Domination Dynasty Hints & Tips

[Nutella]

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

[MarianT]

This is a reminder for anyone who didn't read the discussion in the Workbench thread -- Occult Sims (fairies, witches, genies, vampires, werewolves) will not be able to get the Clone Voucher Lifetime Reward. If you plan to use clones, either have a human as one of your founders, or use elixirs to temporarily transform your King or Queen.

[EtnaFan666]

Wow, first post in this thread1 I feel special.  (And when I post this, I bet someone will post before me, so I struck out that sentence.)

(I don't use the term King for the male partner. With the terms "Hive" and "Honeycomb", I was analogizing this to a hive of bees, and there is no King Bee despite what some video games may tell you - drones are not the children of the queen but the male bees who mate with the queen bee to make the larva. I call the male partner the Drone and the babies the Spawn.)

The first thing you should do with any dynasty is have one of your Sims start throwing protests against Unskilled Sims. This will double the speed you learn skills. That Sim, your ranter, should also protest against Not Enough Lifetime Happiness when your Queen and Drone are about to get their LTWs, and then they should sip a Wish Serum(I know it is called Wish Enhancing Serum) to get the other moodlet. With these two moodlets up, fulfill the LTW and you'll get quadruple the happiness, so you will have enough for at least three Clone Vouchers. You want your queen and drone to get LTWs that they can control so they will be having both moodlets up when they get the LTW fulfilled.

Career-related LTWs (aka reach a rank in a career) are fine but you can't really tell if you will get that final promotion for rabbit-hole jobs and you might be unpleasantly surprised when you accidentally get that last promotion in a profession, so I don't like to have my Queen and Drone use job-related LTWs. Swimming in Cash, Living in the Lap of Luxury and Renaissance Sim are all controllable and you can time when you get that LTW. I hope this helps you dynasty players out!

EDIT: Wait, they banned protests?  Well, THAT was a waste of my day. I could have been playing Wizard101 instead of trying to set up a Dynasty and failing because they changed the rules as I did protests to get more lifetime happiness.  Guess it shows why it was in beta. Sorry, I'll try those tips when I get the courage to play Sims 3 again. 

[Lisa46]

Whoa! Thanks EtnaFan, I love protests now.

Annnnd I also know why they banned rebels staging protests. That makes so much more sense now, Metro and co. Glad that's banned.

My own tip would be to start with easy skills and careers, then move on to harder ones once you're household is full (6 kids, triplets + 3 clone vouchers). Now on to how to make requirements easy...

Clone Vouchers: If you are doing non - humans and don't plan to use the method of changing life state over and over again, then you don't need to worry so much about your other lifestyle partner so much, but I recommend just changing life state back and forth. Stock up on stuff from the elixir store.

LTR: Choose something unique but cheap - using EtnaFan's tip I think rebel influence would be good for one person. Definitely choose carefully - steel bladder isn't a good unique reward!

Careers: Start with easy, then move on to harder. To get your first careers out of the way faster, try alchemy and nectar making. No work to be done for those! Just buy out the consignment store nectar and the alchemy potions and you're done.

Skill challenges: For your first one, go easy. Street art works. Charisma will help with requirements later. So will painting. It's all up to you.

Best Friend: Charisma skill is great for this.

Collection: Products of the first skill are best.

[KRae]

I think painting will be one of my first careers - need to produce those masterpiece portraits, but I'll save paintings for a later collection.  Wedding gifts could be a good first collection, just don't get married until some friends have been made.

[callycat]

EDIT: Wait, they banned protests?  Well, THAT was a waste of my day. I could have been playing Wizard101 instead of trying to set up a Dynasty and failing because they changed the rules as I did protests to get more lifetime happiness.  Guess it shows why it was in beta. Sorry, I'll try those tips when I get the courage to play Sims 3 again. 

I know they are banned for the tournament, but I searched the threads for this dynasty and couldn't see where it said protests were banned for it -- can you point me at it, because I've obviously missed something!

[Metropolis Man]

I know they are banned for the tournament, but I searched the threads for this dynasty and couldn't see where it said protests were banned for it -- can you point me at it, because I've obviously missed something!

You're not missing anything. Protests are not banned in the Dynasty.

[Lisa46]

Sorry,  EtnaFan, I should've made that more clear. I did mean tournament challenges.

One more tip: Painting should be a first skill. That's pretty much mandatory.

[callycat]

You're not missing anything. Protests are not banned in the Dynasty.

Yeah, I see what happened now. Glad it's clear before I start! I'm on the last gen of the life states dynasty and plotting the next one to try ☺

[EtnaFan666]

Oops, sorry, jumped the gun there. 

I didn't realize that the person who said protests were banned was talking about tournament challenges and not the Dynasty. Luckily, I totally forgot about that when I started up my third attempt at this challenge. 

Sorry about causing a panic. Let's get back to posting what tips we can about this type of Dynasty.

In my third attempt I had the first procreation day requirements for careers be both of them topping a rabbit-hole job. That way we get one rabbit hole out of the way and, since there are no nooboos yet, they can focus on getting job performance. Then I alternate between one of them being self-employed and the other having a rabbit-hole. Once the first kids are teens, you have both of them do rabbit-holes again as long as one of them does a night job(like Criminal) so one parent is at home during the day.

[callycat]

Currently on the 6th reproductive day of my second attempt, and although I don't regret taking Painting and Alchemy as the first two skills the founders learned, I recommend Painting for the second one next too! Painting those portraits has been the slowest part by far.

I recommend where possible getting close to completing the two skill challenges you planned, then getting the BFF, then completing the challenges last. I failed the first attempt by stupidly forgetting that the drafting table counted towards paintings, so I ended up with a third challenge completed by mistake. Also watch the charisma challenges for popping up when you don't want them. I had a couple of narrow squeaks with those.

Really enjoying this, by the way. I like being able to choose the challenges to complete instead of having to max them all. Aside from the evil that is painting I've been able to do all my favourite skills and careers (gardening, nectar making, alchemy, Architect etc.)

[KRae]

I also used painting as a first career, but had little trouble getting masterpiece portraits - out of four kids I got three on the first attempt and the fourth on the second. And yes, don't let them learn charisma at all until you're ready to use those challenges.

[callycat]

I also used painting as a first career, but had little trouble getting masterpiece portraits - out of four kids I got three on the first attempt and the fourth on the second. And yes, don't let them learn charisma at all until you're ready to use those challenges.

I've had six kids each time and they've mostly been hanging around waiting for the portraits after completing everything else.

I didn't have anyone learn charisma, but I did use the P.I. and Architect professions which involve meeting a lot of people unless you raise them without doing cases/jobs. If you're doing rabbithole jobs (I've avoided them for my founders) then you might have a similar problem when the colleagues start adding up.

[KRae]

When they know many people, and they finally learn charisma, it's likely that 3, maybe 4, out of the 5 charisma challenges will pop, but I've never had a sim autonomously tell 100 jokes before.

[tirajm]

Logic is a good one to start earlier and use for later skill challenge requirements.  You can save the tutoring one for when you have kids and the skill tutoring one for once you've learned a bunch of other skills.

For gardening, I'd recommend planting a whole bunch of a single plant at first, in order to complete the "harvest 650 produce" and "harvest 75 perfect produce" ones without having to worry about accidentally completing the third one.  Red Berry Beans are the best for this if you have University, since perfect ones are worth $200 apiece.

Architect makes a very nice starting career, since you need painting right away and it makes it cheaper to build your house.

[dontmindme]

If you have a fairy, use bloom to harvest more of the lower quality produce. That way, you can save the 75 perfect produce challenge for later.

[KRae]

As my dynasty progresses into week 22, more and more townies are dying off. I thought, great more empty houses, but the problem is NPCs are becoming my family's bosses. When ever they try to call their boss to chat or come for a visit, the boss is always at work and doesn't know when they'll be done. It doesn't matter what day or time of day, they are always unreachable. So my suggestion is to not count on asking a boss for a promotion if your game gets to this point. Just be prepared and make other plans, maybe get through the rabbitholes first and liberal use of the workaholic trait.

[MarianT]

I've found that my drones' inventories are not transferring to the oldest member of the family when they move out. I lost a Collector Helper (or whatever it's called) that way, plus a bunch of special seeds.

One tip I picked up from KRae's story -- when you have enough cash on hand, give every drone the Living in the Lap of Luxury LTW when they become a young adult. What I do after that is have them buy the Inheritance lifetime reward. It helps with those properties and houses they have to buy.

[KRae]

Yes, when you kick out a household member their inventory transfers. When you buy them a house, they keep their stuff. I'm glad as I don't have to deal with a plethora of IFs.
And if you have Showtime, the dusty old lamp is even better.

[Deklitch]

My king is waiting (im)patiently for his queen to max her cooking career so they can bring their first group of Tribblets into Sunset Valley. She is at level 6 of the career, while he has managed to complete all of his requirements, including job maximisation already. So his was standing around the place looking bored. Then  I had a brainwave ... I needed something that he can do that doesn't let him stockpile or similar and I decided that the answer to his needs was a set of one armed bandits in their house. He's been using them non-stop during the day time hours, getting in lots of money for the spreading of the tribblets into Sunset Valley for the ultimate takeover of the town. At night? Well that is when he transforms into his werewolf form and goes a hunting for elixir potion ingredients, and bites townsfolk to turn them into his packmates.

So, my point is that Gambling is your friend in Sims 3, if you have the necessary premium content.

Oh, by the way, my king has found that complaining to a lady about how long she is taking to max her career, is almost as dangerous as complaining to a lady about how long it is taking for her to get dressed, and does not recommend doing it, especially if said lady is a genie.

[Trip]

As my dynasty progresses into week 22, more and more townies are dying off. I thought, great more empty houses, but the problem is NPCs are becoming my family's bosses. When ever they try to call their boss to chat or come for a visit, the boss is always at work and doesn't know when they'll be done. It doesn't matter what day or time of day, they are always unreachable. So my suggestion is to not count on asking a boss for a promotion if your game gets to this point. Just be prepared and make other plans, maybe get through the rabbitholes first and liberal use of the workaholic trait.

I thought of a workaround. Have a drone use a certain rabbithole job for their career before the king or queen does. The game can assign family as bosses, so you can get a boss that lives in town.

Granted, I'm four days into my own dynasty, so I haven't tested much.

[KRae]

With story progression off, the game does not bring in new families. An NPC gets assigned the job.

[MarianT]

A couple of warnings -- with the Art Appraiser careers, you don't have a boss after you reach level 5. Harwood Clay was Regina's boss when she started. He was still there when she reached level 6, but not her boss anymore nor even a co-worker. When she started on the 2nd branch, he was her boss again. And when he died, there wasn't a replacement boss.

If you send a group to Oasis Landing, they will all return when one member of the group does. It's not like World Adventures, where you can send them back one at a time.

[callycat]

Yes, when you kick out a household member their inventory transfers. When you buy them a house, they keep their stuff. I'm glad as I don't have to deal with a plethora of IFs.
And if you have Showtime, the dusty old lamp is even better.

As well as the obvious use for triplets, the genies are a handy source of best friends that are always available too, if you're avoiding socialising. Though if multiple best friends at once isn't counted as stockpiling now that isn't quite as much of a problem!

[ratchie]

Remember while you are allowed to have more then one best friend per RD you cannot use any of the spare best friends for the next RD. You have to do the work each time.

Rachel

[Metropolis Man]

The team was just discussing the following issue — what if your queen delivers late at night and you have little time to get your clones to still have everything done on the same day? This is totally under player control in my opinion. Get your queen pregnant in the morning and then she would also deliver in the morning. Then you have all day to get clone vouchers.

[KRae]

That's what I've been doing. All births have been before 10am. It also allows lots of time for multiple birthday cakes and potty training.

[MarianT]

I'm pretty sure that all my infants and clones have arrived on the same day. This last batch, it was after midnight by the time I heard chimes, so they're all good. I'll definitely keep an eye on this in the future.

[EtnaFan666]

As my dynasty progresses into week 22, more and more townies are dying off. I thought, great more empty houses, but the problem is NPCs are becoming my family's bosses. When ever they try to call their boss to chat or come for a visit, the boss is always at work and doesn't know when they'll be done. It doesn't matter what day or time of day, they are always unreachable. So my suggestion is to not count on asking a boss for a promotion if your game gets to this point. Just be prepared and make other plans, maybe get through the rabbitholes first and liberal use of the workaholic trait.

I have never had to have to ask the boss for a promotion unless I got a smidgen of career performance to max level. (Which tends to happen a lot with my Sims - even with Multi-Tasker, they tend to be a sliver away from the max level of job performance just as they leave work. ) Unless your Sims are going to get old and infertile, I don't sweat the job promotions. They'll top their career eventually.

I'm still confused by the skill challenge requirement for procreation days - do all of the Queen's skill challenges have to be unique from her partner's or can she overlap later? For example, if the Queen does Brushmaster and Proficient Painter, can her partner get those on the next set of requirements or can he never paint? Please explain.

[simfulicious]

I have never had to have to ask the boss for a promotion unless I got a smidgen of career performance to max level. (Which tends to happen a lot with my Sims - even with Multi-Tasker, they tend to be a sliver away from the max level of job performance just as they leave work. ) Unless your Sims are going to get old and infertile, I don't sweat the job promotions. They'll top their career eventually.

I'm still confused by the skill challenge requirement for procreation days - do all of the Queen's skill challenges have to be unique from her partner's or can she overlap later? For example, if the Queen does Brushmaster and Proficient Painter, can her partner get those on the next set of requirements or can he never paint? Please explain.

The skill challenges do not need to be unique between the king and queen.

[MarianT]

If you have Sim points, the Premium content that I'd recommend would be:

the Multitab (500 pts)
the playpen from Aurora Skies (500 pts)
the walker from Aurora Skies (if it's available. I can't tell because I have Aurora Skies)

With the Multitab, your drones can listen to a tabcast on logic while playing chess, doubling the rate at which they pick up the skill. If you start them listening to a tabcast when they leave for school, they'll continue to listen, but they'll make slower progress towards an A. The tabcast turns off when they go to work.

Needs don't deteriorate while toddlers are in the playpen or walker, but they have to be doing something. One thing I learned -- two toddlers playing with each other in the playpen will learn to talk (I guess Simlish is really easy to pick up).

I've seen both the Multitab and playpen on sale.

[Lisa46]

For the MultiTab - photography tabcasts are glitches so they play insanely fast. Use them. I believe level 9 tabcast is about 2 hours to play.

[_Annika_]

I haven't started a domination dynasty yet, but if accumulating friends and best friends is a problem, use mean social interactions once old colleagues are no longer needed. So once you have topped the Law Enforcement career and joined say, Music, use the mean social interactions on your L.E. colleagues so that they are no longer considered friends. That way you can save those charisma challenges for later and are at less risk of completing them too early.

[GlazeyLady]

I just tried something different with my fourth batch of drones - speeding them through the early stages to get them to YA on their second day.

I made sure the nooboos arrived early in the day and caked them up to toddler right away.  I used the walker and the playpen to speed through skill training - they learn to walk on their own in about 2 sim hours and they learn talking in about the same timeframe.  3 visits to the potty each, and they're done.  It's easy to get it all done in one day, but since cake only works once a day anyway, an Age of Instant doesn't work on nooboos or toddlers, it's no problem if they need to nap in between. 

Skilling up the toddlers was really only for the lifetime happiness points for mom and dad - and since mom and dad had big wishes regarding the baby (have a baby, have a girl, have a boy, have a baby with _____) they both used a Wish Enhancing elixir shortly before birth to double those values.  So that effect was still in place for the toddler skilling and age-up-well wishes.

As soon as mom popped the first nooboo, dad was on his way to the science center to get a clone.  There were 2 girl nooboos in this batch, so dad got 2 clones.  Then he rushed home, took over with the nooboos, and mom went to get cloned.  I put cakes in the clones' inventories and sent them somewhere with a table they could put a cake on (library, swap shop, lot that a previous clone upgraded with tables that cakes work on  ) and by the time they'd caked themselves up to teens they'd started spawning wishes and I sent them off to do whatever it was they wanted to do - or what I wanted them to do to regarding skills/future career.

Just after midnight, I started caking up the toddlers.  I did all three quickly to children, and it was quite a frenzy cancelling everyone's birthday celebrating because all that noise is just irritating and because I wanted to get the next one to the cake as quickly as possible.  Once they were all children, mom took half to one lot and dad took half to another lot in motive mobiles - everyone arrived happy with Age of Instant elixirs in their pockets.  The children were aged to teens and then the teens to young adult - so 9 age-ups in all.  I cancelled the horn blowing craziness and kept them moving as quickly as possible.  It was a lot of switching back and forth between locations to make sure everyone was staying on track, but it all got done pretty quickly and in one day which meant only one graduation day.

As soon as they got to young adult, multi-tabs were distributed, and if they were to work on a skill that had a tabcast, they started listening.  Then they went off to be "Personality Adjusted" using the Brain Enhancing 2.0 machines that previous drones had put on upgraded lots around town.  With their traits adjusted, they used the Makeover Stations also conveniently placed by previous drones and they each made themselves over.  By the end of the day (the day after the nooboos arrived) I had six new young adults, with the traits I wanted them to have, all made over and working on their skilling. 

So now I have to see if that intense micro-management really takes time off the total days it takes to get the batch out the door and to get to the next Reproduction Day.

I'm determined to finish this before September 2.   

[Brooke.]

Usually I find the University mascots to be really annoying but they can actually be useful as unique best friends.

[Deklitch]

Well, just discovered something that I should now be able to take advantage of ... clone vouchers can be used on ghost sims as well as on normal sims. Something I discovered earlier when I started 'Ghosts in the Machine' is that Ghosts don't suffer from sunburn.

[Trip]

I was able to have a life states dynasty live outdoors by making them all ghosts. It's a nice little perk that still doesn't outweigh them being so dang slow just run for god's sake-

I think the clone voucher privileges come from them not working quite like other occult states (more like an overlay vs. a hidden trait that other occults have).

[EtnaFan666]

I started an unofficial version of this (using the characters Roxas and Namine from Kingdom Hearts canon) but decided to quit right after the first clone left and re-start because I learned a few things that will help me run a smoother 2nd attempt:

• Age Freeze is useless for the Queen and Drone - not only does Age Freeze wear off and your Sims begins aging again when they use a birthday cake or Age of Instant to age up, it also wears off whenever you change life states - Roxas started as a genie and drank Age Freeze before the first procreation, but when he used Potent Cure to become human to clone himself, he started aging again as I checked his life age bar and it was un-frozen.  You'll have to do one of two things - either just stay as the same life state for the entire challenge(which means no clones if you plan on having non-humans for the parents) or no Age Freeze for the parents for the challenge, use life-extending methods on them.
• DON'T LEARN CHARISMA UNTIL THE END. Namine accidentally learned Charisma from the UL podium and got the Personable Challenge by doing protests which kept her from getting the Painting Skill challenges, and when she got to them, she already had Celebrity so she was unable to paint without getting more than one skill challenge and losing them. Roxas autonomously used the podium I had put up for one of his clones and learned Charisma. Don't place a podium and don't learn Charisma unless you want to focus on Charisma Challenges first as they are very easy to complete with Social Networking and Alchemy - except for Comedian.
• If you are eager to start traveling early in this challenge, go to the World Adventure lands - France, Egypt, and China - or into the future. Don't go to University first because you won't get a degree until you get some skills. I had Roxas and Namine be Geniuses and have traits related to their degrees, and they only got six credits and were six credits short even with a full term.

I apologize if this is common knowledge to everyone but I just found this stuff out. I plan on putting them in another place besides Starlight Shores, installing into the Future to get some more skills(since opportunities aren't part of the requirements here I can not worry about them not getting opportunities), and editing them to get more of an advantage(which will need the cheats as I already saved them in the Sim Bin and can't edit the household without a cheat).

[EtnaFan666]

I apologize, didn't mean to double-post, won't happen again. 

There were 2 girl nooboos in this batch, so dad got 2 clones.  Then he rushed home, took over with the nooboos, and mom went to get cloned.

Uhm, no offense, but I think the rules state that you can only have as many clones total equal to the number of natural children, so you have can have the mom and dad clone themselves one, but no more than that. It's okay, people tend to forget rulings. I forgot that you can overlap skill challenges with the drone and queen.

Anyways, I'll try your tactics, Glazey. I can choose the baby and child traits(I will probably just toddler train the nooboos) and just use the Brain Enhancers on the kids after forcing them to age up. Although I will miss prom nights.