Rotational Play in Sims 3

keekee53

I have given up on Sims 4 for now. I am playing Sims 2 and I have decided to reinstall Sims 3 again as well.

I need a little help from anyone who is playing rotationally. How do you do it? How do you deal with aging and story progression. Do you turn it off when not playing the main family?

This was one of my biggest gripes with Sims3 and if someone can help me play more than one family I would love this game.

phoebebebe13

You need mods for rotational play. @igazor mod help thanks

igazor

Hi there. Without mods, Rotational Play in TS3 can be a messy proposition. You can manage aging by only having aging on while playing your main household, but then you will miss a lot of birthdays in the others you are playing in turn; there is no way to arrange TS2 style (active household only) aging in a modless game. But worse, when households are inactive they will not behave themselves as you might want them to -- there is nothing to stop them from moving houses, changing jobs, forming new relationships or breaking up, and the worst, emigrating out of town and therefore out of your game (also known as "culling"). That last one can happen even with EA's story progression switched off.

NRaas StoryProgression provides the tools many players use to manage Rotational Play. By leveraging its caste settings, one can provide levels of protection against aging and certain forms of progression while the rest of the town, the residents you never have any intention of playing, can do what they like within limits that you can also set if you choose to. SP can also be flexible with aging so the entire town doesn't have to age all at once and it does not by default allow emigration/culling.

It's a pretty complex and far-reaching mod though and does take some getting used to. But we do have full documentation in place for how everything works and a support mechanism on our site if you need help along the way.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/StoryProgression+FAQ
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Story+Progression+Rotational+Caste+Settings

keekee53

igazor wrote: »

Hi there. Without mods, Rotational Play in TS3 can be a messy proposition. You can manage aging by only having aging on while playing your main household, but then you will miss a lot of birthdays in the others you are playing in turn; there is no way to arrange TS2 style (active household only) aging in a modless game. But worse, when households are inactive they will not behave themselves as you might want them to -- there is nothing to stop them from moving houses, changing jobs, forming new relationships or breaking up, and the worst, emigrating out of town and therefore out of your game (also known as "culling"). That last one can happen even with EA's story progression switched off.

NRaas StoryProgression provides the tools many players use to manage Rotational Play. By leveraging its caste settings, one can provide levels of protection against aging and certain forms of progression while the rest of the town, the residents you never have any intention of playing, can do what they like within limits that you can also set if you choose to. SP can also be flexible with aging so the entire town doesn't have to age all at once and it does not by default allow emigration/culling.

It's a pretty complex and far-reaching mod though and does take some getting used to. But we do have full documentation in place for how everything works and a support mechanism on our site if you need help along the way.
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/StoryProgression+FAQ
http://nraas.wikispaces.com/Story+Progression+Rotational+Caste+Settings

Awesome guys and thanks. I was going to download the NRaas mod anyway. It is good to hear that I can achieve rotational play with the mod.

@igazor and @phoebebebe13 thanks again

TadOlson

I've been managing to do Sims 2 style rotational play in TS3 using about 110 NRaas Mod files and over 300 other Mods to fix game issues up including one to fix alien abductions from MTS that allows me to stop alien pregnancies from hitting young adults and only affecting adult sims.I also set the chance of alien pregnancies to zero if I don't want any at that time.I use castes for each household and family in NRaas story progression's caste system to manage inactive families because the rotations caste system posted at the site only worked for me until Patch 163 completely broke it and forced me to start using castes for each family.

igazor

Just to be clear here, the Rotations system posted on the page I linked to was done up by a colleague and me just last year way after Patch 1.63 was released. It works fine for the players who invest some time in understanding it. We don't know why it doesn't work for Tad, she won't let us help her figure it out. But she found a different way to leverage the mod to get the effects she wants, and that's of course fine too.

TadOlson

I used a system that was similar before 163 came out and that's what broke with 163 and it took a save down when it broke.I just came up with using castes for every family because I didn't want what broke a save to ruin other games.It worked until a sim got pregnanct from an alien abduction which forced me to find a Mod to tune that out to fix it.
@igazor -have you ever tried setting up a save using castes for each family or household before?That's how I got to play my entire town without worrying that inactives would get pregnant or adopt tons of pets like they used to before adding Mods.Your rotations system might work if the player using it isn't trying to play the entire town and is really only playing two families in a town.My setup using a caste for each family is meant for playing an entire town in a rotational game.

igazor

@TadOlson - Yes, I know that setting up a separate caste for every household in town will work. My point is that strategy is not (for most everyone else) necessary. Our play styles are very different. I have 83 resident households in my main world, of which I demand this level of caste protection for the 10 I play in rotation. I don't want to control the other 73, except loosely providing guidelines for general behavior usually at the Town level, I want them to progress on their own. Not one of my 10 protected households, all in the same Rotations caste when they aren't being played except for the Tax Exempt exceptions as noted on that page, has ever once gotten pregnant or adopted pets, etc. in my absence while playing one of the other 9 because the caste forbids them to do so when they are inactive. And it's been many real time years now. I have allowed some of those households to be cut loose and enter the general set where I am no longer controlling them and I have added a few as sims have grown up and moved out of my main households, moved into this world from a Traveler connected one, etc. It all still holds up just fine.

The benefit of having one (or two) castes to manage this system rather than 83 is when I suddenly decide I want to change one thing about how all of the protected households behave, or about how the unprotected households behave, I only have to make that change in one caste (or two). Not in 10 or 73 castes, which would be inefficient and more prone to user error.

For players who really do want to play an entire town, presumably with fewer than 83 households in it for sanity's sake, and with no households remaining to forever be unplayed and progress on their own, Sarah's Option Two on that page is yet another way to approach things. All three of our approaches will work, that's including yours, and that's a testament to how flexible the SP mod is. The point of my comment down on this end of this thread is to not deter other players from trying this out because they think they have to set up and maintain quite so many castes.

TadOlson

I think the rotational play can be done in at least a few different ways with the castes depending on how extreme you want to go with it.I just found it necessary to set up castes for each family in town because I'll eventually have a larger number of families and need to set things up for each caste for when I won't be playing a family for a while.I've not made any mistakes yet in adjusting a household caste yet though it happened in the old system I used after 163 came out and I lost a save because of the mistake.It had caused my families to both be expecting babies when nobody was actually ready for that.

KarinL

I use NRaas Story Progression. I usually start on the general settings that come with the mod, and gradually change them when I need to.
(I do set a low population cap to make sure nobody gets pregnant.)

I personally found the aging per family one of the most annoying aspects of Sims 2, so I've never been tempted to use 'Sims 2 style aging' in Sims 3. I know it can be done, though.

I do use a very long lifespan. My Sims have birthdays without me, but I do get prompts for important things. I like the random traits at age-up, but it's easy to change them. Either with MasterController, or with the 'midlife crisis' Lifetime Reward. (With my long lifespan, my Sims end up drowning in those points anyway...)

keekee53

hmm these are all interesting and helpful ideas. Now I need to rethink something because maybe I do want to set the population a lot lower so I can manage all the families if I want. Also slow down immigration...now I need to rethink some things..lol

SunsetSimsPrime

Personally I can't sit in the same house for long so I control everyone. Any type of story progression out of my control is going to lead to something upsetting my save & I will ditch it. Even if I'm not invested in certain Sims I'd rather progress them how I want rather than the game & mods. Aging & progressing all predict how the neighbourhood is set up.

If I've taken the time to get rid of a lot to all of the Sims that were already existing & replace them with my own. I either turn off aging completely or I set it to epic. If I feel a Sim & his friends have completed what I want for them I age them up. At least I can also get who is older or younger of the group correct. In this sort of save I'll have a plan set out for the Sims. There will be certain elements per Sim which will be rigid, like who they will marry, jobs, friends & enemies. Sometimes hobbies/skills or where they want to spend their days is left up to them.

If I haven't taken the time to set up the save to such a degree or the town turns out to be a bust, I lower aging to long or normal. I spend more time playing with the houses I like & spend minimal time with those that I don't. I decide who or if they going to get married & or have/adopt kids or pets, I make sure they have jobs to bring an income in. & That is it. If I really hate the town I use NAARS Porter to save the Sims I want to & leave town. I even have 3 different saved households who I play as migrants types for different reasons. This where I load just one house into the town play them for a while, decide if I want to play other houses. When I feel they have enough money to move, I use Porter to save & move to a new neighbourhood. Sometimes I'll drag along a Sim he/she has met in the last town.

TadOlson

I used to have trouble with EA's bugfest ruining my games and my families whenever I tried to play rotationally before adding Mods.I've never had that trouble since then unless a patch changed how things worked and forced me to reinvent my Mod settings for story progression to get rotational play working again.I control what my inactives are and aren't allowed to do when I'm not playing that family with castes in story progression.

KarinL

One thing you can do if you don't want any changes is use NRaas Story Progression and set it to 'Stasis On'. And then turn it on just for the family you are playing - so they're the only ones to age, skill up, etc. while you're playing them. Before switching, turn it back to the default setting (i.e. Stasis On) and then when you select your new family, just rinse and repeat...
I think that's the closest thing to Sims 2 type aging/skilling that you can get. The only thing that will still happen is that pregnant Sims will still have their babies even when you're not playing them - but those babies won't age up. (And if you keep pregnancy short it's not too difficult to play them for the three days it takes for the baby to be born...)

igazor

One problem, or maybe I should really call it a trade-off, with playing around inactives on-screen who are always in Stasis is that their motives are constantly 100% met. Thus they have little motivation to do anything other than go to work/school because they are made to and be pushed around to act as extras on community lots that call for them. Otherwise, they stand there all happy all of the time like drooling vegetables (more so than usual I mean). Some players don't mind this because they really concentrate their play on their active household and not those around them, but others don't find it as satisfying.

Mstybl95

@igazor - is there a way to quick switch using Nraas? I have to admit, that is the biggest reason I keep awesome mod installed. I usually play with many different houses in a single day...like getting stay at home parents to the park with their kids so they can all mingle and getting my elders out to the casino or coffee shop. I like to play the world more than play a house.

igazor

Mstybl95 wrote: »

@igazor - is there a way to quick switch using Nraas? I have to admit, that is the biggest reason I keep awesome mod installed. I usually play with many different houses in a single day...like getting stay at home parents to the park with their kids so they can all mingle and getting my elders out to the casino or coffee shop. I like to play the world more than play a house.

MasterController - Switch actives by command (can be hot-keyed).
StoryProgression - Switch actives by command.
PortraitPanel - Switch actives already being tracked on the portrait panel by left-click (if you have them on the panel in advance).
Selector - Switch actives by right-click.*

*This is probably the kind you mean. I have the option switched off because it drove me nuts -- I use right-click to refocus the game camera and was constantly switching actives when I didn't really mean to. But others really like the feature. With a MC Hotkey instead, the path to the command on a sim becomes just NRaas > Make Active (without all the usual layers in between).

Mstybl95

Thanks!

TadOlson

I've often either switched families using story progression to make another family active or right clicked on a sim from the other household to make them active.I can also use MC's make active to switch families.

AllMadHere

I just keep the autonomy on low, and off for the current sim. I turn story mode off. I don't mind the others aging while I play one house. Used to bother me in ts2 when a kid would make a best friend, then become a teen and their friend is still young lol.

TadOlson

I've had to get into story progression in Glen Harbor and set restrictions on romance to make sure the sims can't ever cheat on parteners unless I directed them to do that or had them in a caste for open marriages.I've got a family active there for a while because I'm expanding their house to get ready for the babies to become toddlers.