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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 29th Dec 2017 at 7:03 PM Last edited by joeabuy1000 : 24th Feb 2021 at 6:34 AM. Reason: Fixing typos and ambiguous sentences, plus rule modifications
Default Philippine historical legacy challenge
This version of the legacy challenge is set in the 18th and 19th Centuries and was the inspiration for my worldbuilding project San Simeon. This is a logical choice due to my cultural milieu (and the challenge’s rules inspired the world itself). The standard-length generational saga takes place over the course of 11 or 12 generations. Each generation represents 20 years of history. The ideal starting point would be somewhere in the 1780s and the 1800s, which was a start of an exceptionally pivotal period in the country’s history. This was originally inspired by these two attempts at historical legacy challenges.

The challenge's rules change with the generation, reflecting the country's history from Spanish crown colony and briefly independent nation to an American commonwealth, Japanese puppet state, and finally an independent nation. You are free to include a city-building element to the game. The rules follow those of ordinary legacy challenges but have additional rules per generation, reflecting historical realities of the time.

Prepwork

Ideally, this should be set in a tropical world where the seasons are set mostly to summer with a brief spring. Hail, fog, rain, and frost are allowed. No modern technology, so get as many analogues to core sims functions as possible (chamber pots, bathing basins, ovens and bonfires, medieval/renaissance/Asian objects, etc.). Pets is optional but very much recommended in the early stage, while Uni is almost required for the later generations. As a rule, all expansions save Into the Future are recommended. Feel free to alter the rules as needed.

General Rules

- Conform to actual historic events and conditions.
- No one can be a president, vice president, or astronaut until the last two generations.
- Up until the end of the colonial ages, all strikes count as “uprisings” and all family members who join must become jobless fugitives or criminals.
- Throughout the colonial era, the first floor is functionally a foundation. No one is to use this floor for anything other than a kitchen, latrine, or housing for livestock until after the 20th Century.
- No cheats save for those related to building. The aristocracy-tenant farmer scenario still demands that the player earn the amount needed to separate the two. Inheritance, the only normal-gameplay way of instantaneous money, is allowed only once and only to the aristocracy.
- All woohoos are “try for baby” until the 1960s, and then only when the family is somehow wealthy or liberal-ish.
- One can opt to use the points system as outlined by the original challenge.
- Fashion changes with the era, though keep blatant stereotypes to a minimum.
- If it isn’t legal/available in the Philippines (or Earth, for that matter) in 2018, it will only appear after Generation 12 reaches its 2020s phase, which is the speculative future and therefore one is allowed to make stuff up.
- Avoid anachronistic traits.
- Optional: Rolls of a dice can be used to determine whether a sim involved in something perilous (wars, uprisings, anti-dictatorship demostrations, etc.) survives the ordeal.

Opening rules

All starter options begin with one or two sims (a married couple, preferably) save for the Encomiendero option, which is given a huge opening handicap.

Due to the limitations of the game and reflecting some degree of social mobility in the late 19th Century, the often-disenfranchised peasants can join the ranks of the principalia (native aristocracy) if they gain enough money or marry into an existing aristocratic family. Emphasis on “if;” Native Filipino peasants are only allowed subsistence occupations. No such restrictions apply post-independence.

European and Latin American Aristocrats
- They can use the inheritance lifetime reward exactly once, preferably during the first generation
- They must only live in two-story houses.
- They can advance to all but the highest two government and military positions, and the highest career positions save for the highest of the journalist career.
- They can read newspapers.
- They can only have male heirs.

Native Aristocrats
- They too must live in a two-story house.
- They can take up careers and advance up to level five in many careers for the first few generations.
- They should aspire to have their daughters marry a European aristocrat.
- They can have female heirs.

Native Peasants and Tenants
- They are only allowed skill careers until they become wealthy enough to commission their own stone house in the legacy property or become a part of the aristocratic bloodline through marriage.
- They cannot attend college until later generations
- They are required to go on as many unrewarding, goose-chasey opportunities as they can.
- They are not allowed to read or even have newspapers until they become wealthy.
- They can have female heirs.
- Tenants can marry their children off to the aristocrats’; how well this is handled by the aristocrats depends on how well their relationships are.

Clergy
- Sims can opt to become clergy (friars and nuns), wherein they become unmarried and work in the education, medical, and science careers, which is available exclusively to them for several generations.
- Sims with any aspiration that requires the education, medical, or science careers in the first three or four generations must work toward becoming clergy.
- They cannot marry or be eligible to be heirs, though they can have affairs and amass wealth for themselves or their families. For them to formally marry a lover and start a family, they must “leave their holy orders” and quit their respective careers. They become eligible heirs when they quit.
- They can adopt children should they choose to remain celibate.
- They must be invited to wedding parties.
- Clergy can have the good or evil traits, which determine a lot about their interaction with others down the line.
- They can read newspapers.
- Clergy must keep their liaisons secret. Lower-tier clergy who get caught while having an affair are defrocked (lose their jobs and are cut off from all others) while clergy who “go steady” with a romantic partner but haven’t slept with them can leave the Holy Orders, be open about their relationships, and get married.

Chinese immigrants
- They, ideally, should live in an apartment and earn the right to purchase their own lot and build their own homes.
- They can become members of the native aristocracy through intermarriage.
- They can only work in skill careers and in part-time careers in stores.
- They cannot take classes and must learn their skills by themselves.

Starting backstories

The series begins in the colonial period of my country’s history. As such, three bare-bones starters are available to the player.

The Haciendero. An outspoken yet penniless noble has been granted a large estate by the king. In truth, however, the family is being all but banished to a backwater. Will they earn enough prestige in their new land to win back their dignity, or will they cast their lot with the native people?

This starter functionally comprises two different families living in the same lot: a European (or Mexican) “main” family alongside a native Filipino family that works as their tenant farmers.

The main family’s goal is to rebuild their wealth and regain their family’s prestige. As members of the colony’s upper class, they must first direct all their financial efforts to building a two-story estate house. The house doesn’t have to fancy at first, but it needs to have a stone-textured bottom floor and a wood textured top floor. They may opt to live in a public lot with a bed in it (a hotel) and work out of home until the house is completed. Their peasant servants must, however, live in the lot.

The bulk of the money made by the main family’s tenant farmers (through agriculture, fishery, prospecting and mining, hunting, and trade) goes to funding the construction of their landlord’s house. Only when it is completed, and the landlord’s expenses are met, are they allowed to spend anything on themselves.

The inheritance lifetime award is available only to a male aristocrat, and it can only be accessed when they reach level 6 of their respective careers. A legacy family of this sort can only inherit once.

The Inquilino. With no skills and an admittedly modest allotment given by the one of the local lords, one itinerant worker searches for fortune in a new province.

Inquilinos are itinerant workers in the larger haciendas and represent the closest thing this has to the actual legacy challenge. They start with nothing but an allotment to live in and next to nothing, and would have to develop everything by themselves with only subsistence careers to start with. Once they can afford to build their own two-story house, they’ve officially become Principalia.

The size of the allotment they move into determines the difficulty. A smaller lot tends to be historically accurate, while the largest lot remains faithful to the challenge.

The Chino. A humble Chinese peasant family sets off for new opportunities further south with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Will hard work and shrewd determination be enough to build a fortune?

Chinese immigrants start off with less than the others (they live in a dormitory apartment building and are cut off from education outside of childhood) and must not only earn the right to live on a lot of their own but build their own fortunes in a land they’ve come to see as their own while preserving their own culture and customs. Agriculture is closed to them until they own their own land.

Generational Rules

Generation 1 (1778 through 1808)
• The available careers include politics, journalism, daycare, business, military, crime , artist, farmer, equestrian, entertainer (acrobat and magician), fisherman, sculptor, architect, stylist, vendor, writer, and educator, and the required rabbithole workplaces (business center, city hall, school, military base, criminal hideout, salon, and market) must be present in the island. No other buildings are available at this point. The salon will be treated as a seamstress’ house, whereas the criminal hideout represents the headquarters of rebels.
• The Spanish flag must be prominent in all government buildings. Flag swapping is going to be common for authenticity's sake.
• Aristocracy can run plantations of cash crop agricultural products like bananas.
• Consignment sellers are only allowed to sell to Chinese travelers and locals.
• All lower-class non-Europeans cannot access rabbit hole careers (save for part-time jobs and the business career).
• Letters are the only means of nonphysical interpersonal communication.

Generation 2 (1808 through 1828)
• Foreign trade is opened, allowing consignment sellers to sell to French travelers.
• Business ownership is allowed for those who can afford.
• Rabbit hole careers become available to native aristocracy.

Generation 3 (1828 through 1848)
• Cameras are available to the Spanish. The photography career becomes available.
• Modern medicine appears. The hospital and medical career becomes available to non-clergy.
• Game generated townies with Eurowestern names will be treated as “Americans.” They are ideal clients for trade.
• Lotteries become available. Everyone save for the clergy can participate. Yes, if you’re counting points, the money won counts toward the money goal.

Generation 4 (1848 through 1868)
• The in-game cellphone is treated as a telegraph at this point. It can only be used to receive incoming calls (telegram wires) and nothing else until Generation 9.
• The law enforcement career (standing in for the historic Guardia Civil) becomes available to all.
• Uprisings intensify. Members of the police must become enemies with a lot of people until 1900.
• Typewriters (ersatz computers) appear.
• Indoor plumbing appears for rich families.
• Male children must be sent to college if the family can afford.
• Bicycles become available.

Generation 5 (1868 through 1888)
• Primitive phones become available. Phone sets are the only phone that can be used until cellphones are invented, but can be used for both incoming and outgoing calls.
• Phonograph-type stereos become available.
• All social classes can read the newspaper.
• Propaganda Movement: Intelligent middle-class Sims who went to college must become writers or journalists and have unhealthy relationships with politicians and the resident friars, though priests they have previously known and befriended (or those with the good trait) can stay friends with them.
• Old timey cars become available. Because it is expensive (both IRL and in-game), only rich families can afford one.
• Electric lighting can be used.
• Movie theaters appear.

Generation 6 (1888 through 1908)
• Philippine Revolution; swap the Spanish flag for the Philippine one. All racial and social divides are obsolete.
• If you can get the no bills lifetime reward, now is the best time to do it.
• Philippine-American War. Young adult and adult male sims in all but the politics track are called on to join the military; members of the rebel clique now take on the politics track. The same rule applies for young adult women who are currently not mothers. Mothers are not allowed to openly participate.
• Fire alarms become available.
• Clergy no longer have exclusive control over education.
• The Philippine revolutionary government was locked in a war between American colonizers for some time after the revolution. American flags independent of the flag poles should pop up in some places.

Generation 7 (1908 through 1928)
• Subjugation under the Americans: Swap the Philippine flag for a U.S. one, representing the U.S. colonial/commonwealth era (note: The Commonwealth of the Philippines did have its own flag and the U.S. had international recognition as the owners of the country since at least the start of the 20th Century; Philippine flags not on flagpoles can be used elsewhere).
• The Spanish colonial rules for the politics and military career tracks are reinstated, only brought up to Level 7. All other career tracks thus far are open.
• Radio-type stereos and foosball tables become available.
• The composer branch of the music career becomes available at the theater.
• The science career becomes available to non-clergy.
• Protestantism, Irreligion, and Islam appear, so families can remove overtly Catholic imagery altogether.
• Prohibition-era Americans who join families must make wine.
• Spas and their career paths appear.
• Bookstores and bookstore clerks also appear.
• Women are discouraged from working unless they are in a skill career.

Generation 8 (1928 through 1948)
• The Great Depression affects anyone still in the business of running a plantation. The farmer career path is closed, and all farming becomes subsistence.
• Take all but 1000 simoleons from the family funds.
• Vintage televisions become available.
• The 1940s (marked by this generation’s offspring becoming teens) marks the Japanese occupation. The military career is altogether closed from anyone not already currently working there, but anyone who isn’t currently working in government can take low positions, at the cost of having to be enemies with everyone else. You cannot watch the television at this time.
• Said enemies are preferably allied soldiers or rebels; they can move to a distant camp away from the centers of government.
• Shortly before the generation ends (1945), WWII is won, and Filipino citizens can finally return to work on the Military and Government.

Generation 9 (1948 through 1968)
• This and all subsequent generations represent the history of a fully independent Philippines, and thus the Philippine flag is permanent. All careers save for the top tier of the military and government branches are available.
• People can farm for profit again.
• The detective, inventor, ghost hunter, professional sports, singer, and film careers, as well as the top level of the journalist career (and their workplaces) become available.
• The “secret agent” branch of the police career becomes available.
• The criminal career becomes a regular crime career and any sims in it becomes a regular criminal kingpin, again; dress accordingly.
• Contraception appears; Sims can now woohoo without trying for baby; due to the very conservative atmosphere, this will not be followed as strictly if there is an old Catholic person in the household.

Generation 10 (1968 through 1988)
• Cheap computers, videogame consoles (standing in for the famicom/SNES), burglar alarms, and arcade games become available.
• Women can work in all careers in the transition between the 60s and 70s.
• Dance clubs become available. Bonus if one owns the 70s, 80s, and 90s stuff pack.
• Scuba diver career becomes available.
• Toward the second half of the generation, have college students and clergy befriend rebel elements and organize strikes.
• If you have a journalist in the family in the family who isn’t friends with a politician, they must quit their jobs and become fugitives, representing the Martial Law era. The journalist career is unavailable for much of the generation.
• You can opt to split off the activist sim/s from the main family and have them be fugitives. Rules for the Dystopia challenge are recommended here, as appropriate.
• If you choose to run a political family, have them embezzle funds at every opportunity or stay low in the political arena while befriending rebellious Sims in private. The former is default for Sims with the “evil” trait and the latter for those with the “good” trait.
• The “rock” branch of the music career becomes available. They themselves should be allied with the rebels and the activists.
• Politicians with the evil trait regain access to the “inheritance” lifetime reward, with the prerequisite of a rival or enemy sim killed in the lot.
• Everyone not currently working or a criminal/fugitive is not allowed to leave their house after 8PM. Children cannot attend field trips.
• Police, and military must make as many enemies as possible and, whenever possible, cause the deaths of Sims with rebellious traits or are otherwise disliked by a government official.
• The revolution itself would naturally take place after the sim born in this generation is on or about to leave college. To represent the 1986 Revolution, have everyone in the family who isn’t a policeman or a child attend any and all social demonstrations toward the end of the generation. Recent college students and clergy are especially encouraged to participate and/or organize the strikes.
• If you have clergy in the family, they must become influential among rebels and organize strikes or become “communist insurgents” (criminal career, again).

Subitem: Activists

An activist sim leaves their family, either out of spite for their parents’ complacency with the dictatorship or out of fear for their safety. The don’t take any jobs and spend most of their times making provocative street art, protest songs, and organizing demonstrations. Their friends (clergy, especially if they happen to be one themselves) must be contacted only very infrequently unless they are best friends. They need to launch at least five demonstrations, with a big one in city hall, over the course of the challenge. Similar situations can be played out for insurgent sims during the colonial and World Wars eras.

Some of the rules of this gameplay are identical to MysticCandy’s Dystopia Challenge . The difference is that the activist sims must have a related heir or eventually have one themselves and the next generation would segue to a return to democracy anyway. The motive for a successful uprising unseats any politician with the evil trait while netting you an immense amount of points if you’re keeping score.

Generation 11 (1988 through 2008)
• Asian financial crisis. Take 1000 simoleons from the family funds.
• Have all electric lights and appliances off every three nights, representing the many powerouts in the 1990s. Also do this if it rains or if you manage to catch a jellyfish while fishing.
• Toward the end of this generation, everyone (especially the poor) must use the in-game cellphone as often as possible. It cannot be used for Internet activities, though.
• Expensive computers, laptops, and LCD TVs become available.
• Blogging and social media become available.
• All Internet-based activity will be on a computer.
• T’was a good time for bands and a terrible time for people who hated mediocre alternative rock. Have a bunch of young adults form one, regardless of how good they are at it.
• Politicians without the good trait can buy businesses and accept any embezzlement work opportunities, especially if they happen to own the criminal building.

Generation 12 (2008 through 2028)
• All game options and life choices available in the 2020s.
• People can use cell phones for social media. The Store’s tablet also becomes available.
• Any member of the family who is friends with a politician or is inappropriate, evil, or mean-spirited should troll forums once a day.
• Plumbots and aliens also appear at this point.
• After the 13th generation is born, the challenge ends. Tabulate the points if you were keeping track.

Points

The points are a variation of the Sims 3 legacy challenge points system.

No matter how many family members are present in the starter family, they all cost one point as founders. People playing with a tenant family and aristocrat family are allowed to count only the points earned by the aristocrat family unless the tenants intermarry with their landlords.

Each new generation born is 1 point.

Each portrait (painting, memoir, sculpture, or photo) is another 1 point.

Lifetime totals of 100,000 aspiration points are 1 point.

Each lifetime goal reached is 1 point.

A successful 1980s uprising is 3 points; a player can launch up to ten uprisings, at least three of which need to be successful, which net another 1 point. Only 10 points can be gained.

If a family splits off (e.g., during an activist scenario), the points gathered in the lot previously played is maintained, but only the current achievements of the playable family is considered moving forward. The relatives that now own the previous lot may gain more net worth over time, but their points are no longer awarded to the player.
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