Rotational play (under construction)

The most important rule

I cannot stress this enough: If we do not enjoy a rule, or we think it would be more fun to break it, do NOT follow the rule!!!

Rules are fun to make, and sometimes they are fun to follow, but the purpose must be to enhance enjoyment. If you don’t enjoy remembering rules, this is probably not for you.

Forgotten to follow a rule: It’s ok. Compensate if you want, but skip it if you don’t want!

Mods used

Since the Career overhaul changes what you make already, set Money to Easy in Carl’s difficulty mod (click the mailbox) or sims will be starving!

Many mods found thanks to Pleasant Sims, here’s her complete mod list!

There are some other mods I use too, but they are not specifically needed for this particular ruleset. Even though I might find mods like preteen mod, shorter teenagers and simulation lag fix mods essential.

Set up

I usually don’t do anything special to the family I start playing, I just go. And the first 1-2 rotations it’s usually just one family. There is some minor things though.

  • Set up a spreadsheet where at least this information has a column:
    • Household name
    • First and last name
    • Current agegroup, days until age up, current calculated age (optional)
    • Rotation and weekday (weekday is optional but I find it helps with calculating age

Every 1st day of the week

Every monday, or whatever day house switching day is on. Since sweden counts weeks as starting on monday, it feels like a good day, but technically you can switch on any day.

  • Set Only active aging in game settings and pause all non-played pregnancies in mccc OR set active and NPC aging on and unpause NPC pregnancies (depending if it’s the last family in rotation or not)
  • Develop attraction with WW for ALL household members (because, fun) using Random, Moderate Strength. Then go in and check that noone switched sexual orientation (unless it would be funny)
  • Go through all sims in the household, teen and up and purchase 3 condoms for every sim that do not wish to have babies. I assume all teens do not, but in some saves I randomize their wish manually.
  • University gets 1000 extra in household funds per student via the money cheat
  • Trailer park (meanless) sims move if they have more than §5000 (collectively among those moving) in their bank accounts (except for the lot owner with family)
  • Check that all sim has likes and dislikes of the following, or randomize one like for each:
    • Favorite color
    • Favorite décor
    • Faviourite hobby
  • Unless there’s a storyline you want to play out, or it is university/meanless, decide if the family wants to move (see Moving)
  • Set up home services with SNB Bills App
  • Go into build mode and remove the oldest lot trait, then randomize so there are three lot traits
  • Randomize how many lot challenges you should have, 1-3. It can only increase or decrease with 1. If it stays the same, change one random challenge trait. Trailer parks always have Off-the-Grid and one more
  • Make sure there is a laundry basket or anything else that turns laundry on somewhere on the lot. Laundry! 🙂
  • Make sure everyone has thirst enabled
  • Optional: check everyone’s age against your spreadsheet. Because when you install different mods, make mistakes, change settings… ages can become unsynced.

Pregnancy wish in relation to ts2 personality

Rerolled at some points. Just roll 1-3 on random.org. After reroll, they might still have the same want. That is ok.

Overriding everything is if a sim gets a whim to have a child. Then immediately set them to “Would be happy to be pregnant/have baby”

Preteens

Ew. Always NOT wanting children. Obvi.

Teens

  • Every first day of the week for teens that do not want to have children AND
    • Have the family sim personality or
    • Have the family oriented trait or
    • Have a family oriented aspiration
  • When starting any phase. Teen years can be confusing.
  • Any pregnancy phase. What is done is done, and it can be hard to decide what to do.

Young adults and up

Rerolled on first day of the week, and at finding out they are pregnant, going into 2nd and 3rd trimester IF:

  • A family sim does not want a child
  • A romance or pleasure sim wants children

Elders

??? I don’t know yet 🙂

Every last day of the week

  • Check if someone should move out! You can set them in their own played household, they are in sync for next round!
  • Update all bank accounts in spreadsheet if not already done (just a reminder, in case something happens to the bank mod)

Focusing

It’s totally optional how restrictive you want to be with this, but I usually randomize one sim every day that I focus the most on regarding fulfilling wishes.

I cannot control any other sim unless the first sim is asleep or not on lot.

I still accept dates and such for other sims.

Restrictions

  • Any homework or skill building only happens if
    • the sim does it autonomously,
    • if the sim likes the activity
    • if the sim has a whim to do it
    • if there is a goal the sim is trying to do, for instance working from home or a new years resolution

Travelling and moving

The planet is divided into worlds. I figure there are the following “continents” that the worlds reside in

  • America
    • Willow creek
    • Newcrest
    • Magnolia Promenade
    • San Myshuno
  • Warm place (some mix of south America and Africa, I imagine)
    • Oasis springs
    • Selvadorada
    • Strangerville
  • Europe
    • Windenburg
    • Granite falls
    • Forgotten Hollow
    • Glimmer Brook
  • Brittain
    • Brindleton Bay
    • Britechester
    • Evergreen Harbor
    • Henford on Bagley
  • Hawaii
    • Del Sol Valley
    • Sulani
  • Asia
    • Mt Komorebi

Phew, there’s a lot! But now that we know where everything is, this will make sense:

  • Travelling within a neighborhood is always permitted as sims may walk
  • Travelling between neighborhoods within a world requires at least a bike
  • Travelling between worlds within a continent requires at least a car and kids cannot go alone
  • Travelling between continents require no bike or car, but the sim must vacation there during their entire stay

Britechester is magical. Anyone with a car can go there and students can go anywhere in Britain (may change, I am not sure here)

When invited to go out, unless it is a festival, the rules above do not apply.

Moving

Where to?

Deciding to move or not can be done by randomizing where the family would move if they where moving and if they don’t end up on the same lot or close to it, move. It’s optional. Sometimes you don’t feel like moving them. Also sims in the trailerpark (meanless sims) only move if they have §5000 or more.

Moving within a country or moving out from university can be done in the regular way, but if a sim wishes to switch continent they need to rent a lot in the world they want to stay in for at least one day. Students excepted.

When deciding where to move, I take into account what languages everyone in the household knows and then randomize. For example, Lillith, Morgan and their son Fenrir was planning on moving, so I listed their language skills:

Random.org gave me 28 when I asked for a number between 1 and 40, so they wanted to move to a country speaking Selvadoradian which Morgan is native to. Then I randomized 1-3 and got 2, meaning Selvadorada! Sometimes I just move the family in to a lot I find fitting, sometimes I randomize, and sometimes there is only one available lot.

Remember

Remember to withdraw any funds from bank accounts before moving a sim out or sometimes even when moving an entire family! Funds in bank accounts are not available to use until the sim has a home, and sometimes you can’t buy a lot because all the money is in the bank.

Apartment or house?

Optional rule: any household with less than 20k is not allowed to move into a house, and if they have less than 5k apartments are also off limits and they have to go to live in a trailer park

Whims

  • Dismissing a whim is NOT allowed in most cases. You don’t like a whim, wait until the sim wants something else.
  • Some whims can be used for other things. If a university sim wants to write the term paper, but the term paper is not due, they can do homework or study. The whim must be dismissed when the activity start.

Having kids

  • If a sim in the first trimester does not want kids, they can have an abortion. If they can afford it
  • If a sim wants kids they can try and get pregnant
  • If a sim is in a single sex relationship, they need to be in agreement with the partner. Ask them and randomize the reply, unless the other parent also wants kids
    • If they say no, the initiating sim gets a moodlet lasting 3 hours. After that, they can can’t ask again. I don’t know when they can, but at some point, ask again.

Meanless sims

I have set up a trailer park for sims that cannot afford to live somewhere. One sim owns the trailer park lot and allows access to trailers after payment. Currently Bob Newbie is the owner of mine. He will pay all bills using his bank account.

  • Renting a trailer: §600/week
  • Sims can only have a job if they have a trailer to live in. Otherwise they are considered completely homeless and nobody will hire them. If a sim loses their trailer, they have 2 days to get in one again, or they lose their job. The criminal career is excempt from this rule.
  • Sims can share the trailers only if they are at least friends. They share the rent equally.
  • All trailers and their small gardens are locked to everyone on the lot that does not live in them
  • Planting may ONLY be done in one of the two garden plots or in gardens belonging to a trailer

University

Play university for TWO weeks each round! It is important they are played consecutively.

Britechester

Setup

  • Chose a house and move 7 sims into it (8 if you want to ensure none of the ladies get pregnant)
  • Here are some ideas on how to select sims to move in
    • random young adults withut a degree
    • knowledge and ambitious sims
    • Sims you have noticed to have the wish to go to uni
    • Sims that seem like they are students
  • Make sure there is exactly 1 communal computer, kitchen and bathroom(s).

First week

  • Time is normal; time on for active household, if it is the last family in rotation, time on for all unplayed
  • Have all sims enroll as fast as possible
  • All sims study “from home”
  • All sims pay with household funds only if they can afford it with what is in their bank account. Withdraw the same amount from their bank account immediately after enrolling
  • Sims that do not have enough in their bank accounts take student loans

Second week

  • Time is completely suspended and noone can enroll
  • If a student graduates, wait until after the ceremony, then move them out to anywhere in sync rotation wise (regardless of day)
  • If a student is suspended, decide if they drop out or try again
    • If they drop out, wait until suspension days are over (so they can come back later) or have them drop out using the phone
      Don’t just move them out, the game might bug the suspension time and get stuck on 0 days!
    • If they try again, re-apply for all scolarships available and let them stay
  • When a student moves out, move someone else in and have them apply for uni and ALL scolarships
  • Any children must be moved out and live with (at least) one of their parents as soon as possible. It is not allowed to bring children into campus
    • This might mean some parents may have to leave without a degree and come back later

Finances

  • Britechester state gives an extra 5000 each week (even the time frozen one) to household funds (cheat)
  • Always pay bills using the mailbox
  • Britechester state pays Estate tax (cheat)
  • Always have all students apply for all scolarships
  • All students get 50% of their paycheck on their bank account, the rest to household funds (automatically when custom setup with SNB)
  • If a student brings in money by other means, just leave it in household funds
  • When a sim moves out, they are only allowed the money in their bank account unless they graduated.
    • If they are not moving in with anyone outside college, it may be a good idea to withdraw all funds and bring that same amount, otherwise they can’t purchase a lot!
  • If they graduated and household funds is more than 5000, they can take half of the household funds minus the 5000 ((HF-5)/2) as a reward.
    • Students do this in the order they graduate. If multiple graduate the same day, they can split the money equally. (example if two students graduate they would take 75% of the exceeding money, they can take 37,5% each)

School work

  • Homework is never initiated unless the student has a whim to do them
  • A student may do homework autonomously (make sure they always have their homework book in their inventory to increase chances of this)
  • Term papers and presentations can be worked at anytime the student does not have any need that is orange or red (yellow is fine)
  • You may direct students to go to lessons
  • If the student gets a wish to Study or to Read Something they may study on the computer or read course book. Dismiss the whim immediately if it is not going to be fulfilled automatically by the action

Rooms

  • When a sim moves in they may chose a room/bed. Assign it to them
  • A sim might want to redecorate their room
    • Note how much household funds there are,
    • withdraw funds from the sims bank account and
    • sell/buy however
    • Afterwards, balance funds with the sims bank account
  • When a sim moves out, they may only bring stuff that is draggable from their room and nothing from outside it. They leave ALL books they didn’t write themselves!
  • All sims have to have a bed

Sexual orientation

This will be experimental for a time. EA gave us these new settings, and I am trying to figure out how to randomize them. Here’s the current numbers.

Attracted to

Randomize 1-100.

  • 1-70: attracted to opposite gender
  • 71-80: attracted to same gender
  • 81-90: attracted to both genders
  • 91-100: attracted to no gender

Exploring romatically

Randomize 50-50

Interested in Woohoo

  • 80% chance they are interested in woohoo with the genders they are romantically attracted to
  • 20% chance they are interested also in woohoo with any other genders.