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Scholar
#51 Old 20th Jul 2017 at 7:32 PM
I play in quite a strict rotation - I make a new 'hood, create a few starter families, and start playing in rotation from there. Usually the initial play list is the order in which I made the families, then new households get added on at the end. University (if I'm playing a 'hood where I have one) is almost always put at the very end unless I have a house heir due to graduate in the middle of a rotation (in which case I play their uni household just before).

In terms of marrying and moving in other playables, I'm not sure if I overly care. The times I can think of have been house heirs moving in spouses, but they move in when they've graduated or become adults (if they hadn't already gotten together at university).

I play Mon 7AM-Thurs 7PM/Thurs 7PM-Mon 7AM, two 84hr rotations. I do so because it helps keep all my sims' ages on track, plus keeping to a strict schedule means I'm not tempted to leave a 'boring' family to play an 'exciting' one, then realise I have three weeks to catch up on with them (for example).
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Theorist
#52 Old 20th Jul 2017 at 7:50 PM
Quote: Originally posted by emmyjulia
I just play whatever I feel like, no order, no specific rotation and so on. I don't really care if Dina who married Mortimer got older and Nina still is an adult.


I just screamed a little on the inside, and my right eye twitched too.

However, it is nice to see that there are simmers out there who can truly go with the flow, and not have a bunch of rules. Sadly, that will never be me.


“Seize the time... Live now! Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.” ― Jean-Luc Picard
Instructor
#53 Old 20th Jul 2017 at 8:51 PM
Oh my my my.. poor people! (joke aside). I am a pretty free spirit outside the gaming world to, so maybe that is why
Instructor
#54 Old 20th Jul 2017 at 8:59 PM
I play in loose rotations, so the bouses live about the same day. If I play one house until Sunday, the other houses are next to be played until about Sunday. Some rotations are 1 day, others 3, others 6... just what is necessary for the story.

Only if they move I play really strict. The partner who's moving out will be played until, say, Thursday 07:10 am, which is the minute I make the other partner invite them so they can marry there. No Sim has extra minutes in their lives (except for some special Sims). It's like a game in itself and I like it. Yes, I'm weird.
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#55 Old 20th Jul 2017 at 10:08 PM
Quote: Originally posted by TychoH
Only if they move I play really strict. The partner who's moving out will be played until, say, Thursday 07:10 am, which is the minute I make the other partner invite them so they can marry there. No Sim has extra minutes in their lives

And here I thought maybe I was going overboard with syncing them to the hour.
Mad Poster
#56 Old 20th Jul 2017 at 11:59 PM
Quote: Originally posted by smorbie1
I love it when people say they just play whatever family they feel like. I would worry about the ones I wasn't playing. They have feelings, too, you know.
That's why I play rotations, albeit very loose ones. I'm very hot for Sims' rights, and I believe that playable Sims have a right to be played. I record what my Sims have been up to in the game's Storytelling feature. So basically I just look at the dates on the XML files in the Storytelling folder, and choose a family that hasn't been played for a while. Since I invariably play with aging off, only occasionally turning it on when I feel it's time for a Sim to age up, I don't have to worry about families getting out of synch with each other. I don't have (and really don't want) Seasons, so I don't have to worry about that either. And I make no attempt to synchronise days of the week between families, because frankly, with the amount of interaction between families that there is in my game, it would make no logical sense to do so. For example (I've said this before) it's the weekend in Andrew's lot, so he invites Julian round for a sleepover, and Julian spends almost the whole weekend at Andrew's house. Similarly when it's the weekend at Julian's he invites Andrew over to his place, and Andrew spends the weekend there. They can't be in two places at once, so it can't be the same weekend! In fact I deliberately play those two families half a week out of synch so the weekend is always coming up soon in one of their families, and Andrew and Julian never have too long to wait till they can spend some more quality time together.

In theory I play 24 hour rotations ending just before 6 a.m., but, with aging off I can go on playing that family if we're having fun. On the other hand Real Life concerns often force me to leave a family before we get to 6 a.m. More often than not I forget to go back and finish that day, so I end up just resuming at whatever time I left them. It's very rough and ready compared to many people here, but I enjoy my game this way, and my Sims seem to enjoy it too.

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Field Researcher
#57 Old 21st Jul 2017 at 7:24 AM Last edited by saskganesh : 26th Jul 2017 at 5:12 AM.
Ah rotations. Usually 1-2 days per household, but length varies, depending on real world and in game factors. Right now I am happiest with 2 days..one day to get my bearings and the 2nd to execute. I keep things synced by seasons, but not day of the week. Rotation order itself varies, usually by day/time... stop time could be anytime quiet, as long as no one from another house is on the lot. So start times vary, certainly not 6 am across the board. For marriages and move ins I try to coordinate within a reasonable temporal window. However, sometimes a sim will gain a free day or two when they move. Lucky them.
Mad Poster
#58 Old 21st Jul 2017 at 8:49 AM
Because what happens on the lot doesn't stay on the lot-the effects of something happening on one lot will carry over to the others if the other pixels are involved with one another.
It's almost instantaneous, and following the ripples is quite interesting. So lot synchronization is actually good because following the line leads one to other effects.

So 'X' pixel was seen beating up another at their home lot-those feelings will carry over and if those two meet yet again on a third lot, it will manifest itself.

I call it the 'physics of pixels'. Einstein would be proud of me!

Receptacle Refugee & Resident Polar Bear
"Get out of my way, young'un, I'm a ninja!"
Grave Matters: The funeral podium is available here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e6tj...albits.zip/file
My other downloads are here: https://app.mediafire.com/myfiles
Mad Poster
#59 Old 23rd Jul 2017 at 10:50 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Rosawyn
For those of you who play hoods in rotation, how do you handle the details? How long do you play a single lot before switching? Do you play each lot in a strict sequence? How do you keep track of which lots you've played/where every lot is in relation to the rest?

I play one-day rotations, from roughly 9am - 9am. I play lots in a strict sequence. At the moment I play the schools, then the households in the main 'hood, then the college part of the main 'hood, then Twikkii Island - within each subhood/area I play households alphabetically by surname. I use a Word document with information about the households and sims to remind me where I am in the rotation if I go for a longer period of time without playing TS2 (usually I can remember from one play session to the next!).

I am thinking about switching from alphabetical order to playing households in an order that works better with what will happen during that rotation. So I would play the school first, then households where no ageing/births/deaths were due during that rotation, then households where sims would age, followed by households where sims would die of old age, in that order. I would play households where there would be a birth at a place in the rotation which made sense according to the time of day when the baby/babies were due. I edited the "ageing time" to 11pm, so if a sim is due to age or die during a rotation they should be around (and available for parties, dates etc) during the day and the evening. And it kind of bugs me if a sim is walking round on community lots un-pregnant because their household was played early on in the rotation order, even though they actually gave birth at 6am (i.e. right at the end of their one-day rotation).

In order to keep ages consistent I tend to move sims in to other households at the start or end of a rotation, ensuring that sims don't gain or lose a day of their life when they move. All households are on the same day of the week, season and day within a season, which works well with my playable schools and 'hood-wide holidays/festivals.

I don't have a separate college/university - Widespot College is part of the main 'hood, and sims tend to live at home whilst studying there unless they join the greek house. Twikkii Island University is on Twikkii Island, so university students have to live in a vacation home whilst studying. I use a combination of Squinge's College At Home mod and Lion's base 'hood university mods to make this possible.

As I play college/university students alongside non-YA's, both YA's and non-YA's are played in one-day rotations. I use Cyjon's mod to reduce the length of YA-hood from 24 days (8 3-day semesters) to 8 days (4 2-day semesters). YA's also get a day after graduation to throw a graduation party, if they want to, so sims are YA's for 9 days, aged 20-29, unless they drop out or are expelled.
Mad Poster
#60 Old 24th Jul 2017 at 12:25 AM
I always play 3-4 day rotations for each household in a neighborhood. I used to not play rotations, but the eternal youth of non-played Sims started to bug me. (One of the big reasons was that one time Hermia Capp's daughter with Puck Summerdream had two bolts for Consort Capp when she became an adult. I had moved Hermia out and the the Capp Manor was never played after that so Consort was still alive when Hermia's daughter became an adult. The game doesn't recognize family trees that far down, so Thea had bolts with her great-grandfather.)
Lab Assistant
#61 Old 25th Jul 2017 at 8:03 PM
Never played in rotation in TS1 and for the first couple of years of TS2 I was all about legacies and other challenges that involved mainly one single household. But once I got into rotational hoods, I never looked back. Still play both TS2 and TS3 that way.. I usually play for 2 sim days, or 4 semesters if it's a uni household.

I used to worry about which season and day of the week it was and have them all synced, but don't care about that anymore. As for moving sims between households, I either make sure to wait until the last day of playing, or remove/add days to/from the simmies' life spans.
Mad Poster
#62 Old 25th Jul 2017 at 11:16 PM Last edited by SneakyWingPhoenix : 25th Jul 2017 at 11:19 PM. Reason: to clarify
One household per sim-week.
Mad Poster
#63 Old 26th Jul 2017 at 2:03 AM
I tried several times to play rotations but failed and messed everything. Until one day it pissed me off that every household had different seasons. Now I play whoever I want and as much I want but inside that season until all are at the end of season and I can start new season. Uni is still out of rotation. Sometimes I play it straight to end and leave them graduated in Uni until there is right time to return, sometimes I play only some semesters.
Mad Poster
#64 Old 26th Jul 2017 at 12:19 PM
I keep my hoods in sync but I don't play households in a particular order. That would get boring to me.

Some hoods I have a set time-period to play each household (I quite like to correlate to number of households in small hoods) but others I'll just play as many days as I want to and then pick lower-numbered households to play first next time.

I use the sims as a psychology simulator...
Mad Poster
#65 Old 26th Jul 2017 at 12:42 PM
I play 1 day rotations to keep Sims as in sync as possible. I use to play per season but the problem with that was: say I had one Sim who had a baby on the last day of rotation, and then I played their relative who has a baby on the first day of rotation - by the end of the season, the baby born first would still be a baby, but the baby born second would be a child even though memory wise, they'd remember the baby being born before the child.

I keep a strict rotation. When it comes to moving Sims in - those who have already been played that rotation move in after 6pm and those that haven't have to move in before. If a baby is born after 6pm, they'll still be aged up the next day into a toddler.

I know where abouts I am in a rotation because I write it down on my tablet, although I usually remember. Backups sometimes happen mid-rotation, and when that happens I name the backup "[hood name], [date of backup], [household name]" eg. N001 20/06/17 Lothario family

~Your friendly neighborhood ginge
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