The Family Tree Overhaul pt.2
The Sims 4 Needs a Second Family Tree Overhaul
Dear EA/Maxis & Fellow Simmers,
About a year ago I made a post on here complaining about how bare bones the Family Tree was. Parents, siblings, kids, grandparents, and that was it. Anyone past that just didn't exist as far as the game was concerned, and if a Sim died or got culled, half their branch could disappear with them. If you've ever run a long legacy save you know how frustrating that is. You lose track of who's related to who, and worse, the game itself loses track, which is how you end up with cousins flirting with each other because as far as the code is concerned they're strangers.
Then February happened. The Family Tree update gave us ten generations, real labels for in laws, half siblings, step relatives, great grandparents, grand aunts and uncles, the whole thing. Direct ancestors and descendants can't romance each other anymore either. Honestly, it was one of those rare moments where you post a suggestion and then actually watch it show up in the game. So first, thank you. That update was not small.
But I'm back because there's still a hole in it, and it's the same hole that started this whole conversation, just one generation further out now. Past first cousin, everything gets dumped into one label: Distant Relative. A second cousin and a fourth cousin and a first cousin twice removed all look identical to the game. And that's exactly the gap that lets it happen again, just further down the tree. My great grandkids from two different siblings ended up developing feelings for each other, and the game had absolutely no idea they were second cousins, even though the tree itself would've told you that in two clicks.
So here's round two of the ask, and honestly it's the natural next step after what you already built:
Actual cousin degree labels. Second cousin, third cousin, once removed, twice removed, calculated instead of everything past first cousin getting lumped together.
In law labels that go further out too. Uncle in law, aunt in law, step in law cousin, not just the immediate parent/sibling in law set from February.
Make the relation calculated, not a checklist. The direct ancestor block already works this way, so extend that same logic outward instead of relying on a short list of flags. Worth mentioning, those flags can already break. There are bug reports of cousin relationships silently vanishing if a sibling gets deleted in CAS the wrong way.
A slider for how far the blocking goes. Some of us want it locked down tight past third or fourth cousin. Others are doing royal dynasty saves where historically accurate cousin marriage is kind of the point. Give us an option like the Woohoo settings and everyone's happy.
Some kind of visual difference for how closely related someone is. Even just a shading difference between close, extended, and distant would help once a tree gets past five or six generations, because right now it's just a wall of names.
I know this sounds like a big ask, but it's not really new territory. Crusader Kings 3 already does the harder version of this with zero mods, it calculates actual relatedness between any two characters based on their closest shared ancestor and that number decides whether a marriage is even allowed. Sims 3 never got past first cousins at all, so this franchise has been behind on this for a long time, and inZOI, which a lot of people are watching as the next big competitor, actually went the opposite direction and loosened up who can romance who instead of adding this kind of detail. This is a chance for Sims 4 to actually be the one that gets it right details and all.
This isn't just about stopping awkward accidental cousin romance, though that alone would be worth it. It's about the tree actually meaning something again once your save hits ten, fifteen generations. Right now the further out you play, the less the game understands its own family.
Thanks again for February. Hoping this gets picked up the same way.
A devoted Simmer & generational player
