How many household members can you handle?

Writer_A · February 2014

Simple question for everyone.
Even since I started with the Sims 2, I've only played with 1 household member. 2 was a rarity. I still do that in the Sims 3, except this time I made a household with 3 members to explore the professions in Ambitions.

It's an absolute nightmare for me. Barely into the first day and I'm cycling through each of the household members. Plus with each of them having jobs, it gets worse trying to check each of them as my camera does a flyby through the entire city.

Now it's very possible I'm playing the game wrong by not having enough faith in their Free Will, but 1 household member is my limit on the Sims.

lilybluebell · February 2014

I completed the Surrounded by Family lifetime wish before, which meant that I had seven in the household, two parents, and five children under teens. In my opinion, it was beyond difficult and I don't think I will have the patience to attempt it again!

I was forever pausing the game and queuing up actions, in my tight budget I could never afford more bathrooms or luxuries so some of them were often smelly and stressed a lot so I cannot say it was easy.

I think my maximum is four, which I am playing right now. I can just about handle that, the mum is on maternity leave so she has time to relax a little and teach the toddler skills like walking and talking, the dad works all weekdays and the son is a child and goes to school so I can handle that. :-)

I think I could only get by on one Sim like you do if she was very career-oriented otherwise I would easily get bored, plus I love families and legacies and things like that. :-) Kudas to you though for managing!

kati77 · February 2014

I'm currently playing with the largest household ever. I have parents three children and a horse and a dog. I got the two pets while the twin girls were children and the son a teen. Now they're all teens, and the son will be a YA soon, so I will probably try to get him to marry his girlfriend and move out.

While I like this family a lot, it gets kind of exhausting to play with them sometimes. I pause a lot, and sometimes I just leave some of the family members on free will. I think this is about the max I like to play with. I can imagine I could possibly handle more, but it stops being fun at some point, when all you do is just queue actions for each sim, but you can never really watch them doing the things you make them do.

Karritz · February 2014

When I saw this subject I thought you might have a mod to play extra Sims. I rarely have less than 8 Sims in a household. Occasionally I add a few pets to the family too.

To do this successfully you need to pick their traits and life states carefully.

I like to have a genie as she can instantly make the house all clean and sparkly. She can also magically clean any Sim. And she can summon food. I use her house cleaning abilities most often. Occasionally Sim cleaning is useful and I rarely summon food.

fairies are great Gardners. Witches can magically upgrade things.

I like to have a room with a few super sleepers in it.

I make sure Sims have enough objects at home to let them gain skills and happiness.

A wishing well provides fish and gnomes when my Sims fish in it. The tree of prosperity helps them gain skills.

having a simple with animal person type traits helps keep friendly independent pets happy.

I had to kick one genie out because she was hot headed and kept fighting with other household members and she started to annoy me.

I have tried limiting my game to only one Sim but I get bored fast.

?

LunBeauty · February 2014

My current household went from seven member down to five. Two of the kids went off to college and then moved out on their own. It's like a breath of fresh air. I love big families, but when they have time for nothing, but taking care of their needs and you can never find a house big enough...it gets to where you have to widdle it down.

I admire those simmers with that use the Nraas mods to make their households bigger than eight. Seven is my limit, well plus at least one pet. It's just not a home without a dog or a cat.

IreneSwift · February 2014

I used to think that 5 was the most I could comfortably handle, but now I have come to realize that I am most comfortable with two household members, and three is the maximum I can still enjoy, and that only if at least two of them are in rabbitholes (school and work) for part of most days. It's no fun for me to just let my sims go and do whatever they want on high free will. That defeats the whole purpose of playing the game for me. I keep my game on low free will, so they will use the bathroom, etc., if I don't notice their needs.

I'm glad pets have their own free will slider. I give them high free will, and I'm good with letting them do their own thing, except that I do keep an eye on their action queues while I'm with my human sims, watching them do something like jogging, or playing music in the park, where I don't need to constantly queue up actions for them. Then if the pet is going to chew or scratch on the furniture, I can cancel it before they start. I've seen what the furniture looks like after they go at it, and my sims don't have the money to replace couches and dressers that look awful because of pets. Other than that, I don't interfere too much with pets, other than having my human sims pet them and so on, AND reinforce the good behavior and scold the bad. Once they've become non-destructive from being praised for using the scratching post or chew toys, then I don't watch them anymore when their humans aren't home. And I have the outside doors locked to the cats, so they can't go outside and get fleas, or run away. I don't know if cats can get fleas in this game, but my sims don't have a bathtub to give them flea baths in, so I'm trying to prevent it from happening. I also don't want them jumping up on the kitchen counters or the table, but neither of the cats in my current game has shown any inclination to do so, though one of them did jump up onto the dresser to sleep there, and they sleep on the couch a lot.

I also have recently realized that I don't enjoy playing families with small children if they don't have the money to buy playground equipment and other toys for them, and group activity items for the parents. If there's nothing for the children to do when they're home from school but homework and to chat or play tag with each other or their parents, or go for joyrides on the couch, they get boring fast.

ritaroxy12 · February 2014

4 is usually the max I play with, but as a challenge I did play with 8! That was 2 adults and 6 toddlers all crawling everywhere. I was always pausing and using action queuing more than usual, it was a good experience though

Samr883 · February 2014

I love playing big families, usually 8 sims. But then I can't decide which kid to continue playing as an adult so I tend to start a new family. I tend to play longer with only 2 or 3 kids but still start again when the kids are almost adults. I can't have a family with just one kid though.

IreneSwift · February 2014

I have started a game with the household limit removed, with a couple who I use risky woohoo with, and plan to let them have as many children as they will. But I'm having the toddlers age up to NPCs. It's the only way I could possibly play that game, and I'm not playing it straight through either. I go back to it when I feel like it, usually for only one sim day at a time.

bshag4lv · February 2014

Hi! I've always said I like small households with max of 4 sims but, I had a family that grew to 7 and I managed them rather well, if I do say so and actually had fun doing it. So no, I don't go out of my way to have lots of babies, I need my hair, but I don't mind an occasional group family. I love taking everyone out to the water park, roller coaster park, fishing expedition...lots of fun for everyone.

MissHoney118 · February 2014

To me, four family members can be played with ease. I enjoy playing with less than four more though, so I'll have more time for each and one of them. When the number of household members goes over four, they're always in the way and I have to build a lot of bathrooms. I've played with eight and it worked alright, but it's not as fun. Usually when my sims have become elders and their kids are grown up, they usually stay in the house when their grandkids are born. When that happens, it gets rather cramped.

FryeGuy24 · February 2014

My view is similar to many of the others. I can play a 6-person household and give everyone enough attention to keep them elated and get them their skills and LTW's in a reasonable time span. I've never done 7+ on a long term basis, but I've done 13 on a short term basis with good results.

But I definitely don't enjoy playing that way. I prefer a household of 2-4 people, where I can give really close attention to each person and really get to settle down and observe them in a more relaxed fashion. The fewer sims there are, the better I can get to know them, and the more freedom I can give them.

halouja · February 2014

At the moment I only have 4 separate Save games - 2 of them are currently 1 person only households (both males, one is a self-employed alchemist witch and the other is a self-employed writer human), 1 is currently a household of 3 (mum, dad and toddler daughter, all human), and the final game is a household of 7 (elder William, whose wife died recently, their twin young adult daughters, their adult son and his wife and toddler son, and finally William's teen alien daughter, the result of his abduction just before he aged to elder).

I switch between each Save game according to my mood - if I feel like an easy no hassle playing session I'll opt for one of the 1 or 3 sim households, but if I fancy a bit more of a challenging play session I'll opt for William's family. His alien daughter is the first ever born in my game so I'm loving discovering all the differences about her; she doesn't have an Energy need bar, for example, instead she has a Brain Power need which she satisfies by meditating not sleeping. I've recently discovered she has various options such as Probe she can do on other sims so it's all good fun.

To sum up, my style is to keep switching between my different Save games, which means if the really full household gets too much I can leave them and play a less frantic Save game until I'm ready for the madness again.

turistas9 · February 2014

i use mods, so right now im at 19 ? lol

i would be at 7 if i could move sims out, but i want my legacy graveyard so they all live in the same house.

i have

8 YA, 1 child, 4 toddlers (quadruplets) 2 dogs, 2 puppies, 1 cat, 1 plumbot.

i have free roam on and they actually do well, big house (no cheats, i just didnt move anyone out so i always had more money) .

tammyjo329 · February 2014

I can play with 8, but prefer 6 or under. I do not think I would like more than 8, it would keep me way too busy to really enjoy watching their reactions and I would hate to miss one of their fun autonomous actions... these sims can really surprise me with their antics sometimes.

So no mods to go over 8 for me.

butterfly61 · February 2014

For me it is 4, I like the adults to keep their jobs, no babysitter, no maid, they continue working on skills and take care of the kids. If I have to push it to 5 because of twins then I can handle that situation also.

5782341b77vl · February 2014

I almost always play only 1 sim. I kicked it up and have 7 right now (since the wife wants "surrounded by family" wish)! :shock: Good grief, Charlie Brown! I have a feeling that once I complete her wish, NEVER AGAIN. I honestly don't know how y'all handle such large families...

OceanicView452 · February 2014

As many as possible, I wish there was no limit. I once had a cheat in sims 2 where I could have an infinite number on one lot at a time and it caused some lag but it was so much fun!

Mikezumi · February 2014

I love a full household and actually feel sad when the kids grow up and leave. Of course, it never takes long to fill it up again since I play for many generations and keep the elders until they pass. Since I don't micromanage my sims once their "chores" are done I have no difficulty with a full house.

Unfortunately, due to my low patch level and my stupidity in not downloading Portrait Panel for my patch level long ago, I can only have 8 sims in the household. I must admit that I do occasionally go over that by one or two but having to space bar to the sims I can't see can be a bit of a pain.

TreyNutz · February 2014

With one of my sim families I'm currently playing 12: 2 adults and now 10 toddlers. The adults just happened to each get pregnant with quads (quite unexpected). You need mods to gave a family this size. It's not something I'd normally do, but decided to play it out for the challenge. I'm not looking forward to making sure 10 homeworks are done each school day, and then dealing with friends and jobs as teens. I'll do what I can to simplify things.

I'd probably never play 12 adults, these kids will move out once they are Young Adults.

I always start off with 1 sim, get them married, then have a family, usually many kids but whether it's all at once of spread out just depends. Bouncing between lots when sims are spread out over the town is a pain, but I just pause a lot and queue up interactions, or I decide to leave them on free will.

sirguylittle · February 2014

Mikezumi wrote:

I love a full household and actually feel sad when the kids grow up and leave. Of course, it never takes long to fill it up again since I play for many generations and keep the elders until they pass. Since I don't micromanage my sims once their "chores" are done I have no difficulty with a full house.

Unfortunately, due to my low patch level and my stupidity in not downloading Portrait Panel for my patch level long ago, I can only have 8 sims in the household. I must admit that I do occasionally go over that by one or two but having to space bar to the sims I can't see can be a bit of a pain.

Do you know that all the old versions of Twallan's mods are available on the NRaas site?
Just go to the mod page and there is a section at the bottom for older versions, select the version you are interested in and that will take you to another page with a download link.
Portrait Panel goes back to patch 1.29

Mikezumi · February 2014

sirguylittle wrote:

Do you know that all the old versions of Twallan's mods are available on the NRaas site?
Just go to the mod page and there is a section at the bottom for older versions, select the version you are interested in and that will take you to another page with a download link.
Portrait Panel goes back to patch 1.29

I am patched so far back that most people would cringe but my game is just how I want it

Thanks for the advice but I did already check there.

GalacticGal · February 2014

Eight. I enjoy a full household. That way when someone is at work, I have something to do. When all are in bed for the night, I make sure (if the game doesn't do it on its own) to crank up the speed so time passes more quickly. Also, I do play with High Free Will slammed all the way up. I also follow my singer around, keeping an eye on the row of icons of my other Sims. If their background goes from green to gold, I hit the pause button and take the camera right to the Sim in question and find out what's going on. Then I load the queue to take care of the problem and return to my singer's gig. Then and only then will I remove pause. (If one or more are in trouble, I'll do the same thing. Queue up their actions to cure whatever ails them.)

All you have to do is remember the pause button is your friend.

I'm not going to say how you're playing is wrong. That's the beauty of a "sandbox" game. You're style is just that. If you're unhappy/bored with your style of play, then by all means break out of the box and try something new.

Personally, only having one Sim to take care of bores the life out of me. But, that's just me. My RL is a circus, so why shouldn't my game reflect it, right? :P

stilljustme2 · February 2014

My optimum household size is four -- usually the traditional mom, dad, and a couple of kids. Might try the Surrounded by Family wish again sometime though.

But the problem you might have had is putting all three members in an Ambitions profession. If you had one or two in a traditional "rabbit hole" job you could have left them to their own devices while you followed your profession Sim.

vampirekim · February 2014

Usually I can only keep up with 3 but my current household has 2 adults, 1 teen, a baby, and a dog. It is a little hectic for me because I tend to focus on the kids rather than the adults because you know, kids are the future.

I just cant wait for the teen to move out!

When I have 3 sims in a family its usually 2 parents and an only child which makes the family tree boring.

MissCee · February 2014

I always do 8. Love big families, moving the YA kids out on their own. Then seeing them and sometimes their kids around town.

The ones born in game sometimes surprise me as I tend to favor prettacy sims. It makes things interesting genetically via sometimes exagerrated physical features and wild haircolors, etc.

I usually decide on an heir and move the others kids out as they age.

I am now playing a Ebony and Ivory type Legacy with the Perkins family of Riverview.

The elder Lucky Perkins married adult Constance Shelley. I darkened his skin to be the Ebony to her Ivory.

His wife is very fair skinned, so her I didn't change at all. Traits were kept the same.

These are their twins: Lucinda and Perr Perkins born in game.

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How many household members can you handle?

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