I am finding adventuring to be very enjoyable, very addictive and time-consuming, which might go some of the way to explain why my reports are not being uploaded as quickly as I would have liked. I also find adventuring to be challenging and absorbing. Sometimes, the adventures seem all too easy but then the next one may have me cursing and becoming impatient trying to figure a way around completing it. All in all, not too bad a balance. It is a style of gameplay that I enjoy more than I thought I would and I hope I can interest you in doing the same.

Contrary to what I thought when I first heard about this expansion, it is not all about tomb raiding. Admittedly, there are a lot of tombs to be explored and emptied of all valuables, but there are other things to do on a world adventure than that.

In this report, I will be outlining what types of adventures there are and go into detail about some of the things to look out for in order to make adventuring enjoyable and thrilling.

Opportunities for adventure are found either by reading the notice board outside the base camp or by receiving a telephone call. A complete adventure is usually comprised of a string of opportunities linked together. They are offered by a non-playable sim who lives locally and wants a job doing. For simplicity's sake, I will just refer to him or her as the patron.

Our adventurer does not have to accept the opportunity. They can always refuse it and hope something different turns up. Personally, my adventurers have never refused these opportunities.

The first opportunity of an adventure invariably involves going to "report in" and meet the patron. There is usually a small reward and then a further opportunity is usually presented. Again, once the various stages are complete, reporting in to the patron becomes a regular but sometimes tedious activity.

There are many types of opportunities that are presented that can require different skills.

A lot of opportunities provided by a patron involve talking to the locals. In almost all cases, a certain level of relationship is required between the adventurer and these contacts before they will cooperate. Therefore, some Charisma skill level would be a good idea to help speed this up. These can range from persuading locals to solve riddles, asking one of them to go out on a date with the patron to persuading a contact to part with some crucual document or item that is essential to the patron's grand design.

Sometimes, a patron requires some items for one reason or other. The locations of where these items can be found are shown up on the map. This is a big help as normally our adventurer would not have a clue where they can be found. If a sim wants to work on their Athletic skill, jogging around the countryside from one location to another is a good way of improving it.

Some items are harder to find than others. Metals and gems are the easiest as they do not go anywhere. However, when it comes to bugs and butterflies, it is a different thing. Finding assassin bugs in China can take a lot of time. They only spawn at certain times and are not there for long.

These scavenger hunts can be quite time-consuming, especially if the different items are scattered around the map and especially the tedious reporting in to the patron, who invariably lives on the other side of town, only to find he wants more items collecting. In this case here, just as this adventure was coming to an end, she had been given the opportunity to find two pieces of unsmelted platinum. The map indicates where they can be found. However, she will have to wait until next time she comes to China.

Note - You haven't heard it from me, but by activating the "testingcheatsenabled true" cheatcode and Shift+Clicking on destinations, your adventuring sim can teleport around the map and save a lot of time. Mind you, who would really want to do this? Nobody wants to cheat ... much.

Note 2 - The hardest scavenger hunt I have found is part of the adventure to find all of the materials for a patron to build the Emperor Mini. Part of this involves collecting two Red Assassin Bugs. These are very difficult indeed to catch. They do not spawn often and if you fail to catch one, your adventurer has a long wait before they spawn again and sometimes even a long journey to find their new spawning location.

Some opportunities involve trying out the new skills. In one case, I have had a sim get the opportunity to take a photograph of some flowers. In another, my adventurer had to do some martial arts sparring. In a third, they had to make some nectar. In all cases, it requires improving the new skills to some degree. We will be looking more at each skill when we look at the different countries.

In a lot of cases, however, adventures involve going into tombs in order to hunting a specific relic for the patron. These adventures are the meat of adventuring and I find them to be the most involving of all adventures. Some tombs can be completed in about one sim day but others can take a lot longer. That is why keeping regularly stocked up with provisions is not optional but is actually essential.