JohnL83 wrote: ↑

May 31st, 2021, 11:01 pm

Probably not in your wheelhouse based on how you like to play, but here is mine:

Year - 40 Days Seasons: W-10 Spr-7 Sum-16 Aut-7
Baby 3
Toddler 37
Child 100
Teen 100
YA 160
Adult 200
Elder 170

I play quite differently than what I've read so far. I don't really try to win anything. I outline stories in my head, create households based on those stories and develop them based on chosen personalities and careers, etc. I load up a fresh town with those Sims, leaving a few EA families, if they fit into my story.
Then I just rotate through my favorites while I semi-micro manage the town. I let a lot happen 'naturally' too. But I usually have a main Sim, or a main family, or main couple, who's stories that I focus upon. Then as they meet others in town and develop friendships I will often rotate to that other sim household if I like them and see what I can do for them as far as career, relationships, house remodel etc. Then basically I just see how everyone does.

This is exactly the kind of information I was hoping to hear. I knew you played longer lifespans and I've seen other people post about it, hearing the WHY gives me some ideas of how I can work some of that into my own games. Most of my stories are quite fleshed out but it's mostly off-screen (in my head and fanfiction). Like I'll take a pause from a specific save until the off-screen story is just how I want (it can take a while...weeks sometimes, if I lose my muse...during which I spend hours a day working on it...until it eats my brain) and then I can go back and play the next "chapter" in my save. The off-screen bit is canon for my game, it just doesn't happen in-game, if that makes sense. For a couple of my saves, I'm considering going back to how I used to play (which is more like your play style) where I let things flow more organically with no particular time constraints.

puzzlezaddict wrote: ↑

May 28th, 2021, 11:20 am

I have no idea what you're talking about. I beat the game sometime in late 2010...

Beat the game? I'd love to hear more about this. I didn't know such a thing was even possible! :P

But seriously...I like to base my lifespan on the length of a sim pregnancy. If the three days of pregnancy = three trimesters (aka ~9 months) the addition of one day would give the equivalent of a full year. If you consider a nice, long human life is ~80 years that's 320 sim days. Converting that to sim ages and the typical life span would look something like this.

Infant: 4 days (Birth to age 1)
Toddler: 16 days (Ages 1-5)
Child: 28 days (Ages 5-12)
Teen: 24 days (Ages 12-18)
Young Adult: 88 days (Ages 18-40)
Adult: 90 days (Ages 40-65)
Elder: 60 days (Ages 65-80)

Obviously I've based this on major events for each age range. Babies start walking and talking around age one. Children start school around age 5. Age 12 is when children enter middle school and start taking on more responsibility. The young adult years are college, career and establishing home/family life. Middle age is traditionally thought of as age 40, and retirement is usually around 65. Admittedly that's all arbitrary and varies, but I think it gives a nice distribution to the life cycle.

One thing I really like about this is that it balances the work-life relationship for female sims. Spending 2 days for every pregnancy on maternity leave really dampens career goals when your sim is already losing days for holidays and weekends. This also allows a lot of time for socializing with family and friends, having parties, enjoying the community lots you've spent the last decade building for your sims, etc.

indignantgirl post_id=82578 time=1622249793 user_id=20577 wrote:

puzzlezaddict post_id=82571 time=1622215208 user_id=17934 wrote:
Anyway, I know what you mean about having a set pace for your sims' progression and feeling like giving them more time makes things too easy or cheaty. If you want to address that directly, you could use Relativity to slow down skill gains proportional to the longer lifespan. Ani's No Free Work Performance might help too, although it also might be a bit more drastic than what you're looking for.

You're definitely right about Relativity being my friend here. I've lowered skill gains for some skills, because some things are just too easy even in a normal lifespan. But until you mentioned it, I didn't realize there's a single setting to adjust all skill gains proportionally to the current lifespan. That will simple things up so much.

puzzlezaddict post_id=82571 time=1622215208 user_id=17934 wrote: It wasn't an easy transition though: I kept feeling like my sims should be more productive. One thing that helped was sending them on vacation and deliberately not accomplishing much; since time is paused on vacation, and you can take as many as you want, it felt like free space to do anything, or nothing.

I have the same problem wanting my sims to be productive, but I tend to panic about having a time limit and then I go overboard. Even on a normal lifespan, my sims will have experienced 2 or 3 lifetimes' worth of achievements before they age up to Adult, and then I spend the next 2 age stages waiting for them to die. There are only so many careers and adventures and LTWs I can do with one sim before I'm ready for a change, but I feel weird about moving them out and abandoning them to story progression.

(And as I write this, I realize that yes, that's exactly what I should do. Move the out and abandon them to story progression so I can concentrate on sims I still want to play. It's just crazy enough to work. )

And one more thing: vacation! You are so right about that. I've recently started letting my sims take proper vacations--not to the WA worlds, because there's too much to accomplish there, but to custom vacation destinations and such. Nothing to do but relax on the beach and stuff themselves silly at the resort buffet and maybe woohoo in a cave or fight a shark. No pressure. It's a nice break for me, too.

It sounds like we have very similar play styles from what you are saying here. Very goal oriented. Goals accomplished by the end of the young adult stage or shortly thereafter and very ready to focus on the next generation...but still have half a life left to live with the parent-sims! And vacations--so much to do! So many places to explore. So many gems to find. And the DIG SITES!!!

If you allow SP to adjust settings to match your newly adjusted age span when you first open a world or change the aging setting it will feel like your entire world just stopped for a bit. Reading forever to finish a skill book. Playing all day to gain a level in chess. Maybe more organic, but that doesn't work for me. Frankly, I want my sims to be able to accomplish all of that AND have a life, so I leave the settings on normal. Skilling happens at it's normal rate as does career progression.

Now I don't feel guilty for letting my sims go ice skating after work, or have a snowball fight with their kids (because I LOVE WINTER!!). Yep, go read those kids to sleep. Not the skill book, one of the Raymundo books. And go have a glass of nectar with your spouse. Every moment no longer needs to be spent skill building or working from home to get that next promotion. The teens can skill build and socialize and get ready for college because they have time! Weekends can be for outings and dates and hanging out on the festival lots. I love that I have the option to leave those settings as they are and buy my sims some fun time!!!

dreamsong1968 post_id=82661 time=1622678874 user_id=268 wrote: Infant: 4 days (Birth to age 1)
Toddler: 16 days (Ages 1-5)
Child: 28 days (Ages 5-12)
Teen: 24 days (Ages 12-18)
Young Adult: 88 days (Ages 18-40)
Adult: 90 days (Ages 40-65)
Elder: 60 days (Ages 65-80)

I view your age ranges almost exactly the same, only I think of toddlers from 2-5 which is why I have them set longer. And I also kind of see elder stage more as 65 - 90's. I have had most of my real life family live past 80 and in decent health, (bodes well for me, I hope ) so my play reflects that I suppose.

I once tried to be more realistic and I had it set so my teens had 4 years of school...but so did children. (I'd hardly want to keep my sims at the kids stage for nearly 7 sim years...LOL yikes) I also had my year set at 50 Sims days at that time But it got to be way too much time so I cut both down to 100 each. I have to admit I'm getting more bored with the longer lives. I may cut them down by another half

I'm currently doing a couple of generational challenge games with stories which have me playing on 'normal, which I've tweaked to 100 days.
baby-3
toddler-6
child-7
teen-14
YA-21
Adult-28
Elder-21

Since one of them is a Random Town Jump and I've got 18 towns, of which I'm on town #11, it's imperative that lives aren't too long.
Which made for an interesting dilemma when my 2nd gen heir married a fairy from Moonlight Falls and brought the long-lived fairy lifespan into the mix!
And then that got magnified when my 4th gen fairy heir's human spouse wanted a bit more time to be with her husband and asked a genie for longer life---which I thought would only affect her lifespan, but ended up doubling the lifespan of every child she had and was also passed on to every gen after that! So...double lifespans for humans and in all five of the gens that had fairy heirs.

To keep things moving along, I age up babies, toddlers, children and teens at my set lifespan days above, and then allow human heirs their double lifespan days ya through elder.

Fairies and their spouses ended up having to move out and stay in their third towns or I wouldn't have ever had room for additional generations.

Though my 1st gen heir was born prior to the genie wish and she ended up seeing the first 4 towns, living to the ripe age of 128!
Not to be left out of that, my 1st gen Farmacy game heir, again playing on my 100 days, lived to be 131!

So even playing on 'normal' the game can throw you some curveballs.

And just as an FYI, you can go on vacation in the WA worlds and just enjoy them without participating in the adventures.
Take up martial arts in China, sip nectar in France, and just soak up the atmosphere in Egypt.
It's taken me years to figure it out, but my Sims have actually had a blast just playing their guitars or chatting with the locals rather than adventuring.