Rules for rotational play

Just a collection of rules. It is not complete, I will write them down as I need them.

If you decide to follow the rules, please make note of the first rule of any ruleset I put out: if you disagree with a rule or think it decreases fun, do not follow it!

Moving

In the bin (moved family out, not moved in yet), take the funds the family has.

  • Divide it by 10 to get apartment rent they can afford
  • If it is at least 20k, you can buy an empty lot
  • If it is more than an existing house plus 5k, you can buy that house.

These limitations are put in place by the city council to protect citizens from ending up in debt.

Adoption

This only works if there is a playable “orphanage” lot in the save. Where unwanted children are put.

Adoption fee is 1000 simoleons for children and up, 2000 for toddlers and babies. In order to adopt, a sim needs to fill these criteria:

  • They must own the §1000 for the fee
  • They cannot have any loans
  • There must be an available bed for the child in their house
  • The bed must be indoors, and there must also exist in the house:
    • shower/bathtup
    • toilet
    • fridge
    • stove
    • counter
    • Something fun, at least a book case
  • The sim must invite (summon if they do not know them) the orphanage intendant over for a successful inspection. Inspection will fail if
    • any of the required items are dirty or broken
    • there is unpaid bills on the lot

After all the above has been met:

Child/teen: summon 3 random kids from the orphanage and spend time with them for 3 hours. Adopt the child the new parents like the best and transfer 1000 to the orphanage!

Baby/toddler: just chose what child to adopt and transfer 2000 to the orphanage!

I have been following this video to do the adoption itself:

Optional extra adoption rules and ideas

Take the child on as a foster child first, and only truly adopt if the child is friends with both parents and best friends with at least one of them.

You can also set a time limit on this and send the child back if it doesn’t work out.

Personally I don’t like to truly adopt if the child has parents in the family tree already, because I like to keep that connection. So I use this foster child business as an excuse!

Money

Loans

We use the loan jar. Sims can borrow any time they want, but it has some effects on interest:

While in college3%
Up to Estimated Estate value5%
Up to 5000 without security9%

This means that as long as the loan is less than what the tax people consider the house to be worth, loan interest is 4%. If the loan exceeds that, interest goes up to 9%

According to this rule, loaning more then estate value plus 5000 is not allowed, but I feel this rule can probably be broken.

Since it’s too confusing who’s jar is who’s in college, they are kept in inventories of the respective sim, which also prevents me from forgetting the jar there. But I think it also means there is no rent. That is fine.

As soon as a student is out of college, move the jar out of their inventory.

Estate value

Calculated like this: ([Lot size]*4+[house size]*100)

Lot size is just the numbers you see in build mode:

Lot size is 30*20 = 600

House size is how many indoor squares a house have, plus any pool squares.

Payments

Outside of college, bills CANNOT be paid without first pay off 10% of the loan! So be careful, because this may cause the repoman to show up. If the repoman shows up for the third time in a house, the family is evicted to an empty lot of the smallest size and all excess money that is available is used to pay off loans. Then their net worth is used to decide where they can live following the Moving rules.

Inheritance

For money on the bank, you could either just share it equally amongst the spouse and children. Or you can start with the youngest child and assign them a number, then move up to older children and double it. And do spouse last. For example:

Alexander has 30100 simoleons on the bank when he dies. He has a wife and two children, and we divide the money in 7 parts and each recieves money like this:

  • Wife: 4 parts = 4300 * 4 = §17200
  • Oldest child: 2 parts = 4300 * 2 = §8600
  • Youngest child: 1 part = 4300 * 1 = §4300

College/University

To go to university, the sim must

  • have the want to go (cannot be locked until age 17) or
  • Have a parent that want them to go via life time want (they force the kid to go)

The sim must also

  • be at least 18 years old with at least an A- or
  • be at least 19 years old with at least an B- or
  • be at least 20 years old with at least an C- and
  • Have applied for scholarships (not that important, this is here so I don’t forget to apply)

Prison

To have fun, I send any sims who fight to prison! First offence they are sentenced to 1 sim day in prison, after that, 2 days.

They can get extra time if they fight in prison too!

Also they get extra time if they have not learned anger management or have any furiousness with anyone.

Townie population control

At the end of each round, for each played sim, I look at townie sim they have the highest relationship with. If they are not already in my spreadsheet, I add them. If they are in the same age group as the played sim, I give them the same age.

When a sim ages up, I only age sim up with them if they are due in the spreadsheet for aging up. Same with moving teens to college.

At the end of each round, I add all elder townies from my spreadsheet to a special lot (retirement home).

I play the retirement home last each round. During the round I take note of if any townie sims turned into elders (either by aging together with a sim, or on their own becau i have the townie aging mod).

The retirement home is first populated up to 8 sims, and then played normally for all days in the round. If there were less deaths than new elders created that round, I speed through until they are equal.

This way, the number of elder townies should stay the same.

I do not count played elders, since they will die during game play and will not “clog up the neighborhood”.

Each played sim has exactly one heir that will also be a played sim, with the exception of twins (both twins count as first born). When a non-played sim ages up to adult and doesn’t live with a played sim anymore, they are made into townies.

I keep increasing townies ages in the spreadsheet each round so I know how old they should be

Unplayed sims

It’s fun to have lots of played sims so they can get pregnant and move out and in of homes etc. But playing 700 sims takes 7 ages. So I invented unplayed sims, that I sort of play, but I also kind of don’t. Here’s how I “play” an unplayed sim family:

  1. Age up
    1. First go through teens. If they want to go to college, they are allowed if they are old enough regardless of grades because they can’t increase it while not being played
      • With old enough, we mean 18 or older.
      • Send them right away (apply for scholarship, maybe deposit some money in bank and move to college.
    2. Others: If someone is due to age up according to spreadsheet, set to birthday by using “boolProp TestingCheatsEnabled true” and then shift-click the sim
    3. Scan for pregnancies
      • If someone is pregnant, add the baby to they spreadsheet at age negative as many days as is left of the pregnancy, make it accelerated with sim blender and adjust the child’s age later
      • The sim that was pregnant cannot try for baby this round!
      • If any of the sims want a baby, instead of one allowed try for baby per wanting sim and day, They get 5! But they need to afford a bed first…
  2. Benefits
    • Give everyone their aspiration benefits
    • Extract any items in everybody’s inventory that is just house decorations or can be sold (stuff you don’t want them to bring if they move in with someone else)
  3. Bills
    1. If rent is due, make sure to note how much it is.
    2. Pay all bills, (take loans if needed)
  4. Play
    1. Play until bills arrive OR rent is due, but DON’T pay them.
    2. Deposit money to bank accounts if so desired
    3. If someone wants a baby, they can
      • adopt if they have money, this satisfies the want
      • try for baby 3 times (after 3 times, we assume they are infertile)
    4. Change the season to the next one with equal days left
  5. Money
    1. Increase/decrease the money according to money calculation tab in my spreadsheet. Basically it is a calculation of how much they would earn or lose during a season
    2. Dont forget to consider loans and interest rates!
    3. If they have money in the bank, I expect a 5% interest per week (it’s probably not accurate, but it’s ok)
  6. Job
    1. If the sim has no job, give them one. If the newspaper do not have the one they want (if they want one), they have to have the first in the paper.
    2. If they have a job but want another (LTW usually don’t line up), check newspaper
    3. Randomize a number 0-10 and compare with the current job level
      • If the sim qualify for promotion (skills and friends), and the number is higher than current level, promote with sim blender.
      • If lower, demote. If 0 when at level 1, fire.
  7. Loans
    1. repay as much loans as possible, or loan more if they are on negative
  8. Move?
    1. If they have NO LOAN, and enough money for a better apartment/house, move them. Yes, this will have them skip out on bills. It’s a perk 🙂
    2. If you decreased their money in step 4.1, they should move to a smaller place.
  9. Ages
    1. Increase age and days in spreadsheet with one whole season, ages in game will not match the spreadsheet, but it’s fine, you’ll just age up anyone that should age up next time