lakewood_bacc | Week 3, Part 7: Trollson (Prettacy)

Hello, and welcome back to Lakewood: Just a BaCC! Like last time, we'll be starting a new household and a new challenge this time around.

Meet William Trollson, our founder. You might recognize him as this year's founder for the Garden of Shadows Good Genes challenge. If you're unfamiliar with it, the idea is to breed the founder to a Maxis sim, repeat two more times and see if you manage to get rid of the founder's "interesting" features in three generations.

Now I'm always late for these things, plus I'm more interested in gameplay than just breeding sims, so I've never actually tried it out. But, I sort of wanted to see how William's genetics would play out, and I have an ongoing BaCC with CAS points to spare – not to mention Maxis sims as townies – so new side challenge it is.

From all this, plus the fact that the previous family, the Goths, were an Uglacy, you've possibly already guessed what William's side challenge is: yep, he'll be doing a Prettacy. I wanted to start these two side to side so that they'll progress at the same pace. Also William's handicaps will be the same as Bella's: eXtreme, Free Roaming Ghosts and Storyteller.

As no stats are given for William over at GoS, I randomized them. So William here turned out a Pleasure/Fortune sim with the personality 7/6/5/5/2 (Aries). His turn ons are Athlectic and Fatness, and his turn off is Witchiness. He randomized straight, and his LTW is to Become Celebrity Chef. We'll see what we can do about that, William. There is an opening for the Culinary Career in Lakewood, but it's currently occupied by Brandi Broke. But let's get to the challenge, shall we?

Now unlike with Bella, I remembered to buy the legacy tree right away. So that's one thing dealt with.

William: "Umm... That leaves just 300 in the bank."

Yes, that's the downside. So we better get to work on that right away.

Well, you'll know the drill by now. William got to dig some treasure while waiting for a possible welcome wagon to show up.

He needed a bit of social, so the paper girl would do for some chatting company.

William eventually managed to hit a water pipe, but overall, he was quite lucky, getting a treasure chest on his second dig.

That treasure chest bought William the essentials for his lawn living, with a bit of money left in the bank. It might not look like much, but this is a very good start, William!

The welcome wagon did show up, again consisting of other playables in the 'hood: Nervous Curious, Regan Capp and a very pregnant Bella Goth.

Bella: "Yeah, so I ended up pregnant, but the woohoo was pretty good."

William: "Sounds good to me."

Meanwhile, Nervous painted (it's a nice idea Nervous, but you won't have time to finish that) and Regan jumped rope, apparently enough that she got fit from it.

After a bit more chatting, it was time to say goodbye to the guests, as William still had stuff to do that day.

Naturally, that stuff involved going to the most popular destination in Lakewood, the Walmart.

Because for now William couldn't get a job in his LTW career, he took up a position in Business. We're getting fairly close to the second business district in Lakewood when it comes to the owned businesses requirement (2 more needed), so it's good to start working towards the Business Tycoon one, too.

William wanted to play pinball, and when he got to do so, we found out that his OTH is games.

Of course, in the midst of playing games and digging, the point of going out was to meet new sims, especially ones who might be spouse candidates. Jodie's genes should be an improvement when bringing in the second generation of the prettacy (though maybe not the most obvious option), but the two of them had no chemistry.

Nina could be a possibility, she's a rather obviously pretty sim, and a romancer, so should go rather well with Pleasure. Just one bolt, though, possibly due to William liking fat athletic sims – I don't think there'll be a lot of those around. The matchmaker won't be unlocked until we hit 500 in population, so if we want to change those turn ons, we have to figure out something else.

While I was busy taking care of William, Consort was again busy causing trouble. *sigh*

He seemed to get along ok with Bella, though. Maybe a good sign for the future of the uglacy?

When William got home, we deemed he had enough money for a mirror, so that he could work on that charisma skill point that he needed for work.

And also a chair for eating his mac and cheese.

Yet before he could go to bed, the legacy tree needed some spraying. So not a great start for the tree.

In the morning, William got some phone time before work. He has the want to make a friend, so he called Regan, with whom he was closest to friendship. Regan didn't seem to warm up to friendship just yet, though.

In any case, William's first day at work was a success. He got a chance card, tipped his boss on the investment opportunity, and as a result, gained a charisma skill point and a promotion. Well done, William!

In the afternoon, the tree again needed some serious attention, so William got to it.

Meanwhile, I kept an eye on the walkbys. I've been a bit worried about Bella's uglacy next door, because most of the promising spouse candidates seem to be males. Note to self: Goneril's a pretty promising one in the females.

Not for William, though, so after both the tree and William himself were taken care of, he headed back to the Walmart again.

He met plenty of otherwise promising candidates, but he had negative chemistry with all of them.

Also not all of them get along with each other, it seems.

Upon returning home, William needed some rest and relaxation, so he got to study cleaning.

The evening saw another chat session with Regan, and this time, William became friends with her.

In the morning, William managed to make himself a toaster pastry without burning it, or the stove.

William's good luck at work continued. He sensed another business deal, mentioned it to his boss and netted a creativity skill point. And, he got promoted again. Well done, William! You're clearly good at this.

William: "Thanks."

Of course, William headed to the Walmart again after work. He wanted to take a picture, so why not.

William: "Hmm, not bad for an prettacy founder."

He met some new sims again, but didn't exactly come along great with all of them.

He even met the good witch. No romance potential there either, but you never know when knowing a witch is going to be useful.

Thursday was a day off for William, and he started his morning by some digging on the home lot. And, on his first dig, he got lucky again, finding another treasure chest.

We digged into his inventory and found a satisfactory loot. William now had over 15,000 simoleans to his name.

I pondered for a bit, then closed the lot to go to build, and in a bit, William got to call the real estate agency. He's not the first sim in this neighborhood to have a business before he has a house, after all.

William: "Hello, this is William Trollson speaking. I hear you have a new property that came for sale just moments ago?"

Welcome to Pretty Pretty Flowers, the Trollson legacy's official family business, and the 9^th community lot business in Lakewood. Since the town has one other community lot, the Walmart, this makes the tenth overall community lot, thus earning us +1 SM for the BaCC. Hooray!

Here are the interiors. As you probably guessed from the name, this business sells plants. Meaning that, once we get to level five, it'll open a position in Natural Science. Not that anyone has a degree yet, but hey, that's beside the point.

Here's the breakroom for William. And a flower station, so eventually he can also sell his own arrangements.

I was actually inspired to make a flower store for William when early on he rolled the want to buys the flower station. He couldn't afford it then, and it rolled away, but that gave me the thought. I was thinking of a spa, but decided that would be too expensive to build for a family that's just starting out. So a flower store it was.

So, without further ado, William set to work. And yes, once again the reporter was one of the first customers of the store.

Whoops, I may not have thought through the placement of that plant. It promptly got moved after Kent bought the current specimen.

We got a good start, climbing to level 1 pretty quickly.

Yeah, that's pretty annoying about the shelves. They aren't really meant as store shelves but were the only ones that didn't look idiotic with the colors we had.

Soon afterwards, William gained the Best of the Best award. Seriously, I love the reporter that this town got.

William got the hang of the cash register pretty soon.

... and... he got a certain customer that I'd been waiting for! William and Chloe have two bolts. So far, she's the best partner candidate that he has, so we'll see how this develops.

When it's time to close the store for restocking (William can keep it running only so long on his own), it's also time to work on those flower bench skills, too. And to energize. William was lucky to roll Fortune for his secondary, so he tends to roll business wants and keep his aspiration high enough.

Time to re-open and help some confused customers!

Confused customers are good customers, because most of them really like being helped. That's how William got the store to level 2.

He also got some skills for his hard work.

William: "Vaddi bobo!"

Not long afterwards, simultaneous stars caused us to bump to level 3. Not bad, William!

He started getting the hang of restocking too.

William: "Thank you, ma'am, but we don't need any customers who annoy the store owner, now please get off the property!"

William doesn't suffer fools gladly, so all the more reason to get rid of badly behaving customers before they cause any trouble.

All in all, it was a pretty good first session at the store, and with the money perks (because of course we're taking the money perks first, it's almost a tradition at this point), William could afford a small house.

William: "A house, awesome! I'd say 'you shouldn't have', but you definitely should have."

Glad you like it.

So now William has a kitchen / living room to enjoy his meals in. It's pretty purple, because well I felt like purple I guess.

William: "And I have an actual bathroom, with walls!"

Yeah, that's a bonus.

After some rest and relaxation, plus some painting on the easel, William asked Chloe on an outing. She can't move in until Monday, but in the meanwhile it's good to get their relationship on the move.

The outing seemed to go pretty nicely.

Although maybe it was slightly awkward when Chloe headed for the photobooth with some other guy in the middle of it. Well, at least it wasn't a date, right?

While Chloe was otherwise occupied, William discreetly worked on his digging.

In the end, we couldn't quite get the outing to the top level, because William just got too tired.

But we achieved the main goal, getting the relationship score up.

In the morning, William got to practice some more painting before work.

And work paid off, as he brought home another promotion! Excellent William, we'll make you into a Business Tycoon yet.

William: "But I want to be a chef, not a businessman."

I know, we'll get to that. Actually, since you brought Ajay Davidson home, there's something you two can talk about. He really wants to be a musician, but for the town, he needed to be a businessman first.

Though first, we needed to leave Ajay to his own devices for a bit, since the legacy tree needed some attention.

After that the two men sat on the sofa to enjoy some mac and cheese together. In perfect silence. I've no idea why.

Afterwards, though, they were perfectly happy to chat together. Maybe Ajay was able to pass off some Business Tycoon tips on to William.

After that, Ajay needed to leave, as William had some yelling at the mirror to do. Because that totally teaches you charisma.

In the morning, William managed to make another toaster pastry without burning it. I suppose that bodes well for his chef career, although maybe not so well for our chances to get alarms in the house.

Oh well, to think of it, Regan Capp is halfway through the Criminal career, so the first Law Enforcement Position and hence the alarms aren't that far anyway.

Another day at work, but sadly no promotion this time. William simply didn't have enough time to skill.

Plus not really the opportunity either, as he didn't yet have a chess board. But with today's salary in the bank, I deemed that he could afford it.

William: "Hi Chloe, how are you doing? Listen, I was thinking, how about we go on a date? I mean, an actual, real date?"

...

"That's nice. Yeah, the Walmart sounds good – or well as good as it gets in this town you know. See you in a bit!"

So a real date it was. It started off completely friendly.

And with an official picture, as they both wanted one.

But soon enough, things were about to get romantic, with both directed and autonomous actions. (I only try to help when it's something sims rarely do autonomously, or when it looks like they'd otherwise hit the photobooth with flirting wants in their panels.)

They did hit the photobooth, too, when appropriate wants were rolled first.

It seems that the Unsavory Charlatan approves of the couple. Not sure if that speaks in favor of them really.

In any case, I quite like them together too. They're pretty cute!

William and Chloe seem to agree with me there.

I've got plenty of pictures of the two of them kissing and flirting on free will, but I suppose we've made the point already. The date was a roaring success.

So much that in the dead of the night, not only did Chloe deliver a date bouquet, but an expensive gift too. Thanks Chloe, that'll go a long way towards improving the house and/or paying the taxes!

William still had a little bit of waiting to do before he could ask Chloe to win, so he spent some of that time working on his charisma.

And ~~playing in puddles~~ taking care of his business.

He's still working on his first flower arrangement badge.

William also opened the business for a while, and it reached level 4. The last needed star was awarded by none other than Lisa Ramirez, who has a reputation of being a terrible customer. Well, so far she's played nice here.

Thanks to the latest business session, William now had enough money for some new clothes, and we decided that it was time for a makeover.

While William was buying his clothes, some elderly folks of Laketown had their own ideas of fun.

Anyway, William headed home, had a nice long bubble bath...

... and had a makeover. What's the matter William, not happy with your new look?

William: "What? No no, it's fine. I'm just a grouchy sim, you know, I do this."

Alright then!

William spent the rest of his Sunday on the phone, at the easel and at the chess board. I love that look he sometimes makes while playing.

And on Monday morning, it was time to head to work one more time before this extended week is over. William wasn't maybe entirely sold on the idea.

But it payed off. Thanks to a good chance card, William got another promotion and moved on to level 5. Not bad progress for his week!

At this point I realized something rather embarassing. It seems that I managed to misspell poor William's name, and he's been "WIlliam" this whole week without me noticing it.

"WIlliam": "What?"

I'm so sorry, but don't worry, that's easy to fix. *breaks out Sim Blender*

William: "Now that's better."

William got off work early, so he had some time to spend yet before the very end of the rotation. He now got his hand on the Execuputter, so he spent his afternoon practising his chess and his golf.

No need to sneak, Chloe, I think we all know where this is going now.

Yep, Chloe is part of the household now! She also brings in 13,000 simoleans, which is a welcome addition to the family funds. The exterme start is officially over.

Chloe is a Romance sim with the personality 3/8/3/8/3 (Taurus). Her LTW, like William's, is to Become Celebrity Chef. She likes underwear and facial hair, but not artistic sims so much.

And it was right on time, too. After quitting her job (I forgot which one, but in any case one of those not open yet), Chloe headed to the chess board while William was paying the taxes. In the very last moments of the rotation we discovered that her OTH is games.

Alright, this is it for the Trollson family, and for the third week in Lakwood! All that remains is the scores. First, for the BaCC:

Playable sims: 23 + 2 (William, Chloe) = 25
SM: 13 +1 (for 10^th community lot) = 14
Population: 350

Households: 6 + 1 (Trollson) = 7

CAS sims: 2 + 1 (William) = 3 placed / 18 + 1 (for Pretty Pretty Flowers) = 19 earned

Community lots: 8 + 1 (Pretty Pretty Flowers) businesses + 1 free = 10

Businesses:

Lakewood Recreation Center (Lizzie Davidson, level 10)
Yummy! (Regan Capp, level 8)
Curious Gadgets (Pascal Curious, level 10)
Variety Buffet (Daniel Fortunato, level 10)
Face the Music (Ajay Davidson, level 0)
Better Dressed Sims (Jenny Capp, level 1)
Club Flamingo (Nervous Curious, level 4)
It's Art (Daniel Pleasant, level 6)
Pretty Pretty Flowers (William Trollson, level 4)

Other community lots:

Lakewood Walmart (general store)

Careers:

Business: Unlocked! / 2 taken (Ajay Davidson, level 10; William Trollson, level 5)
Medical: Unlocked!
Architecture: 2 openings / 1 taken (Jenny Capp, level 8)
Culinary: 1 opening / 1 taken (Brandi Broke, level 4)
Criminal: 1 opening / 1 taken (Regan Capp, level 5)
Music: Unlocked!
Slacker: 1 opening / 1 taken (Bella Goth, level 5)
Education: 1 opening / 0 taken
Artist: 1 opening / 0 taken

Business Tycoons: 1 (Ajay Davidson)

Universities: 1 (privately funded, founded by Lizzie Davidson)
Business Districts: 1
Downtown: no

Fires: 2
Burglaries: 2
Electrocutions: 2

Taxes collected from this household: 79,000*0.05 + 20,000*0.05 (for level 4 business) = 5,000 simoleans*

Taxes collected total: 73,000 + 5,000 = 78,000 simoleans at 5% rate

* I round both the net worths and the results so as to make calculations and keeping track of payments easier.

And for the legacy:

0.5 points for generation 1
1.25 points for friends (5 friends)

Total: 1.75 points

Alright, this is it for the Trollsons. Next time, it's time to head back to the Davidsons and start the fourth week in Lakewood. I hope you'll join us again, and until then, happy simming!