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How do you organize your community?

LaBlue0314LaBlue0314 Posts: 17,436 Member
I posted this question over at the Sims 4 forum, but I don't know how many of you go over there and thought that maybe some here would have some input on this subject.

I have finally figured out how to play my TS4 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

  • CinebarCinebar Posts: 33,618 Member
    edited September 2018
    :/ I've never used *Windows journal or anything to keep up with my hoods and what happened, organized. I refer to the memories, that pretty much tells me something I might have forgotten about, when I jump around ,since I do play the whole towns/hoods I set up.
    Post edited by Cinebar on
    "Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
  • AnmirlaAnmirla Posts: 3,835 Member
    edited September 2018
    I play with an Uberhood, so all my families get the chance to meet each other. In TS2, I only play premades this time round.

    The only thing I really take notes on and need to keep track of is who is hooked up. It's very hard to keep up who the couples have been and it can become a heated mess if they aren't engaged yet when they meet others they are attracted to and I can't remember that I've already made plans with another Sim - especially when I've decided which kid will inherit the parental home. Uni really throws in a monkey wrench since the relationship is lost upon age transition, but I want certain Sims to carry on together.
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  • Seera1024Seera1024 Posts: 3,629 Member
    I use Excel for the neighborhoods I want to keep notes on. Which is mostly my legacy challenge and my BACC challenges.

    Legacy challenge is mostly me just keeping up with documentation in case I have to recreate them again, which knowing what causes me to have to do that has now been greatly reduced. I don't always update this one every time I play.

    My BACC challenge neighborhoods have way too much I have to remember for me to not take notes. I downloaded a spreadsheet for it that helps me calculate my total population, what jobs are open, what I can add to the neighborhood. I don't worry about couples until they are in university and then I use a family tree maker to note who is marrying whom. And keep track of who I have played and who I haven't in case the seasons get out of whack. These I update as I play as I have two computers.

    What you use will depend on what information you want to keep track of and how much of that is easily available while playing other households. Like a household or Sim specific bio won't be useful while playing another household. But if you're just wanting to track family/personal goals rather than who is dating whom, then the in game family/Sim bios would work just fine. But a notebook could work for you or you may want to use something like Excel.

    So what are you trying to keep track of?
  • LaBlue0314LaBlue0314 Posts: 17,436 Member
    edited September 2018
    @Seera1024 What I'm mainly trying to keep track of are these things.
    • Who's married, engaged, or going steady with.
    • Who's divorced, broken up, or lost their spouse to death.
    • Who is having children with, because sometimes two people get together and have a baby, and they are not married, so I'm having a few half brothers and sisters running around.
    That last one can get a little confusing. I'd like to set up a family tree as well to help keep it sorted. But I'm not sure how to do this and adding the correct size or type of photo.
  • Seera1024Seera1024 Posts: 3,629 Member
    @LaBlue0314

    That's probably worth noting in Excel or a notepad. Family trees would also work.

    I use Family Echo for my family tree. It has no problem with same sex couples and them having kids (some family tree sites do have that problem). It has no problems with multiple relationships being represented (though, not sure how many can be set as the active relationship). You can upload pictures or not as well.

    You would have to have a dummy Sim to represent a parent because family trees don't really do multiple families on one tree.

    Here's my main BACC family tree (decedents of my founder), though as the other families marry in, I'm able to add their families to the tree (I have pictures for most, but I haven't updated them in a round or two): https://familyecho.com/?p=IQX2B&c=2ehaqcxqfw&f=542884288635395166
  • EricasFreePlayEricasFreePlay Posts: 849 Member
    I just use the Memories when I get Sims in relationships, especially when I was playing University and the second Sim my playable Sim was in a relationship with, was a Dormie. This actually came in handy when I had 2 playable Sims end up falling for the same Dormie before I was able to make him a playable Sim. Once all 3 were playable, I had one of the three fall in love with someone else which cleared that situation up. I wish I could have seen where those 2 relationships ended up but I lost the entire game off my laptop somehow.
  • EgonVMEgonVM Posts: 4,926 Member
    edited September 2018
    By this way:
    • Low class (Poor sims who get richer because I spend the least money in their households)
    • Middle class (With average income)
    • High class (Rich sims who eventually lose their fortune because I spend the most money in their households)
    Like you can see, the way I organize my sims is really unstabe. Rich sims eventually get poor and poor sims eventually become rich and then the rich sims are rich again and poor sims drop into the middle class. Honestly, it's like a roller coaster...
    Oh, and there are also students. How much money they have won't affect their lives in my game. Yes, they may rent a house, but I still spend the least amount of money.
  • RadioAChickenRadioAChicken Posts: 163 Member
    I use a note taking program called Flashnote. I use the portable version as I can move it easily to a USB flash drive if I need to. I like using it because you can make different notes and then child notes below that so they are grouped together and it's easy to browse through the list.
    For my rotation hood there's the main note that lists the rotation order and what day I last played them (In Sims 2 I'm using the Lot Sync Timer mod to keep track.) I have each played family listed as a separate child note under the main heading so I can add a few details like what they were working towards or what they were up to when I last left them, birthdays coming up, relationships and any other details I want a reminder of.
    Then I have new notes which are linked under the same heading for to do lists; lots building ideas etc. and downloads I want to get. Or for a legacy my Law of Succession rules.
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  • Olivesplum06Olivesplum06 Posts: 1,076 Member
    For my BACC I use a spreadsheet I downloaded online. However, I prefer writing for all of my other hoods. I have two notebooks that I’ve been filling up. I write the family’s name, all of their LTW, then a summary of what happened during their round. I also write when they started, and when their round will end. In case I don’t play for awhile and forget how long they have left.
  • OldeseadoggeOldeseadogge Posts: 4,973 Member
    My question for you, LaBlue, is how did you figure out how to play TS4 like TS2? The everyone still has time passing thing is one of the big reasons I've rather much abandoned TS4 as nothing I've tried over the years has worked. Please share your wisdom, as I doubt I'm the only one with the problem.
  • LaBlue0314LaBlue0314 Posts: 17,436 Member
    edited September 2018
    @Oldeseadogge I can't stop the time factor, but that was not really important to me. The aging was the issue. But if you don't mind a little work around what you could do would play one family for one week, and then on the same day of your choosing, say for example on Monday, switch households. This way when you leave one family, and later return it will be like you are picking up from the same Monday you left off. The family hasn't aged, and TS4 doesn't have a Story Progression anyways. So everyone should still be where they were as far as job and school level is concerned, also they don't gain relationships on their own unless you have another sim interacting with them. Also, I try to plan any births to fall in the same week I am playing.

    What I did was in the options menu I did a couple of things.

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    Where it says Auto Age Played Sims: I picked Only Active Household. This will only have the current household that is currently being played, will be the only ones aging. Then below make sure the box is unchecked, This will keep all the other sims, from aging as well. Then in the last part, this will be totally up to you if you want sims to have a short, normal, or long age span. Also, make sure the little box is also unchecked that says Fill Empty Homes.

    42445253_1118673544949606_7808281747065405440_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&oh=bd7e624789dc2477bf478aae9e0d26de&oe=5C1FA8F5

    I clicked Max Sim Count as Unlimited. I did this because it only keeps track of the number of sims that are in the My Household Section. I prefer to be the one to decides who gets culled, and not my game.

    In my game, I also take it one step further and that is in this section.

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    There are two sections in My Households and Other Households. What I do here whether or not I ever play the household, all the households I want to keep in the game I move to the My Households. I also include the Landlord. I never play the Landlord, because if I do, the game will just spawn a new one. I will though manage World, give him or her a complete makeover. If you don't know who the landlord is in your game if you have City Living that is, go into one of the apartments in San Myshuno, while in play mode, it doesn't matter who, they will all get the same message about paying their rent. When you get the little pop up that's how you'll find out who the Landlord is.

    What I do with the other sections called Other Households, it is how I know who the game moves in. As time allows I will either delete the sim or give them a makeover, and once they get a makeover I move them over to My Households. I will NOT move them into a house because once they do the game will replace them and spawn a new sim. These are usually the sims you see around town that do stuff such as the bartender, the librarian, and so on.

    I do have a mod that forces my game to use the current sims that already in the game, so it won't be spawning more and more sims. This mod has been an absolute game saver. I will let you know one little thing about this mod, if you don't have any homeless sims or not enough, the game will spawn new sims, because it only picks from homeless sims.
    http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=604590


    Post edited by LaBlue0314 on
  • OldeseadoggeOldeseadogge Posts: 4,973 Member
    Thank you! Have made notes for trying out. What really soured me was the day when I was still trying to do TS4 TS2 style that an unplayed household went ahead and had a baby all on their own! Bad enough that nobody is ever where you leave them, but that was way too much. Shifted to one family per game save, but that only increases the boredom of an already boring game. Being a writer, I like to sim how I write - complex story lines with interacting families, which means that sims not played must be sims that are stayed. As in stayed put where I left them.
    Again, thank you for your ideas and help.
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