RULES

The military career is completely unlocked once a military base is established. A military base must be set up as a separate business district attached to the main 'hood, and it must be earned as such according to the rules governing earning a business district. The military base can be your first business district, but it doesn't have to be. It should have both residential housing (communal barracks as well as fully-furnished detached houses and/or apartments if you have Apartment Life) and community lots. The community lots must be earned as usual and those that are player-owned will most likely be owned and operated by civilians. (Because, really, it's quite difficult to successfully run a business AND have a regular job.) Only military Sims may live on the base, however. Civilians who own/operate businesses on the base may only travel to the base. They may not live there.

All adult military-career Sims must live on the base, not in the main 'hood or any other sub-hood of it. Teens and Elders in the elder/teen military career tracks may live off-base with their non-military families or, in the case of Elders, by themselves, but when a teen holding a position in the teen military career track is about to age to adulthood, he or she must do one of the following:

A) Quit the military career altogether and live their subsequent life however they choose, including going to a university, if available, and choosing any major they want. If you want, you can have the Sim re-join the military at a later time. If their skill levels at that time earn them a rank offering in one of higher ranks and those ranks according to the guidelines below are already filled, however, they cannot take the job and must choose a different career path.

B) Transition to adulthood, accept the military adult career track and the rank automatically offered, and then immediately move into the barracks on the military base.

C) Go to a university (if you have one), choose a major that benefits the military career (Those being Political Science and History), and then immediately join the military and move on-base upon graduation.

In this one case of C above, the teen's tuition DOES NOT get deducted from the family's funds, simulating the military paying for your college education in exchange for service upon graduation. You may not drop out of or be expelled from college without penalty if the military is paying for it, however. If you do drop out or get expelled, you may not have the Sim rejoin his or her parents' household and you must deduct $15,000 from the amount that Sim gets when he/she starts a household post-dropout. Good luck buying a lot and building a house on $5,000! On the other hand, if you make it successfully through college, your Sim will join the military at a fairly high rank. If, according to the guidelines below, your higher ranks are already full, this particular Sim may still accept and hold whatever rank they are offered, just by virtue of his/her education.

Although military-career Sims can't live off-base, they may certainly temporarily travel to the main 'hood or other sub-hoods of it for outings and dates and such. If you want them to have a significant other, in fact, then they must travel off-base since civilian dates/guests are not allowed on base at all. Civilians can only be on base if they are married to (or at least engaged to, with the intention of immediately marrying) a military-career Sim. You can't move non-military Sims on to the base without marrying them to a military-career Sim. Repeat: Absolutely NO move-ins without marriage on the military base!

All single Sims, meanwhile, who rank below the fifth rank in the military career (meaning, Junior Officer down to Recruit) MUST live in the barracks, which is communal housing. So, build at least one residential lot with a bunch of beds in it but no private bedrooms. (Functional bunk beds -- as opposed to decorative ones with unusable top bunks -- are good. Download some.) Don't worry about dividing the sexes unless you want to do so with the gender-specific doors or some-such. The barracks should have gender-separated bathrooms, though, with the public toilet stalls and communal showers. It should also have a lounge area for the Sims who live there to relax and/or build skills. It can have dining facilities, if you want, or you can build a separate community mess hall for barracks-living -- and any other -- military Sims to eat in. (Complete with the industrial stove, if you like, so you can have a full-time NPC cook.) If you go that route, your mess hall doesn't count as a community lot, though. Basically, the barracks is a dorm, but this isn't a university campus and there are no separated, private dorm rooms.

Married military-career Sims of any rank, whether they marry civilians or fellow military personnel, and all military-career Sims at the fifth rank (Counter Intelligence) or higher regardless of marital status must live in private, detached housing. (Or in apartment buildings, if you have Apartment Life. I don't have that expansion, so I don't know how you'd work the rent thing and such. That'll be for you to figure out. ) Upon promotion to that rank or on their engagement day immediately prior to moving in their spouse-to-be, their play round ends because when you move them into their new house it will be Monday again and things will get out of whack. Upon playing that household again, if your Sim moved into the house because of impending marriage, the very first thing you must do is move in your Sim's betrothed and then immediately marry them. You can do this privately or you can create a group and go on an outing to a community lot to marry or you can throw a wedding party, which is the ONLY time you may invite civilians to the base.

In any case, build/place some residential lots for married and higher-ranking Sims. They should all be pre-furnished/decorated so that Sims heading to the altar or newly-promoted Sims can just move right in. Don't worry about the price of these houses, since this is military housing provided to military personnel for free. (Meaning, in order to move them in, you add exactly the price of the house to the Sim's account using the familyfunds cheat.) You also need not pay bills. In order to do that without penalty, refund any bills the Sims pay with the familyfunds cheat. Or you can just leave bills be and then replace any objects the Repo Man takes...although then your Sim will have bad Repo Man memories, if such a thing matters to you.

One thing, though: Given that the houses are government-provided, they shouldn't be luxurious at all, except for the General's house and, if you want, some upgraded houses reserved for those Sims in the top three ranks. Whatever the case, the Sims must live with the furniture/decorating they get in their assigned house. They can't change/sell anything in the house, nor should they buy anything for the house unless it's baby/toddler equipment or, say, extra chairs at the dining table for any kids they have. Fortune Sims won't be happy about this but...tough. For this reason, you should make sure the houses are completely furnished, including things like lighting and dressers and skill-building objects, and you should probably keep all the houses similar, if not exactly the same, and also keep the decorating and color schemes gender-neutral and basic. The military isn't really a place for individual expression, anyway. You also might want to download the "Stay Things Shrub" on this page

No children of military Sims are allowed to live with their parents once they reach adulthood. Unless they also take a job in the military, they must move off the base and establish their own households and lives in the main 'hood or in one of its sub-hoods. If they take a job in the military, they must immediately move into the barracks or, if they can enter the career with a high enough rank (Say, if they went to college), they move into their own private house. Whatever the case, they cannot live with their parents after they reach adulthood.

Now, I realize that you will have townies wandering around the base where only military personnel should be. As far as I know, this cannot be avoided. To the extent possible, you must ignore these townies when playing on base. Never greet walk-by townies when playing on-base residential lots. (You must have your Sim go off base to meet townies, if you want them to do so.) Don't talk to townie customers if you're visiting an on-base community lot. Business owners, even if civilians themselves, shouldn't do any sales interactions with townies when playing, though you of course can't avoid ringing up their sales. In other words, deliberately interact only with military personnel when playing on-base lots. For the purposes of identifying them, you'd be wise to have military Sims always dressed in military clothing, so download some for as many clothing categories as you can find or create some if you know how to do that.

If any military Sim of any rank or marital status is fired from, retires from, or otherwise quits the Military career, they (and their family, if applicable) must immediately move off-base into a house in the main 'hood or one of its sub-hoods other than the military base and their play round is then over until the next time they reach the top of the roster. When the time comes to move them into their new house, if the family has less than $20,000, you must familyfund them to $20,000. If they have more than $20,000, they may keep the extra. Whatever the case, they must buy a house that they can afford without a loan, even if they have a family of 10 but only $20,000. (Bunk beds are your friends!) Cross your fingers hard on those chance cards! Remember, you can't ignore any of them, with only one exception explained farther down.

If a military-career Sim dies by any means, his/her family (if any) must immediately move off base unless someone else in the household is also military (including any teens in the military career track). If there are no kids, and the surviving spouse is military but does not have a rank to qualify him/her for a private house, they must move back to the barracks. If there are kids, the survivor stays in the private house until all the kids have grown up and moved out. If at that point the spouse has a rank that qualifies for a private house, they can stay there. If not, off to the barracks with them. If the survivors have to move off-base, they receive an extra $30,000 payment from the military to help establish their new household. (Add this via the familyfunds cheat before you buy these Sims their new house.) The grave of the dead military Sim must be taken with the family to avoid haunted houses. If the survivors are staying in the house, the grave stays with them or you may choose to move it to a community cemetery either on- or off-base.

If any single Sim living in a private house gets demoted such that they no longer qualify for the private house (Meaning, they're demoted to Junior Officer or lower), then you must immediately move them back to the barracks and, again, their play round is over. If they're married, they get to stay in their same house and you can finish out their round. The exception to this is if the demoted Sim in question is a high-ranking Sim for whom you've provided upgraded housing according to his/her rank and there is no other Sim in the household that qualifies for the upgraded housing. If the household is no longer of a qualifying rank, they must move back into a "regular" private house and their play round ends.

For your General, once you have one, you should have one luxurious, top-of-the-line house in which he or she will live. As usual, he or she (along with his/her family, of course) gets to move into this house free of charge (again using the familyfunds cheat to adjust his/her available money) immediately upon his/her promotion to General. However, once they are promoted to that rank, their play round ends. Move them into the new house at the start of their next round.

At any point in time, there may only be one General and a maximum of two each of the three ranks directly below General. (Meaning, Senior Officer, Commander, and Astronaut.) You can have as many as you want of the other ranks. Keep track of who holds what rank in this career track, and if the upper ranks are filled, do not allow your military Sims to be promoted to those ranks. Either don't let them gain the skills necessary or don't allow them to have the necessary friends. If they get a chance card while they hold one of these "boundary ranks," this is the only situation in which you may ignore chance cards. In fact, you must ignore them, to avoid the possibility of promotion to a rank that has no open slots. Again, the exception to this is if a college graduate is entering the military after having been in the military career as a teen and then having earned a degree in a field benefiting the military. If he or she is offered a rank that is "full," you can still allow him/her to accept the job. You'll just have one extra of that rank. You can still only ever have one General at a time, however.

Once the current General dies, quits, is fired, is demoted, or retires, another Sim may be promoted from Astronaut to General. (And one Sim may be promoted from Commander to Astronaut, and another one from Senior Officer to Commander and another up to Senior Officer.) The new General may not be the outgoing General's spouse, though it can be his/her child if that child has worked his/her way up the ranks.

If a General is fired, quits, or retires, he or she and his/her family must immediately move out of the General's house and into any house in the main 'hood (since he/she will no longer be military) that he or she can afford. If the General is fired, quits, or retires and is married to a fellow military Sim, then their spouse must leave the military as well, unless you want to break up their marriage instead and have the still-military spouse live on base in appropriate housing according to their rank.

If the General dies and his/her spouse is in the military or if there are any teens in the military track, the family must move to appropriate on-base housing. If the spouse is not military and there are no teens in the teen military career, the family must move off base with the same extra $30,000 to help establish a new household. Whether staying on base or not, the dead General's family must take the general's grave with them, to avoid having a haunted General's house. (You may have a military cemetery on base, if you want, or the grave can be moved to a community cemetery elsewhere.) If the General is demoted, then he/she and his/her family moves into appropriate housing on base and the ex-General can work his/her way back up the ranks but can never be General again.

When the military base is established, you get up to 15 CAS Sims to begin to populate it, as opposed to the usual 5 for a business district. You do not need to use all 15 if you don't want to. However, all of these Sims must take jobs in the military career and so must live on base. If you choose not to use them for the base, they cannot then be used to populate your main 'hood or any other sub-hood of it. If you like, you may select some of these new Sims to become your General and members of the upper ranks (You'll need to cheat to do this, obviously), or you may start them all as recruits and then see who seems most suited to those ranks and get them promoted the "natural" way. In any case, all the Sims living on the base count toward the population of the main 'hood and any community lots count as normal as well.