More Awesome Than You!

I think I have a serious problem:  All my Sims are paired off as soon as I know their gender (like, seconds after they're born), get all their toddler skills, get straight A's as kids and teens, have 25+ skill points when they go to college, graduate summa cum laude, marry within hours after graduating, get along nicely if not extremely well with everyone, get to the top of their career, acheive their LTW, always grow up well, and die of old age.  I have not yet achieved total perfection in running businesses, but I'm well on my way.  I do all this without cheats and only download hacks that fix actual problems.

Therefore, I'm organising my own intervention.  We need to totally mess up my micromanaging ways before I stop having fun with this totally awesome game.  I am hoping to follow these rules from now on, and you guys can propose more if you would like to help me solve this problem:
1.  No more quitting without saving when bad things happen.
2.  No more planning out marriages: wait until the Sim is at least a teen instead and have them go after Sims they're attracted to.
3.  Stop abusing the aspiration awards.
4.  Stop making sloppy sims clean so much, lazy sims excercise so much, playful sims study so much, and mean sims be so nice.
5.  Stop abusing the pause button.
6.  Stop abusing the queue.
7.  Assign aspirations randomly.

Any other suggestions?

I've recently made my sims take the major in college that they want, not the one that matches their LTW.  Makes for some interesting combinations, and as I have LTW variety will mean that not every single sim will be starting at level 9!

Actually their major in college doesn't matter a whole lot when I play because by the time they get to college they have all the skills required to finish any of the majors.  That basically makes their major a moot point because all they have to do to get a 4.0 is fill up the always expanded bar.  (Yes, I totally need some professional help).

 Spend 10 minutes of every real time hour just letting your sims manage themselves? (Maybe break it into two 5 minutes every 30 minutes if you really have a hard time letting go) 
 I sometimes like to  just set up situations and then set back and let whatever happens, happen. Most of my Sims 'chose' their own partners, they go to parties a lot, mix and mingle, next thing you know little pinks hearts floating everywhere. It's amazing what sims will do on their own sometimes.

Usually, the "Bad thing" that happens is your game freezing and crashing.

Isn't that essentially the same as planning out marriages? I already KNOW who they're going to be attracted to the moment I see their personality.

Most aspirational awards aren't worth bothering with most of the time anyway.

Lazy sims suck. Taking 3 hours to get anywhere = not cool.

Hey, these things exist for a reason.

I prefer to assign aspiration based on a sim's personality and interests.

Macrotastics is your friend.

If you really want to have some fun and break the habit, try  I'm Surrounded by Idiots! (http://laverwinklesims.com/index.php?topic=301.0).

Also, try free-ranging your toddlers and kids. No forced skilling!

Why don't you just get a life away from the Sims? Run the game. Go read a book or take a shower and see what happens to your sims by the time you get back.

From there, you can use your microskills to fix their messes.

That's another way of solving things, you know.

Lately I'm playing a slightly modified version of the Poverty Challenge (http://www.sims2community.com/showthread.php?t=9383).  Among the rules are no private school, no college, no businesses except home-based, and you lose points for each job promotion.  It's been surprisingly difficult to remember not to get too many skill points (to limit promotions), and not to work on scholarships for my teens, etc.  OK, I'm still micromanaging some things, but I find I'm leaving them on their own a lot more, too.

A great micromanagement breaker (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=&threadID=801f0d69117078ee041c90c566fc16d4&directoryID=82&startRow=1#f487a9fc3ec79f3f4a2463546bc866e1) crated by goosefork at the official BBS.

WARNING:  If you venture outside of that thread wear your eye protection and ear protection.  Under no circumstances will anyone here be held liable for any bleeding from the eyes, ears or any orifice for that matter.  Excessive head banging on keyboard will become noticeable with repeated visits.  Please see Trubble for replacement tools.

Oh, I've totally gotta try the I'm Surrounded by Idiots thing.  I thought of so many ways to get my one controllable Sim to get other Sims to do what I want to do without controlling them directly already, but it would still be a definate challenge.

But I actually don't think that allowing my Sims more freewill is the solution to my problem (I'm actually facinated by how Sims act with freewill, so much so that I'm doing This (http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=item.82,root.1,item.43,item.61,item.104,item.23&threadID=e6176cb8881b1f9861ac65dc4eeecbd5&directoryID=82&startRow=1)).  I can actually sit on my hands quite happily if I need to.  The trick is for me to somehow temper my micromanaging ways while actually retaining control of the Sims.

Sim behavior is essentially sadorandom. How a sim thinks is that it comes up with what it believes to be its most critical motive (it is invariably wrong), and then chooses the action that has the highest "advertisement" value (which is similarly meaningless and has no correlation with actual effectiveness). The action chosen does not necessarily have to be helpful at all. In fact, it is invariably counterproductive, with things like "feed the baby" being believed to be a useful course of action. Once you realize how this works, you'll quickly join me in the conclusion that a sim will basically never choose the correct action since it is incapable of learning from experience.

This is how my neighbourhoods always end-up, which is why I get bored and have to start again.  My new neighbourhood is called Reality and, even though it's hard, I am not giving them the help I gave them before. I'm using various mods that make things much harder and making them work for everything, save up for luxuries, and so on.  Having great fun with it so far!

I would love it if some Awesome could make a tool that would in game:

1)randomize personality and or astrological sign

2) randomize skill level and/maybe make one regress in a job like a chance card (if this is possible.. otherwise fergetit).

3)do both

At the CAS screen one can randomally get a sim with random personality points... but you also get random skins (clothes, hair and skin tone).

I realize to get a true random sim would require alot of programming.. but I would be happy with:

12 signs randomally chosen

a choice of 4 personalities (chosen random)

and a choice of 6 skill levels ( or less depending on how much code one needs to write)

and then use the above to do the #3 script to get a random person in game.

I need some way to liven my game up... I want some guesswork to the game... like the chance cards.

Chance Cards aren't guesswork. They're a carefully analyzed probability set, the results of which are posted in the War Room. There's no "guesswork" involved: It's strict cost/benefit risk analysis.

Also, BlueSoup has a fat head (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?action=profile;u=1487).

That's precisely what I find so facinating about it.

*tries to figure out how to explain, fails

Erm, it's complicated but that's why I like it.

Oh, and mistymage:  Although it's not in-game, I often use this website (http://www.random.org) to add randomness.  It gives you about the closest thing to true random numbers possible.  I've actually gone through some neighborhoods in SimPe using that website to generate random numbers so that I could randomize personalities when the game spits out too many clones.  Better than rolling dice, even.

Isn't this what TJ's College Adjuster Plus does?

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1236.0

I'm just like that too! But recently, w/the help of Inge's School Mod, I've taken to dumping the lot of the hood's kids and teens in one building, filled with autoskilling objects.

Whoever they tend to socialize more with, become their friends. I have them scope out the room to set up their relationships. And I let them skill on whichever obj they gravitate to.

I also have the 'harder grades' hack by syberspunk, so there are more regular As & Bs instead of A+s. And I let romantic relationships break on age-up, so that they're free to date around in college.

They still gain skills and relationships this way, but it's more arbritrary. I think it's a good compromise between micromanagement and spontaneity.

Yea, I almost need to join MMA too, though recently I've gotten better at it, and also started pulling out some hacks to make the sims start doing stupid stuff again.  I was also really bad with toddlers and children, but I've lately adopted the philosophy of 'whatever you want, kiddo'.  I just buy all three toddler toys and let the tot pick which one to play with, and if a kid complains about gaining a particular skill, well then he/she just doesn't gain it beyond the 1 level he/she will need for freshman year.  Lazy and don't want to exercise?  Well then, you'll be a fat teen. :)

I've also cut back on micromanaging YAs in uni.  I usually let them 'pick' their major now, unless they have a LTW that's better fulfilled by a particular major.  And I'm not sending every one of them off to uni as a Knowledge sim anymore, though I do still try to base their aspiration somewhat on their personality.

For #2: If you send you planned couples to College on a regular basis, make a UNI CAS YA as romantic competition for one of the partners in the couple; duplicating them almost completely. Then, kind of let the other Sim decide who they love most. Make it a reward for the UNI CAS YA to pair up with your 'hood Sim. If they do, he/she gets to graduate and move into the 'hood. If they don't, they live forever youthful in college until the next couple comes around.

Of course, the evil version of this is to have the romantic doppleganger take over the other persons life completely if they win. Moving into the other persons house. Taking their family name. Making whohoo with the new family...

Yeah, well, anyway you get picture.

On #7: As opposed to? I just follow real life examples. I have one child take on the aspirations of one of the parents; following in their footsteps if you will, and I have another child take on an opposite aspiration of the parents; the black sheep. This has not gotten boring; yet.

Heh -- I like that one.  I'm going to add that to my bag of tricks.  It's particularly handy for twins. :)

I tend to be a micromanager, but it is fun to play challenges that prohibit management to some degree, and that does tend to help break the micromanagement addiction. ISBI is good, also the Asylum mini challenge:
http://simscout.blogsome.com/mini-challenge-asylum/

and the Bachelor challenge:
http://chaucerfansims.blogspot.com/

This is a problem?  Sounds like a great deal to me.  If I start a religion to worship you will you run my life too?  :p

D'oh! That's the only hack object I forgot to click on to see what it would do. Thanks!

Of course I will!  But it requires you to legally sign everything you own over to me and there will be no refunds if you change your mind.  Oh, and there's a 20 page contract you need to sign that waves all your rights to sue me if anything goes wrong, gives any money you earn to me, and allows me to sign you up for unnecessary surgery without your consent and such.  You know, the standard deal.

I micromanage until they get permaplat (some before the end of college).  Then I * hope* to let them kill themselves by allowing them to do whatever.  I have noticed though - they just relax in bed unless they get caught in one of the things that they don't seem to know when to quit - the instruments, the poker table, standng there "calling" at that damn myshuno thing for no apparent reason...  They do nothing interesting.  Maxis really needs to add some real personality.

I think personality emerges when you torture them, or when things don't go so well. I have a sim with 10 outgoing points who is not currently allowed to meet anyone. He has taken to drink. I've never had an alcoholic sim before. That's personality.

Hello my name is Meska and I am a micromanger.

Seriously. *laughs* My toddlers are constantly in front of a learning toy. My children get off the bus do their homework and then skill until bedtime with time taken somewhere along the line for parents to encourage the personality traits I find them lacking. No lazy or sloppy sims allowed! Upon reaching teen they are always given the Knowledge aspiration and nine times out of ten it rolls up the 'max out 7 skills' LTW. Which means they are perma-plat within a few days of turning teen and can then concentrate on achieving all the college scholorships. College is essentially friend-making camp since the sims already have all their skills. Changing aspiration to Popularity halfway through often rolls up another LTW based on number of friends which is so easily accomplished. Graduating with honors and about 25 bestfriends and sometimes a love-interest is standard. Etc etc etc. Even using the expensiveNPC and no20khandouts and harderjobs hacks and ignoring the use of aspiration rewards except for smartmilk there isn't much challenge left. There's been some interesting suggestions though in this thread maybe you won't be the only one to "get help" with their "problem" *laughs*

This style of play sounds incredibly boring. Seriously, what satisfaction does one get from it? *curious, not accusing*

It's a compulsion of sorts. All the MATY efficiency hacks don't help matters.

I'm trying to get away from it myself.

I was never like this with TS1. Then again, back then sims had all the time in the world, an eternity, to accomplish whatever. Now they don't. And since I like the aging cycle and hate elixir, there's an element of panic. THERE'S NO TIME, MAN! But really, there's plenty. That's OCD and/or perfectionism for you.

I really think the best way not to get caught in the "all my sims are the best" trap is to not do anything much unless they roll up wants for it (and if you don't have room to lock it and the want goes away, well the sim lost interest).

There was a thread on here awhile back with "rules you play by to make it harder" kinds of things and using those has added a lot to my gameplay.

Now I rarely click on toddlers - only fulfilling their wants if the parents have a desire to do so or for some gameplay reason it seems appropriate to me (this way some sims are not good parents). They guess at needs or do them autonomously, don't always get them potty trained or teach them to walk. I put down all kinds of toys (not just the skill ones) for families I see as "well-to-do" (or if the parents bring them home) and very few for poor families. The toddlers do whatever they want.

For kids, if they roll up a want for something - to earn a skill point or do homework or make a friend, they do it. And if they don't, they don't. Anything they do autonomously also counts as a want (dancing with their parents) and I might run with that as long as it seems like they want to. I let them bring home whatever friends they just do, or invite over anyone they want to and they play or don't as they please. If either a child or the parent has a want for them to go to private school, I'll send them. Otherwise I don't. If I think a parent cares, they'll make the kids do homework, but if the parent doesn't care and neither does the kid, they won't and if they get taken away 'oh well'. I grow the townie kids they know up with them.

When they hit teen, I'll either randomly roll for aspiration or choose it based on the things they liked doing as kids if it seems appropriate. I'm going to add some of that "good kid/black sheep" stuff too - that's a great idea :)

On dates, I only look at the wants for the date and fulfill those (was it Ste who said "afterall dating is about making sure your date has a good time? :) They only ask people out if they have the want, and they sometimes stand them up because they lost the desire meanwhile.

As all teens want to go to college :p (I hate this), I make them or the parents (if the parents care) pay for it and if they can't afford it, they don't go. If they don't have enough money for the next semester, they drop out too. They only do homework, go to class, term papers, etc. if they have wants for them. Oh and I use the influence mod thing so they don't constantly roll up wants to influence someone else to do their work (just sometimes).

Etc. etc. through their lives, they marry if *both* sims have the want, have kids if they both do, get jobs based on that (whether they're aspiration appropirate or not) etc.

All when I'm free-playing, of course. If I'm storytelling, they do what *I* want :) Otherwise though, I'm trying to divorce myself from the sim in question - not to think if they're a bad parent, I'm a bad parent or a bad god. I think that's how I got in trouble - I saw their accomplishments as mine. They're more like kids. I give them options, but they choose what they're going to do (and I don't care how the code decides what they choose :)

Works for me anyways.

Sagana, that was an excellent post. Truly excellent.

Agreed. Some excellent ideas/tips.

Thanks Sagana, that actually helps a lot!

Thank you :)

It all comes from someone else originally, a bit here and there. I'm glad there was something in there useful to you :)

*playing devil's advocate*

Hi, I'm ElfPuddle. I'm a compulsive micromanager...AND I LIKE IT.

Maybe it makes up for a lack of control in my real life?

Compulsive is one thing.  Obsessive compulsive is another, much less likable thing.

http://www.sims2community.com/showthread.php?t=13587&page=1

I've been doing the Asylum challange. I'm a micromanager too, but it was sadly halarious to watch 7 sims burn the kitchen down.

Mine all died within the second hour of play (real-time).  I think I spent more time setting it all up than actually watching them die.

 :D Mine waited 4 whole Sim days :D

I micromanage to a certain degree, but I've been pulling back some. When I had some of my favorite sims graduate from college and get their LTW within a day, I got a bit depressed at being bored with them.

There are a couple of things I 'manage' my sims into doing:
 - No potty accidents. If they're low, I tell them to go if they haven't already.
 - No passing out and sleep in your own goddamn bed. If they're about to pass out, I make them go to their bed rather than nap or climb into someone else's bed (usually mom and dad's)
 - Family Dinners. I usually have one sim serve a meal and let the rest of the family come to it. I like the socialization it gives.

I originally had started planning out their mates and relationships until two of my early sims threw a wrench in my works. Aiden and Joey were best friends. Both knowledge Sims, they went to college together. First night of college, one of them flirted with the other and WHAM. They became the most romantic couple I've got. They didn't even have any lightning bolts before the flirt.

What, you mean you actually left their queue empty long enough for them to do that themselves?

I'm "backing off" micromanaging if each sim has less than six actions in queue.

Ha ha, this is what happened on my asylum challenge.
http://laverwinklesims.com/index.php?topic=445.0

I play more like Sagana's description in this thread. I let toddlers and children do pretty much what they want and don't bother skilling if the sim doesn't have a want. I don't play the game to watch sims endlessly skilling, I play to watch what happens and to make up stories.

I don't try to keep sims in platinum. I get them jobs from the newspaper or through simpe at the lowest level. If I want them to stay as a dishwasher because of their story, then that's the way it is. If bad things happen, I let them.

I did originally play where every sim had a perfect life - how boring that became. My play has really changed over the last several months. Talking of boring, I've stopped even sending sims to Uni. I use the FFS debugger to give them six wants slots and a major - because I like playing with six wants slots - but the Uni EP is just a boring grind for me and that's not why I play the sims. It shouldn't be like work. My adults usually flat for a while and have a good time, if I'm enjoying the sim I'll maybe give them a week back with elixir before they settle down to adult life.

Testing 2Jeffs autonomous mod has been a bit of an exercise in getting my inner control freak to behave, learning to let the sims go, to see if anything happens.