Ageing Question

The aging checkbox in Game Options is all or nothing. When it is checked, all sims in town including the ones you are actively controlling will age. When it is off, none of them will age. Pregnancies will still progress to birth, but the babies will remain at age 0 if aging is off, adopted children will remain the same age, etc. You can still age a controlled sim up manually to the next age stage by presenting them with a birthday cake even if aging is off, though.

One slight mistake many players make is that they will re-engage aging when a sim is already on the last day of their current age stage and then present them with a cake. If both are done in rapid succession, then the sim may age up twice in the same day thus skipping a stage entirely. And that's especially not pretty if they were an Adult to begin with as the second age-up will be to the next world (they will die of old age) rather than Elder.

In order to have selective aging through which we decide which sims are aging and which are not, mods must be used.

Bringing a sim into CAS and changing their age stage is actually not recommended unless we are talking about YA to Adult or back since those two share the same body shapes. Doing so otherwise can (not always) break the sim both internally as the different age stages up through YA have different numbers of trait slots and externally in that they can become misshapen or end up with limbs that do not fit their body properly. What we can do is replace a sim with one of another age through CAS, but that's not what most players want in most cases as the replaced sim will have no history or relationships like their predecessor did.

Other forms of death can still happen if aging is off.

What I do through mod usage is play something similar to what is called TS2 style aging as I play rotationally. When the one I designate as "the main household" is in play, everyone in town ages except for the ones I have given rotational protection. When I play other households, no one ages except the actives. Thus after one complete cycle through all of the households I play in a given world, everyone will have aged more or less evenly.

I've never played a sim whom I have intended to never age, but I have "cheated" by temporarily stalling aging on teens whom I wasn't quite finished with in their high school/teen years and adults whom I wasn't quite ready to have as elders yet. But that's not extremely different from putting them each on a daily diet of life fruit or soymilk, just without the extra bother. I think most players without mods would reach for those foods, Ambrosia, and the LTR that stalls aging to achieve a similar effect. :)

@igzorThank you so much, very helpful, I play at normal, but I guess I could slide it up and that would be very long. Glad I aksed. could use the Ambrosia. I might try the long life and Ambrosia if I want to keep on going with him. thanks you are very informative about sims.

@Karritz thank you so much that sounds like a plan. sounds more safe too.

@Karrits, your dog reminds me of my dog, had her for 16 yrs. she passed away a few years ago and now I have a very loving cat. Funny her owner died and she was with her for 4 or 5 days until they found her. She is a charmer. I decided on a cat as it is hard for me to take a dog out in the winter here in Northern NH. too much ice and snow. So now me and my love bug cat stay in. We fight for my recliner as it is where my computer is. She thinks its her chair, but I got news for her. I have always loved dogs and cats, I baby set my daughters dog, she is a German Sheppard, my favorite dog, she knows my name when they say I am coming. Love all dogs and cats.

My founder is frozen on day 1 of YA. It's a bit weird when everyone gets older around him. During the time when the first batch of children went to university, he had the sixth place on the portrait panel, after the wife and four of the children, which led to much confusion at first :smiley: . Of course, if you use ambrosia, a "young again potion" or a "fountain of youth elixir", you can switch those places around at will, although it's hard to beat someone at day 1 of YA.

Of course, if I play a different town within this savegame (via mods), he still ages during that time, so there's some flexibility even without just using MC within the age span.

@Turjan Sorry. I didn't mean to tag you in that. I keep forgetting to double-check the quotes and/or just tag manually.

@carlystur03 No worries. I had the tag from Evalen already and not answered yet.

"K8lyn;c-17470477" wrote:
I have auto aging set to "only played household" but my other families are still aging. Is this a bug? How do I stop them from aging

I'm afraid there isn't any such setting in TS3 although something similar can be arranged with mods. I think you must be playing TS4, which is housed on a different section of this forum. :)

@ifazor, thanks for the info, about the aging up after a long time, what if you take you sim back and say make him a teen and then re-engage aging. what would happen with that.
Would be interested in knowing others who have played with a non aging sim. Did they like it or not.
Can they die another way, like starving, or meteor, fire etc