Tiny Town Part 5 - Cyprus sets up shop and builds his house

 For some reason, Cyprus' inventions are taking their sweet time selling at the consignment store, so he decided to see if he could do better. He went to the consignment store and took a few of his choice inventions off consignment. Of course, on the way home, he was notified that some of the ones he left on consignment finally sold. 

But he's determined to start his own business. I put the Sim State Open For Business mod back in, and it's working fine, so I think it was inviting Grim to the home lot that created problems earlier with my sims. 

He set up a little selling station on the community section and purchased his business license. The name of his business is Whimsical Wonders. 

I thought he and Annie were celebrating the start of his new business, but I found out later that he retired as a self-employed inventor in order to start his shop. 

I didn't bother setting hours to start, but instead used the open/close option. It was nearly 7 pm by the time he opened the shop. He had one customer: explosive Joanne Loveland, who bought one of his robot toys. 

Then she went over to check out Beatrice's baked goods, but she didn't have a kind word to say about them. Cyprus, who likes all things explosive, found Joanne's hot temper attractive. He wanted to thank her for being his first customer, and applauded her hard work. She erupted into a tirade of insults. 

He tried flirting with her, but she was put off. 

He tried telling her a funny story involving a wedding cake, a cup of coffee and a yeti. This brought on a chuckle, so he thought he might be getting somewhere with her.

But as soon as she stopped laughing, she fired off another insult.

At this point he felt it best to just walk away. 

Annie tried to engage Joanne by inviting her to her gallery to see her photos. 

She told Joanne that she was thinking of asking Cyprus if she could consign some of her photos with him. 

"Well I guess you could try, llama lips, but I doubt anyone is interested in you amateurish pictures." 

With this woman's mood swings, I'd swear she slipped over here from Sims 4. At any rate, Annie kept trying to engage her in conversation, but in the end, only succeeded in boring her to death.

As Annie walked away, Joanne collapsed right there in the driveway.

Yes, Annie, you did this.

"Don't sweat it, Annie," Beatrice said, "She had it coming." 

Once Joanne recovered, Cyprus decided to firmly express his attraction to her.

But she wasn't impressed.

Mercifully, Joanne decided to go home at this point. The next day Cyprus set hours and opened his store, but had no customers. He decided to invest 1000 simoleons in online advertising to see if that would bring in customers, and it did. He had several the following day. However, Cyprus was overly optimistic in what he could get from the sale of his invention. He was proud of his wares and priced them too high. Luckily, some customers were open to haggling.

Calvin Riffin had interest in the dog toy and some of the other items reminded him of a trip to the circus.

Others also thought the prices were too high.

One thing I learned about this mod is ONLY Cyprus can put things for sale or change prices. If I'm controlling Annie or Beatrice, I get a message that says they aren't the owner. Cyprus hasn't hired anyone to work for him as this is a one man operation, but I wonder if employees would be able to adjust prices. 

Elias Alder showed up. He has been trying to call and chat with Beatrice, but she always refuses his calls. He realizes he messed up by flirting with Annie while seeing Beatrice, and now wants to win Beatrice back. 

While Cyprus restocked the table that I accidentally put for sale, Beatrice confronted Elias. 

"My favorite color is pink! If you ever cared about me, you would have known that!" 

"If you think I'm just going to forgive you, you've got another think coming, Elias!" 

(I think Elias spots the tiberium over on Cyprus' lot and wonders what it is. But that's not what he's here for.)

"We're through, Elisa! What part of "no" don't you understand?"

"Don't you go crying like a baby, now! You're making a fool of yourself!"

"Knock it off, already! You're ruining my day!"

Elias just isn't giving up! (This was all autonomous.) He might have finally gotten the hint.

Beatrice needs to go tend to the chickens. 

No too long after his attempts to kiss and make up, Elias and Beatrice are at it again. He and Annie were talking about their college experiences, Elias used it as an excuse to venture onto Beatrice's property. (Annie does not have a college degree but often talks about her time at the university. I think she was a party girl who flunked out.)

"Bea, I just want to take you away from all this. We should go off on a tropical vacation together."

At this point Beatrice wanted to fight, so I initiated it.

He's thinking it's time to go look at the store offerings. 

As he was leaving her property, Beatrice gave him one more slap for good measure.

Then she did her ninja pose.

A little while later, while I was hovering over the sales table to see if anyone else made purchases, I spotted them off in the distance at Annie's lot.

Why this guy doesn't just leave the area is beyond me.

She's definitely not over the betrayal. One thing I learned is that Beatrice can still sell her bakery goods from her lot as usual. Some of Cyprus' customers will wander over that way and make purchases there. I don't think she needs to throw parties every time she wants to sell her goods anymore. If she keeps her baked goods on the bakery shelves, they don't spoil. The money shows up in the bakery till, not Cyrus' till. 

** One thing I don't understand about the open for business mod is I put money in the business account, but it dwindles. I'm not sure where the money is going. Maybe it happened when I restocked the table that was bought by mistake? Also I see a regular +20 increase notice several times during the day. Is Cyprus paying himself each hour from the business account? Maybe that's where the money is going? I'm confused. 

I also had Cyprus select a few of Annie's items from her gallery and set them for sale, but no one has bought any. I think they are priced to high. I went through Annie's pictures to check the true value of them, and they are all over the board. Some I think are the best are valued really low, and some of the so-so ones are price really high. I think it depends on if the game identifies the picture as something the photo collection required. 

For instance, the upper left is valued at 885 simoleons, the one on the right is 40 simoleons, and the bottom left is 55 simoleons.

Both of these so-so pictures of grape plants were required for a collection. The top one is worth 981 simoleons and the bottom one is worth 546 simoleons. They were taken on the same day and "developed" on the same day. Go figure. I see actual grapes on the upper one but not on the lower one. I wonder if that is the reason for the price difference. I might try to price the items according to their worth and see if any sell next time Cyprus opens his store. 

In other news, Beatrice is still on her quest to befriend an alien. Since she was getting nowhere with Paguk, when Zhiddezoe Ayohod was out browsing the stores, I sent Beatrice to try and befriend her.

Every conversation she tried seems to bore this one. Zhiddezoe tried to initiate a couple water balloon fights with Beatrice, but Beatrice doesn't like water balloon fights.

Poor  Beatrice gave up.

"Why can't I get an alien to like me?" she wonders.

She looks so discouraged.  I think the alien was here mainly to play with the baby chicks. 

After smooching the chicks for awhile, the alien met Annie. 

Annie tried to interest her in photography, but all Zhiddezoe wants to do is have a water balloon fight.

The difference between Annie and Beatrice is that Annie likes water balloon fights.

Just before leaving, Zhiddezoe gave Cyprus some advice on building his house.

The next day, Cyprus took one of his tiberium and sold it to finance his rustic farmhouse. While his favorite color is orange, I have never seen a traditional farm house this color. Most are white. I decided to let him have an orange workshop and orange landscaping, but keep the exterior of the house more traditional. 

This is from the back. I swear I took a screenshot of the front, but I don't see it. I must be losing my mind. Here's some more photos. 

The town so far. 

The house is not completely furnished. The kitchen and bathrooms are done, and the living area is partially furnished with the junkyard finds (replaced/refurbished). There's a bed in one of the bedrooms, so Cyprus doesn't have to sleep in a tent anymore. There are a few items he wants from the consignment store, so he'll go pick them up, and look for more junkyard finds. I think using found objects might be an interesting way to go with this house.