Random Question: How do YOU play large families?

I usually have 3 or 4 of them go to rabbit hole jobs, work on the others at home, and then on weekends rotate and work on the others that I hadn't during the week, if I get frustrated, I choose two of them and use traveller mod to go on vacation.

I play with free will on max but I pause way too much to fill the queues. Sometimes I focus on just one sim somewhere (on a date, to hear a song on an instrument, etc.), but I keep cycling through my other sims without moving the camera to them just to check if they are not doing something dumb (like flirty sims cheating or mean spirited sims insulting their friends).

For me a household of 5 is kind of small. I prefer 10-14 sims (no pets). I've gone up to 24 before, but my game tends to run into Error Code 12 with that many in the household. :'( Usually I have one main couple and they (somehow B) ) end up with tons of kids. I picked this option because it's the closest to how I play.

Option 2 kind of fits though. I pretty much micromanage everything and pause the game frequently to figure out what everyone is up to and decide what they are going to do next. I often keep more focus on one or both of the parents, but not so much I ever really ignore the others.

Option 3 kind of fits too. When I need a break from managing ~14 sims I'll either send some off to a venue (frequently the festival) or take a subset to university or OL.

Option 5/6 also kind of fits. I do regularly move out the eldest children, but I don't play rotationally.

This pretty much represents how I play, although I use some other methods mentioned in the poll, too. I do keep one of the offspring per generation in the original household, but other kids move out, and I play their households as well. The grandparents usually go off to do their own thing in retirement after their first grandchild reaches young adulthood, or thereabouts (I do rotate to their households, too, though - sometimes they can be rather fun). I rarely put any of my sims in rabbit hole jobs but do occasionally if it fits the story in my head or if I'm just not too interested in a particular sim. To get sims out from underfoot, I'm more likely to send them to the library to study something (because that keeps them occupied for a long time) while concentrating on other family members, and, like you mentioned, I'm usually working on relationships during that time, which takes more of my attention than skill building or self-employment activities do. The rest of the time, everyone is all queued up, and yes, I pause to get that all set up.

This is probably the closest to how I play. I like playing large families and try to set up routines for them on the weekdays. On the weekends, I let them do their own thing, sleep in late, eat on their own time (separately rather than as a family.) I usually wait until all the kids age up into Young Adults, then I'll choose one or two to stay with the main house and move the rest out. I might play the others for a day or so, but mostly just stick with the main household. Sometimes if I feel like it, I might send them all to University too, but keeping up with that many sims in Uni is stressful and I usually just end up sending one 'heir' and one 'spare'.

@Springfairy556, I can mostly relate to this play style, when the students are at school and come back dead tired with homework to do. Unfortunately, too many nights are spent getting them back into a good mood, so I spend the majority of the time working on their needs. If they come back home so exhausted, they could either be done for the night and wake up in the wee hours of the morning and do their homework then or I might just slide that needs bar over just a little if I have something else in mind. >:) Usually, there's at least one parent that is either outside a rabbit hole job/unemployed, so I can have fun playing with them in the meantime.

@Keiomestre, I micro manage a little bit more. I like to have free will on, but never on max. Like you, I think the most you gotta keep an eye out for is whenever your sims get social. I try my best to have each family member have a good relationship, but, sometimes, it's kinda hard, especially when you're trying to get around the grounding system for kids and teens, getting in trouble for going to class and such. As long as my sim isn't already taken, I don't get too upset over social interactions with total strangers that don't go well. Sometimes I even go out of my way to make the sims have a bad relationship if they have to constantly apologize to a sim that just doesn't get "it." I'll also rotate to see what's queued up for each sim to see if they're still busy or just standing there.

@TreyNutz, Wow! That's a lot of sims, but I knew that there are lots of people that play similarly. The way I put it just sounded way funnier in the poll, suggesting that some sims just could never be let go, even after they died. :lol: I definitely fit in more than one box, but picked the one that fit my play style most. I definitely find myself doing 2, 3 and 4. I did do 6, when I first started playing sims 3. Since, I've found it harder and harder to take that next step of moving out. I think I get attached to the houses, so moving is like brand new and starting over. By that point, I think I usually like to start a new game completely with a new setting. However, right now, I'm trying to get over that a bit. I have a family of five and so many directions that I still want to take each sim. Even the parents got a lot of life left in them. I just don't know how to tell their stories living in just one house. Eventually, I think, I'll have to switch around.

@suzses, your play style sounds so similar to mine except I've never played with the grandparents before. Admittedly, I usually move to another save by that point. I'm trying to break the cycle!

@Sindocat, I think one of the most irritating things with the game is how the curfew and grounding system has come packaged in Generations. Students should be able to go to school without getting grounded for leaving and then grounded on top of that because they didn't go to school. *Facepalm* The fastest you can get your kids off the hook the better! It's too bad whenever that first wag of the finger is right before the school bus arrives, though. :s

@LunBeauty, you got that right about university. I recently took two of my eldest children there. One of which has earned his degree and the other one has a bit more work to do, if I remember correctly. I think the only reason why I might take the youngest there is for the experience, but I've decided she'd just blow off her classes if she does. That, I thought, might be an interesting story to tell. At this point, I'm still too attached to the parents to move any one of them out, but I have upgraded to a much larger house I made to make it a little bit easier.

Aside from the chosen answer, I should add that I'm a total control freak with my sims. I'm constantly pausing the game to queue up actions for every sim, with the exception of toddlers who've already learned their skills. It can get hectic when the household has a dozen or more sims, which is often. But many of them will happily spend the entire afternoon in pursuing skills, only needing my attention when they finish a painting, sculpture, invention, novel, etc. So I can focus on the few who need to be more closely supervised, lest they run off to play in the sprinklers at the first hint of freedom.

Anyway, I like keeping the grown kids around for awhile, advancing them in their careers and getting them married with a kid or two before I send them to live elsewhere. I've never been able to just kick them out and let the game take care of them, so this works much better for me.

Yah, THE question, hehe. Been struggling with that as well for quite a while. Still, no perfect solution.

I have had up to 22 sims in a family... Gaah...
http://33.media.tumblr.com/6f9242db07e4311abee1334ab19d9726/tumblr_niwmkgL1ox1s8njeuo2_r1_500.gif

I didn't vote because I don't think any of the options suit my play style.

I let my teen and adult sims do what they want with some exceptions like when there are babies/toddlers that need taking care of/skilling and to get daily chores like gardening and cooking done. Occasionally I will stop my sims from doing some things, like watching the stars more than twice an evening, or trying for baby when I am not ready. I direct children quite a bit because I want them to get skilled before they grow up and are moved out.

I do pause a lot, not to fill queues but to take pics or to track down where my sims are and what they are doing.

I never switch households and feel no need to do so because Story Progression looks after my spares way better than I would have time for if they were in the household. I don't play very big households, usually no more than 10.