The Sims 3 Challenge Number 1: The 100 Baby Challenge

Finding ways to enhance your Sims game can be all sorts of fun. For some, starting a new game or family is more than sufficient to freshen up their Sims experience, but recently I've found it more and more difficult to do so. As much as I love The Sims, it's daunting to keep that "honeymoon" period after the release of an expansion from degrading into dreary dregs, and so we have--

The Sims 3 Challenges!

You can find different challenges sprinkled throughout blogs and forums over the internet, but my recommendation for the most complete compendium of these challenges is over at the Mod The Sims forums.

The general conceit of Sims 3 challenges is that they are a set of parameters encompassing a theme. Honestly, when it comes to these objectives there is "something for everyone".

In addition to some Let's Plays and photo arrays that I intend to do on this blog, here you will also find a number of highlights from challenges.

Thus, without further ado--

The Sims 3 100 Baby Challenge!!!

**Firstly, I would like to say that I don't see this challenge as any sort of commentary on society or an encouragement of irresponsible behavior; I'm doing this as a way to test my patience and Sims prowess.

The 100 baby challenge denotes an objective to have your Sim have 100 babies, in the fewest generations possible, with as many men as possible. You are not allowed to use cheats. The purpose of doing this with different men is not just to increase the difficulty by requiring you to raise your relationship with all of these different people, but also to keep things from getting stale. The Sims 3 genetic algorithms are designed to emulate real life, and as in real life, two different people are able to have offspring which have only a narrow margin of difference when it comes to their overall appearances. This challenge takes a LONG time, and looking at a hundred children which all look similarly to one another can make you feel as though you're in a cult-- or a puppy mill. Ergo, the necessity for visual differentiation is key to helping you get through the experience. 

Here are the rules, which I've copy/pasted from the MTS forums here :

• Your founder may only leave the house to complete opportunities and meet men. She may not have a job.
• Infants may be aged up immediately if you wish
• Toddlers can be aged up as soon as they can walk, talk, and use the potty, but not before. If you don't get these done, you must wait for the game to age them up (same goes for Children and teens.)
• Children and Teens may be aged up once they have an A in school and you get the message about your child reaching Honor Roll.
• Teens may get a part-time job to help out.
• Young adults may be moved out immediately or you can wait, but they cannot get a full-time job while living in the house
• You may hire a maid, but you have to stop them from helping with toddlers (changing diapers, feeding, etc.)
• You may not use Apples or Watermelon to determine the gender of a baby.
• You may not choose traits for any Sim except the founder (trust me, my 2nd generation mom hated Art)
• The last girl to be born from the founder will continue the challenge.
• Your founder may not get married while living in-house.
• Your founder may be moved out as soon as she is an elder to make room, as long as there is another adult sim in the house.
• If you manage to not get a girl, obviously the challenge is failed. That's the only way you can really fail.
• You may not use any cheats, except for to reset a sim if needed.
• Fertility treatment is GOOD! USE IT!
• Once you've had children with a man, you may not use him again for offspring.
• Your sim may never hire a babysitter. You have to wait until other children are old enough to take care of it.
• EDIT You may not send your children to Boarding School, as the school takes care of the child which repeals the point.

Now, I must admit that I've made one big modification; I have a mod which allows same-sex procreation, and so I am also having my Sim produce offspring with women as well as men. This is partly because it allows me to ensure that she has lots of interesting-looking children, but also because I had the mod active without remembering to turn it off, and for her second pregnancy she automatically did a "Try For Baby" interaction with a female Sim and before I stopped it, she was already in the family way! Oh well.

 I don't feel that this harms the integrity of the challenge at all; the task is to foster relationships and raise healthy children, so the gender of the donor doesn't truly matter. I will concede that this might make it a little easier, but the only place my Sim has managed to meet people thus far is in the sports bar when there have been both men and women there at the same time. We'll just have to see how it goes and if it seems too much easier, I'll go back to males only.

As my Sim progresses through the 100 Baby Challenge, I will share photos and short videos of various milestones and interesting occurrences.

Take care!!!