Always twins in any pregnant. Help!!!

[Jelenedra]

Ooooh. I had one of those with ste's risky woohoo. Everytime my sims did it in a photobooth they got knocked up.

[snabul]

What if the randomizer has always the same sequence or starts always at the same number, so the first birth each gameplay is bringing twins?

(no native speaker writing)

[jolrei]

What if the randomizer has always the same sequence or starts always at the same number, so the first birth each gameplay is bringing twins?

(no native speaker writing)

You can break this type of cycle with the Lot Debugger - rerandomize at start of each gameplay session and that should eliminate the first birth effect.  If you get twins every time after that, it is because of something else.

[snabul]

I know.

If the random sequence starts at a different value for every neighborhood or installation of the game, but at the same value every time you start the game...

THEN some players could have a twin-firstborn-effect.

Unfortunately I don't know whether the first condition is given.

[jsalemi]

The first condition is not a given -- the sadorandomizer in the game starts with the same value every time, AFAIK.  That applies to all neighborhoods. That's changed only by forcing a randomization yourself (in CAS, the long way) or by using the re-randomizer on the Lot Debugger.

[Sivany]

Despite reading rather a lot about it I never quite got that whole re-randomiser thing on the lot debugger, what exactly does it randomise? I know randomises something to do with births to eliminate the first-born effect but I never quite understood what. Is it the personality points? And by first-born effect does that mean the first born in every family, or just the first sim born everytime you reload the game?

I only ask because I have only used this option once and I couldn't really see what effect it had. I haven't noticed a lot of sims born in game with the same personality (I think in one family a twin had the same personality as her older sister, but that's the only time it seems to have happened).

[Ryslin]

the randomizer effectively rolls the dice you see when you are in CAS. These sims never get "saved" perse but instead move the standard sim rotation forward.
first born effect.. same personality , same genetic combination from the parents so on
this is what it fixes. It is possible to still get very alike sims, but the rerandomizer keeps it from happening every.. single ..time.

[doren]

I don't see the connection between the randomizer and twins, because as far as I know the sequence determines appearance and personality, but has no connection to the number of children born. Or am I wrong?

[J. M. Pescado]

I hate to doubt so much shouting, but if twins are DETERMINED AT CONCEPTION then why is it possible for Brandi Broke to have either a single baby or twins?  (Or so JM says in the Myths post.)  I was under the impression that baby number was determined when the sim pops a second-trimester belly.

Twins are determined at conception. However, in Brandi's case, "conception" apparently can occurs "when you load the lot": I.E., she's not saved that way, a scripted event controller makes it happen immediately. There's also that cheesecake thing. And no, baby quantity is determined at conception, although hacks, cheats, and after OFB, the cheesecake thing, can influence it.

[Jelenedra]

J.M., I had heard ages and ages ago (I think it may have been the Base game's prima guide) that claimed that new neighborhoods have a higher chance of having twins at the beginning to help with a population expansion. Is this lies and propaganda or sadorandomness at work?

[jsalemi]

I don't see the connection between the randomizer and twins, because as far as I know the sequence determines appearance and personality, but has no connection to the number of children born. Or am I wrong?

The randomizer ensures the twins don't have the exact same personality as one of their parents.  It has no effect on the number of babies, as explained elsewhere.

As I understand it, the 'first born effect' means that any baby born first in a play session will have the exact same personality as one its parents. It doesn't refer to the 'first born' in a particular sim family. The old way of preventing that was to go into CAS first and create (but not save) some random number of sims.  The re-randomizer does that without having to go into CAS. It ensures the first baby born in a session will have a more randomized personality rather than an exact duplicate of its parent.

[leaths]

The randomizer ensures the twins don't have the exact same personality as one of their parents.  It has no effect on the number of babies, as explained elsewhere.

As I understand it, the 'first born effect' means that any baby born first in a play session will have the exact same personality as one its parents. It doesn't refer to the 'first born' in a particular sim family. The old way of preventing that was to go into CAS first and create (but not save) some random number of sims.  The re-randomizer does that without having to go into CAS. It ensures the first baby born in a session will have a more randomized personality rather than an exact duplicate of its parent.

My understanding is that it doesn't have anything to do with cloning the parents' personalities. The game's sadorandomizer is set at the same point each play session. That ensures that the first born child will be genetically randomized properly. However, it resets if you stop playing. Therefore the next play session it starts "randomizing" from the exact same point. Meaning that all children born afterwards will have the exact genetics and personality as the first child.

[edited to take out an unneccessary sentence]

[VacantBlue]

The randomizer ensures the twins don't have the exact same personality as one of their parents.  It has no effect on the number of babies, as explained elsewhere.

As I understand it, the 'first born effect' means that any baby born first in a play session will have the exact same personality as one its parents. It doesn't refer to the 'first born' in a particular sim family. The old way of preventing that was to go into CAS first and create (but not save) some random number of sims.  The re-randomizer does that without having to go into CAS. It ensures the first baby born in a session will have a more randomized personality rather than an exact duplicate of its parent.

My understanding is that it doesn't have anything to do with cloning the parents' personalities. The game's sadorandomizer is set at the same point each play session. That ensures that the first born child will be genetically randomized properly. However, it resets if you stop playing. Therefore the next play session it starts "randomizing" from the exact same point. Meaning that all children born afterwards will have the exact genetics and personality as the first child.

[edited to take out an unneccessary sentence]

My understanding was the same as jsalemi - the first born effect affects personality not genetics. 

Genetics are determined by...searching for Pescado quote....
"Firstborn effect only affects personalities. Tendency to constantly spawn boys or girls is apparently an related artifact of a poor random number generator, but unrelated to this. Same story with twins. Identical children tends to be caused by homogenous genetic pools in CAS sims, where if your sims spawn with dominant facial features and none of these clash, the outcome tends to always be the same as a result, because your kids inherit all the dominant features."
from http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=3827.msg108706#msg108706

That post is rather old though.  Perhaps, a new conclusion has been drawn since then.

[Talismana]

I hate to doubt so much shouting, but if twins are DETERMINED AT CONCEPTION then why is it possible for Brandi Broke to have either a single baby or twins?  (Or so JM says in the Myths post.)  I was under the impression that baby number was determined when the sim pops a second-trimester belly.

...baby quantity is determined at conception, although hacks, cheats, and after OFB, the cheesecake thing, can influence it.

I had proof of this recently...

I'd a preggers sim give birth to twin girls. This is a family that already had too many girls and tended to make particularly poor ones at that. They had no boys, however, so, I did something I never had up until then, exited the game w/o saving, and replayed the birth, with similar results, only it was boy/girl this time. I decided that still wasn't good enough, exited w/o saving, Again. Replayed scenario, Again. Bingo! Hmmm...a singleton male?

Disclaimer: k, this is where I admit to using the Kitten Killer, as well as Two Jeff's quad mod set to "random"...obviously, I realized that the quad mod randomizes the number of babies 1-4, I just, for some reason, thought it was set to occur at conception as well.

As an aside? Not to be flippant or dismissive, but 8 births hardly translates to "always" and is well within the bounds of a normal distribution, though irritating I'd imagine.

[leaths]

My understanding was the same as jsalemi - the first born effect affects personality not genetics. 

Genetics are determined by...searching for Pescado quote....
"Firstborn effect only affects personalities. Tendency to constantly spawn boys or girls is apparently an related artifact of a poor random number generator, but unrelated to this. Same story with twins. Identical children tends to be caused by homogenous genetic pools in CAS sims, where if your sims spawn with dominant facial features and none of these clash, the outcome tends to always be the same as a result, because your kids inherit all the dominant features."
from http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=3827.msg108706#msg108706

That post is rather old though.  Perhaps, a new conclusion has been drawn since then.

Well, I could very well be wrong about the genetics, but my main point was that the "first born effect" does not mean that children are personality clones of their parents, but of the first born child.

[kuronue]

Here's a simple breakdown of randomization:

The Sims 2 picks random numbers from a long list of numbers. Example: 13, 12, 57, 2. Assume that goes on for a long time.
Now, a baby born with number 13 might be serious, neat, and lazy, while a baby born with 12 will be serious, sloppy, and lazy, while baby 57 might be playful, sloppy, lazy. Supposedly it starts at a random position in the list so you get a random baby; however, this is broken. Instead, it always starts at baby 13, followed by baby 12, then baby 57. When you quit the game and open it again, it resets to baby 13, then baby 12, then baby 57. Thus, if you don't run the randomizer, you always get baby 13 as the first baby born every play session.

Now, of course, baby 13 for couple A might be totally different than baby 13 for couple B, because the parents have different personalities, but the idea is that if you have a baby to couple A, then save and quit, then have a second baby to couple A, it'd be exactly the same personality-wise.

Does that make sense?

[sewinglady]

Yes, it makes perfect sense to me...and I believe I have seen it time and time again in birth after birth...so pretty much all my neighborhoods just back that up.

I don't need to add my longwinded explanation of babies/twins, do I?  I got so damn tired posting it over on the BBS that I finally saved it as a word doc so I could just copy and paste.

It's mainly for the noobs and under 12's over at BBS who don't understand how the game works for twins (prior to OFB and cheesecake) and also don't get that just having the same two sims try for twins over and over isn't very likely to get you twins. 

[doren]

The children were I forgot the firstborn effect are clones. They don't only share the same personality they look identical too. Plus while it is hard to tell with regard to the facial features, when I reroll at birth (and sometimes I want to get a particular outcome) and have sims with equally dominant custom skins and eyes, the sequence is always the same, first custom skin A with Eyes B, second.... The only thing that can change when I quit (the game) and restart the sequence is the gender.

[Jelenedra]

Hairstyles always change for me.

[Quinctia]

I tested it with one configuration (I forget if it was just basegame or basegame + Uni) and didn't have the effect.  I have no idea why not.  Later on (I'm pretty sure this was once I had installed NL), I retested it and got the following results:  as long as I completely reloaded my game in between, the first born to each couple was identical in terms of genetics and personality.  So were the second and third (...identical to the other second and third children, respectively).  These were single births via InSim.  Gender obviously was fluid.

I was actually doing the test to try and reproduce my first experiment--because I had six kids in my first legacy, and I don't know that any of them shared a bit of genetics, and this was before I knew about the firstborn effect.  So I wasn't rolling the dice, I didn't have the lot debugger, and once I did hear about it, I tried it for myself and didn't get the results.  I eventually started randomizing anyway, and then I reproduced my experiment and got the above results.

Twin frequency is just bizarre.  Only alien abduction?  Twins.  My second legacy?  Only one single birth so far out of seven pregnancies.  However, I do use trips and quads.  At least two of those sets were natural, though--I've started checking with InSim for shits and giggles now.  I don't have OfB so they're not sneaking cheesecake on me, either.  I've been wondering about that elusive twin token theory and if it's heriditary.  The founder oopsed me with ACR and naturally conceived twins.

[Ayslhyn]

I've had a terrible run of twins births lately. It happened three times in the same family (with two different women) then in one CAS-created family then in an older family twice.

I give UP. My previous computer ( a PowerMac) was a terror for the twins plague. This one, a modest dual-core MacPro started off OK but now seems to have caught Twin Plague Syndrome.

[Zazazu]

However, I do use trips and quads.

If you are using the random version of trips & quads, you may want to change the odds that TJ set. I think the odds he set are something like 25% odds for twins. I have it set to 7% twins, 2% trips, and 1% quads.

[Tarlia]

I've had a terrible run of twins births lately. It happened three times in the same family (with two different women) then in one CAS-created family then in an older family twice.

I give UP. My previous computer ( a PowerMac) was a terror for the twins plague. This one, a modest dual-core MacPro started off OK but now seems to have caught Twin Plague Syndrome.

Psst, your computer specs can't cause twins. You might think they can. But they can't.

[Quinctia]

However, I do use trips and quads.

If you are using the random version of trips & quads, you may want to change the odds that TJ set. I think the odds he set are something like 25% odds for twins. I have it set to 7% twins, 2% trips, and 1% quads.

I may check it at some point.  It's mainly this one family, though.  For a long time, I was getting singles constantly with the hack in, and it was so frustrating.

[Sivany]

Here's a simple breakdown of randomization:

The Sims 2 picks random numbers from a long list of numbers. Example: 13, 12, 57, 2. Assume that goes on for a long time.
Now, a baby born with number 13 might be serious, neat, and lazy, while a baby born with 12 will be serious, sloppy, and lazy, while baby 57 might be playful, sloppy, lazy. Supposedly it starts at a random position in the list so you get a random baby; however, this is broken. Instead, it always starts at baby 13, followed by baby 12, then baby 57. When you quit the game and open it again, it resets to baby 13, then baby 12, then baby 57. Thus, if you don't run the randomizer, you always get baby 13 as the first baby born every play session.

Now, of course, baby 13 for couple A might be totally different than baby 13 for couple B, because the parents have different personalities, but the idea is that if you have a baby to couple A, then save and quit, then have a second baby to couple A, it'd be exactly the same personality-wise.

Does that make sense?

Perfect sense! Thank you so much, that was the clearest explanation I've ever read and I finally feel like I understand. The last paragraph was particularly illuminating since it made everything you said in the first paragraph (which is information I've read time and time again) fall into place within the game.

Previously from the information I was reading it sounded as if everytime you reloaded the game and a baby was born it would have a baby 13 type personality that would be identical to every other baby 13 born in the game no matter what the family and I always thought this didn't make sense within the genetic structure of the game.

Now for the first time I'm actually noticing where the first born effects have occured within my game and I'll be using the randomiser from now on.