewhere else.

Any diner that isn't the generic rabbithole diner object used in Sunset Valley doesn't register. Barnacle Bay and Twinbrook have the same issue, as well as any town with the diner in a combined rabbithole.

[EtnaFan666]

I've had this issue with the spa in some towns - the camera doesn't register the spa as a subject. Also, after Patch 1.63, the Nectary subject no longer exists - trying to take a photo of the Nectary gives you the Hotspot subject instead.

[Trip]

The Nectary bug has been around since Late Night. The trick is to get it on your first day ever in France, before 5PM.

[Shirin]

When moving to the new world, make note of the household name, since familyfunds uses that and not necessarily the family's last name.

My household started off as the Wind household - later, after the two CAS founders married, I gave them hyphenated names. When I moved to the next town, the familyfunds cheat worked for the Wind household, and not the hyphenated last name of Wind-Padilla.

[Trip]

As far as I know, the game never changes household names, no matter what happens to the surnames of its inhabitants.

[Lisa46]

I'm shocked no one mentioned orb of answers yet. Gives LTHP and money.

[EtnaFan666]

Yes, did that for my Domination Dynasty - the couple rolled the orb until it gave a yes answer and they threw wishes to be worth more than $300000. Unfortunately, my protest moodlet for double LTH faded just as I used the Midas Touch and I lost double Lifetime Wish happiness points because they were fulfilled before I found out that the moodlet was gone.

The Orb wishes are still there, so I can still cash in if I can get a dusty lamp.

[KRae]

I mentioned this in my 4x4 Witness Protection, but thought I would repeat it here. A sports writer makes an ideal moving heir. They get so many large wishes that my writer had accumulated over 200k in LTH points by moving time and was making over 70k per week in royalties.