I've always been curious about that style of play, one EP with each generation I mean, but it's not something I've ever tried nor would it be very convenient to do so on a Steam install where removing and putting packs back in is more painful than for others.

1 - Some of this is a bit more art than science. We can't prove this, but some of us think that the default SP behavior suggests Twallan really didn't like the idea of inactive sims being alone and therefore lonely (?) for very long. But anyway, all of the settings you want to look at are in the same place, under SP > General Options > Options: Romance.

Partnership Liking Gate > (default is 40)
To me, this is far too low. It means sims will attempt to partner up (become steadies then go from there) before they've really gotten to know each other, let alone like each other enough to be a stable romantic couple. I would suggest bumping this up to 60 or even 75.

Marriage Liking Gate (Expected) > (default is 75)
Perhaps bump this up to 90 or so.

Then look at the four Cooldown settings if you find that your town's sims are moving forward with already established couplings too quickly or if they are changing partners more often than some of us change our socks (thinking of Bridgeport more than most other worlds). Cooldowns of 2 sim days as they all are by default are pretty trivial on much longer life spans.

Speed > (default is 300)
This is the speed of the Romance Manager when the overall speed of progression under General Options directly is Normal. I play on Slow in most worlds anyway, but still find this one moves far too quickly for my tastes. It's a measure in sim minutes of the amount of time between cycle runs, so 300 means 5 sim hours and longer is slower. Don't be afraid to try some very large numbers there like 1000 or even 2500.

In many worlds where I want to make sure there is a dating pool available for the younger sims I am already playing when they become of age, I may disallow Romance by way of Sim Options or fiddle around with Arranged Marriages (SP Relationship module required) when they become teens on some subset of residents in the same age groups, but I don't always find this necessary.


2 - Career progression is scaled to lifespan by default. The setting is under General Options > Options: Careers > Options: Job Performance > Adjust Performance to Age Span > T/F.

Skilling can be scaled by way of an option in Relativity, this does not happen by default. NRaas > Relativity > Apply Life Span Skill Factor, then there are further modifiers that can be place under Skill Gain Factors by individual skills if desired.

For kid spacing, take a look under General Options > Options: Pregnancy for Chance of Attempt (default 30), Increase Chance of Attempt (default 10), and the two Cooldown settings (defaults 3 sim days). I'm not sure there's a way to throttle friend-making. This is far too easy in the game overall, is somewhat dependent upon how sociable a sim is, and on what the game itself pushes onto these sims as those known to them and as friends.


Note that changing lifespan settings mid-game can be really painful though, especially when multiple worlds are involved. Unless this is done very slowly and meticulously (and even when it is), you might be stranding sims in the wrong age stage as the spans begin increasing, and the game doesn't always react well or as one might expect to that.