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    How do you organize your community?

    LaBlue0314LaBlue0314 Posts: 17,436 Member
    edited September 2018 in The Sims 4 Packs Discussion
    Whoops, sorry I meant to put this in the main discussion.

    I have finally figured out how to play my game TS2 style, meaning the only one aging is the household that I'm currently playing. Yes, I'm a bit slow when it comes to figuring things out. Now that I have this part figured out I have a very lofty goal, I am planning on playing the whole town. I know it's going to take me like forever since I have lifespan set for long. I now have only one small issue, and that is I am very forgetful. I am wanting to take notes, and organize the households so I can use as a reference for when I go back to the same family.

    I have 170 different households currently in the game that I'm playing, most of them are homeless, but I'm not going to leave them out. As I play them, they will get to have a home set up for when I do, and when I move to the next homeless family, they'll be in the same home, but have moved out the other group first.

    Now my problem is when I went to do an internet search on notes for organizing the different households, all I kept finding was how to organize my mods and CC, which I have that all figured out, and is not what I'm even looking for.

    My question is to those who have some kind of organizational notes set up for your game, what do you do to keep it all straight for you?

    Comments

    • Options
      calaprfycalaprfy Posts: 3,927 Member
      If I was to attempt to rotate through a lot of households my strategy would be to select one world and go through the households in alphabetical order.
    • Options
      AprilDawnAprilDawn Posts: 795 Member
      I have read that some use spreadsheets to keep track and schedules as to when to rotate. I personally don't do any of that as I am a go with the flow kind of person and not very organized! I usually just rotate after I have hit some goal I had in mind. Like in Sims 2 - I often go around and get some of the kids to teens so there will be a lot of teens in the neighborhood and a group I can send to university. I do it similar in Sims 4 - sometimes I want to get a child aged up before I go to the next house because I want so and so to be friends/partners with so and so or I just want to get a sims aspiration done before I move on or whatever story I am playing out requires something before I rotate - like get abducted or something.

      I do not know who uses the spreadsheets right now - just know I have seen on here that people do use them - hopefully they will pop in here and assist.
    • Options
      elanorbretonelanorbreton Posts: 14,549 Member
      edited September 2018
      I use OneNote because it's so easy to see everything laid out and you can add pictures, tables, whatever you like. I have a section for each world, and each household that lives in that world is included in that section. At the start of the section is a pic of the world with a list of clubs that are active for any Lots in that world:
      World.JPG?dl=0

      Then each household in each world has a section for each family member (including pets), where I keep a record of their job, skills, relationships etc:
      OneNote.JPG?dl=0

      In the diary section, I use a table with the weekdays and season I have played that particular family and some brief notes of what happened so I can remember on my next rotation. I have my seasons set to 28 days and play each household for either 3 or 4 days so I do two per week:
      Diary.JPG?dl=0

      Then I have a Snapshots section for each family, just to put a few pics in:
      Snapshots.JPG?dl=0

      It probably looks rather over-the-top, and it did take a while to set all the pages, pics and information up (you can copy and paste the blank tables just with headings to each sim and then fill in the info after). But now that I have all the basics down it is really easy to update each household as I play them.

      Edit: It is also really easy to change things if your story makes changes. So, if they have extra kids you can easily add a new section to the family. If the family move to a different world, you can drag and drop their family page into that world's section. I also used to have a section set up for the homeless, but I decided not to play them and took it out.
    • Options
      calaprfycalaprfy Posts: 3,927 Member
      @elanorbreton I'm very impressed with your commitment to the cause. I take it you rotate through every household?
    • Options
      LaBlue0314LaBlue0314 Posts: 17,436 Member
      edited September 2018
      elanorbreton wrote: »
      I use OneNote because it's so easy to see everything laid out and you can add pictures, tables, whatever you like. I have a section for each world, and each household that lives in that world is included in that section. At the start of the section is a pic of the world with a list of clubs that are active for any Lots in that world:
      World.JPG?dl=0

      Then each household in each world has a section for each family member (including pets), where I keep a record of their job, skills, relationships etc:
      OneNote.JPG?dl=0

      In the diary section, I use a table with the weekdays and season I have played that particular family and some brief notes of what happened so I can remember on my next rotation. I have my seasons set to 28 days and play each household for either 3 or 4 days so I do two per week:
      Diary.JPG?dl=0

      Then I have a Snapshots section for each family, just to put a few pics in:
      Snapshots.JPG?dl=0

      It probably looks rather over-the-top, and it did take a while to set all the pages, pics and information up (you can copy and paste the blank tables just with headings to each sim and then fill in the info after). But now that I have all the basics down it is really easy to update each household as I play them.

      Edit: It is also really easy to change things if your story makes changes. So, if they have extra kids you can easily add a new section to the family. If the family move to a different world, you can drag and drop their family page into that world's section. I also used to have a section set up for the homeless, but I decided not to play them and took it out.

      OOOOO I like this. I am for sure going to have to check out OneNote. Thank you very much for showing me this. <3
    • Options
      elanorbretonelanorbreton Posts: 14,549 Member
      calaprfy wrote: »
      @elanorbreton I'm very impressed with your commitment to the cause. I take it you rotate through every household?
      At the moment I am rotating around 16 households, so not all of them. When I set it up I hadn't decided which families to play, so I included them all. And there is always the possibility that I may choose different ones as I go along.

      @LaBlue0314 you're very welcome :)
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      SimpatsyannSimpatsyann Posts: 1,309 Member
      That is amazing! I've just been using Google Sheets to keep track of my rotation and been trying to figure out a different way.
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      Kita5399Kita5399 Posts: 2,112 Member
      I really don’t keep track in TS4. In TS2 I used a regular composition notebook and pens in different colors. Each household got a page for notes, and I had a color assigned to sims of the same age, to make sure I kept them all in the appropriate stages. I never had a rule for when to rotate families, I mostly just moved on when I accomplished everything I wanted (while being mindful of their ages). I use the game to relax, so I never want to over complicate things.
    • Options
      citysimmercitysimmer Posts: 5,950 Member
      I have a Google Docs file.
      Proud black simmer 🖤
      Contra's Band
      MfVGMbL.jpg



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