Rotation players: question

Rhiannon58 · December 2017

How many days do you play each family and why?

Bessieboo · December 2017

I usually play for about 3 days at a time and try to age up my sims at the same time.

Rhiannon58 · December 2017

I thought a lot of people did three days. I have always done five.

Why did you settle on three?

MidnightAura · December 2017

I usually play a season each or at the very minimal 3 days. I never play more than 5 days though.

slynnski · December 2017

I play each family for one season, which would be 5 days.

mortia · December 2017

One household per season for me as well. I mod my seasons to be 7 days long, but I switch over as soon as the seasons dial changes.
ETA: Just realized I never said why...I play with an aging mod and my Sims live for a really, really long time. Having longer seasons made sense for me so that I can spend more time with each family. Also, I play a medieval game and the seasons are very important for planning things like farming and harvests, so timing it with the seasons just make things simpler

Bessieboo · December 2017

I think for me 3 days keeps each family interesting, I do play a family longer if its a bigger family and there's a lot going on so sometimes it is more like 5 days.

Seera1024 · December 2017

5 days because it's easier for me to catch that the season has changed than it is to remember how many days I've played a family for.

I do occasionally do an additional day if a Sim would give birth during that extra day. The next time they are played would however, be 1 day shorter since I only play to season change.

Rhiannon58 · December 2017

So most of you do 3-5 to avoid bordem or change of seasons. Interesting. I do 5 days just to keep the ages on a certain number (25 days to adult, 60 days old). I was curious what other folks did and why. Thanks!

Rflong7 · December 2017

Hi

If I'm playing rotational, I like to play 4 days (M-Th) and then 3 days. This way I have them split to do weekend activities/work and school activities.
I have Fridays as date nights, Saturdays as Community activities day, and Sunday as family days.

slynnski · December 2017

@Rflong7 That’s such a cute idea, I like your play style!

Playing through seasons, for me, is easier to keep track of when to rotate, as others have said. Plus, anything more than 5 days tends to feel a bit too long, especially since I take lots of pictures to post on my Tumblr.

vancanuckfan86 · December 2017

I also do five day rotations (in general) when playing a rotational save as that is when the seasons change.

M13Vulpecula · January 2018

I'm currently playing half a season per family.

So one round goes up to 3 or 2 days left and the next goes to the season change.

Scribal_Goddess · January 2018

In New Edenia, I play one day per family right now. I only have seven households, and a lot of people's promotions depend on each other's career progress due to the Build A City Challenge Ruleset I'm using, so I've found that a single day speeds up progress. However, my college rotations are always full semesters (3 days,) and I usually play 2 years of college per season, to make sure that everyone else isn't aging ultra fast. I have slightly tinkered with aging to ensure that age stages are proportional, so I send teens to college when they have five or fewer days left as teens, and count that as the first 2 years. Adults who don't go to college get 2 free sips of elixir, or cheated an extra 5-6 days to the adult life span to fix aging.

So when I get a college for New Edenia, my rotation will be 1 day per regular neighborhood household, then a full semester of college for each college household, then back to the regular neighborhood. On the last day of the season I just skip the college crew. I try and minimize the number of college households to keep things more interesting (and so studious sims can benefit or suffer from the antics of their party animal buddies,) so at first it's probably going to be only one household.

I find that the shorter rotation helps keep me motivated through families that are currently not doing much, as well as keeping friendships high and making businesses seem like less of a chore, because I don't go to them every rotation, so when I spend a couple days at a buisness and then finish out the normal day at home, it usually only takes one or two play sessions.

In previous neighborhoods I've played half seasons, or three day stretches, and when I was doing a legacy I started with a full week, but discovered that I either had to play all the other related households before the legacy house, or push them really hard to make friends and spend time with the legacy kids due to aging - kids who are born on the same "day" of a rotation can be children at the end of a week long rotation while their age mates are still babies, it's far too long unless you've really tinkered with aging.

EgonVM · January 2018

As long as I feel like...

Rhiannon58 · January 2018

Scribal_Goddess wrote: »

So when I get a college for New Edenia, my rotation will be 1 day per regular neighborhood household, then a full semester of college for each college household, then back to the regular neighborhood. On the last day of the season I just skip the college crew. I try and minimize the number of college households to keep things more interesting (and so studious sims can benefit or suffer from the antics of their party animal buddies,) so at first it's probably going to be only one household.

That's pretty much what I do for college - one semester and then 1 day with each of my families. I found that it age people up pretty well. Usually by the time my kids graduate, their parents are close to seniors. I also save up my college students until I have 8 and send them all at once. For my first play through University, I had 9 kids. Well guess what: one dropped out of college.

Someone mentioned in another thread that the didn't like seniors because there was nothing to do with them. Maybe it's because I'm almost a senior (I can already get cheap coffee at McDonald's!) but I find they can do all kinds of things like help raise the kids so both parents can work, have a home business to make money, etc. Plus if you move one of the kids back home with the parents, guess what happens to all the family wealth when the senior passes on? To heck with life insurance! The "good" child who lived with the parent becomes pretty wealthy. Since I like to grow my neighborhood organically, by the 3rd generation, some of my families can have anything they want, have HUGE houses, butlers, etc.

Anyway, thank you all for your responses. I just find it interesting the differences in how we all play.

vancanuckfan86 · January 2018

@Rhiannon58 - That sounds like a fun way to play seniors

! Unfourtunately for me I don't usually want to be able to afford everything or live in large houses when I play the storylines of my Sims out. I much prefer them to have lower to mid level jobs and have an average amount of money or struggle for it. I also enjoy when the Sims grow into adults that they start from the ground up. I find the game loses enjoyment if my Sims are able to afford everything in the game. But that is just the way I play

Rhiannon58 · January 2018

Fortunately, not ALL of my Sims end up wealthy. For instance if there are two kids in the family, one of them moves into his/her own place after college. I had one Sim who is BARELY getting by. She spent nearly all of her money buying a tiny little house. She met a nice young man passing by her house, they fell in love and she asked him to move in (I'm thinking "YES! Money problem solved"). Well, he had a whopping $2k. So they are still broke with a baby on the way.

So there will always be some low income families to play. I just like having the ability (after an entire generation of poor families) to be able to create some larger houses, have cars, garages, etc. Last weekend, my richest family was able to call for a butler. He will arrive next time I get to play - probably next weekend. I loved butlers when I played before. They changed diapers, tended the garden, answered the door, cleaned up, cooked. I'm looking forward to exploring that again.

RedDestiny92 · January 2018

I tend to play however long I'm in the mood too, kind of treating each house like a different save file sometimes it's one day, and sometimes I stay to put a kid through university and then get them married, or just hang around until the baby is born. All depends on what I have to do.

Scribal_Goddess · January 2018

Rhiannon58 wrote: »

Scribal_Goddess wrote: »

So when I get a college for New Edenia, my rotation will be 1 day per regular neighborhood household, then a full semester of college for each college household, then back to the regular neighborhood. On the last day of the season I just skip the college crew. I try and minimize the number of college households to keep things more interesting (and so studious sims can benefit or suffer from the antics of their party animal buddies,) so at first it's probably going to be only one household.

That's pretty much what I do for college - one semester and then 1 day with each of my families. I found that it age people up pretty well. Usually by the time my kids graduate, their parents are close to seniors. I also save up my college students until I have 8 and send them all at once. For my first play through University, I had 9 kids. Well guess what: one dropped out of college.

Someone mentioned in another thread that the didn't like seniors because there was nothing to do with them. Maybe it's because I'm almost a senior (I can already get cheap coffee at McDonald's!) but I find they can do all kinds of things like help raise the kids so both parents can work, have a home business to make money, etc. Plus if you move one of the kids back home with the parents, guess what happens to all the family wealth when the senior passes on? To heck with life insurance! The "good" child who lived with the parent becomes pretty wealthy. Since I like to grow my neighborhood organically, by the 3rd generation, some of my families can have anything they want, have HUGE houses, butlers, etc.

Anyway, thank you all for your responses. I just find it interesting the differences in how we all play.

With Free Time Perks, a senior with a high aspiration doesn't really have a noticeable drop in motives. A permaplat senior with free time benefits is 100% as playable as an adult, and honestly this is probably the best time to maximize a hobby, finish raising a business to level 10, go on vacations, or just keep working and raking in the dough.

Cinebar · January 2018

I have never played a schedule, I would have not survived The Sims if I played on any set schedule even set by me. I play whatever hits my fancy no matter what is going on. I played all of the series that way. If I want to see what Johnny thinks about Mary then I jump from house to house to find out what is going on from their point of view. Legacy style play would have killed this game for me years ago. That is why I loved The Sims so much, because I had the freedom to move around and play them all.

SimsLovinLycan · January 2018

Actually, when I rotate families I usually use common in-game event markers to decide when to switch households: an important birthday, the turning of the seasons, etc. It's much easier for me to keep the story flowing when I use in-game events to time my rotations, since I like to sync those things up with surgical precision.

theFella · January 2018

I play with no set rotation. I play whomever I wish for how long I wish. (then I play catch up with all the other households

)

Rflong7 · January 2018

When I play rotation, I like to stick to my rotation times because it works for me and keeps them together~That's when I rotate. If you don't play rotation, then you don't play rotation.

sunblond · January 2018

I use a mod that tracks days played on each lot, plus I set each lot to the same season when I switch, just in case I play one a little longer. Oh, I have a mod to stop aging, so use the heritage cake when I need to age a sim up.

Rhiannon58 · January 2018

My "mod" for keeping track is an actual notebook. It has the families listed by street address (done by house name), then each family member with current age, occupation (I'm trying to have no duplicates until I have one sim doing each occupations). That makes it super easy to know when I've played for 5 sim days plus it lets me know where I left off.

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Rotation players: question

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