After walking away for a day because I was frustrated about the tub issue, I ended up getting on the Sims 4 Reddit Discord and asking them what to do because my Sims are forever gonna be stinky and unhappy without a bathtub.
After debugging and repairing the game (the latter took ages), toggling the off the grid lot trait on and off, putting the tub in household storage and back again, we determined not being able to use the tub off grid except to wash the dog was a new bug. Someone suggested I try gathering water or snow, so I did both and it gave me enough stored water to bathe everyone.
So, the workaround for this bug is that my Sims are just gonna have to keep gathering water if they want to stay clean and hydrated. At least with gathering water, the tub works as if the lot had water and power, so you have the option to take a bubble bath, which gives your Sim a playful moodlet. You can also take a bath with “soaks” which gives various positive moodlets, but they cost $60 Simoleons each and currently that is not within anyone in the cult’s budgets.
As far as the rest of gameplay, Gemma has only been able to complete her homework ONCE in 3 seasons and is a “C” student, which is my worst performance to date. Usually when I play teenagers, I make sure they have an “A” average and do all of their extra credit assignments. Right now Faith & Gemma are so poor that I’ve actually been selling Gemma’s extra credit projects rather than doing them.
The main other thing I’ve had Faith doing to earn more money is crafting and selling mirrors. They cost $87 Simoleons to make and you get $350 Simoleons for selling them. I find this more profitable and easier than going off my lot to use the phone to take an odd job that may only net me $150 Simoleons and will take twice as long to complete as a mirror.
Faith & Gemma did end up voting in and getting the community garden planted…and then, because I misunderstood how the community lots worked, I tried to “add” the maker space by voting it in, but when I did that, the maker space REPLACED the community garden. Whoops! So now I have to go in and add all of the marketplace and maker space items to the community garden so the lot can be all 3. So annoying, but I have to do it before I switch families because saving $750 Simoleons to get a woodworking table for a new household is a massive challenge, especially if it’s a family, so I need to play Faith & Gemma until they can vote for the community garden again, and THEN they may need to replant all of the plants, I’m not sure. I really hope not.
There was a week in there where, every time I invited a neighbourhood Sim to Faith & Gemma’s house, that Sim would steal Abigail’s food dish and and Faith’s books. Every time. I couldn’t figure out why this was happening, so finally I just locked my front door and never invited anyone over because replacing those 2 items was costing me $85 Simoleons each time and when you’re scrambling for $20 Simoleons, that’s not an easy expense to just absorb.
Finally, I realized that the NPCs in the game had voted in a Neighbourhood Action Plan (N.A.P.) called “Sharing Is Caring” where all items are essentially communal and everyone can steal everyone else’s shit. Since none of my Sims actually have any shit, I figured out how to repeal that pretty damn quickly. Faith had to repeal the N.A.P. and get 5 signatures to get it to go through. Now, next Monday in the game, Faith & Gemma have to vote in a new N.A.P. and for the community garden. I think it’s currently Wednesday in the game, so until I can do those things on Monday, I’ll be playing Faith & Gemma and just improving their lives and house the best I can.
Faith hasn’t introduced herself to Charlie yet and Gemma has little interest in cult life. Gemma’s hard to keep happy because she doesn’t seem to be happy doing any skill building activity. Not swimming, not bowling, not reading a skills book, not knitting. All she really does is sulk, which I find hilarious.
This challenge is definitely a slow burn, I’ll tell you whut. I think it will be until I get all the households indoor plumbing and then I can focus on the actual cult part of the game. I’m terrified of playing my big families because I have no idea how I’m gonna keep everyone happy and functional with so few items and Simoleons. I’ve never had a toddler or child be taken away before, but I’m afraid it might happen in this challenge, which gives me a smidge of anxiety. Whatever happens, happens, though!