legacy challenge (the sims 2)

The Legacy Challenge is a challenge created by Pinstar1161 for The Sims 2. The goal of the challenge is to "make a family the strongest it can be over 10 generations."

History of the challenge

The original Legacy Challenge thread was posted in the Sims 2 BBS some time ago. However, so many people posted replies to that thread, that its creator, Pinstar1161, created a new thread on November 9 2004 at 3:21 PM PST. Although Pinstar1161 is a normal player of The Sims 2 and not a Maxis programmer, the people at Maxis seem to be encouraging this challenge because of all the excitement it has generated. Some programmers have even admitted to trying this challenge themselves!

The rules

In order to keep the challenge fair and to measure how "strong" a Sim family is after ten generations, rules for gameplay and scoring have been established.

Starting a legacy family

The first generation of any "Legacy" family must adhere to the list of rules as follows: (NOTE: For the purposes of this article, the first generation Sim of a family participating in the the Legacy Challenge will be referred to as the "Legacy Sim.")

There can be only one Legacy Sim per family. (This means that, when the Legacy family is first created, there is only one adult in the family and no other people.)
The Legacy Sim must be adult, may be either Male or Female, and may be made with Create-A-Sim, Bodyshop, or any other Sim creation tool.
The Legacy Sim may be assigned the Aspiration of the player's choice, and his or her personality points may likewise be assigned as the player chooses.
The Legacy Sim must move into an empty 5X5 lot.

Any newly-created Sim family has 20,000 Simoleons, and an empty 5X5 lot costs 15,000 Simoleons. This will leave your Legacy Sim with 5,000 Simoleons for building a house and/or buying furniture.

Playing a legacy family

The first generation and all suceeding generations of any Legacy family must also abide by a specific set of rules.

Although any Sims in your Legacy family may have relationships with any other Sim in the Neighborhood, the Sims in your Legacy family may only marry or move in townies or NPCs. See the Other section for defitions of what these terms mean.
Although your Sims may use the Elixir of Life Aspiration reward object, the player may NOT at any time use the "aging off" cheat.
All Aspiration reward objects are allowed, as long as they are obtained without cheating.
All Maxis-made objects and 3rd-party objects that you download into your game may be used.
Cheats and mood trainers (hacked objects designed to grossly manipulate Sims' moods) are NOT allowed (see the Other section for exceptions to this rule).
The twins and abduction mods for this game are NOT allowed. See the Other section for what mods are allowed.

Scoring a legacy family

As soon as your ninth generation Sim has his or her first child, you must pause the game, and tally up the score for your "Legacy" family as follows:

1 point per generation reached (maximum of 10 points in this category)
1 point per $100,000 in net worth (round current net worth up)
1 point for each PLATINUM grave on the lot
1/3 point for each family friend the family has at the end. (round spare 1/3s down)
1 point every time a sim fulfills an "impossible" want (a want scoring 30,000 points or more, limit one per sim per want. There are other wants that also count for this, like "have 10 children" I'll try to post a complete list of them soon.)
-1 point every time a household member drops into aspirational failure, requiring a visit from the sim shrink.
-2 points for every inter-bred birth in the family.

Bonuses

2 points if all 10 career reward objects are on the lot (One time only)
1 point for each different type of NPC that you have children with over the whole legacy.
1 point for each different color ghost you have on the lot at the end.
-2 points for each visitor that dies on your lot.
1 point for each alien born on the lot (1st generation aliens only, children of aliens don't count, unless it's by abduction)
2 points if the birth that brings in the last generation is twins.
2 points if you can get two social bunnies to have romantic interactions on the lot (One time only)
2 points if the ghosts on your lot can acess your sims. (see Other)
2 points if you manage to collect ALL the different types of ghosts on the lot (see Other)

Other

Exceptions

Exceptions to the rules are as follows:

If an object in a Legacy household develops a bug, it is legal to use the "moveobjects_on" cheat to remove that object.
Mods that do not singificantly affect gameplay (such as the "no cheer" mod, to prevent children and teens from cheering when they recieve an A+ report card) are allowed.
Any cheat or hack that affects the game on a PURELY VISUAL level is allowed, provided it doesn't alter ghost colors or urns from non-platinum to platinum.

Definitions

An NPC (non-playable character) is any Sim in the neighborhood that performs a specific role in the neighborhood. These Sims are not part of any family. For example, the Maid and the Gardener are NPCs because their role is to clear and to garden, respectively. If an NPC moves into the family, they lose their job (the job menu shows they are Unemployed), and a new Sim will be generated to fulfill the NPC's function. A townie is any Sim in the neighborhood that does not perform a specific role in the neighborhood, but does not occupy any of the houses in the neighborhood. In all other respects they are exactly like normal Sims; any Sim can become friends with or invite over a townie, and you can propose that they Move In to your family. If a townie does Move In with another family, or if a townie is killed on a lot, then another townie is randomly generated; that way, the neighborhood never runs out of townies.

Ghosts

Every ghost is assigned a different color based on the Sims' manner of death. The different ways of dying are:

Old age
Drowning
Fire
Electrocution
Scared to death
Flies
Satellite
Starvation
Illness
Cow Plant (only in University expansion pack)

If you are not playing with the University expansion pack, you do not need the Cow Plant death to qualify for the "every color ghost" bonus. It is also possible to prevent your ghosts from posing any challenge to your living Sims. This is done in two ways: either surrounding them with water, or placing them in a basement without stairs. However, in order to get the 2 point bonus, your ghosts must be able to access your living Sims. This is to make the challenge more interesting (and difficult) as it nears its end. Placing all your ghosts on the ground level and making all your living Sims sleep on the 2nd floor or above is allowed, as long as the ghosts can reach your Sims if they really want to, and will earn you the 2 points.

Impossible wants

An "impossible" want is defined as any Want that scores 30,000 aspiration points or more. The exception is the "Have 10 Children" Want, which is valued at only 15,000 aspiration points but is just as difficult to attain as many 30,000 point Wants. The list of "impossible" Wants is as follows:

Family: have 10 children, have 20 grandchildren.
Popularity: have 30 best friends
Romance: woohoo with/public woohoo with 30 different sims (an extremely well-played romance sim can net a family several legacy points by themselves. I don't know if "in love with 30" and "make out with 30" also score 30,000 points. If they do, they too can be claimed for legacy points)
Knowledge: max all skills
Wealth: make 100,000 simoleans

A point is only earned if the actual Want is fulfilled. That means that if, for example, a Family Sim maxes all skills, or if a Knowledge Sim maxes all skills while the Want is not in his/her Want bar, then no point is earned.