Hi! I was putting some of my sims in college on birth control when the question suddenly hit me. But what if this particular sim wouldn't want to go on birth control? I tried to determine based on their aspirations if they would want to wait or would want to start. For example, family sims don't go on birth control, but romance sims do.

Do you have a particular way to determine if a sim wants to go on birth control or do you just think: They're in college, on birth control they go. Or you don't use birth control at all.

I don't want to put all of my sims on birth control, because not all people in real life would want to be. Some people want to start a family young, so some sims should be able to do that as well. Curious as to what the answers will be. Maybe it'll help me make up my mind.

My Romance female sims are on birth control so they can woohoo any time and not worry about. Most if not all of my females are on birth control until they decide they want to start a family.

I base a lot of sim decisions on their aspiration, personality, lifestyle, turn ons/offs, upbringing and class in society. So, a sim that grew up in a middle to upper class household and/or are career minded, will be a more likely candidate for using birth control, as they have more resources and goals. Whereas, my sims that are poorer and struggling with every aspect of their life, would be less likely to use birth control. At the very least, they would have more of a chance for an oops occurring (risky woohoo).

Also, I don't just choose to either put sims on birth control, or keep them off birth control. Sometimes, I simply roll a die to decide whether or not lowering the birth odds would be a better option. And, for those on birth control, there are no guarantees either; they are not immune from a roll of the die causing them to have a failure in birth control (I disable birth control via ACR2's controller). Rolling a die on occasion is my way of keeping things even more unpredictable. I also use TwoJeff's triplets/quads mod (the random version).

It depends on story for that family. Usually I decide how much kids they have even before starting that family.

Birth control! Do you mean like a mod or the choice between Woohoo/Try Having A Baby? Perhaps this is an irritating and obvious answer; but all my sims get to Woohoo once in a while, Try Having A Baby is STRICTLY for having kids.

I don't put my sims on 100% guaranteed birth control (unless I'm using it to ensure they don't get pregnant because they're supposed to be infertile). I use ACR and I set each sim's chance of accidental pregnancy using a formula which takes into account their primary and secondary aspirations and their personality. I like the idea of upbringing/class playing a role in the use of birth control, PenelopeT, I may have to work that into my game somehow!

So my sims tend to have a risky woohoo chance of between 0% (neat, serious Knowledge/Fortune sims) and around 30% (sloppy, playful Pleasure/Romance sims), though the chance of an accidental pregnancy happening is also affected by their Try For Baby chance, as decided by ACR based on their age. I usually leave unmarried sims on "Unmarried TFB Not Allowed" unless they roll a want for a baby (when not already pregnant).

I do have quite a lot of accidental pregnancies in my game, which I like, because the way I play means that without risky woohoo unmarried couples would probably pretty much never have any babies. And as my sims only get married if they (both) roll the want to do so, a lot of my sims never marry, even if they are happily settled down and living with their significant other. So my sims would hardly have any babies!

I don't use birth control in my game, mostly because I'm LAZY.

I just did use it with Samantha Ottomas. Usually it's because I don't have any room left

"Pregnant again?! Great, now I have to decorate a new house!"

If a family has 2 children, they have to be on birth control. If they only have one, they have it set at 'can get pregnant', but only for one more pregnancy. If they're childless, they also can get pregnant, but only for 2 times.

Unfortunately, the "triplets and quads" hack tends to enlarge families by more than 2 children at a time sometimes. That guarantees that they won't have another child ever again!

As for personalities-if the parents are so incompetent or indifferent to their offspring (eg: Chip and Buffy Snooty-Patooty) they get only one chance. No more! As it was, they had to give up 2 of their triplets because they were so cruelly indifferent to them. They're on BC forever, and cannot have another child, either.

Young women are always on birth control from YA-because they have to have a chance to live life without family obligations until they're ready to start one.

My sims get birth control according to a score based on their personality (neatness, outgoingness, activeness and seriousness).
Birth control is not allowed under 0.
I'm also playing with risky woohoo and silent pregnancy.
I'm thinking about adding the intelligence level to the mix since every female in my hood seems to be pregnant.

I don't use ACR, so my Sims don't have to worry about that/are on birth control until I tell them to "Have a Baby".

Like lauratje86, I use ACR's risky woohoo percentages as opposed to any actual birth control. I did toy with the idea of putting some sims on birth control (InTeen) but I could never keep track of who was on it and who had paid for it so...I dropped that idea after a bit.

My formula is pretty simple, taking into account a sim's active and neat points, and their primary aspiration. I've seen risky percentages from 1% to 25%. Not everyone who gets pregnant keeps the pregnancy - there is always an option for abortion (except if a sim is pregnant by aliens, they always carry to term). There's also an adoption house for those who are really not in a situation to raise one or more children.

I do think I need to go through and rework all my formulas though. They seemed decent enough when I first started creating them, but they now seem to be a bit binary 😔

I don't use ACR and my sims have to worry about getting pregnant all the time.

I really wish there was a separate birth control mod and all of my older female sims would go on it. My adult sims are adults for 74 days and it's really annoying to have one of them say at 50 days+ get pregnant from risky whoohoo. I'm thinking of rolling a die for them to see if they stay pregnant or if I will just cancel it on the simblender because in rl your fertility drops as you get older so their chance should be lower. One family their youngest had just left for uni, they had a date and boom she got pregnant. I was like you're 45 years old and one whohoo gets you pregnant! @$#%!

Jo .. do you use inteen? There is a flavor pac that is for birth control.

No Fail Birth Control: Eliminates the 2% risk of pregnancy when “Safe WooHoo” is in effect. Your sims will be lovin’ carefree with this flawless contraceptive in place!

Thanks for all of the answers! I was in a bit of a sims crisis when I realised I was just putting everyone on birth control. Mainly because so many YA's have been getting pregnant (especially in the sorority). Not every single one of my sims wants to become a young mom which it seems like right now. So I'm probably going to try and use their personality. Backgrounds I might use, but most of my sorority sims are random dormies so they don't really have an in-game background. Honestly, I'm probably going to figure out a formula for birth odds or use a die for birth control. I use a formula for the amount of children my sims want and set it with the ACR adjuster. Seems a lot easier than me having to figure out what this sim might want.

What I mostly do now is set the amount of kids, don't use birth control, let my sims get pregnant and when they reach the amount of kids they want, they'll go on birth control. But that's a lot of kids and not everyone can even get kids. So much to think about!

No I don't use inteen. I don't want teen pregnancy plus I'm pretty sure it would clash with a number of my other mods.

I do allow YA pregnancy, I just roll a die for them.

Have you ever thought about rolling a die to determine who gets to have children right away, and who has to wait a little longer?

I use this method quite a bit...especially for newlyweds. As in real life, some get started with conceiving right away, while others are happy focusing on their careers, significant other, or just taking time to enjoy life after finishing college. This, combined with the methods I've already listed, plus a few I did not mention, really does add more variety and decreases the likelihood of every sim becoming pregnant and/or the player having to deal with a bunch of births, or unwanted pregnancies.

Also, on occasion I create medical/health reasons why a sim should not, or cannot have a child. Will they find a mate that understands? Are they destined to be alone? Is adopting an option? Or, do they simply get on with life and enjoy the freedom that a childless home can offer. Honestly, for me, it's rather nice knowing that the next household in a rotation won't necessarily have the same gameplay experience as the current one. And, going from playing a household that has children to one that does not, can be a nice change of pace.

I never actually direct my sims to try for baby. ACR always does it for me. But rolling a die might be nice. I'm definitely going to try all this out. I do notice that households with older kids and a stable family grab my attention way more than the whole baby-palooza.

I'm actually excited. Feels like a whole new layer of depth to my game!

Yeah, I don't actually ever push my sims to try for a baby either, but as mentioned, I do tweak sims on a individual level to control what the outcome might be (especially since I play with silent pregnancy and a few other autonomous relationship type mods). Swear I must be one of the few people who uses ACR2, but actually finds customizing each sim fairly easy and enjoyable. Having ACR, or any other type of mod that's like it installed does not mean a player has to put up with a neighborhood full of surprise pregnancies.

And, I'm glad you're feeling excited about trying out some new methods.

They go on birth control until I am ready to play a household with a baby in it.

I don't put Sims on 'birth control'. Defeats the purpose of woohoo. For this is mere game and Sims themselves do not feel actual pleasure from it, so procreation is really only use for it.

Some people have sims able to get pregnant from teen on, some of us use longer age spans, some of use use mods so that normal woohoo can result in pregnancy and many people use ACR. If you have a few of these types of mods the potential is there for a female sim to have many pregnancies.

Well IRL some women don't mind being pregnant at 45. I once met one who got pregnant at 52. It was unplanned. She thought it was menopause.

One of my pregnant sim is 55, five days from elderhood. She's also a mother of three.

Eh, I use ACR and I also have teen pregnancy in my game. Some people play differently. Teenagers and YA's do get pregnant in my game. A lot of other people play with ACR, so have birth control in their game. I was wondering how they used that option. Sims woohoo by themselves with ACR, so I sometimes don't even notice.

Most sims are fertile, but some people want to change up their gameplay and insert real-life situations.



Agree to disagree. This is a life simulation game and I, for one, play it that way. It may be 'mere game', but some people play differently, you know.