This challenge was written before the “Off the Grid” lot trait was added to base game, but I think it will work well with the trait. I also love that it’s a challenge that involves an entire world with the potential for multiple families to be played as well. It’s like an extreme rags to riches style challenge, which could be a lot of fun!
Check out the link below for the full challenge rules.
Link & credit to creator: Snarky Witch’s Tumblr
Story
A nomadic tribe of Sims who don’t believe in the ways of the 21st century stumble across a completely empty landscape and see a golden opportunity; to claim the land as their own and create a permanent village in this area that is completely free of the trappings of technology. This village will become one of the only villages left in the Sim world to be completely untouched by the influences of modernity. Together, the tribe will grow and prosper out of the dedication and hard work they’ve put into building a sustainable community.
Objective
Build up a town with a tribe of Sims that lives completely off the land. No buying your groceries, no using technology, no indoor plumbing, no businesses or careers that make use of any of these things, and no outings to community lots that have these things. Your Sims are 100% dependent on themselves and their own hard work to survive. The challenge ends when every household in your town has met the challenge requirements for being true off the grid masters (but if you are having fun playing this way when your challenge ends, feel free to continue)!
Preparing the World to Live Off The Grid
- Pick any world except San Myshuno and Magnolia Promenade to completely bulldoze. HINT: Choose your world carefully! Larger worlds with more lots provide a bigger challenge so think about the difficulty level you’d like to play before making your choice.
- Once your world has been bulldozed, pick the lots you would like to build your community lots on. For worlds with more than five lots, you may select up to three lots to be used as community lots in your world. For worlds with five lots or less, you are restricted to only one community lot.
- The community lots can be anything you like with one catch; they cannot have any kind of technology or plumbing whatsoever. There are no exceptions to this. These lots will be the only community lots your tribe of Sims will ever be allowed to visit so think carefully about what your off-the-grid Sims might need off their home lots and construct your community lots with this in mind. If a community lot requires a forbidden object in order to function as your selected lot type, you must create a basement Sims can’t access and place the objects in there so that they comply with the lot requirements but are out of the way and unusable by your Sims. You may also download community lots from the Gallery as long as they meet these requirements.
- The rest of the lots in your world will be residential lots where your tribe will make their homes.
- Next, go into the game options and make the following adjustments under the Gameplay tab: Auto-Age (Played Sims) – Only Active Household, Sim Lifespan – Normal, Fill Empty Homes – Uncheck. You’ll be playing rotationally so these settings ensure that your other played households will not age while you are playing a different household. It also ensures that game-generated townies will not move into your lots.
- After you create your tribe, make sure all those households are in your households list in the Household Management tab in Manage Worlds. Do this by selecting the heart icon on the household’s portrait if it is not selected already. This will protect them from culling.
