The Battle of the Aspirations

[seventhson]

I love Knowledge Sims. Especially as parents - they always want to teach the little ones, and they don't want a bazillion kids. Family is my other favourite, although the 'have a baby' want drives me insane after a while, and Grilled Cheese is just hilarious.

A lot of aspirations drive me batty. Fortune - for the love of the gods, just use the things you've got! Popularity - all those phone calls. Pleasure - just pick one thing and stick with it!

Romance Sims tend to die in my game. Especially townies and other NPCs. I become vicious and the next thing you know they've forgotten to eat, or a satellite's fallen from the sky, or the gate to the cowplant was accidentally left in.

[Bangelnuts]

I love Knowledge Sims. Especially as parents - they always want to teach the little ones, and they don't want a bazillion kids. Family is my other favourite, although the 'have a baby' want drives me insane after a while, and Grilled Cheese is just hilarious.

A lot of aspirations drive me batty. Fortune - for the love of the gods, just use the things you've got! Popularity - all those phone calls. Pleasure - just pick one thing and stick with it!

Romance Sims tend to die in my game. Especially townies and other NPCs. I become vicious and the next thing you know they've forgotten to eat, or a satellite's fallen from the sky, or the gate to the cowplant was accidentally left in.

I used to hate Romance sims  now I see an awesome side to them since I have six in my hood three of which are happily married and two who have kids . they are super parents if given a chance

[Rascal]

I like all the aspirations but my favourites would be knowledge and romance.  Knowledge sims are so adaptable - they are quite happy on their own but make great spouses and parents to any of the other aspirations.  My Legacy families always start with a knowledge sim.

Romance sims are fun and I find if you marry two romance sims they keep each other very happy with constant flirt/makeout/woohoo wants.  I agree they make great parents.  

Fortune are easy (except for all the damn shrubbery!) and unlike knowledge sims actually want to get skill points they need.  

I like to put family sims with knowledge or fortune and occasionally with another family sim - but only if I want a huge family.

Popularity sims are probably the hardest for me to play but my current favourite sim is a teenage boy popularity.  Everyone loves him!  

One thing I have found is that when a couple have been married for ages, especially if they are elders, all the aspirations are pretty much the same.  They all want their kids to do well, and to flirt/kiss/woohoo with their partners.

[SciBirg]

Ok, let me be different then: I love popularity sims. They are fun, get along with everyone and are great parents. And with autoyak they are a breeze to play.

Knowledge sims used to be my favorite, now they bore me. Too quiet and concerned with skill building. Family sims are fun and lovey and I like kids so that keeps them happy. Fortune sims are easy to play and keep happy. I rather like those.

Romance and Pleasure? Haven't made my mind up yet. Need to play them more to see how they act with NL. I have several of them, but haven't played them much.

[rohina]

I think Romance sims are fun if you want a whole 'hood full of cheaters; otherwise they are just a pain. I like popularity sims, but I think that is just a function of how I play because I like all my playable sims to be friends with one another. Family sims often seem easy but become tedious and demanding - the majority of their LTWs are not acheivable until they become elders (this is one reason to like the popularity sims, since the LTW of having 20 best friends can easily happen to a teen).
I tend to go through stages of preferring one aspiration over another; it really depends on how I am playing the game.

[Issy]

Most of my sims are knowledge/family and I have to admit it's gotten fairly boring playing them now.  I have noticed a change in family sims since I've installed NL.  Most of my family sims don't even get the "Teach wants" once the baby turns toddler.  I even tested it with 4-5 families I have and only 1 sim rolled the want.

Fortune sims are not too bad to play.  I've only gotten the shubbery want on one sim, all my other fortune sims have never rolled that want, and I have at least 7-8 of them, half of them elders already.  So depends on star-sign maybe?

Romance sims can be fun to play, I always have a few of them stirring things up now and then  

Pleasure sims....I have to say is the worst aspiration ever.  I've played about 6 sims who are about a few days away from turning elder, and 2 that have turned elder.  They dont mind being married but sheesh, have some wants towards the wife/hubby/kids. Never got a want for teaching toddlers anything (even some of my romance sims get the want)  Rarely get a want for flirt/gossip etc.  If they go on a date well diff story, but that doesnt make them unique cos all aspirations get the same wants when on a date.

How many times can you constantly use the bubble-blower, play SSX, play chess and then it goes back to the same thing over and over.  My elder wants to jump on that silly couch every morning when she wakes up   I can go on and on but I think I've said enough  

Cheese Asp doesn't appeal to me much but I guess I'll get around to it sometime.

[windy_moon]

By the way, for people who hate the Fortune shrubbery wants, TwoJeffs has a hack for that and why, it's right here on MATY! 

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1238.0

I agree that if Fortune Sims are left completely to their own devices they can get boring. Anybody in RL who wakes up in the morning just to earn money and then comes home just to spend it is boring...but it's not hard to break the chain of just $$ wants.  They are excellent spouses and usually decent parents if encouraged in that direction.  My Fortune Sims show a lot of depth, wanting good things for their families...even teaching the toddlers to walk and talk.

They do need a relatively large lot, though.  My favorite Fortune Sim's house has an expensive loveseat in every bedroom....and counters in every bathroom. 

[FroggySim]

I really love my fortune sims and I consider a fortune-family couple as the easiest to play. However, I use Twojeffs Hack to get rid of all the flower, tree and shrub wants.
Is there actually a hack to get rid off the want for a toy worth more than 5000 simoleons? Because the only thing I found to fulfill it is a bowling alley which I don´t want them to have at their home, it´s just to big!

[windy_moon]

Is there actually a hack to get rid off the want for a toy worth more than 5000 simoleons? Because the only thing I found to fulfill it is a bowling alley which I don´t want them to have at their home, it´s just to big!

*raises hand*

Me too. Actually, I haven't installed NL yet (this weekend, probably this weekend), so I don't have that want...but there are a couple of high $ wants that make me crazy.  The $6000 sculpture want can only be filled by the huge ass fountain thing you can put soap in.  I put that on a suburban Sims lawn once and it was hysterical...for about a minute.  And then just annoying.  Delete.

I'd prefer a variety of object choices for those wants rather than actual elimination of the wants...but I'll settle for elimination.

(I wish I had any modding skills or talent at all.     I would love to make a Fortune Sims collection of high $ sculpture and objects to fill the wants and make the homes look cool, too. Alas, I am far lower than peasantry.)

[FroggySim]

Well, that would work too.
I can´t create custom content (I lack a lot of patience), but maybe someone who reads this desperate cry for help could get us a small and pretty sculpture that´s worth 6000 and a cute little chess board for 7000?

[Ness]

sounds like a plan there!

crazy - most recolours end up being priced ridiculously low - and here we are asking for the exact opposite!

a nice little super-expensive vase, chess board and painting and fortune sims could be kept happily quite easily!

[Bangelnuts]

I think Romance sims are fun if you want a whole 'hood full of cheaters; otherwise they are just a pain. I like popularity sims, but I think that is just a function of how I play because I like all my playable sims to be friends with one another. Family sims often seem easy but become tedious and demanding - the majority of their LTWs are not acheivable until they become elders (this is one reason to like the popularity sims, since the LTW of having 20 best friends can easily happen to a teen).
I tend to go through stages of preferring one aspiration over another; it really depends on how I am playing the game.

as a nother poster pointed out to me when we were discussing My Popularity sim who until I hooked her up with a Romance sim that was single would inform me all the "married sims" were "hot" when I would have her Scope a Room. she would totally ignore the single male sims. She now has super strong attraction to her hubby and the two of them nearly swoon when they look at each other. any way the poster was saying Family sims will cheat at the Drop of a but get more self righteouss  about it..Romance sims on the other hand  cheat but are more honest and out front about it. I current Have  6 Romance sims in my custom neighborhood  and I have family sims and I have popularity sims  as well as ffotune,knowledge and pleasure. Ihave found that the easiest way to deal with my Romance Sims was to set up a Bordello using the DMA setup. I also noticed that my married Romance sims are less inclined to cheat if they have children.on the other hand I have a family sim who is pregnant with her 9th child that was at a wedding of one of my Romance sims  and she was making attempts to flirt with the grooms brother who was also a Romance sim and the Brother rebuffed her several times. the grooms brother is marrieid and has 5 children from a previous marriage and his wife is expecting their 1st child together.I think Romance sims are terribly misunderstood. here is a picture of the Romance Sims first dance with his Bride my  popularity sim .singing for the couple is his Father and Brother  unfortunately I couldnt get the Brother in the shot but the father of the groom is clearly shown and is a Romance sim himself

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[LynnMar]

my favorite is the knowledge sim, they are easiest to get to lifetime platinum because most of them just want to max out all skills or be a mad scientist.   the only thing I hate about them now is they are the only ones who want to be vampires. 
 If you turn other aspirations into vamps or they get bitten downtown,  they have the "buy vampocillin d" want.   they don't want to be vamps.   

[Bangelnuts]

my favorite is the knowledge sim, they are easiest to get to lifetime platinum because most of them just want to max out all skills or be a mad scientist.   the only thing I hate about them now is they are the only ones who want to be vampires. 
 If you turn other aspirations into vamps or they get bitten downtown,  they have the "buy vampocillin d" want.   they don't want to be vamps.   

I have to agree That Knowledge can be very easy to get perma plat.my most difficult to reach perma plat is Family. Fotune is difficult if its the 100,000 simoleon LTW. Romance ,Knowledge,Popularity  and Pleasure have been the easiest for me to get to perma plat status and I usually reach permaplat with those aspirations by the time they are in Uni.or shortly after if the LTW's are career related for teen Romance sims  I have  the bordello pack which allows teens to woohoo safely and reach the woohoo with x amount of sims and reach perma plat before sending them to Uni. that way I dont deal with the furious sim issue with them. and once Romance is perma plat they are a breeze to deal with as you can get them married,engaged or whatever  with out  aspiration failure occuring

[bluecatvon]

i love knowledge and family sims. knowledge sims are so easy to play but they basically have the same lifetime want (ie mad scientist or criminal mastermind or max all 7 skills) which is pretty boring at times, but they learn skills faster. i always have my teens with knowlegde aspiration then change them in university.

family sims are sweet! they are just like me, and i love to laugh everytime they get a 'have a baby want', which is like always! they never get tired..

popular sims are easy once you have the phonehack. i think i like them too

romance sims are a rare lot in my game. only Nathan are allowed to touch other woman that's him in the picture. others are all in aspiration failure seen the therapist drop in several times.

fortune sims are troublesome to maintain in my opinion! they always want to buy this, and buy that..and then this, and then that again. shrubs, trees, flowerbeds, tables, counters, sofas... even when they're dead broke.

pleasure and grilled cheese i don't know yet as i haven't got NL yet too

[Motoki]

Well the thing with fortune though too is they are very good about wanting to gain skills if it will get them a promotion and thus money! They also will want promotions and they generally want to go to work (as opposed to pleasure ). If you are fairly consistantly getting a fortune sim promoted you should have no problems getting their aspiration up as they'll get plenty between skilling up for the promotion and going to work and actually getting the promotion.

[Twibil]

I loathe romance sims.  Popularity sims come in at a close second.  I beleive that the romance sims should be called, more appropriately, "slut sims".  Romance would be fitting if they just wanted to fall in love or make as many fall in love with them as possible, but they want to woohoo with anyone on 2 legs.  I would like more woo-ing and less woohoo-ing.  (hehe, I am so clever)  In Hot Date, weren't we able to buy gifts for our sim's love interests?  I can't remember.  I wish they would have incorporated that into NL.  I dislike popularity sisms because it is a pain to maintain all of the friendships they want.  Thank god for J.M.'s phone Hack.

Knowledge sims I think are the easiest, followed by Family.  These are also my favorites, and I have a lot of them paired up in my game as well.    Fortune sims are funny, I don't really have any trouble playing them, they just get on my nerves with all of their material wants.  ( I think I am going to have to kill off Circe Curious, she has made Vidcund turn to a life of crime to afford all of her material wants.  He lost his Mad scientist job after a bad chance card mishap.)  I am really enjoying the pleasure aspiration.  I didn't think I would like it, I thought it would be too much like romance, but It is actually pretty cool.  I changed Ripp Grunt to a pleasure sim, he is now a vamp and I am going to get him and his alien/vamp wife the bouncing castle over at MTS2 so they don't have to bounce on their furniture.

[veilchen]

Ihave found that the easiest way to deal with my Romance Sims was to set up a Bordello using the DMA setup.

Well, since I refuse to pay for downloads of any type, shape, or form, I can't use that set-up, but LizzyLove's swinger stuff works just as well ;D

At any rate, romance sims are easy to take care of if they have a significant other. It requires a little training and attention at first, but it's quite worth it in the fun department. I found the unattached ones a great asset whenever my game gets too boring, they certainly keep things hopping

[Ancient Sim]

My favourites were always Knowledge Sims, probably because in the absence of Creativity Sims, they're the nearest to me in the game.  They can get a bit boring I agree, but mine do tend to surprise me now and again with wants to flirt.  I remember one who'd been happily married for years and was almost an elder, suddenly developing an urge to flirt with the friend his teenage daughter brought home from school and this was before Nightlife.  

I agree that Romance Sims  make the best parents, especially males.  Family & Fortune Sim females overall are the worst parents, with the males it seems to vary.  Robert Broke (Brandi's 3 child) has always been a great father, although his wife (also Family) isn't so hot.  Currently, by far the Sim with the most family-oriented wants in my game is the 'soon-to-die-again' Don Lothario and has been for some time.  He never has less than 3 of his 4 wants related to anything but family.  His usual are to get a grandchild, relative get engaged and relative get married.  His fourth will never be Romance-oriented, it varies but more often than not is a transient want related to the two grandchildren who live in the same house, such as the teen getting a scholarship or wanting to play with the toddler.  Even if I deliberately send him to the bordello or out on a date, he will still come home and re-roll the family-oriented wants.  His Romance Sim son is the same, all he wants most of the time are things to do with his sons.  It's the Romance Sims who don't have kids who tend to want the aspiration-related stuff.  Since NL I've really got into my Romance Sims and in my new custom neighbourhood I've realised that most of the ones I am making are Romance or kids destined to be Romance.

Overall I don't like Family Sims, probably because their wants are the hardest to satisfy and like one of the posters above, I operate a 1 baby per family policy, at least in my over-populated Pleasantview.  Occasionally I will succumb and let Family Sims have an extra one.  I also never make Family Sims with kids in CAS, otherwise they just have to have more in the game and that means more characters in the neighbourhood.  They don't get kids until they roll the want for them in the game (which doesn't usually take long) if you make them married from the start.  Fortune Sims are mainly too selfish for me and I don't like them very much at all, particuarly the females.  Too of my most-hated Sims in the game have been Dina Caliente and Jennifer Burb and both were Fortune.  I just hated the way they totally ignored their children.  Dina in particular was the crappiest mother I have ever come across, Don did absolutely all the work bringing up their twins.  However, if you change them to Fortune rather than them being Fortune from the start, it works better.  I made Bella Fortune (what I always felt she should have been going by her character in TS1) and she was a good mother overall, when she wasn't working hard, she made the top of her career - as for grandmother, well the only word to describe her was AWESOME.  Best grandparent I have ever had in the game by a mile.  The first thing she did when she came back as a ghost was go check on her grandsons.  She taught them everything when they were toddlers, apart from one or two things which Mortimer managed to wangle.  He was a great grandfather, too.

As far as Popularity is concerned, I have far too many of these because for some reason the majority of my kids are born with very high Outgoing and there isn't much else for them to be.  Even parents who are low in Outgoing are having these really outgoing kids.  I read somewhere that it can happen if the mother communicates a lot during pregnancy, but that seems highly suspicious to me (almost akin to eating cookies to get twins).  It even happens when I use the Randomiser function on the Lot Debugger.

I don't really understand how the aspirations and the zodiac signs match-up, either.  I notice that Maxis make townies with high Neatness into Fortune Sims (Sagittarians, as I recall), which goes totally against what they say about Fortune Sims needing to be low in neatness so they're not bogged-down with trivialities when they should be out making money.  I also always make my low Neatness Sims Fortune.  I do wonder how they game would be if I made them all opposite to what their personalities suggest, whether it would make the game more interesting or not make any difference at all.

Pleasure I don't like much as there is no way they will achieve their LTW unless it's career-related.  All those dates would bore me stupid, it's a nightmare having to keep hitting "Flirt", "Hug", "Kiss" ... over and over again, then all the hassle with trying to woo-hoo in the car which most of the time doesn't work properly.  I won't be making many Pleasure Sims.   As for Cheese, well I made one by mistake soon after getting Uni (forgot about the need to be in gold and above) and I was in stitches.  Robert Broke's wife was cornered as she innocently walked by, but luckily she's Family and top of Culinary, so was more than happy to discuss grilled cheese sandwich recipes for an entire afternoon.  She was even happy to eat them for both lunch and dinner.  My Sim was in Platinum within a very short time and I changed her to Family as I'd intended in the first place - then when I realised how boring she had become, I changed her back to Grilled Cheese.  I've also changed a few townies and dormies to it, but not noticed any autonomous discussing of cheese sandwiches yet.  My main problem with it is that for some reason I can't stop calling it Green Cheese.  I'd also love to see that aspiration come-up randomly for ALL Sims using the aspiration-changer-thingy, regardless of aspiration level (I'd like the same with the Resurrector-Thngy too, come to that).  When the only way to get Grilled Cheese (or a zombie) is by design rather than unexpectedly, it spoils the majority of the fun of it, at least for me.

Well, I read through all this thread and thought "I don't have much to say on this topic, I won't be prattling on as long as some of this lot" ... ahem.  Thank you and good afternoon.

[baratron]

I love Romance sims, because I'm a Romance sim in real life .

 

Don't know if I even want to go there. And remind me not to go clothes shopping or near a photobooth with you.

Hey, I don't do the cheating thing (it's totally against my ethics). I do the open relationship with all concerned knowing & consenting to it thing . And I only flirt with other people in open relationships, whose other partners at least vaguely like me. I generally have an allergy to Drama.

I'm non-monogamous and, when healthy, quite extroverted. I gain energy from being with people and need a lot of people around me to feel happy. In contrast, the partner I live with is very monogamous, but also very introverted. He loses energy from having to deal with other people, and gets over-peopled just by living with me. (Pretty much every night, he goes out for a long walk or a bike ride by himself, just to be alone.) So he actually likes the fact that I have other people in my life to get time & affection from, as otherwise he'd be permanently exhausted. My other partner is non-monogamous, but also introverted. She has multiple partners but doesn't live with any of them. She comes to see us when she feels social.

Real people are much more complicated than sims .

[Brynne]

I have to say that Romance Sims are probably my favorite. Quite a few of my Bayfield clan is Romance. And the men do make great parents. When Joe (who is Romance) was married to his first wife, Jennie (who is family) I found Joe much easier to maintain. He was not yet permaplat, as this was very early on in my game, but he could satisfy his romance wants easily by flirting, hugging, kissing, etc. Jennie. He was also in a much better mood to take care of the kiddies. Jennie, however, immediately spun a want for another child. She became quite selfish, just wanting to fulfill her goal of marrying off a zillion kids, or whatever, and fell into aspiration failure. Which made it necessary for Joe to fulfill his romantic wants with one (or several) of his lady friends. Which then sent Jennie deeper into the red once she found out. But Joe was (still is!) a great daddy, preferring to spend his time with the children he already had rather than obsess over when the next one will be born.

I am with Ancient in that I think the Grilled Cheese Aspiration is funny as hell. I have one female romance sim who occasionally switches to Cheese for my amusement. Funny to see the men swoon over her one day, then push her away the next because of constant grilled cheese chat.

The Fortune sims crack me up when they go into the red, as well, and start panhandling to the school bus.  I did have to break down and buy my teen sim, Jory, that bowling alley that every child needs...

[Gus Smedstad]

I sympathize the most with Knowledge sims, but they're kind of dull to play because they only want to build skills, and watching them sit around studying isn't very interesting.

Family sims are a lot of fun to play, and I get a charge out the "have a baby" want.  In fact, that's such an issue that I've had to institute a house rule that Sims won't "try for baby" unless at least one Sim Wants a baby, and at least one sim Wants Woo Hoo.  Woo Hoos that neither Sim wants are strictly forbidden.  For a while I was so baby-obsessed that I had a rule that when both Sims had a Woo Hoo want, they'd "try for baby" because they were in too much of a hurry to use birth control.  It was the only way that families with no Family sim would reproduce.  I've eased off on that, both because I've got too many Sims and because the Risky Woo Hoo mod gives some of the desire effect.

I don't like Fortune Sims much, and I think they're kind of dull to play since they pretty much focus on climbing the corporate ladder.  I really don't like all the "buy object" wants because they're usually completely impractical due to space considerations.  Some like "buy a more expensive countertop" are annoying because if you fulfill them, you're either stuck with one mismatched counter or you have to shell out a lot of cash to upgrade the other items.

Real-life Popularity personalities really grate on me, so it took me a long time to warm to playing them.  But really seriously playing a Popularity Sim can be very challenging, and I like that.  Getting 30 best friends can be really tough.

I avoided Romance sims for a long time because playing them naturally causes utter chaos.  I did discover that if you ignore the infidelity wants, they're actually reasonably fun to play.  All they want is a little affection and woo-hoo each day, and they're happy, plus it comes across as nice if you ignore the fact that they don't care who they do this stuff with.  As far as playing them the "natural" way, 20 woo-hoos isn't really that hard to achieve, except that it requires a fair sized population of playable Sims, since so many of the townies are much too ugly to woo-hoo.  Having 20 loves at the same time is an interesting challenge I'll take up sometime.

The Pleasure aspiration is completely uninteresting to me.  These Sims never have any long-term goals, and long-term Wants are what keeps the game fun for me.  I do make Pleasure sims because I have a rule about evenly distributing aspirations, but I don't like them so far.

Grilled cheese is just silly.  I made a couple Cheese sims just to see what it was like, but I changed them back quickly.

 - Gus

[Bangelnuts]

I have to say that Romance Sims are probably my favorite. Quite a few of my Bayfield clan is Romance. And the men do make great parents. When Joe (who is Romance) was married to his first wife, Jennie (who is family) I found Joe much easier to maintain. He was not yet permaplat, as this was very early on in my game, but he could satisfy his romance wants easily by flirting, hugging, kissing, etc. Jennie. He was also in a much better mood to take care of the kiddies. Jennie, however, immediately spun a want for another child. She became quite selfish, just wanting to fulfill her goal of marrying off a zillion kids, or whatever, and fell into aspiration failure. Which made it necessary for Joe to fulfill his romantic wants with one (or several) of his lady friends. Which then sent Jennie deeper into the red once she found out. But Joe was (still is!) a great daddy, preferring to spend his time with the children he already had rather than obsess over when the next one will be born.

I am with Ancient in that I think the Grilled Cheese Aspiration is funny as hell. I have one female romance sim who occasionally switches to Cheese for my amusement. Funny to see the men swoon over her one day, then push her away the next because of constant grilled cheese chat.

The Fortune sims crack me up when they go into the red, as well, and start panhandling to the school bus.  I did have to break down and buy my teen sim, Jory, that bowling alley that every child needs...

I am enjoying my Romance clan as well and will enjoy them more now that I found out why Justin and Joe would woohoo and still  get extramarital affairs pregnant,  I had a long forgotten risky woohoo mod in my game .I had created a brand new female sim Cinderella Patterson who is Romance. she and Justin met through the neighborhood welcome commitee. Justin  has been on the welcome committees continuosly of Late, they hit it off  and I had her call Justin Later and ask him for a date  so Justin being  a Romance sim and permaplat readily agreed the date progressed  and Justin fell in love with my sim so I sent them to fulfill the woohoo want  clicked woohoo and I hear  the lullaby I checked her info on the DMA Box  and she is pregnant. as much as I am loving my Romance sims if you haave them in your game to any extant  make sure you dont have a risky woohoo mod in place,  as for grilled cheese  that aspiration is hysterical        

[notovny]

I most dislike Family Sims. My ideal Sim family has a maximum of two children; I'll only wind up with three if the second birth is twins, or I have an unexpected abduction.

Popularity is approacting my favorite, as they're pretty easy to keep happy. I just tend to throw one-guest parties when I feel like it.

I don't have many Romance Sims, but I like them more than family Sims.  Currently, all of my Romance Sims are monogamous and happy.

Fortune, I don't mund much either. For the most part, it seems to be a matter of keeping track of the oldest item they Want,  and replacing that with a new one.

Knowledge is okay.  While Fortune Sims tend to be focused on gaining skills for jobs, Knowledge Sims tend to be geared on gaining skills for the sake of gaining them, which tends to require balancing out skill-gain for bes effect.

[katemonster]

Family sims are a lot of fun to play, and I get a charge out the "have a baby" want.  In fact, that's such an issue that I've had to institute a house rule that Sims won't "try for baby" unless at least one Sim Wants a baby, and at least one sim Wants Woo Hoo.  Woo Hoos that neither Sim wants are strictly forbidden.  For a while I was so baby-obsessed that I had a rule that when both Sims had a Woo Hoo want, they'd "try for baby" because they were in too much of a hurry to use birth control.  It was the only way that families with no Family sim would reproduce.  I've eased off on that, both because I've got too many Sims and because the Risky Woo Hoo mod gives some of the desire effect.

I have to do the same thing, making rules about try for baby. I will only let them try if they *both* want a baby (which they usually do once they're married and moved into a new place, regardless of aspiration). This usually gets most non-family couples one child and any subsequent ones must be accidental. Although it actually gets a lot of couples two children--I think there is something in the water.