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MY ENGAGEMENT
GUIDE
{The Proposal}
{Hire a Party Planner}
{Rent a Space}
{Get an Engagement Ring}
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Welcome to my Engagement Guide. This is going to be a long one. No, seriously. I don't intend on rushing my party planning so this guide will be the epitome of slow and steady wins the race.
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Once you have received all of the gifts from the boyfriends then you need to decide who you want to be engaged to because the last guy you kiss again will be the one to propose. To make sure you're getting the best looking guy and/or the one you want, go here to see what they looked like before the change. Fiancés will revert back to their previous looks.
On 09/16/2015, my Lady kissed the last guy. Before the change I had written down the names of the two guys I was thinking about, which were Daniel Martin and Charles Johnson. I ultimately went with Charles. I had to break up with the last guy and flirted with Charles again in order to get him. Once enough time had elasped I kissed him and then I got the pop up.
Of course I said yes! I mean I'm-a-try-things-out kind of girl but I wasn't about to see what happens when you hit no.
{The Fiancé}
Once you are engaged quite a few changes happen. The My Boy tab becomes My Fiancé, Beauty Salon now features a tab for him as well and so does the wardrobe within your apartment. Also, there are four stores in the mall with clothes for him. This is the location where any special event stores for him will be as well.
To start off I chose the 4 weeks option on 11/01/2015. It's clearly the best price and since I'm planning to take my time the 4 weeks option will always be my go to.
The wardrobe for the fiancé is A LOT nicer than the one for our Lady. I mean look at it:
The biggest shock for me was the lack of items in the Beauty Salon. And I don't mean by selection but there wasn't anything that was unlocked. You have to pay emeralds and/or diamonds to unlock even tattoos for goodness sake! The only hairstyle that will be available to you is the one he comes with. Keep in mind it's the original hairstyle not the one you saw before you got engaged.
So far I've unlocked/paid for three additional hairstyles for him. The most expensive hair is 11 diamonds** and the cheapest is 99 emeralds. The most expensive hair that can be bought with emeralds is 158.
**My categorisation is based on the fact that diamonds are usually purchased and received by spending real money hence the reason I think it's the most expensive.
I unlocked one eyebrow and one beard. The beard was essentially a waste of emeralds as I didn't really care for it on him but it does help towards the Celebrity Couple achievement.
Look at the diversity! Look at the options! *insert sarcasm tag here*
And I thought the lousy selection of colours we got for our ladies was bad but this right here is just ridiculous. Let's see... Tan 10 is essentially Edward Cullen-lite or should I say Cullen-dark? Either way, it's for the Ladies who like their men vampire-ish and glitter in the sunlight. And don't get me started on Tan 40, which is ashy chocolate. Lotion, please!!
The first unlocked eye, with the *, is the one from the Mens Vanity achievement.
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Miscellaneous
The cost of dates have increased by 900%! Needless to say I don't go on dates unless I'm doing the mission at an engagement party and even then I only do it once. Btw, the Romantic trip date is absolutely useless once you're engaged. The only real reason to do it prior to engagement was for the hearts and to get a picture of you with the guy. You can take a picture with your fiancé whenever you want and his happiness doesn't last long enough to justify spending 24 emeralds or diamonds. That currency can be better invested in buying popularity bonuses that will last a lot longer than a few % increases.
Before you start your party planning and spend emeralds on a planner and a venue make a firm decision on how many guests you want to invite. If you start to plan and bought say the 50 space venue for 300 emeralds and then decide to change your mind and go for unlimited you WILL NOT get your emeralds back. You have been warned. In terms of recouping back the costs of planning and preparing for an engagement party, in my personal opinion, the Unlimited venue is the way to go.
This has of course spilled the beans on what venue I chose and I don't care. I don't intend on inviting everyone and their mother because I want an enjoyable party with Ladies and Gents that I want to spend time with. I mean a party is afterall 8 hours long. That's not even taking into consideration the work that it took to get here.
Having said that I imagine a lot of hosts have an idea on who they are inviting. I know I've been keeping a list of my definite invites and no invites. Keep in mind that the second you get engaged and other people know that you're planning your party you might suddenly find yourself with more visitors than usual. Interesting how that works.
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waste
If you hadn't noticed fiancés aren't exactly the traditional kind. YOU have to buy and get your own ring. Now ain't that something? "After all I've done for you, Antonín!" Tsk...tsk.
There are 100 boards and you get one free try a day. I already knew that I wanted to open at least 50 boards, which is why I saved the money from the Men's Vanity achievement.
So after turning over 50 boards I had only found ONE gem! Yes, ONE! I felt so defeated. Like are you for real right now? This sucks so far.
After spending two 10 energy packs and completeing 26 duels I had amassed another 30k to purchase the remaining 50 gems. Sure I could have bought the smaller packages but with the way my luck was going that would have been a risky move.
XS Software be like, "Oh, you thought you were going to get this done with 50 turns, huh?"
Btw, I tend to average about 1k+ per duel. This was a particularly slow night. I'm just losing left and right here. -_-
With only 8 boards left I finally found all the gems in order to get the engagement rings. Yep, that's right you get two of them, which is nice. They both give 150 fashion points too.
{Get Decorations}
The next step is to rent decorations. Nothing you buy here will be available to you after your engagement party. It can only be used to decorate your venue hence the renting part. The only solace is that those fashion points you see listed above will go towards your Creativity skill. For that reason alone I won't hate too much on this step. The cheapest items costs 16 emeralds and give 40 fashion points. The most expensive items are venue background type stuff and cost 42 diamonds and give 250 fashion points.
Items here may seem expensive but in the grande scheme of things are far cheaper than the regular store and even cheaper than those that we can buy/earn during events. Here is the cost to fashion points ratio:
2.5 fashion points per 1 emerald
6 fashion points per 1 diamond
Now let's compare the benefit-cost ratio of say an item in the Livingroom Decor shop.
0.6 fashion point per 1 emerald
B-b-but I have a 15% discount you say. Ok. Let's see what that would yield:
0.7 fashion point per 1 emerald
So now you're probably wondering. "Should I stay here and buy everything just to increase my Creativity skill?" I'm of the yes camp but hold up now. I would advise against buying more than the 30 items that are needed to move on from this area. I would also advise that you be thoughtful about what you purchase and actually buy what you like. I don't think you should spend a single diamond here yet especially since the items that cost diamonds are closely tied to the type of venue you want to have. I don't know about you but I change my mind fairly often. I'd hate for you to spend 42 diamonds on a beach venue only to later decide that you want an indoor costume ball and have to then spend another 42 diamonds.
I won't show what decorations I ended up buying because I want it to be a surprise. I did increase my Creativity skill by 2 points BUT what is really awesome is that the purchases went towards the Decorator achievement! The reward is a nice 10k, which will stay there until it's needed. Not sure what else costs dollars during the planning stage but it'll be there should I need it.
{Decorate the Place}
For this step, just throw down all 30 items that you bought and move on. You will have plenty of time to decorate the place. I don't see the point in dwelling on this step at this stage.
The buttons in the top left corner are as follows: Rent more decorations, Save changes, and Exit. The inventory will contain all the items you bought during the previous step. As you can see from the Rent more decorations button you can always go back and get more stuff. The inventory will not have items that you've bought, received, and/or earned throughout the game. The only things available here will be your cars and pets.
As you can see I've already completed the Men's Vanity achievement and my Lady has only been engaged for 45 days. In fact, I completed it on the 35th day, which surprised me given that I was absent for the rest of the month of September. To complete the achievement I changed his tan multiple times per day. It was a great way to increase my beauty stat anyway.
The reward for the 5k is 20,000 dollars. I haven't gotten it yet because I plan on using that money during the planning process. I recommend you do the same because 50 magnifiers will cost you 30,000 dollars. What's that you ask? Well, keep reading and you'll find out soon enough. :-)
The Perfect Couple, Attached, and Generous Couple achievements are all the same except that "boyfriend" changes to read "sweetheart."
This is what you see after you click on the My Fiancé tab. Let's start from top to bottom. His name was initially Charles Johnson but I changed it to Antonín Viliam Osmnáct, which is a Czech name. Osmnáct means 18 so essentially he has my last name. :-D Changing your fiancé's name will cost 50 emeralds or diamonds.
The popularity bonus is based on his happiness. Fiancés can give up to a +10% bonus to all of your skills. As you can see happiness is not something that can be easily maintained with a fiancé and as such I don't recommend wasting money on him. For the most part, you will stay around the 18-25% range, which is +6%. If you want to increase your popularity you'd be better serve by using a popularity bonus than wasting money or emeralds on him.
Much like when you were dating the various boyfriends you can still kiss and call your fiancé. You do not lose progress from those achievements just because you get engaged. I've heard that rumour from uninformed Ladies before. Don't fret, ok? Speaking of achievements. Two get added when you are engaged:
