How many Sims are you playing?

[Oddysey]

My main neighborhood is a custom one called Ariya, with about 36 playable sims in 9 base neighborhood houses and 2 uni houses. I also have a variety of goofing off type neighborhoods where I experiment with various things. Haven't messed with the game made families, since I'm paranoid.

I keep all the information I need about sims in their character files. For example, I keep all my families in sync, timewise, by noting in the household description how many days (marked off at 6 o'clock, sim time) I played with them. In Ariya, I've been playing the whole neighborhood (and keeping track) for nearly 37 sim days, although many of the households split off from the original four sometime after I started recording. I keep track of that by recording the day when the household split, then any subsequent days that have been played. For example, 25+11 means that when I split off that household, it was day 25, and I've played 11 days since then.

[pamysue]

"I keep index cards, flagged by age and paperclipped together by household.  Helps keep track of vital statistics and play-order.  It's nice to see that other people are obsessively keeping track of their sims too.  Or maybe just worrying."

   So glad to know I'm not alone.  I put each household, dorm, frat etc on a card in a rolodex.  I play 4 Sim days in each house, 2 semesters in each college lot with aging left on.  New households get a new card and dead ones go to the shredder.  I'm playing about 40 households and go in order to keep them aging together.  Dear God... I think I need stronger meds.   

[Vesca]

I've been playing the same family in Pleasantview, going on the third generation now.  Some YA's are in college, some are married in different homes and a couple of YA's just graduated and moved back into the "original" family home to care for their elder parents and younger sister.  So, I have a variety of different families (and places) to play, yet they are all related - that's how I like to play my game.

[ZiggyDoodle]

As of today: 
Eight houses in Pleasantview, one downtown.
Elders: 6
Adults: 16
YAs (in Uni) 16
Teens: 8
Kids: 10
Toddlers: 2
Infants: one set of twins

Plus one nanny who gets moved around as needed.

Am thinking of enforcing birth control until the patch comes out and we're assured that our software won't erupt into an explosion of Sims pixels zooming off to  cyberheaven (or hell) when we hit the magic character file number.

[jenflower]

I have never really played the pre-made towns.  The only one I kept was Pleasantville, but I don't use it.  I just keep it so there isn't an empty spot on the start-up neighborhood screen.

Right now I have two towns I actually play.  One town is for a more 'normal' Sims atmostphere (called Bay City) and one for the weird/odd storylines (Sunnydale).  In each town I usually have about 8 active families.  Everyone has met each other, but only certain families will actually hang out with other families.   
I try to age them together the best I can, so that childhood friends can go to college together, but it doesn't always happen that way - especially when I find myself spending more time with one family than another. I actually have a little sims notebook with the family names and details so that I can keep a summary of things.   
I do wish that they would tweak the photo album feature...in Sims 1 (if I remember correctly) a text box would automatically appear after you take a picture so that you can write a description of the picture right then and there.  In Sims 2, I take a lot of pictures and they start to pile up and I don't always get around to working on the album.
One thing I would like to see in the future is to have a feature where you can put together a tiny photo album of your favorite photos when your sim becomes an elder...and after they die, those pictures would appear as sort of a tribute slideshow of their life.  (Awww!)
LOL - I get a little attached to some of my Sims and have a hard time watching them get old and die. 

I play with aging off mostly until everyone in their age group is ready to move on to the next life stage together.  Some households I have specific plans for them and with others, I just let them do as they please.  I try to add variety to the gameplay, so that I don't get bored too quickly.   

[Andygal]

I play sereral diffrent neighbourhoods, and I always like to keep the generations intact. I don't like seeing nieces and nephews end up older then their aunts and uncles and that stuff. Mind it still happens because I get sloppy.

[bluecatvon]

i play the whole neighbourhood, Strangetown. every family. every person. except for poor Ajay Loner, i've played EVERYONE. but i'll incorporate him soon. let him marry someone i hate, maybe..

i do keep a to-do list, because every family has its own story. i do rounds, and make sure that every thing i want to achieve is achieved, and everyone grows at the same pace. no elixirs are allowed on my lots

i usually let my sims marry townies and npcs, cuz i wanna see what other sims the game will creat, but i dun wanna mass-kill them, too much character files leading to a BFBVFS.

am having so much fun!

and yes, i developed major OCD since i first started the game

[windy_moon]

I'm really impressed with the organization, documentation and general diagnosible OCD present in this thread.  It seems as if most people who are playing lots of Sims, as I do, have a system for keeping track, which I don't.

I've tried making lists but as I despise paperwork (you should see my desk at work), I fall behind quickly and then give up.

It would be a big improvement to the Sims if the game made it easier to keep track, itself, don't you think?  I hate the neighborhood interface as the way for entering the Sims households.   I've organized my homes according to value, so I have a general clue where to look for each family based on what I remember about their wealth...but with so many households with the same last name (and growing), I have to do a lot of mousing over to find where I want to go.

Wouldn't it be great to have a summary screen that showed all of your families and the last (real time) played date?   I really like the idea a poster had, earlier in the thread, of keeping notes in the family story...hadn't thought of that!

I try to keep track of my stories progressions in the photo albums, but I also think they are awkward.  I snap a lot of pictures but only caption a handful, always meaning to go back...and the set up isn't easy to keep track of a Sim's story as she/he jumps households through life.  It's my plan to keep stories outside of the Sims, grabbing the pictures from the main file, but I never get aroundtuit.  (I also haven't put my RL kids baby pictures in photo albums, either....)

The Sims 1 had some kind of family tracking thing, can't remember exactly what it was, but I found it very handy before I had to turn it off to stop my game from crashing.  You could browse through your families.....I believe it might have been called a family browser or something. 

I need a family browser!  (I also need a secretary, a driver and a live in maid....)

[bluecatvon]

haha, i use microsoft notepad. just had to read thru it before i start playing and add stuff in after i've done playing. oh i and forgot to mention i normally play 6 hrs per family before switching to another family

[Brynne]

I play my Bayfield family almost exclusively. I'm less interested in creating generation after generation than I am seeing this one family through whatever I can throw at it. So my main sims, brothers Joe and Gary Bayfield, have been in play for over a year, now. Real time.

Funny new twist, though; Joe and Bella Goth have 3 kids together, one adult and 2 teens. They are so purdy that I recently decided that Joe and Bella should have more. I wanted a son, since they have 2 daughters and only one son. Bella kept having girls. I got frustrated with repeatedly quitting without saving, so I took drastic measures. I decided Joe and Bella needed to move into a smaller household, so they could have multiple births. That way I could pick the baby I wanted. I didn't want to worry about setting up a new household, though, so I thought it would be quicker to just move them in with an existing family. A very small one. And Don Lothario fit the bill. Joe and Bella invaded the Lothario household and had a few sets if multiple births, as girls far outnumbered the boys. Out of 11 children, I chose 2 boys. I didn't really know what to do with the others, I couldn't bear to kill them and I didn't want to send them off to the adoption pool, so I had Don adopt them. I almost peed my pants from laughing at this situation! Poor Don was just sitting on his couch watching tv, and didn't even know what hit him. Bam! Romeo Don now has 6 daughters and 3 sons! I had to laugh at how all the kids would line up in his queue, and how he was reading to the children one story after another after another. Don't know when he'll be able to fit in any romance in this household!

[linolino]

wow! what did you do to fit more than 8 sims in the household? cool!

I myself like to play no more than 6 families. it's awfull long to play lots of sims. i don't like. I have this neighborhood called "Planeta Terra" (earth panet in portuguese) with like 30 playable sims, and it takes so long for them to evolve!!!

I only have this much sims because my sister kept creating sims in CAS and after a few sim days she would just create another family, or another neighborhood and leave the old ones to fend for themselves. ha!

I used to play on a slower pc, and i couldn't play anymore, it was getting on my nerves the time it took to load and teh constant lagging in the game. Now i have 3200+ PC with 1GB memory and Radeon x600 256 video board, and now i can play! the cinematics are so cool. i like the one when sims goes to University.

Anyway, even with this good pc, it still takes a lot of time for them to evolve, so i try to keep little number of controllable sims, and i never quit without saving because reliving days is something for Tru Davis, not for me. I hardly pause the game, and am constantly using speed 2. I'm also heavily considering trashing this neighborhood and starting a new one. I don't want those many sims! but i don't want to give up on some gorgeous sims i have there! hehe

[Brynne]

wow! what did you do to fit more than 8 sims in the household? cool!

Inge's teleporter shrub and the Insiminator. I don't usually use the insiminator, but until a few quirky things in the game are modded it'll suffice.

[Gus Smedstad]

I feel like a dork for asking this, but how did you get all those hairstyles for the toddlers?  I know you can change clothes now with the Changing Table, but I thought you couldn't change hairstyles until they became children.

It's more than a little freaky seeing that many Sim face icons up the left side of the screen.  I'm surprised the game can handle it.

 - Gus

[Brynne]

I got the toddler hairstyles from MTS2, mostly, but I got a few from other sites as well. I use JM's clothing tool to change their appearance once they become selectable.

[Brynne]

Oops. You weren't asking where I got all those toddler hairstyles. I just noticed that most of them are styles that came with the game, anyway.

[Bangelnuts]

One of my custom 'hoods is insane.  I've decided to take a break from them for a while and play some Maxis 'hoods that I haven't touched since reinstall after purchasing Uni when it first came out.  The custom 'hood easily has 60-70 active sims.  Needless to say this next generation is going to go through some population control when I do start playing it again.  I unfortuantly have an addiction to my sims having babies and lately a lot of those sims have been popping out twins.

in my prosperity challenge hood I started with  4 families the Amings,the Walkers,the middleips and the loveall family . well the middleips family disappeared due to pc glitch so the Sabre family replaced them. Dustin Aming a Cas elser moved out of the family home and married townie Brandi Letorneau. they have six kids and 2 grandchildren . however from his oldest son Steve and Daughter in law Kris He has 10 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren so 1 sim has a total of 32 family members and according to simpe has 5 days before the grim reaper comes for him which will make him 77 at the time of death in 5 days. which I call years . the loveall family started with a single dad,grandpa,and a female child and a female toddler. Grandpa is dead and has been since the toddler had her teen birthday, Finch the single Dad married college townie Jane Stacks and they have 3 kids together. his daughters he started with are both married and he has 3 grandkids making his family size 10 sims  . the walkers started out as 2 brothers and 1 toddler female that belonged to the younger brother. the younger brother married Melissa fancey and has 3 kids with her Elias Walkers family size  7 sims his oldest is married and has a baby.Lance the older brother adopted while he was single and then married Lucy Hanby the maid total family size 5 sims he and Lucy have 2 boys.the sabre Family has  7 members total nieghborhood population =61 sims in 20 Houses and growing as Uni has 3 YA's currently enrolled and 3 waiting

[simmiecal]

I got the toddler hairstyles from MTS2, mostly, but I got a few from other sites as well. I use JM's clothing tool to change their appearance once they become selectable.

OK - I feel dumb for asking this but.....
I downloaded the clothing tool but... is this an object like a dresser or a mirror? Where does it show-up in buy mode?

Thanks.

[Brynne]

It's in miscellaneous, and it looks like a stack of clothes.

[Motoki]

It's under miscellaneous > miscellaneous IIRC. It acts as the clothing rack, dresser and mirror all in one. It goes through all the different outfit types first to browse and buy and then to plan and when it's done it goes to the mirror mode so you can change appearance. If you use it on a residential lot, you will pay a 50% premium (a 200 outfit will cost 300 etc) for shopping at home.

There's a bit of weirdness with browsing and buying toddler outfits as the body doesn't show up, but if you change to another age, then change back to toddler, it should. The item does have the bonus of acting like a toddler mirror and letting you plan their hairstyles too because Maxis very annoyingly after all this time STILL has not made a way to do that without resorting to hacks. They even added new toddler hat hairs to NL, but didn't give us any way to get them.  

*edit Brynne beat me to it.

[Brynne]

*edit Brynne beat me to it.

nyah nyah

The toddler outfits also will show up if you click to the opposite sex and then back. Don't know why.

[simmiecal]

Thanks -
After seeing Brynne's pictures with all those cute toddler hairstyles I just had to get them for my toddlers!

[bluecatvon]

i was laughing so hard seeing Don Lothario surrounded by 9 kids!!

me too, after seeing them, i just couldn't resist downloading them! off i go now!

[Zeljka]

I love it!
I created a home with one adult and 7 toddlers for the heck of it and found it very creepy how they would follow her around like a little pack of wolves. I eventually just gave her a locked room to escape because to be honest, she only gave a damn about one of them and would ignore the multiple toddlers' "asks" to interact with the one (who oddly enough she didn't even have a high relationship with)

[Peel]

You could call my style of game play event driven. I play each household up to a certain life event then move on to the next one until that event happens there and so on, keeping each household more or less at the same event or milestone. The events are generally move out, get engaged, get married/partnered/move in, have baby(ies) and teach toddler(s) talk/walk/potty, children grow into teens, teens go to University, young adults move back into neighbourhood and the cycle continues. I found this method works the best for me for keeping everyone in that neighbourbood aging roughly at the same time and I have found in life that peers generally do these things roughly about the same times in their life. Of course there are always exceptions. I don't keep detailed notes about what is going on in the neighbourhood but I do update the story for that neighbourhood with the last household that I was playing and play the households going down the streets left to right. There are some households that I do like playing more then others because of the story I have planned for them or for the personality that I have projected onto them so they do get a little extra play time (aka aging off).

I have not played the Sims 2 in quite awhile so I am starting off with a fresh neighbourhood and I moved in 20 single Sims and they have all been dating and about 1/3 of them have gotten married so far.     

[Brynne]

I love it!
I created a home with one adult and 7 toddlers for the heck of it and found it very creepy how they would follow her around like a little pack of wolves.

What was really funny was how Don would get exhausted and nap on the sofa and all the toddlers would hang around him waiting for him to get up. I have so many pictures from the Don family- the whole thing was hysterical. I must say, he's very good with the children. He was always playing with a toddler, bathing a toddler, reading to a toddler, feeding a toddler, playing with a toddler, bathing a toddler, reading to a toddler, feeding a toddler, playing with a toddler, bathing a toddler, reading to a toddler, feeding a toddler...

It's also interesting that Don left Cassandra at the altar, but is now the adopted father of 9 of her half-siblings. Revenge of the Goths. Cassandra doesn't know that, though. I broke all the toddlers' family ties to the Goths.