It definitely sounds strange if you’re only getting randomly generated families with male children. My impression has always been that the game would generate what was lacking both in terms of age groups as well as genders, and then various lot types would spawn specific sims depending on certain criteria, but I don’t actually know how it works 🤷🏻♀️🙂
As for the issue you’re experiencing with neighborhood stories ignoring sims’ sexual preference that might be fixed in the upcoming patch. Even though it’s listed as a bug from Lovestruck, it might be something that has affected everyone’s games whether they have Lovestruck or not seeing as it has been affecting neighborhood stories.
You did inquire about the experience of other players and I know that in my old Cottage Living save I had both randomly generated families with children and single sims with children (male as well as female).
I checked my current event save (keep in mind that A) this save is a copy/“save as” made from a save which I originally created as a short test for Eco Living so the foundation of it is somewhat old, B) I’ve used it for all the events since June 2024, C) I have almost every pack up until High School Years, D) It’s a single sim household and I play with ageing off for both played and unplayed households and E) Neighborhood Stories has death, adoption of children, cats and dogs, and move out set to off) and what I found was:
It seems the households in my game more often have girls than boys, however, the number of randomly generated households with children doesn’t strike me as being very high compared to how I remember my Cottage Living save, but then again I haven’t actively been searching for children as I’ve been playing a single sim household and so I can’t really say when these households were generated. All 3 male couples are fairly new, I think, as is one of the single moms with a female child. However, one of the dads with a female child has been in the save for a long time.
Now it piqued my curiosity so I also checked the event save that I’ve been helping my son with as he has fewer packs than me. This save was created for the first event back in June 2024, the household currently consists of 2 young adults, 1 ghost, 1 male child, a female toddler and baby girl - all kids born in game. Ageing is turned off for all and Neighborhood Stories has death and adoption turned off. Current status is as follows:
I was rather surprised that there weren’t that many households with families and that none of the randomly generated households with children have two parents 🤔
So basegame lots that will spawn children apart from parks and playgrounds are libraries and public swimming pools, but there’s no guarantee that it will generate new households. I made a quick pool just to test in my son’s event save and sent the boy from the played household there. 5 children came to the pool - 2 of the premades and 3 that he already knew from the randomly generated households mentioned above. Of the walkbys 2 were kids but again ones that he already knew from the randomly generated households, but I’m big on the randomly generated townies so with so few kids in the save, chances are he has already met them.
You can also try to choose “make friends” when you send your child sims to school, but how many new households this action will generate or if it will just pick from already existing ones I don’t know.
Googling led to a suggestion that choosing to adopt a child on the computer would generate babies, toddlers and children, however, none of them generated into new households when not choosing to adopt them.
Well, this ended up a bit longwinded without any actual solution 😳🫣
Thank you for sharing your experiences in your saves and also information about the bugs. I did not noticed about it since I read the base game fixes only😅.
Regarding your questions:
How many children do you currently have among your unplayed households - premade and randomly generated?
There’s currently no children from premade household, as they have aged to teen from my gameplay. Currently I have 3 male children from randomly generated household (all single mom with female teen and male child), and 1 male children that was born from neighborhood stories features.
In the save where you’re on gen. 5, have you also stayed in Willow Creek the entire time the same way as you’ve done in your test saves?
For my current gen. 5 save, I once visit the park and also the bar in oasis springs around the 3rd gen., since at the time I wanted to see if the world influences the type and gender of sims spawning, and I did checked and labeled any new household that was created after I visited there. And starting from gen. 4, my main sims now living in Newcrest. And based on my experiences, for now, I assumed that the three base game world does not influence on the type of household with kids that the game will generate.
After seeing your reply, I decided to check the gender of all children that were born to the premade family through my gameplay, where they gave birth to 12 males and 9 females babies. And when I looked through each generations of all the families, each generations do have at least one female baby, so I was just unlucky as all those female babies were born not on my main household, but I finally got one on my 5th🥳. So regarding the gender of babies, I agree it is totally random, just my luck, since I didn’t do any of the stuffs that may influence your sims offspring’s gender.
Starting from gen. 3, I decided to let two randomly generated household with children to age up together with my kids, so I remember at the time when I checked my unplayed household, I had around 5 households with children. And I always make my child sim to visit the park or playground lot every generations, so the game spawned new kids each generation, but never a female child. And I don’t think the gender of the child sim visiting the lot influences the gender of child sim spawn there🤔 (based on my experiences from playing as Olivia Kim-Lewis on my first generation, and later with male child and continue with female child on my 5th generations).
I tried your suggestions on going to library or pool, but it did not spawn new ones, so I tested on my other saves, where at the time I only have 2 premade child and 2 randomly generated, going to library or pool did not generate new households, but going to playground will surely generate a new one until it reach around 5-6 randomly generated households with children. Probably those lots have different requirements of type of children they need to spawn on the lot🤔. I also tried the adoption method, based on my quick test, it didn’t generate any new one yet, but I will test on it more after this. I’m not sure if “make friends” works the same way as “socialize at work”, as for the latter, if no existing sims have the same job as your main sims, I think the game will just increase your sims social bar, without making your sims meet new people.
And thanks a lot for your detailed experiences with your saves! It really gave some new hints! Based on your saves, it seems to be possible to have a female child from randomly generated household, regardless of them having single or both parents. And interestingly, your save does not have any randomly generated households with single mom, female teen and male child, but your son’s save have it. Since you said your saves have more packs than your sons, it makes me wonder if some packs actually have some types of influence on the type of household with children the game will generate for you🤔.
I check on my other saves that was recently created, where I didn’t make my sims visit any park or playground lot yet, and I found out one of my saves have a household with single mom and male child, and another household with one married couple, for the other save, it have a household consisting of a married couples and their children are a male and a female teen, and a household with two single males. So I’m guessing that, at the start of a new save, besides from single service sims and a few unemployed single sims, the game will generate a few households with different relationship dynamics. And when I tried to forced the game to generate new children on those saves by visiting playground lot, it always generated a new household with single mom, a female teen and a male child😞.
If you are available to test, can you try to make a copy of your current save, delete the randomly generated household with children, and make your sims to visit any playground lot (make sure it only have base game lot traits, but do not use teen neighborhood trait, or maybe just set it as no lot trait) and after you see your game spawning new kids on the lot, can you check if your game generates female child, and also for newly generated household with children, what kind of family do they have?
Sorry for the long post, I tried to provide as much details as I can, in case if somebody else wanted to try test on their game and wanted to know what I already did. If others want to share their findings, either about a method on how to make the game generate certain types of households, or maybe about what kinds of family does your game generate for the households that have children, please feel free to add! :)
