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Mad Poster
Original Poster
#1 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:02 PM Last edited by Rosawyn : 18th Jul 2017 at 9:22 PM.
Default Playing hoods in rotation
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?

Until recently (the last year or so, I think), I'd never even tried to play a hood in rotation, but I came to the conclusion that it's the "correct" way to play, since then I don't end up with weirdly immortal neighbours (npcs and townies are another story). And I think my current system is working well for me, but I'm still curious how everyone else does it.

EDIT: related question: when you're moving sims btwn households (eg marriage), how closely synced to the two households need to be before you move sims from one to the other?
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Top Secret Researcher
#2 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:14 PM
I play in a rotation of sorts. One week per household and I keep a list of every household and check them off when they are done. I don't have a set order, maybe one day i'm not feeling up to a large household so i'll pick a smaller one for example, but I do get every household checked off before starting a new round. So when I have one household left I don't have a choice on who to play but when starting a new round I have the entire hood to choose from, which is sometimes overwhelming but I end up picking a household quick enough.

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Mad Poster
Original Poster
#3 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:21 PM
That's actually pretty similar to how I do it, except I play each household for roughly 24 hours before switching; I couldn't handle playing longer than one season before switching, as I need the whole hood to transition to a new season as close to at the same time as possible.

I also just thought of a related question I've been meaning to ask and edited it into the first post above.
Top Secret Researcher
#4 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:34 PM Last edited by wickedjr89 : 19th Jul 2017 at 12:18 AM.
When moving Sims from one household to the next I tend to do it on the last day of rotation. I recently moved Mickey Dosser from living with Jessie Pilferson to with Blossom Moonbeam. I played Mickey/Jessie for their week, then played Blossom for her week and moved Mickey in after 6pm on Sunday, the last day of the rotation. I'm not always that strict but I usually am. I recently moved Buck Grunt in the middle of a rotation which made him older than i'd have liked in relation to Jill Smith, so I gave him some elixir of life to fix that. Every Sim is allowed one bottle of elixir.

Edit: For University I can't justify it taking a week out of Uni as that is basically many years in a Sim's life so I do University all at once with no time coming off from those not in Uni. I don't know how to say it well but basically University in my Sims game makes no logical sense, but I also don't care.

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The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#5 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:34 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 day, 6am to 6am, yes, strict - they're all on exactly the same day and at the same point in the same season. At uni, it's one semester per rotation done at the end though I use the shorter semester mod so it's really two. I do it in an order I will remember - generally starting in one place on a map (neighbourhood or sub-hood), usually the same place (a prominent, or often least favourite family or the one next after the favourite so I rotate round to finish with them) and rotating round or I move from one side to the other. Little Carping I rotate, Sirencester I move across the map, south to north. Capring Magna depends. I don't forget families - they're all memorable to me.

Quote: Originally posted by Rosawyn
Until recently (the last year or so, I think), I'd never even tried to play a hood in rotation, but I came to the conclusion that it's the "correct" way to play, since then I don't end up with weirdly immortal neighbours (npcs and townies are another story). And I think my current system is working well for me, but I'm still curious how everyone else does it.

I guess many people wouldn't agree it's 'correct' but it's correct for you and me.

Quote: Originally posted by Rosawyn
EDIT: related question: when you're moving sims btwn households (eg marriage), how closely synced to the two households need to be before you move sims from one to the other?

They've been in synch for years now.

I no longer come over to MTS very often but if you would like to ask me a question then you can find me on tumblr or my own site tflc. TFLC has an archive of all my CC downloads.
I'm here on tumblr and my site, tflc
Field Researcher
#6 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:37 PM
For me, I usually play one household for about three days (I leave the lot on the fourth morning around the time the carpool arrives, I dunno why I just do lol), and then go on to the next house and repeat. But during this time I get extremely attached to the families I'm playing and I can play one hood for about five months before switching to a new town (I usually switch towns when the next generation Sims, born of premades, have 10 days left until their adult birthdays). When I switch it's when I get slightly bored with the town and I change hoods so I don't get too bored I never wanna touch it again.

With closeness of families, I don't particularly care, but I do like my Sims to become friends with their parent in-laws.
Alchemist
#7 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:40 PM
in past times playing, I would play an occupied lot for about 1 sim day before playing another lot. sometimes it was about 2 sim days; if there was a pregnant sim on the lot. for the most part, kept planned couples equal in Age and equal in days left.

this time playing, most of my playing has been in AnyGameStarter.
Mad Poster
#8 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:40 PM
For my Beginning hoods.
For each family group I will play until the babies are child age (this goes for all families in the hood) then start a 3 day rotation until the child age up to teen then I will start 1 week for each family group.
( I normally age up to teen 1 day early when it says the sim has 1 more day.)

For original hoods I play 1 week rotations. This also goes for other player made hoods.

All my Beginning Hoods here at MTS. http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=7749491
All my Beginning Hoods as Shopping Districts plus Old Town. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523417
MooVille, a tribute to Mootilda and her fabulous lots http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=534158
Lab Assistant
#9 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:46 PM
This is a great question, Rosawyn! I play rotation style, and only began playing that way fairly late into my simming habit. I think I actually read up on rotations here before implementing it into my play. I play each household for 3 days, beginning at 8am the first day and ending at 8am on the ending day.

I'm not terribly strict about what day of the week it is at which household, but I know lots of folks prefer to sync lots by the days of the week. The majority of my households are synced with what day it is, but if I move someone over from college, I'm not going to delay them just because it's not Monday for everyone else.

When I move new sims into a household, I try to be sure they are synced in their proportionate ages. For example, I began playing the Wan household, where Cleo was hosting a party with her fiancee, Camryn. Patricia, who was single then, met Julien Cooke at the party and they ended up hitting it off! They went on a few dates that round, and when the time came, I jumped over to Julien's place.

While Julien wanted to move Patricia in, get engaged, what have you, I waited until the next time I played him so that he and Patricia would both have aged the appropriate 3 days. Then, on the next rotation, I deliberately played Julien's house before the Wan household, and had him invite Patricia to move in before he aged up at 6pm, so that they'd still be chronologically correct, and age together.

I make the decision to send sims to college or not at 6 days to adulthood, as I play through college in two rotations (freshman and sophomore year in rotation one; Junior and senior in rotation 2). This way, teens who elected not to go to college will age to adulthood at the same time that college students move back into the hood as adults. I figured this trick out years ago when Lilith and Angela were separated in an old Pleasantview. Angela was going to go to college while Lilith stayed home and aged up regularly.

I play one semester after every subhood, because I happen to have four. If that doesn't make sense, I'll try to parse out my process. I usually start with Pleasantview proper. After I wrap day 3 with the last household in that hood, I jump to Sim State, and play a whole semester. Rinse and repeat until sophomore year is over. (Or sims graduate, as the case may be). All my teens move into the same dormitory for ease of rotation.

I record rotations with a single numeral above the family description text in Hood view. Right now I'm on rotation 4, so most of the families have 4 ticked right above the description. If I save and quit for the day before my three days are up, I write the day of the week I'm set to move on in the bio for the head of household.

Although, now that I think about it, I should just include the day of the week under the rotation number, and that will save me a lot of guesswork. I'm improving every day!
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#10 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:48 PM
Maybe I really do have ADD. I honestly could not imagine playing a single household for an entire week. Even if the seasons thing wasn't a factor.
Forum Resident
#11 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:55 PM
I play by seasons as that gives a nice graphical indicator in neighbourhood view of which households are behind the others. Sometimes I'll play one household the full five days at once, but other times I'll play one for a day or two, take a break with a different household, then return to finish off the season. The jumps may be because I'm trying to coordinate something between two households, or it could just be that I want a change of pace. For the most part I don't have an order that I follow through the town, but I do tend to play the households that run a school or collect taxes either always at the start or end of a rotation.

I'm not too concerned about syncing the lots exactly because I use BO's slow aging controller and my sims only age 3x/week, but I do prefer to move sims near the ends of the seasons instead of in the middle. I'm also not bothered by one lot starting spring on a Tuesday while one starts on a Friday. I just want all of my rotations to start on the first day of the same season. If I move a sim to a new lot in the fall and that lot is spring, I use season controller to change the new lot's season to fall.
Mad Poster
#12 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:55 PM
1 week rotation gives me a very good feel of how the sims will act and what they need, any thing shorter is just not enough for me.

(This is for my Beginning hoods.)
Until a baby ages up to child there is very little you can find out about them, some you may think are knowledge sims but after aging up to child they change on you.


All other hoods already have the sims set so you just got to play them to figure out how they will go.

All my Beginning Hoods here at MTS. http://www.modthesims.info/member.php?u=7749491
All my Beginning Hoods as Shopping Districts plus Old Town. http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=523417
MooVille, a tribute to Mootilda and her fabulous lots http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=534158
Forum Resident
#13 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 9:57 PM
For years, I did not play rotation. I'd play one household until they had kids, or grow old, or until I got bored. Then I'd do the same with another household.
After a long break, I installed the game again last December. I started playing as usual but got tired of seeing my Sims date someone their parent or grandparent dated. It kills the fun. So, I switched to playing each household for a season. I'd start with my main family (was supposed to be my version of a legacy family) and I'd work clockwise around the neighborhood.

I'm intrigued with Marka93's strict 6 a.m. to 6 a.m. rotation. I think I'd like to give that go to see if I like it -- or see if I'm capable of doing it.

So many things to learn; so few brain cells to process the info needed to learn things!
Shipwreck Island
Top Secret Researcher
#14 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 10:12 PM
I start at the same household in one corner of the neighbourhood and work vaguely clockwise ending up at another house. If there's a river or other geographical formation dividing the neighbourhood I play houses on one side first. I play two days each ending at approximately 6 pm or a bit later to see babies age up. If I get caught up in one family's drama I might play four days but miss them out on the next rotation. I move Sims in at the start of a rotation.
Mad Poster
#15 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 10:16 PM
I couldn't do that either, Rosawyn, and I certainly don't have ADD! I've established by experiment that playing more than one day per household per session is not for me, so I always do one-day rotations. However, exactly how these rotations are done depends on the neighborhood and what I'm doing in it. Drama Acres is played one day per household in downtown, one day per household in the main hood, and three subrotations of one day each for the households at SSU. Vacations happen between rotations. I back up at the end of each rotation, and if I feel I need a little extra time in a household, I go back at the end of the round and play an aging-off day.

When I was playing the GS Uberhood Challenge, I found I was completely unable to play only the one household, but I also found that rushing from one woman to the next in order to meet the challenge before Rhett died of old age was no fun, so I started playing aging off days. So I'd play Rhett for an aging day, play the households of all the eligible baby mamas in town, play other households (mostly Rhett's relatives or friends; the pool kept growing) as seemed necessary or desirable; and in between batches of peripheral households I'd play aging-off days at Rhett's. For the most part I would define one playable who mattered at college and play one college year for that sim per one aging day. I would not start playing college playables who didn't matter (i.e. had no place in Rhett's family tree) until they got into the story somehow, and when sims who mattered graduated I might not play college again until someone else went to college. Some sims were played regularly (all the Widespot households), some were played only when they had something to do in the story (most of the babymamas), and some played their part and were never dealt with again. If someone I wasn't playing regularly needed to age up, I'd do it manually. Aging was always turned off for pregnancy, and I'd play aging-off days for pregnant sims so Rhett's kids would have age cohorts. It all sounds complicated, when I explain it; but I did it all intuitively on the fly and it wasn't complicated in practice.

Strangetown has yet another loose rotation schedule, Widespot is played similarly to Drama Acres but not identically, and if I play other neighborhoods they'll all get some variant that works for that neighborhood. The only constant is that I only play for 24 hours in one household in one session; because that's the point at which I need a change. I don't care a bit about synching seasons or more than very rough age-synching. What I care about is that all the sims get their time in the spotlight, and all the households create a huge network of moving parts that influence each other, so that what happens in one household can have a ripple effect on the other households.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Lab Assistant
#16 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 10:24 PM
I play in a half a week rotation.
First rotation goes from Monday to Thursday morning and the second from Thursday to Monday morning. University is always played for four semesters aka two academic years. Teenagers move to college when they have seven days left.
Moving in to the neighborhood or between houses only happens before or after a rotation. Marriages outside the household, unless it is to a townie, always happen between Sunday 6pm and Monday 6pm or Wednesday 6pm and Thursday 6pm. Same goes for coming home from college. Students that return midweek (Thursday to Monday round) move back in with family or close friends until Monday UNLESS of course their boy/girlfriend, fiancee or wife/husband has already its own main hood household established. Then they move in together.
To not forget which household is where in the rotation I always note in the family description "x. week mon/thu"
Lab Assistant
#17 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 11:02 PM
I play one household for one day, from six in the morning (when they usually wake up) to six in the morning next day. And if they don't get in bed in reasonable time I can get irritated since I usually am quite tired of them during the last hours.

Ullerby is in a strict order and being the only hood that I play regularly my answer is based on that. Other hoods have been played differently, sometimes with regard to the seasons but now I mostly wing it. My sims don't change clothes according to the seasons in any sort of regular fashion so it is usually not a biggie. And I am sort of lazy to keep track so I don't have big excel documents so one day is easier.

I play in the order of the houses in the hood, preferably so I can jump from one house to the next without going to the hood overview. If I don't remember what household that was played last I usually check the pictures. It also means that I need to take at least one picture each time I play a family. I'm OK with that.

This also means that a new household is free to form at almost any time, but I prefer to finish a rotation before the new household moves in. If a spouse moves to another lot they are played first so that they can pack their things.

And, inspired by @Peni Griffin and the build a city challenge with nerphires rules I let my sims interact a lot more with each other. It is not uncommon for my sims to have ten best friends, when they are not really trying. I want to get better at outings with extended families though, so sweet when in-laws gives each other a family kiss.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#18 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 11:30 PM
I normally play 1-3 days at a time depending on the household. For example if I know a toddler will age up. That is not however a complete rotation just a partial ones. One season is a full rotations so once the season changes I know not to go back to that household until all the others are also completed.

I use the season and day setter when I move sims.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Test Subject
#19 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 11:41 PM
I play 6am to 6am in the main hood, and 11am-11am in uni. I use the Lot sync timer to keep track of days, and I go around the hood clockwise (so I can enter the next house from the one I'm in without going to the neighborhood). The order isn't strict- and even though I keep track of days, I'll sometimes just leave a household until the next rotation and play it for 2 days, depending on how I feel. I also generally will move sims out around 6am so as to keep everyone in sync. I know 6am isn't what brand new households start at, but I chalk the difference up to travel time. Same for whatever the time difference is when they go to college.

I don't really sweat the details, though. Uni is technically 8 days, but I don't always have sims go back to the main hood right away- some will stay for the extra three days so they're age isn't "correct". If sims are going to move in together, I will usually wait until the end of the rotation so they're in sync, but sometimes I mess up, and I don't really mind.

Also- when sims move into a brand new household, I don't set the day or season to whatever it is for everyone else in the rotation. I just can't be bothered. I just want my sims to more or less age together.
Lab Assistant
#20 Old 18th Jul 2017 at 11:44 PM
I play in rotation, where a complete rotation is Monday 6AM to Monday 6AM. New households can be set up at any time but it's Monday when they move in and I consider that to be the start of the next rotation.

I have thought about cutting it to one day, but found that if a household was in the middle of a drama it was hard to leave ( and remember what was happening!). If need be I jump between households during the rotation - the current rotation had children in three separate houses due to age up Monday evening and I wanted to keep them all in their age groups as they are all friends. They will all go to college together, if they all go. Alos if a sim is moving from one house to another I make sure it's the same day in each house.

Sims are away at college for 5 days and I try to keep their return similar to the time when those that don't go age up, but as I have two jeff's age duration hack, with random life spans I don't worry too much about the odd day or two, but otherwise they are in sync.

I keep a list of households,and sims in them, with their age, so that I can tick off the ones completed, or note the ones half done.

The only thing I don't have in sync is the seasons, due to them moving in at different times.
Mad Poster
#21 Old 19th Jul 2017 at 12:05 AM
For rotations, I play them 3 days at a time - it's long enough that I can get some things done, but not so long that it drags on. My current round starts on Monday morning (Spring 4), and ends on Thursday at 6am (Summer 2).

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a strict sequence, unfortunately, but to keep track, I use my spreadsheet, Pescado's Lot Sync Timer, and MTS's 20-day calendar to make sure my seasons are synced up. SimWardrobe's Seasons and Weather Controller help when the seasons are initially all mixed up, such as in Riverblossom Hills. Pescado's Lot Sync Timer also lets me set the day of the week if that's mixed up too.

When moving Sims between households, I try to make sure the days are synced up, but don't worry too much about it. If something seems wrong I can use InSim to add or subtract a day at a time from the lifespan.

For University, I have 1 semester = 1 day. This means uni is eight days long. College-bound teens head to Uni on their second week, while those not going to college get the second week, although I let them do things such as move out. This is similar to InTeen's independent teen feature.

I use my spreadsheet to keep track of the days when all my infants were born.

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Meet Me In My Next Life
#22 Old 19th Jul 2017 at 12:19 AM Last edited by Simonut : 19th Jul 2017 at 3:19 AM.
Well I don't know if this make sense or not, it's something I been trying out with my hood, since I tend to forget to play some households.
I decided to categorize and play my neighborhood like a street name, or zone block for example I will play all houses / lots that are located on a certain street name ( like Pine Street ) therefore all lots within that street zone will get played.

Then when I am finish playing all the lots within that street zone, I go to the next cross street with a different Street name and play all lots in that zone.
I sometime will also play my hood by whatever group of lots is facing toward East, West, South, or North.
Since trying this out in my game I am able to get around to playing all households ( if the household is boring I will move on )

That is one of the big reason I decided to just have "two main" neighborhood only in my game Pleasantview and my Custom hood. This help with cutting back on not having to many hoods to play.
I did add downtown (NL ) and UNI to Pleasantview, but I rarely go there. I did not add a downtown to my custom hood but did add a University ( and I never go there. )

"Nothing in life is a Surprise it just happen to come your way at the time".
Theorist
#23 Old 19th Jul 2017 at 1:45 AM Last edited by PenelopeT : 19th Jul 2017 at 1:56 AM.
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?


I like to really spend some time with every household, so I play each of them for 7 days (Mon - Mon, 4am - 4am), before moving onto another one. I also use Simwardrobe's weather changer to set each season for 7 days, so the season type remains the same for the duration of the rotation. It has always bugged me that seasons are only 5 days by default.

Since I use Almighty Hat's lengthy aging mod, playing for a longer time period is not really an issue.



Quote: Originally posted by Rosawyn
Do you play each lot in a strict sequence?


Pretty anal about things staying in order, so yes, strict rotational play for me. If I really love playing one household, but am not too keen on the next one, I find some way to liven/shake things up a bit for that household.

The downside of strict rotational play is the dread a player might feel when moving on from a fun household, to a boring one. So, it is vital to keep all households entertaining in some way...at least for me it is.



Quote: Originally posted by Rosawyn
How do you keep track of which lots you've played/where every lot is in relation to the rest?


A good old-fashioned notebook, and an Excel spreadsheet. Though, I tend to keep the notebook more up-to-date than the spreadsheet.



Quote: Originally posted by Rosawyn
EDIT: related question: when you're moving sims btwn households (eg marriage), how closely synced to the two households need to be before you move sims from one to the other?


I am not strict about this one, and have no set rule(s) for this.


Should also mention that I now only play my own custom created neighborhoods that contain no Maxis sims whatsoever, no townies, dowtownies, vacationers, supernaturals, bin sims or strays (I used the 'Scorched Earth Approach' of this tutorial). So, the sims I create and the ones that are born in-game are it...which really gives me a chance to get to know all of them and makes it a lot more enjoyable than it was back when I played the game with Maxis sims running around everywhere.

Oh, and I do not make use of the uni or vacation neighborhoods either (so I do not have to factor that into the rotation schedule). I instead use Squinge's go to college in the main neighborhood mod, and all hotels/vacation type lots are located in the main neighborhood as well.


“Seize the time... Live now! Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.” ― Jean-Luc Picard
Field Researcher
#24 Old 19th Jul 2017 at 1:46 AM
I used to play one week rotations then tried three day rotations and decided I prefer those. Too much can happen in a Sim week with vanilla aging! I like the chance to see the Sim kids make friends and play together and the pregnant Sims walk around the 'hood showing off their bumps. University gets two semester rotations so all my college Sim's parents aren't dead by the time they get out.

There's a sequence I go around the 'hood in just because I'm a creature of habit. I put the number of the household in their family info box. The neighborhood really isn't so big that I'll lose track of where I am in the middle of playing. If I take a long break and don't remember where I stopped I'll open up houses and see what day they're on.

I try to move Sims out at the end of a rotation but may have to do it in the middle if I suddenly realize they're out of room. I adjust the day with the Sim Blender and the seasons with the season controller vase thing. Seasons are weird though so some lots may become a day or two off and that's okay.

When I first started I didn't do rotations, but I think it's made the game more enjoyable to me. Instead of growing a family you're growing a whole neighborhood! I love seeing how interconnected it gets and how one household can influence others.
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#25 Old 19th Jul 2017 at 3:04 AM
It's really fascinating to see how different people do things differently!

I know I came to the whole rotation thing with just a very vague notion of what it was, but I worked out a system that I enjoy. (I also play most of my hoods along with my husband; he does't play as much as I do, so he controls 1-3 households while I control the rest.)

As some of you mentioned, we make notes in the household description: the day of the season followed by the time of day; for example: 4d left in first Winter, 10:35am. Due to the importance of the seasons to our system, we sometimes run into snags where the day of the season is late switching over (the latest I've seen it go is ~11am). But the only really strict rule is that all households need to be in the same season and move into the same season at the same time. Sometimes I'll go in and play a given household for only an hour or two; sometimes I'll go in just to check if any wants need locking and not actually un-pause the game. If a certain sim is being stubborn about rolling the same group of wants, I usually play other households for a while as that often seems to help unstick things. But of course everyone needs to get played eventually so the hood can advance to a new season. We don't have anything resembling a specific order in which we play the houses, but due to my husband's work schedule, his households usually end up lagging behind a bit.

For moving sims between households, we've actually been syncing the two lots down to the hour. Maybe that's a little extreme, but it's working out so far for us.
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