Rotational play, so on for active household only, then one week at the end of the rotation the whole save goes aging on for unplayed plus active household so the world grows with my sims. That said, I also let two spellcasters and my Sulani-based mermaids be immortal through spells and potions for story reasons.
My love, my love, my fearless love, I will not say goodbye..
Sea may rise, sky may fall, My love will never die..
My heart, my heart, My drowning heart, Oh all the tears I've cried
Oh I may weep forevermore, My love will never die..
I'd have chosen an "Other" option if it was there.
I have it on for my played family and off for unplayed Sims. I do not move Sims out of my house. If I've reached 8 Sims, no one leaves until someone dies, which means I'm sparing with my kids.
When someone marries in from outside the household, their family is also marked played, so they age as well. If someone marries in from a household they're not related to, I do not mark that household played. They stay young so they can eventually marry in when I choose.
If I have a specific goal that a Sim "needs" to reach before they age up, I try to cram it in before their birthday. If they haven't reached it by the day before their birthday, and I think I can get it in the next couple days, I will sometimes turn off aging to complete that goal. Sometimes, depending on if I allow any kind of cheating in that save.
TL/DR: It's all rather complicated and strict, but I wouldn't call it "Off" with aging on demand. It's more like "On" with not-aging on demand.
I play rotationally and right now aging is off for everyone and I age sims up when I feel like it. At some point that might change but for now I like it this way because I can take my time achieving goals I have for my sims.
In my rotation I have aging on long most of the time, but sometimes on normal/even short (active household only, always). I also age up sims before their actual birthday, when I feel they should age. It all depends how actively I'm playing them, sims I play more get more time. I would love to have an aging option between normal and long, I would totally use it and it would be less of a hassle.
I treat it like a story where characters age when the ''plot'' reaches that point
however every sim has their own plot and story so sometimes i age sims in weird incorrect order just to get to play them all how I wanted
aaand I also have quite many immortals and occults in the mix who don't really ''age''
I've been trying something quite crazy recently, using MC Command Centre to set super long age spans that match up with the Seasons. So, if I have the Seasons set at 7 days each then 1 Sim Year = 28 days. I'll use Young Adults as an example... in my mind the YA lifespan lasts from about 19 - 34 meaning I have that age span set to 420 days.... yeah I'm crazy!
I play vampires so age is not an issue, but in regards to aging overall I do it like this - no aging at all except fro winter This simulates longer life span.
This is an interesting result so far! For some reason, I thought most people would play with aging off or limited. Turns out that I was *gulp* (sorry had to swallow my pride) wrong. lol
Seriously though, it's a very different result than I imagined.
I am a rotational player who doesn't always have as much time to play as I would like, so rotating through all the played Sims in my saves takes a lot of time. Especially when the OCD half of me isn't satisfied until every family and every Sim has a chance to enjoy and accomplish everything that suits their lifestyle and personality. I know, I'm a control freak. By the time my Sims reach full adulthood, I am too invested, emotionally plus the time spent with each one, to allow them to become elders then pass away. The homes I make for them are perfectly suited to their lifestyles and personalities. That is not easy when sometimes I have only an hour to play. Last year time constraints weren't an issue because we were self-isolating until we got our vaccines. Now summer is here and there will be people coming and going for several months. It's a busy time. I like playing through all my Sims slowly, I don't like to feel rushed. So I age up toddlers, kids and teens only when they have built all the skills they should have before entering the next phase of their lives, and each age group is aged up at the same time...in every household, in every world. I always have many Sims to choose from to play when a certain age group is aged up. The game isn't all about making money or working toward a promotion to me. It's about the relationships that I see forming from the time a Sim is a toddler until adulthood and beyond. But it isn't all sunshine and unicorns either. There is plenty of drama when married Sims stray or a relationship implodes while I am playing a different household. Or returning to a household only to find out the kids are all failing in school and the teenagers have become tyrants during my absence. When you play rotationally you're always taking a chance as to what will be happening while you're away. And most of the time it isn't good. A long winded explanation, sorry. But it explains a lot about me as a player, and why I turn aging off until I'm ready to age up a certain age group.
Aging is on for everyone in all of my saves except for one. That single exception is what I consider my ultimate retirement save; everyone in it is immortal by design. I don't actually play that one, but I do visit now and then.
FYI: Just because you can see my signature, don't assume that I can see yours.
Because I can't; I keep all sigs turned off.
I feel like my response doesn't truly fit any option but whatever. On, BUT set to long and only the active family. "Unplayed family" aging is generally on but might be paused occasionally depending on circumstances.
I'm actually a bit annoyed at myself for not initially realizing how the system works. Being used to my way of playing TS3, I started the game with having aging on for everyone but, since townies don't actually do anything interesting in vanilla TS4, I ended up regretting this decision. Some prominent characters managed to die of old age before I fully understood this and embraced the "back to my roots, a.k.a how I enjoyed TS2 with rotational play" kind of thing. (And yes, I know rotational play in TS3 is possible but, in that particular game, I played it semi-rotational because I really enjoyed the storyprogression shenanigans.)
I like playing rotationally with Sims having long lifetimes, except babies. I like going back to households and finding the Sims have grown up or died. It's interesting. eg., I went back to the Elderberrys and their student house and found two urns in the hall, so had the students bury them in the small backyard and mourn them. They now haunt the house. I've now put in a new pair of landlords.
My sims have only aged up when I have wanted them to in all the versions I have played. The age span on their lives even on long life is far too short for my gameplay style.
In my "legacy save" I use MCC to alter the aging to more like TS3's epic aging setting. That way I have plenty of time to play with all the families on my rotation instead of worrying. Some saves I have aging off and age up when I feel it's time for individual sims. The pets though...they are all immortal and none of them will die. Not on my watch, anyway
I have Aging Off. In the early days of Sims I played with aging and I hated it when my favorites grew old and died. So happy when they gave us the option of stopping time. I control everyone's ages. When I want someone to age up (kids and premades so far), I'll bake 'em a cake. My poor created sims don't age. They just sit there, waiting for My Eye to Fall Upon Them.
I create new sims every so often. I may play them for a week, a month, a couple of months, but eventually I move on to another, either old or new. I don't have any one specific family/sim that has caught my imagination/heart enough to keep me engaged with only them. That said, I do have a couple that I go back to the most. I just haven't found the right story for anybody, I guess.
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Sea may rise, sky may fall, My love will never die..
My heart, my heart, My drowning heart, Oh all the tears I've cried
Oh I may weep forevermore, My love will never die..
I have it on for my played family and off for unplayed Sims. I do not move Sims out of my house. If I've reached 8 Sims, no one leaves until someone dies, which means I'm sparing with my kids.
When someone marries in from outside the household, their family is also marked played, so they age as well. If someone marries in from a household they're not related to, I do not mark that household played. They stay young so they can eventually marry in when I choose.
If I have a specific goal that a Sim "needs" to reach before they age up, I try to cram it in before their birthday. If they haven't reached it by the day before their birthday, and I think I can get it in the next couple days, I will sometimes turn off aging to complete that goal. Sometimes, depending on if I allow any kind of cheating in that save.
TL/DR: It's all rather complicated and strict, but I wouldn't call it "Off" with aging on demand. It's more like "On" with not-aging on demand.
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however every sim has their own plot and story so sometimes i age sims in weird incorrect order just to get to play them all how I wanted
aaand I also have quite many immortals and occults in the mix who don't really ''age''
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I also like wandering the hills.
Seriously though, it's a very different result than I imagined.
Because I can't; I keep all sigs turned off.
On, BUT set to long and only the active family. "Unplayed family" aging is generally on but might be paused occasionally depending on circumstances.
I'm actually a bit annoyed at myself for not initially realizing how the system works. Being used to my way of playing TS3, I started the game with having aging on for everyone but, since townies don't actually do anything interesting in vanilla TS4, I ended up regretting this decision. Some prominent characters managed to die of old age before I fully understood this and embraced the "back to my roots, a.k.a how I enjoyed TS2 with rotational play" kind of thing. (And yes, I know rotational play in TS3 is possible but, in that particular game, I played it semi-rotational because I really enjoyed the storyprogression shenanigans.)
I create new sims every so often. I may play them for a week, a month, a couple of months, but eventually I move on to another, either old or new. I don't have any one specific family/sim that has caught my imagination/heart enough to keep me engaged with only them. That said, I do have a couple that I go back to the most. I just haven't found the right story for anybody, I guess.
edited to add 2nd paragraph.