Sims 4 Info Keeping

Kish

I was wondering if any of you keep your sims in a spreadsheet or the likes so you can keep tabs on everything? I was thinking about making a spread sheet with lot names, household members, each household's career, traits, and their plot lines that I intend to make for them. I'd love to see some feedback and know if I'm the only overly organized person. The idea behind it all is that I want a variety of traits, a variety of careers and what not. If I have all sims that are family oriented it would get boring fast.

abbyo48870

You have nooo idea... I write out my sim's family trees on a piece of paper. They get LARGE.

Kish

> @abbyo48870 said:
> You have nooo idea... I write out my sim's family trees on a piece of paper. They get LARGE.

Really? I'd love to see it! I haven't planned that far ahead yet. Currently I have aging off and when I get all these guys where I feel they should be adequately at for their perspective age, I'll turn on aging and plan out the next generation.

I currently only play in Newcrest cause of how extensive my story lines will be when I'm done and Willow is too large to go into that much detail.

tb98rock

abbyo48870 wrote: »

You have nooo idea... I write out my sim's family trees on a piece of paper. They get LARGE.

I usually do notes in my phone it gets confusing! I might steal your paper idea

luthienrising

I've done that! One save, I did it to set up the population to match real demographic info. I'm a nerd about that sort of thing, so that was actually fun for me. I've done it a couple of times as part of narrowing down game-behaviour (less fun, but satisfying when I got it narrowed down). And I've sometimes done it to keep track of what houses are empty and how big they are, so I'm not hunting through all the worlds. Right now, I just have a paper list of Sims I'm thinking of making to add to my current game.

PsychoSimXX

Only if I am working on a story that requires me knowing. I am note taking at the moment to help me with my legacy story I restarted. (Poor Shinya keeps dying and I am determined to have him as my founder!) I like the spread sheet idea for family trees because what we currently have only goes so far.

Cement

I love genetics, and I think genetics in 4 are pretty cute, so I do keep tabs on certain features. I've been staring at the world maps long enough to remember who lives where and all, as for writing down careers, I do that too. LOL. I generally plan things out for what I want from them, like the number of kids and career--but I like to let the game age them up so they'd get traits I wouldn't generally lean to picking (...which is definitely neat. I love neat. ) so the change in traits being drastic from the plan I've had for them keeps me interested in playing with them. xD

Devynsims00

ugh, speaking of notes.. ty for reminding me btw...

Need more graph paper & 1 more binder for college classes next week LOL

asouthernwriter

I have a whole notebook of households, full descriptions of each, the neighborhood, etc. yeah, I got all out. lol

DameGiggsy

Cool! Officially doing it.

lmkiture

abbyo48870 wrote: »

You have nooo idea... I write out my sim's family trees on a piece of paper. They get LARGE.

Oh! I need to do this, because the one in the game is worthless! Lol, it's so sad because I have a horrible memory of pass generations, but they're always getting culled

Simfan923

You have no idea. I write their backgrounds and make their futures up. (Unless they die before then and I rewrite their stories) Current story is a third generation doctor marries a girl who has literally come back from the netherworld multiple times ever since she was a teenager. And they are excepting a boy. Meanwhile they live with the doctor's family mansion (all his siblings and cousins).

Kish

I try not to write up too much of their story cause I too like the game to throw me a boomerang once in awhile. I'm perfectly fine with someone dying or them having a boy instead of a girl I like the random generator the creators worked so hard for. I'm mostly just writing up a spread sheet to get my town established. I have full intent of having some move, some grow, some break apart etc.

I love hearing everyone's planning (or lack of) for their sims. It's so fun to see all different walks of life and how they play this game.

GalacticGal

Whenever I play a Legacy Challenge family, I create a set of pages, to help me keep track of achievements via the challenge 'rules'. It's very hard to remember all that was accomplished by the time you reach Gen. 10.

I also created charts for my rotation family play. Family names; days of the week. I made about a month's worth of those blank squares you can insert onto a page. I would play for about three full days, ending the day at midnight Sims' time. Then move to the next house in the rotation. The entire reason I started playing this way in TS2, wasn't merely to age up the neighborhood evenly, but because I'd get so caught up in each household, I had a hard time choosing which one to play. (Wasting valuable gaming time in the process.) So, I chose a highlighter color for each 'round. I'd fill in those blank squares for every day played. This made it very easy to see which household I'd start with for the next session. I wouldn't allow myself to go back to a household, until I'd reached the very last one in the rotation (hence the change of color).

Which reminds me, I just started a new rotation game. Note to self: make chart.

rjhenn14

I had a whole spiral bound notebook dedicated to my TS2 game back in the day, it helped my keep track of my rotation of families --> name, career, skills I would cross off as I maxed them, romances, children Etc... It got pretty crazy!!

I had downloaded the mod to combine all the neighborhoods into one megahood, and it just was A LOT of sims and I played EVERY SINGLE PREMADE family!!!

I found I could never connect the same with TS3, so it never got to the point of needing a notebook for that, but I have been considering starting another for my TS4, I've been playing all my families rotationally again, and it really helps!!

loubyloulou

I do keep (handwritten) notes, but only for my rotational save. For that, I'm busy populating Newcrest from scratch - I'm on my sixth household by now I haven't yet resorted to a spreadsheet, but I may well yet!

sophtastic

omg you're not alone! I love to create backstories, family trees and all that jazz

Kish

I never considered rotating families! I usually build them then move on to the next when I get a new idea. Rotations would make it so I actually play out my families evenly. 3 days Sims time sounds perfect! Hmmm... I see some more spread sheets coming on. You guys (and gals) are brilliant!

Kish

@GalacticGal @loubyloulou When you rotate do you have aging on? I currently play with it off but if I rotated it would work out well for not missing too much.

Kish

Ops extra post.

GalacticGal

Kish wrote: »

@GalacticGal @loubyloulou When you rotate do you have aging on? I currently play with it off but if I rotated it would work out well for not missing too much.

I've just started playing with "Aging On" for the Active Household Only. This is supposed to keep the other households static, or close to it, or so some have suggested. At any rate, I don't expect anyone to age up or die off while I'm at another household. LOL Hope that helps.

loubyloulou

Kish wrote: »

@GalacticGal @loubyloulou When you rotate do you have aging on? I currently play with it off but if I rotated it would work out well for not missing too much.

I do have ageing on but set to the longest duration (I forget what this is now). I usually play a Sim week with one family, get them to where I'm happy leaving them, and then move on to the next. If I have a pregnant Sim, I stay with that family until after she's given birth so as not to give the game a chance to name the baby Ichabod or Brunhilda or somesuch (apologies to all the Ichabods and Brunhildas out there... but what were your parents thinking?!! )

Kish

@GalacticGal That's exactly what I was afraid of, my family taking a turn without me being there to realize it.

@Loubyloulou I didn't even think about the random name generators! Oh man. Though I must admit I've found a name for every person (minus Kish, I doubt that's in there) I've created using the random name option but it took me a few tries.

Mightydan

I get a bunch of ideas for sims and storylines when I'm trying to sleep, so I keep my phone nearby to write them down.