Mesa Valley

Mesa Valley is a world by RFLong at the official Sims 3 forums. It's sort of post-apocalypse desert, which I thought was appropriate, since in fact Fort Sim seems to have blown up. :-) 

When the family arrive, Elden immediately finds a trailer where he can continue working on his novels.

They bury Daisy and David in the local cemetary. Of course they have to come out and check out the new place for themselves!

Francesca, Frederick, Corey, Jesse and Victor move into a large house, while Samantha and Tom take the large house right next to theirs.
Wesley and Keely move into a smaller house nearby - they didn't want to stay behind in Fort Sim when their only daughter moved out.

Francesca and Frederick hang some of their old paintings, and have a housewarming party. Everyone in town shows up, even Elden.

The adults party deep into the night - lots of dancing and chatting - but of course Victor has to go to bed early, because he starts school the next day.

I think he wants to be on the school team, maybe?

* * *

Tom and Samantha have less than a day to settle in properly, because Samantha was pregnant when they moved, and the baby is due the day after they arrive.

Tom wants to have five children, but Samantha feels they should take their time and work on their careers in this new town first, after this first baby is born.

They quickly furnish their house to make it ready. Fortunately they have enough money to decorate the living room and the main bedroom straight away.
They hang a few of Elden's paintings, buy some toys and Tom gets himself an aquarium. The crib goes in the master bedroom for now.

Their house is perfectly furnished for two Sims and a baby.

They would love to have more pets, but for now, fish are the only pets available. Tom actually brought some in his inventory!

Other than these families there is nobody in town. Immigration is off and the only other people there are service Sims.

Tom and Samantha feel they're ready for the arrival of their first baby. Samantha decides to stay home for the birth.

It's a little girl, and her name is Regina. She's clumsy, but a genius nevertheless.

They want to settle in after the birth, Tom brings their new baby to the bedroom, and wants to go back to get some coffee...

But then, they get a big surprise. Samantha just had *another* baby girl.

They call her Terra. She's brave, and a slob.

And before the idea of twins has time to land for either of them... another girl is born.

They name her Harmony, and she's brave and good. Tom wonders whether it's possible to get all three of them into a single crib, but it doesn't seem a good idea. They'll have to sell something to be able to afford two more cribs.

(No idea why this happened - no fertility awards, no 'kiddy channel' music... One reason could be the fact that they're in an empty world, so the game engine is trying every way it can to create more residents?)

Corruption at Fort Sim

Tom and Samantha spend their honeymoon in China, but Frederic and Francesca actually go with them - they never really had a honeymoon of their own, and they promise to stay out of the way... Fortunately the Chinese base camp is big enough to do so.

Still, Tom and Frederick enjoy a game of chess together. Tom admit his skill is rubbish. He really needs to work on it a bit more.

Frederick is intrigued by martial arts, and even takes a few lessons.

Samantha actually is good enough to spar with a local.

While Samantha was sparring, Tom spent most of his time reading books for work:

The rest of what both couples do there will remain private. :)

* * *

Back home, this is Elden's house. He's still quite happy living by himself:

Elden makes a lot of money with his books and his paintings. And a lot of his paintings end up in the local art gallery.

* * *

And at this point the game really started to glitch on me. I played the same Sunday a few times, and had various family members explore the catacombs. They brought back amazing stuff, but I wasn't able to save the game the first four or five times, it kept crashing on saving.

Here's the family after their exploration, though. I think they've been through all the different scenarios, they pulled all the branches, pushed all the rocks...

I did end up buying them some magic gnomes in 'buydebug' because I felt bad about the ones they kept bringing back in the games I couldn't save. 
And I very much fear that this may be the end of Fort Sim. The game still has no mods at all, but I actually tried SuperComputer to fix things - which just ended up causing more crashes.

* * *

Corey's father Wesley finally ages up to elder. He is about 24 days (24 years, on a 90-day lifespan) younger than his wife Keeley. Keeley is past her 'safe' age already.

And Victor ages up again:

It's funny how he ages up in the same t-shirt his father wore when he reached school age...

While Samantha continues to work on her martial arts skill. She now has a blue belt.

Jesse becomes an adult - but doesn't change much. He doesn't really celebrate his birthday at all - he just ages up in the middle of the street, takes a minute or two to adjust, and keeps on walking...

All in all, life was quietly moving along, and everyone seemed happy.


But inevitably, the day has to come when Daisy dies again. This time I had taken away her death flowers, so her death was permanent.

I really felt for the family - I had a hard time seeing Daisy go, too - with her super-long life, I'd grown very attached to her.

They redecorated Daisy's room for Victor to use.

Corey's mother, Keely, thinks they're spoiling the child. Keely seem to be generally grumpy. I don't see her often, but if I do, she looks unhappy or she complains about everything and everyone... Poor Wesley!

Back at the main house, both Tom and Samantha wish for a baby. There's room in the household now that Daisy is dead, so Samantha and Tom try to get pregnant. And they succeed.

Samantha is hoping for a girl. She's also busy cleaning house to prepare for the birth. (She normally isn't the first Sim to grab a mop when necessary, but during her pregnancy I caught her cleaning more than once!)

At this point I had to play every single bit of the game two or three times before it saved succesfully. There was also an enormous lag, as if someting was stuck somewhere...
After Samantha had a baby girl three times in a row without me being able to save the game after naming, I got fed up with it.


So I decided to give up on Fort Sim and move the family to a new home... I used the save where Samantha was pregnant - but a day before the baby was due. I hope she'll give birth without glitches in a new town.

The Fourth Generation

So now that Corey's moved in, and there's a new baby, the house is really getting too small again.

They've already rearranged some of the furniture, and moved the new laundry appliances to the garage. (Laundry is a new and exiting thing in their lives - for now, anyway!)

Corey usually gets home much earlier than Jesse - she tries to wait up for him in the evening, but she often falls asleep on the sofa, so they hardly seem to have a chance to really do things together.

So Corey and Jesse decide it's time to take a vacation. And since Samantha is just moping around the house waiting for Tom to age up, they invite her to come with them.
They leave Victor with his grandparents and great-grandmother, and go to China.

Corey is a bit taken aback by all the staircases she'll have to climb to get to the sitting room.

They brought a lot of skill books, and a guitar, and they're looking forward to a relaxed vacation, doing nothing but reading, playing, resting, and maybe a little bit of sight-seeing. And maybe improving some skills.

Samantha has other plans. She wants to work on her athletic skill.

Although taking her mother's squadcar to the Acacademy instead of going on a bike doesn't really show the proper mindset, maybe?

(I didn't know it was in her inventory!)

Anyway, Samantha does a lot of training, and soon earns an orange belt:

They do a bit of sightseeing, and Corey enjoys collecting the rocks and metals they find on the way - she doesn't go out of her way to get any, but she still manages to find quite a few.
She also got the very weird wish to buy a martial arts training pole - I figure she means to give it to Samantha as a present...

In he meantime Samantha buys herself a board breaker. And then it's time to go home already.


After they get back, they make good use of some of the items they brought home. Samantha, of course, continues to work on her martial arts.

While Jesse feeds one of their expensive new Chinese books to his mother's omni plant, and makes a lot of money selling the copies.

Victor becomes a toddler.

The day after they get back, Samantha invites Tom over, and he is finally a young adult! So she loses no time asking him to marry her.

They don't waste time being engaged either. They just marry right there and then, in the front yard.

They do have to change their name at city hall, though - probably because Samantha was the one doing the asking...

So this is where I had another major aging glitch. I quit without saving the next day when the game insisted that Tom wanted to age up into an adult. Again!
When I got back into the game, I experimented by making Tom eat two lifefruits before the game announced his birthday. It looks like this 'reset' his age bar in some way or another. From then on, he aged normally.