Total Playable Sims, as of January 2082: 99
By age:
elder: 13
adult: 51
YA: 3
teen: 11
child: 11
toddler: 5
baby: 5 (gestating 3)
By aspiration:
family: 23
wealth: 15
knowledge: 13
popularity: 11
pleasure: 10
romance: 6
grow-up: 21
(Now you know how my hood got so big! Most of those family Sims are older residents, and family aspirations are given much more sparingly in the current generations.)
By residence:
Lakeside Heights: 46
Lake City: 35
Bluewater Township: 16
Three Lakes: 2
Takemizu: 0
Total Playable Households: 33
Single-Family: 26
Multi-Family: 1
Apartments: 6
Non-playable playables: 32
Total estimated living population (Lake County and abroad): 824
419 male/ 405 female
notes:
Now for population control. My ideal head-count would be about 24 households (not counting uni) and between 80-90 Sims. As you can see, we're a little overpopulated right now ;)
I hate to get all child-restricting and all, but I might have to persuade some couples to only have one. I'm already restricting the number of family Sims I assign in my current youth generation. I've reduced my fertility rates, and I'm also finally discouraging the marrying-in of townies, but you know, they can marry who they really want to marry around here.
how I keep track of them all:
This is my actual Sim sheet that I use to keep track of everyone. I thought it would be fun for you to see how I track them. It's just one page, nothing too complicated, just all of their names in birth order. The sheet is usually a lot messier than this, but I've just reprinted it. I usually reprint it once every round, but until then, I'll handwrite any move-ins or babies born, and cross off any move-aways or deaths.
- Along the top is my calendar, and what month I'm currently playing. The (fall) and (spring) are uni semesters, and (SB) is the uni spring break.
- Along the left side are my non-playables, and they're slotted in by approximate age as well.
- The two numbered columns are (on the left) what their age bar should say at the end of their turn, and (on the right) what age in years they'll be in the second half of the round. If they are played in the first year of the round, they will be one year younger than what that number says.
- You'll see notes throughout (M by Meadow's name means she owes that much from her school fund, the B by Bryson's name means that he's due that much for his apartment rent payments, and Orlando has a to-do list of portraits that people have ordered).
- Some of them have height adjustments written above their names, and unless otherwise stated, they are default height.
- The purple sticky note to the right is for my four uni sessions, and whether the students have paid their tuition yet.
- There are aspiration notes for my teens and older children, and my tallies to make sure there is an even balance in the current generation (skimping on the family aspirations). The circled B by Angelo's name means that he's drawn to be bisexual - unless stated, they've drawn straight. I usually decide their aspirations when they're 10 or 11, so that I'll know their characters a little better when they age to teen. Some of them I know even sooner than that.
- The bottom right corner is my total count, by neighborhood generation. My neighborhood generations are loosely defined, but the fourth generation will end around the time most of my third generation Sims have finished having children (which will probably be pretty soon). There will probably be born some actual fifth generation Sims before that time, and there will probably be born some actual fourth generation Sims after, but you know, this is just a benchmarking thing.
Feel free to ask questions if you like.
And happy Easter! :)
I like how you're so drawn out and organized. I've just started to really put stuff onto my computer. Before I was keeping everything in three notebooks, and a journal, lol. Which can be really hard to keep up with.
ReplyDeleteI see from your notes that you don't have a Winter or Summer option. You just play Spring and Fall? (is confused)
Right now, I have three sheets printed out, and my rotations are broken down in a two year cycle. Right now I'm on 2009 - 2010. And I have eachs eason broken down into three months each, and I have my families divided into each season. Each family gets played once. Some families are played in 2009 and others in 2010. I also have their ages next to their names as well as who is due, which baby was born in which year/month, etc.
Maybe I'll do a screen cap one day so you can see, lol.
I love how you share things and help us with our games as well. Thanks so much.
Riverdale, thanks :) The (fall) and (spring) on the calendar are my four uni semesters - two fall semesters and two spring semesters. Note how I haven't checked off the second (fall) yet - and that means I'm currently working on the second fall uni semester.
ReplyDeleteI do play all the seasons and months though - that's what the letters in the calendar stand for, and each family takes one of those months.
I'm happy to share though, and I'm glad it helps. Your system sounds pretty organized too :)
That was pretty interesting to read. I'm still in the process of trying to set up my own integrated neighborhood and corresponding blog.
ReplyDeleteI haven't really set up a system yet for keeping track of things. I'm probably going to set up an Excel sheet with a detailed Word documents for specifics
Very cool! My method of keeping track is kind of...insane. Not nearly as concise as yours. I have many, many notes in Flashnote that I use.
ReplyDeleteDo you just choose an aspiration that fits then, rather than go by a roll of the die or personality? I wondered, because you said you were using Family sparingly these days.
Interesting, thanks for sharing your behind the scenes working of your game for all the other simmers out there.
ReplyDeleteMy hood's data is in an excel file
http://www.freewebs.com/applevalleyhood/Templates/HoodTemplateData.xls
and includes all sorts of information. I am now transferring to a system that is a bit more simple and uses in-game tools (such as bio notes).
That's a lot of sims in your hood (mostly townies, right?) I am slowly allowing more townies in my game to have more genetic diversity. At first, there were no townies allowed-only the bare minimum NPCs
I was also curious about how you determine aspiration. (I roll a dice).
ReplyDeleteMy spreadsheet in excel (its posted on my blog as census data) is driving me nuts. Its too hard to update or keep up, so I'm really glad you posted your one-sheet census data sheet. I have been trying to get all my sims in age order but getting started is just tricky.
One of the good things about your sheet is that you just keep essential data on each sim. You don't have a bunch of categories that you try to fill out for each sim. I like that because I think trying to keep ten categories for every sim is too maddening. Just the details that make them distinctive or you need to be able to look at...
Thanks again for sharing your gameplay with us!!
Oh, do you teleport Sims in to Orlando's for their portraits?
ReplyDeleteI've noticed many of your sims have beautiful portraits hanging in their homes, and I was still thinking of having to have someone in each family with high creativity...then I noticed you said Orlando has orders for them. So cool!
Wildchild, thanks! :)
ReplyDeleteSullivan, I choose their aspirations to fit their personalities and character. I talked about it a little more in depth back when I was choosing Fiona's aspiration.
Apple, wow, that is very intense! I think I remember reading about all your little character details in your blog. I like the little details like barren, or vegetarian. I do actually have a couple vegetarians in my hood, but that just emerged from the story ;)
The 99 listed on the sheet are all playables, but the 824 (I can't even believe it's that much!) is mostly townies, you know, all the extras you get with each EP. I'd much rather make my own townies.
Francesca, see above about the aspirations.
For the portraits, I crop the painting in Photoshop first from a screenshot, and then save the file to the "paintings" folder so it's there for him to paint. Then he puts them up for sale in his shop where my playables can come pick them up. Read this one, to see how it works.Phoenix McCullough paints too, but photography is more his thing (for now...) ;) I try to keep their different creativities separate for storytelling purposes. Like Patrick Nova is maxed out on creativity because of his music, but I don't let him paint. Or my writer Sims don't play music just like my painters don't write novels. I don't know, it just kind of makes sense to me that way ;)
That is so cool - thanks for sharing! - I'm always picking up odds and ends from reading your posts that enrich my simming experience!
ReplyDelete