So many people seem to have an issue with birthday sims aging up in the middle of the party without the birthday cake because it's hard to get them to age up exactly at 6 o'clock... like, y'all know you can edit the process hour to give them more time, right?

As I understand it, they can age up with the cake at any time in the 24 hours up to 6 p.m. If they still haven't aged up by 6 p.m., they will age up automatically, and any birthday party they were having will fail. So give the the cake well before 6 p.m.

I think that's the way it works, but I'll find out for certain soon, as the twins Peni Jo and Peregrine McBain will age up to children in the next few days.

That is exactly how it works. When I throw a party I have them do the cake very first thing and don't start a party later than 4pm. I often use the cake with no party though and for that, I sometimes cut it close as the only thing lost is the price of the cake. Just depends if I'm waiting for a parent to get home from work or not. The latest I've ever started it and gotten away with it is between 5:20 and 5:25 any later than that and you probably will not have enough time. Kids should have a wee bit of fanfare for the birthday even if it's not a full-blown party.

The twins mum Jenny wants a party, but Peni Jo and Peregrine don't. So I think we'll just invite a few friends round informally. It would be nice if the children from next door, Brigitte and Hans (Julian's younger sister and brother) could come. (From their names it sounds like they come from the same part of the world as your chaos family, Clashfan.) Jenny's shift as a police cadet is currently finishing at 3 p.m.

I suppose we should get the twins a cake each. It would be mean to try to make them share.

I do undead have an SSD but Zarathustra lots are much more show than tell (ie more visually pleasing than functional)

Do you mean "indeed"?

Ok, so I got a bit complacent and didn't back up for a few play sessions and today it bit me in the ass. Makes me so angry with myself when I do something stupid that I absolutely know better than to do. I installed a couple of mods that not only didn't agree with my game they crashed it to the point I couldn't even get it to load. I only lost 4 days worth of game time, the worst of which was a couple of big building projects I did. I struggle with building in general so I'm not looking forward to those do-overs. I also have to replay my house of chaos as I lost all that progress. I've only myself to blame though as I so know better.

Such a shame @Clashfan ,I hate losing gameplay!

I didn't get what @sugoismama explain about birthdays. I barely do birthdays nowadays and let my sims growing up automatically.
I stumbled upon this mod by Simler90 yesterday: aging mods

@Clashfan
I'm sorry. Losing gameplay is annoying especially when interesting events are happening.
Been there, done that. Having sims stuck at a community lot and have to revert to a backup. Mess up in SimPE which messed up my hood, had to revert to a backup.
I usually back-up the hood before launching the game or after significant changes.

I built a small post office for my hood, trying to keeping it minimal. I downloaded some stuff and found out that I already had the CC I wanted.

@simsample I hate it too but it could have been so much worse. I will just play different lots or do some more builds for a few days. It's never successful for me to try to play what I've just lost immediately as I find I push to replicate instead of letting it unfold. At least with the biggest build I lost of a hotel in Twikki, I was able to play the lot first. I can use that to make adjustments that might work better. Like I added an outdoor showering platform for the tourists but I ended up putting it directly behind the restaurant so when playing with walls down it looks like you have sims showering in the middle of your dining area.

Blech. I've probably complained about this before, but does anyone else ever feel as though they REALLY love a shell they built, but they just can't get the interior to look right?

On a totally unrelated note, does anyone fancy furnishing a hospital? (kidding, kidding.)

Every house I've ever built.

Ever have a moment of pure nirvana while playing? Just a moment where you are fully happy with all the stuff you've added and all your mods are in harmony (I'm ignoring my communal shower issue so just go with me on this one) and you find yourself just happily playing with no thought to what you need to change? I had one of those today, it was really nice

All credit goes to the fabulous people who create and share such wonderful things. :lovestruc

Today is the Sims 2's 16th birthday.

I played The Sims 1 when it came out, but I never got the Sims 2 until the Mac Store offered the Super Collection. It came at a difficult time in my life, and it's really helped me on and off since then. I don't think I would have gotten through (and still be getting through) COVID-19 quarantine without it. Grateful for the game, and also this community, which has been so much fun to participate in over the past year or so.

"I think I hate the Desrosiers household!"
They have teen quadruplets, two of them spending their time fighting. They have the knack of getting on my nerves.
I had to smite them. They peed themselves, one of them was nearly starving to death and wanted to fight back. Silly sims are silly.
And then my game crashed. "roll eyes"

"I can't believe I'm on generation four of Veronaville already with Edward and Jacob... wait. Edward... and Jacob... Edward and Ja- OH MY GOD"
For the record this was unintentional.

WAIT I JUST REALIZED
I NAMED BIANCA'S DAUGHTER BELLA AFTER ISABELLA
I'M

FIFY

Bruh

If the Monty and Capp families won't be too intertwined by then I might just play out this love triangle thing

Yes I wrote this bc it wouldn't let me reply just "Bruh"

@Simsample -I agree on losing gameplay which is why I copy the conents of my TS2 folder to another folder and 7zip it right before installing anything new or at least once every other week.I've had issues with my folder forcing me to revert to my most recent back up.
@HugeLunatic -I would agree with that for my Jankowskys and my BACC builds in general because I'm under restrictions in the BACC with my town just starting out.I've also got some ancient apartment builds from ten years ago on my old computer when Apartment Life was just released or shortly after which I still use with M&G modifications like adding green energy sources to make them subsidized rental housing for poor sims.I've got a town house project in progress as well.I've build homes with very complex styles of walkout basements and even moved foundations up to create ground level walkout basements.I also build community service centers with most community lot functions on one lot as I started with the base game over ten years ago not long after it was released and had to use the taxi for every outing until Night Life changed that.I currently play TS2 UC and make them walk to community lots unless they lived out in a new shopping district and had to come into the town center which would require taking a bus from one of my Mods or taking a taxi.

I've been storing up Mods like one to stop dormie generation for when I don't want them generated.

The "double houses" in Veronaville have always kind of puzzled me. Maybe they made sense in the 16th and 17th centuries when they were built -- servants' quarters, or a dower house? -- but how does a modern family use them. Especially bearing in mind that they're all grade 1 listed buildings in a conservation area -- it's hard to get planning permission to make substantial changes. But I've found a use for them now. When I had a Sim with 'flu, by far the easiest way to isolate him was to send him to bed in the smaller house, while the rest of the family went about their lives in the main house.

P.S. I've just noticed that this is the 10,000th post in this thread that I started nearly five years ago!

Awww, your little baby's growing up so fast!

I would turn them into apartments so that two families could live there, do you have Apartment life?

I really wanted to use a sim I haven't used for years, finally found the simspack, loaded her in Bodyshop where she looked great, then went into the game. She didn't show up in CAS. Very confused, I went out, went into another neighborhood, tried again. No sim. Reset the whole damned game (renamed the Doc Sims game file name), put her in by herself and tried again. Nothing. Very sad now, convinced something was just corrupt and hopeless and I was going to have to try to recreate her, I put everything back and went back into Bodyshop to start the recreation when I discovered....she was a Young Adult. It had been so many years I forgot why I created her in the first place and never once even glanced at her age.

Woowoo! 10000. That's impressive.

I don't play Veronaville, but I do have a couple lots divided into two houses and enjoy then.

For instance, the Gavigans are Modest Sims (sort of a religious order in Pleasantview that requires Sims to dress a certain way, have few electronics at home, have one parent stay home while the other works). As part of their culture, a Sim should always live with family. But Karen Gast has no family, so she is living in a small house attached to the bigger house. They took her into the family, but she still has independence.

I'm probably going to build a small house for Jessica Picaso at her son's unless the votes on my thread change directions drastically too. Together but independent.

When I was first playing Sims 2 as a kid, when it was freshly released I had Cassandra Goth married Darren Dreamer gave birth to a daughter whom I named Bella Dreamer after Cassandra's mother. Meanwhile Don and Nina had a son whom I named Ron. By the time Bella and Ron were teens Nightlife was released I was going through a vampire phase, so I made Ron a vampire. And of course I paired off Bella with Ron the Vampire.
It was one of the story lines I repeated almost every time I play Pleasantview (though these days it's Bella Landgraab and Diego Lothario) but it took me an embarrassingly long time to realized that I was routinely pairing off a girl named Bella with a teenaged vampire
Though tbf I'm pretty sure this was before Twilight and I had Buffy and Angel in mind rather than Bella and Edward.