Any logical way to get your neighborhood back in sync?

[OpiumGirl]

Okay,
I have finally dove into the amazing world Pescado's synctimer, but the problem is that my neighborhood is so out of control, I have no idea where to start with the thing...
My idea was to, perhaps, make a spread sheet of the founding families -> second gen and so forth by going into simpe and looking through each sim's data, but I figured, before I do this rather large project I would seek out some tips that have worked for you guys on how to get the most out of using simpe (or other apps) to acheive this...
I know many of you have the sims down to a science, so I'm sure that I'll find better ideas for organization that what I've come up with thus far.  Once I've gotten all of the families set up, I'll begin to sync them all back to where they should be....
It'd be really great to get some ideas on what has worked for other people in getting everything synced and orgranized for correct generational aging.
Thanks thanks and many more thanks!

[GayJohnScarritt]

  Maybe i'm looking at the situation wrong, but what i do works for me.  I don't worry about having founding familys showing a current day at 50, 2nd gen at 25 and new gen family's at 1.  Every new family starts out at the same 'lot sync day' as the rest of the neighborhood.   Currently, in my Challenge Neighbohood, all families are at 81 days.  The Lot Sync Timer just helps me, in that i check it to make sure i haven't missed any households before moving on to the next cycle (with 30 households and counting, the Sync Timer is essential).   True, my families aren't on the same day of the week, but i don't worry about it.
   Correct generational spacing seems to take care of itself.

[OpiumGirl]

Thanks, John...
That's great advice for once I get everyone corrected.
The thing is, I'd like to get everyone that founded the town linked together so that I can then use the synctimer to continue the trend...I'd just like to get the foundation of the town on the same cycle, then your advice will be very practical and very useful to me.
Thanks very much for that.

EDITED for hideous grammar

[CAFlanny]

I don't know if this helps you, but I have a sheet with each household listed in the order that I play them.  Each household is listed from oldest to youngest.  I also use symbols to help keep track of the children's ages.  It's a good visual way for me to see the entire neighborhood at a glance.

[Swiftgold]

I recently just synched up my neighborhood, and it was a lot of work, but I'm glad I did it. It's the only 'hood I've played since the base game first came out, so it was very out of synch. This is how I did it:

I always age my Sims when I get the notification, so I figured two days for infant, three for toddler, seven for child. My pre-Uni Sims had fourteen for teenager and my post-Uni Sims have seven days. I know they jump to "26" days after college no matter when they started, but the adult stage is often not the normal 28 days for all of them in my game so I just work around all that

I started with my founding families; I think there were about fourteen of them. I made a timeline in Notepad which pretty much started with Day 0/1 because all my founding families were various parents and toddlers. At the time I synched the 'hood, these toddlers were elders approaching death, so I was able to see how old they were currently, using their birthdays established at Day -2.

Then came the fun part, figuring out the birthdays for all the other siblings that had arrived, and their kids, etc. Basically I used the memories where possible and my memory for the rest to figure out how old a kid was when the sibling arrived. It's easiest to start with Sims that have never moved from their birth home; the others may have lost or gained days by moving to a house played more often or less often. I also figured out or estimated death days and marriage days as best as possible. Basically, it works best to start with the ones that have never moved and then figure out where the others who have moved from that house -should- be, no matter if you've played one or the other more often.

Twins are helpful too, especially if you have one that never moved away, since the other one should match them and thus you have a place to start.

So eventually the timeline looked like this:

Day 54   Claire died (80)
   Joaquin resurrected
   Charissa born
   Miriel born

Day 55   Calliope born
   Oneva born      

Day 56   Shar died (82)
   Lake died (12)      

Day 57   Aden born
   Ashe born
   Iain and Rexa born
   Gariel and Sakura Jade married

So once I established what day each household was currently on, I could set the synch timer to that day and then work to synch them up. Still doing that part - my favorite house got way ahead, so now I'm trying to get everyone to match them on Day 79 before playing more evenly from then on.

Anyway, hope that helps at all! ^_^

[OpiumGirl]

Wow awesome information!
It does sound like a ton of work, but it's certainly something that will be great to have done...
Okay, that stuff does make sense....The part I'm deading though, is figuring out who's baby is who's and on and on....I've already got some families with a few generations, lol....
I wonder, is there anyway to get a sort of comprehensive neighborhood family view?
I've used the family tree button, but it still takes a whole lot of pointing and clicking to get everything together...that doesn't necessarily bother me, but I'm wondering if there are any tools that do that sort of thing by now...
I know there was nothing awhile back, but I'm not up to date on this stuff...Getting there though, for sure.
Thanks very much Swiftgold.

[Swiftgold]

No problem! ^_^ Hmm, I know SimPe can show a graphical view of family ties... I've also been using the Pegasys Sim database, but you pretty much have to put that stuff in yourself, though you can import the data from SimPe too. I used it before the synching deal and now I've put everyone's birthdays and death days in there too. http://www.sims2db.com/ is where you can download it... hope it helps!

[Mmmary]

Well, first of all, good luck  I don't use the lot sync timer at all, but I have the Database that was mentioned before, and I LOVE it. Use it all the time, religiously.

Anyway, I synchronised my neighbourhood some time ago "manually", meaning that the results were not perhaps as accurate as when using the LST (I imagine). I had the advantage of playing a legacy neighbourhood, so I timed everything else after the legacy family. I also only have one founding family. What I did was just jot down who belonged to which generation (ie who should be roughly the same age, or at the same life stage), and then just make the changes needed in the game. I had to kill a few of my favourite sims because I noticed that they were cousins to some legacy sims of mine, who had died a long time ago. I guess that's kind of obvious to you, but... Just in case you were trying to get out of the killing.  Just do it, I say. 

I actually enjoyed the synchronisation process very much. It was a lot of work, but afterwards... ahhhh. There is actually a very useful thread at the Sims2Database forum here, whih is not about nh sync per se, but there are some very good tips about playing in an organised style. I learned a lot from that thread...

[OpiumGirl]

Ahhh, that's JUST what I was looking for....that application sounds great.  I know I'll still have a ton of work, but I was just hoping for something like that to aid the process..
And I'm reading through that thread now, mmmary...Just the information I'm looking for.
Many thanks to you both for your time and great advice!

EDIT:  It's such a shame that Sims2Database has not been updated for Pets...The automatic simpe option is broken with this EP.
I hope it gets released soon, but I've checked the forums, and at this point there has been no update for months.
Anyone have any inside info on the progress? 

[LFox]

I synced up my neighbourhood ages ago it was alot of work but it was worth it.  I generally play 1 family line that has about 5 or so lots, all the others i never really play so i didn't bother with them.  What i did was look over the family tree and work out if Person A should be alive when person C is and so forth.  Since their all from the same family line it was quite easy, once i had worked out how far each section of the family line should have advanced i played them until they were up to sync with the others.  Then i kicked a sync timer onto each lot and set em to 0.  From then on i've always played 3 days per household before moving on to the next one.  I've made a rule never to play longer than 3 days (unless it cannot be helped) to avoid them getting out of sync.