Daephene's New Save

Calendars and Aging

Just a quick description of my settings for the passage of time in this save.

I am using custom age durations via MCCC. Each week is approximately 2 years. It doesn't work quite right at the infant and toddler stages because I need a minimum of 6 days with an infant to get them to standing and try out all the foods. And while I want the older ages to correspond realistically to the younger ones, I don't want them to stretch on forever. So my sims spend one day as a newborn and 6 days as an infant, then they are suddenly two years old and a toddler. They remain a toddler for 2 weeks, though I can think of them as preschoolers for the second one, and then they are suddenly a child and 6 years old. The child stage is three weeks, from 6-12 years old, and the teen stage is three weeks, from 12-18. The YA stage is 11 weeks (kind of, see below about university), from the age of 18-40. The Adult stage is 13 weeks, covering age 40-64. Then they age up to elder and have a minimum of 8 weeks, taking them to 80. If I choose to give them a potion of youth at some point they can live into their 90s, and then their traits and chance determine if any make it over 100. 

My seasons are 28 days long. The moon cycles are 8 days long. For each rotation I play every household for one week, with only the active household aging. I think of it as me participating in 7 days out of the 2 years they actually live for each rotation, not necessarily consecutive. So for example if a couple gets married at the beginning of the week and has a baby at the end, I assume those didn't actually both happen in the same year unless the family story calls for it.

I will be doing things a little differently when I have students in university. What I plan to do is actually set the YA stage to 13 weeks, and play my university student households for two weeks in each rotation. That way they can do four terms of 3 classes each, and I will treat each week as one year out of their lives rather than two. They'll be YA for 11 rotations rather than 11 weeks, but it will still equal 22 years. Otherwise they just spend too much of their lives in college.

I switch households between 2 and 6 am on Wednesday mornings. I chose the middle of the week so when I get to university there will always be a weekend in every term for my sims to catch up on coursework and/or have some fun. I chose the time because very few careers have any shifts during those hours so it doesn't mess up their work or school attendance. It does mess up their sleep for a day but they tend to survive.

Each season has three holidays. The first is named for the season and corresponds to a real world holiday. Springfest is essentially Easter, Summerfest resembles the 4th of July, Autumnfest is Halloween, and Winterfest is Christmas (technically this is two holidays, Winterfest Eve with Father Winter, and Winterfest Day with gift exchanges and the grand meal). These each take place in the first week of the season. There is also a holiday in the last week of each season. I have kept the in-game logic of New Year's Eve being the last night of winter, though I called it NewYearFest. And Lovefest is at the end of spring, focused on romance. Summer ends with Grillfest weekend, in the spirit of Memorial and Labor day weekends. And the last Thursday in fall is Harvestfest (without the gnomes). Somewhere in between each season has a less traditional holiday. Fall has ArtsFest, focused on creative pursuits. Winter has LightFest. Rumor has it the holiday originated with festive lighting and bonfires to combat the dreary dark months, but gradually added the polar plunge and streaking to its traditions due to sims daring each other to spend their day off doing crazy things in the cold. Spring has RenewalFest, which is a time of spring cleaning, yardwork and gardening, and some self-improvement activities such as exercise. Summer has TravelFest, which is on both a Friday and a Monday to encourage sims to spend their long weekend vacationing, or at least visiting community lots.