As the title implies, this is a spreadsheet thread.

Hi all, and in case I haven't met you yet: happy new year!

I was wondering how you guys keep track of your sims progress / key data in-game? I spent a good chunk of November 2019 revamping my spreadsheets to make it a dream record keeping tool, both for the data and the visuals. Here is how mine looks:



How does yours look? What do you consider to be important data to keep track of, for your sims?

Curious to know!

I have done extensive excel tracking of my legacy family of over 30 generations. I do not do by Sim per se other than a few things, but by careers maxed, goals achieved, who has married into the family, things collected, you name it. It is very long. I also have a sheet where I have notes of things for each generation. I have a family tree. I have a photo of each Sim. Lots. Way too much. LOL

edit: I just looked at my score sheet as I call it, 20 pages long packed in excel. I track a lot. Had no idea there is that much and it is not even totally current as have not played the family in a while. If there is a part of Sims to track I am pretty much doing it.

Yeah but mines much more basic. It was initially conceived to try and establish a link between lot quantity, population size, load times and crashing.
It’s also handy for making sure that each town is roughly 50/50 male and female, for example, among other things.

Love everything you shared! Care to explain why you keep track of things collected? I might do it...


Are both generated by your game? If yes, how do you achieve this?
I tried exporting family trees with Nraas mods but always failed to locate the output folders.


Don't you ever stop! This is so inspiring.

I never thought about this use case because I stick to playing in Bridgeport, but it makes sense! Fascinating, even.


I see Mont Saint Michel in your screenshot... Is this a publicly available world?

To be honest, all I am writing down are name, age, life state, relations to other Sims I am creating, traits, favourites and zodiac signs, which I am only doing for Sims I've created in CAS to my phone, so I have this handy to know what to concentrate upon while creating or editing house for them. Anything else I am keeping track in-game. But I don't usually play legacy-style and most of the time, after third or fourth generation, I leave the family and start again, because at that point, the game tend to be so bugged, that it is unplayable.

Yeah it’s out there. If you can’t find it via google then just PM me

Found it! It looks stunning, I didn't even know it existed. Thanks for the discovery.

Well, that's a beautiful illustration of the wise word in your sig ("Sanity is overrated.").

Here is just a little of way too much. Looking at it I see how much this game has to offer. One reason I do this is to try to do as much as I can and not do the same Sims/things over and over. I love the collecting and want to make sure they find all there is if possible. I do my family tree in excel and my photos too. I run 2 lines starting from 2 brothers. The family keeps their name almost all the time. I do the generations by the alphabet. Am on H the second time around now I think. One thing I really wanted was to track who married into the family. Wanted every possibility I could for example. I do not have the notes sheet or photos sheet with me now. Just as I have photos of the founders in the family tree I insert photos into excel with the name of each family member. By doing all this I could see where the blanks were to set up goals for Sims and each generation. Get all those tombs done, for example.

Oh, good grief. Do I really have to explain how this can happen again or do you have a handle on it yet?

Here, for others who may need this I'll let some TS2 sims take over as they do a much better job of it (or something similar, anyway).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXU-ZdmzNmo

Edit: The family tree really isn't that difficult to understand either, if you take it outside of the game and have a few hours to spare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu_Y1wQ923g

I have not seen that in years!!!! LOL SO funny!

This is amazing! I love seeing the sims' faces (though the guy on the right doesn't look like he's having a good time...)


Agreed, this is why I still play TS3 in 2020, over TS4. TS3 offers such a rich, content-packed gameplay. Also: open world.


I love your dedication to achieving all 86 LTWs! This is so cool - definitely shows how much TS3 has to offer. Question: do you assign the LTWs regardless of your sims' traits? Or do you somehow wait for your sims' traits to match the LTWs you haven't yet finished?
You made me discover fresh new data to add to the "high school" part of my spreadsheet:

• "Prom Night Status: King or Queen / Attended

• Graduate Status: Valedictorian-w medal / Graduate

• Grade: A-highest honor / B-honor / C-merit / D-pass / F-fail

• Graduation Ribbon: "Most Likely To... [insert here]" / Most Artistic / Most Popular / Class Clown

I could actually extend that to the uni part of my spreadsheet, by keeping a record of their uni final grade (A, B or C) + which extra trait they unlocked.

Looking at your spreadsheet is super inspiring - thank you!


Wow nice! Wish you a lot of fun with this new gen.

I started playing in rotation with EA worlds which I plan to eventually use them all or most of them. I currently have 8 worlds I play in rotation according to how long I play my main neighborhood which is Moonlight Falls during any given round. This way the Sims I move out of my main hood will age together with everyone else should I have them visit or move back home or elsewhere. Though, my timing is not 100% accurate but it's close enough. I'll just adjust any twins ages that are off. It took me a bit to figure out how to better capture the worlds timeline without me getting confused which worlds I have not played yet during the current round but I will likely change a few things later down the line. Especially, when I take long enough breaks from TS3 and might not remember where I last left off.

Eventually I would like to add some 3rd party custom worlds but first money was paid for those EA worlds so...yeah. Long overdue not putting it to use and this is an interesting way for me playing with most if not all of them. The change in scenery and Sims keeps the game even more dynamic, not to mention helps with any overpopulation. I just wish TS3 already had this capability similar to TS2 but way more improved upon and advanced with the open seamless world. Though, I would not expect all the worlds to operate in simulation at the same time, however, I'm sure there's an efficient but realistic way of progressing time, events, etc when your Sim(s) visit and/or move without ever losing any connection and/or relationships. I found it interesting in TS2 how your Sim could work in another hood but I think that is related to OFB only. How grand a more realistic and mature life simulator would be.

Anyway, does anyone else play with multiple worlds in rotation and how do you keep track?

Nice!


I bet! I don't even have a timeline, I wouldn't know where to start to create one. You seem to have figured out a good system from what your spreadsheet shows.


I feel the same about going into my test saves. I am testing a mod in Isla Paradisio and it's fun to see people with boats and jet-skis when I'm so used to Bridgeport urban sceneries. Definitely a breath of fresh air in the gameplay.


I always thought that the Nraas mod "Porter" did exactly what you describe as your ideal - export families to a different world without losing relationships. Have you tried it? It's here: https://www.nraas.net/community/Porter


[/QUOTE]
I believe @tizerist does, he talks about it here: http://modthesims.info/showthread.p...936#post5608936

Thanks for sharing your gameplay @Deshong! It's so appreciated

Okay yes, that is indeed a technical issue and not an intended one that comes from giving birth to your father's brother-in-law or whatever like the song says.

Overwatch (and I think ErrorTrap plays a role) is supposed to resolve duplicate sims like that, if not right away then certainly whenever they are both in the same simulated world at the same time. Sometimes it gets things backwards and removes the "wrong" sim from the mix and we end up with lifelong partners or two other sims who still seem to like or be attracted to each other quite a bit but no longer have any history between them and I've had to replay things a few times over the years when I've noticed this happening. Afraid I can't really say why neither sim is being absorbed into the other after some game time passes as you describe if this is happening on a regular, routine basis. I'm kind of quick to blame the KW mod here, but have a feeling that I have seen you complain about this issue before having used it.

That's not what the title implies at all.

True. But it got your attention, didn't it?

Guilty as charged.

I have a notebook where I track important things like Sims and their traits. That way I can bring it with me to places when I need to plan future storylines and characters. My husband refers to it as my "spy log."

Thanks.

NRass Porter I did try once upon a time.

Yes, there is NRass Traveler which allows any world to be connected to the main neighborhood to visit and/or move and there is a feature to imitate the progression of time, events, no relationship loss, etc. I was saying how I wished those features were a part of TS3 officially because I don't want to play with too many mods and affect my gameplay performance. While mods are nice and all for the most part, I'd rather not entirely depend on mods for everything and have my own way of achieving a similar effect. And the way I play now I actually get to play it all out and watch all the "simulation" one world at at time. I really do enjoy the gameplay and the A.I. aspect of this game so it's all a win for me. Besides, taking turns and playing most of my Sims in rotation is not only fun but insightful. I find the memory of each and every A.I. carried on is quite fascinating and I can see how past events in some of my Sims lives still affect them such as in how they act and/or react autonomously with other Sims.

Anyway, in the future I would like to create a spreadsheet for all my Sim generations. I'm a newbie at Excel but there are plenty of tutorials that can help.

Yes, it is.


No, it's not.