More Awesome Than You!

Way back when I said something about wanting an arranged marriage hack, I noticed that a lot of people thought it was a good idea for a hack too.  However, as far as I know, nobody has made one.  Therefore I humbly request that one be made.  (And if someone made one while I wasn't looking, then gimme!)

But I don't come asking for something without giving something in return.  I was thinking about what sort of method might be best for a hack of this kind recently, and I think I've come up with a (relatively) simple solution that should work:

The currently controlled Sim with unattached child(ren) uses a social on another Sim with unattached child(ren).  Assuming that their relationship is as high enough, a dialogue box displays the unattached children of the asker in the same dialogue box used by moving in/parties/etc. and the user selects one of them.  This is repeated, this time displaying the unattached children of the asked.  A check is run to make sure the Sim asked doesn't dislike the partner being offered to their child (because nobody wants to have their child marry someone they dislike).  The game then sets the two Sims chosen as engaged (whether they like it or not).  Marhis's wonderful hacked wedding arch can finish the job once it's time to get married.

Notes:
Since I don't know how to make hacks, I'm officially putting this idea up in the air for anyone who wants to snatch it and make it their own.  Similarily, anyone who does so is free to alter it as they see fit.  Also, everyone is encouraged to tear it to pieces and poke it with sticks, since I know you're going to anyway.  I think that, provided it doesn't cause any VBTs to happen, it would be nice to be able to select any children no matter how young for this treatment.  (I saw a lady on TV once who was arranged to be married before she was born.  Her mother, while pregnant with her, owed her husband's mother some money, but she agreed to forgive the debt if the child being carried was a girl and would marry her infant son.  Since she was a girl, she was born betrothed.  Too bad that wouldn't be feasable here.)  Also, I'd reccommend being very leniant when it comes to the required relationship score especially, if possible, family Sims.

If this hack gets made, I'll certainly use it as well, Avalikia. :D What a good idea; it would certainly speed things up a bit in my 'hood.

A problem I could see would be how to put an engagement tag onto a child (or younger) and whether or not it would automatically disappear when said child aged. Since the game really isn't set up to have children being engaged (I would assume), I'd imagine said hack would need extensive testing before it was considered a 'safe' hack.

Great, that would be an awesome than you hack!  :D

As a fan of parsimony, I'm forced to ask why you need to inflict the specific engaged status on pre-adult sims, which would probably cause other bits of silliness unless the nature of "engaged" were altered as well.  (Off the top of my head, the inability to elope, the ability for the arranged to call off the engagement on their own, and the fact that it has no real effects besides showing a tiny icon.)  This mod would also come close to the issue of child brides, which is not something I see many modders being keen on.

Wouldn't it be much easier to just put a blurb in the individual bios of the arranged sims, and then use a forced marriage hack/object when they become adults (or teens, if you have one of those hacks)?  Sometimes it seems like people are too keen on specific game states for things more easily handled by player intent.

I'm not sure a hack is needed.  If you want an "arranged marriage", can't this be edited via something like SimPE?  I've never actually added a check to the engaged box in the relations editor in SimPE, but I have certainly deleted the engaged status.  I would think you could simply check off "engaged" in SimPE under your Sim's relationship with their designated betrothed, and this would have the necessary effect, possibly without affecting the relationship bars (mind you, the engagement might fail if the relationship was too low).

Arranged marriage or not, presumeably you would want the relationship between the two newly married or engaged sims to improve over time anyway.

Part of the whole point of the idea is to get rid of the messiness of mucking around with the character files outside of the game without downloading a superhack like, for example, the Puppy Killer, to get Sims with a low relationship engaged.  Granted, it's a little elaborate if I was thinking about doing it just once, but I'm thinking about the nobles and royalty of my medieval neighborhood who need to be paired off all the time and I'm far from the only one that would make regular use of it.

I am not suggesting that a mod of this sort enable the marriage of younger Sims.  They would still have to wait until they're adults in order to actually get married (unless you have hacks that allow teens to marry).  At that time, they could call off the engagement on thier own if they (or you) want to back them out of it and there wouldn't be any need to mess with the marriage process aside from the possible addition of another hack to make them marry regardless of relationship if you want to force the issue.

Well, possibly.  That all depends on what the player wants.  They could naturally improve their relationship over time, or, then again, they could be stuck in a loveless marriage.  The point is to give the player options if they want them, and isn't that basically the point of any non-critical hack?

What's elaborate is requiring a special status and getting pre-adult sims caught up in the mix.  A hack or object that allowed forced/arranged marriages regardless of the relationship levels of the soon-to-be couple would probably cover everything you want, while being easier for an interested party to program and more broadly applicable to boot.  Inflicting a special "promised" status or allowing toddlers to get engageds seems like it would have its finger in too many pies and border on un-awesomeness.

   Forgive me for jumping in with my 2 cents, but for those of us who are far from 'awesome' we don't 'muck' around with SimPe, and rarely with boolProp.  'Awesome' hacks allow us to do things that allow us to enjoy playing the game the way we wish.   I also would love using this type of hack in certain situations/Neighborhoods, allowing me to add yet another facet to my game.  True, if someone with in-depth knowledge of how the game works comes out and says this hack would not work as desired, then i would back off, but until then....

I agree with this comment. ↑

Soylent Sim, no one said anything about child brides; that's your own personal distaste for such a hack showing through. The request was just made for an 'Arranged Marriage' hack with the optional request that engagements be enabled earlier. If that's not possible (or no one is willing to tackle that), then that would be the end of it.

I'm thinking that a hack to allow engagement and marriage regardless of relationship scores would be the most broadly useful, possibly with an option to allow engagement and marriage for teens, also regardless of relationship scores, as well. Adding engagement for children would either have basically zero game effect (in which case there's not much point to including it in the hack), or else it would, in which case it would be more complex to add, because the modder would have to code the game effect as well (in which case, what kind of game effect would it HAVE, since children do not have romantic interactions anyway). Presumably the desired hack would make it a social interaction and not just setting flags, but I'm not sure what sort of alterations to the interaction ought to be made for it to be realistic as an arranged marriage/marriage of convenience.

Some of us don't or cannot use SimPE because we have Macs.  Hacks that do some SimPE type things are really necessary.

Back to OP; yes, I would most definitely use something like this.  I don't usually torture my Sims, but I can definitely see the purposes of this hack.  Incidentally, could one of you provide a link to the wedding arch hack you speak of?  Does this allow Sims who are not in love to marry?

PB

There are several mods around that allow you to set/unset relationship flags in-game, the Puppy Killer being the most obvious one.  It can be done in seconds and involves no more messing about than clicking on the floor and spawning an object.  Both parties need to be on the lot, but that can be achieved by teleporting one of them in if they aren't already there.

some relationship stuff works (with InSIM) if they are on the phone too.

I've never tried it (that I can remember) but InSIM may allow you to set engagement flags on children.

Have you asked Squinge?  He does hack requests -- I think he has a few hundred stand-alone hacks.  Look for him here: http://www.insimenator.net/forumdisplay.php?f=152 (http://www.insimenator.net/forumdisplay.php?f=152)

Why the aversion to the Puppy Killer? If you just download the OBJ version, it doesn't affect anything. You just spawn the object to use it. It is pretty much a in-game SimPE.

Then again, perhaps I don't see the point of a hack like this, unless special actions are added along with the ability to tag kids as married.

Nah, no married kids; just possibly engaged.

It does. I tried it as a result of this thread and both kids made it to teen with engagement flags intact. Of course stupid kids decided to make best friends before transition and fell in love just after with no instant love so it's hardly going to be a difficult relationship to maintain. ::)

It's possible that if you set an egagement flag for children, it could affect their behaviour to their intended partner and increase the amount of autonomous friend making activity between the two (making it more likely that the relationship would improve than if they were not engaged).

didn't I see a hack like this in the peasantry? It allowed marriage between any 2 sims, regardless of relationship, for things like shotgun weddings and "arranged" marriages...

this one maybe?
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,8196.0.html

yeah, that. It's not perfect but it might help.

Random responses:

This is different though, because that only works if the Sims involved are engaged already.  This proposed hack would work well with that one, allowing a somewhat realistic in-game way to get two Sims engaged that don't love eachother.

Even if I did approve of the puppy-killer, setting tokens is a pretty dry way of going about it.  It's about as much fun as using the tombstone to get two Sims pregnant instead of using Try for Baby.

Even if having two Sims that are too young to get married doesn't change their behavior, there are several advantages of getting them engaged at that age.  During the child and younger stages it allows them to be 'marked' as unavalible so those of us that are forgetful at times, if it uses my proposed method of using the parents it guards against their impending, accidental, or intentional death of the parents before the engagement can be made, and it allows you to plan engagements between, for example, a child and a teen who aren't actually that far apart in age.  But, again, the idea of allowing it for Sims that young is completely optional to anyone who'd make the hack.  Once the pair become Teens the advantages increase because the Sims themselves know that they're spoken for and all the lovely hacks that check to see if Sims are attached or not will show them as attached.

not to mention, doesn't the engaged token interact with ACR?

And it would also work with the Find-A-Mate Crystal Ball

And the fun of having two teen sims, betrothed since they were kids, who aren't in love, either getting to know each other, cos they know they are to be married at some point, or better yet, having one of them decide they don't love this other sim and finding someone else that they do love, and sneaking out with that new friend.

I suppose the interaction, if they were caught, would be the same as a married/engaged adult sim catching their SO flirting/kissing/woohooing someone else - slapfest, followed by breakup.  If it's going to be a "parents arrange marriage for children" type hack, that type of breakup should also have negative aspiration hits for the parents.

OK, I revise my previous opinion on this.  I probably wouldn't use this hack myself, but I can certainly see the possibilities for creating interesting relationship situations.