Sim Strategy Discussion

[Zazazu]

There's always JadeEliott's ROS. It has been posted recently in the Peasantry. I'm working on converting it to RandomStuff-readiness. It references a lot of hacks that are no longer supported, and most of the event descriptions are so long they get cut off.

Would have gotten it done last night, but I got distracted by Nanny FIGHT!!! Three + hours of nanny-pummeling fun!

Real-time seasons is cool. I think it's probably a lot more feasible if you have a 1-day or 2-day rotation, like yours. Mine is at 5ish days, and for me I need that visual reminder of the Season progress to time everything. Too much is scheduled by the season points.

[J. M. Pescado]

The only thing I have to add that hasn't been mentioned is that I like to play with random disastrous events in my random file.  Some of them are kind of morbid, but realistic. Things like people dying, losing jobs, being forced to move out of the neighborhood, midlife crisis where they change their aspiration - and some good things too, like inspired to take up a new hobby.

Well, what exactly would HAPPEN when a sim "moves out"? Moving out merely means you sit in the family bin until you play that sim, or you drop the sim into another subhood, or whatever. You can't DELETE them because that fucks up your game and continuity.

So, basically, I like to keep the game surprising me.

I just use the actual people as my entropy generator. MOAR FIGHT!

[Lum]

I've been reading up on the randomness thing, and I would really like to know if there's something similar that works in-game. In fact, I would be satisfied with some sort of hack that adds randomness without me noticing. Sort of like, me, minding my own business when suddenly WHAM! A sim dies of a heart attack or a fire or a similar grisly fate. Heck, I'd settle with the work chance cards happening more often.

Can anyone suggest to me some sort of in-game random generator, or at least any existing mod that includes randomness. Like, ACR has that whole pregnancy dice going on that's kinda cool. Maybe some mod that makes vampires show up more often? Because I have to actively look for my vampires, which kinda defeats the point.

[pixiejuice]

Well, what exactly would HAPPEN when a sim "moves out"? Moving out merely means you sit in the family bin until you play that sim, or you drop the sim into another subhood, or whatever. You can't DELETE them because that fucks up your game and continuity.

The last couple I had draw the "move away" event, I sent them to Twikkii Island to become locals there.  That's kind of neat because they're "away," but the woman has a sister that I still play and she can invite her to visit if she wants.  I have their ages marked on my chart so I know when it's time to let them die of old age.

Otherwise, another subhood works too, and Inge has those prison token things so they aren't caught wandering around community lots.  The sim bin would work just the same, but it irritates me to have Sims sitting in my Sim bin. 

[Zazazu]

The sim bin would work just the same, but it irritates me to have Sims sitting in my Sim bin. 

Me too. My sims who are back from college or moved out and waiting to be put into the end of the rotation go to a holding lot. It's called 'Holding Lot'. Obvious title is obvious. It's a tiny 1x1 that's actually covered by trees right up against the hill, but it does its job. Then I don't have to give them cell phones and everyone can stay in contact with them.

[Roux]

I've been reading up on the randomness thing, and I would really like to know if there's something similar that works in-game. In fact, I would be satisfied with some sort of hack that adds randomness without me noticing. Sort of like, me, minding my own business when suddenly WHAM! A sim dies of a heart attack or a fire or a similar grisly fate. Heck, I'd settle with the work chance cards happening more often.

Can anyone suggest to me some sort of in-game random generator, or at least any existing mod that includes randomness. Like, ACR has that whole pregnancy dice going on that's kinda cool. Maybe some mod that makes vampires show up more often? Because I have to actively look for my vampires, which kinda defeats the point.

Well, there was the experimental 'realistic sickness' mod that was posted for testing in Peasantry some time ago. Caused a lot of deaths, from what I read.

ACR can cause a lot of random cheating, too, especially when playable sims appear on community lots while you're playing other sims...

[VacantBlue]

darcee, what is your process for rolling random events? I have pondered incorporating this somehow, but could never decide whether to roll per neighborhood, per household, or per sim. Not to mention how often the roll occurs. Every day seemed too much, once a week seemed too little.

I roll four events at the start of every round (who the event happens to is random as well).  But remember I have a huge population, so four events per about 80 sims/ 25-30 households.  That takes me usually a little more than a month to get through.  So I guess that works out to about one event per real-life week.  I don't think my Sims could handle much more devastation than that      

Thanks - that's really helpful. I think my hood is even larger than yours (100+ playables), and I just had two families give birth to triplets because I didn't realize TwoJeffs changed the method for adjusting Trip/Quad random odds. 

What I am thinking about right now is to have different random event lists for each life stage (each would have a combo of positive and negative events), and then an age-sorted list of playables. Then have the randomizer roll events for each life stage, such as 1 child, 1 teen, 1 YA, 2 adult, and 1 elder. As sims age up, their names get shuffled to the next life stage in the text file and then removed when they die. I don't have your strict method of playing 2-day rounds, so I maybe I'll just roll it once/season.

Time to play! Oh that's right, I'm at work...

I do something very similar except I only have negative events.  I figure that I sufficiently keep my Sims happy; so, they really don't need any random positive events excluding the game given ones already. 

My negative events are pretty life-altering and include death, adulterous spouse, loss of a job, death of a child and death of a close family member.  I use each type of death as a separate event for the chosen Sim, but death of a child and death of a family member are each only considered 1 event (I determine which child/family member and how they die randomly afterwards).  So, it is likely that the chosen Sim will die somehow.  For YA, I add fail a semester of school to the events.

After the random event, I go a step further and roll a dice to see if the Sim will triumph over their negative event or go into a depression.  If they triumph, I may change their aspiration (re-evaluate their life goals based on the event), give them a genie lamp or fulfill their wants for a Sim week as best I can regardless of my plan.  If they slip into a depression, I fulfill their fears as best I can regardless of my plan for a Sim week.  While depressed, they will also provoke other Sims to fight.  If the random event was an adulterous spouse, I roll the dice to determine if they will divorce or not.

I use almost the same frequency of events as you except for elders.  Half of my elders are randomly chosen for accidental death simply because in reality the accidental death rate for elders is quite high compared to the other age groups (typically 3-10 times higher).  If I have a small YA group, I may exclude the death to that Sim options.

I always group my Sims based on when they were born into a generation (well, kind of a generation for lack of a better word).  Each generation ages together.  So, after aging each group appropriately, I determine the random events and they must be fulfilled before the generation ages.

[Ryslin]

Lately , and mostly due to this thread, I have been using two random files. (plop a copy of randomstuff in a seperate folder give it a new txt file good to go)

First deals with names, aspirations, college, ltw, job if not decided by the former entries. Then I added in lifestyle. Currently it is supernatural with plant, werewolf, vamp (no zombies..just no) then gay(otherwise they are allowed to decide for themselves but this makes sure I have a few same gender couples), traditional (marriage and wife doesn't work) , religious (no work for anyone , farm, try for baby is set to always, marriage isn't mandatory generally depends on the preference of the sim. I am going for multiple types of religions under one heading.)then Modern which is standard simming.

After this comes a yes/no for the random life event file. I roll the random event at teen (along with everything else). Killing kids is annoying, easier to do it at teen onward. Some things are timed. If they roll a mid life crisis that takes effect when the age bar during adult is halfway. So they go along having this normal life , but they have a waiting time bomb in their "fate".  Some of them are instant. (house destroyed, murder)

I decided to play this on that megahood (all the maxis hoods together). Currently The travellers are vampires, Don is a religious nut married to Nina. The Dreamers are a gay family. I haven't had so much fun with this game in ages.