[TS2] The Fire Emblem Formula Challenge

[darklingtiresias]

My current TS2 game is a medieval-ish fantasy game heavily inspired by JRPG aesthetic- Final Fantasy, the Legend of Zelda, and Magic Knight Rayearth being some of the bigger influences. But the biggest influence beyond all doubt is the Tellius-era Fire Emblem games. So I decided to make a challenge for TS2 based on the Fire Emblem Formula.

What is the Fire Emblem Formula? Well, it goes something like this:
A member of royalty- usually a princess, but it can also be a prince or a queen- is dethroned by evil outside forces. This is often another kingdom with an evil king (cough convenient final boss), but can also be a wicked family member planning a coup. Together with a ragtag band of colourfully-haired friends, the member of royalty must reclaim their throne by fighting a series of pitched battles against the enemy army.

Starting Conditions
Begin by creating your Dethroned Ruler and their Starting Retinue. Your Dethroned Ruler can be any gender, have any Aspiration, and have any personality, but their unofficial LTW is always going to be "Reclaim My Kingdom". (Use the Batbox or a similar object to 'fulfil' their LTW when it's complete and delete any perma-plat they might get from fulfilling their 'official' LTW.)



The Dethroned Ruler's starting retinue can be 1 to 5 sims, but they must all be Units. (See below.)

Place them all on 1 medium lot. This will be your Ruler's Camp. Arrange and decorate it accordingly- use tents or Anabasis tent-buildings for housing, set up campfires for cooking, and arrange deco horses (or even a functional one).



Gameplay
The object of this challenge is to reclaim the Ruler's old capital- in other words, to 'earn' a Downtown, a bit like how you'd 'earn' one in a BACC. You do this two ways- first, by building up your new settlement and 'earning' population, and second, by fighting battles.

Population
Population in a FEF Challenge works about the same as it does in a BACC. To quote iCad's rules:

...it's a simulated population. This is calculated using a multiplier. To calculate your population, you multiply the number of playable Sims you have in your city by your current multiplier, which changes as you play.

At the very beginning, your Multiplier is 1 and your number of playable Sims is 1, your founder. 1x1=1, so your population is 1. If your founder marries/moves in a townie, you then have 2 playables and your Multiplier is still 1. 2x1=2, so your population is 2. The key to playing this way is to increase your Multiplier along with your number of playables. Here are the ways to increase your Multiplier:

+1 for the first community lot you place
+1 each time you reach a multiple of 5 community lots (So, you add one to your multiplier when you reach 5 community lots, then one when you reach 10, then 15, then 20, etc.)
+5 for each Business District
+5 for each University
+10 for a Downtown

With every fourth household you establish in your neighborhood, you automatically earn a community lot of any size or type you choose.... At any time, you may place any community lot, but you must have a playable Sim immediately purchase the new lot and run a business on it.

... Whichever method is used for establishing community lots, for every community lot you place, you earn one CAS Sim. You may immediately create that Sim and set him/her up in a new household, or you may save up CAS Sims and create entire families when you have enough Sims saved up.
...You earn 5 CAS Sims for each business district you earn. (And each university.)

So here's where the rules diverge from your typical BACC. I'm.... not good with numbers or consistency (blame my ADHD), so collecting taxes and remembering whether or not I've unlocked certain careers have always been tricky. And spreadsheets? Fie, I say. So this is a streamlined version of the system that, instead of keeping track of numbers separately, revolves around the Sims themselves, all with numbers that the game keeps track of for you.

Units
A Unit is a special sim - one of the ragtag band of powerful people who fight alongside the Princess. Units can generally be distinguished from normal sims by their colourful hair, wild armour, and/or exaggerated personalities.
You begin the game with 1-5 Units (you can roll randomly or just pick the number you think will be most interesting).
After that, you earn 1 Unit every time you earn a point of Sim Multiplier. In addition, ordinary Sims can become Units- see below under 'leveling up'.
To unlock careers and earn business districts/universities/Downtowns, you must 'level up' your Units.

Leveling Up
All CAS-created Units start at level 1. Every time a Unit gains a skill point, they level up. So a Unit with 3 skill points in Cooking and 5 skill points in Creative, for instance, is level 8. A skill badge counts as 5 skill points, because badges are a pain in the arse to earn.
A sim can reach a max level of 70 by earning skill points and a total max level of 160 (if they get ALL the badges).
An ordinary Sim who reaches level 20 may choose to become a Unit or remain an ordinary sim. Children of Units automatically become Units upon reaching the Teen lifestage unless there is a story-based reason for them not to.

Careers
You unlock careers the way you would in a more typical BACC, by having sims do specific things. Before that, sims may not join any career.
(Like I said, I'm lazy and bad at keeping track of things. This is designed to be fairly simple but will require some playtesting to make sure it's not too easy.)

Adventure: Unlocked when any Unit reaches level 10. Most characters in JRPGs are adventurers of some kind or another.

Architecture: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Logic skill and reaches max Arts and Crafts enthusiasm.

Artist: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Creativity skill and reaches max Arts and Crafts enthusiasm.

Athletics: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Body skill and reaches max Sports enthusiasm.

Business: Unlocked when any Unit receives a Gold Sales badge.

Criminal: Unlocked when any Unit with less than 5 nice points maxes the Charisma skill.

Culinary: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Cooking skill and reaches max Cooking enthusiasm.

Dance: Unlocked when any Unit reaches a high enough level in the hidden Dance skill to Bust A Move.

Education: Unlocked when any Unit's child learns the Homework skill.

Entertainment: Unlocked when any Unit with more than 5 nice points maxes the Charisma skill.

Gamer: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Mechanical skill and maxes Games enthusiasm.

Intelligence: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Mechanical AND Charisma skills.

Journalism: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Creativity skill AND reaches max Films and Literature enthusiasm.

Law: Unlocked when any Unit with fewer than 3 playful points maxes the Creativity skill.

Law Enforcement: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Body skill and reaches max Fitness enthusiasm.

Medical: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Cleaning skill.

Military: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Body skill.

Music: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Creativity skill and has max Music and Dance enthusiasm.

Natural Science: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Logic skill and reaches max Nature enthusiasm.

Oceanography: Unlocked when any Unit gains a Gold fishing badge.

Paranormal: Unlocked when any Unit reaches level 25.

Politics: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Charisma skill.

Science: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Logic skill.

Show Business: Unlocked when any Unit maxes the Creativity AND Charisma skills.

Slacker: Unlocked when any Unit maxes Games, Music and Dance, and Arts and Crafts enthusiasm.

Battles
To unlock Business Districts, Universities, and (eventually) Downtown, you must go to war and reclaim them from the invading army. ....This part is the most number-crunchy part of the challenge. XD

To go to war, you must have at least 150 Population and at least 5 Units. However, your odds are better if you have more people on your side.
We'll simulate the size of the enemy army instead of making them. The enemy equivalent of Population is the Garrison- the number of soldiers they're able to keep in the surrounding area.

A University 'has' 500 Garrison and 15 Units, and a business district 'has' 1000 Garrison and 25 Units. Downtown has 2000 Garrison and 50 Units.

TAKING THE DISTRICT
Create your new district. Move any Units you wish to fight into an empty lot in the business district. You may not control these Units while they're at war, to simulate the chaos that can happen. None of the Units may go to work or school while they're at war.

Each day that passes, roll a die. Multiply the number you get by 100 for a University and 200 for a Business District - this is the number of soldiers on the field. Add 10 for each enemy Unit. This is your Enemy number.
Count up your Population. Add 10 points for each Unit you've sent to war. Add 10 points for every unit over level 10, 20 points for every unit over level 20, and 50 points for every unit over level 50. This is your Friendly number.

Compare the two numbers. The difference between these numbers determines the outcome of the battle:

Friendly number at least 500 points higher:
Flawless victory. No (non-AI-Stupidity-related) casualties on the winning side. Roll a die. Subtract your result from the number of enemy Units and your result times 100 from the enemy Garrison.

Friendly number 100-500 points higher: Victory. Roll two dice.
Subtract the result of the first die from the number of enemy Units and your result times 20 from the enemy Garrison.
Multiply the result of the second die by 2; this is the percentage chance that any Unit you've taken to battle will die. Use a random number generator to see if any of your Units died; if they did, use a cheat object to kill them.

Friendly number 0-100 points higher: Pyrrhic Victory. Roll two dice.
Subtract the result of the first die from the number of enemy Units and your result times 20 from the enemy Garrison.
Multiply the result of the second die by 5; this is the percentage chance that any Unit you've taken to battle will die. Use a random number generator to see if any of your Units died; if they did, use a cheat object to kill them.

Enemy number 1-100 points higher: Defeat. Roll two dice.
Subtract the result of the first die times 20 from the enemy Garrison.
Multiply the result of the second die by 5; this is the percentage chance that any Unit you've taken to battle will die. Use a random number generator to see if any of your Units died; if they did, use a cheat object to kill them.

Enemy number 100-500 points higher: Crushing Defeat. Roll two dice.
Subtract the result of the first die times 10 from the enemy Garrison.
Multiply the result of the second die by 10; this is the percentage chance that any Unit you've taken to battle will die. Use a random number generator to see if any of your Units died; if they did, use a cheat object to kill them.

Enemy number 100-500 points higher: Total Defeat. Roll two dice.
Subtract the result of the first die times 5 from the enemy Garrison.
Multiply the result of the second die by 10 and add 20; this is the percentage chance that any Unit you've taken to battle will die. Use a random number generator to see if any of your Units died; if they did, use a cheat object to kill them.

You win the war when the number of enemy Units reaches 0. You lose if your own Units are entirely wiped out (whether due to the caprices of RNGesus or the stupidity of Sims AI).
A successful war liberates a business district, which joins your side, giving you new land and a population modifier of +5; a lost war means your population modifier is reduced by 1.

OUTPOSTS
To aid in liberated districts, you may choose to take an outpost. An outpost is an empty Residential or Community lot in a district that you haven't liberated yet. Outposts always have 200 Garrison. Roll a die and subtract 1; the result is the number of enemy Units defending the outpost.
Taking an Outpost gives you access to that empty lot- you may build on it as you see fit- and subtracts 100 Garrison from the district's total (up to half of the district's total Garrison). However, you do not get a CAS sim or any bonus to your Sim Multiplier until you've liberated the district.

ENDGAME
By retaking the Capital- a Downtown neighbourhood- you win the challenge! Your Ruler has retaken the throne and all is as it should be. You can continue playing, or just let your sims ride off into the sunset in peace.