The Sims 3 Legacy Challenge has been around a long time. It’s one of the most popular ways to play this iconic game – and for good reason. The open world of The Sims 3 makes playing legacies fun and exciting, as the other Sims in the neighborhood progress and grow along with your legacy Sims.
Since I’ve recently begun a legacy challenge of my own on Twitch, I wanted to share my specific rules and strategies here on Pleasant Sims. (You can find the original Legacy Challenge Rules here.)
If you’re not familiar, The Sims 3 Legacy Challenge is a 10-generation challenge where you start with a single founder Sim. He (or she) will need to get married and continue the family line. Your objective is to lead the family to fortune and success throughout the course of 10 generations.
Starting Your Legacy
Create a brand new game file to play your legacy. You may choose any world to play in that you like.
Create your founder in Create-A-Sim. They can be male or female, but must be a Young Adult. You can choose their name, looks, traits, favorites, and lifetime want. Do not create any other Sims – only your single legacy founder Sim. Think carefully about your family name!
Move your founder Sim onto an empty 64 x 64 lot. You may need to demolish existing lots, or you can also place your own lot in the World Editor. The only rule is that the lot is 64 x 64 in size and empty. It also doesn’t matter what the lot costs. When it’s empty, your Sim will be able to afford it no matter what.
Use a money cheat to set your founder’s funds to exactly $1,800. This is all the money you’re allowed to start your legacy. It’s difficult, but doable! You may have to shower at the local gym for a while, but that’s part of the challenge.
- Press Ctrl + Shift + C to bring up the cheats console.
- Type “testingcheatsenabled true” without the quotations and press enter.
- Type “familyfunds [sims last name] [1800]” without the quotations or brackets and press enter. For example, if your Sim’s last name is “Smith,” the code should look like this: familyfunds Smith 1800
Now you’re ready to start your legacy. Get out there and make your mark on the world!
Pleasant Sims Rules
Here are the rules I use to play my Sims 3 Legacy Challenge. Keep in mind this is a work in progress and will be updated as I play. So make sure to check back often!
Basic Rules
- No Money or Mood Cheats – This defeats the whole purpose of the challenge. Do not use money cheats – with the exception of “family funds” a single time to set your founder’s initial money. And do not use mood cheats, as this makes the challenge less…challenging.
- Custom Content is Allowed – You may use any official content from The Sims 3 Store. Any custom content can be used as long as it does not impact your Sims’ moods or money. Make sure CC is used in the spirit of the challenge.
- Mods are Allowed – You may use any mod as long as it doesn’t give you a significant advantage (i.e. it doesn’t impact your Sims’ mood or money). Again, make sure mods are used in the spirit of the challenge.
- Story Progression is ON – Story Progression must be turned on. You can use a custom story progression mod or the EA story progression.
- Lifespan is Normal – Do not change the lifespan settings. Keep it set to normal.
- Do Not Switch Households – The legacy family must remain the active family through the entire challenge. Do not switch to another household. If you want to take a break from playing your legacy, play in another save file.
- No Supernaturals – No supernatural Sims are allowed in the Legacy family.
- No Moving – You may never move your family from
Aging & Resurrection
- No Ambrosia – Sims are not allowed to cook or consume Ambrosia. You also cannot use it to resurrect ghosts.
- No Resurrection – Do not resurrect dead Sims via any means. Once a Sim has passed, they are gone forever.
- No Life Fruit – Sims are not allowed to consume Life Fruit to get extra days added to their lives.
- No Death Flowers in Inventory – Sims may harvest and sell Death Flowers, but do not keep them in your Sims’ inventories to ward off death.
- No Early Age Ups – You can age Sims up via the birthday cake only after the game prompts you with a reminder of an upcoming birthday – no earlier. You don’t have to use the birthday cake and can wait for the game to force an age transition if you like.
Lifetime Rewards
Your Sims may use any of the in-game lifetime rewards EXCEPT the following:
- Inheritance
- Dusty Old Lamp
- Immortal
- Age Freeze
- Moodlet Manager
- Clone Voucher
Moving Sims In
You may only move in Sims if they marry the heir, become pregnant with the heir’s child, or your heir becomes pregnant with their child.
You may not create a Sim to become the partner of your heir/founder. They must select from the in-game Sims that already exist to further the family line. Any existing Sim may become the partner/husband/wife/baby mama/baby daddy with no restrictions.
Once a “spare” has moved out of the legacy home, they are not allowed to move back in.
Heirs & Spares
Each generation has an “heir” that will inherit the legacy home and continue the next generation. You can use any rules you want for choosing your heirs.
- The first-born child regardless of gender
- The first-born male
- The first-born female
- Roll to see which child will inherit randomly
You may wish to use a matriarchy or patriarchy rule. In a matriarchy, the first-born female is heir. If she dies, the second-born female becomes heir, etc. In a patriarchy, the first-born male is heir. If he dies, the second-born male becomes the heir, etc.
“Spares” are any children born in a generation that are NOT selected as the heir. Spares can become heirs if anything happens to the original heir while the spare is still living on the legacy lot. Once they move out, they are no longer eligible to become the heir.
Spares must be fed to the time stream the day after aging up to Young Adults. This means you have to kick them out and allow Story Progression to take over their lives. You may still interact with them, but you will no longer control them.
Choosing Traits
When a Sim is born or ages up, they will obtain new traits. Sometimes these traits are randomly assigned by the game. Other times the game lets you pick them. In the Legacy Challenge, all traits are random. If you are given the option to pick traits for any sim, you must hit the random button and accept the trait that is randomly assigned.
Death & Cemeteries
You must maintain a small family cemetery on the legacy lot. Sims that die on the legacy lot will remain buried there throughout the challenge.
If your heir dies and there are no spares currently living on the legacy lot, the challenge ends immediately. If an heir dies and there ARE spares currently living on the lot, one of them then becomes the heir (your choice). Ghosts cannot be heirs.
The Next Generation
Your founder is generation 1. Your founder’s child will be generation 2, the grandchildren of the founder will be generation 3 and so on. The challenge ends the moment generation 10 is born.
To bring in the next generation, a child must be born of the previous heir. If your heir/founder is male, you must move their partner into the legacy home before the baby is born. The heir/founder and their partner do not have to be married. If your heir/founder is female, you can choose to move in their partner at any time (or not).
Sims may be born at home or in a hospital. If you own the Into the Future expansion pack, your Sims are now allowed to “engineer a baby” at the hospital. This makes it possible for homosexual couples to have a baby without the use of mods.
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I hope you enjoy playing The Sims 3 Legacy challenge! Leave a comment below and let me know how your legacy family is doing, or share with me on social media. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. And don’t forget to follow me on Twitch to see all the fun and drama of the challenge live!
This is gonna be so fun! Thank you for posting this.
As an aside, do you think you’ll ever package up your NRAAS mod settings so we can easily import them into our games?
Thank you for letting me know Cindy. I love watching your videos!
Omg so glad that you’re playing Sims 3 😀
Also, someone on Youtube made a short Hot drinks animation in Sims 3. Just thought I’d let you know because Hot drinks 😀
HAHA! I love that!
I’m loving this ❤ I’ve found my inspiration for my stream!! Thank you so much!!
You’re very welcome!
Yay I’m so glad that you are doing this challenge, it’s so much fun! Thank you for sharing your rules.
Thanks for stopping by Elle! It is a really fun challenge!