Getting to Know You

Transforming a character from a stranger to a friend isn't a difficult process (depending on the character), but it can be time-consuming. It greatly helps to have a Sim with high marks in the Outgoing and Nice personality traits; they'll have more Social interactions available to them, and will be more likely to get positive results when they attempt to engage other characters. If your Sim is nice and outgoing, you can accelerate the rate at which you make friends, which helps you scale the career ladder at a quicker pace.

When you're in the early portions of the game, your careers won't require a large number of friends, so you should concentrate on making one or two friends and getting your relationship scores with them as high as possible. As your career begins to require more and more friends, you'll need to expand your Social horizons while not letting your earlier friendships disintegrate, all of which requires a precarious kind of balancing act.

First off, though, you'll need to know how to make a friend. Socialization options are obviously available with your roommates, but you'll need to expand beyond just the people you're living with if you want to gather a large enough group of friends to earn the highest promotions. During the game, you'll notice that Sims will continually be dropping by your house and ringing the doorbell. None of these Sims will come in unless you greet them, which consists of walking outside and shaking their hand. After they've been greeted, your guests will make themselves at home and begin abusing your hospitality. Note that this greeting action is required for both random passers-by and Sims that you call on the phone and invite over. Also note that Sims won't arrive in a mood suitable for Socialization; see the Before We Begin section above for more information on this.

When you move your cursor over a character, you'll notice that a few different interactions become available. The most basic of these is the plain talk option; this is a low-risk way of getting a character into your relationship menu. You won't earn a huge amount of relationship points from simple talking, but conversely, you won't be risking any huge losses, either. Sims are more likely to be offended by overly friendly actions, like joking or compliments, if they don't know your Sim very well. Also, even if a Sim dislikes the topic of discussion, their relationship score with your Sim will never drop more than three points, which is relatively insignificant. So start out by talking, and repeat the action until you hit a relationship score of around 20.

After the Sims have hit it off, you can move on to more powerful, but still relatively low-risk actions, like joke and compliment. Joking more than doubles the relationship score bonus of talking, when your target laughs out loud at your witticism, but it also has a larger penalty for backfiring, so you may want to preface this interaction with talking to gauge your target's mood before proceeding. Other mid-level interactions, like scare, tickle, and tease, have disproportionately large penalties when they backfire when compared to the bonus when they succeed. Best to stick with the jokes; you may offend a Sim, but not as much if you try to touch them when they're not in the mood. As you get closer to the 50's and 60's, entertainment is also a good choice. Overall, though, compliment is your best bet for non-friend interactions.

I'll Be There For You

After you've made a friend, you'll be able to move on to the riskier physical interactions, which will help you get your relationship score up to 100. Reaching 100 isn't always necessary, unless you intend to propose to that character, but getting up around 80 with each friend will help forestall the inevitable backslide in your relationship score, and give you a couple of weeks before you'll need to call that Sim over to Socialize.

Of the physical interactions, Dancing is definitely the least risky. If your partner accepts your invitation, your Sim will gain eight relationship points, while the other character gains ten. If they choose not to dance, you both lose five points, which is not much worse than with a failed talking interaction. For this reason, a sound system should be prominent in your Socialization room, and don't skimp on the cost; a high-end stereo will let your guests fulfill their Fun motive on their own, before you move in and take advantage of their excellent mood. Hugs are also good ways to get large bonuses to your relationship scores. Although the penalties for a failed Hug go up negative ten points for both characters, you're much more likely to get a neutral reaction from a character you're already friends with. Neutral reactions aren't great, but they do add a small number of positive points to both characters' relationship scores.

At any rate, once both characters acknowledge each other as friends, the physical interactions are much more likely to succeed. Things like Kissing and Hugging can also lead to a romance between two Sims.